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Detective Story Magazine, January, 1939, with"Hex on Horseback"
All-Fiction Detective Stories, 1942, with"Hex on Horseback"
JAMES DAYE was sitting in a sagging rawhide chair with his feet up on the rickety railing of the front porch. Below him the land fell away in a series of gracefully long, undulating rolls, with the blue tips of the pine trees moving in soft stirring unison. It was an incredibly beautiful view and Daye sighed in deep contentment, looking at it through half-closed eyes.
Hob Nule came out of the front door and yawned noisily twice. He was a fat, short man with a sun-reddened bald head. He wore a ragged blue shirt and stained khaki trousers, and he was carrying a white stone jug in his right hand.
"Right pert mornin'," he said, yawning again.
"Right pert," Daye agreed gravely.
"Goin' to go a-hikin' and a-walkin' after breakfast?"
Daye nodded. "Yes. Over that way."
"Nothin' there," said Hob. "Not a durn thing but pines and brush and such stuff."
"I know. That's why I want to go there."
Hob shrugged. "Well, everybody to their own tastes, I says." He held the jug up to his ear and shook it experimentally. "Want a drink to start the day off right?"
Daye shivered. "A drink of that corrosive acid? No, thanks."
"It's a mite strong," Hob admitted. He tipped the jug up and swallowed several times, put it down again. "But it's great stuff when you gets used to it." He tilted his head suddenly, listening. "Somebody comin' on the back road."
Daye listened, too, trying to concentrate all his attention, but he could hear nothing except the softwhisper of the morning breeze in the pines.
"It's old Nippy Cooper," said Hob. "I can tell that rattletrap of his."
Daye heard the sound now, finally. It was the faint, incoherent stutter of a car motor. It grew gradually louder as the car labored up the long slope toward Hob's cabin, and finally a swaybacked old touring car bumped around the turn in the road and stopped beside the front veranda while its engine emitted burning gasps of steam that slowly subsided to interior rumblings.
"Hi, Nippy," said Hob. "Up and about kinda early, ain't you?"
Nippy Cooper was untangling himself from behind the steering wheel. He was a long, gangling man with a thin, inquisitively quivering nose. He wore overalls and a straw hat with the brim ripped off in front.
"Howdy, Hob," he said, climbing up the steps to the porch. He nodded gravely at Daye. "Your name would be Daye, wouldn't it? James A. Daye?"
"Yes," said Daye.
"Got a telegram for you." Nippy drew a battered and crushed yellow envelope out of the pocket in the bib of his overalls. "Come in down to the town two or three days ago."
"Only two or three days ago?" Daye asked, taking it. "You're giving me pretty snappy service, aren't you?"
"Fact," Nippy admitted. "Old Ike—he's the agent—he don't usually deliver. Figures if it's important, you'll come and get it yourself. But Mirandy—that's my wife—was taken with the shakin' ague night before last, and when Mirandy gets the shakin' ague, there ain't a thing that'll do her a mite of good but a little of old Leaper Roberts' white corny whiskey. I was comin' up anyway to see about gettin' some, and so old Ike says I might as well fetch this along."
"Thanks," Daye said.
Nippy waved his hand. "It's all right. Glad to do a favor. Hob, you know if old Leaper has run any white corny whiskey lately?"
"Yup," said Hob, indicating the jug. "Brought me down some to try out come last Wednesday."
Nippy licked his lips. "He get a good run?"
"Mighty good," said Hob. "Try her."
"Don't mind," said Nippy. He grasped the jug, swung it up on the crook of his elbow, and swallowed repeatedly.
Daye had opened the telegram and was reading it. The message, typed in uncertain, straggling lines, read:
YOUVE HAD ENOUGH VACATION AND SEEN ENOUGH BIRDS AND BEES AND TREES SO HOWS ABOUT GOING TO WORK STOP WE ARE ON MR FOXIE FOR ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY GRAND AND HE IS NOW HOLED UP AT PLACE CALLED SHADOWS AND I HEAR THERE IS DIRTY WORK IN THE OFFING STOP GO THERE AND LOOK AROUND AND SEE IF YOU CAN GET US OFF THAT RISK STOP RIGHT NOW STOP
ANDERSON
Daye swore to himself with quiet emphasis. He was a young man, thick-shouldered and powerful-looking, with brown hair and blue eyes that were wide set and had a humorous, keenly observing twinkle in them.
Nippy put down the jug reluctantly. "What's all that mean?" he asked curiously.
Daye looked up. "Did you read it?"
"Oh, certain," said Nippy. "Me and Ike puzzled over it for quite some time. Couldn't make head nor tail of it. Is it one of them code messages?"
"No," Daye said. "It so happens that I am an attorney in the employ of an insurance company. The gentleman who sent this telegram is my boss. He thinks I've had enough vacation. The wire means he has insured a gentleman by the name of Mr. Fozie for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars and is now regretting it and would like me to do something about it."
"A hundred and fifty thousand," said Hob. "I'd feel right proud if I was worth that much—even dead."
"Ever hear of anyone around here by the name of Foxie?" Daye asked.
"Nope," said Nippy.
Hob shook his head. "Know a lotta people you could call foxy, but don't know nobody named that."
"Do you know of a place called Shadows?"
Nippy scratched his head. "I reckon that must be the old Ringer place. Some outsider bought that and put some fancy trimmin's on it awhile back."
"Where is it?"
"About thirty miles over west," Hob said. Daye looked at him.
"Can you take me over today?"
Hob shook his head. "Nope. Sorry, but I borrowed all the gas line out of my car to Leaper Roberts on account he was short of tubing for his still."
"How about you?" Daye asked Nippy.
"Possible," said Nippy. "Soon as I run up and get some corny whiskey for my wife's ague."
IT took Nippy until noon to go up and find Leaper Roberts and get the corn whiskey for Mirandy's ague, and then it turned out that the thirty miles Hob had calculated as the distance to the old Ringer place was as the crow flies and not by the incredibly twisted back trail that Nippy followed to get there, To complicate matters further, he had three punctures on the way, and since his old car carried nothing so conventional in the way of equipment as a spare tire, he and Daye had to patch the tube each time.
It was dusk, therefore, when the old car rocked around a particularly steep curve in the road and Nippy stopped it with a jar and a wheeze and a protesting groan of worn brake bands.
"There she sits," said Nippy, pointing to the right and up. "Pretty as a piece of sugar cake, ain't it?"
The house was high above them on the hill, partially masked by the tall and blackly solemn pines. It was white and rambling, and in spite of the white paint that glistened in the blood-red rays of the setting sun, it looked incredibly old and menacing in some indefinable, grotesque way.
"Old Ringer built that nigh onto fifty years ago," Nippy observed. "Loony as a goose, he was. He was a miner, and they do tell that he killed his partner off and ate him one bad winter up in the Klondike way. Anyway, he never was right after he come beck from there. He went and built him this place and married him a widow woman with three kids. And one night, sure enough, he chopped the widow woman and the three kids up with an ax and then went and drowned himself in the swamp back yonder."
"Aren't you going to drive up?" Daye asked impatiently.
"Nope," said Nippy. "Can't noways do it. Road's too steep for this here car. You'll have to hoof her."
Daye got out. He was tired and dirty and hot from his labor of mending tires, and he sighed resignedly as he contemplated the long uphill climb to the house.
"Want I should wait?" Nippy asked.
Daye shook his bead. "No. Never mind. If I can't get a ride of some kind, I'll walk back. It would be quicker."
"Might, at that," Nippy admitted. "Don't go takin' no short cuts, though. Misty Swamp's on three sides of us here, and it ain't no place to be wanderin' around without knowin' where you're goin'."
"I'll get along," Daye said. "How much do I owe you?"
Nippy was surprised. "Me? Nothin'. It's a pleasure. I didn't have anything to do today, anyway, and I like to ride around. Does a person good, I say."
"Thanks a lot," said Daye. "So long."
Nippy coughed. "Ain't afraid of ha'nts, are you?"
Daye turned around. "Ha'nts? What are they?"
Nippy waved his hand. "Ghosts and hobgoblins and suchlike."
Daye grinned. "No. Why?"
