The Golden Age of Weird Fiction Megapack, Volume 5

by David H. Keller

  October of that first year of private practice was more than unprofitable. Oh yes, I had callers at the office and I made calls. But such callers! Once a boy came in with a dozen four ounce bottles which he wanted me to buy for five cents each. He seemed familiar and I asked his name which he said was Miller. I refused to make the purchase, reminding him that I had furnished those bottles full of medicine to his father, Ruben Miller, and had not received a cent of pay. But the boy refused to yield the basket and said he would walk to Rounsville and sell them to Dr. Vermile. Twenty miles for sixty cents!

  A bit later one of the Holt girls came in, a poor little thing with a twisted face and a crippled leg. She had been saving the lining of chicken gizzards as someone had told her I would pay two cents each for them. I gave her a quarter for her imagined treasures and she left with a smile on her tiny twisted face.

  An early frost had sent the brown and crimson leaves falling in deep wind drifts on the sodden ground. The roads were heavy with slick, grease-like mud. Only a few miles of driving was sufficient to completely cover the cart with dirty yellow clay. It was not clean, healthy mud; it had an unhappy, sickly feel as it hit the flesh and dropped off: I learned to hate that mud; yet I knew it made it easier riding than after it had frozen into deep ruts.

  Every day I hitched up and went for a drive both to exercise the horse and to make the neighbors believe that I had patients to care for. On one of those imaginary calls I had my first meeting with “The Miller Girl.” I had heard much of her and her ethereal beauty but had never had chanced to meet her.

  It was past five in the afternoon and the sun was edging toward the floor of the valley, flooding the sky with crimson and orange splendor. I had passed the old stone cider mill and was dreamily debating what I should cook for supper when my horse shied and almost overturned the cart. From the scrub beside the road came a scornful laugh—then into the very middle of the road stepped the Miller girl. No mistaking her, once you had seen her. A she devil from Hell, the other women called her, but if thus Hell be populated why strive for Heaven? She was beautiful from the ends of her windblown chestnut hair to the tips of her toes, protruding from waterlogged, rotting shoes. Just once I looked at her and wondered why she had remained a maid so long. I said as much to her.

  “’Twas worth being put into the ditch to meet you, Aline Miller.”

  “You’re the new doctor?”

  “Correct. Where have you been all these six months that I’ve been here without a glimpse of you?”

  “I’ve been down to Walden—out to service.”

  “And you came back unmarried?”

  She laughed bitterly, cynically, with a twist to her lips.

  “Those who would have me I want not and those I would have I cannot. I went away to get rid of that pestering Ethan Holt. Know him? The old fitting fool! The nerve of him to think he could ever marry me! He gave me no peace but I’m not afraid of him now. I can go and come when I like, here or there. I don’t need to be afraid of him anymore—the fitting fool!”

  She flung her beautiful hair from across her face and strode past me down the road, my horse quivering and rearing as if in fear as she passed him.

  “A wild woman,” I mused to myself. “A wild woman and none too good. Even if Holt is an epileptic she should know better than to call him a ‘fitting fool.’ But she is beautiful! I don’t blame him for wanting her though. The Holts and the Millers! Wonder what imps of Hell bred that spawn? Which family is the more degenerate? One family produces a woman with the body of Venus and the other a man with the face of a bull and the mind of a demon.”

  I drove on and almost immediately the Holt boy stepped from the roadside brush. He had the shoulders of a giant, the legs of a cripple and the forehead of a bull. I never saw such frontal bosses; enormous overgrowth of bone that made his eyes appear to shine in dark recesses of forehead. For some reason he liked me. He always wanted to stop and talk whenever we met on the road. He came and leaned against the top of the cart wheel.

  “The Miller girl is back, Doc,” he said. On his face was the look of an animal in intense pain.

  “I know. I just met her a piece back on the road.”

  “Did she—did she say anything—‘bout me, Doc?”

  “Yes. Said you wanted to marry her. Do you?”

  “I do Doc, but she don’t like me. Not at all. Know what she calls me? ‘A fitting fool’. That ain’t right, Doc, for ’taint my fault about the fits and I would be kind to her, if she wedded with me.”

