Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1951

by The Haunts of Drowning Creek (v1. 1)

  “Wait a second. Jebs really has a hunch there ” mterposed Randy. “Jebs, do you remember that Treasure Island map? Think hard. How was it marked to show where the pirate gold was hidden?”

  Jebs pondered, frowning. “That’s not right clear m my mmd,” he said after a moment. “The main thing I remember is, they had to have a compass to locate it.”

  “Correct,} said Randy, suddenly emphatic. “There were two points from which they took bearings—laid out lines, by compass. And at the point where those lines crossed—”

  “That’s it!” cried Driscoll, excited in turn. “That’s what’s meant by the cross!”

  “We’re to set the cross by drawing two lines and seeing where they come together,” finished Randy.

  They looked at each other. Driscoll was jubilant, so was Randy. For once it was Jebs who spoke with pessimism.

  “Okay so far as we’ve gone. Now one of you master minds tell us where we start those two lines, and which way they run, and how do they cross each other.”

  “That’s what these two sets of opposites must mean,” said Randy, undashed by the problem. “From high to low, and from hot to cold.”

  “High to low,” repeated Jebs. “Hot to cold. What kind of fines are those? Excuse me for being just a cornbread-eating country boy, but I’m so stupid I figure we’re as bad off as we were when we started out.”

  “Hot and cold,” Driscoll was murmuring, slowly and thoughtfully. “Hot. Cold. Where’s hot and where’s cold?”

  “Maybe the North Pole and the Equator,” suggested Jebs with heavy irony. “Try them. There’s a nice long line to draw.”

  “I know,” said Randy suddenly, and sprang to his feet as though the inspiration came as an electric shock. The hot and cold points will be the hottest and coldest points right here on the spot. Now—out back—remember? We were talking about it. The old kitchen that they built as a separate little structure, because it would make the main house too hot in the summer time.”

  “That’s the honest truth,” said Jebs. “They could get up enough heat in a place like that to boil all the smoked meat in North Carolina.”

  “Well, that’s our hot point,” said Randy triumphantly.

  “If it is, I can give you all the cold point,” volunteered Jebs. “It’s that old well.” He wriggled at the memory. “I can still feel that icy air crawling up my back. It makes me shiver like a frog on a gig-fork.”

  Driscoll, too, had risen to his feet, and he grinned. “Hot kitchen, cold well!” he fairly whooped. “We draw a line from the kitchen to the well. Come on let’s do it.” ’

  They literally raced out over the scattered plaster into the hall, and back to where the rear door was fallen from its rust-eaten hinges. Through this they could look out upon the wreckage of the fallen gallery and the outdoor kitchen.

  “Now,” said Randy, “how would a line extend from the kitchen door through here, to the well where Jebs nearly drowned himself?”

  “The well’s just opposite that front corner,” Jebs told him, pointing. “You think I’ll-ever forget that?”

  “Wait here,” bade Driscoll, and paced back toward the front door, keeping his strides in as straight a line as possible. He looked out of the front door. “Jebs has it exactly,” he called. “From where I stand, I can see where that well is. A line drawn to the inside of the front corner next to those stairs will extend on to where the well is.”

  “Move to the corner, Driscoll,” called back Randy. “Jebs, stay here, and get in line with Driscoll and the kitchen door. That’s right. Now I’ll mark the line.”

  He picked up a bit of the fallen plaster. It was crumbly, and when pressed to the dark tiling of the floor it made a decidedly chalk-like mark. Randy moved slowly along at a crouch, running his improvised crayon along the floor, and he made a fairly straight line between Driscoll and Jebs.

  “And now,” he said, straightening up and stretching his cramped back muscles, “since this line lies most of the way inside the house itself, it ought to make the rest of the thing easy to dope out. ‘High and low will mean the highest and lowest points of the house itself.”

  You think so?” said Jebs, peering up the crazy- Iookmg stairs. “Then it’s going to be up there. We figured the house to be about twenty-eight feet tall, including that little bird-cage cupola up on the roof. The mid-point will be fourteen feet up from the’ floor. Who wants to be a brave volunteer and climb up there and fall through?”

