Manly Wade Wellman - Judge Pursuivant 01 (6 page)

 
          
 
I ran down a side street, but they had seen
me. "There he is!" they shrieked at one another. "Plug
him!" Bullets struck the wall of a house as I fled past it, and the owner,
springing to the door with an angry protest, joined the chase a moment later.

 
          
 
I was panting and staggering by now, and so
were most of my pursuers. Only three or four, lean young
athletes,
were gaining and coming even close to my heels. With wretched determination I
maintained my pace, winning free of the close-set houses of the town, wriggling
between the rails of a fence and striking off through the drifting snow of a
field.

 
          
 
"Hey, he's heading for the Croft!"
someone was wheezing, not far behind.

 
          
 
"Let him go in," growled another
runner. "He'll wish he hadn't."

 
          
 
Yet again someone fired, and yet again the
bullet went wide of me; moving swiftly, and half veiled by the dark and the
wind-tossed snowfall, I was a bad target that night. And, lifting my head, I
saw indeed the dense timber of the Devil's
Croft,
its
tops seeming to toss and fall like the black waves of a high-pent sea.

 
          
 
It was an inspiration, helped by the shouts of
the mob. Nobody went into that grove - avoidance of it had become a community
habit, almost a community instinct. Even if my enemies paused only temporarily
I could shelter well among the trunks, catch my breath,
perhaps
hide indefinitely. And surely Zoberg would be recovered, would back up my
protest of innocence. With two words for it, the fantasy would not seem so
ridiculous. All this I sorted over in my mind as I ran toward the Devil's Croft.

 
          
 
Another rail fence rose in my way. I feared
for a moment that it would baffle me, so fast and far had I run and so greatly
drained away was my strength. Yet I scrambled over somehow, slipped and fell
beyond, got up and ran crookedly on. The trees were close now.
Closer.
Within a dozen yards.
Behind me I heard oaths and warning exclamations. The pursuit was ceasing at
last.

 
          
 
I found myself against close-set evergreens;
that would be the hedge of which Susan Gird had told me. Pushing between and through
the interlaced branches, I hurried on for five or six steps, cannoned from a
big tree-trunk, went sprawling, lifted myself for another brief run and then,
with my legs like strips of paper, dropjjed once more. I crept forward on hands
and knees. Finally I collapsed upon my face. The weight of all I had endured -
the seance, the horrible death of John Gird, my arrest, my breaking from the
cell and my wild run for life - overwhelmed me as I lay.

 
          
 
Thus I must lie, I told myself hazily, until
they came and caught me. I heard, or fancied I heard, movement near by, then a
trilling whistle.
A signal?
It sounded like the song
of a little frog. Odd thought in this blizzard. I was thinking foolishly of
frogs, while I sprawled face down in the snow.

 
          
 
But where was the snow?

 
          
 
There was damp underneath, but it was warm
damp, like that of a riverside in July. In my nostrils was a smell of green
life, the smell of parks and hot-houses. My fists closed upon something.

 
          
 
Two handfuls of soft, crisp moss!

 
          
 
I rose to my elbows. A white flower bobbed and
swayed before my nose, shedding perfume upon me.

 
          
 
Far away, as though in another world, I heard
the rising of the wind that was beating the snow into great drifts - but that
was outside the Devil's Croft.

           
 
"Eyes of fire!"

 
          
 
It proves something for human habit and
narcotic-dependence that my first action upon rising was to pull out a
cigarette and light it.

 
          
 
The match flared briefly upon rich greenness.
I might have been in a subtropical swamp. Then the little flame winked out and
the only glow was the tip of my cigarette. I gazed upward for a glimpse of the
sky, but found only darkness. Leafy branches made a roof over me. My brow felt
damp. It was sweat - warm sweat.

