by Otto Penzler
He did a ghastly, unbelievable thing. I cannot tell it. But when his hand came away her words were meaningless, gurgling—the raucous croaking of a person who has no tongue.
Forgetting what I had before experienced, frenzied with horror at what Plone had done, I leaped into the dry stream and ran forward—to bring up short in the middle of the sandy open space.
For I was all alone—no Hildreth, the tongueless—no Plone with the calloused hands! Once more an hallucination had betrayed me.
Screaming in fear I sprang out of the stream-bed and rushed to the cabin, crashing against the door in my frenzy, with all my weight.
The door did not open. Rather it bellied inward, slightly, as though someone held against my efforts inside!
Who, or what, was inside?
Too late, now, I guessed what the wraith of Hildreth had tried to tell me. Going back in my memory I watched her lips move again. And as they moved I read the words she would have uttered. As plain as though she had spoken I now understood the warning.
“As you value the reason God has given you—do not leave this cabin tonight!”
I understood now, as, panting with my exertions, I pressed my weight against the door that would not give—except slightly.
For from inside the log cabin, faint as the sighing of a spring zephyr, came the faintest sound as of someone breathing!
What was coming to me out of the night? That against which the wraith of Hildreth had tried to warn me?
My eyes must have been very wide, had there been anyone to see. My body chilled with fear—afraid to force in the door and see what it was inside that breathed expectantly—afraid to face about and keep my eyes upon the stream-bed where I had seen Hildreth battle for her life against her spouse.
Choosing between the two fears as a desperate person chooses between two evils, I turned with my back against the jamb of the door and stared toward the dry stream.
At once there came to me the odor of burning tobacco! Someone was near me, someone who smoked; but who it was there was no way for me to learn. The door behind me shook slightly, so I darted to the corner of the cabin where I could see both the dry stream and the door.
Silence for many minutes, during which I would have welcomed the eery wailing of the bobcats on the shell-rock.
Then the door of my cabin opened and out walked a stranger! He was dressed very much as had been the man whom I had seen fall before the murderous rifle of Plone last night. But he was older, stooped slightly under the weight of years. I heard him sigh softly, as a man sighs whose stomach is comfortably filled with food.
He walked toward the stream-bed, following the path through the thicket. He had almost reached the lip of the dry stream when another figure followed him from the cabin—and that figure was Reuben, the malevolent son of Plone! Reuben, as his father had stalked that other unfortunate, stalked the stranger. More pungent now the odor of burning tobacco, though the stooped one was not smoking. The latter passed a clump of service berry bushes and paused on the lip of the dry stream. He had scarcely halted when, out of the clump of service berries, stepped Plone himself, moving stealthily, like a cat that stalks a helpless, unsuspecting bird!
The older man half turned as though he heard some slight sound, when Plone, with the silent fury of the bobcat making a kill, leaped upon his back and bore him to the ground, where the two of them, fighting and clawing, rolled into the sand below.
Plone was smoking an evil-smelling pipe.
Reuben began to run when his father closed with the stranger, and I was right at his heels when he leaped over the edge to stop beside the silent combatants. Then he bent to assist his father.
The end was speedy. For what chance has an aged man, taken by surprise, against two determined killers? They slew him there in the sand, while I, my limbs inert because of my fright, looked on, horror holding me mute when I would have screamed aloud.
Their bloody purpose accomplished, Reuben and Plone methodically began to turn the pockets of the dead man inside out. The contents of these they divided between themselves. This finished, in silence, the murderers, taking each an arm of the dead man, began to drag the body up the sandy stretch toward the end of the coulee—the closed end.
Still I stood, as one transfixed.
Then I became conscious of a low, heart-breaking sobbing at my side. Turning, I saw the figure of Hildreth standing there, tragedy easily readable in her eyes, wringing her hands as her eyes followed the pleading gesture, calling the two who dragged the body.