  Driscoll, too, gazed up the stairs, guessing at distances. “That second floor landing is about ten feet up from here,” he said at last, “and fourteen feet would put the treasure point four feet higher.”

  All right, you master minds, reckon that one,” challenged Jebs. “Do we find the treasure where ’Zekiel saw the wheel, ‘way up in the middle of the air?’ Come on, give us a tell.”

  “I don’t think we’re considering the real low point of this house,” said Randy. “The floor isn’t at ground level. Listen.”

  He stamped his foot. “Listen to that boom under the tiles. There’s more than an air space below us. There’s a cellar of some kind.”

  ‘"Probably,” said Driscoll. “Well, let's not hem or haw this time. Let’s find the cellar and go down.” They poked into comers, into the large room they had visited before, and into two smaller ones behind it. Finally Jebs discovered the way to the cellar, a rickety door set in deep shadows under the stairs. Driscoll turned his torch upon it, and Randy turned the knob. It opened easily wLen he pushed.

  “Who’s going to follow me down?” asked Randy, trying to speak with cheerful courage as he gazed into darkness below, as dense as though the cellar were filled with tar.

  “Let me lead the way down with this flash,” offered Driscoll.

  “No, you stay here at the top and shine your light down so I can see the stairs,” said Randy. “I’ll get down to the bottom and hail you from there.”

  Jebs sniffed, crinkling his nose. “What’s that smell from down there in the depths?”

  “I don’t smell anvthing,” said Driscoll.

  “Well I do,” persisted Jebs. “It’s a kind of an oily smell of some sort.”

  “Maybe the treasure’s an oil well,” Randy managed to joke. “Give me plenty of light, Driscoll. Here I go.”

  The beam of the electric light showed that the steps leading down were cut out of stone, like the ones at the front of the house, and strongly mortared together. Randy, walking slowly down, felt little brush-like sensations along his back and shoulders, as though the fingers of fear were twitching at him, but he disdained to betray any such a feeling.

  “What do you find?” Driscoll was asking from above.

  “There seems to be a great big cellar here, and Jebs is right about that perfumery of oil in the air,” Randy yelled back. But I can’t see the bottom step. Hold on a moment.”

  He produced a match and struck it on the flagstones of the cellar wall. Shading it with his hand, he coaxed it into a full flame, then held it aloft like a tiny torch.

  ; There’s the bottom step,” he informed his friends, “and that makes eighteen steps in all. Come on down, this place looks big enough to hold a square dance. Nice and dry, all walled and floored with stone, and some stone pillars to prop up the house underneath—and there’s even furniture!”

  “Furniture?” echoed Driscoll, the flashlight bobbing in his hand as he and Jebs followed Randy down the stairs.

  “Yes, right here in the center of the place. A table and a bench, great big ones.”

  The furniture was massively and roughly built. The legs of both table and bench were lengths of stout sapling, with the bark still on, and the topping was of split slabs. On the table stood an old lantern. Crossing the stone-paved floor, Randy picked up the lantern and shook it. It gave forth a sloshing, liquid sound.

  “What do you know?” he said over his shoulder as Jebs and Driscoll reached the cellar floor behind him. “There’s oil in this, all right, and it smells as
if it’s been lighted recently.”

  “I told you all I smelled oil,” Jebs reminded them triumphantly.

  “But the size of the furniture!” said Randy. “Take a look at it. You’d think it was made for a giant.”

  He hoisted the glass chimney of the lantern and held the burned-down stub of his match to the wick. It readily kindled and cast new light into the previously shadow-filled space beyond the table.

  In that space something stirred, moved, rose. It seemed to hoist itself up from a crouching position, joint by massive joint, to a tremendous height.

  Randy, closest of the three to whatever it was, could see it plainly by the glow of the lantern he had just lighted. He made out an unthinkable immensity of shoulders, like the shoulders of some tremendous, living statue. Upon those shoulders was set a great shaggy head that seemed as large as a bushel basket, with big, burning eyes in the midst of its hairy face. And two hands, like spading forks, lifted themselves and spread their fingers.