 
          
 
I held the coal of the cigarette to my
wrist-watch. It seemed to have stopped, and I lifted it to my ear. No ticking -
undoubtedly I had jammed it into silence, perhaps at the seance, perhaps during
my escape from prison and the mob. The hands pointed to eighteen minutes past
eight, and it was certainly much later than that. I wished for the electric
torch that I had dropped in the dining room at Gird's,
then
was glad I had not brought it to flash my position to possible watchers outside
the grove.

 
          
 
Yet the tight cedar hedge and the inner belts
of trees and bushes, richly foliaged as they must be, would certainly hide me
and any light I might make. I felt considerably stronger in body and will by
now, and made shift to walk gropingly toward the center of the timber-clump.
Once, stooping to finger the ground on which I walked, I felt not only moss but
soft grass. Again, a hanging vine dragged across my face. It was wet, as if
from condensed mist, and it bore sweet flowers that showed dimly like little
pallid trumpets in the dark.

 
          
 
The frog-like chirping that I had heard when
first I fell had been going on without cessation. It was much nearer now, and
when I turned in its direction, I saw a little glimmer of water. Two more
careful
steps,
and my foot sank into wet, warm mud. I
stooped and put a hand into a tiny stream, almost as warm as the air. The frog,
whose home I was disturbing, fell silent once more.

 
          
 
I struck a match, hoping to see a way across.
The stream was not more than three feet in width, and it flowed slowly from the
interior of the grove. In that direction hung low mists, through which broad
leaves gleamed wetly. On my side its brink was fairly clear, but on the other
grew lush, dripping bushes. I felt in the stream once more, and found it was
little more than a finger deep. Then, holding the end of the match in my fingers,
I stooped as low as possible, to see what I could of the nature of the ground
beneath the bushes.

 
          
 
The small beam carried far, and I let myself
think of Shakespeare's philosophy anent the candle and the good deed in a
naughty world.

 
          
 
Then philosophy and Shakespeare flew from my
mind, for I saw beneath the bushes the feet of - of what stood behind them.

 
          
 
They were two in number, those feet; but not
even at first glimpse did I think they were human. I had an impression of round
pedestals and calfless shanks, dark and hairy. They moved as I looked, moved
cautiously closer, as if their owner was equally anxious to see me. I dropped
the match into the stream and sprang up and back.

 
          
 
No pursuer from the town would have feet like
that.

 
          
 
My heart began to pound as it had never
pounded during my race for life. I clutched at the low limb of a tree, hoping
to tear it loose for a possible weapon of defense; the wood was rotten, and
almost crumpled in my grasp.

 
          
 
"Who's there?" I challenged, but
most unsteadily and without much menace in my voice. For answer the bushes
rustled yet again, and something blacker than they showed itself among them.

 
          
 
I cannot be ashamed to say that I retreated
again, farther this time; let him who has had a like experience decide whether
to blame me. Feeling my way among the trees, I put several stout stems between
me and that lurker by the waterside. They would not fence it off, but might
baffle it for a moment. Meanwhile, I heard the water splash. It was wading
cautiously through - it was going to follow me.

 
          
 
I found myself standing in a sort of lane, and
did not bother until later to wonder how a lane could exist in that grove where
no man ever walked. It was a welcome avenue of flight to me, and I went along
it at a swift, crouching run. The footing, as everywhere, was damp and mossy,
and I made very little noise. Not so my unchancy companion of the brook, for I
heard a heavy body crashing among twigs and branches to one side. I began to
ask myself, as I hurried, what the beast could be - for I was sure that it was
a beast. A dog from some
farmhouse, that
did not know
or understand the law against entering the Devil's Croft? That I had seen only
two feet did not preclude two more, I now assured myself, and I would have
welcomed a big, friendly dog. Yet I did not
know,
that
this one was friendly, and could not bid myself to stop and see.

 
          
 
The lane wound suddenly to the right, and then
into a clearing.

