"I can't."
"You can. You shall. My horse will carry both of us."
She shook her head, and the smile was back, sad and tender this time.
"Perhaps you cannot understand, and I know that I cannot tell you. But
if I stay here, the evil stays here with me. If I go, it will follow
and infect the world. Go away alone."
She meant it, and he did not know what to say or do.
"I shall go," he agreed finally, with an air of bafflement, "but I
shall be back."
Suddenly he kissed her. Then he turned and limped rapidly away, raging
at the feeling of defeat that had him by the back of the neck. Then, as
he reached his horse he found himself glad to be leaving the spot, even
though Enid Mandifer remained behind, alone. He cursed with a vehemence
that made the roan flinch, untied the halter and mounted. Away he rode,
to the magnified clatter of hoofs. He looked back, not once but several
times. Each time he saw Enid Mandifer, smaller and smaller, standing
beside the bench under the naked tree. She was gazing, not along the
road after him, but at the spot where he had mounted his horse. It was
as though he had vanished from her sight at that point.
Lanark damned himself as one who retreated before an enemy, but he felt
that it was not as simple as that. Helplessness, not fear, had routed
him. He was leaving Enid Mandifer, but again he promised in his heart
to return.
[Illustration: "He was leaving Enid Mandifer, but he promised in his
heart to return."]
Somewhere along the weed-teemed road, the silence fell from him like a
heavy garment slipping away, and the world hummed and sighed again.
After some time he drew rein and fumbled in his saddlebag. He had lied
to Jager about his late breakfast, and now he was grown hungry. His
fingers touched and drew out two hardtacks--they were plentiful and
cheap, so recently was the war finished and the army demobilized--and
a bit of raw bacon. He sandwiched the streaky smoked flesh between the
big square crackers and ate without dismounting. Often, he considered,
he had been content with worse fare. Then his thoughts went to the
place he had quitted, the girl he had left there. Finally he skimmed
the horizon with his eye.
To north and east he saw the spire of Fearful Rock, like a dark
threatening finger lifted against him. The challenge of it was too much
to ignore.
He turned his horse off the road and headed in that direction. It was
a longer journey than he had thought, perhaps because he had to ride
slowly through some dark swamp-ground with a smell of rotten grass
about it. When he came near enough, he slanted his course to the east,
and so came to the point from which he first approached the rock and
the house that had then stood in its shadow.
A crow flapped overhead, cawing lonesomely. Lanark's horse seemed to
falter in its stride, as though it had seen a snake on the path, and
he had to spur it along toward its destination. He could make out the
inequalities of the rock, as clearly as though they had been sketched
in with a pen, and the new spring greenery of the brush and trees in
the gulley beyond to the westward; but the tumbledown ruins of the
house were somehow blurred, as though a gray mist or cloud hung there.
Lanark wished that his old command rode with him, at least that he had
coaxed Jager along; but he was close to the spot now, and would go in,
however uneasily, for a closer look.
The roan stopped suddenly, and Lanark's spur made it sidle without
advancing. He scolded it in an undertone, slid out of the saddle and
threaded his left arm through the reins. Pulling the beast along, he
limped toward the spot where the house had once stood.
The sun seemed to be going down.
_8. The Grapple by the Grave_
Lanark stumped for a furlong or more, to the yard of the old house, and
the horse followed unwillingly--so unwillingly that had there been a
tree or a stump at hand, Lanark would have tethered and left it. When
he paused at last, under the lee of the great natural obelisk that
was Fearful Rock, the twilight was upon him. Yet he could see pretty
plainly the collapsed, blackened ruins of the dwelling that four years
gone had burned before his eyes in devil-blue flame.
He came close to the brink of the foundation-hollow, and gazed narrowly
into it. Part of the chimney still stood, broken off at about a level
with the surface of the ground, the rubbish that had been its upper
part lying in jagged heaps about its base. Chill seemed to rise from
that littered depression, something like the chill he had guessed
at rather than felt when he had faced Enid Mandifer upon her porch.
The chill came slowly, almost stealthily, about his legs and thighs,
creeping snake-like under his clothing to tingle the skin upon his
belly. He shuddered despite himself, and the roan nuzzled his shoulder
in sympathy. Lanark lifted a hand and stroked the beast's cheek, then
moved back from where the house had stood.
He gazed westward, in the direction of the gulley. There, midway
between the foundation-hollow and the natural one, was a much smaller
opening in the earth, a pit filled with shadow. He remembered ordering
a grave dug there, a grave for twelve men. Well, it seemed to be open
now, or partially open.
He plodded toward it, reached it and gazed down in the fading light. He
judged that the dead of his own command still lay where their comrades
had put them, in a close row of six toward the east. It was the
westward end of the trench that had been dug up, the place where the
guerrillas had been laid. Perhaps the burial had been spied upon, and
the Southerners had returned to recover their fallen friends.
Yet there was something below there, something pallid and
flabby-looking. Lanark had come to make sure of things, and he stooped,
then climbed down, favoring his old wound. It was darker in the ditch
than above; yet he judged by the looseness of earth under his feet that
in one spot, at least, there had been fresh digging--or, perhaps, some
other person walking and examining. And the pallid patch was in reality
two pallid patches, like discarded cloaks or jackets. Still holding the
end of his horse's bridle, he put down his free hand to investigate.
Human hair tickled his fingers, and he snatched them back with an
exclamation. Then he dug in his pocket, brought out a match, and
snapped it aglow on the edge of his thumbnail.
