Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1952

by Wild Dogs of Drowning Creek (v1. 1)

  “How do you figure that?” said Jebs, speaking through a heaped burden of leafage.

  “Tell you later,” said Sam, hacking into a fresh clump of shrubbery.

  Like demons they worked, sweating with the heat and coughing when clouds of smoke reached them from the house. The work was furious, but it did not take them long. Indeed, they could not afford to spend long at clearing the brush back from the house. Even as they moved away with the final bundles of green foliage, they saw flames burst triumphantly through the scorched and blackened panels of the rear door.

  “That’s what I meant by an inside job,” said Sam to Jebs. “The fire must have been started inside the house. The doors were closed, remember? And it’s had a hard time struggling out here into the open. Unless Randy himself dropped a match in there—” “I didn’t even have a match,” said Randy.

  Just then Driscoll wheeled around and stared fixedly through the trees toward the far end of the sassafras orchard. Then he snatched the rifle from where he had leaned it against the sycamore.

  “I hear somebody,” he said, and moved rapidly away past the burning house.

  Jebs immediately hastened after Driscoll, and Randy after Jebs. Ahead of them, Driscoll broke into a run. Near the thicker woods he stopped and brought the rifle to his shoulder.

  “Come out of there!” he called sternly. “Come out or I’ll let you have a bullet!”

  “Now, you just point that there gun somewheres else,” drawled a plaintive voice, “and I’ll come out.” From among the trees moved Mr. Martin’s hired man, his eyes wide and frightened as they looked at Driscoll’s weapon. One of Willie Dubbin’s hands was fastened in the headstall of the mule he had used in ploughing at New Chimney Pot House.

  “Don’t shoot,” he begged. “I ain’t heard of no open season on folks.”

  Driscoll lowered the rifle, but kept finger on trigger. “What are you doing here?”

  “Willie!” cried Mr. Martin, who had followed the boys. “I thought you’d stayed at home. I thought you were scared of those wild dogs.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s about it,” said Willie apologetically. “But after you took out with Driscoll here, and carried your both guns with you, I felt so almighty worried and jumpy I figured I’d better try to catch up with you. So I hopped on Old Mule here and rode after you-all.”

  Driscoll smiled at the hired man’s explanation and set the butt of the rifle to the ground. Randy, however, looked at Willie sharply.

  “First you were afraid to come,” he said, “then you headed through the woods by yourself. How did you get the nerve to do that?”

  “Oh, I didn’t relish it none, but I didn’t have the nerve to stay, either,” said Willie, “so I come along.

  And then I didn’t see no sign of you-all at New Chimney Pot—”

  “How did you know we were here?” interrupted Sam. “How did you find us?”

  “Why, it ain’t me found you,” said Willie, scratching his lean chin with his thumb. “It was Old Mule. Shucks, I just got back on him and left him take his own way of finding you. Old Mule can find his way to wherever Mr. Martin’s at, good as any hound dog.” Willie’s eyes traveled to where the house blazed. “Say, folks, who done that? Who set fire to the house yonder? Looks as hot as a stove oven.”

  “I was going to ask you if you knew anything about it,” Sam told him deeply.

  “Why, I be dogged!” cried Willie, and turned toward the mule, as though to subpoena him as a witness. “It’s all a guess to me. I never even heard of this here place before, let alone knowed about it. Who owns it? What’s happened?”

  Randy looked at Willie and at the mule. Had that long-eared beast truly found the trail of its master and come here unprompted and unguided? He had heard of mules that could, and did, follow their owners along unfamiliar trails. Certainly the present specimen looked wise and cunning—perhaps it looked wise because Willie stood beside it looking so baffled.

  “I wonder,” muttered Jebs at Randy’s ear, “if we aren’t looking right spang at Mr. Two-Legs, the character that wore the spotted cowskin to do his midnight strolling with the wild dogs. Wish we’d saved that coat, to see if it fit Willie.”

  Randy had been thinking the same thing. “One clue can’t burn up in there,” he whispered back. “That metal thing in the pocket of the coat. We can comb it out of the ashes.”