 
          
 
Here, too, the branches overhead kept out the
snow and the light, but things were visible ever so slightly. I stood as if in
a room, earth-floored, trunk-walled,
leaf
-thatched.
And I paused for a breath - it was more damply warm than ever. With that breath
came some strange new serenity of spirit, even an amused self-mockery. What had
I seen and heard, indeed? I had come into the grove after a terrific hour or so
of danger and exertion, and my mind had at once busied itself in building
grotesque dangers where no dangers could be. Have another smoke, I said to
myself, and get hold of your imagination; already that pursuit-noise you
fancied has gone. Alone in the clearing and the dark, I smiled as though to
mock myself back into self-confidence.
Even this little patch
of summer night into which I had blundered from the heart of the blizzard -
even it had some good and probably simple explanation.
I fished out a
cigarette and struck a light.

 
          
 
At that moment I was facing the bosky tunnel
from which I had emerged into the open space. My matchlight struck two sparks
in that tunnel, two sparks that were pushing stealthily toward me. Eyes of
fire!

 
          
 
Cigarette and match fell from my hands. For
one wild half-instant I thought of flight,
then
knew
with a throat-stopping certainty that I must not turn my back on this thing. I
planted my feet and clenched my fists.

 
          
 
'Who's there?' I cried, as once before at the
side of the brook.

 
          
 
This time I had an answer. It was a hoarse,
deep-chested
rumble,
it might have been a growl or an
oath. And a shadow stole out from the lane, straightening up almost within
reach of me.

 
          
 
I had seen that silhouette before, misshapen
and point-eared, in the dining room of John Gird.

           
 
''Had the thing been so
hairy?"

 
          
 
It did not charge at once, or I might have
been killed then, like John Gird, and the writing of this account left to
another hand. While it closed cautiously in, I was able to set myself for
defense. I also made out some of its details, and hysterically imagined more.

 
          
 
Its hunched back and narrow shoulders gave
nothing of weakness to its appearance, suggesting rather an inhuman plenitude
of bone and muscle behind. At first it was crouched, as if on all-fours, but
then it reared. For all its legs were bent, its great length of body made it considerably
taller than I. Upper limbs - I hesitate at calling them arms - sparred
questingly at me.

 
          
 
I moved a stride backward, but kept my face to
the enemy.

 
          
 
"You killed Gird!" I accused it, in
a voice steady enough but rather strained and shrill. "Come on and kill
me! I promise you a damned hard bargain of it."

 
          
 
The creature shrank away in turn, as though it
understood the

 
          
 
words
and was
momentarily daunted by them. Its head, which I could not make out, sank low
before those crooked shoulders and swayed rhythmically like the head of a snake
before striking. The rush was coming, and I knew it.

 
          
 
"Come on!" I dared it again.
"What are you waiting for? I'm not chained down, like Gird. I'll give you
a devil of a fight."

 
          
 
I had my fists up and I feinted, boxerwise,
with a little weaving jerk of the knees. The blot of blackness started
violently, ripped out a snarl from somewhere inside it, and sprang at me.

 
          
 
I had an impression of paws flung out and a
head twisted sidewise, with long teeth bared to snap at my throat. Probably it
meant to clutch my shoulders with its fingers - it had them, I had felt them on
my knee at the seance. But I had planned my own campaign in those tense
seconds. I slid my left foot forward as the enemy lunged, and my left fist
drove for the muzzle. My knuckles barked against the huge, inhuman teeth, and I
brought over a roundabout right, with shoulder and hip driving in back of it.
The head, slanted as it was, received this right fist high on the brow. I felt
the impact of solid bone, and the body floundered away to my left. I broke
ground right, turned and raised my hands as before.

 
          
 
"Want any more of the same?" I
taunted it, as I would a human antagonist after scoring.

 
          
 
The failure of its attack had been only
temporary. My blows had set it ofi' balance, but could hardly have been
decisive. I heard a coughing snort, as though the thing's muzzle was bruised,
and it quartered around toward me once more. Without warning and with amazing
speed it rushed.

 
          
 
I had no time to set myself now. I did try to
leap backward, but I was not quick enough. It had me, gripping the lapels of my
coat and driving me down and over with its flying weight. I felt the wet ground
spin under my heels, and then it
came
flying up
against my shoulders. Instinctively I had clutched upward at a throat with my
right hand, clutched a handful of skin, loose and rankly shaggy. My left, also
by instinct, flew backward to break my fall. It closed on something hard, round
and smooth.

