With a pocketknife he whittled the piece of bark into a crude trowel. Jebs improvised another from a split piece of wood. Industriously and carefully they scooped away the soggy soil around the print, gouged well under it, and finally levered it, still in its bed of mire, into the shoe box. Randy replaced the lid and took it cautiously under his arm.
“Back home with the evidence,” he said.
Returning from Beaver Lake, the two kept a heavy, stealthy silence. As they reached the last belt of trees before the barnyard at Laurels, Jebs sighed deeply.
“I’m glad to be away from there for once,” he confessed. 'I had a feeling we were being watched every second, and not in a friendly way.”
“Thanks for admitting it,” replied Randy. “I had the same feeling, and it’s not quite so lonesome when you have a pal to help you be nervous.”
“Probably we’re just working our imaginations overtime,” suggested Jebs, as much for his own comfort as for Randy’s.
“Probably,” said Randy, “but let’s keep a lookout. Better to have a defense you don’t need than to need a defense you don’t have.”
“Hey, that’s smart-sounding,” said Jebs. “Did you think it up all by yourself?”
“No. I think some other great mind hatched it out. Some president or general or governor —”
“Or just somebody slipping scared-like through the woods, wondering what was hiding behind the next tree," contributed Jebs.
They reached the yard at Laurels without mishap, and bore their prize into the stable. Carefully setting the box on the bench where Uncle Henry kept his boxes of nails and smaller tools, Randy lifted the lid. Apparently the plaster cast had survived the journey from the lake unharmed in the least degree.
"We’d better not pry it loose yet," advised Jebs. "Let it set a day or so, then work it free and clean it up. Wait until the sheriff has a look at that. He’ll want to hire us as deputies."
"Why give the sheriff a look at it?" demanded Randy suddenly.
Jebs narrowed his eyes. "I’m commencing to figure you out, Randy. You put on that sharp, dark expression when you’re boiling up with some idea. What is it this time? You aren’t going to hold out on the law, are you?"
"No," said Randy. "We’ll give the sheriff a look, all right, but not at just a cast of a footprint. We’ll turn the guilty party over to him."
"How do we know who he is?"
"We don’t, just yet. But from this cast, when it’s clean, we can start building our evidence. We can find out who made the track and observe him. So far, all we know is that somebody was at the lake last night. We can only guess that he meant to trap beaver or do something else really serious. But once we identify him, we can check up and find out."
"What if he traps and skins our beaver first?" asked Jebs, his voice sharpening in anger at the possibility.
"Then the sheriff comes in. But we’ll catch up with the prowler before then. Right now, as I guess, he’s going to wait until we stop worrying about him. You can bet he wants my grandfather to slack off on wondering who he is. We’ll have time to trace him. What do you say, Jebs? We can be detectives and deputies and game wardens, right on our own hook. Let’s try it for a week, anyway.”
At the word detectives, Jebs’ eyes brightened. “Well, all right. You make it sound as if we could swing it. Now let’s put our plaster footprint where it will dry out.”
Through one window in the stable the sun’s ray gleamed warmly. They set the box before this, propping it on a block of wood so as to get the full benefit of heat and light.
“What next?” asked Randy as they turned away.
“We’ll have to make a list of things to do. Want to go dancing Friday night?”
“Dancing?” Randy looked puzzled. “I didn’t have you pegged for a prom trotter.”
“Shoo, I’m not. What I mean is an old-style hoedown country dance. There’s an old building that used to be a schoolhouse. The folks around here sometimes use it for meetings and socials. Every other Friday night — day after tomorrow’s Friday — they get together and tune up the fiddle and guitar.” Jebs pronounced the last word ffg/Vtar.”
“Does your father let you go?”
“Shoo,” said Jebs, “he goes himself, and so does Mamma. You couldn’t keep that pair away from a good ladies-and- gentlemen’s square dance with a hoe handle.”
“I’ll ask my grandfather.” Randy sought out the Major, who smiled and nodded to grant the request.
“Go enjoy yourself, Randy. But don’t expect me to drag my timber leg there. Friday’s my favorite radio night.” Returning to Jebs, Randy completed arrangements to meet the Markums after the store closed on Friday night and ride with them to the dance.
