Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1953

by The Raiders of Beaver Lake (v1. 1)

  "He’s not our cousin,” grumbled Emory. "Not close, anyway. Just third or fourth cousin.”

  "But you’re mixed up with him, and in bad with the police,” reminded Jebs, almost cheerfully. He began to clean the dishes camp-fashion. Pushing the pine straw right and left to expose a patch of the cave’s sandy floor, he thrust the knives and forks into it, and took handfuls of grit with which to rub and scour the frying pan and the plates. This done, he wiped out the grit with a wisp of pine straw, then he dipped the soap into the water pail and churned up a thick lather on the various utensils. Emory watched him, so closely that Jebs wondered if his plan was penetrating the guard’s thick skull, and he tried to make conversation, to take Emory’s attention from what he was doing.

  "That brother and cousin of yours are trying to talk you out of believing in witchcraft,” ventured Jebs.

  "Yah,” drawled Emory, as though half in contempt of his kinsmen. "They believe in it a right smart themselves.” "Sure, anybody with any sense believes in it,” Jebs made haste to add. "Didn’t I tell you that my buddy, Randy Hunter, knows lots of witchcraft stuff? You ought to see some of the smart things he’s taught himself to do.”

  "What kind of things?” asked Emory. He was plainly interested, without losing a single degree of hostility.

  "Oh,” said Jebs, remembering Randy’s sage instructions in the lore of Scouting, "he knows special ways of setting fires, and he can send you his thoughts without speaking them out loud. And —”

  "How about that stuff you said he could do about learning my secrets?” demanded Emory. "How about his finding out about the nail crosses on my shoes? Is that on the level?” "How else could I have learned it?” demanded Jebs in turn. "That’s Randy’s own special kind of magic. What would you say if I told you he had a pattern of those crosses, just like a real track of your foot, but something he can really pick up and show to the police?”

  "Huh,” was Emory’s ill-humored reply, "I’d just say you were the heavyweight champion liar of the country. How can anybody pick up a track that somebody else makes?” "Get Randy to show you sometime,” said Jebs, and forebore to grin over his memory of the plaster cast.

  He dipped the dishes and the frying pan into the bucket of hot water, rinsing away the grit and the lather. Emory tossed him a towel of floursacking to dry them, and Jebs stacked the things in a shelf niche, the ropes trailing from his wrist and ankle. Then he stepped back to the pail of dirty, soapy water, stooped and took it by the bail.

  "Hold everything,” said Emory. "Turn loose of that bucket. I’ll empty it.”

  "Why not let me?” Jebs still kept his hand on the bail.

  He looked at Emory, mentally gauging the distance he would have to throw that double gallon of hot, gritty suds into Emory’s face. If only he could blind Emory, for just one moment, perhaps —

  "No, I’ll empty the stuff,” announced Emory. "It wouldn’t be smart to let you step out into the open. Set it down, I said.”

  Jebs felt wretchedly disappointed. His stupid enemy hadn’t even guessed his plan to break for freedom, but was spoiling it anyway. He tried to save the chance.

  "I think somebody’s coming in here behind you,” he said suddenly.

  Emory sneered. "You think I’ll fall for that old-fashioned gag about somebody ready to jump me from in back? I said put down that bucket, or I’ll send a piece of lead to make you mind me.”

  CRASH!

  A flying body drove in through the leafy screen that covered the doorway. That body hurled itself upon Emory’s back and shoulders. An arm snapped up under Emory’s broad jaw and around his throat. A hand caught and pinned the wrist of Emory’s gun arm.

  "Quick, Jebs!” panted an excited young voice. "Help me take care of him!”

  It was Randy Hunter.

  RANDY TAKES THE TRAIL

  When Randy Hunter dived under the waters of Beaver Lake, he had no plan of campaign whatsoever, beyond escaping that bullet from the gun in the hand of the biggest Bickram. While he was hurtling headfirst toward the surface, he gulped a great lungful of air, and held it as he splashed in and down. His hands, held together in front of him with thumbs together and palms flat, touched the lake’s soft bottom. At once he began swimming along that bottom, stubbornly keeping himself submerged though his inflated lungs seemed striving to hoist him up again. Like a frog he kicked and drove himself away from the point he had gone down, slowly exhaling.

