"Oh, God—great gitche Manitou—Spirits of the Lake—" she'd prayed, "—punish—punish—punish—"
T TP THE rough path from the water's ^ edge toiled the grim little cortege Roger Benton had been dreading for a week. He watched the two approaching Indians and thev grisly burden from his bedroom window, then steeled his nerves for the inevitable knock upon his door. When it came, he almost screeched his answer.
The voice of Nahma, the old squaw who Bernice had engaged as housekeeper, replied, "Men of my tribe—they find Missis."
He quavered. "I'll be down."
How he managed to descend the stairs (o the living room, he didn't know, nor how he forced his rebellious eyes to focus themselves on the horror before him. But he did manage, somehow.
His gaze took in the sodden divan, on which they'd placed her, huge spots of lake water darkening the upholster}-; the dripping figure with gaping mouth and wide eyes staring out of a pulpy mask the weeds and moss that trailed from the streaming hair to the rug below.
And, in a corner of his chaotic mind a thought intruded that some element was missing from the scene. He searched for it vaguely.
It was the brisk little county coroner who, later that day, found it for him.
Wagging his head sympathetically as lie prepared to leave after completion of his professional duties, "Folks round here were mighty shocked when they heard 'bout your accident on th' lake an' Mrs. Benton's drownin'. "Course, we haven't known your wife long; but everyone who met her thought she was a mighty fine lady —th' Injuns especially." He paused, and looked thoughtfully at the floor. "Funny thing bout the slime, ain't it?"
THE SPIRITS OF THE LAKE
33
Something clicked in Roger Benton's brain. "Slime?"'
The little man nodded. "You know, the slime that covers the whole lake this time o' year. There wasn't none on her. The body should've been covered with it, by rights, after bein' over a week in th' water. Don't seem natteral like, does it?" He grinned rather sheepishly. " 'Course, I don't hold with what them Injuns says 'bout it."
With an effort the other murmured, "What do they say about it?"
"Some heathen stuff 'bout th' d'ceased* bein' a friend of the lake sperits, an' them savin' her from th' deefilement o' th' slime." He chuckled. "What stuff them dumb savages do think up!"
Roger Benton didn't answer. He sat very still, listening to the chant that drummed against his ears through the open window.
II
AS HE paddled evenly through the water the copper-skinned boatman rested a stolid gaze upon the back of the cringing figure who sat in the center of his canoe.
A very different look burned from the eyes of the expensively dressed blonde woman who reclined beside the cringing figure—a look of disgust and contempt which soon took form in rancid words; "If you could only see yourself!" she sneered. "You're white as a sheet and trembling like a frightened dog."
Benton turned bloodshot, pleading eyes upon her. "Won't you change your mind, Hilda? Please tell him to take us back."
"When we're nearly there?'' Her jaw set grimly. "Not much I won't! It's taken me two years to get you this far—and now you're going the rest of the way; you won't cheat me any longer out of the pleasure of
swelling it over my old neighbors in that swanky island bungalow."
He stretched a quivering hand toward her, "Hilda, I'll buy you a nicer place. I'll buy you anything you like, if you won't make me go back there."
She knocked his hand aside roughly. "You could buy me the most expensive mansion on Fifth Avenue and it wouldn't give me the kick of living on that island across from Paw's farm where I used to be so poor."
A flash of forgotten spirit was in his voice as he leaned toward her out of earshot of the oarsman: "Haven't you done enough to me already? Have you forgotten the reason you're not poor now is that you made me commit a murder you had planned?"
"Shut up, you fool!" she hissed through clenched teeth, "And get this through your head, once and for all: 7 planned nothing—/ knew nothing— I did nothing! And you or nobody else can prove otherwise!"
The canoe slid to a stop upon the island shore. "We're here. Get up and help me out," she commanded.
For a long moment he remained motionless, glaring at her with a burning hatred. Under her own steady stare, his gaze wavered, dropped. When he raised it again it was a vacant, hopeless thing.
