The War for the Lot

by Sterling Lanier

  "Enough of this chatter," exclaimed Lou, picking up the lunch things. "We'll say no more about this to anyone. Alec, if you see the bear, you just run. Now go along and play. Darden, are you going to sit around here all day cluttering up my kitchen?"

  At 1:30 sharp, Alec tucked his rubbers into a back pocket in case of mud and ran to join John, whom he found out in front of the house. Together they set off through the orchard and past the vegetable garden for the corner of the field where Alec had gone the night of the meeting in the forest. But of course he said nothing about this and simply followed John's tall figure as if it were all new to him.

  But the boy did have his new map and a pencil with him. He showed the map to John, who was greatly impressed, and told him that he planned to add new details to it.

  They entered the wood at the same break in the corner of the wall, and walked down the same narrow deer trail as Alec had before.

  Eventually, moving steadily down through the sunlit wood, they came to level ground and the Council Glade, open and green in the bright sun of afternoon. It didn't look nearly so impressive now, but it was a lovely place anyway. Butterflies hovered over the short grass and birds flew back and forth across the opening from one tree to another.

  "Funny place," grunted John from ahead of Alec. "Never seems to get trees or weeds right here. Looks like somebody mows the grass all the time, too. Gives you kind of a peaceful feeling when you set and rest here a minute."

  Alec said nothing, but smiled to himself as he looked at the circle of flat gray stones. John would never know why the place was so peaceful!

  Passing through the clearing, John led on, still taking a narrow path through the bushes and trees. The ground was beginning to squelch a bit. Alec stopped to put on the rubbers and he could smell new scents in the moist air.

  They came out suddenly into the open, and Alec saw, glancing at the map, that they had left the cover of the wood at the point of land between the two arms of the pond. John had brought him to the base of this little peninsula, perhaps a hundred feet in length, and they were able to see Musquash Pond in its entirety. There seemed to have been no apparent change in the pond's shape since the Professor had drawn his map.

  Tall reeds grew in clumps at the water's edge, and red-winged blackbirds, disturbed at their nests, shouted "quonka-ree" at the two humans. To the left, the arm of the pond was covered with the yellow blossoms of the cow lily and its broad leaves almost formed a mat over the shallower water. Dark brown cattails grew along the shore, towering above the shorter reeds. Clumps of wild flag iris blazed in blue clusters here and there. On the right, which Alec was studying carefully, the water appeared darker and deeper, as the map said it would be, and few lilies broke the smooth brown surface except near the shore. Spatterdock spread broad green leaves over the verge, however, and mixed with pickerelweed to form a green bank over the dark mud of the shore.

  Red, blue and green dragonflies darted about over the water, hawking gnats and mosquitoes; but except for the annoyed blackbirds, little else moved.

  Out in the open water, Alec could see large piles of dead vegetation thrusting up through the lily leaves. Before he could speak, John pointed out the same things.

  "See all them musquash houses, sonny? A man could almost make a living with a trapline down here. Must be a dozen houses and maybe twice that many rats. I come down here once at night and the hull place was just one big splash and wiggle. 'Course I don't trap nor allow no one else to, but there's sure a plenty rats here. You can see why it's called Musquash Pond."

  The boy again studied the water to his right. The far bank was higher than the point of land on which they stood, and sloped up to the screen of trees at a rather sharp angle.

  "How far is the main road to town up there, John?" he asked.

  "Maybe about two hundred yards," said John. "You can't see the pond from the road, but it's not too far. Just the trees and brush in the way is so thick. I can see you figured out where you are pretty good," he added.

  Alec reminded him about his grandfather's map by holding it up and explained that he wanted to know where everything was on The Lot.

  "What's on the far side of the road from here?" he asked. "Just more trees?"

  "For about a little over two miles, yes," said John. "Then you hit the edge of town and a few houses. That old dump we looked at ain't too far either, to the right of the houses a bit, maybe three miles from where we stand. Town's not so far as it looks by road, but the road swings in a curve instead of going straight in."