"Well, they do say old Ringer is given to wanderin' around in the light of the moon now and again, all drippin' with mud and water, and wavin' his bloody ax in the air. Of course, I ain't sayin' I ever seen him, but then I don't want to, either."
"If I see him, I'll say hello for you," Dave said.
"You maybe won't get the chance—if you see him," said Nippy. "So long."
Daye went up the read. Behind him he could hear the rattle and groan of the old engine as Nippy turned the touring car around. The noise ascended to a coughing uproar as Nippy got the car straightened out and started away, and then Daye went around a curve and the noise faded behind him.
The dust was soft and spongy under his feet, and the deep-blue shadow of dusk lengthened slowly as he walked upward, bent forward a little to balance his weight against the slope. It was growing cooler, and the slight breeze felt fresh and clean against his face.
He stopped after a while to catch his breath, and as soon as he did, the silence of the woods around him seemed to grow and palpitate like a living force and the shadows became sinister, creeping things.
Daye shrugged his shoulders with a little grunt of contempt for his own imagination, and then as he turned his head to look around him, he saw an indistinct figure watching him from the brush to his left and farther up the hill.
He stared for a startled second, unbelieving, and the figure made no move or sound. It was uncannily still.
"Hello, there," said Daye.
The figure didn't answer. It was as rigid and black as the surrounding tree trunks.
"A stump," said Daye to himself in a murmur. "Just a stump. I'm getting jumpy."
He turned away, and in that same second, driven by some instinct stronger than that, he whirled back to stare again. The figure was no longer there. In that split second when his eyes had left it, it had disappeared.
It had not been a stump. Daye swallowed hard, fighting against the little chilly fingers that crawled along his back and remembering in spite of himself the wild story that Nippy had told him about the ghost with the wet, dripping clothes and the bloody ax swinging in the moonlight.
"Hell!" he said emphatically.
He turned away again determinedly and walked up the road that curved and twisted, following the contour of the land. He could feel the play of those cold fingers along his back and reaching up to touch his neck, but he plodded ahead steadily, mentally cursing his job and Anderson and the elusive Mr. Foxie somewhere hidden in the big house ahead.
He came out, at last, on the sweep of what had once been an immense, terraced lawn but was now a knee-high tangled scrub of weeds and brush. A path wandered aimlessly through it, and Daye followed it up to the wide front porch with its high, gracefully white pillars.
The house itself, in contrast to the lawn, was in excellent repair and had just been put in such shape. The paint was as new as it had looked at a distance, and the roof had been replaced. Evidently Mr. Foxie had not yet got around to fixing up the grounds.
Daye went up the front steps. He could see no lights through the windows along the porch, and there was no sign of any person's presence. There was a new brass knocker on the door, and Daye banged it emphatically. The metallic echoes rolled out and lost themselves in the dark silence.
Daye waited, and he was reaching for the knocker again, when the door swung back quietly and easily on newly oiled hinges.
"Good evening," said Daye. "I wanted... I wanted—"
He had been expecting almost anything but what he was new actually looking at.
It was a girl, and a very pretty girl. She was slim and small and straight, and there was a quietly efficient dignity in the way she stood there looking out at him. Her hair was dark, cut in a long, smooth bob, glinting a little. She wore a dress which had the faint appearance of a uniform. It was a deep blue with white starched cuffs and collar.
"Yes?" she said quietly. "What was it you wanted?"
Daye swallowed and grinned foolishly. "Well, I wanted to see Mr. Foxie."
Her brown eyes were very large and dark, watching him steadily. "Why do you want to see him?"
Daye said: "I'm an attorney. James D. Daye is the name. I'm employed by the Greater Mutual Co. in their legal department, and they hold a policy on Mr. Foxie's life. I merely wanted to see him... well, in regard to the policy."
The girl didn't move out of the doorway. "Have you any proof of your identity?"
"Certainly," said Daye, taking some papers out of his coat pocket. "Here's my business card. Here's my authorization as an agent of the company. Here's a bill for dues from the bar association. Here's my driver's license."
The girl examined the papers carefully, standing a trifle to one side so the dim light from inside the hall came over her slim shoulder. She nodded gravely at last.
"These seem to be authentic. My name is Ruth Sales, Mr. Daye. I'm Mrs. Hartway's secretary. I'm sorry to have to question you as I did, but you understand that we must be very careful just now."
"Oh, yes," Daye said vaguely, not understanding at all. "You said you were—Mrs. Hartway's secretary?"
"Yes." She offered no further explanation. "You may see Mr. Foxie if you wish. He's down at the stables."
"Stables?" Daye repeated.
"Yes. He's eating his supper now."
"Eating... supper," Daye echoed blankly. "In the stables?"
"Yes."
"Oh," said Daye, still groping mentally. "Does he... usually eat in the stables?"
"Why, of course. Where else would he eat?"
"I... wouldn't know," said Daye. He was beginning to think Anderson's telegram hadn't exaggerated when he said that there were rumors of dirty work. Something was clearly out of order around this place.
"I'll take you there," Ruth Sales said. She came out of the doorway. "It's around this way."
Daye followed her down the steps and along a path that ran close to the house, paralleling one side.
"We'll have to hurry," Ruth Sales said. "It is almost time for the moon to rise."
"Is it?" Daye asked. "Would that make any difference?"
"Of course. It's a full moon, and Mrs. Hartway has been waiting for it quite awhile."
"Why?" Daye inquired.
"For the hexing."
Daye stopped short and cleared his throat. "I think perhaps my hearing is getting bad. Did you say... hexing?"
"Why, yes. Didn't you know?"
"I didn't, and I don't," said Daye. "Just what is... hexing?"
"Witchcraft. Mrs. Hartway brought Mr. Foxie up here to put a spell on him."
"A spell," said Daye, completely flabbergasted. "Good heavens, I don't think I got here any too soon. Let's hurry."
They came around the side of the house, and there was another and lower building ahead of them. It was painted the same new, brilliant white as the house, and there was dim light showing through the wide, sliding doors and two of the square-cut, high windows.
As they approached, someone came out of the doors and stood waiting where the light cut across him at a slant and showed only widely spraddled, thick legs in shiny leather puttees.
Ruth Sales evidently recognized the man, because she called to him:
"Pick! It's all right."
The man's voice said: "Who's with you?"
"He's a lawyer from the insurance company. His name is Daye."
"A lawyer," said the man. "That's all we need to make things one-hundred-percent lousy."
They were closer to him now, and Daye could see that he was short and enormously wide without giving the impression of being fat. He wore corduroy riding breeches and a tan shirt, and he had a red-veined, hard face and protruding eyes that glistened like wet stone. A big chew of tobacco bulged out his left cheek, and he spat now into the dust, staring sideways at Daye.
"What do you want?"
"I want to see Mr. Foxie."
Ruth Sales said softly: "This is Pick Crail, Mr. Daye. He's Mr. Foxie's trainer."
Pick Crail nodded and spat tobacco juice again. "That's what they call me, but it don't mean much to the loonies around this joint. What do you want to see Mr. Foxie for?"
"In regard to his policy with my company," Daye explained wearily.
"O.K.," Crail said. "Wait'll I see if he's through eatin'. He don't like to be disturbed when he is. Upsets his stomach and gets him nervous."
He went back into the stable and returned almost instantly.
"O.K. Come on in. Be quiet. Don't make him nervous."
Ruth Sales and Daye went in through the big door. The stables seemed to stretch endlessly away from them, whitewashed rafters casting ladderlike shadows up into the dim cavern of the roof.
"There," said Pick Crail, pointing toward the first box stall.
Daye stared blankly. He could see nothing in the stall but a horse.
"Well—where's Mr. Foxie?" he asked.
"Right there in front of your snoot," Crail said "In the stall."
Daye swallowed. "A horse?" he said weakly.
Crail turned to look at Ruth Sales. "What's the matter with this bird? Is he nuts?"
She shook her head, frowning in a puzzled way at Daye.
Daye caught his breath. "Do you mean to tell me that Mr. Foxie is just a horse?"
"Just a horse!" Crail snorted angrily. "Just a horse! What're you talkin' about? Mr. Foxie is the best race horse in the world, bar none!"
