The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard (71 page)

The oaken door sagged as it had before. The blackness of the interior was intensified by the beam of Buckner’s light playing on the sill. That beam sliced through the darkness of the hallway and roved up the stair, and Griswell held his breath, clenching his fists. But no shape of lunacy leered down at them.

Buckner went in, walking light as a cat, torch in one hand, gun in the other.

As he swung his light into the room across from the stairway, Griswell cried out–and cried out again, almost fainting with the intolerable sickness at what he saw. A trail of blood drops led across the floor, crossing the blankets Branner had occupied, which lay between the door and those in which Griswell had lain. And Griswell’s blankets had a terrible occupant. John Branner lay there, face down, his cleft head revealed in merciless clarity in the steady light. His outstretched hand still gripped the haft of a hatchet, and the blade was imbedded deep in the blanket and the floor beneath, just where Griswell’s head had lain when he slept there.

A momentary rush of blackness engulfed Griswell. He was not aware that he staggered, or that Buckner caught him. When he could see and hear again, he was violently sick and hung his head against the mantel, retching miserably.

Buckner turned the light full on him, making him blink. Buckner’s voice came from behind the blinding radiance, the man himself unseen.

“Griswell, you’ve told me a yarn that’s hard to believe. I saw something chasin’ you, but it might have been a timber wolf, or a mad dog.

“If you’re holdin’ back anything, you better spill it. What you told me won’t hold up in any court. You’re bound to be accused of killin’ your partner. I’ll have to arrest you. If you’ll give me the straight goods now, it’ll make it easier. Now, didn’t you kill this fellow, Branner?

“Wasn’t it something like this: you quarreled, he grabbed a hatchet and swung at you, but you dodged and then let
him
have it?”

Griswell sank down and hid his face in his hands, his head swimming.

“Great God, man, I didn’t murder John! Why, we’ve been friends ever since we were children in school together. I’ve told you the truth. I don’t blame you for not believing me. But God help me, it is the truth!”

The light swung back to the gory head again, and Griswell closed his eyes.

He heard Buckner grunt.

“I believe this hatchet in his hand is the one he was killed with. Blood and brains plastered on the blade, and hairs stickin’ to it–hairs exactly the same color as his. This makes it tough for you, Griswell.”

“How so?” the New Englander asked dully.

“Knock any plea of self-defense in the head. Branner couldn’t have swung at you with this hatchet after you split his skull with it. You must have pulled the ax out of his head, stuck it into the floor and clamped his fingers on it to make it look like he’d attacked you. And it would have been damned clever–if you’d used another hatchet.”

“But I didn’t kill him,” groaned Griswell. “I have no intention of pleading self-defense.”

“That’s what puzzles me,” Buckner admitted frankly, straightening. “What murderer would rig up such a crazy story as you’ve told me, to prove his innocence? Average killer would have told a logical yarn, at least. Hmmm! Blood drops leadin’ from the door. The body was dragged–no, couldn’t have been dragged. The floor isn’t smeared. You must have carried it here, after killin’ him in some other place. But in that case, why isn’t there any blood on your clothes? Of course you could have changed clothes and washed your hands. But the fellow hasn’t been dead long.”

“He walked downstairs and across the room,” said Griswell hopelessly. “He came to kill me. I knew he was coming to kill me when I saw him lurching down the stair. He struck where I would have been, if I hadn’t awakened. That window–I burst out at it. You see it’s broken.”

“I see. But if he walked then, why isn’t he walkin’ now?”

“I don’t know! I’m too sick to think straight. I’ve been fearing that he’d rise up from the floor where he lies and come at me again. When I heard that wolf running up the road after me, I thought it was John chasing me–John, running through the night with his bloody ax and his bloody head, and his death-grin!”

His teeth chattered as he lived that horror over again.

Buckner let his light play across the floor.

“The blood drops lead into the hall. Come on. We’ll follow them.”

Griswell cringed. “They lead upstairs.”

Buckner’s eyes were fixed hard on him.

“Are you afraid to go upstairs, with me?”

Griswell’s face was gray.

“Yes. But I’m going, with you or without you. The thing that killed poor John may still be hiding up there.”