THE HOBNAIL CROSS
Jeb had taken to reading Randy’s Boy Scout manual, with interest and profit.
"I can pass these Tenderfoot tests,” he said, as he sat in Randy’s room the next day. "I was old enough to qualify years ago. The Scout Law and Oath are easy to remember, though a guy has to practice them as well as recite them, I reckon. The flag history and forms of respect we’ve had in school. The knots — I know the square knot and several others, but maybe not eight in all.”
"You’ll find diagrams and directions in there,” said Randy, taking the book from Jebs’ hand.
Studying the knot pictures, Jebs reached out for a piece of clothesline that had come in Randy’s foot locker along with many other casual possessions, and began to experiment with a bowline, then with a lariat loop. His fingers were naturally sure, and after a few tries he succeeded in forming both the loops.
"You’ll pass the tests like a high wind whenever we can find someone qualified to review you,” said Randy. "A month as a Tenderfoot, and you can make Second Class rank. I’ll help coach you on first aid, signaling and so on. Two months more, and you go up against First Class. Can you swim?” "Ever since I was seven years old,” said Jebs.
"Use an ax?”
“Show me your cherry tree and I’ll imitate George Washington.”
“Read a map?”
“I’ll probably need coaching on that, too. What comes after First Class Scout?”
“Star Scout, Life Scout and Eagle Scout,” replied Randy. “Those ranks take Merit Badges.” He turned to the Merit Badge section of the manual. “Probably you could win some of these right now, without studying at all.”
Jebs leafed through page after page of Merit Badge requirements. “Agriculture, that ought to be simple. Angling — that’s fishing, isn’t it? — I’d take honors in. Animal industry would be up my alley.”
“And athletics,” added Randy, looking over Jebs’ shoulder. “Bird study, could you swing that one? Civics, cooking—”
“Cotton farming,” put in Jebs. “Any Carolinian is born knowing that. Farm home, farm layout, farm mechanics. Fingerprinting, no. If we could do that, we might corral our prowler. Gardening, hiking, pathfinding. Safety, I’d want to learn and qualify on that one. Scholarship, you’d have to ask my teachers if I rated that one. Skiing is out in this warm climate. Stalking I’ve done, and swimming I can do.” He looked up, smiling in his enthusiasm. “I feel like Mr. Eagle Scout already.”
“Stalking,” harked back Randy. “That reminds me, we’ve got a kind of little stalking project of our own. Let’s go look at that plaster cast again.”
They went out to the stable and set the box on the bench. The plaster cast proved dry and solid to their carefully probing fingers, and Randy pried it gingerly from its surrounding bed of earth. He and Jebs wiped away clinging crumbs and flakes of dirt, then drew a bucket of water at the hydrant and rinsed the cast, taking pains not to chip or scratch it. Finally they turned it upside down on a board and carried it into the sunlight to examine.
"Except for size, it might be any common cowhide farm shoe,” said Jebs. "Thick, blunt leather sole, and a leather heel as I judge, with hobnails.”
"That hobnail pattern looks funny,” said Randy. "The nail heads make a
cross-shaped pattern in the center of the heel. What shoemaker around here does his work that way?”
"There aren’t but a few in this region,” replied Jebs. "A couple in Aberdeen, a couple more up the road in Southern Pines. And that doesn’t look professional to me, anyway.” Uncle Henry ambled by, a rake on his shoulder. "What you two got there?” he asked curiously.
Randy showed him the cast. "We made this with plaster in a footprint,” he explained, "and we were looking at this cross pattern of hobnails in the heel.”
Uncle Henry studied the pattern, and his dusky brow creased with intent study. "Huh,” he said, half to himself, "I ain’t see that kind of business for a good long spell of years.”
"You know what the cross means, then?”
"It mean the man who wore that shoe was pure down ignorant,” Uncle Henry told them emphatically. "Some crazy-head that still believe in witches and ha’nts and that kind of fool stuff.”
"Well, I want to know!” cried Jebs, fascinated.
Uncle Henry’s brown forefinger tapped the plaster blobs that meant nail heads. " ’Way back before the Year One, some folkses has druv in nails in they shoe-heels to make a cross, on account they reckons that’ll keep witches from followin’ along after ’em and puttin’ a spell or a hoodoo on ’em. Well, that might be ’scusable back in the old ignorant days when nobody had the chance to learn any diff’ent, but when you show me a shoe nailed like that, I show you a fool and a gump and a witch-believer. Don’t you have no truck with nobody as gone gump as that, you hear?” And he walked away.