"Oh," said Daye faintly. "Well... well, you see: my office telegraphed me to look up Mr. Foxie, and they didn't add any explanation. I thought, of course, Mr. Foxie was a person."
Ruth Sales laughed softly. "Then that's why you looked at me so queerly when I told you he always ate in the stable. I couldn't understand what was the matter with you."
"I can't yet," Crail said grumpily. "Don't you never read the newspapers? Mr. Foxie gets spread all over the headlines whenever he runs."
"Well," Daye said uncomfortably, "I don't usually pay much attention to horse-racing. I'm a dog-race fan, myself."
Crail's round face turned purple. "Dogs! You mean to tell me you'd rather see a pack of mangy hounds chase a tin rabbit than to see horses run?"
"Well—yes," Daye admitted, and added, "I don't like horses."
Crail shook his head slowly. "He don't like horses." He suddenly picked up steam. "Don't like horses! Why, you... you—"
"Pick!" Ruth Sales rebuked.
Crail subsided, snorting. "All right. I might have known it. Lawyers is all crooked or nuts. Well, like 'em or not, take a look at this baby. He's the sweetest thing you'll ever see, if you live to be a hundred and two."
"May I go closer?" Daye asked.
"Sure. Don't make any sudden passes at him, though. He's as nervous as a cat"
Daye walked slowly closer, and Mr. Foxie turned a blaze-starred head to look at him. Daye, not knowing anything about horses, thought he was the most gracefully lithe animal he had ever seen. He was dun-colored, and his coat gleamed with a burnished sheen that reflected the light in quick, flowing streaks when he moved restlessly. He snorted at Daye, neither friendly nor shy.
Daye extended his hand carefully, and Mr. Foxie nuzzled at it with eager lips and then shook his head and whickered very softly.
"He's begging," Ruth Sales murmured, standing at Daye's side. "He wants some sugar."
She extended her hand, too, and Mr. Foxie nuzzled it and then tossed his head protestingly.
"Pick," Ruth said, "can't I give him just a small piece?"
"Nope," said Crail. "He just ate. He's a pig. He just thinks he can work you, that's all, on account you're always makin' so much over him." He pointed his finger at Mr. Foxie accusingly. "You don't get no sugar, you hear? You know damned well you've had enough to eat."
Mr. Foxie snorted defiantly.
"And don't talk back," Crail ordered.
Mr. Foxie snorted again.
Crail shook his head. "He's gettin' sassy as hell. I dunno what I'm gonna do with him."
Daye said: "He's beautiful. But—there must be some mistake. My company wouldn't insure a horse for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Not that much."
"What're you talkin' about?" Crail demanded belligerently. "You know how much the horse won last year? He won fifty-seven thousand dollars! When you earn that much in a year, baby, you'll have some room to talk about him. And that ain't all. He's gonna win three times that much this year because he's gonna take the Rio Seco hundred thousand added!"
"Oh," said Daye, stunned. "I didn't realize that one horse could make that much money."
The stable had been growing gradually lighter, and now Ruth noticed it and said to Crail:
"The moon is coming up."
"Oh, hell!" said Crail, in disgust. "Now we got to put up with that damned hocus-pocus. I tell you I don't like this! It makes Mr. Foxie nervous to have that batty kid mumblin' over him, and, anyway, Mr. Foxie don't need any hex to win the Rio Seco. They got too much weight on him, but he'll run them other broomtails off their feet no matter if they put two hundred on him, and I don't see why the hell—"
There was a stir of footsteps outside the stable, and three people came in the wide door, silhouetted for a second against the brightness of the moonlight outside. A woman's voice, high-pitched and wheezing and excited, was saying:
"And you're sure now, Cornelius, that the conditions are just right and that Henny understands?"
"Yup," a man's voice answered lifelessly.
Ruth Sales stepped forward. "Mrs. Hartway, this is Mr. James A. Daye, an attorney representing the company that insured Mr. Foxie. Mr. Daye, this is Mrs. Hartway. She owns Mr. Foxie."
"How do you do, Mrs. Hartway," Daye said.
Mrs. Hartway was short and incredibly round. She had an appearance of soft, washy fatness, and she seemed to flow over the ground rather than walk. Her face was a red, perfectly round circle framed by a dramatic friz of gray hair. Now she put both pudgy hands up to her forehead tragically and said:
"Please! Oh, please! Not now! Not now! You mustn't interrupt! You mustn't intrude an alien thought presence. This moment is of the most vital importance!"
"Surely," Daye said in a wondering voice.
Mrs. Hartway gestured commandingly at her two companions. "Cornelius! Henny! Begin!"
"Henny's all set," said the tall man behind her. He was evidently Cornelius. He was a long, gaunt, shambling man dressed in a shabby black suit. His mouth was a drooping, colorless line, and his immense beaked nose seemed to dominate the rest of his features and leave them small and sly behind it.
Henny was a boy, but it was impossible to tell his age, because he was obviously an idiot. He had whitish eyes with no sense of reason or understanding in them and a slackly dull face. His hair was white, too, hanging down over the narrow ribbon of his forehead. He made aimless, unintelligible mouthing sounds, and little bubbles of saliva formed and burst on his lips.
"Got to have the lights out," said Cornelius. "Henny can't put no hex with the lights."
Mrs. Hartway swept her arm commandingly at Crail. "Pick! Put out the lights!"
Crail went grumbling toward the switch near the door.
"What is this?" Daye whispered to Ruth.
She murmured softly: "Mrs. Hartway is going to put a spell on Mr. Foxie, so that he can win the Rio Seco."
"But these other two—"
"Henny is the one who can hex—they say. Cornelius is his brother. Mrs. Hartway brought them up here with Mr. Foxie, where the conditions are supposed to be just right, so Henny could put the spell on Mr. Foxie."
"Is she crazy?" Daye demanded.
Ruth moved her slim shoulders. "All horse players and gamblers are superstitious."
"But this," said Daye, "this is more than supersition. "This is... is—"
The lights went out, and then there was only the soft yellow brilliance of the moon creeping like molten gold through the open door and the smeared glass of the windowpanes.
Henny's voice muttered sounds in a wet sputter.
Cornelius said: "Henny's got to touch him. Can't put no hex unless you can feel."
There was the sound of someone sliding against wood, and Mr. Foxie snorted once in startled protest. His feet thudded, moving on the boards of his stall, and then he was quiet again.
Cornelius' lifeless voice said: "All right now, Henny. Go ahead, Henny. Put on the hex."
"Be sure," said Mrs. Hartway in a dramatic whisper. "Be sure it's right."
In the stall Henny began to mumble, a long, rising succession of unintelligible sounds that were like words and yet not like words, that had a queer swinging cadence and rhythm.
The stable was deadly still except for that wordless chant, and the tension seemed to rise with the sound of it, rise in the silence until it was almost unbearable.
Daye shivered in spite of himself. This was ridiculous and grotesque, but it was more than that. There was more than superstition here. There was something else. Something black and unnamable and ugly that was stirring all through the air, and Dave felt the perspiration clammily moist on his forehead.
Breath suddenly whistled through Mr. Foxie's nostrils. It was a sound full of deadly fear.
Crail yelled from near the door: "What the hell you doin' to that horse, you—"
Mr. Foxie whinnied in a blast of terror, and Daye felt Ruth Sales jerk away from his side and move toward the stall. He caught at her in the darkness and missed, and then Mr. Foxie's hoofs beat a rattling tattoo on the sides and back of his stall.
Henny's chant stepped, and he screamed once and then again, and the second scream was cut short with a dreadful abruptness.
"Mr. Foxie," Ruth was pleading softly. "Please, boy. Please. Quiet now."
Mr. Foxie snorted and reared in his stall, fighting against the halter that snubbed him.
"Lights!" Daye yelled. "Turn on those lights!"
Crail was still somewhere near the door, swearing in a bitterly eloquent tirade, and he found the switch now and turned the lights on. Their brilliance was like the slash of a stage curtain drawn away from some incredibly horrible scene.