  "Do you come down here much at night?" asked Alec.

  "Not hardly at all," said John. "I used to fish a little, but I ain't even done that for some years back. Maybe we can get some stuff and try to hook a bass or pickerel some time if you like. Ought to be some fair-sized bass in here."

  "Great," said Alec. "I'd like that a lot."

  "I'll try and round up some gear then," said John. "Anything else you want to see?"

  "No," said Alec. "That's all, thanks. I'll wait till we can go fishing to come back. Boy, these bugs sure bite." He had been slapping mosquitoes for some minutes and his thin, short-sleeved shirt was little protection.

  "Come on," said John. "I forgot you weren't wearing a thick shirt like mine. Let's go back. The bugs and skeeters stay near the water." The pair went back the way they had come, and the blackbirds fell silent as they vanished into the trees.

  Chapter Eight

  IT WAS LATE afternoon when Alec got back to the house. He went upstairs and headed for his room, and was not surprised to find Worthless curled up outside his door. The boy greeted him before opening it, glad to see the big cat.

  "I just got here," said Worthless. "I've been talking to your little friend through the door. She seems pretty smart for a mouse, maybe too smart. Also I gather she thinks I'm a waste of time." He paraded into the room ahead of Alec and jumped onto the bed.

  If he was hoping to frighten Whisperfoot, he failed, because she sat calmly watching him from her place on the headboard and never moved.

  "Whisperfoot," said Alec, "here's Worthless. He may be a lot of help to us tonight and later on, so I hope we can all get along."

  "I can get along with anyone," she answered, "even him. I'll wait and see just how big a help he is." The tone of her voice indicated great doubt.

  "Splendid," rumbled the cat. "I'm sure we will become great friends, my little woods scurrier." He stared hard at the mouse with his great yellow eyes, then shifted his attention to Alec.

  "Is this visit to the dump still going to take place?" he said. "Because if so, it seems interesting enough to make it worth my while going along."

  "What do you say, Whisperfoot?" said Alec. "Did you get your cousin, the woodrat? How about tonight? And what other news is there?"

  "Well, the news is fair, so far," said the pretty deermouse. "To take your questions in order, Stuffer and I persuaded Wandertail to at least come and meet us partway to the dump. You don't know how shy he is! If he'd heard about this cat coming, that would have been the end of it, right there. As it is, I just don't know what he'll do or how far he'll go in helping. There's not much other news. No one has seen the bear yet. The rats are still busy around the dump and a few scouts were seen not too far from the pond early this morning. That's all."

  Alec reflected for a moment. He was still not entirely sure what he planned to do when he got near the dump, but the more he thought about it, the more he felt that Wandertail the woodrat was a key which might open many doors.

  "What time are we going out?" said Worthless. "I may as well catch up on some sleep if it's going to be late."

  "We won't leave until fairly late," said the boy. "Stay close enough so I can call you when I want you."

  The meal that evening, eaten in the kitchen, seemed intolerably long and Alec could pay hardly any attention to what Lou and John were saying.

  Upstairs later, lying fully dressed on his bed, Alec tried to be patient and wait for the compl
ete settling down of the household. He heard Professor March come in from his day's outing and go to bed. He heard the big grandfather clock in the downstairs hall boom out ten o'clock. The faint sound of Lou and John's television finally ceased, their light went off and the house became still except for the creaks and groans of aged timbers and warped shingles. Outside his open window, the night was still and windless, only a few crickets breaking the silence with their chirps. Then the big clock struck the half hour. It was ten thirty, time to begin!

  "Worthless! Whisperfoot!" his silent call went out.

  "Here, Watcher," answered the mouse from the hole in the wall. "All ready?"

  "I'm in the hall, waiting," came the big cat's voice. "Any time you want to move is fine."

  The deermouse leapt to the headboard of the big sleigh bed and then to Alec's shoulder. As quietly as he had on the previous night, he let himself out into the hall. A touch of Worthless' tail on his bare ankle told him the cat was with them.

