“Which either was or wasn’t burned up in the fire,” reminded Jebs. “How can we find out?”
“I told you how,” said Randy. “In the jacket pocket was that mysterious metal tube. If we find it in the ashes, the jacket burned up.”
“We’ll have to wait a day or two, until the ashes are cool enough to examine,” said Sam. “Meanwhile, all we need to do is figure out who Mr. X is.”
They were still discussing, arguing, and jotting notes when Driscoll came home.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
JEBS IS MYSTERIOUS
But again the rain had ceased before dawn, and the sun rose in bright splendor over green thickets. Randy rose early enough to help Sam Cohill start breakfast, then went out to scatter grain to the chickens. He looked for evidence of a prowling visit from the wild dogs, and with satisfaction he saw that all was well.
“No casualties on our side so far,” called Driscoll from the pigpen, where he was pouring a bucket of mash into the trough. “You’ve been the closest to danger so far, Randy, and you got off without a scratch yesterday. Left the enemy with one wounded soldier, too—that wolf-dog you speared.”
“Don’t forget the others that were speared by my little partisan rangers, the wasps,” laughed Randy.
“Too bad we can’t have the wasps fighting on our side all the time,” spoke up Jebs.
He had led Willie Dubbin’s friend the mule into the open, and was offering him an ear of corn. Judiciously the mule eyed this gift, sniffed at it, and finally caught it by the end in his teeth and slowly ate it, cob and all.
“I’ll ride him back to Martin’s as soon as I’ve had a bite of breakfast,” announced Jebs. “You don’t reckon he’s like the mules in the funny papers, do you? He won’t buck me off or anything?”
“If Willie could ride him, you ought to be able to,” said Randy.
“Maybe he and Willie are members of the Mule Brotherhood together,” said Jebs. “Well, I’ll give it a try. He won’t be the first mule I’ve hopped onto, and if he sets me off again he won’t be the first mule to do that, either. Why, gentlemen, I’ve had mules flip me so high up in the air that the jaybirds could have built nests in all my pockets.”
“I love that homespun humor Jebs is always whipping up for us,” said Randy to Driscoll, “but I’m not laughing just now. I remember what he said a moment ago—too bad we don’t have the wasps on our side. Something tells me that if it stays clear tonight —and the sky looks mighty empty of clouds right now—we’ll see our wild dogs dropping in for a visit. They’ve stayed away two nights, and I doubt if they’ll neglect us any longer.”
“Hey!” said Jebs. “How’s about some breakfast now? And after a while, somebody come over to Martin’s with the jeep to carry me back.”
Breakfast over, Jebs mounted the mule and headed off across the rough bridge to the woodland trail beyond. Despite his apprehensions, the long-eared beast accepted his weight cheerfully. Driscoll and Randy examined the water wheel and the generator in its snug little quarters. The dam looked solid and sturdy, but the two worked a few minutes, adding some final touches for strength and efficiency. Sam came and loomed over them, grinning.
“I think you like that dam and the electric plant all the better because we ourselves got it running,” he declared.
“Let’s make sure it keeps running,” said Driscoll.
“Amen to that,” said Sam. “We aren’t going to throw away any kerosene lamps or stoves, and I want to start improving on the little I know about electrical repairs, too. I have to send off for a book on wiring. I wonder if a man can take a correspondence course in electrical mechanics?”
“Ask Lyman Hager over in Wagram,” said Driscoll, “or ask Jebs Markum. Jebs is right deep in stuff like that. Speaking of Jebs, I’m going to drive over for him in an hour or so. Want to go with me, Randy?”
“No, I want to visit Hobert Tasman.”
“Mud and all?” inquired Sam, surprised.
“Mud and all,” said Randy. “I don’t feel right, with him alone and helpless. If he doesn’t worry about wild dogs, I do.”
“Well, don’t go wandering off into a new ambush,” warned Driscoll.
“That’s right,” said Sam. “Stick to the trail from here to Tasman’s place, and stick to it when you come back.”
“But don’t stick too tight,” Driscoll put in a new warning. “We don’t want to have to come and gouge you out of the mire.”