Ruth was inside the box stall with Mr. Foxie, holding his head with her full weight suspended, swinging wildly back and forth as Mr. Foxie reared and fought blindly.
Crail came running. "Get him out! Don't let him hurt himself! Watch out!"
There was something horribly limp and battered, squashed down into a corner of the stall, and Mr. Foxie's vengefully terrified hoofs flicked at it again and again, smearing it, red and crumpled, against the side of the stall.
"Henny!" Cornelius yelled. "Henny! He's killed—"
Daye was trying to get in the stall, conscious only of Ruth's white and agonized face.
"Keep away!" she begged breathlessly. "All of you! Get back! I can handle him!"
Mr. Foxie stopped plunging for a second, and Ruth was talking to him in a soothing murmur, pleading, cajoling.
"Let her!" Crail commanded. "Don't none of you get near him!"
Daye backed away several reluctant steps. Ruth had slipped the halter rope, and she was pushing against Mr. Foxie's head, throwing her whole weight against him. He began to back out of the open stall, step by reluctant step. As soon as he cleared it, he reared again and Ruth swung like a slim pendulum in the air. Daye started forward, but Crail caught him by his arm.
"Leave her alone!"
Mr. Foxie came back down on four feet, and then he was quiet, his big eyes glassy with fear, his nostrils expanded, trembling the whole length of his sleek body.
"Quiet, boy. Quiet, now." Ruth's voice was a low murmur.
Mr. Foxie whickered and shied away from the stall, but she still held on to his head, talking to him gently.
"Good girl!" said Crail. "Oh, good girl!" He approached cautiously and got hold of the halter rope. "I've got him. All right, Foxie boy. You're all right now. Nobody's gonna hurt you. See, it's just old Pick holdin' you. Come on."
He led Mr. Foxie back toward the rear of the stables. Mr. Foxie was still fighting the lead rope, skittering and shying, but he went along with Crail.
Ruth swayed a little, her face a nauseated white mask. Daye caught her and held her.
"Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?"
She shook her head. "No, no. Not Mr. Foxie. He wouldn't hurt me. He was just scared. Did you see... see in the stall—"
"Yes," said Daye.
"Henny, he's dead," said Cornelius from inside the stall. "Henny, he's all mashed up to bits, looks like."
"Oh!" Mrs. Hartway wailed. "Oh, oh! It was all wrong! What happened? Why did he do that?"
"Looks like that hex will turn backward now," Cornelius said. "Sure looks like it. That hex will turn itself right around and come back at Mr. Foxie the wrong way."
"Oh, oh!" Mrs. Hartway wailed.
Crail came back to the group.
"That damned young idjitl" he snarled barefully. "It's good enough for him! He stuck Mr. Foxie with a knife, that's what he done! Didn't hurt him none, but that wasn't his fault!"
"Henny didn't have no knife," Cornelius said. "I don't allow for Henny to carry no knives."
"Well, he cut him with something," Crail said. "Take a look, if you don't believe me. Mr. Foxie's got a cut right along his flank."
"Henny wouldn't cut him," Cornelius said stubbornly. "Ain't no place for cuttin' in a hex. Ain't no reason for him to do that. Somebody else done it." He turned his head slowly, staring from one to the other of them. His eyes were pinched, glittering slits, and his face was twisted into a baleful mask. "Someone done that to Mr. Foxie so he'd stomp Henny and stop the hexin'. Somebody here done that. Henny, he was my brother. Somebody's gonna be paid back for him. Somebody is. You wait."
Daye protested: "Why, no one would do that."
"Somebody did," said Cornelius. "Maybe you did."
"You're crazy!" said Daye. "Why should I wish any harm to that poor little idiot? I'd never even seen him before."
"Somebody done it," Cornelius said. "Somebody's gonna pay for it."
"I'm sorry," Daye told him, "and I understand how you feel about it, but, tragic as it is, I'm afraid it was Henny's own fault. If anyone cut Mr. Foxie, it was he. He was the only one in the stall."
"Could easy reach over the side," Cornelius maintained stubbornly. "And where's what he cut with, if Henny did it? Don't see nothin' to cut with in that stall, do you?"
Daye looked in the stall, wincing involuntarily at the crumpled, battered mass that had been Henny. The board floor was clean, except for the blood, and there was no sign of any cutting instrument.
"There's nothing here," he admitted. "But I can't understand why anyone would—"
Somewhere breaking glass made a faint, tinkling crash.
"What was that?" Ruth asked in a puzzled voice. "Sounded like somebody bust a window up at the house," Crail said, starting for the stable door.
"Is there anyone up there?" Daye inquired of Ruth.
She shook her head. "There's no one supposed to be."
Mrs. Hartway clutched at her heart with both pudgy hands. "My jewels! My furs! Someone is stealing—"
"Fire!" Crail suddenly yelled from outside the stable. "The house is on fire!"
The others made a concerted rush for the door. Outside the night had a queer, ghostlike, distorted brilliance, and the moon hung low and yellow-red on the horizon. The white house was lonely and gaunt above them. There were no lights in it and. everything around it was dark.
"I don't see anything—" Daye began.
"There!" Crail shouted, pointing.
Flame licked up behind one of the windows on the first floor, flattening itself against the pane like a hungrily spreading red hand, and was gone again instantly. Smoke odor drifted thin and bitter in the air.
"My jewels!" Mrs. Hartway screamed.
"It's the hex," Cornelius stated confidently. "It's Henny's hex comin' backward. I told you."
Mrs. Hartway started to run up the slope. She ran at an awkward waddle, fighting the air wildly with her short, pudgy arms, but she went fast in spite of that. Cornelius followed at his shambling trot, muttering direly to himself, and Daye ran beside Ruth.
Behind them, Crail said: "I gotta stay here. Mr. Foxie is scared to death of fires. If he smells that smoke, he'll start raisin' hell and hurt himself—"
His voice faded as he went back into the stables.
AS they came closer to the house, the flames licked up sinisterly red behind the windowpane again, and Mrs. Hartway screamed in a strangled voice, as though the very sight of them hurt her.
Daye said breathlessly: "Have you anything to fight a fire with? This is an old house. If it gets much more of a start—"
Ruth was small and slim and lithe, running effortlessly at his side. "There's an extinguisher in the hall, and there's a garden hose in that shed at the side."
"I'll get the hose," Daye said. "The extinguisher might not be enough."
He cut away from them at a slant, heading for the small shed that was half hidden in the shadow beside the house. As he came around on the side, he saw shadowy movement ahead of him, and he stopped short, trying to make it out.
Something moved at the farther corner of the house, a blob queerly suspended in the air, dark against the white paint.
"What—" Daye said, and then he knew what It was. It was a man's head, peering cautiously at him around the corner. As he identified it, it moved and was gone instantly.
"Here! Stop!" Daye shouted.
Forgetting the hose for a second, he ran headlong to the corner of the house, whirled around it. The man was down the slope ahead of him, running hard, fighting his way through the thigh-high tangle of brush and weeds.
"Stop!" Daye shouted again, starting after him.
The man tripped in the brush and fell flat on his face in a threshing tangle, but before Daye could reach him, he was up again, on one knee, and there was the bright, quick glitter of a knife in his hand. He was a small, thin, wiry man with a white, desperately twisted face, and he held the knife expertly, like a knife fighter does, with the blade up.
"No, you don't!" Daye panted, and dived headlong at him.
He turned a little in the air and caught the flick of the knife driving at him and slipping just over his shoulder. Then he struck the little man with the whole weight of his body, and they went down and over into the brush. Daye rolled and rolled again, purposely, to keep the little man from striking with the knife, and then he got the thin, bony wrist of the knife hand in his grasp and twisted.
The little man yelled. The knife, jerked free of his hand, flipped up and over in a glittering arc. Daye changed his grip to the man's throat and jerked him up to his feet.
"All right. Now, who are you?"
The man's lips twisted wordlessly, and his white face was crazily desperate with fear. Daye shook him.
"Answer me. Who are you?"
There had been no faintest sound behind Daye, not even the crackle of brush to warn him, but he suddenly knew that there was someone very close, and he tried to turn around, still keeping his grasp on the little man's throat. He wasn't quite turned when the blow struck his head just above the temple. It was as though the whole night had suddenly turned over, cascading him whirling down into thick blackness. He felt himself falling endlessly, and then he felt nothing more.
