by Cave, Hugh
"It seem me can't stop hurting you, sonny," Manny said as he stooped to work the limp form over his right shoulder. "Me truly sorry."
More slowly now because of his burden, he picked his way down the boulder-strewn tunnel again. There was no sign of the mist Cob claimed to have seen. When he stopped to listen—a precaution he thought it wise to take every few minutes—he heard no sound of following footfalls.
The young scout remained unconscious. Seem like me lick him too hard, Manny thought anxiously.
Narrowing now, the tunnel became more difficult. Its ceiling dipped to a mere seven or eight feet. Its walls closed in so much that when a larger-than-usual boulder choked the dry stream bed, squeezing past it was sometimes a bruising struggle. The downward slope, too, had become more acute. With one hand holding the rifle and the other arm encircling Cob's legs, Manny at times-had trouble keeping his balance.
He stopped to get his breath. This time his sharp ears caught a sound other than the ever-present drip of the walls. Startled, he turned to look back.
Near the limit of his vision, where the passage disappeared around a bend, human shapes seemed to move through the green glow. It was hard to be sure because the glow itself so frequently appeared to be alive. Lowering himself to one knee, Manny eased his burden to the floor and took the rifle in both hands. His finger curled around the trigger as he waited.
He had confidence in his eyes. If anything really moved up there, he would see it despite the shifting light.
Something did move. He squeezed the trigger and the M-1 startled him by firing a burst that filled the cavern with thunder. Whatever had moved became still again, though with no outcry that could be heard through the echoes of the burst.
With difficulty in that confined space, Manny lifted Cob to his shoulder and continued his flight.
Lord Jesus, how much longer?
Half an hour must have crawled by before he heard sounds of pursuit again. He had no watch, so could not be sure. This time what he heard were not footfalls but a rumbling sound produced by a dislodged stone. Perhaps he himself had loosened it. Even so, it might not have fallen of its own accord. A pursuer could have moved it while squeezing through a tight spot.
He stopped to look back again but saw nothing. Should he try another squeeze of the trigger? No, he decided, not yet. Stumbling on at a pace he knew was reckless in such a treacherous place, he heard a sound of water.
Water falling.
In a moment the sound became a roar and he knew the fall could not be far ahead. It must be a big one, too. Was it thundering into the passage from some high-up opening, to fill the tunnel with water and bar his flight?
He turned again to size up the situation behind him. With the water making so much noise he could hear no footsteps, but the green glow revealed three distinctly separate human shapes hurrying to overtake him.
Once more he lowered young Cob to the floor and squeezed the trigger of his remarkable weapon. And again the sound of the burst filled the cavern, though this time the thunder of the unseen cascade was almost as loud.
One of his pursuers performed a wild, arm-waving dance and disappeared from view among the boulders.
Manny gathered up his burden and hurried on into the ever-more-frightening roar of falling water. Rounding a bend in the tunnel, he saw the cascade crashing down in front of him.
Puzzled, he stopped. It was not in the passage as he had expected. It did not come from any opening high up on either wall. The tunnel apparently ended here, and the fall was outside the exit.
Blocking the exit? Shutting off his escape?
A fall of water that powerful had to block the exit, he decided. If he pushed on and tried to bore through it, it would drown him and the boy he carried.
Unless . . .
This passage came out on the Armadale property, Cob had said. Could this be the place where Edith Craig and her fiancé, along with Grant's man, Pennock, had disappeared? The cascade at the intake pool, viewed from inside the cliff?
He went closer, with a glance to the rear that revealed two human figures still moving down the passage toward him—ghostly green shapes in the ever-present glow. If this was indeed the intake fall, there was a thing he had to know. Just what part of it was he standing behind? If he stepped out near the top, he and Cob would be slammed down into the shallow pool and mangled among the boulders there. But if near the bottom. . .