  Years ago, when reading about Huckleberry Finn, Randy had been impressed by Huck’s ability to swim under water for a full minute, and by much practice and determination he had achieved that ability himself. Now he counted away the seconds as he glided along. In a minute’s time he would be a good distance away from the enemy, could thrust his head up for a moment, quickly suck in more air, and submerge again before they could make out his position and fire at him with the gun. Planning thus, he found his forward groping hand upon wet bottom that sloped steeply upward instead of gently downward.

  He had come to the bank somewhere across from the point at which he had dived, and perhaps he could break surface behind reeds or other waterside cover. He pulled himself as close as possible to the upward slope, and rose along and upon it until he felt his eyes, ears and nose lift upward into welcome air.

  His first impression was that the night had become much darker within the few moments he had swum under water. In fact, he could see absolutely nothing, lake or bank or sky above. Nor could he hear a sound, and surely the Bickrams and Jebs would be making noise. The air hung quiet and motionless about him, like the water from which he had raised his head. He put out a hand to feel for brush or reeds at the water’s edge, but found nothing. One of his elbows hooked itself over a flat, hard-packed ledge at about an inch’s height above the water line, and he began to hoist himself higher. A moment later he dropped back into the water, giving voice to an exclamation of surprise and pain despite himself. His other hand lifted wetly up to touch the crown of his head, where it had struck smartly against some solid surface like a roof, just above him.

  Mystified astonishment filled Randy’s mind so completely that he actually forgot the peril from which he had just now swum frantically away, and in which Jebs must still be trapped. To Randy it seemed as though he had blundered into some fourth dimension, into a new and total unknown world. Still mooring himself in position with one elbow hooked upon the ledge, he raised his other arm to examine his surroundings.

  About eighteen inches above the water’s surface was a solid, hard expanse of claylike earth, damp but firm. Behind him, more earth extended down to, then below, the water. Pushing himself out from the ledge, he felt and clutched in other directions. He seemed to have risen from under the lake into a pool between three and four feet in diameter, completely enclosed by walls and ceilings of hard earth, like a cramped and water-floored little prison cell. Was he trapped in it, doomed to suffocation? For a moment he felt an approach of unreasoning panic, and then sudden rational thought came to save him. This mysterious little dungeon couldn’t be completely closed in, or why did the air stay fresh as he gratefully breathed it? There must be some connection with the outer world.

  Not that the air was really fresh. It was full of a pungent, musky odor that stung Randy’s nostrils. He felt his way all around the enclosure, and his groping brought him back to the ledge. This was small, no more than eighteen inches wide, and less than five inches above water level. Dragging himself upon it, Randy crowded his body forward into new and even blacker unknown space.

  A little tunnel joined the ledge, and it was a tight squeeze. Had the sturdier Jebs been in Randy’s place, he might not have been able to struggle into and through it. But Randy fought down his sense of panic at the cramped quarters. He strove mightily and with determination, until he found his head and shoulders emerging into a roomier and blacker chamber beyond. Here the musky odor was even stronger and sharper. Randy fancied that it made water come into his eyes, wide open and straining to pierce the thick
gloom. He dragged himself out of the tunnel.

  Here, too, his exploring hands defined walls and a ceiling that hemmed him in, but he was able to rise comfortably to his hands and knees. No use to try to see in the darkness, but even as he silently told himself that, he had the sensation of glimpsing a tiny spot of paleness, almost like feeble light. He blinked and stared. The spot stayed there, dim gray that hung steady as on a curtain of black. His hand stole toward it. For a moment he caught a ghostly shadowy glimpse of his outspread fingers.

  He snatched his hand back. He could not deny the cold chill of mystified fear, but he tightened his courage. Groping again at the earthy ceiling, he came upon an opening like a tiny chimney.