  The three stole down the stairs through the library and out the French window in silence. Outside, under a mass of stars and the moon, Alec moved for the driveway.

  "I'm going to follow the road to town," he told the other two. "There's almost no traffic at night, cause this road is a dead end four miles beyond our place. If I see car lights, we can get under cover." Then a thought occurred to him. "What about your cousin Wandertail?" he asked the mouse. "Will he know where to meet us?"

  "I told him to meet us about half-way from the house to the dump," she said. "I can call to him, I think, if you'll tell me when we get about that far on the road. I've never been so far from The Lot myself, so I don't know the distances. But I'll have to tell him not to be scared of Worthless here, or else he'll run away as soon as he smells him."

  "I'll leave him alone," said the cat, pacing along the drive. "I gave my word. Only the dump rats are prey from now on."

  At the driveway's entrance, two paused and all three listened. The night was still quiet. Alec looked back at the shadowy bulk of the house far up the drive and wished for a moment that he was back in bed. Then he suppressed the thought and moved briskly off down the dark macadam road, easy to see in the moonlight. Worthless marched in front. Aside from the muted scuff of his sneakers and a few insect noises, Alec could hear nothing. The deermouse rode quietly on his shoulder.

  For a mile or so this uneventful progress continued. Once or twice the sound of a car engine could be heard a long way off on some other road, but that was the only break in the quiet.

  They had passed Musquash Pond on their left sometime after leaving the drive, and the croaking of a few frogs died slowly away as they went on.

  Then Whisperfoot spoke suddenly. "Hadn't we better slow down, Watcher? This is quite a way from home. I ought to try to reach Wandertail."

  Alec obediently stopped, and he and Worthless stepped off the road and crouched under a large oak tree.

  He was conscious now that the little mouse was sending out a message. But it was not for him, or Worthless either, and thus he could hear nothing, being only aware that a sort of static was loose in the air, something like code on a radio. This was his first experience with how an animal can send a message "directionally" to only one other animal. He found it very interesting to think about and filed the knowledge away for future use.

  "He's coming," the deermouse said suddenly. "I managed to reach him. He's not very far away. If we stay here, he'll come quite quickly. Then he can ride with me and we can move faster."

  The three waited patiently in the shadow of the tree. A train wailed far off in the night and a whippoorwill cried deep in the wood behind them.

  "Here I am," said a new voice in Alec's mind and with that, Wandertail sat in front of them.

  Even in the moonlight he was very handsome. He was almost as big as a small cat, and his glossy buff coat shone from countless brushings. He looked, in fact, rather like a version of Whisperfoot suddenly grown huge, even to the great translucent ears, very long whiskers and long tail covered with sleek fur. His voice was not unlike his appearance, being trim, neat and rather shy.

  Now he sat, looking at Alec and the cat with no evidence of fear, obviously waiting to be told what came next.

  "Hello," said the boy. "I'm glad you could come to meet us. This is my cat, Worthless, who'll help us. He won't harm anyone from the woods."

  "I know," said the woodrat. "How do you do," he added formally. "The mouse and the woodchuck said you wanted my help. I hate to leave my territory or my family, but I guess we all have to help if we can. What am I supposed to do?"

  Alec felt very nervous, but he could think of no way of softening his request, so he blurted it out.

  "We want you to try to go into the rat's nest down at the dump. We thought you might be able to disguise yourself as one of them, since you're about the same size and shape."

  There was a pause. "I don't believe any animal thought that scheme up," said Wandertail shrewdly. He cleaned his whiskers for a moment, obviously thinking. "This won't be easy, you know. Frankly, the idea appalls me. I am related to those dreadful creatures and I know what they're like. They're very clever and they don't like meddling from anyone. They also have smell and hearing just as good as mine, and that's pretty good, I can tell you. I don't see how it would be possible to pretend I'm one of them at all."

  Alec slumped back against the tree. "I guess I just hoped too much. It's a lot to ask anyway, and I forgot how easy it is for any animal to smell a stranger. We'll have to think of something else."

