I was relieved to find that he had effected no damage, beyond a hole in the casing that had not yet reached the breaker strip. Taking for granted that he had had a drop too much, I climbed into the car and departed.
Within no long time I had reached the village of Hopland, my destination on the highway. From here a toll-road ran over the hills to Lakeport, and I turned off without pause in the village, thankful that the end of my trip was in sight—as I thought.
That road was a brute—thick with dust, barely wide enough for two cars to pass, and with crumbly edges and a sheer drop at that, and a steep up-grade for five solid miles! In places it was a very beautiful road, winding up between forested growths of redwoods and giant conifers. As I nursed the Paragon up that road at fifteen miles an hour I had plenty of time for reflection.
Back to questions again. Out of the general muddle these had resolved themselves into certain distinct and coherent queries; and they fell under two heads:
John Balliol:
1. Whom had he been afraid of, and why? Unknown.
2. What had brought him to suicide? Not poverty, certainly.
3. What had he done with my checks? When they were cashed I would know.
4. Why had he needed the money by a certain night—the night he was to meet M. J. B., the night he killed himself? Unknown.
M. J. B., the Fair Unknown:
1. What was her connection with Balliol? Mystery.
2. Did his suicide hinge on his meeting with her? Problematical.
3. She had said: “They killed him!” Were “they” microbes or gunmen? Unknowable.
4. Why her warning against my going to the ranch?
My answer to that final query was: “Because she liked me!” It was a satisfactory answer, too. It made me glow happily. I had always been a sedate bachelor, but I must say that M. J. B. was the most attractive girl I had ever met, and to find her interested in me was, to say the least, very pleasing.
My only regret was that I had left her in San Francisco. I thought of going back to the city as soon as I had inspected my ranch—
Just then I observed that my radiator was boiling, what with the grade and the hot sun; and ahead of me was a spring beside the road, with a turnout. I halted the car at the turnout, baled cold water into the radiator with a rusty tin can, and sat down to smoke and let my engine cool off. It was a cool and pleasant spot, under lofty pines.
I was just knocking out my pipe when I heard voices and the creaking of a vehicle. Around the sharp bend ahead came a horse and buggy, the latter occupied by three men. All three carried rifles and knives, and beneath the buggy trotted a big hound. They nodded to me and drove to the spring, letting the horse have a mouthful. Obviously, they were natives.
“Good afternoon,” I returned their greetings. “Why the artillery? Sheriff’s posse?”
They grinned and laughed.
“Deer season opened yesterday,” one of them replied. “Thought you’d come up from the city for the same reason.”
“Not I,” was my answer. “Plenty of deer around here?”
“That’s what they say—but there ain’t none when we want to get ’em. Most of the folks in Lakeport are out, from the Chink laundryman to the sheriff.”
They drove on down the trail, but as they went I could see that they were looking back and making observations—probably on my car. Until they passed out of sight at the next curve they were still staring backwards and discussing something: either me or the car. I took for granted that it was the car, and it was.
The deer season did not interest me particularly, because I have no taste for hunting. Cursing the foot-thick dust in the road, I got into the car and went on.
At last, to my deep relief, I attained the summit of the divide, where the tollgate was located. I paid my dollar fifty and had a magnificent view of Clear Lake in the distance amid the hills, then started downward. The descent was steep enough and winding, but three miles of it brought me to the floor of the valley, in a region of jackpine and brush and hogbacks.
And, as I turned a quick curve, there before me in the road stood two deer—does. For the fraction of an instant they gazed at me, then they flung away. Like brown streaks they went over the nearest hill and were gone. Instinctively I halted the car, gazing after the graceful creatures. A moment later, I shoved my foot toward the starter, but I was still staring at the hillside; instead of touching the starter, my foot touched the accelerator—and touched it with a particular pet corn. I smothered an oath and leaned far forward to clutch my aching tow, for the stab of pain was acute. And, as I leaned over thus, a bullet came exactly where I had been sitting, at about the height my head had been.
I know it was a bullet, because I heard it—and because the effect was terrific. It plumped through the rear of the top, on one side; it passed above me, and its shrill song was lost in a rattling smash of glass as it took the top half of my windshield into slivers. Then came the crack of a rifle to prove that it had been a bullet.
If I had not happened to lean over, and to lean over pretty far, that bullet would have finished me—sure!
My first instinct was to start the car and get away; then I checked the impulse and slid out to terra firma. Someone not very far off was shooting recklessly, and it made me angry.
Hopping out in the road, I stared around. Naturally, I saw nobody. If any hunter had mistaken the maroon top for a deer, he was not advertising his mistake to me.
“Shove fer home, Balliol!” cried out a rough voice. “Shove quick, or he’ll give ye a closer one!”
The voice came from somewhere behind and to the left of the car. Balliol! I was being mistaken for Balliol—and there was no mistake being made!
As this astounding fact percolated to my brain, I wasted no time asking questions, but climbed into the car, started her up, and rolled away from here in a hurry. Balliol! Who in the name of goodness was trying to assassinate John Balliol?
