Something cracked in his hands and he looked down to see the pencil broken in two pieces. Peterman going over to the other side was a worrying development. It wasn’t just inconvenient, it was a downright betrayal. The old fool had been careless and paid the price. So be it. What was more unsettling was that Peterman knew the house and grounds like the back of his hand and would be a tough nut to crack.
The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. Why couldn’t this disease or space virus, or whatever it was, have stayed with Sanders? Why hadn’t the man just buggered off? Wheeler could have taken care of him out in the forest. A couple of shots and it would have been over. Sanders would have been declared a missing person, who’d probably had a fight with a bear and come off second best, and that would have been that. There’d have been no evidence to suggest otherwise.
Now everything was screwed up. His guests were disappearing, and the remaining ones were watching his every move. The sickos out there would try to get into the house again, he was sure of it, and this time with Peterman’s help they’d succeed. If there was a way in, the old bastard would know about it. Wheeler had to stop that from happening.
He left the office, locked the door behind him, and checked the ground floor windows one by one. All seemed secure until he got to the dining room. This room had three windows, two along the back wall and one on the side. The side window was the smallest, with flowery curtains surrounding two tall panes that could be unlatched and opened outwards.
At first glance both panes looked closed and latched but something seemed not quite right. On closer inspection he saw that the bar on the right pane was raised up off its hook, which meant this half of the window could be pulled open from the outside. He’d ordered the Petermans to secure every window in the building. Was this just their typical sloppiness? Normally it wouldn’t have made him suspicious, but now? Wheeler forced the metal latch down into its slot and noticed scratches in the paintwork around it.
When he looked up again he discovered he wasn’t alone. Peterman stood outside, on the other side of the window, staring at the latch that Wheeler had just closed. The old man had a long piece of wire in his hands, like a straightened out coat hanger. Without acknowledging Wheeler, Peterman turned and walked quickly away.
Wheeler was about to run out after him, then decided against it. This could be a trap. Even if it wasn’t, Peterman was a tough old buzzard and would probably be long gone by the time Wheeler got outside with a rifle.
He went to the front hallway, unlocked the gun cupboard and selected his favourite Thompson rifle, loaded it and put extra rounds in the pouch pockets of his pants. Now he was ready to sort them out. But it still wasn’t enough – what if Sanders jumped him? Wheeler opened a drawer beside the rifles and took out a slim, very sharp hunting knife in a patterned leather sheath. Years ago, he’d had fun using this on smaller game he’d shot, though he’d ruined their pelts in the process.
He tested the knife on his finger tip. The gleaming blade, laser-cut from the finest grained steel, was razor sharp. With a knife like this he could slit a grizzly from gut to gizzard in a couple of seconds – or do the same to a human attacker if need be. Bending low, he attached knife and sheath to his right ankle, tightened the straps, and pulled his pant leg back down. The soft buckskin sheath rested snugly against his skin and the thin, high-tech blade didn’t weigh much.
Wheeler nodded silently to himself as he relocked the cabinet. This would stop Sanders in his tracks, and the less those wimps in the living room knew about it, the better.
He reckoned that Sanders and the rest of them would wait now till after dark before they came back. Even with the windows closed and barred, it wouldn’t take much to break a pane and get in. The security alarm might go off – if Peterman didn’t get to it first – but it couldn’t stop them from entering.
There had to be more that he could do. He couldn’t risk them swarming all over him from behind a doorway. Like that damned rock in the forest, get too close and you’re doomed.
It was time to get radical about this.
* * *
Later on, Wheeler gathered us in the kitchen, apart from Ned who shouted through the door of his room that we could all go to hell. So we left him alone. Wheeler was carrying a big rifle on a shoulder strap and I was relieved when he set it down before he started talking.
“I need volunteers to help me carry some things in from outside,” he said, “Half a dozen short trips should do it. Don’t worry about the rifle; it’s only for use as a last resort.”