III.
DAYE heard a faint, faraway voice saying plaintively: "Hey, mister. Wake up. Come on."
Daye stirred a little, feeling the brush move under him, and then his head seemed to swell enormously, with the blood pounding at his bruised temple with strokes that were like the blows of a thousand miniature hammers. He groaned involuntarily.
"Here," said the plaintive voice.
Something pressed against Daye's lips, and he swallowed automatically. The liquor burned like fire all the way down his throat, and he choked and coughed and then choked again.
"Sure is strong," said the plaintive voice. "Old Leaper Roberts must have put some blasting powder in this run by mistake."
It was Nippy Cooper. He was squatting comfortably on his heels beside Daye, with his old straw hat tipped back off his forehead.
Daye sat up and touched his temple, wincing as he felt the long swelling welt there.
"How'd you get here?" he demanded.
"I was thinkin'," said Nippy comfortably. "I was thinkin' that maybe Hob Nule would get kinda mad at me if I went and took his roomer and boarder away and didn't bring him back again. Hob Nule was tellin' me a week or so back that if he could get you to stay on awhile, he'd make enough off you to loaf for two months, and so I thought maybe I better come and fetch you back."
"Did you hit me?" Daye asked suspiciously.
"Me?" said Nippy. "Heck, no. What I want to go and hit you for?"
"Somebody wanted to," Daye stated. "Did you see who it was?"
"Nope. I was cruisin' around the yard here, just a-lookin' to see what I could see, and I spotted you all stretched out like the corpse at a wake. Sure scared me. I figured Hob Nule had lost his boarder and roomer for sure. I figured old Ringer had up and whanged you with his ax."
"It wasn't any ghost that hit me," Daye said.
"Never can tell," said Nippy. "Some ghosts is mighty powerful and mighty mean. What's all the hootin' and hurrahin' up to the house?"
"House!" Daye exclaimed, suddenly remembering the fire. He scrambled shakily to his feet, staring.
The big white house was still there. It didn't show any visible signs of damage, and Daye couldn't see anyone around it.
"There was a fire—" he said, puzzled.
He saw a light, then, moving in one of the windows. It was not the light of flames, though. It was steady and white and brilliant—a lamp of some kind.
"People doin' a lot of runnin' and hollerin', while I was settin' here tryin' to wake you up," Nippy informed him, "but I don't see nothin' doin' now."
"Come on," Daye said.
He crashed his way through the brush up the slope to the front porch. The big front door was ajar, and Daye went slowly and cautiously into the dimness of the big hall. Ahead he could see the faint reflection of a light coming through an open door, and now the sharply pungent odor of smoke and wet ashes was plainly discernible.
"Smells likes somebody's been playin' Injun," Nippy observed, peering around him curiously.
Daye stopped in the lighted doorway and stared at the room inside in incredulous amazement. The fire must have been brief, but tremendously hot. It had completely gutted the room.
Once it had been a library, lined with shelves of books. A couple of the shelves had collapsed now, and the books they had contained were lying in a slow-smoldering, sodden pile in the middle of the floor. The drapes were raggedly black, futuristic fringes hanging to the iron curtain rods. The floor, rug and all, was covered two inches deep with some kind of foamy extinguisher fluid that looked like dirty soapsuds. A chair had its leather cushion and arms burned out, and a big desk lay on its side in the corner.
"Hell to breakfast!" Nippy murmured, awed.
Mrs. Hartway squatted in the middle of the floor like some crazily grotesque Chinese idol. Flames had burned off one of her sleeves, and the side of her face was a black smear of soot. Her frizzy hair stood up in bushy abandon. She was holding a double handful of jewelry in her lap, examining it piece by piece with studied concentration.
"Mrs. Hartway," Daye said.
"Go away," she ordered shortly. "No. Don't go away. Stay there. You're going to take him."
"Take who?" Daye asked blankly. "What are you talking about?"
"Mr. Foxie."
"Take him where?" Daye demanded.
"I don't care. Any place. Away."
"But why?" Daye asked, still puzzled.
"Because he's yours."
"Mine?" Daye repeated vaguely.
"Yes. I give him to you. Now."
"But you can't—I can't—"
Mrs. Hartway put her jewels down and tangled both pudgy hands in her frizzed hair. She put her head back and screamed. She screamed again in pure, jittering, speechless rage.
"Wow!" Nippy commented. "She's worse than Mirandy. I swear she is. You better do what she says, I'm telling you. I'm a man that knows about these things."
Mrs. Hartway waved her arms. "Look! Just look! This beautiful, beautiful room! Ruined! It'll cost me thousands... thousands... all because of that horse! It's the hex, do you hear? He's bad luck, and he'll never be good luck for me again as long as I live! You take him, you hear? You're going to take him! Don't you dare refuse!"
"But he's too valuable—" Daye protested.
Mrs. Hartway heaved herself up to her feet, and her jewels fell in a glittering cascade on the soapy carpet.
"You take him!"
"Well, all right," Daye said, "but I think you should think about this thing before—"
Mrs. Hartway was paying no attention. She was leaning over the battered desk now, tugging at one Of the drawers. It finally came open a few inches, and she edged her pudgy hand inside it. She brought out a legal-looking paper that had a yellowish smear of water across one corner. Holding the paper, she got down on her hands and knees and scrabbled around in the soapy mixture on the floor until she uncovered a fountain pen from a desk set. With the pen, she scribbled an indorsement on the paper.
"There! Take it! Take that horse away from here! I never want to see him again! Get out!"
Nippy tugged urgently at Daye's sleeve. "You better come. She's gettin' worse. I can always tell just before they start throwin' things."
"Wait," Daye ordered. "Mrs. Hartway, where are the others? Where is Ruth? Where are Crail and Cornelius?"
"I don't know, and I don't care! I told them to get out, and they did! Now you get out!"
Daye shrugged, and he and Nippy went back down the hall. They could hear Mrs. Hartway moaning as she began to pick up her scattered jewels again, checking each one off audibly as she found it.
"Batty," Nippy said. "I never see one quite as batty as that. What did she give you, anyway? Who's this feller, Mr. Foxie? Is he her husband—poor guy?"
"No, he's a horse."
"A horse!" Nippy exclaimed. "What kind of a business is that? You don't call a horse 'Mister'! It ain't right."
"This is a very special horse."
"If she owns him, he sure must be," Nippy observed "Where is he at?"
"Probably down at the stables. We'll go and see.
They went down the steps of the front porch and around the narrow path that circled the house.
There was still a light in the stables, and as Daye came closer, he called:
"Crail! Ruth! Cornelius!"
His voice sounded loud and heavy in the silence, but there was no answer, no movement inside the stables.
"Nobody home," said Nippy. He stepped inside the wide doors and peered interestedly around. "And I don't see no—Oh!"
"What is it?" Daye asked.
Nippy pointed mutely.
Back along the aisle that ran behind the stalls, the light from the bulb in the rafters reached only dimly. Something on the floor reflected it in a polished streak, and as Daye moved closer, he saw that the object was a puttee. The puttee was still clasped around Crail's leg, and the leg itself was bent back at an awkward angle, soddenly motionless.
The rest of Crail's big body was inside one of the stalls, lying crumpled loosely there, with his head canted awkwardly over against his shoulder. Daye knelt down beside him.
"Dead?" Nippy asked, peering cautiously.
"No," said Daye. He felt Crail's thick wrist. There was a faint, indistinct flutter of a pulse, and breath made a laborious rattling sound in Crail's throat. "He's been hit on the head, and hit hard. I'm afraid he's badly hurt. Perhaps a fracture. We'll have to get him to a doctor at once. Help me, and we'll carry him up to the house. We can call from there."
"Ain't a mite of use," said Nippy. "Only doctor in these parts is old Doc Taylor. He don't have no automobile. Don't believe in such newfangled contraptions. Won't even ride in one. It'd take him three-four hours to get here in his buggy."
"Crail has got to have care," Daye said. "There's no way for us to tell how badly he's hurt."