  The height of the thing seemed to push up to the ancient joists of the cellar ceiling, its width seemed to reach from wall to wall. A mouth like a wolf trap moved open in the midst of a tangle of beard, and broad, blocky teeth gleamed in the lantern light. The monstrosity swayed forward.

  Randy found his voice.

  “Run!” he howled at the top of his lungs. “Turn around and run!”

  TEN

  Eeturn to Danger

  JEBS had paused on the lowest of the cellar steps, and Driscoll, just beyond, was standing on the cellar floor. Randy’s wild yell of warning acted upon them like the starter’s pistol at a foot race. They spun on their heels, as if they were tops whipped by strings, and ran.

  Jebs, shorter and heavier than Driscoll, was yet capable of a swift sprint. His powerful young legs carried him up those eighteen stone steps in tremendous upward lunges. As he sprang through the upper door he whirled away and around in the opposite direction, and ran toward the front of the house. From the threshold of the open front door he fairly sailed out among the wreckage of the porch and then into the overgrown yard. As he fled, trees seemed to rush at him from in front, like tacklers on a football field; and, like a broken-field runner with the ball, he broke left, then right, avoiding collision without slackening his pace by so much as a second to the mile.

  During the time they had spent inside the house, the rosy light of sunset had deepened into the gray of early twilight. Behind him, Jebs sensed rather than saw a bounding, bobbing glow of yellow light, that seemed to pursue him as he ran, and this spurred him to even more rapid retreat. He reached the thickly grown bushes that lined the small stream and felt their density of twigs whipping at his face and chest. Then his bare toe caught against a root or fallen stem, and he pitched headlong. He struck the ground with a violence that all but stunned him, and his eyes gave off sparks and his ears rang like fire gongs. But the galloping light was upon him from behind. Groggy but game, Jebs floundered up on to one knee and faced the unknown chaser with both fists doubled for battle.

  Take it easy, Jebs,” came the quick voice of Driscoll Jordan. “I’m right behind you.”

  “Oh, it’s you.” Jebs scrambled to his feet and shook his shaggy head from side to side to clear the throb out of it. “That flashlight you were packing looked like one of those Willy-wisps I used to hear about when I was a kid.”

  “I never stopped to turn loose of it, or my machete either,” said Driscoll, pausing and puffing among the bushes. “I wonder if I could have run a single bit faster without them. What’s happened to Randy?”

  “I thought he was back there with you. Maybe he went on past us. Randy can run like a champion. Jebs drew in his breath to shout for his friend.

  “Keep your voice down,” warned Driscoll hurriedly. “Do you want to give our position away to— to whatever it was we saw?”

  Jebs let his breath out again, with a long sigh of relief. “Oh,” he said thankfully, “so you saw it, too. It wasn’t just a nightmare.”

  “I saw a giant,” said Driscoll. “He was big enough and ugly enough to be the star performer in anybody’s nightmare.”

  “So did I. He was sure enough the large economy size. And so did Randy see him, because he yelled to us—but where is Randy? Let’s get with him.” They peered through the bushes toward the house.

  In the failing light they could see its broad, ramshackle front, its wide-open door, its inner blackness, its surrounding masses of trees and bush clumps! But there was no motion. Even the slight breeze had died down, and no leaf or weed or moss-tassel stirred. It was like a photograph, frozen stiffly on paper.

  “He doesn’t seem to be back in that direction,” said Jebs.

  “Maybe he’s yonder at the boat,” offered Driscoll, and they headed into and through the belt of bushes. At the waterside they paused again and looked and listened. Still no sound or motion in all the surrounding swamp.

  Randy? called Jebs softly, and his voice shook.

  No reply.

  Its Jebs, Randy! Where are you?”

  Silence. Then a frog trilled. That was all.

  Driscoll flashed his light around. It illuminated only the black, gently flowing water, the tussocks and banks of weeds, the larger trees. The two boys looked at each other, with the shadows of night thickening around them.

  “Say,” said Jebs after a moment. “D-do you reckon that Randy didn’t get away from that—from that—”

  “How could he have been caught by it?” interrupted Driscoll, but his voice,- too, trembled with worry. “He had that big heavy table between himself and the thing. He turned around to run—I think I saw him spin toward us—just as he yelled out.”

