Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1951

by The Haunts of Drowning Creek (v1. 1)

  A hearth had been fashioned by pulling out some of the stones that faced the cellar wall, hollowing away earth beyond to make a fireplace and chimney, and lining this recess with more stones and ancient bricks. Beside it was a stack of wood, neatly split and piled, with a well-whetted axe lying upon it. There were several kettles, two frying pans, some tin plates and half a dozen knives and forks. A five gallon can held oil. A set of shelves on the wall beside the hearth held supplies of provisions in cans, bags and boxes, also a row of books that looked worn ind well-thumbed. Everything was of the utmost ;implicity, but neat and practical.

  “Do you think he’d mind if we cooked up some of his stuff he’s got?” asked Jebs. “After all, he admitted this house was Driscoll’s property, and he sure stomped off and left us in possession.”

  “No, let’s not touch anything he has,” advised Randy. “We left some chow of our own at the front ioor. Let’s just borrow a frying pan and some plates and knives and forks.”

  Again he took the lantern and led the way upstairs. The house was silent. Randy moved to the front door and held the lantern at arm’s length into the night, now completely black, so as to give light while Jebs scrambled down and repossessed their package of food.

  “I’ll make a fire out here,” said Driscoll, and began to gather wood. When it was laid and set ablaze, Randy put bacon into the frying pan and put it to cook, while Jebs, with his pocket knife, swiftly peeled and sliced some potatoes to toss into the pan with the bacon. The mixture was stirred up and quickly fried and dished out. With the cold corned beef, it made a welcome supper for three hungry boys.

  “One thing’s sure,” said Randy. “Pullis and Ambrose weren’t faking that panic, the way we suspected. They got a look at Sam Cohill, and he scared them clear out of this part of the world.”

  “He scared me too, while you’re at it,” confessed Jebs. “After this, whenever anybody asks who’s that distinguished-looking old joker with the snow-white hair, you tell them it’s James Ewell Brown Markum, aged before his time by pure fright.”

  So saying, he forked bacon and potatoes into his mouth, chewed and swallowed. “Stuff sure has boiled up to happen to us, huh?” he went on. “Here we started out on just a plain old camping trip. We’ve met Driscoll, helped him find his old home in the heart of the Carolina version of the Everglades, run into Samson Cohill, the Mountain That Walks Like a Man—”

  “We’ve found the house, but not the money,” reminded Driscoll. “We’ve still got to set the cross and dig the gold.”

  “I’d almost forgotten about that money,” admitted Randy. “But as soon as we finish supper, we’ll go find that, too.”

  He spoke with confidence so strong as to sound almost reckless. But Driscoll shook his head slowly and seriously.

  “Speaking of Sam Cohillhe said, “he mentioned overhearing that I’m the owner, by inheritance, of Chimney Pot House. But he kept right still about something else he must have heard us mention. “Meaning the treasure,” added Randy.

  “Yes, meaning the treasure. He didn’t even comment on that. He just got up, said something about calling on his Indian friend, and walked out. Maybe he wants to get those nine-inch hands on that gold.”

  “You think so?” demanded Jebs hotly. "That would be the outdoingest trick I ever heard of!”

  “He talked about how money didn’t mean a lot to him,” Randy objected. “He could earn plenty by going back into show business.”

  “But money’s one thing, and treasure’s another,” argued Jebs. “Now me, 1 don’t particularly study myself silly over getting lots of money. It’s something you put in the bank, and there it melts away before you know what you wrote the checks for. But treasure—gold pieces, like the stuff pirates have—that’s something else a whole lot. It touches off anybody’s want bug. I’ll bet both of you all, that Sam Cohill, all eight feet of him lacking one inch, is dead bound and determined he’s going to pick up that money, and no draw fight about it.”

  “I reckon we oughtn’t condemn him without proving the fact,” hesitated Driscoll.

  “Well, anyhow,” said Jebs, “we’ll be better off if we find the gold ourselves first, and worry about him later.”

  “Second the motion,” said Randy, who had been scrubbing the pan and plates with handfuls of tough grass. “Let’s carry these things back down cellar, then finish on our figuring.”