“I promise,” said Randy, and went to fetch a stick and the book about Lives of the Hunted.
A second night of rain had made the way muddier and marshier than ever, but Randy had expected that. He paused beside the first puddle, took off his moccasins, and rolled up the legs of his dungarees. Then he waded into the mud and water. At some points it was shin deep, and he groped ahead with the end of his stick to test the footing under the brown surface. Coming up on fairly firm ground near the clearing, he put on his moccasins again and approached the yard of Hobert Tasman.
He saw the slender figure of the clay-potter, sitting on the cabin doorstep.
“Good morning, Mr. Tasman,” called Randy. “It’s Randy Hunter.”
“All alone today, are you?” replied Tasman, his sightless eyes seeming to stare. “What do you want?”
“I came to read to you again,” Randy told him. “I brought Lives of the Hunted”
“What happened to you yesterday?” demanded Tasman. “Your friends all came poking and fussing around here, looking for you. I told them you hadn’t been here, but I’m not sure they believed me.” The lean brows drew together. “I think they suspected me of hiding you away somewhere. I’ve been wondering what happened to you.”
So saying, Tasman leaned against the door jamb.
“It’s a long story, and a peculiar one,” Randy informed him. “I was trapped up on the roof of a deserted house, by those wild dogs.”
“Trapped?” echoed Tasman sharply. “Wild dogs?” Randy related his adventure. The blind man listened with the utmost attention. He sniffed when Randy described his makeshift weapon of wasps in the joint of stovepipe, and cocked his head sidewise in an attitude of deep thought at the incident of Randy’s spear-fight with the wolfish dog.
“Does it occur to you,” said Tasman at length, “that you’re mighty lucky to be in one piece today?” “It certainly does occur to me,” Randy assured him. “It occurs to me over and over. I don’t want to go through anything like that again. And I can’t understand why you’re willing to stay out here all alone, without any defense if those dogs should try to raid you.”
“They couldn’t catch me off guard,” Tasman said with a thin smile. “I could hear them coming far away. I could hear a snake crawling around this house. Any dogs that tried to rush me here would find my door slammed and barred against them. I’d hear them coming, and I’d wait until I heard them go away again.”
“Why don’t you come to New Chimney Pot?” urged Randy. “There wouldn’t be any danger there, and Driscoll and Sam would be glad to have you, help you in any way—”
“No, thanks.” Tasman cut him off emphatically. “I want to live by myself, the best way I can, without help from anyone. Now, which story did you think you’d read me?”
Feeling rebuffed, Randy sat on a rock near the doorway and opened the book. He read for some time, then looked at his watch.
“It’s nearly noon,” he said.
“Yes,” agreed Tasman. “I feel the heat of the sun —it’s climbing toward the top of the sky.” His upturned, sightless face was lighted by the sun’s rays. “Well, Randy, thanks for reading to me. But let’s get back to what we were talking about before.”
“The wild dogs?” asked Randy. He was surprised that Tasman should reopen a subject he had closed so abruptly.
“Yes. I’m not worried about them, but you are. You had a narrow escape. I’m surprised you don’t go home, clear away from these woods.”
“Jebs and I came to help Driscoll and Sam,” said
Randy. “We’re helping them make a real home at New Chimney Pot.”
“A home for Driscoll Jordan and that big hulking giant?”
Randy pretended to ignore the slur on Sam’s size. “Driscoll’s ancestors owned this land more than a century ago,” he said. “Driscoll feels at home on it. He’ll go to college—he and Jebs and I plan to be at the state university together—but, between school terms, he’ll help Sam make a profitable property here in these woods.”
“He’ll cut the trees,” said Tasman fiercely.
“He won’t destroy the woods,” Randy assured him. “He’ll leave the young trees, to grow bigger for the future. I’ve seen his government bulletins on how to set up a sensible lumbering project.”
“The place will swarm with lumberjacks,” Tasman said. “I’ve seen them chopping down whole mountain forests.”
He was still gloomy as Randy headed home for dinner.