  "Wait a minute," said the big woodrat calmly. "I said I couldn't get into their place disguised as one of them. I didn't say I couldn't get in at all. I think I can, as a matter of fact, although I loathe the idea."

  "How?" asked Worthless, sitting upright to see the rat better. "You just said "

  "Why, I'll go as myself," said Wandertail. He paused and Alec realized he was actually embarrassed. "I haven't told anyone this, but those dump rats know where I live, or used to. Two of them appeared one night not too long ago and asked me—well asked me to more or less join them! I told them to get out and I haven't seen them since. I changed my house right away. Built a brand new one in case a gang of them ever came back. They wanted me to be a kind of spy for them and promised me I'd be a very important rat if I'd help them find out what they wanted to know."

  "What was that?" said Alec, who was getting excited.

  "I don't know," admitted Wandertail. "I got mad and chased them off before I could find out. They left, snarling threats, incidentally, which is why I moved my house."

  The boy and the three animals were now sitting close together in the tree's dark shadow. It was the cat who asked the next question, and he was practically nose to nose with the woodrat. "What did you have in mind?"

  "Why, accepting their offer," said Wandertail. "If I just appeared at the dump and said I'd reconsidered and changed my mind, and then demanded that I be let in, I feel pretty sure they'd make the same offer as before."

  "That's all well and good," said Whisperfoot, "but suppose they don't trust you? Suppose they don't believe you at all? What then?"

  "Then I'll just have to think of something else," said the woodrat. His manner was controlled, even jaunty, but he fooled no one. Even the cat had to respect his courage after hearing him talk. A horrible death might very well be his fate if the suspicious dump rats refused to believe his story.

  "I think they'll let me in," Wandertail went on. "But in case they don't let me out, I'll keep sending messages to Whisperfoot here. The dump rats won't be able to understand them. If they notice anything, I'll just say I'm reassuring my family."

  "You've thought of everything," said Alec in an admiring voice.

  "No, you thought of my going in at all," rejoined the woodrat, "and after that, the rest was logical."

  "Where should we stay?" said Alec. "I mean, while you're inside?"

  Wandertail reflected. After a pause he said, "As close as you can g
et to the dump. I can talk just so far, you know. We can only do our best."

  "Weren't we going to grab a dump rat as a prisoner?" said Worthless. "What about that idea now?"

  But Alec was absorbed in Wandertail's plan. "We'll stay outside their sentry line or whatever it is," said the boy. "We'll try to get as close as we can without alerting any of them. Do you think you can get back to us fairly quickly?"

  "I think so," said Wandertail. "That is," he added, "if they let me out at all, once I'm in!"

  "Jump up on my other shoulder," said Alec, "and we'll head for the dump. Be sure to let me know when to slow down, so I don't come close to a rat sentry or get them stirred up."

  With one neat pounce, the woodrat reached the boy's sleeve and ran up it. Alec rose to his feet and, once more preceded by Worthless, moved off along the edge of the road toward town. No one spoke any further. The plans had been made and there was nothing to say.

  For some two miles along the winding road, Alec, his two passengers, and the orange cat walked in silence. Twice, dirt roads opened to the side, leading to distant farms, but this was the only sign of any other human dwelling.

  "Stop," said Worthless suddenly. "Can you smell anything?"

  "Yes," said Whisperfoot and her cousin together. "That's it!"

  Alec could detect nothing, but stood in the road, hands clenched, trying to use his nose as the other three used theirs. Then, a gentle current of night air brought a faint whiff of corruption to his nostrils, and he knew what it meant. The dump! He was smelling the garbage and filth amidst which the rats lived and schemed.

  "Let us off here," said the woodrat. He and the deermouse jumped down as the boy crouched, and then darted away into the shadows ahead and to the right.

  "What about you, Worthless?" said Alec.

  "I hate to admit it," said the cat, "but those two are better at this sort of thing than I am. They know how to take cover out here. You know, get behind things quickly. And then they're far smaller, too. I'll stay here until they come back and tell us what's ahead. Let's get over behind this stone wall."