  He raced inside, down the stairs, and returned the borrowed articles. When he returned, Jebs had taken the lantern and was pacing off the distance from the old well to the corner of the house in front, while Driscoll, at the back with the flashlight, was similarly measuring the space from the kitchen to the rear door.

  They re almost exactly the same distance away from the house,” computed Driscoll as they compared notes inside. “In other words, a mid-point on the way from hot to cold will be pretty close to a mid-point on this line Randy scratched out on the floor.”

  Swiftly Jebs paced it off. He stopped at last, directly beneath the edge of the shaky landing at the top of the staircase and close against the plastered partition that enclosed the stairs leading down to the cellar.

  “If your figures are right,” he said, “the swag is right here.” And he tapped the plaster with his thick knuckles.

  “That plaster seems to have stayed in place all these years,” Driscoll said. “Maybe it was laid on specially strong and solid, to hold and hide that twenty thousand bucks.”

  “Let’s find out,” said Jebs, picking up the axe.

  “Wait,” interposed Randy quickly. “We’d better establish the exact mid-point between high and low.”

  “We figured this first floor to be ten feet high,” remembered Driscoll, “and the second floor about eight feet, and that cupola above eight feet more. That makes twenty-six. How deep is the cellar, do you guess?”

  “I counted eighteen stone steps,” Randy said, “and the floor level makes nineteen. They’re good high steps, too, eight inches or so. That makes let s see —twelve or thirteen feet.”

  “Call it thirteen, and let’s hope it’s a lucky number,” said Jebs. “Thirteen plus twenty-six makes thirty-nine. Mid-point will be nineteen feet up from the cellar nineteen feet six inches. Minus thirteen feet makes six feet six inches.”

  Randy stood against the partition and lifted his hand to touch it. About there,” he said, and Driscoll made a cross mark with the point of his everpresent machete.

  “Alright, we’ve set our cross,” said Driscoll. “Make with the axe, Jebs, but be careful.”

  Thus cautioned, Jebs hacked gingerly at the plaster. It yielded and fell away before his attack, in big crumbling chunks. A layer of lath showed underneath, and Jebs’ lightly swung axe bounded back from the tough, springy old strips of wood.

  “Those laths are hickory,” he sniffed. “They’ve been seasoning in there for about a century, and they re really hard. Let me stand off and really take a bust at them.”

  He stepped backward a pace and swung the axe hard. The laths splintered loudly, and he used the axe blade to pry away broken pieces. A dark hole appeared, jagged and gaping.

  “Now let’s have a look,” said Driscoll, turning the flashlight into the opening. “I don’t see anything.”

  Randy stood on tiptoe and groped inside. “I don’t feel anything, either,” he said.

  “Let’s belt away more lath and plaster,” urged Jebs.

  Half a dozen sturdy strokes cleared away enough of the wall to reveal a space between two old, massive studding timbers. Randy inspected them by the light of the torch.

  “Not all of Chimney Pot’s gone to rot and ruin,” he reported. “Look at these uprights. Four by four, hand-cut from seasoned lumber. No termites, and no dry rot. I wonder who cut them out.”

  “Nobody alive today can tell that,” replied Driscoll.

  “Well, look out of the way and watch the glory of their coming down,” grunted Jebs, flexing his strong arms for another assault. “We haven’t found any gold
yet.”

  “Hold it, Paul Bunyan, give me that chopper,” commanded Driscoll. “If we snake out those timbers, the whole top floor may fall in on us.”

  Taking the axe from Jebs, Driscoll carefully broke away another section of the plastered lathing, from the floor to the slanting line of the stairs overhead. This exposed recess was also empty.

  “Maybe they set the gold pieces right in the plaster,” hazarded Randy, and all three inspected the broken shards. But the plaster was only plaster.

  “Could be we stepped the thing off wrong,” Jebs speculated, hopefully. “Driscoll’s a little smidge longer in the leg than I am, and maybe we didn’t fix mid-point right. Let’s chew off another hunk.” Driscoll sliced away more of the wall, and more. The spaces between the studs were all empty of anything that resembled gold. Randy took the axe in his turn, and did not stop hacking until he had laid bare the entire row of timbers.

