THE HA’NT
Sunset stretched its long shadows again across the Traps.
Up on the heights, the light of day still was bright and clear. But
down in the bluff-bulwarked valley of the Coxing Kill, a thousand feet
lower than the Minnewaska table-land behind which the sun was rolling
down in the southwest, the dusk was slowly shading into dark. Already
the air vibrated with the swelling chorus of the katydids, scraping out
their insistent warning of frost which had not yet come; and from every
grassy space cheeped the lonesome dirge of the crickets. Night was
drawing on.
Down on the diminutive stoop of a little house beside the Clove road,
a man stirred and glanced around him with a frown. The steadily
increasing clack of the big green bush-bugs and the growing chill of
eventide had routed the thoughts which he had been drawing through
the stem of a blackened but empty pipe--thoughts which, to judge from
his absent gaze and the half-smile on his lips, were more pleasant
than those now obtruding themselves. He shook his shoulders as if to
dislodge the night chill settling there. Abruptly he stood up.
His swift survey swept the little fallow field at his right, where the
black choristers of the grass were chirping away among the unseen
roots; the narrow sand-track of road, empty of all but thickening
shadows; the darkling mass of trees and brush at his left. Then he
pivoted and peered into the darkness lying beyond a door which had been
standing open at his back.
Nothing showed in the room beyond--nothing, that is, which should hold
the fixed attention of a man; nothing alive. Vaguely, in the wan light
still entering through the cracked panes of a curtainless side window,
he could see a rickety table with one leg broken, a chair minus a back,
a little rusty stove, and, in one corner, a jumble of small things
recently dumped from his pack. Along a wall which started beside the
open doorway showed the faint outlines of three more doors, all in a
row. And that was all.
Nothing, surely, in such a scene need make this man listen keenly
and half lift the shotgun in one fist. Yet he stood there for a long
minute, searching the room repeatedly, then centering his gaze on the
first of those three doors in the wall. That door stood open. And the
queer chill between his shoulder-blades was not all due to the coolness
following the sinking of the sun: it was that clammy feeling inherited
by mankind through countless generations--the subconscious warning that
a hidden menace lurks behind the back. And his ears subtly corroborated
the caution of his nerves. Despite the clamor of the insects, he could
have sworn that in the first room there at the right he had heard a
slight rustle.
That room was the bedroom. It was a mere cubby-hole, not more than
seven feet square, containing only a crude bed and a lamp-shelf, both
fixed. The bedstead, which the new tenant had inspected and decided to
use, apparently had been built in the room by the former owner; a solid
contrivance of boards and hardwood posts, with interlaced ropes serving
as a spring, and a noisy mattress of corn-husks. Head, foot, and one
side were snug against three of the walls, leaving only a yard-wide
space between bed and door. At the foot was the one tiny window of the
room.
To enter that sleeping-closet, anything must go through the door or
the window. The window now stood open, for Douglas had forced up its
cobwebby frame after sweeping the floor as best he could with a stubby
old broom found in the grass; but that opening was within ten feet
of his left hand as he sat on the steps, and nothing could possibly
have gone in there without his knowledge. Still less could anything
have gone past him through the door. Yet he felt in his marrow that
something was there.
With slow, careful shifting of his balance he stole across the meagre
stoop. Not a board creaked, not a sound did his descending soles make.
With the same stealth he leaned against the door-jamb and inched his
head inside. At length, braced by hands against the wall, he was
leaning far in and peering through that right-hand door. In the dimness
beyond stood no living thing.
Until his arm-muscles began to ache he hung there; and never a sound
came to him from within. Yet his nerves continued to deliver their
warning. In that room where Jake Dalton had slept was _something_;
something besides the bed and the bare lamp-shelf; invisible,
intangible, but--_something_!
He drew back and glanced around once more. The dusk was drawing around
the little clearing a closer cordon of gloom; an eerie whisper came
from the pines, swept by a gusty wind; the throb of insects resounded
as before. Nothing moved. He felt for a match. When he had it, he
stepped heavily into the house and tramped over to his gas-lamp,
hanging on a nail; turned its valve, shook it up, and waited for the
water and carbide to mingle and form the gas. In the brief interval of
waiting he watched all around and rapidly reviewed his movements since
opening that window.
He had explored the place, finding at the second door a stairway
leading into a dusty loft littered with dead wasps; at the third, a
room even smaller than the bedroom, partly filled with stove-wood.
Outside he had found a well, in which the water seemed good, and a
little shed holding only a broken barrel or two, burlap bags, an empty
jug, and similar trash. Both door and window had been open while he
made his inspection; but he had returned to the bedroom and tossed his
blankets on the mattress, and nothing new was there then. And since
that time he had not been more than ten feet from it.
The fumes of gas struck his nostrils. He lit the match and touched it
to the little nozzle. White and bright, the flame lit up the place. He
strode into the bedroom.
Absolutely nothing new was there. With a self-derisive grin, he stooped
and glanced under the bed. The floor was bare.
“Now are you satisfied, you timid old woman?” he jeered. “What’s the
matter with you, anyhow? Getting nerves?”
His words hollowly mocked him from the outer room. With a disgusted
snort he turned away. Boots thumping defiantly, he clattered back to
the three-legged table, shoved its crippled side against the wall,
kicked the backless chair up to it, and set the lamp on it. To the
little pile in the corner he went, and from it he extracted the dry
remainder of a bread-loaf and a paper-wrapped chunk of cheese. Then he
returned and sat down, hitching around in the chair to get his back
toward a windowless wall.
“All the same,” he meditated, sawing off a slice of bread with his
jack-knife, “if I stay here long I’ll have to make some improvements.
