Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1952

by Wild Dogs of Drowning Creek (v1. 1)

  “That’s a hickory pole I whittled out to make a mop from,” he said. “Maybe it’ll come in useful. Here, Jebs, this is a spare axe handle. How do you feel, worried?”

  “Excited,” said Jebs, “but not worried.”

  Rebel scratched at the door. He was growling all the time, in a tone of soft menace. Driscoll was with them now, machete in hand.

  “Now,” said Sam, “I’m going to open the door. I’ll stop just outside, by the wood pile—I know just the big chunk I want to get my own hand on. It’ll take me long enough to stoop and reach out, then I’ll be with you. Go on and charge past me. Follow Rebel when he charges for whatever we’ve got out there.”

  “Roger,” said Jebs.

  “Then here we go,” said Sam.

  He pulled open the door and sprang out.

  Rebel fairly sailed into the night, a flying white blob like a newspaper blown before a gale. Randy, swift and ready, followed him at a dead run. Jebs and Driscoll came galloping behind. Straight for the sheds where the animals were kept, Rebel led the rush.

  The terrier reached his objective, yards in advance of even the swift-racing Randy. As on the previous night, there sounded a scuffling impact of bodies, a click as of teeth coming together, and an agonized canine howl. Then Randy had caught up.

  He had come almost against the stockade around the pigpen, just as the moon rose into an open space among the heavy clouds. By its light he saw that one of the tall perpendicular slabs was down, and that beside it Rebel had encountered and seized a floundering shape, darker than himself. Another dog, faintly outlined, rushed for Rebel’s flank, and Randy struck at this rusher with the long, tough hickory stick. It found its mark solidly, and a sharp cry of angry pain answered. But the dog he had struck did not run. It wheeled clear of another blow, and he saw its teeth gleam as it faced him.

  “Yiee-hee!” rang a shrill, fierce rebel yell at Randy’s elbow.

  Driscoll was beside him. His machete made a whipping sound in the night, as he made play with it like a saber. Randy could hear the heavy scrambling of Sam Cohill, and from the corner of his eye saw that Rebel’s opponent had pulled loose from the terrier’s hold and was fleeing. The dog before him and Driscoll pivoted nimbly and also dashed away. Others were retreating, here and there among the trees.

  “Stay here, Rebel!” called Driscoll sharply, and Rebel abandoned the pursuit at once. “Don’t want my dog messed up with a whole regiment of them,” said Driscoll. “Look, they’re really pulling foot.”

  “It’s an organized withdrawal,” wheezed Jebs, catching up. “A strategic retreat—like an army—” Sam Cohill, too, lumbered into position beside them. A length of rough wood, big as a fence post, flourished over his head.

  “Look over there by the garden!” he yelled. “We’ve caught one of them in a trap!”

  Hurrying forward all together, they scrambled and shoved through an intervening clump of trees. The moon was beginning to slide behind the clouds again, but there was light to see what Sam, from his greater height, had already made out.

  A big, gaunt dog, of a darkness that probably would be brown by day, danced and tugged as though at a tether. Another dog, that looked light with dark spots, crouched beside him.

  “That must be Bugler!” cried Randy, again darting ahead of his slower-footed friends.

  “Let’s get ’em both!” yelled Driscoll behind him. “Yiee-hee! Come on, Rebel!”

  But, as Randy rushed close, the dark dog seemed to leap free from whatever held it. It sped off into the woods. Even as Randy reached the other dog, the spotted one, it came out of its crouch and seemed to lift itself.

  It rose upright, in the dimness. Its forelimbs flung themselves out like arms. As it pulled its head backward to face Randy, he had a blood-freezing impression of eyes that shone in the night like pale fire. And Rebel, who had caught up with Randy, fell violently back on his haunches, as though putting on brakes.

  “Look out!” Randy fairly screamed. “That—that isn’t a dog!”

  At his words, the spotted shape fairly spun itself around and dashed after the retreating pack. It was gone among the trees beyond the garden. To Randy it seemed to lope on two legs instead of four.

  He stood still, and the others came up around him, breathing heavily. Sam Cohill took a long, powerful stride as though to give chase. His big, bearded face shoved forward, staring. Clouds had covered the moon again. They could see almost nothing.