 
          
 
The rank odor that I had known at the seance
was falling around me like a blanket, and the clashing white teeth shoved
nearer, nearer. But the rock in my left hand spelled sudden hope. Without
trying to roll out from under, I smote with that rock. My clutch on the hairy
throat helped me to judge accurately where the head would be. A moment later,
and the struggling bulk above me went limp under the impact. Shoving it aside,
I scrambled free and gained my feet once more.

 
          
 
The monster lay motionless where I had thrust
it from me. Every nerve a-tingle, I stooped. My hand poised the rock for
another smashing blow, but there was no sign of fight from the fallen shape. I
could hear only a gusty breathing, as of something in stunned pain.

 
          
 
"Lie right where you are, you murdering
brute," I cautioned it, my voice ringing exultant as I realized I had won.
"If you move
,.
I'll smash your skull in."

 
          
 
My right hand groped in my pocket for a match,
struck it on the back of my leg. I bent still closer for a clear look at my
enemy.

 
          
 
Had the thing been so hairy? Now, as I gazed,
it seemed only sparsely furred. The ears, too, were blunter than I thought, and
the muzzle not so -

 
          
 
Why, it was half human! Even as I watched, it
was becoming more human still, a sprawled human figure! And, as the fur seemed
to vanish in patches, was it clothing I saw, as though through the rents in a
bearskin overcoat?

 
          
 
My senses churned in my own head. The fear
that had ridden me all night became suddenly unreasoning. I fled as before,
this time without a thought of where I was going or what I would do. The
forbidden grove, lately so welcome as a refuge, swarmed with evil. I reached
the edge of the clearing, glanced back once. The thing I had stricken down was
beginning to stir, to get up. I ran from it as from a devil.

 
          
 
Somehow I had come to the stream again, or to
another like it. The current moved more swiftly at this point, with a
noticeable murmur. As I tried to spring across I landed short, and gasped in
sudden pain, for the water was scalding hot. Of such are the waters of hell . .
.

 
          
 
I cannot remember my flight through that
steaming swamp that might have been a corner of Satan's own park. Somewhere
along the way I found a tough, fleshy stem, small enough to rend from its
rooting and wield as a club. With it in my hand I paused, with a rather foolish
desire to return along my line of retreat for another and decisive encounter
with the shaggy being. But what if it would foresee my coming and lie in wait?
I knew how swiftly it could spring, how strong
was its grasp
.
Once at close quarters, my club would be useless, and those teeth might find
their objective. I cast aside the impulse, that had welled from I know not what
primitive core of me, and hurried on.

 
          
 
Evergreens were before me on a sudden, and
through them filtered a blast of cold air. The edge of the grove, and beyond it
the snow and the open sky, perhaps a resumption of the hunt by the mob; but
capture and death at their hands would be clean and welcome compared to -

 
          
 
Feet squelched in the dampness behind me.

 
          
 
I pivoted with a hysterical oath, and swung up
my club in readiness to strike. The great dark outline that had come upon me
took one step closer,
then
paused. I sprang at it,
struck and missed as it dodged to one side.

 
          
 
"All right then, let's have it out,"
I managed to blurt, though my voice was drying up in my throat. "Come on,
show your face."

 
          
 
"I'm not here to fight you," a
good-natured voice assured me. "Why, I seldom even argue, except with
proven friends."

 
          
 
I relaxed a trifle, but did not lower my club.
"Who are you?"

 
          
 
"Judge Keith Pursuivant," was the
level response, as though I had not just finished trying to kill him. "You
must be the young man they're so anxious to hang, back in town. Is that
right?"

 
          
 
I made no answer.

 
          
 
"Silence makes admission," the
stranger said. "Well, come along to my house. This grove is between it and
town,
and nobody will bother us for the night, at
least."