Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1952

by Wild Dogs of Drowning Creek (v1. 1)

  “When we know they’re on the place?” repeated Randy. “You think they’ll make noise enough?”

  “I think they will,” replied Jebs mysteriously.

  “We have guns,” went on Sam. “Let’s load them. But we won’t fire a shot unless we’re right on top of something that needs shooting pretty badly.”

  Mr. Martin opened the breech of the shotgun and fed two shells into it. “I’ll carry this,” he said, closing it again and leaning it against the side of the fireplace. “The rifle,” he went on, loading it in turn, “can go to Driscoll, the same as yesterday.”

  “Give it to Randy this time,” spoke up Driscoll. “I’m going to stick to my old machete.”

  “What about Jebs?” asked Randy. “What’s his weapon?”

  “Oh, just a simple secret one,” said Jebs, elaborately casual. “Just a simple little special piece of armament, that will be the dawn of a new era in warfare.”

  “How can just five of us round up ten dogs?” asked Driscoll. “Randy said there were ten.”

  “We won’t try to round them up,” Sam said. “As a matter of fact, they’ll probably scatter and run, the way they did before. What we want to do is get hold of Mr. X, the two-legged member of the pack.”

  “I’m for that,” agreed Driscoll, “but how do we go about getting hold of him?”

  “We run him down. Don’t bother with the dogs unless they come at you. Now, attention to orders.” It was already dim inside the front room. Sam looked around the group, like a military commander checking his subordinates.

  “We’ll be waiting in the kitchen,” he said. “Rebel will sense the coming of the pack, and he’ll give us our first warning. Everybody be quiet until I give the word, and then out we go. Just outside the door, we form a line at once. Randy will be at the right with the rifle, and Jim Martin here at the left with his shotgun. Driscoll and I hold positions between. Rebel comes along, of course.”

  “You’re leaving Jebs out,” objected Randy.

  “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be in it,” said Jebs, and walked into the bedroom he shared with Randy. They heard him cautiously raising the window.

  “Does everybody understand?” wound up Sam. “Any questions? All right, it’s set.”

  They fell quiet, sitting down and trying to relax. Time passed. The sun was setting. Inside, the house grew dark.

  “It’ll be dark in a few minutes,” reported Driscoll, glancing out at a front window.

  More silence. Randy sat with the rifle across his knees. He tried to keep from quivering with excitement.

  Then Rebel rose from his place by the hearth. His sharp eyes lifted, his stubby tail cocked. He growled softly. They could barely make out his pale outline. He was looking toward the rear of the house.

  “Quiet, boy,” warned Driscoll, barely whispering. “Keep it to yourself. You’ll get your chance in a moment.”

  Sam’s body, rising to its full height, made a tremendous shadow in the room. “Come on,” he muttered, and led the way into the kitchen. His big feet moved as noiselessly as a cat’s.

  They followed him, and gathered. Randy had the rifle ready in his hands. Against his knee pressed Rebel. The bull terrier was obedient to Driscoll’s order for silence, but Randy could feel him tremble, as if wildly eager for action. Close by on Randy’s other side stood Mr. Martin with the shotgun, and beyond him was Driscoll with his machete. Sam had opened the kitchen door an inch or so, his big fingers hooked on its edge.

  Outside, all was dark and quiet.

  Then, abruptly, noise seemed to tear the night to pieces.

  A whole chorus of animal voices burst into howling, deafening din, a many-throated cry of pain and terror.

  Sam whipped the door open. They all rushed out.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  VICTORY

  As Randy cleared the doorway, he sped to the right. A moon was peering over the trees, and he could see Sam moving forward beside him. Beyond Sam hurried Driscoll, poising the machete, and beyond Driscoll Mr. Martin. Still the dogs howled.

  The moonlight struck through even as they advanced at a swift trot, keeping side by side. Randy saw the open ground by the fence that confined the pigs. A churning, leaping flurry of movement showed there—the wild dogs. Their shrill hubbub sounded louder.

  “Hold your fire,” Sam muttered above him. “I don’t think we’ll need bullets.”

  But Randy saw a dark, swift thing whizzing toward him in the moonlight. He had an instant’s impression of glowing eyes, bared white teeth—the wolfish dog. Up came his rifle.