As his wife picked a fastidious way through the shells and weed that covered the shore, old Nahma waddled down the h'ily path toward them. Hilda peered past her at the coveted bungalow. Satisfied with what she saw she turned patronizingly to the squaw.
"Well old woman looks from here like you've taken pretty good care of things." Nahma returned an impassive nod then gazed silently into her eyes. Hilda felt vaguely uncomfortable and abruptly ordered:
"I want you to go back to the mainland
WEIRD TALES
with Two Horses." She indicated the Indian who had brought them. "You can help him bring back our baggage." With a grunt Nahma swung herself into the canoe and followed the two with her beady eyes as they mounted the path to the house.
Roger Benton reached the porch steps, stumbled as he mounted them, and was curbed for his clumsiness. As Hilda opened the door, a sudden swell of sound smote his ears. He raised his head quickly, like a startled animal.
The tribesmen had begun their yearly chant across the lake.
Hilda chuckled dryly, "You've heard that before. This is the singing season for these fools."
"Yes—" he muttered, "it's the 'Moon of Falling Leaves—of dying things'." Then he fell groveling at her feet. "I can't go in that house," he sobbed, "I've got to leave this island! I'm afraid here—I'm afraidr
She swung the door open, pushed him inside and down on the nearest chair. Then she cursed, sneered, threatened and cajoled until his hysteria had spent itself. When his sobs of unreasoning terror ceased, she thrust a flask of whiskey in his hand and told him, "I'm going to have a look through the house and make sure that squaw's taken care of things. You stay quiet here till I come back and,"—with a sneer—"don't let that conscience of yours get going again."
The chant from across the lake beat monotonously against his ears. After awhile he became aware of another sound—a dry little rasping that seemed somehow familiar, native to the place. He found a kind of peace in the strangely wonted sound— until his mind snapped open and he realized what it was.
It was an invalid's rasping cough.
His scream brought Hilda down the stairs almost instantly.
Voice .breaking to treble pitch in his terror, he indicated the closed door that led to the living room, "I heard Bernice coughing—in /here!"
She slammed him back into the chair. "You've got her on your brain, that's all."
"No—no," he whispered. "I heard her, I tell you!"' He stiffened, sat upright.
Behind that closed door something had coughed again. Hilda wheeled, a light of bewilderment in her face. "Say, I heard something that time!" She strode purposefully to the door.
He found her laughing. -"Absolutely empty—not a soul here but ourselves." Then both heard the cough again.
rle stood as if frozen she, puzzled. "Funny—we both hear it, yet this room is empty. Oh—!" impatiently, she threw off the unaccustomed fear that strove to grip her—"You've got me imagining things now, that's the whole answer."
Neither spoke for a full minute. Both stood tense. Listening. Waiting. Finally, Hilda shivered slightly. "Must be going to rain," she muttered, "feel how damp it's grown suddenly?"
"Yes," he quavered, "very damp—suddenly." She followed his gaze, riveted to a spot on the floor.
"Where did that come from? A minute ago this room was as neat as a pin. What is it?"
He mumbled thickly, his hands shaking: "It's slime—green slime, from the bottom of the lake."
"That squaw didn't clean—"
He interrupted her, "It wasn't there a minute ago. You said that your
self."
"I must have overlooked it!" Her voice was wavering, uncertain now. "There's another—and another, right on the divan!"
"Yes! And there—and there—"
All over the room began to appear patch after patch of the filthy slime forming silently under their horrified eyes. As they
THE SPIRITS OF THE LAKE
35
stared, the patch on the divan spread— grew till it almost covered the cushions.
He gibbered, pointing a shaking finger at it. "That's where they laid her, after—"
She turned on him savagely. "If you don't stop that, I'll brain you! There's a natural explanation for this. Ugh!" She broke oif, revulsed, as she felt the cold spat of the green stuff on her hand.
"The room is full of it," he shrieked. "It's from the lake! From the Spirits of the Lake she prayed to punish me! I knew they would if I came back here!"