"I'll take him to Doc Taylor in my car," Nippy said.
"Fine," Daye said. "Let's carry him."
"Naw," said Nippy. "Let me. Don't need no help."
He proved that in the next second by leaning over and lifting Crail up gently and expertly and holding him cradled in his arms. Crail must have outweighed him by thirty pounds, but Nippy held him without any appreciable signs of strain.
"Can you carry him clear to the car?" Daye asked. ' "Shucks, yes," Nippy said. "I'll be goin'. You better look for them other people and that horse. I don't see no horse in this place."
Daye turned to stare at the stall in which Crail had placed Mr. Foxie. It was, as Nippy had said, empty. Mr. Foxie had disappeared.
"Maybe them other two stole him," Nippy suggested.
"No!" Daye denied emphatically. "Of course not. He just wandered away."
"Somebody helped him wander," said Nippy. "It wasn't no horse that cracked this guy on the head. Well, I'll get goin'. You better be careful for yourself."
"I will," Daye said absently.
"I'll be back as soon as I can. Don't you go havin' no run-ins with old Ringer's ghost."
Nippy went up the slope toward the big white house, and Daye began to examine the stable carefully. There were scuffed marks on the boards near where Crail had fallen, as though he and his unknown opponent had engaged in a short but vicious struggle before he had been knocked out. Daye wondered if Crail's attacker had been the little white-faced man with the knife. He doubted that. Crail was big and tough and looked well able to take care of himself. He must have been attacked by more than one man, as Daye had been.
Daye looked into the first stall and found Henny's grotesquely crumpled little body still there. The blood was coagulating thickly on the dusty boards, and Daye swallowed hard, fighting back the nausea that threatened to overwhelm him.
He wondered suddenly if Mrs. Hartway had notified the authorities of Henny's death and decided that she probably hadn't done so. He turned around, meaning to go up to the house, and then stopped short, drawing in his breath.
A man was standing in the door of the stable, lounging lazily against the whitewashed jamb, watching Daye with an air of faint, speculative interest.
"Take it easy," he drawled. He moved his left arm, pushing back the front of his blue, double-breasted coat far enough to show a shoulder holster and the dull gleam of a big automatic in it.
Daye's throat felt tight and thick. "Who are you?" he asked.
"George," said the other man. "That's as good a name as any for the moment. You've got kind of a tough noggin on you, haven't you? I thought I'd put you out of the running for a while."
"You're the one who hit me?"
"Yeah. And now let me play awhile. Just who the hell are you and what are you doing around here?"
"My name is James Daye. I'm attorney for the company that has insured Mr. Foxie. I came to see about the policy. They were having some kind of a seance here, and Mr. Foxie—"
"Yeah, I know. I was listenin' from outside."
"And then there was a fire up at the house," Daye said, "and I saw another man—"
"Yeah, I told him to start the fire. You caught him while he was sneakin' out, the dummy. So I had to go help him get away from you, and while I was away, somebody walked out with Mr. Foxie and batted Pick Crail on the head."
"You didn't hit Crail?"
"Nope. He was lyin' just like you saw him when I first got here after I shook you loose from Pete. Now listen, mister. I'm tired of talking. Where's the horse?"
Daye watched him speculatively. "You mean Mr. Foxie? Why do you want him?"
The man called George moved impatiently against the door jamb, and the light flowed across his face. He had high cheekbones and a thin, long nose and the carefully dull, blank, impersonal eyes of a gambler. He had a restrained air of tensity that he successfully concealed except for the occasional twitch of a tiny muscle at the corner of his mouth.
"All right," he said. "I'll tell you. Mr. Foxie is the fastest thing on legs, and he's the favorite to beat Brass Hat for the Rio Seco next month. Back awhile, when Mrs. Hartway bought him, I started getting some ideas. She's a crackpot. I knew that. She had some goofy idea of putting spells on Mr. Foxie so he couldn't lose. Spells work sometimes, but they don't work in a horse race. The only way to win a race is to run faster than the rest. No horse can do that unless you train it—spells or no spells. I figured she wouldn't train Mr. Foxie, and I figured he'd get beat. You followin' me?"
"Yes," Daye admitted.
"All right. So I spread around the country a hundred grand on Brass Hat against Mr. Foxie and the no-account field, in the Rio Seco."
"One hundred thousand dollars?" Daye repeated unbelievingly. "Can anybody bet that much on a horse race?"
"Yeah. It's a lot of dough. Especially when you ain't got it. I haven't. No one bookie got more than five G's. I'm good for that much with any of 'em. So I'm on the cuff with twenty-two different guys; and that means on the spot if I lose and can't pay."
Daye frowned at him. "You mean—"
"I mean I laid that much in markers—in IOU's. Now I hear that Mrs. Hartway ain't quite as cracked as I figured. She kept on Pick Crail for a trainer, and he's been workin' Mr. Foxie just like he should be worked, and he's got him in tiptop shape. If he goes in the race in that shape, he'll win."
"So?" Daye asked, raising his eyebrows.
"Yeah. So. But he ain't going to. Pete, the boy you wrestled with, was a jockey once. He can fix Mr. Foxie so he'll be able to race, but he won't win."
"Why, you can't—"
"I can," George said levelly. "I'm not playing for nickels. If Mr. Foxie comes through, and I don't pay off, they'll pay me off—in the neck. If Mr. Foxie runs a poor race, Brass Hat wins. The other entries are just dogs. Then I win!"
The thin, white-faced little man slid around the corner of the barn, goggled at Daye fearfully for a second, and then whispered to George.
"He's gone, boss. I tagged him clear to the car and waited until he started off."
George nodded. "Good. Once more now, mister, where's Mr. Foxie?"
Daye shrugged. "I don't know. I don't have any idea."
"Where's the girl and the hillbilly?"
Daye moved his hands helplessly. "I don't know."
George said flatly: "I got an idea that if we find them, we'll find Mr. Foxie. So we're lookin'—right now. And you're comin' along with us, mister."
Pete's white, thin face twitched suddenly. "Hey, wait now. This is gettin' too damned steep for me. I don't mind fixin' a horse and maybe settin' phony fires, but there's a dead guy in that stall—"
"There'll be another one in there if you don't close that trap of yours," George said in his flat, impersonal voice.
Pete swallowed audibly. "Listen. I'm scared, see? There's a ghost around here. You heard 'em tell us about it. It's a guy that chopped his wife and kids up and comes back when the moon's full with his bloody ax, lookin' for somebody else to chop. Listen. I don't want to tangle with no ghosts."
George had the automatic in his hand. "How'd you like to tangle with this?"
Pete's mouth opened and closed silently.
"Get going," said George. He moved the automatic, and the moonlight glinted along its thick barrel. "You got a flashlight. Start lookin' for tracks outside the door. You, mister, stay right behind him. I'll be watchin' you."
Pete fumbled in his coat pocket, and a long flashlight glittered and shook in his hand. Its beam made a white circle on the ground.
"There's his tracks," said George. "Somebody led him right around the barn close to the wall. He was goin' quiet. I know that horse. He wouldn't go quiet with anybody he didn't know damned well. It was that girl."
"She wouldn't have any reason—" Daye protested.
George thrust the automatic hard into his back. "Shut up."
Pete whimpered: "Look, boss. Them tracks go off at a slant down the hill."
"Follow 'em."
Pete swung around to peer at him. "Boss, that's where that old guy went and drowned himself. That's the swamp where he's layin' with his ax and waitin'—"
George stepped back away from Daye and swung the big automatic in a vicious arc. The barrel clipped Pete just over the cheekbone and knocked him headlong into the brush down the slope. His flashlight made crazy, quivering signals in the air as he rolled over and over.
"Get up," George said levelly. "You ain't hurt—not near as bad as you're gonna be if you don't quit your monkey business. Get up and follow that horse."
Pete dragged himself to his feet. He was crying in choked gasps, and one side of his white face was disfigured with a long, spreading smear of blood. He staggered a little, and the beam of his flashlight quested around the ground until it picked up the deep-cut marks Mr. Foxie's hoofs had left. Pete followed them at a stumbling half trot.