“Stay behind me,” ordered Buckner. “If anything jumps us, I’ll take care of it. But for your own sake, I warn you that I shoot quicker than a cat jumps, and I don’t often miss. If you’ve got any ideas of layin’

me out from behind, forget them.”

“Don’t be a fool!” Resentment got the better of his apprehension, and this outburst seemed to reassure Buckner more than any of his protestations of innocence.

“I want to be fair,” he said quietly. “I haven’t indicted and condemned you in my mind already. If only half of what you’re tellin’ me is the truth, you’ve been through a hell of an experience, and I don’t want to be too hard on you. But you can see how hard it is for me to believe all you’ve told me.”

Griswell wearily motioned for him to lead the way, unspeaking. They went out into the hall, paused at the landing. A thin string of crimson drops, distinct in the thick dust, led up the steps.

“Man’s tracks in the dust,” grunted Buckner. “Go slow, I’ve got to be sure of what I see, because we’re obliteratin’ them as we go up. Hmmm! One set goin’ up, one comin’ down. Same man. Not your tracks.

Branner was a bigger man than you are. Blood drops all the way–blood on the bannisters like a man had laid his bloody hand there–a smear of stuff that looks–
brains
. Now what–”

“He walked down the stair, a dead man,” shuddered Griswell. “Groping with one hand–the other gripping the hatchet that killed him.”

“Or was carried,” muttered the sheriff. “But if somebody carried him–
where are the tracks?
”

They came out into the upper hallway, a vast, empty space of dust and shadows where time-crusted windows repelled the moonlight and the ring of Buckner’s torch seemed inadequate. Griswell trembled like a leaf. Here, in the darkness and horror, John Branner had died.

“Somebody whistled up here,” he muttered. “John came, as if he were being called.”

Buckner’s eyes were blazing strangely in the light.

“The footprints lead down the hall,” he muttered. “Same as on the stair–one set going, one coming. Same prints–
Judas!
”

Behind him Griswell stifled a cry, for he had seen what prompted Buckner’s exclamation. A few feet from the head of the stair Branner’s footprints stopped abruptly, then returned, treading almost in the other tracks. And where the trail halted there was a great splash of blood on the dusty floor–and other tracks met it–tracks of bare feet, narrow but with splayed toes. They too receded in a second line from the spot.

Buckner bent over them, swearing.

“The tracks meet! And where they meet there’s blood and brains on the floor! Branner must have been killed on that spot–with a blow from a hatchet. Bare feet coming out of the darkness to meet shod feet–then both turned away again; the shod feet went downstairs, the bare feet went back down the hall.”

He directed his light down the hall. The footprints faded into darkness, beyond the reach of the beam. On either hand the closed doors of chambers were cryptic portals of mystery.

“Suppose your crazy tale
was
true,” Buckner muttered, half to himself. “These aren’t your tracks. They look like a woman’s. Suppose somebody did whistle, and Branner went upstairs to investigate. Suppose somebody met him here in the dark and split his head. The signs and tracks would have been, in that case, just as they really are. But if that’s so, why isn’t Branner lyin’ here where he was killed? Could he have lived long enough to take the hatchet away from whoever killed him, and stagger downstairs with it?”

“No, no!” Recollection gagged Griswell. “I
saw
him on the stair. He was dead. No man could live a minute after receiving such a wound.”

“I believe it,” muttered Buckner. “But–it’s madness! Or else it’s
too
clever–yet, what sane man would think up and work out such an elaborate and utterly insane plan to escape punishment for murder, when a simple plea of self-defense would have been so much more effective? No court would recognize that story. Well, let’s follow these other tracks. They lead down the hall–here, what’s this?”

With an icy clutch at his soul, Griswell saw the light was beginning to grow dim.

“This battery is new,” muttered Buckner, and for the first time Griswell caught an edge of fear in his voice. “Come on–out of here quick!”

The light had faded to a faint red glow. The darkness seemed straining into them, creeping with black cat-feet. Buckner retreated, pushing Griswell stumbling behind him as he walked backward, pistol cocked and lifted, down the dark hall. In the growing darkness Griswell heard what sounded like the stealthy opening of a door. And suddenly the blackness about them was vibrant with menace. Griswell knew Buckner sensed it as well as he, for the sheriff ’s hard body was tense and taut as a stalking panther’s.