Then she began to follow them along the stream-bed, dodging from thicket to thicket on the bank as though she screened her movements from Plone and Reuben. I watched her until her wraithlike form blended with the shadows in the thickets and disappeared from view.
As I watched her go, and saw the figures of Plone and Reuben passing around a sharp bend in the dry stream, there came back to my memory a mental picture of a graveyard located in perpetual shadow, adorned with rotting crosses upon which no names were written. Slimy stones at the edge of a muddy pool populated by serpentine mud-puppies.
Turning then, I hurried back to the cabin, whose door now stood open—to pause as the threshold, staring in. At a table in the center of the room—a table loaded with things to eat, fresh and steaming from the stove—sat another stranger, this time a man dressed after the manner of city folk. His clothing bespoke wealth and refinement, while his manner of eating told that he was accustomed to choicer food than that of which necessity now compelled him to eat. Daintily he picked over the viands, sorting judiciously, while near the stove stood Hildreth, her eyes wide with fright and wordless entreaty.
Reuben stood in a darkened corner and his eyes never left the figure of the stranger at the table. As he stared at this one I saw his tongue come forth from his mouth and describe a circle, moistening his lips, anticipatory, like a cat that watches a saucer of cream.
Plone, too, was silently watching, standing just inside the door, with his back toward me. As I watched him he moved slightly, edging toward the table.
Then Plone was upon the stranger, a carving knife, snatched from the table, in his hand.
But why continue? I had seen this same scene, slightly varied, but a few minutes before, in the sand of the dry stream.
I watched them rifle the clothes of the dead man, stepped aside as they dragged the body forth and away, up the coulee. For where is the hand that can halt the passing of shadows?
For hours I watched, there beside the cabin, while Reuben and Plone carried forward their ghastly work. Many times during those hours did I see them make their kill. Ever it was Plone who commanded, ever it was Reuben who stood at his father’s side to assist. Ever it was Hildreth who raised her hand or her voice in protest.
Then, suddenly, she was back in the cabin with Reuben and Plone. She told the latter something, gesturing vehemently as she spoke. These gestures were simple, easy to understand. For she pointed back down the coulee, in the direction of Steamboat Rock. Somehow I knew that what she tried to tell him was that she had gone forth and told the authorities what he and Reuben had done. Plone’s face became black with wrath. Reuben’s turned to the pasty gray of fear which is unbounded. Both sprang to the door and stared down the coulee. Then Plone leaped back to Hildreth, striking her in the face. She fell to the floor, groveling. He dragged her into the trail, along it to the stream-bed.
There, while I watched, was repeated that terrible scene I had witnessed once before. The pleading of Hildreth, the motion before her face of Plone’s hand, crooked like a great talon. Then her gurgling scream which told that her mouth was empty of the tongue!
Reuben advanced to the lip of the dry stream as Plone fought with Reuben’s mother. He paid them no heed, however, but shaded his eyes with his hand as he gazed into the west in the direction of Steamboat Rock. Then he gestured excitedly to Plone, pointing down the coulee.
But Plone was all activity at once. With Reuben at his heels and Hildreth stum
bling farther in the rear, they rushed to the cabin and began to throw rough packs together, one each for Reuben and Plone.
But in the midst of their activities they paused and stared at the doorway where I stood. Then, slowly, though no one stood there except myself, they raised their hands above their heads, while Hildreth crouched in a corner, wild-eyed, whimpering.
Plone and Reuben suddenly lurched toward me, haltingly, as though propelled by invisible hands. Their hands were at their sides now as though bound there securely by ropes. Outside they came, walking oddly with their hands still at their sides.
They stopped beneath a tree which had one bare limb, high up from the ground—a strong limb, white as a ghost in the moonlight. Reuben and Plone looked upward at this limb, and both their faces were gray. Hildreth came out and stood near by, also looking up, wringing her hands, grief marring her face that might once have been beautiful.
Reuben and Plone looked at each other and nodded. Then they looked mutely at Hildreth, as though asking her forgiveness. After this they turned and nodded toward no one that I could see, as though they gestured to unseen hangmen.