  “I believe you, Ethan.”

  “Would you talk to her about me, Doc? Tell her you know I’d treat her gentle like?”

  “It wouldn’t do any good, Ethan, my boy. She is set against you.”

  “Is she ’feard of—me?”‘

  “She said she used to be, but not now.”

  “She better be! I could break her in two, just as easy as this,” closing his great hands over her imaginary body he made a breaking motion, then spread his huge fists as if dropping something to the ground.

  “You wouldn’t hurt her if you loved her. Anyway, she is not afraid. She told me so.”

  I left him standing in the mud and drove off with misgiving in my heart. As I passed the blacksmith shop I decided to pause for a moment’s conversation with the smithy. He was well educated and I enjoyed him. Seeing me he threw down his hammer and came out to the cart.

  “How’s business, Doc?” he asked.

  “Like the weather, rotten. I just met the Miller girl.”‘

  “Better watch out. She has a peculiar reputation.”

  “For what?”

  “You’ll think I’m simple minded.”

  “Go on, tell me. How can a man be simple minded when he can read Dante in the original Italian.”

  “All right, you are asking and I am answering: Every generation of Millers breeds one who is in covenant with the Devil. Now you know the answer.”

  “You mean she is a witch?”

  “Call her anything you wish but that is what I mean.”

  I had thought to argue with him, changed my mind, paid him a dollar I owed him and invited him over that night for a game of chess.

  Bedding my horse mechanically I was tormented by what the smithy had said. For a few moments while waiting for the house to get a bit warmer I cursed my loneliness. But the thought of the folly of the Holt boy in wanting to marry that wonderfully beautiful Miller girl crowded always to the front. Dress her in becoming mode and give her the opportunity she would make any man a splendid wife, I was sure. It must have been that I even dreamed of holding her in my arms that night for I was calling her name when daybreak came. A heavy pounding on my door brought me back to reality. The little crippled Holt girl was there, shivering in the cold. She asked would I please come and see her brother Ethan. Before we started out into the cold I gave her breakfast and coffee. Holding the reins with one hand I held her, wrapped in a blanket, close to me on the cart seat. It was a long, slow ride, through the frozen mud, till we slid down through the woods to the Holt farm.

  My first look at the boy convinced me that he had had a series of convulsions, real Status Epilepicus. He was now in a stupor, his open mouth and protruding, lacerated tongue, showing how badly he had bitten himself during the convulsions. The bloody foam had dried on his cheeks and chin. Picking up a hand to feel the pulse I found the palm covered with mud. The other hand was soiled likewise and, blankets off, I found the feet and legs muddy, the dirt dried clear to the knees. Wishing to listen to his heart, I opened his shirt, and discovered his body bloodstained, on either side a number of punctate wounds, like stabs with a small dagger.

  “Where was he all night?” I asked his mother.

  She stared back at me, a sullen fright in her eyes.

  “Was he in bed?” I demanded.

  “He must ’ave been out wandering,” she replied at last.

  There was nothing to be gained in questioning her, so through elimination, stimulation an
d with the help of his iron constitution, I finally restored consciousness. He cried as he moved. Later he complained that every muscle hurt him. I washed his mouth out, painted his wounds with iodine, left some medicine and tossing his little sister a dime promised to return the next day.

  He did not wait for me to call on him but was waiting at my office bright and early. He brought with him eggs, two cocks and a jar of honey. At least he was appreciative; but he would not talk. He simply stated he could remember nothing of the night. I did not believe him but was sure he was evading the truth but did not have the heart to call him a liar. As he reached the office door he turned.

  “I ain’t afeard of that Miller girl, Doc,” he called.

  “That’s good, Ethan.”

  “She did me dirty, Doc. But I ain’t feared—I aim to tame her someday—dammer! I could near ’bout kill her only—I do love her, Doc.”

  “Poor fool!” I said to myself as he closed the door. “Poor fitting fool.”

