His quick eyes saw the fresh indentations in the soft earth behind the boulder, which showed where Kimbo had turned and leaped with a single surge, chasing the rabbit. Ignoring the tracks, he looked for the nearest place where a rabbit might hide, and strolled over to the stump. Kimbo had been there, he saw, and had been there too late. “You’re an ol’ fool,” muttered Alton. “Y’ can’t catch a cony by chasin’ it. You want to cross him up some way.” He gave a peculiar trilling whistle, sure that Kimbo was digging frantically under some nearby stump for a rabbit that was three counties away by now. No answer. A little puzzled, Alton went back to the path. “He never done this before,” he said softly. There was something about this he didn’t like.
He cocked his .32-40 and cradled it. At the county fair someone had once said of Alton Drew that he could shoot at a handful of salt and pepper thrown in the air and hit only the pepper. Once he split a bullet on the blade of a knife and put two candles out. He had no need to fear anything that could be shot at. That’s what he believed.
The thing in the woods looked curiously down at what it had done to Kimbo, and moaned the way Kimbo had before he died. It stood a minute storing away facts in its foul, unemotional mind. Blood was warm. The sunlight was warm. Things that moved and bore fur had a muscle to force the thick liquid through tiny tubes in their bodies. The liquid coagulated after a time. The liquid on rooted green things was thinner and the loss of a limb did not mean loss of life. It was very interesting, but the thing, the mold with a mind, was not pleased. Neither was it displeased. Its accidental urge was a thirst for knowledge, and it was only—interested.
It was growing late, and the sun reddened and rested awhile on the hilly horizon, teaching the clouds to be inverted flames. The thing threw up its head suddenly, noticing the dusk. Night was ever a strange thing, even for those of us who have known it in life. It would have been frightening for the monster had it been capable of fright, but it could only be curious; it could only reason from what it had observed.
What was happening? It was getting harder to see. Why? It threw its shapeless head from side to side. It was true—things were dim, and growing dimmer. Things were changing shape, taking on a new and darker color. What did the creatures it had crushed and torn apart see? How did they see? The larger one, the one that had attacked, had used two organs in its head. That must have been it, because after the thing had torn off two of the dog’s legs it had struck at the hairy muzzle; and the dog, seeing the blow coming had dropped folds of skin over the organs—closed its eyes. Ergo, the dog saw with its eyes. But then after the dog was dead, and its body still, repeated blows had had no effect on the eyes. They remained open and staring. The logical conclusion was, then, that a being that had ceased to live and breathe and move about lost the use of its eyes. It must be that to lose sight was, conversely, to die. Dead things did not walk about. They lay down and did not move. Therefore the thing in the wood concluded that it must be dead, and so it lay down by the path, not far away from Kimbo’s scattered body, lay down and believed itself dead.
Alton Drew came up through the dusk to the wood. He was frankly worried. He whistled again, and then called, and there was still no response, and he said again, “The ol’ fleabus never done this before,” and shook his heavy head. It was past milking time, and Cory would need him. “Kimbo!” he roared. The cry echoed through the shadows, and Alton flipped on the safety catch of his rifle and put the butt on the ground beside the path. Leaning on it, he took off his cap and scratched the back of his head, wondering. The rifle butt sunk into what he thought was soft earth; he staggered and stepped Into the chest of the thing that lay beside the path. His foot went up to the ankle in its yielding rottenness, and he swore and jumped back.
“Whew! Somp’n sure dead as hell there! Ugh!” He swabbed at his boot with a handful of leaves while the monster lay in the growing blackness with the edges of the deep footprint in its chest sliding into it, filling it up. It lay there regarding him dimly out of its muddy eyes, thinking it was dead because of the darkness, watching the articulation of Alton Drew’s joints, wondering at this new incautious creature.
Alton cleaned the butt of his gun with more leaves and went on up the path, whistling anxiously for Kimbo.
