Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1952 (14 page)

 
          
AGAIN
DARKNESS

 
          
But
the burning of the house took hours. The sun had set, the hands of Randy’s
watch stood at ten minutes after eight, and all the watchers around the flames
were weary and hungry by the time the final collapse of logs and timbers made a
mere glowing heap, like a big council fire. About that time, Mr. Martin glanced
up and wiped his face.

 
          
“I
felt a drop of rain,” he announced. “I reckon we’re in for another shower.
It’ll be good for the crops.”

 
          
“And
good for us, too,” said Sam. “A hard rain will put out the last of the fire,
and maybe it’ll keep the dogs at home, too.”

           
“Speaking of that, where is their
home?” asked Driscoll. “Did they den up here?”

 
          
“No,
not from what Randy said about the place,” replied Sam. “He made it sound like
a deserted cabin, not a lair or kennel. My hunch—and it’s only a hunch—was that
this house we’ve seen burn down was more like a sort of rallying point for the
pack.” “You make them sound human,” said Driscoll. “Organized and disciplined.”

 
          
“Well,
aren’t they?” threw in Jebs. “Don’t they run these night maneuvers like
soldiers raiding an enemy position? Didn’t they gang up on Randy like a patrol
after a prisoner? Sure, they sound human. They act human.”

 
          
“I
been arguing you-all that point,” drawled Willie Dubbin. “I been saying all the
time, there’s more’n dog sense among ’em. That there jacket Randy says he seen
in there, that’s proof. One dog can change into a man and back again.”

 
          
“Like
the werewolves Mr. Tasman told us about,” said Jebs.

 
          
“Let’s
get back away from here,” pleaded Willie. “I don’t relish this place.”

 
          
Amid
the increasing scatter of raindrops, the party turned toward the homeward trail.
Both Driscoll and Sam had brought flashlights along, and with these they moved
ahead to search out the line of blazed trees in the dark. Willie Dubbin led the
mule behind them, and Jebs walked at Willie’s side. Mr. Martin and Randy,
following closely, could hear their conversation.

 
          
“You
figure I’m right, boy?” Willie was saying. “Why, dog my soul, I pure down know
I’m right. I figured it all out from what I been hearing since I was a young
chap, no more’n walking around with my ears flopping. That there spotted Bugler
dog—well, Randy allows he was sort of tyrannizing around, running the show.”

 
          
“He
certainly was,” agreed Randy from the rear of the procession.

 
          
“Now,
that there jacket musta been his jacket,” amplified Willie solemnly. “He could
put it on at night and it’d turn him into a man, or anyways something
like
a man—walking around on two feet, maybe able to use his
front paws like they was sure- enough hands.”

 
          
“That’s
not the way I’ve heard about werewolves,” boomed back Sam, in humor with
Willie’s superstitious avowals. “It was more the other way around. The old
tales say a werewolf is a man by day and an animal by night. How can science
prove what you’re saying?”

 
          
“Shucks,
Mr. Cohill,” answered Willie, “science don’t hold
none
with them tales. So it
don’t
study to prove nothing
about them. And it don’t seem no harder for a daytime man to turn into a
nighttime wolf than for a daytime dog to turn into a nighttime man, am I
right?”

 
          
“Right
enough according to logic,” agreed Sam, trying not to laugh.

 
          
“
Well things does
change,” Willie pursued his argument. “Look
at a little bitty tadpole, a fish, sort of like. Then it forgets its tail and
reaches out arms and legs and turns into a frog. Or a caterpillar worm all at
once puts out wings and flops around for a butterfly. They take a longer time
at it, but otherwise ain’t that just as hard to do as a dog turning into a
man?”

 
          
“Let
me take you into the woods to talk to Mr. Hobert Tasman some time,” suggested
Randy. “He’s read a book about werewolves. He’ll tell you about cases on the
records of real courts.”

 
          
“Listen
here, sonny,” said Willie, “I ain’t going any deeper into these here woods to
listen to nothing. I’ve had my bait of them kind of tales.”

           
“But what if Bugler’s coat burned up
in the house?” asked Randy. “He can’t make the change.”

 
          
“Oh,
more’n likely he snaked in and carried his coat out first,” was Willie’s ready
theory. “Or like enough he slipped it on by daytime this once, and turned into
his man shape so’s he could set the fire.”

 
          
“We
certainly don’t know how the fire started,” said Mr. Martin, turning his
shotgun muzzle downward to keep rain from entering. “Randy had nothing to do
with it, and the dogs couldn’t have done it.”

 
          
“Not
without one or other of ’em turned into a man,” said Willie, humorlessly
stubborn in his belief. “However could a dog strike a match without he had him
some hands?”

 
          
“Maybe
those wasp stings burned them up so bad, they touched off the house by
spontaneous combustion,” offered Jebs.

 
          
Nobody
laughed.

 
          
“How
about your Indian friends, Sam?” asked Mr. Martin, raising his voice. “Might
they have mixed into this?”

 
          
“Not
for a moment,” said Sam at once. “I’ve known the Drowning Creek Indians for
years. They’ve been my best friends—my only friends, until Driscoll and these
other boys showed up. And you always know where you stand with an Indian,
friend or foe. He won’t two-time a real friend for anything.”