  “For the next three days Lownsberry Corners was storm swept. No one sent for me and I was glad. I fed the horse and dozed by the fire. When the rains finally ceased I ventured out to the store for necessary provender and found the countryside more sodden and desolate than before—which had always seemed the ultimate.

  A few loungers were at the store gossiping about the trivial things that become so important when our lives are dreary.

  Someone made the statement that Ethan Holt had a new mare, and a wild One at that. This made me prick up my ears with interest. How did he ever pay for it? Or had he stolen it? It would not be the first time a horse thief had been traced to the Corners. But when Rubeo Miller came slouching in all talk ceased. Nobody liked him and all were more or less afraid of him because of his brawny muscles, his vicious tongue or both. He was in an ugly mood.

  “That slut of mine’s run off again!” he snarled.

  “Meaning Aline?” asked the storekeeper.

  “Who else?” Miller responded as he helped himself to the crackers. “Thinks she can come and go as she damned pleases. But this time when she comes back I’ll beat her ’til I kill her.”

  “Perhaps she run off with the Holt boy?” suggested a wit.

  “No. Hell No! She’s bad but she ain’t no fool. She wouldn’t trifle with that spawn of the Devil.”

  Ethan’s father, who had been sitting silent behind the stove, now jumped at Miller with an ax handle raised over his head, as if to brain Miller. We parted them but both men were ripe for murder. They hated one another bitterly and on the slightest provocation were at one another’s throat.

  Somehow I was relieved as I left the store and slushed my way through the muck to the blacksmith shop. I felt quite certain that if the girl had stayed at the Corners she would, eventually, have made a fool of me. Now I could put her out of my mind and—heart.

  There was excitement aplenty at the smithy shop. Ethan Holt had brought his new mare to be shod. It was the first shoeing and she fought furiously. A twister on her upper lip and one foot reefed up held her in the shop. Holt had put a bridle and cruel gag bit on her and when he jerked the reins blood spurted from her opened mouth. She was a beautiful creature, looked as though there was some Arabian blood, all glossy chestnut in color save a white star between her eyes.

  “Hurry up with it, Bill,” Holt yelled to the blacksmith. “Don’t take time to pound those shoes to fit. Put ’em on red hot and let ’em burn into place, but clinch the nails good and tight.”

  “That’s no way to shoe a horse for the first time, Ethan,” protested my friend. “She is a valuable animal. Might lame her if I hurry.”

  “Do as I tell you,” commanded the epileptic. “I am paying for this shoeing and it’s my horse. Damn her! I’ll break her if I have to kill her.”

  The smith did as Ethan commanded and put the shoes on almost white hot. The mare struggled until the sweat ran down her flanks, and when the nails went in she squealed, almost cried. I never heard a horse make a noise like that, but at last it was over. Ethan leaped into the saddle, the twister was taken off and, digging his spurs into her flanks, almost throwing her with the gagbit, they dashed out of the forge.

  William Jordan took off his apron and told his helper to go home as he was closing shop.

  “Come over and play chess tonight,” I suggested.

  “No thanks, Doc. There is a meeting at the church. Better come.”

  “I am not much interested, Jordan,” I replied, trying to make my refusal sound kindly. He took it seriously.

  “My boy, let me give you a word of advice. I have lived for many years in Lownsberry Corners. We have good people and bad. Much of the time it seems that the Devil is running things; but now and then the sun shines, and we know that God is in Heaven and all’s well with the world. If you live here, you have to be on one side or the other. You have to serve God or the Devil.”

  “You mean figuratively, Jordan?”

  “No, I mean actually. Take the Millers and the Holts. They have followed the Devil for many generations. Their ancestors were burned in Scotland for just that. Of course, we don’t burn witches here in Pennsylvania, but that does not mean they do not exist. I am convinced that the Miller girl is in covenant with the Evil One. When she leaves here she says she has been to Walden, but I fear it is in Hell that she vacations.”

  I laughed at that as I rather scornfully said:

  “There are no more witches, Jordan.”

  “You mean you think there are no more witches.”

  “That is what I mean.

  “Thinking don’t make it so, Doc.”

  And thus we parted.