Jebs and Randy looked at each other and kept silent for a moment. "Now that Uncle Henry’s explained it,” said Randy, "I know where I read about the same thing.”
"A hobnail cross?”
"Yes. In Huckleberry Finn. Huck’s father, the village bad man, nailed a cross pattern into his shoes to keep witches off.”
"Shoo,” said Jebs. "I remember the book too. And Old Man Finn was a pretty bad character to monkey with. Kind of ready with guns and knives, wasn’t he?”
"That’s right,” nodded Randy, his eyes on the cast. "And probably nowhere near as big as this mystery prowler is, if he fits his shoe size.”
The two boys returned to the house, where Randy carefully wrapped the cast in newspaper and put it in a bottom bureau drawer.
Jebs sighed deeply. "Suppose we change the subject,” he said. "Get on something beside the mystery. I’ve been reading that book your grandfather lent me, about the animals that used to live in America before human beings came along. There was a giant beaver in Ohio, as big as a black bear.”
"How’d you like to see beaver that size building dams and lodges?” asked Randy.
"They must have made the Great Lakes,” said Jebs. "I wonder if that stuff in Hiawatha about the king beaver — ten times larger than the others — might have been some old, old memory of giant beavers. Their lodges would be big enough for men to live in. Maybe the earliest Indians did. Maybe that’s where they learned to build their wigwams and earth houses.”
“A beaver that size ought to take care of himself,” elaborated Randy. “Big as a bear, you said? Anybody wanting to trap-one of those would have to think twice about how he was going to catch hold.”
“And prowlers like old Cross-Nails wouldn’t tramp around so free on the banks of a giant beaver lake,” said Jebs, and turned solemn. The mystery of the big-footed trackmaker oppressed the boys once again.
But the weather was too bright and pleasant to allow the uneasy mood to prevail. Jebs and Randy spent the rest of the afternoon in discussing Merit Badges and other advancement items in Scouting. Then Jebs went home to supper, promising to return with his family to take Randy to the square dance.
At a quarter to eight the Markum car drove into the yard of Laurels, and Randy, dressed in gray slacks, white shirt and sports jacket, went out to greet Mr. Markham and his wife.
“Get in the back seat with Jebs,” bade Mr. Markum. “Are you any good at country dancing, Randy?”
“I never tried it, sir,” replied Randy as the car started.
In the back seat, Jebs surveyed his friend’s costume critically.
“Shoo, Randy, shuck off that coat and that necktie. You want these people to think you’re too high-flung to associate with them? If they get the idea you’re some Yankee tourist dropping by to laugh at country ways, they might not have so much fun, nor you, either.”
Randy obeyed. It was a four-mile drive to the old country schoolhouse, which proved to be a low square-built structure of white painted boards. There were lights inside, and a circle of parked cars outside, and inside the circle and outside the building were several little knots of people of various ages, talking and laughing. As Mr. Markum found a parking place and eased his own car into it, somewhere a fiddle struck up a shrill but harmonious tune.
"Just in time,” said Jebs. "Get out, Randy, I want you to meet some folks I know.”
Several boys and girls called out greetings.
"This is Potter Harriman, Randy,” Jebs began his introductions. "Potter, shake hands with Randy Hunter, he’s the Major’s grandson and he’s going to live here. And this is Sam Sullivan, Randy, Davis Blaikie, and Mack MacDonald.” "You fixing to leave us out, Jebs?” challenged a merryfaced girl with lots of wavy black hair. She wore a peasant blouse and dark skirt, with saddle oxfords.
"Not for more than a second. Meet Randy Hunter. Randy, this is Lucy Ann Clevenger. And here comes Rhoda May Stone, and Ellen Mary Texas Hobart.”
"Let’s go in and help ’em start up,” suggested Potter Harriman, and the group turned to head for the door.
Even as he reached the stoop, Randy felt the impact of a direct gaze from somewhere, as he might have felt the sudden touch of a hand. He looked that way, and into the face of a youth his own age, but taller and broader, who lounged against the door jamb.
