Weird Tales volume 31 number 03

by Wright, Farnsworth, 1888–1940

  Judge Pursuivant cleared his throat. "I suspect that you're leaving out part of your adventures, Doctor."

  Zoberg actually laughed, "fa, I thought to spare you a few shocks. But if you will have them, you may. I visited Russia—and in 1922 a medical commission of the Soviet Union investigated several score mysterious cases of peasants killed —and eaten." He licked his lips, like a cat who thinks of meat. "In Paris I founded and conducted a rather interesting night school, for the study of diabolism in its relationship to science. And in 1936, certain summer vacationists on Long Island were almost frightened out of their wits by a lurking thing that seemed half beast, half man." He chuckled. "Your Literary Digest made much of it. The lurking tiling was, of course, myself."

  We stared. "Say, why do you do these things?" the constable blurted.

  Zoberg turned to him, head quizzically aslant. "Why do you uphold your local laws? Or why does Judge Pursuivant study ancient philosophies? Or why do Wills and Susan turn soft eyes upon each other? Because the heart of each so insists."

  Susan was clutching my arm. Her fingers bit into my flesh as Zoberg's eyes sought her again.

  "I found the daughter of someone I once loved," he went on, with real gentleness in his voice. "Wills, at least, can see in her what I saw. A new inspiration came to me, a wish and a plan to have a comrade in my secret exploits."

  "A beast-thing like yourself?" prompted the judge.

  Zoberg nodded. "A lupa to my lupus. But this girl—Susan Gird—had not inherited the psychic possibilities of her mother."

  "What!" I shouted. "You yourself sai4

  WEIRD TALES

  that she was the greatest medium of all time!"

  "I did say so. But it was a lie."

  "Why, in heaven's name "

  "It was my hope," he broke in quietly, "to make of her a medium, or a lyc.inthrope—call the phenomenon which you will. Are you interested in my proposed method?" He gazed mockingly around, and his eyes rested finally upon me. "Make full notes, Wills. This will be interesting, if not stupefying, to [he psychic research committees.

  "It is, as you know, a supernormal substance that is exuded to change the appearance of my body. What, I wondered, would some of that substance do if smeared upon her?"

  I started to growl out a curse upon him, but Judge Pursuivant, rapt, motioned for me to keep silent.

  "Think back through all the demonol-ogies you have read," Zoberg was urging. "What of the strange 'witch ointments' that, spread over an ordinary human body, gave it beast-form and beast-heart? There, again, legend had basis in scientific fact."

  "By the thunder, you're logical," muttered Judge Pursuivant.

  "And damnable," I added. "Go on, Doctor. You were going to smear the change-stuff upon Susan."

  "But first, I knew, I must convince her that she had witlun her the essence of a wolf. And so, the seances."

  "She was no medium," I said again.

  "I made her think she was. I hypnotized her, and myself did weird wonders .in the dark room. But she, in a trance, did not know. I needed witnesses to convince her."

  "So you invited Mr. Wills," supplied Judge Pursuivant.

  "Yes, and her father. They had been prepared to accept her as medium and me

  as observer. Seeing a beast-form, they would tell her afterward that it was she."

  "Zoberg," I said between set teeth, "you're convicted out of your own mouth of rottenness that convinces me of the existence of the Devil after whom this grove was named. I wish to heaven that I'd killed you when we were fighting."

  "Acb, Wills," he chuckled, "you'd have missed this most entertaining autobiographical lecture."

  "He's right," grumbled O'Bryant; and, "Let him go on," the judge pleaded with

  "/"Vnce sure of this power within V^ her," Zoberg said deeply, "she would be prepared in heart and soul to change at touch of the ointment—the ectoplasm. Then, to me she must turn as a fellow-creature. Together, throughout the world, adventuring in a way unbelievable "

  His voice died, and we let it. He stood in the firelight, head thrown back, manacled hands folded. He might have been a martyr instead of a fiend for whom a death at the stake would be too easy.

  "I can tell what spoiled the seance," I told him after a moment. "Gird, sitting opposite, saw that it was you, not Susan, who had changed. You had to kill him to keep him from telling, there and then."

  "Yes," agreed Zoberg. "After that, you were arrested, and, later, threatened. I was in an awkward position. Susan must believe herself, not you, guilty. That is why I have championed you throughout. I went then to look for you."