  Back, in my house I could not keep from thinking of that mare and how cruelly she had been treated. The memory of her burning hooves made me sick. Finally I could restrain my desires no longer. Opening my old trunk I counted out one hundred dollars, precious coin!—and lantern in hand started for the Holt farm, slip-sliding through the mud for I would not drive, risking the laming of my horse, unless necessary. It was a long two hour walk and as I approached the house I saw it was unusually lit up and, as I came nearer, I heard the wailing of a woman. Once inside the kitchen the cause of the keening was soon disclosed.

  Mrs. Holt took my hand and led me into one of the bedrooms—pleading with me to do the best I could. But there was nothing I could do; the boy was dead. He had had a fight with the mare—his last fight. She had squeezed him against the side of the stall until he fell, breathless, and then she had stamped him into a horrible jelly. Those new shoes he had burned into her hooves had put him beyond all recurring fits. The women were weeping loudly but his father stood stiff and still with a rifle cradled in the crook of his arm. Seeing that and understanding, I spoke before he could.

  “After this you won’t want to keep the mare, Mr. Holt. This is a bad business. You will need some ready cash, right now, so here is one hundred dollars, if you will sell me the mare.”

  I held out the money. He stared at it; the women ceased to wail and looked at the bills. But he held to his rifle.

  “I aim to kill that mare!” he snarled.

  Putting the money into his hand I took the lantern and left the house. When he did not follow me I knew that I had bought the mare. And I had a horse already.

  The mare pricked her ears when she heard me enter the stable but there was no fight left in her. Tying a halter rope around her neck I turned her in the stall and led her to the road where we began our two hour trudge toward home.

  Suddenly the clouds disappeared as if by magic from the sky, leaving a full golden moon-ball against a strange, translucent blue ceiling seemingly trying to bathe this desolate part of the earth in loveliness and beauty.

  When we came to the watering trough, a half cider barrel, rotted and splintery on the outside and moss grown within, with the moon mirrored in the smooth water, the mare stepped eagerly toward it. Any horse lover could tell she was burned dry thirsty. She made a sorry attempt to drink with the gagbit in her m
outh—so I slipped the bridle off.

  The mare drank and drank as if she could never slake her thirst, then suddenly, like lightning, she lunged to the left of me, and tearing the halter rope from my hand, dashed down the moon shadow streaked road.

  I stood staring vacantly at the bridle—a hundred dollars thrown away, for I was sure I would never see the mare again. “A fool and his money,” I thought, resuming the trek home in bitter anger, shame and remorse. It would have been better for Holt to have shot the beast. A life for a life—well, at least it was even. He had lost his son and I had lost a horse. But I had a bridle.

  At last comfortable in slippers and robe I examined the piece of harness most carefully under the oil lamp. It was a very peculiar bridle and the bit, highly polished, showed not a sign of rust. The whole thing exuded a strange odor, like something dead, but unlike any old leather I had ever handled. The reins were ornamented with many small silver studs and two larger studs, set with red stones. I was puzzled and determined to show it to the blacksmith the first thing in the morning, for he was an expert in harness and leathers.

  Daylight, however, brought an urgent call. Unfortunately it was the Miller family, and so far, they had not paid even a penny on a very large bill. But when the boy told me that his sister had come home and was badly hurt, so they all feared she would die, I had to go, pay or no. With out waiting for breakfast I hitched the horse to the cart and drove through the splashing mud with the white faced boy hanging to the seat as best he could as we slued and slid down the gummy road. I was shocked at what I saw inside the Miller house.

  The Miller girl had indeed come home but where had she been? The self-confident, unafraid beauty of a few days previously was now a pitiful human wreck, burning with fever. Her lips were torn; her tongue parched and bleeding. I picked up one hand and saw that the palm was seared, deeply, in a semicircle, and there was dried blood on the hand. It was very hard to even imagine what had happened but around the girl’s neck was a halter rope. I was thinking fast and in another minute I might have found the answer to the mystery, but in that minute Ruben Miller entered the room, cursing and striking at the women folk who tried to hold him.