The Valancourt Book of Horror Stories

by James D. Jenkins

  Dawn was breaking when, with a candle in either hand, he descended the broad whitening staircase. As he passed out into the garden he saw lanterns approaching. It was a search party, he guessed; and guessed that, after many hours, Rebecca must have remembered an early conversation. Yet, to his surprise, nobody scolded him, nobody asked questions. Nor was it till the next day that he learned of the telegram which had come in his absence.

  Ernest G. Henham

  PETE BARKER’S SHANTY

  The career of Ernest G. Henham (1870-1948), whom a critic for the Times Literary Supplement in 2013 called ‘one of England’s lost novelists, a writer of startling ability’, was a strange one. From 1897 to 1907 he built a minor reputation for himself under his birth name of Henham, publishing a number of moderately successful novels, including the weird decadent tale Tenebrae (1898) and the haunted house novel The Feast of Bacchus (1907), both republished by Valancourt. But for reasons of health, Henham was obliged to move to Dartmoor, where he apparently disowned his earlier works, adopting the pseudonym John Trevena and publishing a series of highly accomplished mystical novels which were ranked by a contemporary Los Angeles Times critic as being on par with the classics of Turgenev and Dostoevsky. Given the enthusiastic response Henham/Trevena’s tale ‘The Frozen Man’ received from readers of our first Valancourt Book of Horror Stories, we are pleased to be able to offer another very rare story by this elusive author. First published in 1898, ‘Pete Barker­­’s Shanty’ features an unusual setting for a horror story – a desolate stretch of prairie in late 19th-century Canada – that no doubt draws on the author’s early life experiences in Canada working for the Hudson Bay Company (the ‘H.B.’ referred to in the story).

  Kline reined in his horse, and pointed to a patch of prairie, thickly covered with small rose bushes and other vegetation, springing from a brown, furrowed soil. ‘It’s just as I told you half-an-hour ago, Talbot. We’re a way off.’

  ‘How do you know we’re wrong?’ I asked.

  ‘That field yonder. There’s no broken prairie alongside of the trail we should have travelled. We’re some points too far north.’

  ‘There may be a shanty near.’

  Kline frowned, then wheeled his horse off to the patch of land, and trampled down the dwarf briars for some paces. ‘It might be any time from five to ten years since a plough went over this,’ he announced, as he rode back. ‘If we do strike a shanty a piece on, it’ll be empty.’

  ‘Case of camping out here, then?’

  ‘I guess,’ he assented, casting another glance around.

  There wasn’t much to see. Behind, the waving prairie rolled away, broken by poplar bluffs, and spotted by little mounds of black soil that marked badger or gopher holes. On each side, and in front, the bush spread thickly.

  I was bound for a station of the H.B. on the Sand River, and we had reckoned on reaching our destination about midnight. This was now impossible, owing to my guide’s mistake in the route. Already the shadows were lengthening and the sun dipping down to the line of the glowing horizon.

  Kline nodded towards a tall bluff of white poplar. ‘There’ll be a good place.’

  ‘But this is a trail,’ I said. ‘It must bring out somewhere.’

  ‘Only wants half a look to tell it’s an old one – hasn’t been used for years. Likely it’s an old H.B. route. Look at the way those bushes crawl over the ridges, and see how smooth the soil is – just as the spring thaw left it. There hasn’t been a wheel over here this summer.’

  ‘Well, we’d better fix up our camp,’ I said, gathering up the reins. ‘We’ll want a couple of smudges, for the mosquitoes are going to be a terror.’

  Again we set off, my companion as usual taking the lead. The barely defined trail ran straight into the heart of the bush, then disappeared in the rapidly falling darkness. But we had not covered more than thirty paces, when Kline pulled up, so suddenly, that my Kitty started back. He sprang to the ground, fell on his knees, and closely examined the centre of the trail.

  ‘What have you got there?’ I called.

  After a few moments he raised his head. ‘It’s been a clear day, eh, Talbot?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, wondering.

  ‘Hasn’t been anything more than a breath all day, but last night was a bit windy?’

  When I again replied in the affirmative, he sprang to his feet. ‘There’s been a man along here since morning.’

  ‘How shod?’