"They have nothing against me —1 had nothing to do with—!" She was interrupted by his scream of terror. Her eyes followed his, and stark panic fell upon her.
On the sodden divan lay a dripping figure with wisps of weed and moss hanging from its matted hair.
An instant later they were racing madly down the wet, crumbling path to the beach and a canoe. From the sky above them, from trees, bushes, even rocks it seemed, sprang the clammy, fetid slime, hurling itself into their faces, raising their gorge with its noxious odor, chilling their hearts with each wet impact.
Suddenly, the man stopped short. The woman ran on, screamed back at him to follow.
"No!" he sobbed. "Nut out on that lake. Canli you see that's what it wants— to get us on the water! 3 '
Apparently she did not hear him for she continued to call on him to follow. She reached the canoe, clambered in, and beckoned to him wildly. All at once her voice soared frantically higher. She pointed.
"Look behind you!"
He pivoted, saw the grisly specter of the drowned Bernice, its dripping arms outstretched. He floundered down the path, fell into the canoe, and grasped the paddle Hilda pressed into his hands. With the strength of despair he propelled the frail shell into the lake. After a dozen strokes,
he turned to glimpse the misty figure, standing at the marge; still with arms outstretched.
A moment later the paddle broke.
He sat staring at the pieces. Then "Worms" he mumbled. "It was eaten through by worms—worms from the lake."
"We're drifting—drifting toward the rocks!" The woman strove to waken him, to stir him to action. "DO something. We'll be killed!"
He shook his head. The canoe wasn't drifting—some force, powerful, utterly irresistible, was drawing them along!
The woman screeched, "The rocks!— we're going to -strike!"
He nodded slowly. A terrible quiet descended upon him; the quiet of the long-condemned. Slowly he said, as though repeating a. lesson from memory, "The Indians call these rocks the Spirit's Talons — the road to death leads over rocks like those—only the Good can keep their footing-—the Bad fall off into an abyss of eternal torment."
"They won't harm ME!" Hilda shouted. 'Tm going to swim—swim to safety."
He raised a deterring hand, "It's no use to try. The Spirits of the Lake will punish—as she said they would."
Sl*e shook him off, plunged into the foaming water. He quietly watched her useless struggles as the canoe bore ever faster toward the rocks.
Nahma, the old Indian woman, found their bodies days later where the lake had cast them out. The green slime which had long since disappeared from the surface of the waters, its season past, sheathed Hilda and Roger Benton in its viscous embrace. She looked for a time out of her expressionless dark face at the grisly sight, then waddled heavily away.
On the other side of the island that night, she and Two Horses each flung a handful of late garden flowers on the quiet bosom of the lake.
Uhe
K
erewolf Howls
BY CLIFFORD BALL
The men who were watting for thai wolf had silver bullets in their muskets.
TWILIGHT had come upon the slopes of die vineyards, and a gentle, caressing breeze drifted through the open casement to stir into further disorder the papers upon the desk where Monsieur Etienne Delacroix was diligently applying himself. He raised his leonine bead, the hair of which had in his later years turned to gray, and stared vacantly from beneath bushy brows at the formation of a wind-driven cloud as if he thought that the passive elements of the heavens could, if they so desired, aid him in some momentous decision.
There was a light but firm tap on the door which led to the hall of the chateau. Monsieur Delacroix blinked as his thoughts were dispersed and, in some haste, gathered various documents together and thrust them into the maw of a large envelope before bidding the knocker to enter.
Pierre, his eldest son, came quietly into the room. The father felt a touch of the pride he could never quite subdue when Pierre approached, for he had a great faith in his son's probity, as well as an admiration for the straight carriage and clear eye He, at his own age, could no longer achieve. Of late he had been resting a great many 'matters pertaining to the management of the Chateau Dore and the business of its vineyards, which supported the estate, on the broad shoulders poised before him.