"Keep up with him," George warned, poking Daye in the back with the automatic again.
Daye walked fast after Pete. The brush grabbed at his legs with eagerly warning fingers, and somewhere ahead a night bird called in a low, sinister chuckle. The ground cut sharply down, growing moist and soggy under Daye's feet.
"Here's a path," Pete gasped.
The path was a black slit in the lush greenness of the brush on either side of it. Mud slipped treacherously under Daye's feet, and he remembered the warning Nippy had given him about wandering around in the swamp without knowing where he was going.
"This place is dangerous," he said over his shoulder. "It's easy to get lost—"
"Where that horse can go, we can," said George. "You following those tracks yet, Pete?"
"Sure," said Pete quickly. "Sure, boss."
The path turned and twisted darkly, and the brush growth met over their heads now, cutting out the light of the moon and leaving them in blackness so thick it could be felt like the dampness of fog on their faces—cold and moist and triumphant.
Pete whispered thinly: "There's water over here to the left. Water—"
"You keep going," George ordered.
The flashlight wavered ahead, painting the strangling green of the brush in quick, futuristic sweeps. Daye had lost all sense of direction in the blackness. There was no means to tell which way they were going, except that the ground still sloped a little under his feet, and he knew they were heading toward the center of the swamp.
"Boss," said Pete, "the path—is gettin' narrower."
"The tracks still on it?"
"Y-yes."
"Then keep going."
They went on in single file. Daye's feet were sinking constantly deeper in soft mud that seemed to quake when he stepped on it, quivering gently, with a suggestion of soft, unfathomable depths under it that made the perspiration come out on his forehead.
Pete stopped so suddenly Daye ran into him and stumbled.
George snarled: "What the hell are you two—"
"Boss," Pete gasped, "boss, there's somebody right near us. I heard him."
"Damn you," said George. "I'm getting tired—" Pete's flashlight swung up, and he screamed. There was a weird, elongated figure in front of him on the path. The figure was black and wet, and water oozed out of the soggy folds of its clothes. Its face was a black blob, shiny with mud, and it seemed to stretch higher. There was something over its head that glinted, swishing down.
Daye hurled himself desperately sideways. Vines caught and held his ankles. He plunged and plunged again, trying to get free, and then he fell headlong, and water splashed under him.
Something back on the path made a sickening thud. In the same instant, George yelled and his automatic cut loose in a racketing thunder of sound. Feet pounded along the path, running. Daye lay flat with the water seeping coldly around him.
He held himself there, feeling the mud quiver and ooze under his spread body, holding his breath, trying to listen. He stayed there for what seemed like centuries, and then something soft and slimy slid quietly across his hand.
Daye choked a yell in his throat and heaved back instinctively. The brush fought and clutched at him with a million tearing fingers, and then he fell free into the path again. He knelt in the darkness, panting, trying to regain control of himself. The only sound around him was the drumbeat of his own heart.
At last he stood up unsteadily. He could touch the sides of the path with his outstretched arms, and he began to edge his way forward along it. He had taken three steps when he stumbled into something soft and limp.
He knelt down again, feeling it. It was Pete. Daye could tell by the thin wiriness of him. He was lying sprawled silently across the path. Daye shook him. There was no life in Pete at all. His head wiggled on his shoulders with a queer, horrible laxness, and when Daye touched it, he felt something thick and warm that was not mud or water.
Daye shuddered, wiping his fingers on his damp clothes. He got up again, stepping carefully over Pete's body. That other black figure had been just two paces farther forward, and it might be still there, waiting in the blackness, with the ax held up high over the smeared blob of its face. Daye's legs were stiff and lifeless under him, but he went forward, groping ahead, because he had to go forward, because Ruth Sales was somewhere on farther, alone with Mr. Foxie.
The figure was not there. Daye's groping hands found nothing, and he went on along the path, keeping on it by sheer blind instinct and the feel of the brush at either side. He went on endlessly, pausing whenever the path turned and feeling out its new direction. He lost all track of time and distance, and when he caught a glimpse of orange light flickering ahead of him, he thought for a second his eyes were tricking him.
He stood, still, watching the distant, indistinct flicker for long moments, and then he went cautiously toward it. The ground rose now, suddenly and surprisingly, under his feet, and grew drier and more solid.
Daye could hear, the quick, cheerful crackle of flames. He crept the last few feet on hands and knees and then very quietly parted the thick screen of brush with his hands.
Mr. Foxie heaved back and snorted almost in his face. Ruth Sales was standing on the other side of the small fire. Her dress had been torn and smeared with mud, and she held a stick determinedly in her hand, staring across the small fire.
"Oh," she said, gasping in sudden, weakened relief. "You! I... I thought—"
Daye stood up, and Mr. Foxie snorted again. He stamped his quick feet and whickered protestingly.
"Quiet, Foxie," Ruth said. "Quiet, boy."
Daye said: "I've... been looking for you."
Her face was white and drawn. "I thought you had... gone. You didn't come back."
"I found the man who started the fire. I caught htm, but he had a friend, and the two of them were too much for me. When I came around, the fire was out and you were gone."
"I couldn't find you. I... I looked. And then I went down to the stables. Pick was lying there... dead." She sobbed in a choked gasp. "There was someone... something... trying to get in Mr. Foxie's stall. I screamed, and... and it ran. Through the side door. I thought someone must be trying to hurt Mr. Foxie, and I took him out of the stable. I was following this path. I thought I could circle around and find the road to town, but I got lost."
"No wonder," Daye said gently. "I did, too. I am now. But we'll get out in the morning. Pick wasn't dead. He was hurt badly—how badly I don't know—and I sent him into town to the doctor with a friend of mine."
Ruth sat down, collapsing on a moss-covered log that she had dragged close to the fire. "I... I'm so glad. He fought to keep whoever it was from Mr. Foxie, I know. I thought... thought he—And I thought you had run away."
Daye grinned, feeling the dried mud stretch and crack on his face. "I would have, only I didnl know which way to run. Every place I went, I got into worse trouble." He stopped short, remembering that trouble, and then said: "Have you a gun?"
Her eyes were suddenly terrified again, watching him. "No. What is it? What—"
"Just me," said George. "Just little old me."
He had circled around the clearing and come in from the opposite direction. His clothing was smeared with mud, and there was a long rip down the side of his coat, but he still held the heavy automatic. He raised the gun negligently now, coming slowly forward.
"I couldn't see to follow you," he said to Daye, "but you made plenty of noise. Stand still, both of you."
"What do you want here?" Daye demanded. George grinned thinly. "I ain't got Pete any longer, so we can't go through with the deal the way I figured. I don't know enough about it to fix Mr. Foxie so he can run and still not run good enough to win. But I can fix him so he can't run at all."
"No!" Ruth gasped. "You're not going to hurt Mr. Foxie!"
"You fool," said Daye. "It won't do you any good. In this case the race will not be held, or bets will be called off if Mr. Foxie is scratched. There is only one other horse worthy of the name entered."
"Sure," said George. "I won't win anything, like I figured to do, but I won't lose the hundred grand I ain't got, either."
"If you hurt this horse," Daye said evenly, "you'll be liable."
George's mouth twitched. "Yeah? For what? Killin' a horse ain't a serious crime. You could sue me, mister, and listen to me laugh."
He pointed the automatic at Mr. Foxie, and Mr. Foxie, sensing the peril in the movement, stamped nervously and jerked at his lead rope that Ruth had tied to the brush.
Ruth started forward. "No! You can't! Not—"
"Get back!" George ordered, and his voice had a thinly ugly undertone. "Get back! I'm telling you!"
Daye caught Ruth and thrust her aside. George was still ten feet away, and there was no chance for Daye to get close enough to him to seize the automatic. Instinctively Daye knew that George was an expert with the gun, that he was cold-blooded enough to shoot. That he would shoot.
Daye moved between Mr. Foxie and George. He stood there stubbornly facing the round black muzzle of the automatic, feeling his throat get thick.
"All right," said George. "You're asking for it."
His finger moved a little on the trigger. Mr. Foxie whinnied and jerked his head in alarm, and then there was a sudden crackle of brush. Something flashed across the fire in a weird, bright-whirling arc.