  “We ought to have waited a second more, to make sure he was coming along,” said Jebs miserably. “Fire in the mountains, Driscoll! You reckon we just ran off and left him by himself in a jam?”

  Driscoll’s widened eyes shone in the last of the light. “I’m beginning to be scared that that’s just what we did do. Me, I took one look at that giant thing, and ran. It looked like—like an ogre in a fairy tale, or maybe some kind of prehistoric monster!

  “I’m purely ashamed of myself,” Jebs informed him.

  Stooping beside the water, Jebs groped for something, and grunted in chill triumph as he seemed to find it. Finally he straightened up again, and faced bravely back the way he had come.

  “I’m going back there and find Randy,” he announced, and the tremble had disappeared from his limbs and his voice. He sounded steady and fierce.

  “What was that you picked up?” asked Driscoll.

  “This.” Jebs held it out in his right hand, a big jagged rock the size of a baseball. “And this handful of mud. He showed his left hand. “You can wait here if you want to. I’m going for Randy.”

  Purposefully Jebs shoved his way back through the bushes. Driscoll followed him with quick steps. “What’s the idea of that stone and that mud?” “I’ve heard about an old commando trick when you’re up against somebody bigger than you and you don’t have any gun or anything,” said Jebs, still crisply dangerous of speech and manner. “You fling the mud in his eyes to blind him, and then you clip him on the head with the rock. See you later.”

  “I’m coming with you,” said Driscoll. “If Randy’s still in that house, I wouldn’t leave him there without trying to save him. You know, Jebs, I thought you were as scared as I am.”

  “Scared?” repeated Jebs sharply. “Shoo, I’ve had a dose of scare big enough to outfit two grown men. But,” and he struggled clear of the last bushes, “Randy Hunter is my friend. I won’t turn my back on him.”

  “And I’m in this with you,” vowed Driscoll again, hefting the machete in his wiry hand. “Say, that house looks awful, doesn’t it. I don’t hanker to go inside again.”

  “Neither do I,” admitted Jebs with complete honesty. “But I’m going!”

  “Keep your voice down, then,” advised Driscoll practically. “Let’s make as little noise as we can while we�
��re sneaking up on the place.”

  They said no more, but each was glad of the other’s presence beside him as they closed in on the wide-flung front door. Jebs, clutching his rock and his handful of mud, took time to be amazed at how swiftly the black night was falling.

  They moved more slowly and carefully the last few steps, taking pains not to rustle weeds or leaves. On gingerly feet they made their way over the soggy wreckage of the old porch. Once, when they were almost within touching distance of the door-jamb, a sound came from somewhere beneath them, like a deep growl or snort. The two boys stood silent, breathless, blood racing and hearts thumping. But the sound, whatever it was, did not repeat itself. Driscoll put a knee up on the threshold, hoisted himself in, then extended a hand to catch Jebs by the elbow and help him up. Once more they stood in the gloom-filled, tile-floored old hallway of Chimney Pot House.

  Immediately Jebs nudged Driscoll and gestured.

  From behind the flight of stairs, where the cellar door was located, came a glimmer of soft light. And from that direction, too, rose the deep mutter of a man’s voice.

  Driscoll nodded, put his lips close to Jebs’ ear, and softly whispered, “The lantern’s still going.” Then he beckoned, and moved with the utmost care in the direction of the glow. Jebs kept at Driscoll’s heels, his crude weapons poised and ready.

  The cellar door was wide open, just as they had left it when they rushed up and out with such terrified swiftness. As they came to it, Jebs again nudged Driscoll and moved ahead into lead position. Driscoll scowled, but gave up his place in the van, remembering that Jebs was the close friend of Randy. He came along, his machete ready.

  The deep voice droned on below, and as Jebs put his foot down on the topmost of the stone steps, it suddenly raised itself in a thunderous burst of laughter, so loud and resonant as to seem amplified by a public-address system.

  Jebs froze where he was, though he did not turn to flee this time. Driscoll could see the sturdy boy’s body muscles bulge and grow tight, silhouetted against the light that beat up from the cellar.