  “Wait, Rebel,” cautioned Driscoll shakily as the bull terrier gathered himself for another rush. “Don’t —don’t go after that thing. What were you saying, Randy?”

  “I said it wasn’t a dog,” repeated Randy. “It got up and ran on two legs, like a man.”

  Sam Cohill, just ahead of him, hoisted his big square shoulders, then stooped a little.

  “Well, they ran away,” said the giant slowly.

  “They’re out of here for the night, I think. We can’t catch them now.”

  He faced about. “Randy, what’s the matter? You still act as if you’d seen a ghost.”

  “If it only was a ghost,” quavered Randy.

  “Now it’s you that’s getting to believe like Willie Dubbin,” accused Jebs.

  “It was your imagination,” urged Driscoll. “Maybe you saw the dog lift itself up to jump over something.”

  Randy did not argue. He hoped that Driscoll was right, that he had only imagined the weird change from beast-form to man-form. Driscoll moved to one side and stooped above something.

  “Look here,” he called. “Here’s where we set one of the traps. It’s been sprung!”

  Jebs and Randy joined him to look. The jaws of the trap were clamped shut.

  “And another was set here where we saw that dog caught,” called Sam Cohill. “He was in it, but he got free.”

  “The spotted one helped him escape,” spoke up Randy. “Doesn’t that sound like more than dog- sense?”

  “You’re quoting Willie Dubbin again,” said Jebs.

  “And look at where a slab was pulled loose from the pigpen,” went on Randy, walking toward it. “That was another smart try.”

  Sam came and propped the slab back in place. “Head for the house, somebody, and get me a hammer. I’ll nail it back in place. We can leave Rebel out to keep tab for a while. Meanwhile, we ought to let the world know about what’s happening here.” “I’ll drive over to Martin’s and telephone to the sheriff,” said Driscoll. “And, by the way, you won’t mind if I stay over there all night, will you?”

  “I’d think you were silly if you didn’t,” Jebs proclaimed. “It isn’t any treat, coming back here after dark, with wild dogs howling and sneaking around.” “Come with me, Jebs,” invited Driscoll. “Mr. Martin’s boy—Lee Martin—has an electric railroad, and you’re interested in things like that.”

  “I sure enough am,” said Jebs, “but I think I’ll stick here with Randy. It’s up to me to talk Randy out of this crazy notion he has, about a dog going two-legged on him.” He glanced toward his friend. “It was just your imagination, wasn’t it, Randy?”

  “I certainly hope so,” Randy confessed honestly.

  CHAPTER SIX

  HOBERT TASMAN AGAIN

  There were no more alarms during the night. Randy was surprised, next morning, to find that he had slept soundly. He and Jebs ate breakfast with Sam Cohill, and as they went out into the yard they saw that Willie Dubbin had not come.

  “I sort of reckoned we wouldn’t see much of Willie today,” observed Jebs. “I can see it now—Driscoll showing up there to use the phone, and Willie listening to what went on out here last night. He’d find a dozen things he’d better do on Mr. Martin’s place instead of here.”

  “Probably it was a good thing Randy didn’t go over there with his story,” grinned Sam. “If Willie heard that tale, he’d be halfway to New York by now. Well, we don’t need him today.”

  “I kind of wish I’d gone over with Driscoll,” said Jebs. “If the Martin kid has a
real electric train setup, I want to have a look at it. That’s not as much kid stuff as you might think; I’ve heard of grown men following it for a hobby. Want me to help you with the shingling, Randy?”

  “There’s only a little of it left to do,” said Randy. “You’d better stick to your water-wheel business with Sam.”

  He swarmed up the ladder, hammer in hand, then Sam handed up a supply of his hand-split shingles.

  The rest of the shingling job did not take too long. Randy shingled both slopes up to the ridge. Then he sorted out a number of shingles, all about six inches wide, and marked lines on the last courses, about five inches from the center line of the ridge.

  The first shingle nailed on in the final course he cut back square at the ridge-line with a hatchet, and then cut back the shingle on the opposite side so as to overlap slightly. The next two shingles he nailed on in reverse order.