I cried aloud, even though I had seen what was to come, as both Plone and Reuben sprang straight into the air to an unbelievable height, to pause midway to that bare limb; their necks twisted at odd angles, their bodies writhing grotesquely.
I watched until the writhing stopped, until the bodies merely swayed as though played upon by vagrant breezes sweeping in from the sandy dry stream.
Then, for the last time, I heard the piercing, wordless shriek of a tongueless woman. I swerved to look for Hildreth, and saw a misty, wraithlike shadow disappear among the willows, flashing swiftly out of sight up the coulee.
Hildreth had gone, and I was alone, swaying weakly, nauseated, staring crazily up to two bodies which oscillated as though played upon by vagrant breezes.
Then the bodies faded slowly away as my knees began to buckle under me. I sank to the ground before the cabin, and darkness descended once more.
When I regained consciousness I opened my eyes, expecting to see those swaying bodies in the air above me. There were no bodies. Then I noted that my wrists were close together, held in place by manacles of shining steel.
From the cabin behind me came the sound of voices—voices of men who talked as they ate—noisily. Behind the cabin I could hear the impatient stamping of horses.
I lay there dully, trying to understand it all.
Then two men came out of the cabin toward me. One of them chewed busily upon a bit of wood in lieu of a toothpick. Upon the mottled vest of this one glistened a star, emblem of the sheriff. The second man I knew to be his deputy.
“He’s awake, I see, Al,” said the first man as he looked at me.
“So I see,” said the man addressed as Al.
Then the sheriff bent over me.
“Ready to talk, young man?” he demanded.
It must have mystified this one greatly when I leaped suddenly to my feet and ran my hands over him swiftly. How could they guess what it meant to me to learn that these two were flesh and blood?
“Thank God!” I cried. Then I began to tremble so violently that the man called Al supported me with a burly arm about my shoulders. As he did so his eyes met those of the sheriff and a meaning glance passed between them.
The sheriff passed around the cabin, returning almost at once with three horses, saddled and bridled for the trail. The third horse was for me. Weakly, aided by Al, I mounted.
Then we clambered down into the dry stream and started toward Steamboat Rock.
I found my voice.
“For what am I wanted, Sheriff?” I asked.
“For burglarious entry, son,” he replied, not unkindly. “You went into a house in Palisades, while the owner and his wife were working in the fields, and stole every bit of food you could lay your hands on. There’s no use denying it, for we found the sack you brought it away in, right in that there cabin!”
“But Hildreth, the wife of Plone, gave me the food!” I cried. “I didn’t steal it!”
“Hildreth? Plone?” The sheriff fairly shouted the two names.
Then he turned and stared at his deputy—again that meaning exchange of glances. The sheriff regained control of himself.
“This Hildreth and Plone,” he began, hesitating strangely, “did they have a son, a half-grown boy?”
“Yes! Yes!” I cried eagerly. “The boy’s name was Reuben! He led me into Steamboat Coulee!”
Then I told them my story, from beginning to end, sparing none of the unbelievable details. When I had finished, the two of them turned in their saddles and looked back into the coulee, toward the now invisible log cabin we had left. The deputy shook his head, muttering, while the sheriff removed his hat and scratched his head. He spat judiciously into the sand of the dry stream before he spoke.
“Son,” he said finally, “if I didn’t know you was a stranger here I would swear that you was crazy as a loon. There ain’t a darn thing real that you saw or heard, except the rattlesnakes and the bobcats!”
I interrupted him eagerly.
“But what about Plone, Hildreth, and Reuben?”
“Plone and Reuben,” he replied, “were hanged fifteen years ago! Right beside that cabin where we found you! Hildreth went crazy and ran away into the coulee. She was never seen again.”
I waited, breathless, for the sheriff to continue.