He pressed close to the curtain of water and could not see what he needed to see. It was a seemingly solid, plunging wall. But, carefully listening, he thought the sound of water crashing into the pool was only a little distance below.
Once more he turned to peer back up the corridor. There was no time to lower his burden and use the gun again. The two pursuing shapes were close now. But he hung on to the rifle as he stepped to the curtain of water, preparing for the worst.
"Lord Jesus, have mercy," he prayed aloud.
With the spray from the cascade soaking him, he halted. To his astonishment, the wall on his left curved to reveal a vertical slit of daylight between the cliff and the cascade. A way out?
With the boy still draped over his right shoulder, Manny pressed his left side against the wall and squeezed along it. He reached the crack of light. "Lord Jesus!" he murmured, this time in a voice husky with gratitude as he looked down.
The surface of the pool was so close it lapped the ledge he stood on. Now he knew where those three had vanished to when their trail seemed to end at the pool. But unless a man knew this opening existed, he was not going to notice it from the pool. Not ever. Even peering in behind the waterfall here, with the light blocked by the cascade itself, he would have to think the cavern entrance was only a dark stain on the cliff face.
And what if he, Manny Williams, had reached here when it was night outside, and no daylight to show him there was a way out? What then?
Easing himself into the pool, which was only a little more than waist-deep here, Manny avoided the holes he knew about while wading to the opposite side. There he laid his burden down still another time and knelt with the rifle, aiming at the edge of the fall where he would first see his pursuers if they followed.
Would the weapon fire again? It was wet now, and he had no idea. But if those two meant to follow him any farther, they had better think twice about the chance they were taking.
He waited. No one appeared. The boy beside him moaned softly and struggled to sit up.
"So you coming back to give me an ease, huh?" the pig hunter gently chided. "You suppose you can walk now, man?"
After being helped to his feet and swaying a moment, Cob succeeded in steadying himself. "What happen, Manny?"
"Some other time. Right now we in a hurry."
Cob looked around, bewildered. "Where we is?"
"Where you did say we would be. Armadale. But is not here at the pool we going to find what me want, so come." A final glance at the waterfall satisfied the pig hunter that their pursuers had stopped in the cavern. "Come, sonny," he said again, gently, and led his young companion down the streamside path to the tree bridge. The time, he guessed, was about seven o'clock in the morning. The day was cloudy, with no sunlight, but he was an old hand at telling time without a watch. After so long in the green twilight of the Devil's Pit, he could not say what day it was, though.
When they reached the Great House a short time later, Peter Sheldon's housekeeper came rushing across the yard behind a stream of shouted questions. Even before Manny held up a hand to silence her, she froze in her tracks to stare at them, shocked by their nakedness.
"Is no time to make you understand, Coraline," Manny said. "Where Mother Jarrett is? You know?"
Still wide-eyed, the housekeeper said faintly, "She at Bronzie Dakin's yet."
"Thank the Lord. We not fit to walk to Pipers now. But we need something to cover us. You can find pants?"
"Me think so—yes. But where Mr. Peter is, Manny? What happen to Miss Craig?"
"We got no time fo
r talk, me tell you," Manny insisted. "Is nothing you can do for them, anyhow. Fetch the pants-them, please."
Totally bewildered, the woman hurried back to the house, to return in a few minutes with slacks from Peter's clothes closet. Manny and Cob drew them on. Then Manny reached for the youth's hand again.
"Come, Cob," he said. 'We going to find Mother and get you healed. Quick, too, because me, Manny Williams, must have to go back to that place in a hurry and get Mr. Peter and them other two out of there."
31
LINFORD GRANT HAD NOT LIED. IN THIS ROUND CHAMBER where the green glow was so bright and alive, Peter felt a presence.
Not a physical presence. Except for himself the room was empty, and he entertained no notion that some invisible being had come into it to torment him. The intrusion was solely in his mind.