He led Toby and me outside while Nora and Marie stayed behind and watched the door. At the big mound of wood we picked out two-by-fours, or whatever you call them, and carried back as many as we could hold in our arms, stacking them on the floor in the kitchen. We repeated this so often I was hot and sticky and sore by the time the pile was shoulder high and Wheeler finally called a halt.
“How come you have so many two-by-fours lying around?” Toby asked, rubbing dirt off his hands.
Wheeler locked the door before replying. “Actually, they’re one-by-fours. The original architectural plans called for a fence around the property but out here in the wilderness that’s a stupid idea,” he said. “So I vetoed it. That left hundreds of these boards lying around and Peterman’s been using them as firewood ever since.”
“What are you going to do with them?” Toby said.
Wheeler grinned. “Can’t you guess?”
“It’s for some kind of barricade, isn’t it?” Toby replied, “Pity the horses have already bolted.”
“I’m not letting any more of them bolt,” Wheeler replied grimly, “Either out or back in. That’s why I’m going to board up the downstairs windows and you can help me.”
* * *
I stuck it out for a couple of hours, then complained of a sore head and cut hands, and skived off upstairs. As I’m not much of a handyman, Wheeler seemed almost happy to get me out of his way. His own energy never flagged, and I wondered if he was on something.
Even with my bedroom door closed I could hear hammering down below, and the continual banging got on my nerves. To get away from it for a little while I had a long shower, enjoying the warm water on my aching muscles and scratched skin. Then images of Sanders and Abby, and particularly of Georgia, flooded my mind and I had to get out and quickly dry myself. When I went back into the bedroom, Nora was there and we hung out for the rest of the afternoon.
Around suppertime we went downstairs again. Incredibly, Wheeler was still at it, putting the finishing touches to boarding up the big main window in the living room. Long wooden strips were nailed across the window in a horizontal pattern. Wheeler threw his hammer onto my favourite green leather chair, making a permanent scratch. I must have visibly winced, as Nora gave my arm a consoling squeeze.
Wheeler wiped sweat off his face with a towel and tossed it on top of the hammer. “Made a mess of the window frames but I’ll get my craftsmen up here later to undo the damage,” he said, “In the meantime, this should keep those bastards out.”
Unless Sanders was now Mr. Elastic, I reckoned it would. “I just wish it had been like this last night.”
Wheeler grimaced. “Me too, bub.”
“What about the gaps?” Nora asked, “If they try hard enough, they could still batter their way through.”
“They’ll have to make a lot of noise doing that,” Wheeler replied, “Which will give me time to put a stop to it.”
Toby joined us. “You’re exhausted, Julius, quit for the night.”
Wheeler nodded. “I’m all done. It’s suppertime anyway.”
* * *
Marie was in no state to cook, so we made do with chilled white wine and whatever we could scrounge from the fridge. Everyone grabbed what appealed to them and spread it out on the table, along with a stack of plates and cutlery.
It was still a pretty good supper, in my opinion. Maybe even better without all the usual fuss and etiquette slowing everythi
ng down, and a big step up from the toasted cheese sandwich or two-minute rice I made myself at home.
Nora and I cleared up and filled the dishwasher while Wheeler and Toby finished off their coffee. By early evening, everything was quiet, and a sense of expectancy filled the air. Every so often, Wheeler prowled around, checking every room. There wasn’t much for the rest of us to do, and Nora and I were totally bored so we went out to the hallway in order to sneak upstairs. Toby stuck his head out of the living room and saw us.
He looked concerned. “Nick and Nora, shouldn’t we all stick together?”
Nora gave him what she called her winning smile. “Don’t worry, we’ll be fine. No-one can get in and we’ll be in our rooms the whole time. We need some time to ourselves, that’s all.”
Toby visibly relaxed. “I guess we oldies aren’t much company, eh?” he replied, “But no wandering about on your own, okay?”
“We promise,” Nora assured him as we climbed the stairs.
Nora went to her room and I went to mine. The journal from Wheeler’s office was in my bag. After last night, it had got bashed up with all my running around, but thankfully no one had searched my clothes when they put me to bed. I fished the little book out again and sat on the bed, my back against the wall, and opened the journal at the page I’d reached last time.