He gazed downward for a full second before he dropped the light. It
went out before it touched the bottom of the hole. But Lanark had seen
enough.
Two human skins lay there--white, empty human skins. The legs of
them sprawled like discarded court stockings, the hands of them like
forgotten gauntlets. And tousled hair covered the collapsed heads of
them....
He felt light-headed and sick. Frantically he struggled up out of that
grave, and barely had he come to his knees on the ground above, when
his horse snorted and jerked its bridle free from his grasp. Lanark
sprang up, tingling all over. Across the trench, black and broad, stood
a human--or semi-human--figure.
Lanark felt a certain draining cold at cheek and brow. Yet his voice
was steady as he spoke, challengingly:
"What do you want?"
The creature opposite stooped, then bent its thick legs. It was going
to jump across the ditch. Lanark took a quick backward step toward his
horse--an old Colt's revolver was tucked into his right saddlebag.
But the sudden move on his part was too much for the jangled nerves of
the beast. It whickered, squealed, and jerked around. A moment later it
bolted away toward the east.
At the same time, the form on the other side of the open grave lunged
forward, cleared the space, and came at Lanark.
But it was attacking one who had been in close fights before, and
emerged the victor. Lanark, though partially a cripple, had lost
nothing of a cavalryman's toughness and resolution. He sprang backward,
let his assailant's charge slow before it reached him, then lashed out
with his left fist. His gloved knuckles touched soft flesh at what
seemed to be the side of the face, flesh that gave under them. Lanark
brought over his right, missed with it, and fell violently against the
body of the other. For a moment he smelled corruption, and then found
his feet and retreated again.
* * * * *
The black shape drew itself stoopingly down, as though to muster and
concentrate its volume of vigor. It launched itself at Lanark's legs,
with two arms extended. The veteran tried to dodge again, this time
sidewise, but his lameness made him slow. Hands reached and fastened
upon him, one clutching his thigh, the other clawing at the left-hand
pocket of his coat.
But in the moment of capture, the foul-smelling thing seemed to shudder
and snatch itself away, as though the touch of Lanark had burned
it. A moan came from somewhere in its direction. The crouched body
straightened, the arms lifted in cringing protection of the face.
Lanark, mystified but desperately glad, himself advanced to the attack.
As he came close he threw his weight. It bowled the other backward and
over, and he fell hard upon it. His own hands, sinewy and sure, groped
quickly upon dank, sticky-seeming garments, found a rumpled collar and
then a throat.
That throat appeared to be muddy, or at any rate slippery and foul.
With an effort Lanark sank his fingertips into it, throttling grimly
and with honest intention to kill. There was no resistance, only a
quivering of the body under his knee. The arms that screened the face
fell quivering away to either side. At that moment a bright moon
shimmered from behind a passing veil of cloud. Lanark gazed down into
the face of his enemy.
A puffy, livid, filth-clotted face--but he knew it. Those spiked
mustaches, those bulging eyes, the shape, contour and complexion....
"You're one of Quantrill's----" accused Lanark between clenched teeth.
Then his voice blocked itself, and his hands jerked away from their
strangle hold. His mouth gaped open.
"_I killed you once!_" he cried.
Between him and the body he had pinned down there drifted a wild
whirl of vision. He saw again the fight in the blue fireglow, the
assailant who spurred against him, the flash of his own revolver,
the limp collapse of the other. He saw, too, the burial next
morning--blue-coated troopers shoveling loam down upon a silent row of
figures; and, ere clods hid it, a face peeping through a disarranged
blanket, a face with staring eyes and mustaches like twin knife-points.
Then his eyes were clear again, and he was on his feet and running. His
stiff leg gave him pain, but he slackened speed no whit. Once he looked
back. A strange blueness, like a dim reflection of the fire long ago,
hung around the base of Fearful Rock. In the midst of it, he saw not
one but several figures. They were not moving--not walking, anyway--but
he could swear that they gazed after him.
Something tripped him, a root or a fallen branch. He rose, neither
quickly nor confidently, aching in all his limbs. The moon had come
up, he took time to realize. Then he suddenly turned dizzy and faint
all over, as never in any battle he had seen, not even Pea Ridge and
Westport; for something bulky and dark was moving toward and against
him.
Then it whinnied softly, and his heart stole down from his throat--it
was his runaway horse.
Lanark was fain to stand for long seconds, with his arm across the
saddle, before he mounted. Then he turned the animal's head southward
and shook the bridle to make it walk. At last he was able to examine
himself for injuries.
Though winded, he was not bruised or hurt, but he was covered with
earth and mold, and his side pocket had been almost ripped from his
coat. That had happened when the--the creature yonder had tried
to grapple him. He wondered how it had been forced to retreat so
suddenly. He put his hand in the pocket.
He touched a little book there, and drew it forth.
It was Jager's _Long Lost Friend_.
A good hour later, Lanark rode into the yard of his ex-sergeant. The
moon was high, and Jager was sitting upon the front stoop.
Silently the owner of the little house rose, took Lanark's bridle rein
and held the horse while Lanark dismounted. Then he led the beast
around to the rear yard, where the little shed stood. In front of this
he helped Lanark unbridle and unsaddle the roan.
A Negro boy appeared, diffident in his mute offer of help, and Jager
directed him to rub the beast down with a wisp of hay before giving it
water or grain. Then he led Lanark to the front of the house.