  ‘Barefoot.’

  ‘Must have been a nitchi.’

  ‘Might. But they don’t often tramp singly. We’ll shove along before it gets darker.’

  He sprang again to the saddle, and we plunged into the bush. After about five minutes’ travelling, the leader pulled up again. He turned his head with the announcement, ‘The trail splits. It’s too dark in the bush now to make out a footprint.’ Then his voice changed. ‘Ah! Do you see that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look at your Kitty.’

  My old mare was sniffing up the air that came down the trail to the right.

  ‘That’s a better sign than footmarks. If old Kitty was the fellow’s donkey in the Bible that talked, she couldn’t put it plainer.’

  ‘Can’t make much out of it,’ I said, patting her neck.

  ‘She says that, if we push along this side bit of trail, we shall come out on a clearing where there’s a shanty. How do I make that out? Why, easy enough. Kitty’s thirsty, and she can smell water in the air. When there’s water to be found in a place like this, there’s a well. Where there’s a well, there must be a man who’s dug it. A man lives in a shanty, and a shanty stands on a clearing. See?’

  ‘You can’t tell that the shanty will be occupied now.’

  ‘What’s the good of that footprint, then?’ returned Kline, riding off.

  We crashed steadily through thick bush for some time, then came upon a thicket which barred further progress.

  ‘Where’s your opening now?’ I asked, secretly a trifle disgusted with my guide.

  ‘Somewhere round,’ replied Kline. ‘Here, Billy, take us out of this.’

  He flung the reins on his horse’s neck, and touched up his flank with the saddle thong. The animal stood pawing the ground uneasily, and sniffing from left to right. Then, with a suddenness which might have unseated a less skilful rider, he turned into the bush on the left side of the trail. It was very dark as the foliage was thick, so the next moment I found myself alone on the path, with Kitty snorting and pulling impatiently.

  ‘Come on,’ a voice below me was calling. ‘Mind out for your face, and sit close – it’s down hill.’

  I faced the thicket, with hands held before me. I felt innumer­able twigs and bunches of cold leaves sweeping around. Kitty was half-stepping, half-sliding, down a steep and crumbling incline.

  ‘What’s the matter with this?’ was Kline’s question as I reached him.

  A path lay before, running in a straight line through bush, and ending in open prairie. In another minute the legs of our horses brushed through the waving grass of a flower-decked circular patch, not more than a hundred yards in width, and bound in every direction by the dark tree line. We glanced around this open space. Then I looked at Kline, and he at me.

  ‘I guess we’re over sixty miles from Sand River. Far as I know, there isn’t any shanty between here and there. It’s thick bush, like that we’ve just come through. Who in thunder can live over there?’

  He nodded towards the opposite side, where, in the dim light, we could easily make out a grass-thatched log shanty, surrounded by a neglected fire-break. We rode across, dismounted, and knocked upon the closed door. But nobody stirred within.

  ‘See if it’s fastened,’ said Kline.

  I raised the catch, and pushed. The door gave at once, and we entered.

  ‘Owner’s out. Let’s water the horses, Talbot. Then we’ll sit inside for a smoke.’

  The well was close to the house, with a bucket handy. We turned
into the shack as soon as we could, for the insects were ravenous. Discovering a lamp, we lighted up, and made ourselves fairly comfortable.

  The shanty was old and crazy, with floor composed of bare soil, and grass thatch protruding through the sloping roof. A folding-bed stood in one corner, a table in the centre, and a cupboard near the single window, by the side of a box, upon which lay a few books and an axe. Perceiving a worn Bible, I picked it up, and found a name inscribed upon the flyleaf. The markings were faint, written evidently years before, but on bringing the book to the light, I made out the words, ‘Pete Barker, from the old father, likewise named Pete Barker.’ I laughed at the curious wording, and Kline, who was chopping tobacco at the table, asked what I had discovered.

  ‘Name of the owner. Ever heard of Pete Barker?’

  ‘Never,’ he replied. ‘But I’d like to know what he’s doing out here.’

  We began to fill the dreary place with comfortable clouds of smoke, Kline seated upon the bed, and I upon the box under the window. Outside it grew darker, for the moon had not yet come up; inside, the melancholy lamp cast sickly rays around the bare room. Had there been no mosquitoes, I would as soon have camped in the bush.