George saw it coming and tried to duck, but the whirling object hit him with the same sickening thud Daye had heard back on the path. George crumped at the knees, bending forward in a ridiculous, drunken bow. He hit the ground limply and lay there very still while blood crept out from under his hidden face and stained the ground in a growing, sluggish blot.
The brush crackled again, and a dark, thinly gaunt figure pushed through into the firelight. Daye whirled to face it, realizing the figure was the same blackly mysterious one Pete's flashlight had revealed waiting on the path.
The figure raised one hand and wiped at the mud on its face, and it was Cornelius.
"They done it," said Cornelius. "Him and the other one. Them's the ones that cut Mr. Foxie so's he'd stomp Henny. I seen the tracks. This one, he stood outside the window and tied a knife to a long stick, and he reached right through the window and over the side of the stall and cut Mr. Foxie."
Daye said: "You... you were on the path?"
Cornelius nodded. "Yup. I got the other one, and I chased after this one, only he slipped around me some way and come here. I couldn't find no gun, so I only had the ax that I got out of the barn."
He pointed to the ax that lay beside George's limp form.
"I paid 'em," said Cornelius. "They went and killed Henny, and I paid 'em for it. Ain't nobody can kill my brother and not get paid for it."
"Hey!" a voice shouted. "Hey, there!"
Cornelius leaned over and picked up the ax. "Who's that? Who's that comin' huh?"
"It's all right," Daye said quickly. "It's a friend of mine. His name is Nippy Cooper." He turned his head to shout an answer. "Nippy! Over here!"
Nippy came tramping through the brush.
"Land o' goodness!" he exclaimed breathlessly. "This here is the darkest place to go huntin' around in I ever see!" He stared at George's body with wide eyes. "Another! This here swamp is plumb overloaded with corpses. I seen one back a ways."
"What are you doing here?" Daye asked suspiciously.
"Me? Oh, that fella wasn't hurt so bad after all. He come around after I had gone about two miles, and he started hollerin' and takin' on and wantin' to know where Mr. Foxie was. People sure are anxious about that animal. I told him you was huntin' for him, and he hoots and hollers that he's got to hunt, too. So I brung him back. I told him I'd look, and so he's settin' in my car back on the road. He's kinda weak, but he sure can yell loud, so I guess he ain't in no danger."
"We found the horse," said Daye.
"So I notice," said Nippy, examining Mr. Foxie with admiring eyes. "He's a right smart fine-lookin' critter."
He walked up to Mr. Foxie unhesitatingly and patted him on the nose. Mr. Foxie seemed to like it. He reached out his head for more.
"Yes, sir," said Nippy. "You got yourself considerable of a horse there. Mr. Daye."
"Ain't hisn," said Cornelius. "That there horse belongs to Mrs. Hartway."
"Not no more," said Nippy.
"She gave it to me," Daye explained to Ruth. "I didn't want to take the horse, but Mrs. Hartway insisted."
"She gave... it to you?" Cornelius asked.
"Sure did," said Nippy. "I was right there and seen it with my own eyes." He patted Mr. Foxie on the nose again, looking sideways at Cornelius. "You talk like you come from over Stony Ridge way."
"Do," said Cornelius.
"That so?" said Nippy in a pleased voice. "Ain't never been there myself, but I got an uncle lives in them parts. Name of Pappy Cooper. Got a wooden leg and a mean eye. You know him?"
"Seen him," said Cornelius.
"Oh, no, you ain't," said Nippy. "Because there ain't no such place as Stony Ridge, and I ain't got an uncle. And you ain't no hill folks, either. You're just a come-here tryin' to talk like you was hill folks. And don't you try flingin' that ax at me, or I'll catch it and fling it right back."
"I've got something better than an ax," said Cornelius. The ax slipped out of his fingers and fell to the ground, and then he was holding a short-barreled revolver. "Daye, you've got those papers on Mr. Foxie with you. You can indorse them over to me now. Just write down 'for due consideration.' These other two will sign as witnesses."
Daye watched him steadily. "It won't do you any good. You should know that. Any contract made under duress is unenforceable."
"There won't be anyone to testify it was made under duress," said Cornelius. "Get that paper out and indorse it."
A, weak, thick voice muttered: "You rat. You dirty double-crosser."
George was sitting up, braced back against his extended left arm. His face was a red glistening mask of blood out of which his eyes stared glassily, fever-bright. He held the automatic waveringly in his right hand.
Incredibly fast, Cornelius whirled and fired twice. The bullets jerked George's body. His supporting left arm bent, and he went over backward in a stiff, twitching heap.
Daye hurled himself straight over the fire. He hit Cornelius just in back of the knees while the thin man was trying to turn back toward him, and they both went down in sliding tangle.
Ruth screamed, and Nippy was shouting: "Whoa! Whoa!" at Mr. Foxie, trying to hold him.
Cornelius heaved up under Daye's weight; got the revolver half raised before Daye shifted his grip, caught his right wrist. Cornelius fell backward, pulling Daye over on top of him, struggling to twist his wrist out of Daye's grasp. Daye held on grimly, trying to hit Cornelius with his other fist.
Cornelius seemed to have an endless, wiry strength. He heaved up to his feet again, bringing Daye with him, and their churning feet stamped the embers of the fire. Cornelius' thin fingers found Daye's throat, and then Daye tripped him. They went down in another awkward sprawl, and the shock of it loosened Daye's grip on Cornelius' wrist for an instant. The wrist twisted, and Daye felt the gun hard against his side.
He slid his fingers down over the cylinder, tried to squeeze it hard enough to prevent its turning. But he could feel it slipping bit by bit as the cartridge came around under the hammer. His fingers were cold with slippery sweat against the steel, and Cornelius' body pressed him hard against the ground.
The hammer clicked as it came back to full cock. Cornelius made a triumphant grunting noise, and Daye writhed on the ground, trying to get a new grip, trying to push the gun muzzle away.
Suddenly there was the quick thud of dancing hoofs all around them. Cornelius grunted once, and his gun came away easily in Daye's hand.
"Whoa! Whoa!" Nippy yelled.
One of the hoofs brushed Daye, and then he rolled clear of Cornelius and came up to his feet. Ruth was standing stiffly with her short stick half raised.
"Whoa!" said Nippy.
He had both arms around Mr. Foxie's neck, and the plunging horse carried him clear across the opening and back again. Finally he quieted, snorting nervously.
Ruth said: "I... I hit him." She raised the stick a little. "I... I've killed—"
"No, you didn't," said Nippy breathlessly. "I seen you hit at him, but you didn't connect. It was Mr, Foxie, here. He lammed that fella right on the bean with his hoof. He's the kickingest horse I ever see. I swear he is. Whoa!"
Daye said: "I can see it now. It was Cornelius all the time. I should have seen that George wouldn't bet as much as he did on guesswork. He had hired Cornelius to scare Mrs. Hartway with that hexing business, so she wouldn't run Mr. Foxie properly. Cornelius—through Henny—was going to give her a lot of phony advice. Cornelius was the one who cut Mr. Foxie."
"But... his own brother—" Ruth protested.
"He wasn't Henny's brother. Henny was just his stooge. Cornelius, when he saw the possibilities, decided to double-cross George. He meant to scare Mrs. Hartway enough so she would sell him Mr. Foxie for little or nothing, by telling her, the hex had gone wrong. I don't think he meant to have Mr. Foxie kill Henny. He just wanted something that would look bad."
Daye paused, looking at Ruth. Her face was shadowed and pale in the dim firelight.
"I'm beginning to like horses—especially Mr. Foxie. But... I wouldn't know how to take care of him—alone."
Ruth didn't say anything, but her eyes answered him. Daye stepped close to her suddenly and swept her slim body against his. Her lips were soft and warm and yielding.
"Well, doggone me," said Nippy in amazement, still holding Mr. Foxie's head.
Daye murmured: "Right after the Rio Seco—you and I and Mr. Foxie will take a trip—"
"Takin' a horse on a honeymoon!" Nippy marveled. "I never hear tell of such. That's gonna shock Mirandy right out of her shakin' ague when. I tell her!"
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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