In that rough voice from the hillside had been a deadly earnestness which had impelled me to flight; it brought home to me in a flash that I was up against something serious. Under the blue sky, under the hot August sunlight, the thing was extremely matter of fact. I thought again of the young man who had been jabbing my tire, and of the warning administered by M. J. B. The sequence was pretty plain!
Absurd as it seemed, this land-cruise of mine was actually taking me into perilous waters.
It was the fault of car, of course; people though that Balliol was driving it. As I rattled across a bridge and entered upon excellent dirt roads, the realization cheered me immensely. Balliol had admitted that he had gotten into trouble up here of a private nature. Well, the minute his enemies discovered that I was not John Balliol, but Yorke Desmond, I would be left alone! Yet why, in such case, had the girl warned me? I gave it up.
With a suddenness for which I was unprepared, Lakeport jumped into my immediate foreground. I had anticipated a county seat of some importance, but I found it a village straggling along the lakeshore, with a single main street and outlying residences. The valley had been settled by Missourians back in the fifties—and they were still here.
Presently I descried a charming square and courthouse, with a fine new Carnegie Library down by the lakefront. Except for a couple of docks and some moored launches and houseboats, the lakefront consisted of reed-beds and was not beautiful. But the lake itself, with the mountains opposite, was magnificent!
Volcanic action had done its work well in this place, and it was the sweetest spot I had seen in California. Once the town was wakened from its sleepy repose, it would be a second Geneva.
As the deed to my ranch had been sent on here for recording, I drove directly to the courthouse, left the car, and walked up to the county recorder’s office on the right of the main building. There I found everything in order and awaiting me. I inquired for the sheriff, meaning to set him on the trail of my near-assassin, but found that he was hunting deer. So was everyone else in town who could get awa
y, even as my hunter-informants had stated.
I walked half a block to the bank, with whom my Los Angeles bank had corresponded. The bank was closed, for it was after four o’clock, but I telephoned and obtained admission. I presented my credentials to the banker, an extremely cordial chap, and asked directions to my property. He showed me exactly where my ranch lay and outlined the road.
“Tell me one thing confidentially,” I inquired; “do you know why Balliol left here? Do you know anything against that property—any reason why I shouldn’t have bought it?”
“Certainly not!” he answered with evident surprise. “Balliol left because of his health, I believe, and for no other reason. The property is absolutely good, and a give-away at the price, Mr. Desmond! You got a good thing.”
He was in earnest, beyond a question. But as I sought the street again I found myself wishing that he had phrased it in some other fashion than “because of his health.”
After my late experiences, it had an ominous sound!
CHAPTER V
I Discover Skulls
I stopped at the hotel that night and the next morning departed to my ranch. It lay about twenty miles from town, by road, as I had to get around Mount Kenocti to reach it. By water it would be much closer. The ranch lay at the edge of the lake, and Balliol had done his clearing with the eye of an artist. The house itself was built of rough-hewn timber and cement, and was admirably situated at the edge of a small bluff over the water; about it stood gigantic white oaks, while the orchard ran back on the other side of the road.
Although I had half expected more excitement on my trip, I met with nothing untoward.
In Lakeport I had loaded up with camping supplies, a bit of forethought which came in handy. As I ran down the side road to the house and opened up the gates I was filled with delighted anticipation; with half an eye I could see that the place was a gem of beauty! The gates open, I ran the car inside, then shut the gates again. I was in my own domain at last.
Fortunately, I had telephoned the electric people on the previous afternoon, so that I found the electricity turned on—the place was on the power-line, which in California gives right to the juice, whether it be in a desert or a mountain canyon.
Of course, one expects to get something for ten thousand cash; but as I opened up the house and saw what things were like, I was astounded.
Balliol must have laughed in his sleeve at finding me to be an interior decorator. The place was furnished—literally crammed—with things which, in New York, would have been beyond price. They had come over with the Missourians in prairie schooners, and Balliol had bought them at various farms for a song.
There were two rosewood pianos, one an importation from Holland; several antique clocks, with original glass, in running order; the chairs were fiddlebacks of crotch-mahogany; there were two satinwood cabinets, genuine Sheratons. And the beds! Each of the two bedrooms was furnished completely in walnut; not the burl walnut of the late Victorian days, but the old carved French walnut of the earliest period. All in all, that furniture was a delight to the heart.
On the more practical side, the place was ready for use, from the bedding to the electric stove in the kitchen. By the time I had investigated everything and opened up the house, the morning was nearly gone, and it was about eleven o’clock when I descended the short path that ran down the bluff to the lakeside. Here was a boathouse, with a short dock beside it; when I had gained access to the boathouse by means of Balliol’s keys, I found a launch of small size but sturdy construction, and a fine Morris canoe. Fishing tackle swung that walls, and in one corner was a drum half filled with gasoline.
I took out my pipe and sat down in the launch. Not only was everything here which Balliol had described, but more—much more. To think of what I had dropped into astounded me. It was much too good to be true!
The acres of fruit-trees, which must be worth a good sum as income property, could no doubt be rented to neighbor ranchers. I resolved to see about it at once. All I wanted was this house and what was in it—no gentleman’s ranch for mine, but a gentleman’s country home.