  "Where am I?” Randy muttered under his breath, and the half-spoken sound seemed to echo in the little chamber. "If I had a light, that flashlight. Shouldn’t have dropped it —”

  But he did have a light. Last night he had carried a match- safe, proof against damp. It would have kept out even the water through which he had dived to this unexpected and mysterious refuge. He felt in his soggy pocket and drew it out in the dark. It was a flat, oblong metal case that clamped tightly shut and could be opened only by pressing on a spring stud. Forcing the lid open, he fumbled out a match and scraped it on the roughness of the lid’s inner surface. A tiny glow sprang up, showing him the interior of his quarters.

  He half knelt, half crouched in a chamber shaped like the interior of a small dome. It was more than five feet in diameter and nearly three feet high. The floor on which he found himself was flat and hard, of mud that seemed well beaten down and nearly dry. And the domed roof had what at first glance seemed like very irregular rafters, spreading in all directions and giving strength and solidity to its curved shape. Such a shelter might have been built by a family of water goblins.

  The match flickered out, and Randy returned to feeling his way toward some solution of the mystery. His fingers, on the spreading streaks, informed him that these rafters were of wood, but covered with a fibery skin rather than bark. Small, supple little tags grew into the hard earth of the ceiling here and there, like fibers on roots.

  That was it. Roots. The shrewd hollower of the place had dug this dome-shaped refuge under the roots of a waterside tree, and between two of those roots had driven an adequate airhole up to the outside world. And the hollower was, of course, a beaver.

  Randy smiled in the darkness, and felt better for the smile. Here was a good deed paid back. He had come out tonight to defend the beavers for whose safety he felt friendly responsibility. He had blundered into danger on their account, and now he had found through good fortune a hiding place from danger, made by beavers.

  He judged that this was a bank burrow, such as beavers sometimes made in the early stages of their damming operations, and then deserted for the harder-to-build but more desirable lodges in the centers of the lakes and pools they created. A beaver, or several beavers, had gouged away mud from below the water line, then had made a submerged landing place and dug through to a wider refuge under the rafterlike roots. Afterward, they had made their lodges and moved away, leaving the burrow for the time a human friend would need it.

  "Good old beavers," whispered Randy. "I helped them, they’ve helped me. And I’ll go on helping them. So will Jebs — Jebs! What kind of mess is he in all this time?"

  He took time and thought to worry about his partner. He lifted his arms, and laid his ear close to the air hole to listen.

  Nothing but a muffled sighing of the wind above. Then, yes, an echoing of heavy feet and voices. He knew one of those voices. It was Mr. Meadows, the game warden, here for some mysterious but welcome reason. Help was arriving in the very nick of time.

  "Mr. Meadows!" he called loudly.

  He began to claw and tug at the hole with all his strength. A fingernail broke, but Randy did not stop to heed the twinge of pain. Shoving his hand into the enlarged opening, he fastened his grip on one of the roots and pulled hard and fiercely. It came loose, slightly, then more and more. With both hands he hauled and wrestled at the root, pulling it free and then dragging it bodily down into the burrow. A great shower of clods came down with it, and he found himself able to push his whole arm up and out. More struggles, while he panted and perspired. Then he burst clear through the ceiling of his prison, shoving two roots to left and right until he could force himself erect, rising free to the waist beside a tree on the bank of the lake.

  "Mr. Meadows!" he cried again.

  A flaring ray of light blinded him. Someone was picking him out with a beam from a flash.

  "Who’s that?" someone challenged. "Don’t move, or I’ll fire!"

  "I’m Randy Hunter," shouted back Randy. "I thought you weren’t coming until tomorrow night. Did you catch those Bickrams? Did you get Jebs away from them?"

  "That sounds like Major Hunter’s grandson," replied the voice of Deputy Sheriff O’Brien. "What are you doing there, Randy? From here it looks as if you were sprouting right out of the ground like a stalk of corn."

  With a final kick and struggle, Randy freed himself from the hole, and a moment later he was running along the bank. At the point where the Bickrams had appeared he now saw several figures with flashlights. Randy found a point along the canal where he could splash across.

  "Where’s Jebs?" he demanded.

  "Was Jebs Markum here too?" demanded Mr. Meadows.

  “I thought you two kids were told to keep out of this business.”