  Kline had bent to pick up a dry grass to clear his pipe stem, when I suddenly asked him a question. He looked up to reply, but, as I met his glance, I saw a strange pallor creeping up beneath his dark skin. His lips were moving as though in speech, but no sounds came to my ears, and I noticed that the hand which held his pipe tapped foolishly upon his knee. He was staring at some object near my right shoulder.

  I started round hastily, but immediately the hair began to bristle beneath my hat. For there was an awful picture behind my shoulder. Presently I knew that I was staring at the square window pane, and that pressed close to the glass was the upper portion of a human face – white, ghastly, wild-looking. As suddenly it vanished, while the pane became again blank and dark.

  ‘It must be the owner of the shanty,’ I said unsteadily.

  ‘It’s owned by the devil, then,’ Kline muttered.

  The door opened gradually. The next moment a remarkable figure entered – an old man, clothed in a mouldy suit, patched all over with scraps of skin and sacking. His feet were bare; scanty hair trailed in greasy ringlets down his dirty neck; his nails were long and crooked, while the fingers were curved like eagle’s talons; his teeth were few and yellow. The steely-blue eyes rolled unceasingly, as though striving to light upon a certain object which always remained invisible.

  Kline recovered wonderfully when he beheld the kind of individual he had to deal with. ‘Crazy,’ he said, in a low tone.

  After a pause I spoke. ‘Talk to him, Louis.’

  Kline pulled the pipe from his mouth, cleared his throat vigorously, then remarked in a conversational voice, ‘Say, Pete.’

  But he might as well have addressed the table.

  ‘How are you making out, Pete Barker? Are you going to put us up for the night, and set us on the Sand River trail in the morning?’

  The result was the same, and Kline turned to me with a puzzled expression.

  ‘Darn it, Talbot! don’t believe old moonhead knows we’re here at all.’

  The situation was so peculiar that I laughed. Kline joined in with a deep cachinnation, and, strangely enough, the sounds aroused the old man into action. He held his head to one side, like a man trying to catch a sound from afar, then suddenly came to my side, grabbed at the axe, and left the shanty.

  ‘Too bad to have hurt his feelings,’ said my companion, who was dropping into a lively vein. ‘He’s after practising surgery on someone.’

  Presently old Barker returned, and set down the weapon. His eyes kept on rolling, while low mumblings proceeded from his thick lips.

  I have never passed a more extraordinary evening. The madman ate his strange meal, then took up the shabby Bible, and sat down on the bed, which Kline promptly vacated. There he remained for over two hours, holding the open book in his claw-like hand, his eyes roving around the room, the mumbling growing sometimes louder and deeper.

  We had our own store of provisions, and there was plenty of water at hand, so we might have fared worse. Presently I pulled out a pack of cards, and we started a game of euchre, while the proprietor sat opposite, sometimes groaning loudly as though in pain. It was rather horrible to be cooped up with such a creature in that lonely spot. I know Kline didn’t like it, for he kept screwing round his head, and snatching sidelong glances at the figure behind.

  Suddenly the old man, without any sort of preparation, threw himself down along the bed, and turned his face towards the log wall.

  ‘He’s the craziest old fool upon this earth,’ said Kline, uneasily.

  ‘All the same, we might follow his example,’ I suggested.

  ‘I suppose,’ he said, fingering the cards nervously, ‘he won’t try any monkey tricks upon us while we’re asleep, you reckon?’

  We arranged ourselves as circumstances would allow, then I blew out the lamp. There was a bright moon shining – the pale rays poured through the window, and flooded the shanty with weird light, while a night breeze had arisen, and was moaning softly round the shanty. Presently I heard heavy footsteps; immediately after, black shadows fell across the illuminated window, and I started up – to fall back laughing, when I remembered the horses. Later, I was annoyed to hear Kline’s deep breathing; I felt he had played a mean trick in dropping off to sleep, and leaving me to keep an involuntary watch. Then I opened my eyes.

  The madman had turned, and the moonlight shone full upon his ghastly countenance. It was ridiculous to feel alarm, still I could not restrain a strong shudder. Insanity is always terrifying to the sane.