  Then a charging white blotch shot forward under his very elbow. White blotch met dark blotch with an audible shock of impact, and a single blended snarl resounded. Two forms rolled over and over, the wolf-dog and Rebel locked in combat. One of them yelped—it wasn’t Rebel.

  Still hurrying forward, Randy leaped high to clear them as they grappled. He spared one glance backward as he ran ahead. Against a gleam of moonlight he saw them pull apart, then strike at each other again—Rebel’s white head darted in and across, like a slashing saber. Again Rebel’s opponent shrieked. Rebel had taken hold somewhere.

  All that action took place in the time Randy spared for a backward glance. He watched no more. Rebel was doing all right without being watched. The charge had carried almost to the pigpen.

  “There’s that Bugler dog!” roared Mr. Martin, and the moonlight slid along his lifting shotgun.

  “Don't shoot!” yelled somebody else—not Sam, not Driscoll.

  The wild dogs were fleeing in all directions. Something had driven the fight out of them. Right in front of Mr. Martin a figure stood erect, almost throwing itself against the gun muzzle. Randy saw dark spots on paleness—that figure wore the spotted cowskin jacket. It struck out with both hands and knocked the shotgun up. A blast flashed and boomed up into the sky.

  “Grab him!” Sam was ordering, and they tried to rush the strange being from all sides.

  But the spotted jacket whirled and ran. Mr. Martin tried to cut off its retreat, and Randy saw the fugitive break toward the pigpen. Again rose a startled cry, but a human cry this time. The retreating mystery danced and skipped like a star of the Russian ballet. It almost somersaulted in the moonlight.

  “Don’t get close!” Sam boomed. “That chicken wire’s full of electricity!”

  His big arms swept Driscoll and Randy back. The spotted jacket dashed away as though some magic had lent it doubled speed.

  Randy dropped the rifle without thinking, and sprang in pursuit. As usual, he shot ahead of his slower companions. He saw the spotted back trying to draw away, and drove himself to a supreme effort.

  Step by step he overhauled his quarry. Moonlight grew dim—they were almost under the trees at the edge of the garden. With a final gathering of all his power, he dived headlong.

  As Jebs had done with Randy the day before, so Randy did with the mystery prowler. He launched, and hurled home, a flying tackle.

  He felt his shoulder drive against the back of a knee, shot forward both his arms and gathered in two straining, scissoring legs. A startled grunt echoed in his ears. Both of them smote the ground with a thump that banished the wind from their lungs. Randy could only keep his grip on the imprisoned legs, lying across them and laboring to get his breath back.

  “Look out!” Mr. Martin yelled. “He’s got something—a knife—”

  The prisoner struggled to rise. A head and shoulders squirmed above Randy, an arm lifted. Mr. Martin caught the lifted arm with its spotted sleeve.

  “Let him go, Randy,” puffed Mr. Martin. “Drop that thing, you! Lie still, or I’ll fire the other barrel of this shotgun.”

  Sam was lifting Randy to his feet. “Are you hurt?” he asked anxiously.

  “I’m okay,” Randy managed to wheeze out.

  From somewhere behind them rose yelp after yelp of a dog getting the worst of a fight. Then running paws scurried—the beaten dog was in retreat, coming blindly toward them. A hu
rtling body struck Randy and tumbled head over heels. Randy himself would have gone down, but for the support of Sam’s powerful hand. The wolfish dog had knocked itself sprawling. Rebel, pursuing, was upon it. Cries resounded, loud enough to deafen the whole gathered group.

  “Call—your—dog—off—” gasped the stranger in Mr. Martin’s grip.

  “Take it easy, Rebel, you’ve whipped him,” Driscoll told his pet. But Rebel had clamped a stubborn hold in the skin of the wolfish one’s neck. For once he did not obey.

  Running to him, Driscoll hooked a hand in Rebel’s collar, twisted strongly, and forced open the terrier’s jaws. The conquered wolf-dog sagged clear and weakly scrambled to his feet.

  “Down, fellow,” muttered Mr. Martin’s prisoner. His own voice was husky with exhaustion. “Down— that’s right. He’ll be quiet—won’t run or fight when I—speak to him. Just don’t—let that—bull terrier— kill him.”

