Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1951

by The Haunts of Drowning Creek (v1. 1)

  “Nothing doing,” said Randy firmly. “It’s got to be risked.”

  The stairs creaked and quivered under his feet, but they did not collapse. Short seconds later he stood at the top of them, in a narrower hallway. Sagging doors along its wall indicated the location of rooms, sleeping quarters of Driscoll Jordan’s long-vanished forbears.

  “Now,” said Randy to his friends below, “just where’s the midpoint on the line we drew from hot to cold?”

  “Right here,” Jebs replied. “I’m standing on it.”

  “Good. And here above you is the upper newel post of the old staircase.” Randy tapped it with his axe. “See? About two and a half feet high.”

  “The gold’s in there?” Driscoll almost squalled.

  “We’ll know in a minute. Get away from below, I’m going to carve it open.”

  Randy hacked at the broad newel post. It was square, with a ball of wood to crown it. Two hard blows of the axe knocked the ball away, revealing a hollow space within the post. Randy squinted into this, then thrust his hand inside.

  “Yay!” he roared.

  “Did you get hurt?” asked Driscoll, moving toward the foot of the stairs.

  “No. Nobody’s hurt. Everybody’s all right. Look here!”

  And with a sudden effort, Randy hauled and tugged at something. It was heavy, for he had to use both hands to haul it clear of its hiding place. It looked like a huge bologna sausage, dark brown and mouldy. Randy lowered it carefully to the floor of the landing. His heart was beating like the long roll of a war-drum.

  “That’s it,” he panted. “No, wait, there’s another.”

  Again he heaved and tugged, and again he brought out a big sausage-like package. Then, with hands that shook and tingled, he picked up the axe and pried open the remains of the newel post.

  “That’s all,” he said. “Each of these things— they’re leather bags, dried out so hard they feel like tin—must have about sixty pounds of weight inside, and only gold would weigh like that.”

  Hustle em down,” crowed Jebs. “We’re aching to have a look.”

  “No, I nearly broke those steps in, without an extra pound of weight. Driscoll, you’re wearing a belt on those old pants of yours. Unfasten it and toss it up here.”

  When he had the belt in his hands, Randy fastened the stiff thongs that closed the mouth of one sack to the buckle and, lying full length in the dust of the landing, lowered the weight carefully into the grasp of Jebs and Driscoll. He repeated the performance with the second sack. Finally he descended the steps carefully and joined his friends in the lower hall.

  “Let’s carry them into the main room,” said Driscoll, and they lugged the sacks through the archway and to the window seat on which they had perched to hold their first council. Jebs produced a knife from his pocket and carefully cut the thong from one of the sacks. The dry old leather relaxed slowly, with brittle creakings, and out into the opening rolled half a dozen small yellow disks that gleamed dully.

  Jebs picked one up. “I don’t know whether this is a penny or a piece of eight,” said he.

  “This one’s an English sovereign,” decided Randy as he examined another coin. “See the lady’s face on it? That’s Queen Victoria.”

  “And here’s an old-fashioned American five-dollar gold piece,” added Driscoll, peering at yet another. “Jebs, take another look at what you’ve got there.” “I can’t read anything on it,” insisted Jebs. “It’s in some foreign language. These letters look like ‘doubloon,’ I guess, but they spell it wrong. Anyway, I thought doubloons were strictly from the old pirate days. What do you make of it, Randy?”

  Randy took the gold piece from Jebs. “It’s doblon,” he announced. “I’ve heard they used to coin gold doblons in Spain and South America, a century or so ago.”

  “And here’s more American money,” reported Driscoll, digging out another handful. “This is a ten- dollar piece, an eagle. And this one’s foreign— French, I think. What did the French call their gold coins?”

  “Let’s not stop to study over that now,” advised Jebs. “Let’s put it back into the sack and lug it on out of here.”

  “Yes,” said a rough, hoarse voice. “Let’s do that.”

  In upon them walked Pullis and Ambrose.

  FOURTEEN

  PRISONERS OF WAR

  DRISCOLL leaned a trifle back on the window seat. For once, his machete was on the floor, out of his reach. Randy and Jebs both sat up straighter, looking clearly for the first time at the rival seekers of the Confederate gold.