“Plone and Reuben,” he went on, “were the real bogy men of this coulee in the early days. They lived in that log cabin. Reuben used to lure strangers in there, where the two of them murdered the wanderers and robbed their dead bodies, burying them afterward in a gruesome graveyard farther inside Steamboat Coulee. Hildreth, so the story goes, tried to prevent these murders; but was unable to do so. Finally she reported to the pioneer authorities—and Plone cut her tongue out as punishment for the betrayal. God knows how many unsuspecting travelers the two made away with before they were found out and strung up without trial!”
“But how about Plone’s farm in Moses Coulee, outside Steamboat, and the farmhouse where I met the family?”
“It’s mine,” replied the sheriff. “There’s never been a house on it to my knowledge. I foreclosed on it for the taxes, and the blasted land is so poor that even the rattlesnakes starve while they are crawling across it!”
“But I saw it as plainly as I see you!”
“But you’re a sick man, ain’t you? You never went near the place where you say the house was. We followed your footprints, and they left the main road at the foot of the Three Devils, from which they went straight as a die, to the mouth of Steamboat Coulee! They was easy to follow, and if I hadn’t had another case on I’d have picked you up before you ever could have reached the cabin!”
Would to God that he had! It would have saved me many a weird and terrifying nightmare in the nights which have followed.
There the matter ended—seemingly. The sheriff, not a bad fellow at all, put me in the way of work which, keeping me much in the open beneath God’s purifying sunshine, is slowly but surely mending my ravished lungs. After a while, there will come a day when I shall no longer be a sick man.
But often I raise my eyes from my work, allowing them to wander, against my will, in the direction of that shadow against the walls of Moses Coulee—that shadow out of which seems slowly to float the stony likeness of a steamboat under reduced power. And I wonder.
THE CONSIDERATE HOSTS
Thorp McClusky
THORP MCCLUSKY (1906–1975) enjoys a modest reputation as the author of about forty short stories for the pulps, mostly in the horror category, occasionally for the prestigious Weird Tales, though he also wrote westerns and mysteries. He studied music at Syracuse University but spent most of his life as a freelance writer in New Jersey. As is true for most journalists and fiction authors who don’t enjoy great success in a single literary genre or special field of expertise, McClusky wrote both fiction and nonfiction in w
ildly disparate areas. Among his best-known works are the serial Loot of Vampires, published in book form in 1975, and the frequently reprinted “The Crawling Horror” (1936). He used a variety of pseudonyms, including L. MacKay Phelps, Thorp McClosky, Otis Cameron, and Larry Freud.
Among his juveniles are Chuck Malloy Railroad Detective on the Streamliner (Big Little Book, 1938) and Calling W-1-X-Y-Z Jimmy Kean and the Radio Spies (Better Little Book, 1939). Most of his pulp fiction was published in the 1930s and 1940s, after which he mainly produced journalism for The Saturday Evening Post, Man’s Magazine, and others. His single nonfiction book was Your Health and Chiropractic (1957). He also served as the editor of Motor magazine.
If “The Considerate Hosts” is not his most anthologized work, then that honor must go to “While Zombies Walked” (1939), the uncredited inspiration for the B movie Revenge of the Zombies (1943) that starred John Carradine, Robert Lowery, Gale Storm, and Mantan Morland.
“The Considerate Hosts” was first published in the December 1939 issue of Weird Tales.
The Considerate Hosts
THORP MCCLUSKY
MIDNIGHT.
It was raining, abysmally. Not the kind of rain in which people sometimes fondly say they like to walk, but rain that was heavy and pitiless, like the rain that fell in France during the war. The road, unrolling slowly beneath Marvin’s headlights, glistened like the flank of a great blacksnake; almost Marvin expected it to writhe out from beneath the wheels of his car. Marvin’s small coupé was the only man-made thing that moved through the seething night.
Within the car, however, it was like a snug little cave. Marvin might almost have been in a theater, unconcernedly watching some somber drama in which he could revel without really being touched. His sensation was almost one of creepiness; it was incredible that he could be so close to the rain and still so warm and dry. He hoped devoutly that he would not have a flat tire on a night like this!