  “Who’s that talking?” Randy found strength to demand.

  “I’d have—got away—except for that shock treatment,” panted the captive.

  “Yes, Jebs’ electric guards around the pen,” said Sam. “Bring him back to the house. Never mind that runaway pack of curs, he’s the one we want.’'

  “Let me get this weapon he’s holding,” said Mr. Martin, still pinning the man’s wrist.

  “No, you don’t.” Something flew through the dark and fell with a metallic clink.

  “Where did it go?” said Sam. “Who’s got a flashlight? I dropped mine back yonder.”

  “Get mine out of my pocket,” said Martin, and Driscoll did so.

  Randy dropped to hands and knees, groping over the damp earth. Driscoll aided him with the beam. Randy rose, holding something slim and round.

  “What’s that, a blow gun?” asked Driscoll. “It’s just the right size for one.”

  “Let’s have your light on the prisoner,” said Sam.

  Driscoll turned the flash around. The man in Mr. Martin’s grasp flung his free arm across his face.

  “Don’t turn it in my face,” he pleaded.

  “Hobert Tasman!” cried Sam.

  They gathered, staring in utter amazement. The pottery-maker still hid his eyes.

  “Bring him back to the house,” Sam said. “Move him along, Jim. Randy, better get that rifle you chucked away so free and reckless a moment ago.”

  Randy trotted ahead to repossess the rifle. The others followed. Only the wolfish dog waited where he had been told to stand. Rebel moved toward him, stiff-legged and breathing fiercely.

  “Better tell your pal to come along,” Mr. Martin ordered Tasman, who clicked his tongue. The wolf- dog moved obediently in his wake.

  Near the pigpen, Randy bent to retrieve the rifle. He ran his hands over it to remove the dirt.

  “Jebs!” shouted Sam Cohill. “Turn off the power; we’ve got what we were looking for!”

  “Roger!” called back Jebs.

  Driscoll had caught up with Randy. “So it wasn’t Willie Dubbin, after all,” he said.

  “But how can it be Hobert Tasman?” Randy almost moaned. “I would have taken my oath that he was totally blind.”

  “I’ll go ahead and turn on the lights in the house,” Driscoll said.

  Trotting past the others, he slipped inside. A moment later the kitchen door and windows gushed light. As Randy entered, Jebs met him.

  “How’d you like my own personal patented blitz- weapon?” he asked triumphantly.

  “I’m just beginning to realize what you did with that wire netting,” said Randy. “These dogs danced and hopped around as if you’d given them a hotfoot.”

  “That’s just pure down what I did give them,” laughed Jebs. “I rigged a connection from those chunks of netting to the house, and coupled it onto Lee Martin’s electric-railroad transformer. Then I unscrewed the bulb in the bedroom and plugged in there. The transformer cut down the power. There wasn’t enough to kill or damage anyone, but enough to make ’em frisky. That pack closed in, with every mouth set for a nice midnight snack of fresh hog meat, and I lighted it up like a bunch of neon signs.”

  “Here come the others,” said Driscoll.

  Mr. Martin tramped in, towing his smaller captive along by the shoulder. Sam followed, like a bearded, walking derrick.

  “Stay outside and guard your own prisoner, Rebel,” commanded Driscoll from beside the door.

  Hobert Tasman stood in the center of the kitchen floor. His arms, clad in spotted cowskin, crossed themselves defensively over his face.

  “Into the front room with him,” said Sam. “Get moving, Tasman.”

  “I can’t see,” came a muffled protest.

  “Can’t see?” Mr. Martin repeated. “You can see better than any one of us, the way you dashed around out there in the dark.”

  “Turn on the front-room lights, Jebs,” Sam was saying. “We’ll all do better in there.”

  Jebs hurried to snap switches. The front room sprang into comforting brightness. Mr. Martin brought Tasman in and thrust him into a chair.

  “But he’s blind,” Jebs stammered. “How could he—”

  “I can’t see,” said Hobert Tasman, turning his head slowly from side to side. His staring eyes showed pale, opaque-looking pupils. “Not in here. Strong light always blinds me.”