  "But, but—” Randy felt his voice trembling sickly. "We were just told not to come along with you tomorrow night, so we came here ahead of you, and —”

  Three men gathered around him. They were Mr. Meadows, Deputy Sheriff O’Brien, and a third man Randy had never met, evidently another deputy sheriff. Randy told his story shakily but quickly, and the three looked sternly at him, and at each other.

  "We decided to look the ground over by night, just twenty- four hours early,” said Deputy O’Brien when Randy had finished. "We were heading this way, when the sound of that shot brought us on the run. What happened to Jebs Markum, that partner of yours?”

  "He — he’s gone,” said Randy. "That Bickram bunch must have dragged him away when they left here.”

  Flashlight beams probed and quartered the trampled ground where the struggle had taken place.

  "No chance to find them or their tracks in all this darkness,” said Mr. Meadows. "I’m going to Major Hunter’s house and telephone for bloodhounds. And you,” he said severely to Randy, "you’re coming along with me.”

  Randy was glad to accompany the game warden to Laurels. There Major Hunter listened gravely to the reports of both boy and man. He let Mr. Meadows use the telephone to call for more help, and took Randy aside for a private lecture.

  "You’ve given us a fine example of what is meant by obeying the letter of the law, and no more,” the Major told his grandson. "As you seem very eager to point out, you didn’t really disobey orders. You didn’t go along with the officers, you went ahead of them. Well, maybe you get off without serious punishment this time, Randy, though I’ll say that you’ve acted the part of what the army used to call a guardhouse lawyer, hiding behind little technicalities in the way orders are given. Now I’m going to make my further orders clear. You haven’t anything more to contribute in the way of information than you’ve already given us, have you?

  "No, sir, I guess not,” said Randy dolefully. "I told them everything while I was out there by the lake, and I told it again in here.”

  "Then you’re of no real practical value in tracking those Bickrams,” said Major Hunter sternly. "In fact, if you do go back there, you’ll only get into more danger and more trouble. Therefore, being of no use at the point of action, you’ll stay here at Laurels until I give you further permission. Is that clear enough?”

  "Clear enough, sir,” agreed Randy.

  The Major put his hand on his grandson’s shoulder, and permitted a smile to touch his bearded lip.

  "I know
you’ll obey me this time, Randy,” he said. "You’d better go and turn in. I’m driving over to Markum’s to tell about Jebs, and probably I’ll join the searchers myself after that.”

  Obediently Randy went to his room, undressed and lay down. The house grew still, but he tossed and worried. Finally, out of sheer helplessness as it seemed, he dozed away and slept. When he woke with a fitful start, the first hint of gray light was crawling in at his window and the clock in the parlor was striking four.

  Randy sprang from his bed and dressed in haste. He hurried out and to the door of his grandfather’s room. In the semi-darkness inside, he could see that the bed had not been slept in. Major Hunter had been up all night. Then Jebs must still be missing, the Bickrams uncaught.

  In the twilight before dawn, Randy groaned to himself. Hadn’t they secured those bloodhounds? If so, why hadn’t the bloodhounds smelled out and followed the trail? The trail must be there. Jebs would see to that.

  Of course! Randy felt a sudden elation, almost a joy. That was it, the trail. Jebs had said he’d mark it.

  For back into Randy’s mind had come memory of the conversation that had begun their adventure in Bickram trapping the night before. Suppose, Randy had asked, they got separated. Jebs had replied, "If we do that, we’ll each mark his trail so the other can pick it up.’’ Free or captured, Jebs would keep his word. Jebs could be depended on to keep his word on any matter.

  Randy had rushed out of the house and was heading for Beaver Lake without taking time to think of his grandfather’s earnest direction to stay at Laurels. He paused, reflecting. He had given his promise, but only because he and the Major agreed that he, Randy, could offer no help. It was different now. He could tell the searchers that Jebs must have marked a trail, a trail as yet unguessed. Maybe he was still being a guardhouse lawyer, but it was in a good cause. He would explain all that, apologize and make it right, even accept punishment, when he found the Major and the other searchers. Randy quickened his pace.