  Pullis was a man of forty or so. His thick chest and shoulders bespoke considerable physical strength, and his broad-jawed, narrow-browed head set solidly on a neck as thick and rugged as a slice of an oak post. Plainly he had not shaved for a day or so, and the dark stubble on his cheeks and chin was touched here and there with grizzled gray. His nose had once been long and lean, but some accident had broken it across the bridge, setting it crookedly back between high cheekbones. His eyes had the narrow, triangular look of a man more apt to use his muscles than his mind. His old work shirt and blue dungarees were caked with dried mud, and his felt hat, shoved back from that narrow brow of his, looked old and battered.

  Ambrose, his partner, might have been eighteen or nineteen years old, and of a taller and less muscular figure than Pullis. Apparently he had never found his lost sun helmet, and his dull black hair, cut long, straggled in lank locks around his thin, sharp face. His gay beach shirt looked rumpled and dirty, as though he had fallen in mud, and his cheeks, the bridge of his snub nose, his slim forearms, and his long thin neck, all were rosy from unaccustomed exposure to sunlight.

  Pullis held the shotgun the boys had seen in his hands the day before, while Ambrose poised a small automatic pistol in his right fist. Both of them were grinning and scowling at the same instant, as though they were not only glad to see the boys but also had unpleasant plans for them.

  Thanks a heap,” jeered Pullis. “Thanks for finding that big hunk of gold for us. Maybe you done us a favor by running us off this place yesterday evening, otherwise we’d have had to do all the figuring to find it for ourselves.”

  Jebs was the first to find words with which to reply. He met the threatening stare of Pullis with his own gaze, steady and plucky. Rugged and dangerous though Pullis might ordinarily look, he was of no more than average height; and after Jebs had met and talked with a gigantic creature like Sam Cohill, Pullis seemed almost a dwarf.

  “Don’t bother to be polite,” said Jebs, and don t count the money before you find out whether or not you can keep it. You’re out a mile as regards the law. This joint belongs to Driscoll here, and so does the money. You two are trespassing—you and your guns don’t rate a thing.”

  “Us two and our guns rate everything,” replied Ambrose, and paused to emit a sound that might be either a snarl or a giggle. “No use of you quoting the law when there ain’t a policeman or a court anywhere in hearing distance of this little pistol if it happens to go off.”

  “And that’s the truth,” added Pullis. “It’s quiet and light-settled out here in this swamp. Folks don’t have any trouble keeping out of each other’s way by miles and miles. Get up, all three of you, and move away from the cash.”

  “Now wait a minute—” Driscoll began.

  “Get up, I said,” barked Pullis, lifting the shotgun. “Do what I say, or I’ll show you what I mean, with this gunful of big hard bullets.”

  “We won’t argue the point just now,” said Randy, and rose from his place on the window seat.

  Driscoll followed his example. Jebs was the last to obey the order, but as he got to his feet he gave Ambrose a quick look up and down, his blue eyes probing and studying the thin youth’s body at the jaw, the nose and the pit of the stomach. His manner made Ambroses bright rosy color deepen by one shade, and Ambrose edged back.

  “No funny business,” warned Ambrose.

  “Excuse me,” said Jebs. “The business I’ve got in
mind wouldn’t strike you as funny, not the least little bit.”

  “No wise-cracks either,” commanded Pullis. “This double-barreled shotgun of mine is loaded with number nine buckshot. If a mess of that hit you, boy, it would knock you clear out of the treasure-hunting business at a mighty early age.”

  “Get over against that wall, the whole bunch of you, and sit down,” added Ambrose, motioning with his pistol. “Quick, now.”

  “We mean it,” seconded Pullis balefully, and the trio moved obediently across the room and sat down, Driscoll in the middle, Randy at the left, Jebs at the right. Jebs dropped one hand, as if carelessly, on a large and jagged chunk of fallen plaster.

  “Drop that,” squealed Ambrose, and fired his pistol as he spoke.

  The bullet gashed the tiled floor within inches of Jebs’ hand, and Jebs let go of the plaster with a gasp.

  “It might just as well have been your ignorant yellow head,” commented Ambrose. “It so happens I can put a bullet from this gun just about anywhere I choose to aim it.”

