The Cross-Cut by Courtney Ryley Cooper (best short novels .txt) 📗

to the side of the road where ran the inevitable gully and taking advantage of the shelter, hurried forward, smiling grimly in the darkness at the memory of the fact that things were now reversed; that he was following Squint Rodaine as Rodaine once had followed him. Swiftly he moved, closer—closer; the scar-faced man went through the tumble-down gate and approached the house, not knowing that his pursuer was less than fifty yards away!

A moment of cautious waiting then, in which Fairchild did not move. Finally a light showed in an upstairs room of the house, and Fairchild, masking his own footprints in those made by Rodaine, crept to the porch. Swiftly, silently, protected by the pad of snow on the soles of his shoes, he made the doorway and softly tried the lock. It gave beneath his pressure, and he glided within the dark hallway, musty and dusty in its odor, forbidding, evil and dark. A mountain rat, already disturbed by the entrance of Rodaine, scampered across his feet, and Fairchild shrunk into a corner, hiding himself as best he could in case the noise should cause an investigation from above. But it did not. Now Fairchild could hear voices, and in a moment more they became louder, as a door opened.

"It don't make any difference! I ain't going to stand for it! I tell you to do something and you go and make a mess of it! Why did n't you wait until they were both there?"

"I—I thought they were, Roady!" The woman's voice was whining, pleading. "Ain't you going to kiss me?"

"No, I ain't going to kiss you. You went and made a mess of things."

"You kissed me the night our boy was born. Remember that, Roady? Don't you remember how you kissed me then?"

"That was a long time ago, and you were a different woman then. You 'd do what I 'd tell you."

"But I do now, Roady. Honest, I do. I 'll do anything you tell me to—if you 'll just be good to me. Why don't you hold me in your arms any more—?"

A scuffling sound came from above. Fairchild knew that she had made an effort to clasp him to her, and that he had thrust her away. The voices came closer.

"You know what you got us into, don't you? They made a strike there to-day—same value as in the Silver Queen. If it had n't been for you—"

"But they get out someway—they always get out." The voice was high and weird now. "They 're immortal. That's what they are—they 're immortal. They have the gift—they can get out—"

"Bosh! Course they get out when you wait until after they 're gone. Why, one of 'em was downtown at the assayer's, so I understand, when you went in there."

"But the other—he 's immortal. He got out—"

"You're crazy!"

"Yes, crazy!" She suddenly shrieked at the word. "That's what they all call me—Crazy Laura. And you call me Crazy Laura too, when my back 's turned. But I ain't—hear me—I ain't! I know—they're immortal, just like the others were immortal! I can't hold 'em when they 've got the spirit that rises above—I 've tried, ain't I—and I 've only got one!"

"One?" Squint's voice became suddenly excited. "One—what one?"

"I 'm not going to tell. But I know—Crazy Laura—that's what they call me—and they give me a sulphur pillow to sleep on. But I know—I know!"

There was silence then for a moment, and Fairchild, huddled in the darkness below, felt the creeping, crawling chill of horror pass over him as he listened. Above were a rogue and a lunatic, discussing between them what, at times, seemed to concern him and his partner; more, it seemed to go back to other days, when other men had worked the Blue Poppy and met misfortunes. A bat fluttered about, just passing his face, its vermin-covered wings sending the musty air close against his cringing flesh. Far at the other side of the big hall a mountain rat resumed its gnawing. Then it ceased. Squint Rodaine was talking again.

"So you 're not going to tell me about 'the one', eh? What have you got this door shut for?"

"No door 's shut."

"It is—don't you think I can see? This door leading into the front room."

The sound of heavy shoes, followed by a lighter tread. Then a scream above which could be heard the jangling of a rusty lock and the bumping of a shoulder against wood. High and strident came Crazy Laura's voice:

"Stay out of there—I tell you, Roady! Stay out of there! It's something that mortals should n't see—it's something—stay out—stay out!"

"I won't—unlock this door!"

"I can't do it—the time has n't come yet—I must n't—"

"You won't—well, there 's another way." A crash, the sudden, stumbling feet of a man, then the scratching of a match and an exclamation: "So this is your immortal, eh?"

Only a moaning answered, moaning intermingled with some vague form of a weird chant, the words of which Fairchild in the musty, dark hall below could not distinguish. At last came Squint's voice again, this time in softened tones:

"Laura—Laura, honey."

"Yes, Squint."

"Why did n't you tell your sweetheart about this?"

"I must n't—you 've spoiled it now, Roady."

"No—Honey. I can show you the way. He 's nearly gone. What were you going to do when he went—?"

"He 'd have dissolved in air, Roady—I know. The spirits have told me."

"Perhaps so." The voice of the scar-faced, mean-visaged Squint Rodaine was still honeyed, still cajoling. "Perhaps so—but not at once. Is n't there a barrel of lime in the basement?"

"Yes."

"Come downstairs with me."