He still wore his watch. It had not been taken from him when he removed his clothes. For more than five hours now it had marked the time for him while he sat naked on the floor in the center of this malevolent green eye, struggling to keep his sanity. The sluggish passing of the hours was a form of torture in itself.
No, there was no one in the room with him. There was only that pulsing green glow. He was sure of it. Yet his mind was being assaulted.
"Peter Sheldon, are you hearing me?" It was not a voice, but he was aware of it. Had been for hours. To keep himself or his mind from responding, he gripped his upthrust knees so fiercely that his fingers slowed the flow of blood to his legs and his feet seemed encased in ice.
He had tried other defenses, too. Had commanded his mind to concentrate on things beyond the reach of this alien presence that seemed so insolently confident of being able to enslave him.
First, his family. By squeezing his eyes shut and thinking about the pictures in his room at the Great House, he had been able for a time to create a mental barrier the voice could not penetrate. Tenaciously he clung to a vision of his red-haired father riding a favorite roan across a great sunlit sea of grass on the Florida cattle ranch where he, Peter, had grown up.
Then when that picture began to fade, he switched to one of his mother in the ranch-house kitchen, his mind cataloging all her familiar movements as she moved from stove to sink to counter, preparing a meal. Never demanding any special reward for her love and loyalty, she had always been there when needed and was there now when he so desperately needed a mental picture of her.
When his grip on that memory began to weaken, he put himself at the table with his parents and sister Laura, who even now still called him "Petey" in her letters, enjoying the meal his mother had just prepared.
Oh God, if I could only be there, he thought, then forced his mind to concentrate on precisely how, on his last trip home, he had reached there.
From St. Alban City he had flown to Miami on Eastern, after a trip to the capital the week before to buy his ticket and make a reservation. For some reason, forgotten now, his father had not been able to drive to Miami to meet him, so he had taken an airport taxi to the Greyhound Bus terminal and fretfully waited two hours for the right bus. Then the long ride north.
To block out the voice that kept saying "Peter Sheldon, are you hearing me?" he gripped his knees harder now and rode the bus a second time, reaching for details of what must actually have been a journey filled with boredom and impatience.
Again he saw the acres of sugarcane, with dark-skinned West Indian workers harvesting the crop, as the bus neared Lake Okeechobee. Again the lakeshore country towns of Clewiston and Moore Haven were half-asleep in the heat, and again the ride north along the edge of the huge lake was frustrating because Okeechobee itself was almost everywhere hidden by dikes.
Think of the citrus now, he silently screamed at himself as the journey began to slip away from him, leaving him chained again in the center of the great green eye, vulnerable to the insidious persistence of the voice. The citrus, man!
So his mind fastened on the acres and acres of orange and grapefruit trees in that part of the state—how green they were, how the sweet scent of them filled the air when they were white with blossoms. In Lake Placid he climbed the observation tower to gaze in wonder at a dark green sea of them so vast he could not discover its shores. But the image receded like the others, leaving him alone in the eye again, and he frantically sought an anchor with more holding power.
Edith. Edith Craig.
The power of his mind to conjure up her face startled him. He was sure he could not have described her in that detail, yet he saw every separate feature—the wide-set eyes, the soft and sensuous lips, the golden brown hair, even a little mark or mole on her left cheek that he had scarcely noticed before. And he saw her not static as in a photograph but in motion, alive. The eyes speculatively gazed at him. The lips smiled or frowned.
It was good and it lasted, giving him hope that he would survive the intrusion of the voice, after all. But at this point a sound of footfalls disturbed his concentration and drew his attention to the chamber's entrance. Linford Grant walked in.
Standing over him, the leader said quietly, "Was I right about the presence, Sheldon? Have you felt it yet?"
"Hell, no. You're crazy." How could Grant know he was lying?
"I'm not crazy. And you will feel it, friend. Be sure of that. Hungry, are you?"
Again Peter thought it best to be defiant, because a sign of weakness would indicate surrender. "Not for the slop you've been feeding me."
"Thirsty?"