  At mid-morning Jebs climbed up for a brief look at Randy’s work. “Looks fancy,” he said.

  “This way there won’t be more than six continuous inches of crack to let rain trickle in,” Randy explained. “They call this a Boston ridge.”

  “Maybe it’s a Boston stunt, but it’s okay down here in the south, too,” approved Jebs, departing. “Come down when you’re through and see how Sam and I are making out.”

  Driving the last nail, Randy descended and made his way to the stream.

  Jebs and the giant had completed their dam. The space between the logs and the lines of upright stakes had been solidly filled in with earth and stones, well tamped down with a square-sawed log in Sam’s powerful hands. Behind this sturdy structure, the water was collecting and slowly rising. At the top, the dam measured sixteen feet or so, and at one point was whittled out to make a spillway. Opposite this, Jebs and Sam were installing a sort of rough trough, made of thick planks nailed together.

  “That’s our flume,” explained Jebs. “It’s set lower than the level of the spillway, and when there’s more water than it can accommodate, the spillway will take care of it. But if the water drops down, it’ll all come to the flume. We want a good stream here to turn our wheel.”

  Randy examined the wheel with admiration. Sam and Jebs had made a complicated sheathlike structure of well-nailed planks, which was strongly bolted to the fastenings their friend the metal-worker had provided on the wheel. Completed, it took the form of a double disk about as large as a wheel of the jeep, and around its rim they had set a series of compartments, opening outward and sloping inward to tapered bottoms. A thick coating of fresh drab paint covered the whole affair.

  “Those are our buckets,” said Sam, indicating the compartments. “The water shoots into them, and its weight carries each bucket down and brings another into range of the stream. That flume’s solidly in place now, Jebs. Help me with the final job.”

  He picked up the whole assembly of wheel, pulley and axle. It was of considerable weight, but Sam’s mighty arms lifted the thing easily and lowered it across the stream, slowly fitting it into position. Jebs stood by to guide one hub, then the other, into deep, broad notches in a pair of stout posts that had been driven into the channel, straight against the banks. The wheel finally came to rest immediately below the lower end of the flume, and Sam shoved powerfully upon each hub in turn, to wedge it into place.

  Then he and Jebs began to pound in spikes to make the fastenings solid.

  “We want those hubs to hold as if they’d grown into the posts,” Jebs told Randy. “How d’you like the posts? Sam cut a couple of persimmon-tree chunks for them. That kind of wood takes a right long time to go to pieces in damp ground.”

  “And this afternoon we’ll build a sort of doghouse for the power plant to live in,” added Sam. “A belt runs from the pulley to the plant, and as long as water runs, so will the electricity.”

  “Won’t you have to wait a while for the water to build up to where it’ll be of any help?” asked Randy, peering behind the dam.

  “No, our water’s on the way,” and Sam’s great forefinger pointed to the fattening clouds overhead. “Tonight, as I judge, we’ll get a lively little rain. By tomorrow we can get ready for electrification.”

  Randy grinned. “Wouldn’t it have been simpler just to hitch it to a gasoline engine?”

  “Sure enough,” admitted Jebs, “but not as cheap, and nowhere near as much fun to make.”

  Seizing a bucket and brush, Jebs began to paint the flume. Randy returned to the house, picking up broken bits of shingle around the sides. Both his own work, and the watching of Jebs’ and Sam’s imaginative project, had calmed him down after the nerve- troubling adventure of the previous night. But disturbing thoughts came back as he stacked the trash away and headed for the house to wash up for dinner.

  Again he remembered his fleeting glimpse of what had looked-like a two-legged spotted thing. Only a glimpse, a brief one, and in the dark; but he could not forget it. Jebs had cried out that the creature must be Bugler—hadn’t Mr. Martin told them that Bugler was a big dog with dark spots on light, coarse hair? And Bugler was the leader of the prowling pack, or seemed to be.

  The wild dogs were the subject of discussion at noon, over plates of rice and stewed beef.

  “They retreated on signal,” remembered Randy, buttering a slice of corn bread. “It was just the way Jebs said—like night maneuvers in the army.” “And those sprung traps,” added Jebs.