They started downward then, and Fairchild, creeping as swiftly as he could, hurried under the protection of the rotten casing, where the wainscoting had dropped away with the decay of years. There he watched them pass, Rodaine in the lead, carrying a smoking lamp with its half-broken chimney careening on the base. Crazy Laura, mumbling her toothless gums, her hag-like hands extended before her, shuffling along in the rear. He heard them go far to the rear of the house, then descend more stairs. And he went flat to his stomach on the floor, with his ear against a tiny chink that he might hear the better. Squint still was talking in his loving tones.

"See, Honey," he was saying. "I 've—I 've broken the spell by going in upstairs. You should have told me. I did n't know—I just thought—well, I thought there was some one in there you liked, and I got jealous."

"Did you, Roady?" She cackled. "Did you?"

"Yes—I did n't know you had him there. And you were making him immortal?"

"I found him, Roady. His eyes were shut, and he was bleeding. It was at dusk, and nobody saw him when I carried him in here. Then I started giving him the herbs—"

"That you 've gathered around at night?"

"Yes—where the dead sleep. I get the red berries most. That's the blood of the dead, come to life again."

The quaking, crazy voice from below caused Fairchild to shiver with a sudden cold that no warmth could eradicate. Still, however, he lay there listening, fearful that every move from below might bring a cessation of their conversation. But Rodaine talked on.

"Of course, I know. But I 've spoiled that now. There's another way, Laura. Get that spade. See, the dirt's soft here. Dig a hole about four feet deep and six or seven feet long. Then put half that lime from the barrel in there. Understand?"

"What for?"

"It's the only way now; we 'll have to do that. It's the other way to immortality. You 've given him the herbs?"

"Yes."

"Then this is the end. See? Now do that, won't you, Honey?"

"You'll kiss me, Roady?"

"There!" The faint sound of a kiss came from below. "And there's another one. And another!"

"Just like the night our boy was born. Don't you remember how you bent over and kissed me then and held me in your arms?"

"I 'm holding you that way now, Honey—just the same way that I held you the night our boy was born. And I 'll help you with this. You dig the hole and put half the lime in there—don't put it all. We 'll need the rest to put on top of him. You 'll have it done in about two hours. There 's something else needed—some acid that I 've got to get. It 'll make it all the quicker. I 'll be back, Honey. Kiss me."

Fairchild, seeking to still the horror-laden quiver of his body, heard the sound of a kiss and then the clatter of a man's heavy shoes on the stairs, accompanied by a slight clink from below. He knew that sound,—the scraping of the steel of a spade against the earth as it was dragged into use. A moment more and Rodaine, mumbling to himself, passed out the door. But the woman did not come upstairs. Fairchild knew why: her crazed mind was following the instructions of the man who knew how to lead the lunatic intellect into the channels he desired; she was digging, digging a grave for some one, a grave to be lined with quicklime!

Now she was talking again and chanting, but Fairchild did not attempt to determine the meaning of it all. Upstairs was some one who had been found by this woman in an unconscious state and evidently kept in that condition through the potations of the ugly poison-laden drugs she brewed,—some one who now was doomed to die and to lie in a quicklime grave! Carefully Fairchild gained his feet; then, as silently as possible, he made for the rickety stairs, stopping now and again to listen for discovery from below. But it did not come; the insane woman was chanting louder than ever now. Fairchild went on.

He felt his way up the remaining stairs, a rat scampering before him; he sneaked along the wall, hands extended, groping for that broken door, finally to find it. Cautiously he peered within, striving in vain to pierce the darkness. At last, listening intently for the singing from below, he drew a match from his pocket and scratched it noiselessly on his trousers. Then, holding it high above his head, he looked toward the bed—and stared in horror!

A blood-encrusted face showed on the slipless pillow, while across the forehead was a jagged, red, untended wound. The mouth was open, the breathing was heavy and labored. The form was quite still, the eyes closed. And the face was that of Harry!

CHAPTER XXII

So this explained, after a fashion, Harry's disappearance. This revealed why the search through the mountains had failed. This—

But Fairchild suddenly realized that now was not a time for conjecturing upon the past. The man on the bed was unconscious, incapable of helping himself. Far below, a white-haired woman, her toothless jaws uttering one weird chant after another, was digging for him a quicklime grave, in the insane belief that she was aiding in accomplishing some miracle of immortality. In time—and Fairchild did not know how long—an evil-visaged, scar-faced man would return to help her carry the inert frame of the unconscious man below and bury it. Nor could Fairchild tell from the conversation whether he even intended to perform the merciful act of killing the poor, broken being before he covered it with acids and quick-eating lime in a grave that soon would remove all vestige of human identity forever. Certainly now was not a time for thought; it was one for action!

And for caution. Instinct told Fairchild that for the present, at least, Rodaine must believe that Harry had escaped unaided. There were too many other things in which Robert felt sure Rodaine had played a part, too many other mysterious happenings which must be met and coped with, before the man of the blue-white scar could know that finally the underling was beginning to show fight, that at last the crushed had begun to rise. Fairchild bent and unlaced his shoes, taking off also the heavy woolen socks which protected his feet from the biting cold. Steeling himself to the ordeal which he must undergo, he tied the laces together