Before this night was out, I intended finding out a lot more about what had happened around here back in the Nineteen-Twenties.
Chapter Sixteen
The rest of the book consisted entirely of Tom Irwin’s travel diary. Once again, he started off my swearing that it was all true. By this point, I was beginning to believe him.
Irwin packed his bags, including a spade for the burial and dynamite to blow up the rock, and jumped in his canoe. He paddled upriver until he was in entirely ‘new country’, and even gave some of the geological features corny names like ‘Dead Man’s Turn’ and ‘Pulpit Rock.’ Something else I had to get over was his references to native people as ‘Indians.’ And when I read that he made a fire with some ‘Indian birch boxes and woven baskets’ he found, I almost felt like screaming out loud, “Those belong in a museum!”
From time to time he had to carry his canoe and all his supplies overland, and this he called ‘portage.’ It sounded dead slow. But sometimes anything was better than the ‘treacherous whirlpools and hidden undercurrents’ of what he was now calling ‘the Dangerous River.’
As I continued to read, I could tell that his solitude and the general creepiness of the landscape had got to him. He often sat by his campfire, writing his journal and staring into the darkness around him. Sometimes the shadows seemed to move and he imagined eyes watching him. He’d thought the stories about this place were ‘fables’ but doesn’t ‘dismiss them now.’
Accidents slowed him down even more. He slipped on wet rocks and nearly drowned, and one of his boots split apart. Somehow he managed to sew it together again. Then he had a life or death struggle when he got between a gigantic cow moose and her calf, an encounter which he barely survived.
One evening, after a supper of wild raspberries and something called ‘bannock,’ Irwin fell asleep under a tree. When he woke up, he discovered he had company.
The shore where he was sitting lay in a sort of natural amphitheatre with a semicircular ridge around him that formed a natural tree line. He looked up, something moved at the corner of his vision; he turned his head and saw them. At the crest of the ridge two wolves stood. Several more wolves appeared alongside the first pair, and looked down at him. Then even more wolves appeared, and eventually he counted forty-three. He was trapped between them and the river and if they rushed him he could probably take down no more than three or four with his rifle before they’d be at his throat.
To Irwin’s relief, the wolves eventually wandered off, though he still packed his bags and paddled across the river to be sure of safety.
This was turning out to be quite an adventure story. I paused, rubbed my tired eyes, and got back to reading.
* * *
After this, things got even weirder for Tom Irwin. One day, he found an old wreck of a cabin and decided to snoop around it.
There were no signs of life as he approached. From its dirty appearance and rundown state he didn’t expect there to be any occupants and guessed that it had probably been abandoned for years. He decided it would make a good place for him to sleep overnight, especially after his recent experiences with the larger wildlife of the region. When he got close, he saw that the hut remained in reasonable condition and thought that, with any luck, it would be clean and dry inside. He stood at the front door, called out a loud “Hello?” and rapped on the wood, just in case there was a sick or sleeping person inside. There was no reply and he reached out to lift the door handle under the latch.
At the last second, Irwin pulled his hand away, and used a stick to open the latch instead. As he did so, ‘something rattled above my head and I jumped back just in time to avoid disaster. A jagged-toothed crosscut saw plummeted like a guillotine from inside the overhanging eave and cut off the end of the stick as if it were a pencil. The whole infernal contraption – saw, metal latch, connecting ropes – came crashing down at my feet. Flat stones rigging the saw tumbled over the toecaps of my boots.’
Mad about nearly losing his fingers, Tom decided to burn the place down. The sight of a grizzly bear watching him from the trees made him forget about that and run for his rifle instead. The bear turned tail but by now Tom’s confidence was shot to hell. Two lucky escapes in a matter of a few minutes! He broke down in great sobs, his head in his hands, saying that he felt like a kid ‘in a man’s world’, and that loneliness was getting to him.