 
          
“Neither
will a dog,” agreed Mr. Martin.

 
          
“I’m
not too happy about dogs just now,” said Randy.

 
          
Mr.
Martin laughed understandingly. “Look at it without feeling too mad at them,
Randy. What if you owned some dogs, and they caught a stranger fooling around
some house of yours? Wouldn’t you expect them to try to run the stranger
off—the way they tried with you?”

 
          
“Yes,
but the house was deserted, and I didn’t mean any harm.”

 
          
“You
can’t expect the dogs to know that. They figured on you for a trespasser.”

 
          
Wetly
the party slogged along until it reached New Chimney Pot. The rain fell more
heavily still as they entered. Jebs and Driscoll kindled a fire on the hearth,
and hurried out with flashlights to feed the stock, while Sam fried ham and
potatoes. Everyone ate heartily, under the glow of the new electric lights.

 
          
“I’ll
drive you home, Mr. Martin,” said Driscoll as they finished. “It’ll be wet
going in that open jeep, but maybe Randy or Jebs will lend you a raincoat.”

 
          
“You
can have mine, Mr. Martin, it’s pretty big,” offered Jebs. “Randy, probably
Willie will thank you for the loan of your coat while he rides the mule home.”

 
          
“I
ain’t riding Old Mule anywheres alone in this night,” declared Willie, so
warmly that he speeded up out of his drawl. “I’ve done tied him up in your calf
shed, and I’m going in the jeep. There ain’t money enough in North Carolina,
and in South Carolina on top of it, to get me riding through these woods
tonight with nobody but Old Mule for company.”

 
          
“All
right, go with Driscoll and Mr. Martin,” said Jebs. “I’ll ride Old Mule over
myself in the morning, if it’s cleared up and he’ll let me stay on his back.”

 
          
Mr.
Martin and Willie, clad in the borrowed raincoats, went out with Driscoll to
start the jeep and drive away. Randy went into the front room. The small fire
on the hearth was dispelling dampness from the air and from his clothing, and
he was glad to sit down. He felt tired, and grateful for shelter. Rebel came
and sat beside him.

 
          
“Sam,”
said Jebs, as he and the giant entered in turn, “what do you, as a special
deputy, think of the evidence so far?”

 
          
“As
a special deputy, I don’t think there
is
very much evidence,” replied Sam, pulling up his big chair. “What there is had
better be pretty well puzzled over before anyone gives an opinion.”

 
          
“How
about you, Randy?” was Jebs’ next question. “Or are you back at your hobby of
thinking?”

           
“Mr. Martin made one remark that
sticks in my mind,” Randy told them.
“About the dogs acting
as if I was a trespasser.”

 
          
“Yes,”
said Jebs, “they must have thought they were doing their duty, just the way
Rebel would do his if anybody tried to bust in here at New Chimney Pot.”

 
          
“But
I’ve told
you,”
went on Randy, “that place didn’t look
lived in, by dogs or men.”

 
          
“You
keep talking as if those dogs acted like pretty smart animals,” observed Sam.

 
          
“And
they did act smart,” Randy nodded. “Especially that spotted one, Bugler. And
all of them meant business, taking after me. The only one that seemed downright
mean, though, was that wolfish mongrel with the bushy tail.”

 
          
“I
don’t expect we’ll have much trouble with them tonight,” Sam said. “The rain’s
falling faster all the
time,
and it won’t be the sort
of weather dogs like to face. Some of them will be doctoring their wasp stings,
too.”

           
Jebs laughed. “I’d like to have been
where I could have seen and heard that wasp business,” he said. “Of course, I’d
want to be somewhere safe myself, from wasps and dogs both.”

 
          
Randy
leaned back. “Well, those wasps were out- and-out disgusted,” he remembered.
“They showed it, too, the best way they knew how. I estimated that there were
about thirty of them, and every single wasp must have picked out a dog to sit
down on.”

 
          
“How
do you feel after all this whooping and hollering?” asked Jebs, eyeing his
friend calculatingly.

 
          
“Slightly
bushed,” said Randy, “and thoroughly thankful. That ought to answer your
question.”

 
          
“Oh,
it does, it does,” said Jebs. “But me, I’m all broke out with a heap of other
questions—and nobody knows the answers, I’ll bet, except maybe the dogs
themselves. We’ll have to sit around here and guess on them till the dogs
decide to talk up, or somebody talks up for them. The main question, of
course—”

 
          
“Is
who or what started the fire,” Sam finished for him.

 
          
Randy
sat up and stared at the giant, but Jebs only grinned.

           
“Sam isn’t a mind reader,
Randy,
it’s just that he’s studying along the same lines as
we are. Out yonder in the rain I felt halfway like going along with Willie
Dubbin’s thrilling tale about dogs turning back and forth into something almost
human.”

 
          
“I
know what you mean,” said Randy. “He made it sound almost sensible.”

 
          
“But
here,” continued Jebs, “with our brand-new electric lights blazing away—”

 
          
“In
here,” Sam interrupted again, “you get back your common sense and wonder how
much Willie believes his own arguments.”