My ideas had changed since seeing the place. Brought face to face with pear and walnut trees, as it were, I lost enthusiasm; fishing, tinkering with old furniture, and painting suited my lazy inclination a good deal better.
“I’ll get something to eat,” I said, knocking out my pipe into the water, “then I’ll try out the launch and visit the neighbors, and see about renting the orchard. It has a crop on right now, so it ought to be a good thing.”
I trudged back up the path, and when I reached the house I noticed a curious thing. The foundations were of cement, and a low cement wall-foundation ran the full length of the front veranda. There were a number of curious projections from that cement, and when I came up to the wall and examined them I found that they were human skulls!
The gruesome find rather staggered me. They were real skulls, set in the cement wall so as to project three or four inches, and they were in good condition. I am not superstitious, and I had no objections to this scheme of decoration on personal grounds; but it struck me that Balliol had carried his search for novelty just a bit too far.
“It’s only a step from beaux arts to bizarre,” I reflected, “and my friend Balliol seems to have taken the step. Where did he get ’em I wonder? Two—four—six—an even half dozen! Wonder if he put any more inside? I didn’t notice them—”
I hastened inside the house, my thoughts on the big hearth and chimney of cobbles; but I confess that to my relief I found it was quite lacking in further remains. All the skulls were outside.
With that, I paid little more attention to the matter, practically dismissing it from my mind—and for excellent reasons. I passed out on the veranda, meaning to go around to the car at the side of the house, and get my provisions; but at the first step I came to a dead halt, with a cold chill at my throat.
Upon the cement floor of the veranda were wet tracks; they began at the door and ended abruptly in the middle of the floor.
Yet the veranda was empty.
Those were not the tracks of a man. Something in their very appearance sent queer horror rippling through me, sent my gaze quickly over my shoulder at the empty house.
I had been gone not twenty minutes; these tracks were still wet, and whatever had made them must have come from the lake while I was down there.
Undeniably shaken by the mystery of it, I rushed back through the house to the back door. Absolutely nothing was in sight; I ran around the house, past the car, and saw nothing.
At the edge of the bluff I could see the shoreline below—and it was deserted.
I came back to the veranda and stared again at those tracks, now fast drying. They frightened me; there was something about them vaguely unnatural! And never in my life had I seen anything like them. Of course, I had opened the wide veranda window, and a bird might have walked in, then flown out and away—
But, a bird of this size? A bird from the lake? There was no other water, except in the well behind the house, from which the house itself was supplied by an electric motor.
And were those the tracks of any bird alive? I doubted it. The size was immense; the shape was that of a small central foot, with four immense toes—and beyond these the marks of long claws, unless I were mistaken!
What was the thing—monster or hallucination? I tried to argue that I was self-deceived, and I failed miserably. There were the wet prints on the cement before my eyes, slowly drying away! They could not have been made more than a few moments before I returned from the boathouse.
I felt suddenly prickly cold and very uncomfortable, and turned into the house. To go ahead with luncheon was, for the moment, impossible. I went into the living room, and, as I passed one of the two pianos, I suddenly descried a book lying open upon it.
I paused to glance at the book; to my astonishment I saw upon the printed page a cut of the exact print which I had seen on the veranda. Beneath the illustration w
as the legend:
Fossil imprint of Pterodactyl,
Marsh Collection, Yale College.
The realization smote me like a blow, as I leaned over the book and read. Balliol had left the book open here, of course! Balliol had seen the same prints—or had he seen the thing itself? Had he seen the living actual pterodactyl, the creature that had become extinct when the world began, the flying dragon of myth and legend? He had seen the tracks, at any rate, just as I had seen them.
This proved that I was under no delusion about those prints. But—was the thing credible? It was not. The bowl of this lake was an ancient volcano, the whole valley was of volcanic creation; mineral springs abounded; a few miles distant were quicksilver mines; the water in my own well was mineralized. Now, I had read stories about prehistoric monsters coming back to the world via extinct volcanoes and bottomless lakes, and so forth—stories, that is, which were purely fiction. Had such a thing really come about here in Lake County, California, upon my own ranch?
“Not by a damn sight!” I exclaimed, throwing the book across the room. “Balliol was frightfully nervous; I’m not. He may have been frightened out of here by his imagination—but I’m going to be shown!”
Then and there I dismissed the unnatural fears which had shaken me. If the creature existed, I would shoot it; if the whole affair were one of those queer mental quirks which come to all men, if the prints were caused by some natural agency not at the moment obvious to my deduction, well and good.
I went around to the car and hauled in my provisions. The electricity was on in the house, and I got the electric range working and managed to make myself a fairly decent meal. At times I found myself desirous of casting quick glances over my shoulder, at windows or doors, but I repressed it firmly. I was not going to get into Balliol’s condition if I could help it.
Lunch over, I dragged a rocker to the veranda and enjoyed a smoke, with the beauties of the lake outspread before me. By reason of a deep indendation of the lakeshore, the bluff on which my house was built faced almost due east; opposite me, across the bight, I saw the roofs of a farmhouse, doubtless my nearest neighbor in that direction.
The H. Bedford-Jones Pulp Fiction Megapack Page 6