  “Since you’re here, you’re here,” Mr. Martin said to Willie. “Tie the mule to that tree beside you, and help us. We’re going to have to keep watch on this fire until it’s burned down a right much. Then we’ll all go back to New Chimney Pot.”

  “Whatever you say,” assented Willie. “Anyways, it don’t look like as if you’ll have any long wait before that’s all burnt away.”

  As he spoke, the rooftree collapsed with a heavy crashing boom, and the fire bounded upward through the opening.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  AGAIN DARKNESS

  But the burning of the house took hours. The sun had set, the hands of Randy’s watch stood at ten minutes after eight, and all the watchers around the flames were weary and hungry by the time the final collapse of logs and timbers made a mere glowing heap, like a big council fire. About that time, Mr. Martin glanced up and wiped his face.

  “I felt a drop of rain,” he announced. “I reckon we’re in for another shower. It’ll be good for the crops.”

  “And good for us, too,” said Sam. “A hard rain will put out the last of the fire, and maybe it’ll keep the dogs at home, too.”

  “Speaking of that, where is their home?” asked Driscoll. “Did they den up here?”

  “No, not from what Randy said about the place,” replied Sam. “He made it sound like a deserted cabin, not a lair or kennel. My hunch—and it’s only a hunch—was that this house we’ve seen burn down was more like a sort of rallying point for the pack.” “You make them sound human,” said Driscoll. “Organized and disciplined.”

  “Well, aren’t they?” threw in Jebs. “Don’t they run these night maneuvers like soldiers raiding an enemy position? Didn’t they gang up on Randy like a patrol after a prisoner? Sure, they sound human. They act human.”

  “I been arguing you-all that point,” drawled Willie Dubbin. “I been saying all the time, there’s more’n dog sense among ’em. That there jacket Randy says he seen in there, that’s proof. One dog can change into a man and back again.”

  “Like the werewolves Mr. Tasman told us about,” said Jebs.

  “Let’s get back away from here,” pleaded Willie. “I don’t relish this place.”

  Amid the increasing scatter of raindrops, the party turned toward the homeward trail. Both Driscoll and Sam had brought flashlights along, and with these they moved ahead to search out the line of blazed trees in the dark. Willie Dubbin led the mule behind them, and Jebs walked at Willie’s side. Mr. Martin and Randy, following closely, could hear their conversation.

  “You figure I’m right, boy?” Willie was saying. “Why, dog my soul, I pure down know I’m right. I figured it all out from what I been hearing since I was a young chap, no more’n walking around with my ears flopping. That there spotted Bugler dog—well, Randy allows he was sort of tyrannizing around, running the show.”

  “He certainly was,” agreed Randy from the rear of the procession.

  “Now, that there jacket musta been his jacket,” amplified Willie solemnly. “He could put it on at night and it’d turn him into a man, or anyways something like a man—walking around on two feet, maybe able to use his front paws like they was sure- enough hands.”

  “That’s not the way I’ve heard about werewolves,” boomed back Sam, in humor with Willie’s superstitious avowals. “It was more the other way around. The old tales say a werewolf is a man by day and an animal by night. How can science prove what you’re saying?”

  “Shucks, Mr. Cohill,” answered Willie, “science don’t hold none with them tales. So it don’t study to prove nothing about them. And it don’t seem no
harder for a daytime man to turn into a nighttime wolf than for a daytime dog to turn into a nighttime man, am I right?”

  “Right enough according to logic,” agreed Sam, trying not to laugh.

  “Well things does change,” Willie pursued his argument. “Look at a little bitty tadpole, a fish, sort of like. Then it forgets its tail and reaches out arms and legs and turns into a frog. Or a caterpillar worm all at once puts out wings and flops around for a butterfly. They take a longer time at it, but otherwise ain’t that just as hard to do as a dog turning into a man?”

  “Let me take you into the woods to talk to Mr. Hobert Tasman some time,” suggested Randy. “He’s read a book about werewolves. He’ll tell you about cases on the records of real courts.”

  “Listen here, sonny,” said Willie, “I ain’t going any deeper into these here woods to listen to nothing. I’ve had my bait of them kind of tales.”

  “But what if Bugler’s coat burned up in the house?” asked Randy. “He can’t make the change.”