Clissa Drew stood in the door of the milk shed, very lovely in red-checked gingham and a blue apron. Her hair was clean yellow, parted in the middle and stretched tautly back to a heavy braided knot. “Cory! Alton!” she called a little sharply.
““Well?” Cory responded gruffly from the barn, where he was stripping off the Ayrshire. The dwindling streams of milk plopped pleasantly into the froth of a full pail.
“I’ve called and called,” said Clissa. “Supper’s cold, and Babe won’t eat until you come. Why—where’s Alton?”
Cory grunted, heaved the stool out of the way, threw over the stanchion lock and slapped the Ayrshire on the rump. The cow backed and filled like a towboat,clattered down the line and out into the barnyard. “Ain’t back yet.”
“Not back?” Clissa came in and stood by him as he sat by the next cow, put his forehead against the warm flank. “But, Cory, he said he’d—”
“Yeh, yeh, I know. He said he’d be back for the milkin”. I heard him. Well, he ain’t.”
“And you have to–Oh, Cory, I’ll help you finish up. Alton would be back if he could. Maybe he’s—”
“Maybe he’s treed a blue jay,” snapped her husband. “Him an’ that damn dog.” He gestured hugely with one hand while the other went on milking. “I got twenty-six head o’ cows to milk. I got pigs to feed an’ chickens to put to bed. I got to toss hay for the mare and turn the team out. I got harness to mend and a wire down in the night pasture. I got wood to split an’ carry.” He milked for a moment in silence, chewing on his lip. Clissa stood twisting her hands together, trying to think of something to stem the tide. It wasn’t the first time Alton’s hunting had interfered with the chores. “So I got to go ahead with it. I can’t interfere with Alton’s spoorin’. Every damn time that hound o’ his smells out a squirrel I go without my supper. I’m gettin’ sick and—”
“Oh, I’ll help you!” said Clissa. She was thinking of the spring, when Kimbo had held four hundred pounds of raging black bear at bay until Alton could put a bullet in its brain, the time Babe had found a bearcub and started to carry it home, and had fallen into a freshet, cutting her head. You can’t hate a dog that has saved your child for you, she thought.
“You’ll do nothin’ of the kind!” Cory growled. “Get back to the house. You’ll find work enough there. I’ll be along when I can. Dammit, Clissa, don’t cry! I didn’t meant to—Oh, shucks!” He got up and put his arms around her. “I’m wrought up,” he said. “Go on now. I’d no call to speak that way to you. I’m sorry. Go back to Babe. I’ll put a stop to this for good tonight. I’ve had enough. There’s work here for four farmers an’ all we’ve got is me an’ that—that huntsman. Go on now, Clissa.”
“All right,” she said into his shoulder. “But, Cory, hear him out first when he comes back. He might be unable to come back this time. Maybe he… he—”
“Ain’t nothin’ kin hurt my brother that a bullet will hit. He can take care of himself. He’s got no excuse good enough this time. Go on, now. Make the kid eat.”
Clissa went back to the house, her young face furrowed. If Cory quarreled with Alton now and drove him away, what with the drought and the creamery about to close and all, they just couldn’t manage. Hiring a man was out of the question. Cory’d have to work himself to death, and he just wouldn’t be able to make it. No one man could. She sighed and went into the house. It was seven o’clock, and the milking not done yet. Oh, why did Alton have to—
Babe was in bed at nine when Clissa heard Cory in the shed, slinging the wire cutters into a corner. “Alton back yet?” they both said at once as Cory stepped into the kitchen; and as she shook her head he clumped over to the stove, and lifting a lid, spat into the coals. “Come to bed,”
he said.
She laid down her stitching and looked at his broad back. He was twenty-eight, and he walked and acted like a man ten years older, and looked like a man five years younger. “I’ll be up in a while,” Clissa said.
Cory glanced at the corner behind the wood box where Alton’s rifle usually stood, then made an unspellable, disgusted sound and sat down to take off his heavy muddy shoes.