  "And attacked me," I added.

  "The beast-self was ascendant. I cannot always control it completely." He sighed. "When Susan disappeared, I went to look for her on the second evening. When I came into this wood, the W. T— 6

  THE HAIRY ONES SHALL DANCE

  353

  change took place, half automatically. Associations, I suppose. Constable, your brother happened upon me in an evil hour."

  "Yep," said O'Bryant gruffly.

  "And that is the end," Zoberg said. "The end of the story and, I suppose, the end of me."

  "You bet it is," the constable assured him. "You came with the judge to finish your rotten work. But we're finishing it for you."

  "One moment," interjected Judge Pursuivant, and his fire-lit face betrayed a perplexed frown. "The story fails to explain one important tiling."

  "Does it so?" prompted Zoberg, inclining toward him with a show of negligent grace.

  "If you were able to free yourself and kill Mr. Gird "

  "By heaven, that's right.'" I broke in. "You were chained, Zoberg, to Susan and to your chair. I'd go bail for tiie strength and tightness of those handcuffs."

  He grinned at each of us in turn and held out his hands with their manacles. "Is it not obvious?" he inquired.

  We looked at him, a trifle blankly I suppose, for he chuckled once again.

  "Another employment of the ectoplasm, that useful substance of change," he said gently. "At will my arms and legs assume thickness, and hold the rings of the confining irons wide. Then, when I wish, they grow slender again, and "

  He gave his hands a sudden flirt, and the bracelets fell from them on the instant. He pivoted and ran like a deer.

  "Shoot!" cried the judge, and O'Bryant whipped the big gun from his holster.

  Zoberg was almost within a vine-laced clump of bushes when O'Bryant fired. I heard a shrill scream, and saw Zoberg falter and drop to his hands and knees.

  We were all starting forward. I paused a moment to put Susan behind me, and in that moment O'Bryant and Pursuivant sprang ahead and came up on either side of Zoberg. He was still alive, for he writhed up to a kneeling position and made a frantic clutch at the judge's coat. O'Bryant, so close that he barely raised his hand and arm, fired a second time.

  Zoberg spun around somehow on his knees, stiffened and screamed. Perhaps I should say that he howled. In his voice was the inarticulate agony of a beast wounded to death. Then he collapsed.

  Both men stooped above him, cautious but thorough in their examination. Finally Judge Pursuivant straightened up and faced toward us.

  "Keep Miss Susan there with you," he warned me. "He's dead, and not a pretty sight."

  Slowly they came bade to us. Pursuivant was thoughtful, while O'Bryant, Zoberg's killer, seemed cheerful for the first time since I had met him. He even smiled at me, as Punch would smile after striking a particularly telling blow with his cudgel. Rubbing his pistol caressingly with his palm, he stowed it carefully away.

  "I'm glad that's over," he admitted. "My brother can rest easy in his grave."

  "And we have our work cut out for us," responded the judge. "We must decide just how much of the truth to tell when we make a report."

  O'Bryant dipped his head in sage acquiescence. "You're right," he rumbled. "Yes, sir, you're right."

  "Would you believe me," said the judge, "if I told you that I knew
it was Zoberg, almost from the first?"

  But Susan and I, facing each other, were beyond being surprized, even at that.

  W. T.—7

  [THE END]

  <?

  uarded

  By MEARLE PROUT

  'A brief tale of a murder and an attempted murder — by the author of "The House of the Worm"

  THE sound of a shot suddenly broke the stillness of the May morning, and echoed back from across the valley. A puff of blue smoke arose from a clump of green-briars and drifted away downwind. Out in the road, Abner Simmons dropped the bag of grain he was carrying and, with a look of dumb surprize, sank in a quivering heap to the ground. Half his side had been shot away.

  The green-briars parted with a sudden life and Jed Tolliver emerged, straightening his long form as he shambled toward the road. As he walked he broke his double-barreled shotgun, flicked out the empty cartridge and blew through the barrel, sending a thin stream of acrid smoke out of the chamber. He stooped over his fallen enemy.

  "Said I'd get you," he reminded the other brutally. He inserted a fresh cartridge and closed the gun with a snap.