  “I think all three of you better fold your hands together in your laps, like nice little boys, and keep ’em that way,” said Pullis.

  “Now what?” asked Randy. He was surprised to find that his voice did not shake, and he was grateful for the knowledge. He did not want to act like a terrified, helpless victim before these armed enemies.

  “You almost got clear away with the money, didn’t you?” said Pullis. “Well, we want some breakfast first, and then we’ll check it over. That was a smart caper you all pulled—that big-sized dummy you stuck up at the door to scare us away.”

  “You think that was a dummy?” said Driscoll. “You’d better not say that very loud. It’s a real giant, and if he heard you call him a dummy, he’d get mad.” Pullis laughed deeply. “Good joke, sonny.”

  “It s no joke,” Driscoll insisted, but Randy kicked him on the ankle and he stopped, scowling at his friend.

  “Better not try to kid them,” Randy said with an of surrender. “They know it was just a dummy we rigged up.”

  “Shoo!” muttered Jebs, but nobody paid any attention to his mystified air.

  “You said you wanted breakfast,” said Randy.

  “We sure do. We camped out last night without any much of a supper, and didn’t have a crumb this morning.” Pullis grinned. “Maybe if you dug us up some good chow, we might even let you go after we toted off the money.”

  “There’s plenty of food down cellar,” said Randy. “I’ll get it for you.” He paused. “I’ll even cook it for you.”

  “Sure you’ll cook it for us, and it better be good,” replied Pullis. “Go down there with him, Ambrose.”

  Ambrose possessed himself of the flashlight on the window seat. “C’mon, kid,” he told Randy. “And no monkey business, or I’ll sure bust you with a bullet.”

  Randy got up and walked out ahead of Ambrose’s gun. He felt the eyes of Jebs and Driscoll upon him, wondering and angry and protesting.

  He led Ambrose to the cellar, and walked down ahead. Ambrose turned the flash beam here and there.

  “Somebody lives here,” he said.

  “Looks that way, but he’s gone now,” said Randy, very truthfully so far as it went. “Now,” he continued, reaching up to one of Sam Cohill’s shelves, “do you think you and your friend would like pancakes?”

  “Lots of ’em, and coffee if you’ve got it.”

  “Here’s coffee,” said Randy, taking down a can.

  “Put it on the table right now,” ordered Ambrose harshly, leveling his pistol. “Try to throw anything and I’ll make you wish you hadn’t. You can mix the pancakes there, too.”

  “First I’ll have to make a fire,” said Randy, and put wood in Sam Cohill’s basement fireplace. He struck a match and started the flame, then found a pan in which he began to mix water and pancake flour. Ambrose examined the shelf and grunted with satisfaction over a jug of molasses.

  “About ready to start cooking,” announced Randy after a minute or so. “Wait, the fire had better be hotter than that.”

  He crossed to Sam Cohill’s bed, lifted the covers and pulled out two huge fistfuls of the evergreen mattress. Ambrose began to say something, but Randy stepped back to the hearth and threw the greenery in. At once it crackled and caught, sending huge steamy clouds of smoke up the improvised chimney.

  “Don’t you know how to build a fire, kid?” scolded Ambrose. “That green stuff will smoke up our flapjacks.”

  “I thought it was dry,” apologized Randy. “I guess we’d better cook upstairs.”

  “Yep, there’s a fireplace up there. I seen some fire in it. Well, load yourself with these things.” Ambrose motioned for Randy to take the pan of pancake batter, the molasses jug, the coffee pot, a skillet, and some plates and cups and forks. “Now, I’m going up the stairs, backwards. When I tell you to follow me up, come on, and not before, and don’t hang around after I speak.”

  “I won’t,” Randy promised. He felt a quiver of hopeful excitement. His plan—he had barely given it words in his mind—was partially a success.

  Ambrose moved up the stairs and barked for him to come up in turn. They returned to the front room, and Randy arranged his cooking materials by the fireplace.

  “He got the cellar all smoked up, so he’s goin’ to cook for us here,” Ambrose told Pullis.

  “All the better; we can both keep an eye on him,” approved Pullis. “Get to hashin’, kid. What’s the menu?”

  “Pancakes and coffee,” Randy told him, kneeling to build up the last remains of the fire.