“It’s after nine,” Clissa volunteered timidly. Cory said nothing, reaching for house slippers.
“Cory, you’re not going to—”
“Not going to what?”
“Oh, nothing. I just thought that maybe Alton—”
“Alton!” Cory flared. “The dog goes hunting field mice. Alton goes hunting the dog. Now you want me to go hunting Alton. That’s what you want?”
“I just—He was never this late before.”
“I won’t do it! Go out lookin’ for him at nine o’clock in the night? I’ll be damned! He has no call to use us so, Clissa.”
Clissa said nothing. She went to the stove, peered into the wash boiler, set it aside at the back of the range. When she turned around, Cory had his shoes and coat on again.
“I knew you’d go,” she said. Her voice smiled though she did not.
“I’ll be back durned soon,” said Cory. “I don’t reckon he’s strayed far. It is late. I ain’t feared for him, but—” He broke his 12-gauge shotgun, looked through the barrels, slipped two shells into the breech and a box of them into his pocket. “Don’t wait up,” he said over his shoulder as he went out.
“I won’t,” Clissa replied to the closed door, and went back to her stitching by the lamp.
The path up the slope to the wood was very dark when Cory went up it, peering and calling. The air was chill and quiet, and a fetid odor of mold hung in it. Cory blew the taste of it out through impatient nostrils, drew it in again with the next breath, and swore. “Nonsense,” he muttered. “Houn’-dawg. Huntin’, at ten in th’ night, too. Alton!” he bellowed. “Alton Drew!” Echoes answered him, and he entered the wood. The huddled thing he passed in the dark heard him and felt the vibrations of his footsteps and did not move because it thought it was dead.
Cory strode on, looking around and ahead and not down since his feet knew the path.
“Alton!”
“That you, Cory?”
Cory Drew froze. That corner of the wood was thickly set and as dark as a burial vault. The voice he heard was choked, quiet, penetrating.
“Alton?”
“I found Kimbo, Cory.”
“Where the hell have you been?” shouted Cory furiously. He disliked this pitch-blackness; he was afraid at the tense hopelessness of Alton’s voice, and he mistrusted his ability to stay angry at his brother.
“I called him, Cory. I whistled at him, an’ the ol’ devil didn’t answer.”
“I can say the same for you, you… you louse. Why weren’t you to milkin’? Where are you? You caught in a trap?”
“The houn’ never missed answerin’ me before, you know,” said the tight, monotonous voice from the darkness.
“Alton! What the devil’s the matter with you? What do I care if your mutt didn’t answer? Where—”
“I guess because he ain’t never died before,” said Alton, refusing to be interrupted.
“You what?” Cory clicked his lips together twice and then said: “Alton, you turned crazy? What’s that you say?”
“Kimbo’s dead.”
“Kim… oh! Oh!” Cory was seeing that picture again in his mind—Babe sprawled unconscious in the freshet, and Kimbo raging and snapping against a monster bear, holding her back until Alton could get there. “What happened, Alton?” he asked more quietly.
“I aim to find out. Someone tore him up.”
“Tore him up?”
“There ain’t a bit of him left tacked together, Cory. Every damn joint in his body tore apart. Guts out of him.”
“Good God! Bear, you reckon?”
“No bear, nor nothin’ on four legs. He’s all here. None of him’s been et. Whoever done it just killed him an’—tore him up.”
“Good God!” Cory said again. “Who could’ve—” There was a long silence, then: “Come ’long home,” he said almost gently. “There’s no call for you to set up by him all night.”
“I’ll set. I aim to be here at sunup, an’ I’m goin’ to start trackin”, an’ I’m goin’ to keep trackin’ till I find the one done this job on Kimbo.”
“You’re drunk or crazy, Alton.”
“I ain’t drunk. You can think what you like about the rest of it. I’m stickin’ here.”
“We got a farm back yonder. Remember? I ain’t going to milk twenty-six head o’ cows again in the mornin’ like I did jest now, Alton.”