For one thing, that bedroom is too darned handy. Window opens right on
the road. So does the front door. No curtains on any of these windows,
no key for that door. With Snake Sanders and Nat Oaks both thirsting
for my gore and undoubtedly acquainted with the position of that
bed--yes, I reckon I’d better move up-stairs or something. No use in
lying meekly down and inviting a fistful of shot to come in and mess me
up. No sense in sitting here in the light now, either.”
He turned off the gas-flow, set the lamp under the table, and fell to
munching his meagre provender.
“However, I’m safe enough in that room to-night,” he told himself.
“Nobody knows I’m here except Uncle Eb, who isn’t coming back until
to-morrow--and maybe little Miss Marion, who isn’t likely to tell.
There’s nothing in that room but imagination, and imagination won’t
keep me very wide awake. Ho-hum! I’m going to sleep like a log this
night.”
He arose, dipped a cup of well-water from his canvas pail dangling
from a nail in a low ceiling-beam, washed down his food, and reseated
himself.
“Yes, sir,” he informed the loneliness, carving another chunk of
cheese, “this is my night to sleep. Last night I sprawled between two
rocks, and the night before I lost a lot of repose watching those
backwoods detectives prowl around and spy on me from the bushes down
beside the creek. Things have been coming right fast in the last three
days. Before that I’d never been inside that wall of cliffs over
yonder. And now I’ve killed a catamount, assisted at the demise of
three dogs, knocked one eminent citizen stiff and helped send another
to sleep; made two able-bodied enemies and one potential friend--Uncle
Eb--and given love’s young dream a boost along the rocks to a new
hide-out. Oh, yes, and assisted an escaped conv----”
He bit off the last word, suddenly aware that he was talking aloud
and recalling the ancient proverb to the effect that walls sometimes
listen. Gloom now surrounded him, for the slow-dying gas flame had sunk
to a little blue button on its nozzle. Rising again, he tiptoed to the
door and spied around. No lurking form was near.
“Guess that will be about enough talking,” he concluded.
He drew back and shut the door. Stepping across the room, he found
the table, brought it over, and set it against the door so that the
slightest push from outside would tip it over with a warning clatter.
Then he went along the walls, tested the windows and a rear door--all
of which were warped into immovability--and, carrying his gun and the
chair, retired to the gloomy bedroom. There he placed gun and chair
beside the bed, and on the chair he laid matches. After frowning
thoughtfully at the open window he sighed and closed it.
Deliberately he undressed and rolled up in his blankets. For a minute
or two he lay reveling in his freedom from clothing and the yielding
embrace of the crackling but comfortable old mattress. Then the first
grateful feeling of physical comfort passed. He lifted his head from
the rolled-up coat forming his pillow, and turned his dilating eyes
around. Over him was creeping a feeling of oppression, of inability to
obtain air; and, worse yet, a panicky sensation that he was in a trap.
The blankets were snug and warm; yet that queer chill was crawling over
him again. The air was fresh and clean; yet he opened his mouth as if
stifled. Around him lay silence and blackness, intensified rather than
relieved by the deadened chorus of insects outside and the lighter
shade of the window. He turned suddenly on a side. At the loud rustle
of the husks under him he jumped half erect.
A moment he poised; then he flung himself angrily back.
“You idiot!” he muttered. “You miss the stars overhead and the little
night breezes around; that’s all. You’re in a house, and you’ll have to
get used to it. Go to sleep, you fool!”
He shut his eyes and forced himself to breathe regularly. But through
his brain streaked the thought:
“_You’re in a dead man’s bed! You don’t know what killed him! You----_”
“Oh, shut up!” he growled aloud, bouncing over on the other side.
“What’s that to me? I’m going to sleep!”
For a few minutes he stubbornly held his position. But he was lying
now with his back to the open door into the main room, and the creepy
feeling at his shoulder-blades became intolerable. He turned again.
But this time he made the movement deliberately, and at the repeated
crackle of the mattress he grinned. After blinking at the dark a minute
he relaxed, warm once more at the back, his eyes closing naturally.
Rapidly his fatigue asserted itself. With the muffled lullaby of the
crickets swinging rhythmically on, he lost himself.
Hours passed. He slept peacefully on, changing his position a little at
intervals, unconscious of his movements or of anything else. Then, all
at once, he found himself up on an elbow, staring wide-eyed into the
dark.
Something had moved. It seemed that the bed itself was quivering
slightly. Yet there was no sound near him--no new sound anywhere----
What was that? There was a sound now--but not in the room. It was
up overhead--up in the empty attic; a sound of muffled footfalls,
deliberately crossing the floor; a sound like that of bare heels going
quietly across the boards. It traveled to and fro, as if an undressed
man were wandering aimlessly. Then it began to come down-stairs.
A bump, and it stopped. Another bump; another pause. Then two soft
bumps telling of a couple more stairs descended. It was the sound of
a man stealing quietly down, halting to listen for any noise below; a
man not deft enough to put his weight on his toes and avoid the bump of
heels. Yet the stairs did not creak as they would under the weight of a
man.
Very quietly, Douglas moved over and found a match. With the same
stealth he opened the gas-valve of his lamp. While he waited for the
acetylene flow he heard the heels reach the lowest step. He listened
for the stealthy turning of the knob and the creak of door-hinges. They
did not come.
Cracking the match on his thumb-nail, he lit the gas and shot its
ray outward. Nothing met his gaze--nothing but the table against the
outer door. Softly he lowered his feet, gripped his gun, and arose.
Reason told him no man could be in that attic; but his ears positively
asserted that a man had come down those stairs.
On his toes he drifted outward. In the main room he saw no living
thing. Quietly he set the lamp on the floor, its beam glaring at the
stair door. With a swift grab he turned the knob and tore the door open.
Then, gun leveled, he stood and gaped.
The stairway was utterly empty.