Even as Randy reached the back yard of New Chimney Pot House, he saw the jeep drawing up in front. He walked around the side of the house to greet Driscoll and Jebs.
“I had a quiet little council with Mr. Martin,” announced Driscoll. “He slipped his two guns into our jeep. Later on, some time before sundown, he’ll stroll quietly over here for supper.”
“All three miles?”
“Sure. You think he’s one of those soft town-raised folks, who can’t even walk to the street corner without getting tired? Anyway, he and Sam and I all think the dogs will come looking for food and trouble tonight. Mr. Martin won’t tell Willie where he’s going, and after supper he’ll stay all night. We hope to have a showdown with our night-running pals.”
“And with their night-running friend, the one with two feet,” elaborated Jebs, getting out of the jeep.
Under one arm he lugged the rifle and shotgun. His other hand clutched something dark and cubical, from which trailed wires.
“What’s that gimmick?” Randy asked him. “A bomb or a portable radio?”
“I borrowed it from Mr. Martin’s kid, Lee.”
Jebs held out the wire-festooned cube. It was about the size of half a brick, and made of dark, hard rubber. Its top was furnished with a metal band, on which were spaced figures as on a gauge, and a short pivoted lever.
“It looks like a transformer from an electric train set,” ventured Randy.
“Maybe because that’s what it is,” said Jebs, and his square, rosy face took on an expression of mysterious cunning.
“Is Jebs going into his second childhood?” Driscoll said.
“Shoo!” cried Jebs. “Maybe I’m still in my first childhood. If you’re going to stand around making cracks, I won’t let you in on my double-jointed new mechanical triumph. But about this time tomorrow, you’ll all be bragging on it.”
He walked into the house with the guns and the transformer. Randy and Driscoll followed him, smiling but wondering.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SHOWDOWN
Jebs laid Mr. Martin’s two borrowed guns carefully on the sofa in the front room. Then he visited Sam’s stock of tools, and helped himself to a strong pair of wire nippers. Still quietly grinning, he went outside to the calf shed, and from it lugged forth a roll of heavy wire netting left over from building the chicken run.
“What’s that?” Driscoll asked him.
“Just don’t worry your mind about this,” said Jebs loftily. “I want the full splendor of the thing to bust out on you later.”
He set the roll of netting down. He walked to the stockaded pigpen, viewed it with the eye of an expert calculator, then carefully paced off its length and width. Finally he returned to the netting, unrolled several yards of it and carefully flattened it out, weighting it here and there with stones. He paced off a certain expanse, and finally knelt and began to cut across the mesh with the nippers.
“Do you think we ought to get a doctor to examine his head?” ventured Driscoll to Randy.
“Have your fun, have your fun,” said Jebs loftily. “Every great inventor gets laughed at by the rabble. Afterwards, they come and want to invest their money in his big scheme.”
He straightened out more wire, paced off a new section, and cut this as well. Rebel, strolling out, sniffed at the wire and the nippers.
“You aren’t laughing at me, are you, boy?” Jebs addressed the terrier. “Dogs have better manners than human beings. Sometimes they have better sense, too.”
“Rebel acts as if he guesses what you’re up to,” observed Sam, walking through the yard.
“Do you guess?” challenged Jebs quickly.
“I think I do, Jebs, and I’ll go along with your scheme. Keep hacking away at that wire; it’s a real inspiration.”
“Let’s get clear of all these people,” Randy said to Driscoll. “We might catch whatever ails them.”
Still Jebs refused to reveal his plan. When he had provided himself with four big rectangles of the wire netting, he dragged them into position around the pigpen.
“Aren’t you going to put them straight up and down?” asked Randy, more puzzled than ever.
“Rebel,” Jebs solemnly addressed the watching bull terrier, “the ignorance of these unscientific busybodies would be refreshing if they didn’t have so much of it in stock.”
Sam had come out of the house again, his long arms carrying a stack of newspapers.
“You’ll be better off with some of these under your wire,” he suggested. “The ground’s still damp, you know.”
“That’s the truth,” Jebs approved heartily.