  “Oh, more’n likely he snaked in and carried his coat out first,” was Willie’s ready theory. “Or like enough he slipped it on by daytime this once, and turned into his man shape so’s he could set the fire.”

  “We certainly don’t know how the fire started,” said Mr. Martin, turning his shotgun muzzle downward to keep rain from entering. “Randy had nothing to do with it, and the dogs couldn’t have done it.”

  “Not without one or other of ’em turned into a man,” said Willie, humorlessly stubborn in his belief. “However could a dog strike a match without he had him some hands?”

  “Maybe those wasp stings burned them up so bad, they touched off the house by spontaneous combustion,” offered Jebs.

  Nobody laughed.

  “How about your Indian friends, Sam?” asked Mr. Martin, raising his voice. “Might they have mixed into this?”

  “Not for a moment,” said Sam at once. “I’ve known the Drowning Creek Indians for years. They’ve been my best friends—my only friends, until Driscoll and these other boys showed up. And you always know where you stand with an Indian, friend or foe. He won’t two-time a real friend for anything.”

  “Neither will a dog,” agreed Mr. Martin.

  “I’m not too happy about dogs just now,” said Randy.

  Mr. Martin laughed understandingly. “Look at it without feeling too mad at them, Randy. What if you owned some dogs, and they caught a stranger fooling around some house of yours? Wouldn’t you expect them to try to run the stranger off—the way they tried with you?”

  “Yes, but the house was deserted, and I didn’t mean any harm.”

  “You can’t expect the dogs to know that. They figured on you for a trespasser.”

  Wetly the party slogged along until it reached New Chimney Pot. The rain fell more heavily still as they entered. Jebs and Driscoll kindled a fire on the hearth, and hurried out with flashlights to feed the stock, while Sam fried ham and potatoes. Everyone ate heartily, under the glow of the new electric lights.

  “I’ll drive you home, Mr. Martin,” said Driscoll as they finished. “It’ll be wet going in that open jeep, but maybe Randy or Jebs will lend you a raincoat.”

  “You can have mine, Mr. Martin, it’s pretty big,” offered Jebs. “Randy, probably Willie will thank you for the loan of your coat while he rides the mule home.”

  “I ain’t riding Old Mule anywheres alone in this night,” declared Willie, so warmly that he speeded up out of his drawl. “I’ve done tied him up in your calf shed, and I’m going in the jeep. There ain’t money enough in North Carolina, and in South Carolina on top of it, to get me riding through these woods tonight with nobody but Old Mule for company.”

  “All right, go with Driscoll and Mr. Martin,” said Jebs. “I’ll ride Old Mule over myself in the morning, if it’s cleared up and he’ll let me stay on his back.”

  Mr. Martin and Willie, clad in the borrowed raincoats, went out with Driscoll to start the jeep and drive away. Randy went into the front room. The small fire on the hearth was dispelling dampness from the air and from his clothing, and he was glad to sit down. He felt tired, and grateful for shelter. Rebel came and sat beside him.

  “Sam,” said Jebs, as he and the giant entered in turn, “what do you, as a special deputy, think of the evidence so far?”

  “As a special deputy, I don’t think there is very much evidence,” replied Sam, pulling up his big chair. “What there is had better be pretty well puzzled over before anyone gives an opinion.”

  “How about you, Randy?” was Jebs’ next question. “Or are you back at your hobby of thinking?”

  “Mr. Martin made one remark that sticks in my mind,” Randy told them. “About the dogs acting as if I was a trespasser.”

  “Yes,” said Jebs, “they must have thought they were doing their duty, just the way Rebel would do his if anybody tried to bust in here at New Chimney Pot.”

  “But I’ve told you,” went on Randy, “that place didn’t look lived in, by dogs or men.”

  “You keep talking as if those dogs acted like pretty smart animals,” observed Sam.

  “And they did act smart,” Randy nodded. “Especially that spotted one, Bugler. And all of them meant business, taking after me. The only one that seemed downright mean, though, was that wolfish mongrel with the bushy tail.”

  “I don’t expect we’ll have much trouble with them tonight,” Sam said. “The rain’s falling faster all the time, and it won’t be the sort of weather dogs like to face. Some of them will be doctoring their wasp stings, too.”