The stifling heat was also something he had to deal with, and I could associate with that. The relentless, glaring sun beat down on him almost from dawn till dusk as he continued to paddle upriver, day after exhausting day, to Logan’s cabin, which lay on a tributary off the main river. From there, it would be a short paddle across to the far bank, followed by several hours of hiking to the meteorite, and ‘to whatever still remains of Edgar Vernon’s body.’
Eventually, Irwin reached Logan’s cabin. The next morning he packed his dynamite and Colt pistol into his backpack or ‘haversack’ and paddled across the river. After a long hike in the hot sun, he arrived at the meteorite in late afternoon.
The smell led him to Edgar Vernon’s decomposed corpse. After two hours of hard digging, Irwin got it buried and turned his attention to the meteorite.
Everything was deathly quiet. There wasn’t even a bird singing. Every few minutes he got up, shuffled his feet, and sat down again, ‘procrastinating like a frightened schoolboy.’ Something still held him back. The gold seams drew him relentlessly to the rock, but he was also ‘strangely repulsed by it.’
With the light fading and darkness due soon, Tom cautiously approached the rock. Halfway there, he almost tripped over a large, dark object lying on the ground. To his great shock and surprise, it was another dead body.
Apart from a loincloth, the corpse was naked and, judging by the colour and markings on the skin, was what Irwin called ‘an Indian’ and we call First Nations. The body lay at an odd, hunched up angle with shoulders on the ground and butt sticking up in the air. Flies crawled over the shiny skin and, of course, the decomposing flesh stank in the heat. It lay in a pool of thick, dried blood, and there were long, deep cuts on the thighs and back.
The strange kneeling posture, as if the man had been worshipping the meteorite, puzzled Tom and he decided to roll the body over. Holding his breath, he straddled the corpse, grabbed the waist on either side, and pulled until it fell over sideways onto its back. Only then did Tom see the truth and jumped back, shocked.
The corpse was headless. The neck had been crudely hacked, and worms were crawling around in the horribly exposed flesh. The head itself was gone.
Tom drew his revolver and stepped closer to the rock. ‘Now I could clearly see the bulging
veins, gleaming, almost pulsing, in the angled evening light. I intended to go around it, inspect it from all sides, and find the best places to position the dynamite. With any luck, there would be some cracks and crevices, and I wouldn’t need to dig and hammer. The quicker this accursed thing was blown to pieces, the better. Once that was done, I could come back over several days and chisel out the yellow seams. Or, if the blasting didn’t go well, I wouldn’t come back at all.’
Carrying the pistol down by his side, he went around to the back of the meteorite and got another shock.
‘High up at the back of the boulder sat the severed head of the dead Indian. The neck bulged at the bottom, stuck tight to the rough stone surface. The head faced outward, like a stone gargoyle on an old church. Thank God, the eyelids were closed. I wanted to look away but found myself in thrall to this ghoulish spectacle. The hideous head cast a hypnotic hold over me that I can’t explain. All I know is that I had one overwhelming thought and desire; I must get close to it.’
By now Tom Irwin had fallen under the rock’s power. ‘With my gaze fixed on the head, I stepped forward, repulsed yet inexorably drawn. I stood directly in front of it and stared up, examining every inch of the gruesome sight. It was the head of an Indian man in the prime of his life, thirty to forty years old. His expression was proud and haughty even in death and I thought he must have been a tribal leader. What shocking fate had ended his life and caused his head to rest high up on this alien rock? And why had the head not been scavenged and eaten by birds, and decomposed in the heat of the day? Why were there no flies circling around it, crawling over it even now?’
And then the freakiest thing of all happened.
‘Nothing stirred in the forest, no bird or other animal, as I stood staring at the head. In the unnatural silence a breeze moved over the meteorite and stirred the hair atop the Indian’s scalp. His long, trailing black locks wafted across the smooth, olive forehead. It was the face of a savage warrior, and all of a sudden I seemed to hear his low, guttural voice speaking to me inside my head. First the words came to me in his native tongue then, inexplicably, in English.’
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