"I could use some water."
"When I come back, I'll try to remember to bring you some." With a taunting smile the leader departed.
After the interruption, Peter found he could not rebuild his remarkable vision of Edith. The visit from Grant had made him too much aware of his surroundings again—even caused him to peer again into the shifting green glow to be sure it contained no alien physical presence.
"Sheldon, are you hearing me?" It was not Grant's voice but the other one, slipping through his defenses to speak to his mind again.
In panic he groped for something to think about that would keep his mind occupied. Baseball. He had played the game in college and retained a keen interest. Who were the major-league teams? The New York Yankees. The Pittsburgh Pirates. The Boston Red Sox. The Chicago White Sox. Get them all, Sheldon, or go back and do it over and over and over until you do! Concentrate now! You know them! Put your mind to work on it!
"I think it is time we talked about what I want from you, Sheldon," the voice intruded.
Exhausted by his struggle, Peter heard himself whisper, "What do you want? Who are you?"
"You know who I am. And where you are. And what you must do."
"If you mean become one of your—your people—I won't do it!" Wildly Peter looked around him again, seeking something in the mist that would explain the sound in his head. Some electronic trickery. Some manmade answer. But was it a sound? Or was the voice only a thought, with some hellish power behind it?
"I have a plan, Sheldon. Here in this small, backward country it is only just beginning. But we have made progress elsewhere, as my advocate has already pointed out to you."
The green light was more in motion now, swirling around him like a whirlpool slowly gathering speed. But it was still an eye, vast and mysterious, and he was in the center of it, being observed and made to listen.
"Let me add to what my advocate has told you," the voice went on. "Think back a little. Do you recall a report about the massacre of a hundred or more children in an African prison?"
"I—no."
"You disappoint me, but never mind. I am always especially pleased when the victims are children. He, my adversary, was fond of children, you may recall. You do know about the so-called boat people of Asia, of course—so many drowned, so many plundered and raped by pirates."
"I know," Peter whispered.
"My people played a significant role in that, as they have in many other such triumphs. I like it when they leave headless bodies for the authorities to find, as the
y have been doing in that Mediterranean country. And when the bombs are thrown into schoolhouses full of children. It makes things pleasantly lively, don't you think?"
"For God's sake, leave me alone!" Peter heard himself whimpering.
"We have had some notable successes throughout your world, Sheldon," the voice continued in the same even tone. "And I am stepping up the pace as we near our goal of total domination. Almost every day now, some project of mine happens somewhere. Are you aware of that?"
Still clutching his upthrust knees, Peter bowed his head and squeezed his eyes shut. It was impossible now to hold back the voice by thinking of his family or Edith Craig. The pressure was a drill applied to his brain.
"I could go on and on," the voice in his head continued. "Ikeep records of what you call atrocities, and the list daily grows more satisfying. I am not referring to the stupid violence inspired by political or religious differences, mind you. That childish idiocy occurs throughout your world without any help from me, though of course I turn it to my own use at times. An atrocity, by my definition, is purely and simply an act of evil for its own lovely sake."
Hearing footsteps at the entrance again, Peter raised his head. Linford Grant stood there watching him, but came no closer and did not speak.
"So, do you see now, Sheldon, how I work?" the voice persisted. "Do you understand why I have special plans for intelligent souls like you? Answer me, please."
"Go to hell," Peter tried to say, but it came out a moan, almost inaudible.
The voice laughed. In the entrance, Grant calmly watched as though fully aware of what was happening.
"I shall leave you for a time now, Sheldon, but with a warning," the voice said. "Have you heard about the condemned souls who are put to death by stoning in your Middle East? Do you know how it works? They bury you up to your neck in the ground and hurl stones at your head until it is reduced to pulp. Not a pretty way to die, I assure you. But, of course, you won't anger me to that extent, will you? You will do as I wish. And, believe me, you will enjoy working with me when you know me better, Sheldon. I promise."