  Jebs laughed. “I’d like to have been where I could have seen and heard that wasp business,” he said. “Of course, I’d want to be somewhere safe myself, from wasps and dogs both.”

  Randy leaned back. “Well, those wasps were out- and-out disgusted,” he remembered. “They showed it, too, the best way they knew how. I estimated that there were about thirty of them, and every single wasp must have picked out a dog to sit down on.”

  “How do you feel after all this whooping and hollering?” asked Jebs, eyeing his friend calculatingly.

  “Slightly bushed,” said Randy, “and thoroughly thankful. That ought to answer your question.”

  “Oh, it does, it does,” said Jebs. “But me, I’m all broke out with a heap of other questions—and nobody knows the answers, I’ll bet, except maybe the dogs themselves. We’ll have to sit around here and guess on them till the dogs decide to talk up, or somebody talks up for them. The main question, of course—”

  “Is who or what started the fire,” Sam finished for him.

  Randy sat up and stared at the giant, but Jebs only grinned.

  “Sam isn’t a mind reader, Randy, it’s just that he’s studying along the same lines as we are. Out yonder in the rain I felt halfway like going along with Willie Dubbin’s thrilling tale about dogs turning back and forth into something almost human.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Randy. “He made it sound almost sensible.”

  “But here,” continued Jebs, “with our brand-new electric lights blazing away—”

  “In here,” Sam interrupted again, “you get back your common sense and wonder how much Willie believes his own arguments.”

  “His own arguments?” repeated Randy.

  “Hear that echo?” said Jebs to Sam. “You ought to change the name of New Chimney Pot to Echo in the Valley.”

  “It’s just as Jebs says, Randy,” grinned Sam. “He and I are trying to study the case along the same lines.”

  “And you think,” said Randy after a moment, “that Willie may be faking that werewolf-story idea to cover up.”

  “Randy learns fast, Sam,” commented Jebs drily. “You reckon this special-deputy stuff is catching?

  Or is it just the natural Randy Hunter genius for digging up what looks silly and making it look sensible? I’ve seen him work before, you know.”

  “Nobody can accuse Willie on mere guesses,” Sam warned the boys. �
��Let’s understand that before we go on. But we’ve all been thinking about how odd it was that he showed up at the burning house.”

  “That’s the truth!” cried Jebs. “And it’s double odd, because when Driscoll and I were at Mr. Martin’s, Willie swore up and down and crossways on the bias that he was too scared to come with us.”

  “Might Willie be running with the dogs?” Randy voiced the thought of them all.

  “It doesn’t seem logical,” said Sam.

  “Then he’s the one,” decided Jebs. “You know the mystery books—the least suspicious guy turns out to be guilty. Another thing about mysteries; it’s apt to be the butler. Willie’s no butler, but he works for Mr. Martin. That’s as close to a butler as we’ve got on this case.”

  Randy got up, found pencil and paper, and sat down again. “Shall we make notes to mull over later?” he suggested.

  “All right,” granted Sam, “but I’ll keep them after they’re made. And remember, no going off halfcocked on any wild guesses. All right, after Willie, who’s our next suspect?”

  “We can’t put down Mr. Martin,” said Jebs, “because he was with us a right long time before we even came close to the house and found it burning. And before that, Driscoll drove clear to his farm to get him. He couldn’t be in two places at once.”

  “There’s Hobert Tasman,” mused Sam.

  “You might as well write down Bugler,” said Randy. “Jebs saw me test his blindness, by shoving a book at his face. He didn’t see—he never even blinked. I know he’s not faking.”

  “Beyond those, there’s my bunch of Indian friends,” resumed Sam. “As I told James Martin, I’d stake my life on their being square with us. That brings us to Mr. X.”

  “Who’s he?” asked Randy, looking up from his notes.

  “Mr. X, the unknown quantity,” said Sam. “Acting in secret, for secret reasons none of us can figure out. But Mr. X is a sort of genius. He has the friendship and obedience of those wild dogs.”

  “Then they aren’t wild,” objected Jebs.

  “No, they aren’t. They’re a pack of well-trained, well-disciplined hunting animals. They operate at the wish and direction of Mr. X in his spotted jacket.”