  And they found nothing. Randy shrugged his shoulders helplessly, and Driscoll cleared his throat with a harsh, disgusted sound.

  “Well,” said Jebs, “I can’t see how we can make good on the rest of that little poem. We’ve set the cross, but we didn’t dig any gold.”

  “We sure enough didn’t,” said Driscoll gloomily. “What do we do now?” appealed Jebs.

  “We get some sleep,” said Randy. “I’m worn out. I didn’t realize how tired I was until right now.”

  All of them were weary to the bone. They drooped with the exhaustion of labor, excitement and disappointment.

  “Me for that big giant-size bed down cellar,” spoke up Jebs.

  “No, let’s not,” said Driscoll. “When Sam Cohill trails in, he might get sore if he found somebody taking over his bed.”

  “And he’s right gigantic to have for somebody sored up at you,” nodded Jebs. “All right, v. “ere do we sack in? I could sleep on the floor.”

  “That’s what we’ll do,” said Randy. “Let’s bring in some evergreen boughs.”

  Promptly they did so, carrying this primitive bedding into the front room. Randy stooped down and peered up the old fireplace. Stars showed in a patch of sky high above him.

  “The chimney looks clear,” he said. “Now we’ll want plenty of wood to burn. It’s going to be chilly later on.”

  A fire on the huge hearth banished some of their despondency. The three boys lay down side by side on the strewn boughs, and none of them ever knew which was the first to fall into prompt, deep slumber, but it was a very close contest indeed.

  THIRTEEN

  “ . . • AND DIG THE GOLD”

  RANDY was the first to waken at dawn, with the first green light trickling through the leaves bunched outside the window.

  He sat up on the hard floor, only partially cushioned with the strewn evergreen boughs. He felt stiff, but his tough young body recovered swiftly as he twitched and flexed his muscles. His eyes sought his companions. Jebs lay close to the glowing coals in the big fireplace, his knees drawn up and one arm flung across his square face, his blond hair more tousled than ever. Driscoll stretched out flat on his back, the gray cap drawn over his eyes.

  Randy took a swallow of water from his canteen.

  Then, from the remains of last night’s supper, he took a morsel of corned beef and chewed it thoughtfully. It seemed a most inadequate breakfast, and he turned over various campfire recipes in his mind, then opened the stout canvas cover of the canteen. He drew out the big aluminum cup that nested there, and in it he carefully blended corn meal and water to a smooth, batter-like consistency. That, he knew, was the utterly simple mixture from which the folk of the old frontier made their johnny cake, but it seemed a dismal prospect to Randy, who liked eggs and milk in his corn bread.

  An inspiration came to him. He stirred up the coals of the fire, very quietly, lest he wake the others. Then, taking the remaining six slices of bacon from the package, he spitted them on two long twigs from the pile of kindling, and propped these above the coals. While he waited for the bacon to broil, he laid out three pieces of aluminum cooking foil, and on each poured a heap of the cornmeal batter. When the bacon began to emit the crackling whisper that showed it was lightly cooked, he took the twigs from the fire and knocked down two slices upon each heap of batter, patted the wet meal around and over the bacon, and finally tucked the foil into snug little packages. These he slid carefully in among the coals to bake.

  He had used the last water from his canteen to mix these makeshift corn dodgers, and he went outdoors to find Sam Cohill's water supply.

  The morning was cool, and the slight mist had begun to dissolve as the sun poked its upper rim above the horizon of the swampy woods. Randy walked around the house and passed the old kitchen. Beyond, he came upon a trail through the thickets and, following it, he emerged into a sizable clearing, in which grew rows of yellowing corn stalks and a patch of plump cabbages, beautifully hoed and tended. At the edge of this garden plot was the well Sam Cohill must have dug at the start of his residence here.

  The well curb was broad and stout, built to the height of Randy’s knee with rough, soot-patched bricks. A bucket hung by its coiled rope to the branch of a nearby tree.