  The man in the road rolled over with a convulsive movement and stared up at him.

  "That kid brother of yours is next— and last," Jed continued. "Then I'll be through with the lot of you."

  Abner grinned. It is an awful thing to see a dying man grin. Jed shuddered in spite of himself. ■ "You can't, Jed—not Ezekiel "

  It was not a pleading. Rather, it was

  calm, assured, as though the other were

  stating a known fact. Jed shuddered

  again, before he felt quick anger rising.

  354

  "I got you, didn't I?" he said, ejecting a thick stream of tobacco juice. "What makes you think I won't get Ezekiel the same way?"

  "You won't, Jed—you can't—because —I won't let you!"

  He was fast weakening from the frightful flow of blood. Overcome from the effort of speaking, Abner closed his eyes and lay still. A second later a sudden • convulsive movement shook his body, and his eyes opened again. This time they were fixed and staring.

  With a grunt of satisfaction Jed shouldered his gun and started back up the mountain, moving with the long effortless stride of the Tennessee mountaineer. He did not fear punishment for his crime. Here in the Tennessee mountains the long arm of the law seldom reached. The only thing to fear in a case of this kind was the dead man's relatives, and now there was only one—Ezekiel, a slim lad of twenty, who could not even shoot expertly.

  Yes, Jed reflected as his long strides carried him through the sparse growth of cedar and blackjack, this part of Tennessee would soon again be a decent, Godfearing community. . . . Foreigners, the Simmonses had been, from somewhere back East—Carolina, or Virginia, maybe. They hadn't been like the mountain-folk. . . .

  And what was that crazy talk Abner had made? He'd stop Jed from getting Ezekiel? How could he, if he was dead?

  GUARDED

  355

  Jed chuckled to himself. Here in Tennessee, folk didn't believe. . . .

  More than a week passed before Jed again took his well-oiled shotgun from its place on the wall and started over the mountain. He was in no great hurry about Ezekiel—instead, he rather enjoyed waiting. Ezekiel was the last of the three Simmons brothers, and knowing that the foreigner was over there, and that he was going to kill him, gave life a curious sort of zest. . . . Likely the kid didn't even know who shot his brother. Jed laughed silently at the thought, adding to himself that the boy probably wouldn't do anything about it if he did know. He wasn't like the mountain people. . . .

  But this morning all of Jed's impatience had returned. The sun shone hotly on the Tennessee hills, and raised an almost visible veil of vapor from the tiny branch which Sowed through the hollow. Well, he'd waited long enough. With a grimace of distaste at the three-mile traipse across two mountains, Jed swung his gun over his shoulder and started down the slope.

  When, an hour and a half later, he arrived at the small clearing which was the Simmons place, he was not as tired as he had expected to be. The nervous exhilaration of the man-hunt buoyed him up, made him tensely aware of things around him. He paused only a moment at the fringe of scrub oak that bordered the clearing; then, bending almost double, he sprinted a hundred feet to the grape-arbor.

  Safe inside the leafy bower, Jed leaned his gun against a supporting post and looked about. Here the vines had been trained over a rude wooden lattice so that a thick wall and roof of leaves now effectively hid him from anyone outside.

  Jed parted the leaves carefully and peered out. A hundred feet behind him was the low wall of forest he had just left; two hundred feet in front of him was the house—a rude two-room shack; two hundred feet beyond that the wall of the forest began again. Jed looked at die house more closely. There was no sign of movement, but the thin line of smoke which curled from the chimney told him that Ezekiel was inside, probably preparing his midday meal. With a sigh of contentment he sat down and leaned back closer to his gun, idly listening to the chatter of birds in the forest, and the rustling of the leaves in the arbor.

  How long Jed sat there he did not know. He was suddenly aroused from a semi-stupor by the sound of a banging door. Startled into instant activity, he swung around to peer through the leaves. Ezekiel was leaving the house, swinging in his hand an empty water-bucket. Going to the spring, Jed reckoned. If so, his path would take him within fifty feet of the arbor. Jed gloated.

  With hands suddenly unsteady, the man in the arbor laid his gun on the ground, the muzzle barely extending through the leaves. Why take a chance? He would wait—at fifty feet he couldn't miss.