  Then I managed to direct my thoughts towards that day’s journey, and in wondering at what particular point we went astray, I dozed off. . . .

  I woke cold and nervous, and, as I turned heavily, conscious of stiffness in each limb, my eyes opened, and lighted at once upon old Barker, sitting on the bed, his claw-like hands resting upon his knees, his body bent forward.

  ‘Curse the old fool!’ I muttered. ‘Why can’t he hide that hideous face?’ But, as I grew more awake, it struck me that there was something in his expression I had not observed before. I half rose on my elbow, and looked round – the next moment I felt cold water trickling along my spine.

  Upon the box by the window, full in cold moonrays, sat a young girl, clad in a black dress, which was fastened at the throat by a red, heart-shaped brooch, her hands clasped together, her eyes fixed upon the old maniac opposite. She was frightened, for her face was very pale, and her dark eyes large and fixed. She appeared to quiver from head to foot, but this effect might have been produced by the surrounding waves of light. Suddenly her head came for a moment in front of the window pane. Then I shuddered, for I could still see the dim unbroken outline of the lath through her head.

  Bathed in perspiration, I watched the unnatural figures gazing one at the other. At length I summoned courage to free myself. I dragged my stiffened limbs from the ground to the door, opened it and stepped into the white night, passing the girl so closely that I might have touched her shadowy shoulder. Then I wrapped my head in a coat, and slept on the grass, until strange sounds aroused me soon after sunrise.

  I rubbed my eyes blankly, while Kitty came up and whinnied a good morning. A cry certainly hung in my ears, but I thought I had been dreaming. Suddenly a voice rang out loudly, ‘Here, Talbot – if you’re alive!’

  I was upon my feet in a flash and at the door. Dashing inside, I found Kline upon the ground, with old Barker kneeling upon his chest, the axe raised in his right hand, the left clutching his captive’s throat. Seizing the madman – it was an easy matter, for he completely ignored me – I threw him aside, while Kline hastily dragged himself up.

  ‘You came in time,’ he panted. ‘Old moonhead was just going to strike me down with that axe.’

  ‘I was sleeping outside,’ I explained. ‘Your shout woke me
.’

  ‘If it hadn’t, he’d have made cold meat of me. He took me foul, when I was asleep; but he’s terrible strong, I tell you.’

  The strange creature was now trembling like a beaten dog. Kline followed him to the corner, and struck him upon the shoulder. ‘You old moonhead! You’d fix a man when he’s asleep in your shanty, eh? You old rathead!’

  ‘Leave him alone, Louis,’ I cried. ‘Remember he’s mad, poor old chap!’

  An hour later we rode away from Pete Barker’s shanty, by the way we had come. Kline went ahead, silent and moody, but as we came towards the cultivated patch, he started and said, ‘Say! did you see that wolf?’

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘Where did it go?’

  ‘Right into the bush. Wait a few minutes, while I see if I can get in a shot.’

  I was impatient to finish my journey, but, as I didn’t want to put him in a worse humour, I consented. Presently I heard a shot in the distance, and soon he returned, pale and excited, but empty-­handed. ‘I had one shot, but he was too far,’ he explained.

  Early on the following day we came safely to Sand River.

  That winter I spent at my usual headquarters – Winnipeg. One afternoon, shortly after Christmas, I was returning to my lodgings, by means of the short cut afforded by some side streets, when I caught sight of the slim form of a young girl, in Persian lamb jacket and cap, walking a little way in front. There was nobody else to be seen along the silent, snow-covered street. I gained upon her rapidly, but, when she was about to round the corner of a block, I noticed her catch quickly at her throat, while the next moment she began to search for something on the beaten snow of the sidewalk.

  Just then I came up, and at once perceived a small object gleaming redly from a side drift. I stepped across, picked it up, and at the same time the girl turned towards me with a slight exclamation.

  It was a small, heart-shaped brooch. The whole strange scene of the previous summer flashed back into my mind, so I looked up quickly, expectantly, to see – standing before me in the dull winter light, the same girl I had looked upon sitting in the shanty beneath the moonlight, with fearful eyes fixed upon the old madman opposite.