But without haste he worked his way to the stair and backed down it, Griswell preceding him, and fighting the panic that urged him to scream and burst into mad flight. A ghastly thought brought icy sweat out on his flesh.
Suppose the dead man were creeping up the stair behind them in the dark, face
frozen in the death-grin, blood-caked hatchet lifted to strike?

This possibility so overpowered him that he was scarcely aware when his feet struck the level of the lower hallway, and he was only then aware that the light had grown brighter as they descended, until it now gleamed with its full power–but when Buckner turned it back up the stairway, it failed to illuminate the darkness that hung like a tangible fog at the head of the stair.

“The damn thing was conjured,” muttered Buckner. “Nothin’ else. It couldn’t act like that naturally.”

“Turn the light into the room,” begged Griswell. “See if John–if John is–”

He could not put the ghastly thought into words, but Buckner understood.

He swung the beam around, and Griswell had never dreamed that the sight of the gory body of a murdered man could bring such relief.

“He’s still there,” grunted Buckner. “If he walked after he was killed, he hasn’t walked since. But that thing–”

Again he turned the light up the stair, and stood chewing his lip and scowling. Three times he half lifted his gun. Griswell read his mind. The sheriff was tempted to plunge back up that stair, take his chance with the unknown. But common sense held him back.

“I wouldn’t have a chance in the dark,” he muttered. “And I’ve got a hunch the light would go out again.”

He turned and faced Griswell squarely.

“There’s no use dodgin’ the question. There’s somethin’ hellish in this house, and I believe I have an inklin’ of what it is. I don’t believe you killed Branner. Whatever killed him is up there–now. There’s a lot about your yarn that don’t sound sane; but there’s nothin’ sane about a flashlight goin’ out like this one did. I don’t believe that thing upstairs is human. I never met anything I was afraid to tackle in the dark before, but I’m not goin’ up there until daylight. It’s not long until dawn. We’ll wait for it out there on that gallery.”

The stars were already paling when they came out on the broad porch. Buckner seated himself on the balustrade, facing the door, his pistol dangling in his fingers. Griswell sat down near him and leaned back against a crumbling pillar. He shut his eyes, grateful for the faint breeze that seemed to cool his throbbing brain. He experienced a dull sense of unreality. He was a stranger in a strange land, a land that had become suddenly imbued with black horror. The shadow of the noose hovered above him, and in that dark house lay John Branner, with his butchered head–like the figments of a dream these facts spun and eddied in his brain until all merged in a gray twilight as sleep came uninvited to his weary soul.

He awoke to a cold white dawn and full memory of the horrors of the night. Mists curled about the stems of the pines, crawled in smoky wisps up the broken walk. Buckner was shaking him.

“Wake up! It’s daylight.”

Griswell rose, wincing at the stiffness of his limbs. His face was gray and old.

“I’m ready. Let’s go upstairs.”

“I’ve already been!” Buckner’s eyes burned in the early dawn. “I didn’t wake you up. I went as soon as it was light. I found nothin’.”

“The tracks of the bare feet–”

“Gone!”

“Gone?”

“Yes, gone! The dust had been disturbed all over the hall, from the point where Branner’s tracks ended; swept into corners. No chance of trackin’ anything there now. Something obliterated those tracks while we sat here, and I didn’t hear a sound. I’ve gone through the whole house. Not a sign of anything.”

Griswell shuddered at the thought of himself sleeping alone on the porch while Buckner conducted his exploration.

“What shall we do?” he asked listlessly. “With those tracks gone, there goes my only chance of proving my story.”

“We’ll take Branner’s body into the county seat,” answered Buckner. “Let me do the talkin’. If the authorities knew the facts as they appear, they’d insist on you being confined and indicted. I don’t believe you killed Branner–but neither a district attorney, judge nor jury would believe what you told me, or what happened to us last night. I’m handlin’ this thing my own way. I’m not goin’ to arrest you until I’ve exhausted every other possibility.

“Say nothin’ about what’s happened here, when we get to town. I’ll simply tell the district attorney that John Branner was killed by a party or parties unknown, and that I’m workin’ on the case.