  Unmindful of his danger, Ezekiel came slowly down the path, bearing diagonally nearer to the arbor. . . . Jed suddenly wondered why he no longer heard the aimless chatter of birds in the forest, why the light wind no longer stirred the broad leaves above him. It was uncanny, this noonday quiet. Impatiently, he shook off the feeling.

  "So I can't do" 1 it, Abner?" he whispered to the empty air, but somehow the words clutched at his throat, and he wished he hadn't said it. No matter, a few seconds now ■

  WEIRD TALES

  Jed cursed the trembling of his hands as he aimed. What was the matter with him? He could see Ezekiel's slender form now above the barrel of his gun; he nerved himself to pull tire trigger. The top of his head suddenly gone cold, Jed dropped the gun and looked quickly around him. No, the day was bright as ever—yet he could have sworn. . . . Halfheartedly now, he picked up the gun to sight at the form which had already passed the nearest point. He had not been wrong! A black nebulous cloud hovered over the barrel of his gun and created the illusion of darkest night!

  Shrieking a curse, Jed Tolliver leapt upright and pointed, not aimed, the gun at where Ezekiel should be. He snapped both triggers simultaneously, but as he fired something clutched at his arm, and the hot lead sizzled harmlessly through the air.

  Shaking as with a chill, blind rage within him struggling with black fear, the mountaineer stood irresolutely within his leafy ambush. He was quickly aroused to activity by a loud report and the crash of lead against the wooden lattice. A sharp pain burned his left arm where one of the pellets had found its mark. Ezekiel had fled to the house and opened fire.

  Without waiting to reload his gun, Jed crashed through the side of the bower and fled to the safety of the trees. As he entered, buckshot spattered harmlessly around him.

  Safe within the sheltering growth, Jed halted to reload his gun.

  "Damn you, Abner!" he shouted to the stunted oaks. "I'll get him yet!"

  As he turned to go he thought he heard a low mocking laugh, but reasoned later that it was only a squirrel chattering a protest at the sound of his voice.

  Jed reached home in a blue funk. The long tramp across the mountains in the early summer heat had melted away most of his fears, but his nerves were still badly shaken. Now that he could look at the incident in a sober ligh
t, he refused to credit his senses. As the distance between himself and the scene increased, he had come more and more to believe the occurrence an hallucination, brought on by the long walk through the heat. After all, he recalled, he had almost fallen asleep in the arbor while waiting for Ezekiel to appear. Perhaps he had dreamed part of it? . . .

  However logical Jed believed his explanation, he did not again go near the Simmons place. Weeks passed. Always he promised himself that he would soon finish the task so ingloriously begun, but day by day he waited, until nearly three months had gone. At first he had feared Ezekiel had recognized him in those few seconds it had taken to sprint from the grape-arbor to the cover of the woods. Later, as he heard nothing of it, he decided he was safe from that side. The end came in an unexpected manner. One afternoon early in August Jed had walked to the village. He stayed longer than he had intended, and shadows were already growing long when he started home. Not wishing to be out later than necessary, he took a short-cut through the woods which would take him within a haif-mile of the Simmons place.

  The sun was setting as he entered the Simmons hollow, a half-mile below the house. He felt vaguely uneasy. Though he told himself he was not frightened, he found himself wishing for the protection of his gun. Nervously, his hand strayed to the hunting-knife stuck in his belt, and tested the keen edge.

  Walking diagonally across the hollow, which was largely devoid of trees, he

  GUARDED

  357

  turned aside to go around a cluster of young cedars which was directly in his path. Suddenly he drew back sharply. Again his hand tested the keen edge of that knife, but not this time from nervousness. Jed was not thinking now of defense.

  Two hundred feet beyond the cedars, on the smooth unbroken grass floor of the hollow, was a man milking. His back was turned to the cedars, but Jed thought he recognized that slim youthful form. He believed it was Ezekiel,

  Stepping lightly, one hand on his belt where he could immediately grasp the knife, Jed moved into the open. Halfway across the level space, his hand moved yet closer to the knife, while the ghost of a grin curved his lips. Without a doubt it was Ezekiel Simmons. The man milking did not look up. The milk jetted into the half-filled bucket with a low murmur, just loud enough to mask Jed's guarded footsteps.