It was a heavy, half-frowning face, with untidy brown hair growing low on the forehead. Under thick brows the narrow dark eyes probed at him, as though to decide where they had seen Randy Hunter before. Randy had a feeling he had spied that face in the past — where?
A moment later they were all inside the building, with music and chattering voices around them.
THE TROUBLEMAKER
The large room into which Randy followed his companions had walls and ceilings of narrow, light-painted boards, and was illuminated by kerosene lamps clamped in iron brackets. Chairs were set along the walls. At one end, on a sort of low platform or dais, probably intended for the teacher’s desk, sat three musicians with guitar, fiddle and accordion. They were elderly men, clad in old trousers, white shirts and heavy shoes. With nimble, good-humored skill, they were playing a quick, catchy tune in fast jig rhythm.
On the open floor, several couples took positions for a dance. To Randy’s uninstructed eye, they seemed to have the knowledge and discipline of a unit of soldiers preparing to execute an intricate close-order drill.
“I’m not up on this kind of dancing,” he confessed to Jebs. “I’ll sit this one out.”
“Well, I won’t,” Jebs told him. “I’m going to dance. Come on, Lucy Ann.”
The merry-faced girl joined Jebs and they took the last vacant place in the dance figure. A spry old gentleman had mounted the platform beside the musicians. He clapped his hands twice and the music stopped. To Randy the claps sounded as sharp as a pistol shot, or as the signal clap of a beaver’s tail on the water.
"Ladies and gentlemen, Virginia reel, if you please,” the caller announced. "What will the tune be?” He eyed the fiddler over the top of his spectacles. "Make it old, and make it lively.”
There was a hurried conference in undertones among the musicians. "Hey, Betty Martin,” the fiddler finally said.
"Hey, Betty Martin,” repeated the caller. "Form with your partners. I see you’re ready. Music!”
The dancers had drawn up in two lines, the men facing the women. The fiddler patted once, twice, three times with his foot. On th
e third pat the little orchestra began to play in the unique rhythm of the reel, and the dancers swung smoothly into the figures. To Randy it was hard to follow at first, then harder, and harder still. He saw Jebs dancing nimbly and expertly, his shoes clump-clumping with a vigor that did not lack grace. Mr. and Mrs. Markum were as active as their son, and even smoother in following the various swift figures of the reel. Randy despaired of ever learning such a routine well enough to follow it.
Someone came close to his elbow.
"Hi,” said a deep voice.
"I’m a wallflower tonight,” said Randy, without turning to look at the stranger.
"Those kind of dances is for old chawbacons who never learned any new steps since the Battle of Bentonville,” the reply came in a growl.
Randy turned around. The speaker was the frowning youth who had stared at Randy outside. Seen at close quarters, he proved to be a full inch taller than even the upstanding Randy. His shoulders, chest and legs, clad in checked shirt and khaki pants, looked thick and strong. His hands were broad and meaty, and he wore coarse shoes. He might have been a year older than Randy, or more than that.
"Ain’t you new around here?" he demanded. "Ain’t you living with Major Hunter?"
"I’m Major Hunter’s grandson," replied Randy. "My name’s Randy Hunter."
"I’m new around here, too." The frown creased the swarthy brow deeper. There was no suggestion of friendly . feeling in the announcement. "My name’s Bickram. Emory Bickram. Out there at the door, you was kind of gopping at me like you wondered who I was."
Randy tried not to kindle to the strange hostility in Emory Bickram's words and manner. He remembered his violent l introduction to Jebs, and wondered if perhaps he had a bad habit of too curious staring.
"Em!" called another voice, higher and even harsher than Emory Bickram’s growl.
Emory Bickram looked around, then snorted and tramped away from Randy toward a youth who was older than he, perhaps fully twenty, and in build and face apparently his kinsman. This second stranger wore razor-pressed blue I slacks, narrow at the cuffs, and a slim-waisted, pad-shouldered coat of loud checked material, tailored in a fashion that Randy and his friends up North had called zoot. A white shirt and a flaring bow tie of bright-colored design jl completed the costume. Vastly different from Emory’s drab I unkempt thatch, was the carefully combed and parted hair.
Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1953 Page 5