  Quickly Randy dipped up cold water and filled his canteen. He turned to go, but suddenly stopped, gazing at the brickwork of the curb, at first curiously, then with a growing intentness and inspiration.

  Those bricks were recognizable as ancient. Their dusky, mellow red was smudged and stained with smoky blackness. Randy scraped at one brick with his fingertip, and examined the scrapings closely.

  “They came from a chimney,” he said aloud.

  But what chimney? He turned and looked through the trees toward the house. He could see no chimney, none at all—only the remains of the cupola. Then he pondered on the name of the house Chimney Pot. Why such a name without a chimney?

  How could it be without a chimney when it had that big fireplace beside which he had slept so cosily?

  “Hey!” cried Randy suddenly, all to himself. He went racing back toward Chimney Pot House.

  Among the trees that grew closest he selected one with low-growing stubs to help a climber, and higher, moss-festooned branches that projected strongly above the flat roof. Dropping his canteen at the root, Randy swarmed nimbly up, gained a high fork, and edged out on a sturdy horizontal branch. A moment later he was able to drop down upon the slates, and gazed at what he had expected to find up there.

  The shattered cupola occupied the center of the flat rectangular expanse of roof. Beside and against it stood the stubby, broken-off remains of a broad brick chimney. From its broken interior rose the smudge of the breakfast fire.

  At roof level, that chimney had been more than eight feet square, and its exposed interior was black and dubious-looking. Against the wall of the cupola showed traces of mortar, where the chimney had once reared itself. Around cupola and chimney-hole lay strewn the remains of that fallen upper portion, broken away during three generations of storms, winds and decay. The fallen bricks had smashed, and much of the rubble had crumbled to dust, then, mixing with the waters of many rains, had become a sunbaked mass of clay. Randy’s eyes snapped.

  “Hey, up there in the sky,” drifted the voice of Driscoll from below. “Aren’t you kind of getting above yourself?”

  Randy hurried to the edge of the roof and looked down. Jebs and Driscoll were out in the yard. In their hands they held the opened parcels of corn dodger with bacon, and were eating hungrily.

  “We’ve been checking up to see where Sam Cohill was,” Jebs said. “It appears to me he didn’t get home at all last night. Meanwhile—”

  “Meanwhile,” said Randy, “I’ve figured out that I’m the real brains of this bunch.”

  “We knew that, but how did you find out?” grinned Jebs.

  “I’ve been up here to find out why this place was called Chimney Pot. You can’t see it from down there, because it was broken off close to the roof. And that means—wait, I’m coming down again.”


  He swung back into his tree and slid to earth. Picking up his canteen, he made haste to join the other two.

  “This stuff you whipped up for breakfast is kind of crisp, but it eats right tasty,” Jebs praised, chewing away.

  “We’re wrong on our figures for high point of the house,” said Randy without any preface. “I’ve been up there, looking at what used to be a chimney. It was big enough for a Santa Claus the size of Sam Cohill to come down, and it must have stuck up sixteen feet above the roof.”

  “How do you figure the height if it’s fallen down?” demanded Driscoll.

  “Because of something I read about old-time architecture. Brick masons a century ago made chimneys half as wide at roof level as they wanted the chimney to stand up in the open air. And that chimney-hole was eight feet square. Come inside, and I’ll show you what I mean.”

  Randy hurried in at the back door of the house.

  He entered the front room, raked his parcel of breakfast out of the coals on the hearth and unwrapped it. He returned to the hall, munching, as Driscoll and Jebs entered.

  “If the chimney stuck up eight feet above the cupola, then mid-point will be four feet higher,” Randy was figuring. “That means about twelve feet and a half up from this floor.”

  Then it can’t be under the floor boards,” pointed out Jebs. “It has to be a couple or so feet above that, swinging in the breeze. Isn’t there enough mystery ransacking around here without you coupling on any additions?”

  “But it really is two feet above floor level,” insisted Randy. “Where’s that axe?”

  He snatched it up from the floor and started up the rickety stairs.

  “Wait,” warned Driscoll. “Those stairs look flimsier than a bunch of soda crackers.”