  Ambrose sat down on the window seat beside the two bags of money. He laid down the flashlight, and fixed his close-set eyes on Jebs. “Hey, you,” he said. “Yep, the one who’s frownin’ there so hard and tough. How does it feel to go broke all of a sudden?”

  “You’ll find out right soon,” said Jebs. “I’ve always heard that a fool and his money are soon parted.”

  “Here a minute ago, you had all the gold you could lift,” said Ambrose. “Now we’ve got it. Don’t you wish you could trade places?”

  “Trade places with you?” repeated Jebs, with deep scorn. “Listen, I’d rather be myself, and poor as the shadow of last year’s cotton stalk, than you with all the gold in Fort Knox.”

  Randy smuggled several scraps of evergreen from the night’s bedding into his new fire.

  “Quit arguin’ with him, Ambrose,” ordered Pullis. “He’s got the jokes, we’ve got the money. From what I heard young Jordan sayin’ day before yesterday, there ought to be twenty grand here. If there ain’t, we’ll have to persuade these smart young jokesters to get up the rest of it for us.”

  “We can make ’em tell,” said Ambrose. “Hey, you doin’ the cookin’! You’re smokin’ up this fire, too! What’s the matter with you!”

  “I’m short on firewood, so I burned that stuff,” Randy said in a tone of apology. “Anyway, there’s plenty of room in the fireplace. I can cook on the edge of the fire.”

  He began to grease the skillet with a bacon rind.

  “Better not ruin our breakfast or maybe we’ll have to eat you,” said Pullis. “Let’s start countin’ this dough while we’re waitin’.”

  Ambrose leaned his narrow shoulders against the wall beside the window, his gun drooping but ready in his hand. Pullis laid his big shotgun across his knees, took a handful of gold, and began swiftly to build it into a stack.

  There s all kinds of money here I never seen before,” he said as he examined it, “but they’re mostly in sizes pretty close to old-fashioned American gold money, five and ten dollar pieces. We can figure them like that.”

  Ambrose picked up a few coins in his free hand. “You know what?” he said suddenly. “Probably a lot of these coins are worth more than what it says on them. You know, there’s a big crowd of coin-collecting hobby men, they’ll pay big for rare old coins.

  “Now, that's right likely the truth, Ambrose,” agreed Pullis heartily. “Good
thing you thought of that. Maybe there’s two or three times the worth of twenty thousand dollars right here.’

  Randy had managed to smuggle some more smudgy-burning evergreen into his fire. “You re forgetting something,” he said as he set the coffee pot to boil.

  “And you’re forgettin’ to keep your trap shut,” warned Ambrose, twiddling his gun.

  “According to United States law,” Randy went on, unheeding, “all gold money has to be turned in to the Treasury Department."

  “Right interestin’,” laughed Pullis. “But who said anythin’ about turnin’ in the gold? We’ll get the best price for it from whoever will pay. You wouldn’t go around tellin’ anybody on us, would you?”

  “Nary a tell from them,” said Ambrose, his eyes bright. They traveled from Jebs to Driscoll, then to Randy beside the fire, then back to Jebs again. His mouth twitched in a loose smile that had nothing pleasant or reassuring about it.

  Randy began to heat his skillet, and stirred the pancake mixture once more. Pullis meanwhile was setting up stack after stack of dull-gleaming gold pieces. He arranged them side by side on the broad window seat.

  “Each of these is a hundred dollars, more or less, the way I figure it,” he said, more to himself than to Ambrose. “Now there’s five hundred.” He paused to stack more. “Nine, and there, that one makes a thousand. Enough money right there to pay most of what I owe around Wagram and over in Laurinburg.”

  I’m glad you’re going to pay your honest debts ” said Driscoll.

  Did I say I was goin’ to pay them?” demanded Pullis, starting to count a fresh handful of coins. “I’ll be long gone from here when I leave.”

  “Listen,” said Ambrose to Pullis, “why don’t you count up the next thousand over on this side of the window sill? The first thousand can be yours and the second thousand mine, and so on. Right?”

  “Quiet, I’m tryin’ to count,” grumbled Pullis. “Eleven hundred, twelve hundred here—”

  “I take half the risk, and I get half the money,” said Ambrose. “Just keep that clear in your mind.”