“Somebody’s got to. I can’t be there. I guess you’ll just have to, Cory.”
“You dirty scum!” Cory screamed. “You’ll come back with me now or I’ll know why!”
Alton’s voice was still tight, half-sleepy. “Don’t you come no nearer, bud.”
Cory kept moving toward Alton’s voice.
“I said—” the voice was very quiet now—“stop where you are.” Cory kept coming. A sharp click told of the release of the .32-4O’ssafety. Cory stopped.
“You got your gun on me, Alton?” Cory whispered.
“Thass right, bud. You ain’t a’trompin’ up these tracks for me. I need ’em at sunup.”
A full minute pllssed,and the only sound in the blackness was that of Cory’s pained breathing. Finally:
“I got my gun too, Alton. Come home.”
“You can’t see to shoot me.”
“We’re even on that.”
“We ain’t. I know just where you stand, Cory. I been here four hours.”
“My gun scatters.”
“My gun kills.”
Without another word Cory Drew turned on his heel and stamped back to the farm.
Black and liquescent it lay in the blackness, not alive, not understanding death, believing itself dead. Things that were alive saw and moved about. Things that were not alive could do neither. It rested its muddy gaze on the line of trees at the crest of the rise, and deep within it thoughts trickled wetly. It lay huddled, dividing its new-found facts, dissecting them as it had dissected live things when there was light, comparing, concluding, pigeonholing.
The trees at the top of the slope could just be seen, as their trunks were a fraction of a shade lighter than the dark sky behind them. At length they, too, disappeared, and for a moment sky and trees were a monotone. The thing knew it was dead now, and like many a being before it, it wondered how long it must stay like this. And then the sky beyond the trees grew a little lighter. That was a manifestly impossible occurrence, thought the thing, but it could see it and it must be so. Did dead things live again? That was curious. What about dismembered dead things? It would wait and see.
The sun came hand over hand up a beam of light. A bird somewhere made a high yawning peep, and as an owl killed a shrew, a skunk pounced on another, so that the night shift deaths and those of the day could go on without cessation. Two flowers nodded archly to each other, comparing their pretty clothes. A dragon fly nymph decided it was tired of looking serious and cracked Its back open, to crawl out and dry gauzily. The first golden ray sheared down between the trees, through the grasses, passed over the mass in the shadowed bushes. “I am alive again,” thought the thing that could not possibly live. “I am alive, for I see clearly.” It stood up on its thick legs, up into the golden glow. In a little while the wet flakes that had grown during the night dried in the sun, and when it took its first steps, they cracked off and a little shower of them fell away. It walked up the slope to find Kimbo, to see if he, too, were alive again.
Babe let the sun come into her room by opening her eyes. Uncle Alton was gone—that was the first thing that ran through her head. Dad had come home last night and had shouted at mother for an hour. Alton was plumb crazy
. He’d turned a gun on his own brother. If Alton ever came ten feet into Cory’s land, Cory would fill him so full of holes he’d look like a tumbleweed. Alton was lazy, shiftless, selfish, and one or two other things of questionable taste but undoubted vividness. Babe knew her father. Uncle Alton would never be safe in this country. She bounced out of bed in the enviable way of the very young, and ran to the window. Cory was trudging down to the night pasture with two bridles over his arm, to get the team. There were kitchen noises from downstairs.
Babe ducked her head in the washbowl and shook off the water like a terrier before she toweled. Trailing clean shirt and dungarees, she went to the head of the stairs, slid into the shirt, and began her morning ritual with the trousers. One step down was a step through the right leg. One more, and she was into the left. Then, bouncing step by step on both feet, buttoning one button per step, she reached the bottom fully dressed and ran into the kitchen.
“Didn’t Uncle Alton come back a-tall, Mum?”
“Morning, Babe. No, dear.” Clissa was too quiet, smiling too much. Babe thought shrewdly, she wasn’t happy.
The Dark Side Page 13