Quickly he pulled his oblongs of netting away from the sty once more. Then, helping himself to the papers, he opened them up and laid them down in great areas next to the stockade, several thicknesses deep. Finally he arranged the netting upon them in its former position, and fetched rocks as before to weight them flat.
“That’ll do,” he decided at last. “Now then, you folks who don’t know how to tell a genius when you bump smack into him, do me just one favor. Don’t stamp around on top of this wire or get it out of position, hear?”
“We wouldn’t dream of it,” vowed Randy solemnly.
He and Driscoll walked away with an elaborate display of bored indifference. They visited the various approaches from the woods to the yard.
“Shall we set those traps again?” suggested Randy.
Driscoll shook his gray-capped head. “I doubt if it would do much good. Remember how Mr. X slipped ahead of his pack to spring the traps before? I’m convinced he did it, not the dogs. And he’ll figure on doing the same job when he comes here again.”
“If we could only ambush them some way—” began Randy.
“But we can’t,” said Driscoll. “They’d smell out anybody lurking around outside for them. Whatever plan of battle we make had better wait for Mr. Martin, anyway. He’ll want to sit in on the powwow.”
At five o’clock, Mr. Martin strolled into the yard. Under his arm he carried a bulging bag of heavy brown paper.
“Hey,” he greeted the residents of New Chimney Pot House. “I hope you all haven’t started to cook supper yet. Since I invited myself, I brought something along.”
“What is it?” asked Jebs. “Stuff to eat’s always welcome.”
“I’ll bring it in and show it to you.”
In the kitchen, he opened the bag. From it he produced a small, plump bird, ready plucked and dressed. He laid another on the table, another, and another.
“One apiece,” he announced, emptying the bag, “and two for Sam here, he needs extra cargo.”
“Quail!” whooped Driscoll. “Where did you get quail this time of year, Mr. Martin?”
“Oh, I didn’t do any hunting out of season,” smiled the farmer. “I knocked these over around Thanksgiving last fall. I picked and cleaned ’em and they’ve been waiting in the deep freeze ever since. When you and I got through talking this morning, I went and dug ’em out so they could thaw.”
The quail were fat and juicy-looking. Their legs and wings had b
een trussed with bits of twine, as though they were midget turkeys.
“How do you cook quail?” asked Randy.
“Just leave that to me,” said Sam in a deep voice of authority. “Somebody get me a paper bag, smaller than the one Mr. Martin brought them in.”
He took a bowl and began to mix salt, pepper and sifted flour. When Driscoll found the bag he wanted, Sam poured in the mixture, closed the mouth, and shook it briskly. Then he put in the quail, one at a time, shaking the bag and turning it over and over to dust each bird thoroughly.
Meanwhile, a saucepan with butter in it stood heating on the stove. In this he browned the quail, one by one, as they emerged from the bag dusted with salt, pepper and flour. Finally he assembled the browned, plump birds in a large, deep frying pan, and poured two cups of water over them. This pan he set over a slow fire.
“Slow cooking’s the secret,” he commented. “I’ve used this recipe lots of times, tossing up quail dinners for my Indian friends.”
“Where did you learn to cook quail like that?” Driscoll wanted to know. “Is it an Indian way of cooking?”
Sam winked one big eye. “I got it out of an old newspaper,” he said. “The household-hints section.”
The supper, when ready, also included stewed carrots, mustard greens, spring onions, hashed brown potatoes, and a shortcake topped with sliced bananas. Everyone did full and enthusiastic justice to all these things.
“I never ate anything better in all my born days,” insisted Jebs, polishing a bone. “I can’t figure Rebel not panhandling us for some of it.”
“I fed Rebel early to keep him from doing just that thing,” explained Driscoll.
When the dishes had been washed and put away, the whole party gathered in the front room to confer. All listened while Sam outlined a campaign, quickly and simply.
“We’ll stay indoors, as quietly as we can, with all the lights off,” he said. “If they come, it will probably be as soon as the darkness falls. When we know they’re on the place, we’ll rush.”
Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1952 Page 11