But Etienne Delacroix had been born in a strict household and his habits fashioned in a stern school, and was the lineal
descendant of ancestors who had planted their peasant's feet, reverently but independently, deep into the soil of France; so visible emotions were to him a betrayal of weakness. There was no trace of the deep regard he felt for his son evident when he addressed the younger man.
"Where are your brothers? Did I not ask you to return with them?''
"They are here, Father. I entered first, to be certain that you were ready to receive us."
"Bid them enter."
Jacques and Francois came in to stand with their elder brother and were careful to remain a few inches in his tear; he was the acknowledged spokesman. Their greetings were spoken simultaneously; Jacques' voice breaking off on a high note which caused him obvious embarrassment, for he was adolescent. Together, thought Monsieur Delacroix, they represented three important steps in his life, three payments on account to posterity. He was glad his issue had all been males; since the early death of his wife he had neither cared for any woman nor taken interest in anything feminine.
"I have here, my son, some papers of importance," he announced, addressing Pierre. "As you observe, I am placing them here where you may easily obtain them in the event of my absence." Suiting the action to the word, he removed the bulky envelope to a drawer in the desk and turned its key, allowing the tiny piece of metal to remain in its lock. "I am grow-
"He flung back his head — whimpering,"
ing older"—his fierce, challenging eyes swept the trio as if he dared a possible contradiction—"and it is best that you are aware of these accounts, which are relative to the business of the chateau,"
"Non, nonl" chorused all three. "You are as young as ever, papa!"
"Sacre blue! Do you name me a liar, my children? Attend, Pierre!"
"Yes, papa."
"I have work for you this night."
The elder son's forehead wrinkled. "But the work; it is over. Our tasks are completed. The workers have been checked, the last cart is in the shed "
"This is a special task, one which requires the utmost diligence of you all. It is of the wolf."
"The werewolf!" exclaimed , Jacques, crossing himself.
WEIRD TALES
THE other brothers remained silent, but mingled expressions of wonder and dislike passed across their features. Ever since the coming of the wolf the topic of its depredations had been an unwelcome one in the household of the Chateau Dore.
"Mov Dieu, Jacques!" exploded the head of the house. "Have you, too, been listening to the old wives' tales? Must you be such an imbecile, and I your father? Rubbish! There can be no werewolves; has not
the most excellent Father Cromecq flouted such stones ten thousand times? It is a common wolf; a large one, true, but nevertheless a common mongrel, a beast from the distant mountain. Of its ferocity we are unfortunately well aware; so it must be dispatched with the utmost alacrity."
"But, the workers say, papa, that there have been no wolves in the fields for more than a hundred "
''Pesle! The ever verbose workers! The animal is patently a vagrant, a stray beast driven from the mountains by the lash of its hunger. And I, Etienne Delacroix, have pronounced that it must die!"
The father passed a heavy hand across his forehead, for he was weary from his unaccustomed labor over the accounts. His hands trembled slightly, the result of an old nervous disorder. The fingers were thick, and blunt from the hardy toil of earlier years; the blue veins were still corded from the strength which he had once possessed.
"It is well," said Pierre in his own level tones. "Since the wolf came upon and destroyed poor little Marguerite D'Es-tourie, tearing her throat to shreds, and the gendarmes who almost cornered it were unable to slap it because they could not shoot straight, and it persists in "
"It slashed the shoulder of old Gavroche who is so feeble he cannot walk without two canes!" interrupted Francois, excitedly.
" ravaging our ewes," concluded
the single-minded Pierre, who was not to
be side-tracked once he had chosen his way, whether in speech or action. "The damage to our flocks has been great, papa. It is just that we should take action, since the police have failed. I have thought this wolf strange, too, although I place no faith in demons. If it but seeks food, why must it slay so wantonly and feed so little? It is indeed like a great, gray demon in appearance. Twice have I viewed it, leaping ' across the meadows in the moonlight, its long, gray legs hurling it an unbelievable distance at every bound. And Marie Poly-dore, of the kitchens, found its tracks only yesterday at the very gates of the chateau!"
Weird Tales volume 36 number 02 Page 6