  “Well, foxes spring traps sometimes,” Sam told them. “Don’t underestimate the minds of animals. But just supposing a human being was out there with the dogs—just supposing a man had a reason to lead them against us. Who would it be?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea,” said Randy.

  “And I’m not right purely certain I want to find out,” Jebs elaborated.

  “If Randy thinks a human being was there,” insisted Sam, “he ought to make a guess as to who the human being was.”

  Randy ate several forkfuls of beef and rice. “Well, gentlemen,” he said at last, “maybe it’s Willie Dubbin. Maybe he’s pretending to be superstitious, to cover up his trail.”

  “Not Willie Dubbin,” objected Jebs scornfully. “He means it when he says he believes that stuff. He wouldn’t dare come within a country mile of those dogs.”

  “What about Mr. James Martin?” asked Randy. “He seems to know a lot about the wild dogs.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” said Sam. “Anyway, you boys talked to him night before last, and then came on here to run right into the dogs. He couldn’t have reached here before you.”

  “Don’t overlook Hobert Tasman,” said Randy.

  “Tasman’s as blind as a bat,” objected Sam. “Blinder, because bats aren’t really blind. I doubt if he can tell the difference between light and dark.”

  “But he is a right funny-acting scudder,” said Jebs thoughtfully. “Out in the woods by himself.”

  “Let’s try to check up when we go over to read to him,” suggested Randy. “Who else?”

  “Rebel seems to have a nomination,” observed Sam, as the terrier lifted his head from his dish and growled crooningly toward the front of the house.

  Then a voice hailed them from outside. They went to the front door, to find a parked car in the yard and a sturdy man getting out.

  “I’m Deputy Sheriff Weaver,” he announced. “I reckon there’s nobody else in these parts as big as you, Mister, so you must be Sam Cohill.”

  “That’s right,” said Sam. “Did Driscoll Jordan get in touch with you?”

  “He telephoned the sheriffs office last night, and stayed at Jimmy Martin’s to meet me and tell me how to get here. He’ll be along after he picks up something he’s waiting for.”

  “The ice,” said Sam. “Well, I’ll tell you our problem.”

  Deputy Sheriff Weaver sat on the doorstep and listened to Sam’s story. Sam did not mention Randy’s fancy of a dog walking on two legs, nor did Randy volunteer anything about it. Finally, the deputy shrugged and frowned.

&nbs
p; “It’d be right hard to put a stop to those hounds without we could be sure of the right ones,” he said. “The law would have to be certain sure it was cracking down only on wild dogs and not tame ones.” He gazed at Rebel. “Does this big fellow of yours run out at night?”

  “Only now and then, when we put him out,” replied Sam.

  “You see how I’m fixed, folks. You can sure enough make yourself a sight of trouble if you bother dogs belonging to people.”

  “What you say is true,” agreed Sam. “But something has to be done. We had to chase that pack out of our yard two nights running. Another night, and they may start to kill off our pigs and calves.”

  “I came here organized to do something,” said Deputy Weaver.

  Rising, he reached into his hip pocket and produced a folded paper. “Here, Mr. Cohill,” he said. “This is for you.”

  “For me?” Slowly Sam took the paper in his big hand. “What is it, a summons?”

  “No, it’s a commission. From the sheriff’s office of Scotland County. My boss knows all about you over in Laurinburg; he’s got a right much of respect for you. So he’s going to make you a special deputy.”

  “Special deputy?” echoed Sam, unfolding the paper. “Why?”

  “Read that commission. It gives you authority to make an investigation and figure out some way to stop this wild dog nuisance,” explained the deputy. “You’re here on the scene, you can do this thing and help us, and help yourself too. See?”

  When the deputy had driven away again, Randy went into the front room, and took from the bookshelf Sam’s copy of Lives of the Hunted. He and Jebs headed away for the trail to Hobert Tasman’s house.

  “Hang back and let me talk to him alone,” whispered Randy to Jebs as they approached the clearing. “Maybe I can read to him while you sort of investigate around—do some detective work.”

  “It’s a deal,” whispered Jebs back, and Randy stepped alone into the clearing.

  “Mr. Tasman,” he called.

  The slim figure of the hermit came slowly into sight at the doorway. “Is that Randy Hunter?” he called back.