  “Well!” Sam Cohill hunched his massive shoulders in a shrug of amazement. “So you were fooling us all the time.”

  “I fooled you the best I could,” said Tasman. He did not sound sullen or defiant, only helpless.

  “You aren’t blind at all,” accused Sam.

  “But he was blind,” put in Randy. “He was blind day before yesterday, at least. I made a test of my own. I shoved a book almost against his eyes, and he didn’t know it was there. He couldn’t see a thing —not then, anyway.”

  “I can’t see in the daytime,” Tasman explained, in the same hopeless voice. “Only in dim light—twilight and moonlight, the times when most people just grope around. Out there in your yard, my eyes could work fairly well. In here, with these lamps blazing all around me, I’m as blind as a day-old puppy.”

  “I still can’t make out this thing he had,” Driscoll put in, turning the tubelike object over and over in his hands.

  “I saw that at the house that burned down,” announced Randy. “It was the mysterious thing in the pocket of that cowskin coat. At first I thought it was a whistle—”

  “It is one,” said Sam, taking it in turn.

  “But it doesn’t blow,” Randy argued.

  “You can’t hear it. It’s a supersonic whistle. I’ve seen them before. A man I knew in my show days used one, to signal his trained dogs.”

  “What is it?” asked Jebs. “How does it work?”

  “It makes a blast that’s too high in pitch for human ears to hear,” said Sam. “But dogs hear better than we do. They can pick up its signals and obey them.” His stem, bearded face stooped above the slim figure in the chair. “Tasman must be something of a dog- trainer himself.”

  “I think the best thing he can do is explain this crazy business,” suggested Mr. Martin.

  The clay-potter’s lean, weary head nodded agreement.

  “All right,” said Tasman. “I’ll explain. Then you can decide whether it was a crazy business or not.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  TO SEE IN THE DARK

  “These boys here—Jebs Markum and Randy Hunter—have already heard the public part of my life story,” began Tasman. He spoke quietly, slowly, as though to be sure everyone understood. “I come from the mountains in the western part of North Carolina. I hoped to work my farm there and study natural history. Then I went blind.

  “It’s the light of day that makes me blind. I’m completely without sight when it’s really bright. But when the sun sets, the darkness comes to the earth— but not to me. My blindness goes away then. I can make out objects and find my way around, in the dusk of evening, or by moonlight.”

  “Would you fee
l better if we doused these lights?” asked Driscoll with sudden sympathy.

  “He might be trying to play some trick,” warned Mr. Martin.

  “But look,” said Driscoll. “Even if we cut off the light in here, the glow from the kitchen will trickle in. Let me do it.”

  He flicked the switch. At once the front-room light was gone. Only a gentle diffusion came from the rear of the house, enough to see by, with an effort.

  “My power of sight’s coming back,” said Tasman after a moment.

  “Well, don’t get up,” Sam cautioned him. “Sit where you are and go on with your story.”

  “Maybe if I’d been blind both night and day, I’d have had to go to some sort of hospital or home,” continued Tasman. “But when I knew I could count on being able to care for myself during dark hours, I made my plans to stay independent. I explained to Randy and Jebs how I had to leave the mountains. You can’t grope around on those high places at night. I hired someone to drive me to Lee County, in the level central part of the state. I knew there was good clay in Lee County. I had rent money coming in for my farm, and I thought I might make more, enough to live by, with pottery. I’d taught myself to make it by touch, you know. It’s not too hard to do that— lots of blind people work the potter’s wheel.”

  “And you had friends who’d sell anything you finished and shipped off to them,” prompted Randy.

  “Yes. So I rented an old tenant house in the woods, close to Lee County’s western line. I began sleeping until noon of every day. That left only a few hours until evening. When evening came, my eyesight would return.”

  “Sure enough?” said Jebs. “All of your eyesight?”

  “Well, maybe not all. It’s blotchy, if you know what I mean. It’s as if I can see around the edge of something—sidelong, you might say. But by night I’d go out into the woods of Lee County and study the nature of night. It was a different sort of nature than the daylight kind. You see bats and moths, and night birds. There’s an entirely different stir of life in the darkness.”