The Occult Detective Megapack Page 5

  Having satisfied our curiosity, and bound every one in the house to secrecy, it became a question what was to be done with our Enigma? It was impossible that we should keep such a horror in our house; it was equally impossible that such an awful being should be let loose upon the world. I confess that I would have gladly voted for the creature’s destruction. But who would shoulder the responsibility? Who would undertake the execution of this horrible semblance of a human being? Day after day this question was deliberated gravely. The boarders all left the house. Mrs. Moffat was in despair, and threatened Hammond and myself with all sorts of legal penalties if we did not remove the Horror. Our answer was, “We will go if you like, but we decline taking this creature with us. Remove it yourself if you please. It appeared in your house. On you the responsibility rests.” To this there was, of course, no answer. Mrs. Moffat could not obtain for love or money a person who would even approach the Mystery.

  The most singular part of the affair was that we were entirely ignorant of what the creature habitually fed on. Everything in the way of nutriment that we could think of was placed before it, but was never touched. It was awful to stand by, day after day, and see the clothes toss, and hear the hard breathing, and know that it was starving.

  Ten, twelve days, a fortnight passed, and it still lived. The pulsations of the heart, however, were daily growing fainter, and had now nearly ceased. It was evident that the creature was dying for want of sustenance. While this terrible life-struggle was going on, I felt miserable. I could not sleep. Horrible as the creature was, it was pitiful to think of the pangs it was suffering.

  At last it died. Hammond and I found it cold and stiff one morning in the bed. The heart had ceased to beat, the lungs to inspire. We hastened to bury it in the garden. It was a strange funeral, the dropping of that viewless corpse into the damp hole. The cast of its form I gave to Doctor X——, who keeps it in his museum in Tenth Street.

  As I am on the eve of a long journey from which I may not return, I have drawn up this narrative of an event the most singular that has ever come to my knowledge.

  THE HAUNTED SHANTY, by Bayard Taylor

  As the principal personage of this story is dead, and there is no likelihood that any of the others will ever see the Atlantic Monthly, I feel free to tell it without reservation.

  The mercantile house of which I was until recently an active member had many business connections throughout the Western States, and I was therefore in the habit of making an annual journey throughout them, in the interest of the firm. In fact, I was always glad to escape from the dirt and hubbub of Cortland Street, and to exchange the smell of goods and boxes, cellars and gutters, for that of prairie grass and even of prairie mud. Although wearing the immaculate linen and golden studs of the city Valentine, there still remained a good deal of the country Orson in my blood, and I endured many hard, repulsive, yea, downright vulgar experiences for the sake of a run at large, and the healthy animal exaltation which accompanied it.

  Eight or nine years ago (it is, perhaps, as well not to be very precise as yet with regard to dates), I found myself at Peoria, in Illinois, rather late in the season. The business I had on hand was mostly transacted; but it was still necessary that I should visit Bloomington and Terre Haute before returning to the East. I had come from Wisconsin and Northern Illinois and, as the great railroad spider of Chicago had then spun but a few threads of his present tremendous mesh, I had made the greater part of my journey on horseback. By the time I reached Peoria, the month of November was well advanced, and the weather had become very disagreeable. I was strongly tempted to sell my horse and take the stage to Bloomington, but the roads were even worse to a traveller on wheels than to one in the saddle, and the sunny day which followed my arrival flattered me with the hope that others as fair might succeed it.

  The distance to Bloomington was forty miles, and the road none of the best; yet, as my horse “Peck” (an abbreviation of “Pecatonica”), had had two days’ rest, I did not leave Peoria until after the usual dinner at twelve o’clock, trusting that I should reach my destination by eight or ine in the evening, at the latest. Broad bands of dull, gray, felt-like clouds crossed the sky, and the wind had a rough edge to it which predicted that rain within a day’s march. The oaks along the rounded river-bluffs still held on to their leaves, although the latter were entirely brown and dead, and rattled around me with an ominous sound, as I climbed to the level of the prairie, leaving the bed of the muddy Illinois below. Peck’s hoofs sank deeply into the unctuous black soil, which resembled a jetty tallow rather than earth, and his progress was slow and toilsome. The sky became more and more obscured; the sun faded to a ghastly moon, then to a white blotch in the gray vault, and finally retired in disgust. Indeed, there was nothing in the landscape worth his contemplation. Dead flats of black, bristling with short corn-stalks, flats of brown grass, a brown belt of low woods in the distance, that was all the horizon inclosed: no embossed bowl, with its rim of sculptured hills, its round of colored pictures, but a flat earthen pie-dish, over which the sky fell like a pewter cover.

  After riding for an hour or two over the desolate level, I descended through rattling oaks to the bed of a stream, and then ascended through rattling oaks to the prairie beyond. Here, however, I took the wrong road and found myself, some three miles farther, at a farm-house, where it terminated.

  “You kin go out over the prairie yonder,” said the farmer, dropping his maul beside a rail he had just split off. “There’s a plain trail from Sykes’s that’ll bring you onto the road not fur from Sugar Crick.”

  With which knowledge I plucked up heart and rode on.

  What with the windings and turnings of the various cart-tracks, the family resemblance in the groves of oak and hickory, and the heavy, uniform gray of the sky, I presently lost my compass-needle—that natural instinct of direction on which I had learned to rely. East, west, north, south—all were alike, and the very doubt paralyzed the faculty. The growing darkness of the sky, the watery moaning of the wind, betokened night and storm; but I pressed on, haphazard, determined, at least, to reach one of the incipient villages on the Bloomington road.

  After an hour more, I found myself on the brink of another winding hollow, threaded by a broad, shallow stream. On the opposite side, a quarter of a mile above, stood a rough shanty, at the foot of the rise which led to the prairie. After fording the stream, however, I found that the trail I had followed continued forward in the same direction, leaving this rude settlement on the left. On the opposite side of the hollow, the prairie again stretched before me, dark and flat, and destitute of any sign of habitation. I could scarcely distinguish the trail any longer. In half an hour, I knew, I should be swallowed up in a gulf of impenetrable darkness; and there was evidently no choice left me but to return to the lonely shanty and there seek shelter for the night.

  To be thwarted in one’s plans, even by wind or weather, is always vexatious; but in this case, the prospect of spending a night in such a dismal corner of the world was especially disagreeable. I am—or at least I consider myself—a thoroughly matter-of-fact man, and my first thought, I am not ashamed to confess, was of oysters. Visions of a favorite saloon, and many a pleasant supper with Dunham and Beeson, (my partners,) all at once popped into my mind, as I turned back over the brow of the hollow and urged Peck down its rough slope.

  “Well,” thought I, at last, “this will be one more story for our next meeting. Who knows what originals I may not find, even in a solitary settler’s shanty?”

  I could discover no trail, and the darkness thickened rapidly while I picked my way across dry gullies, formed by the drainage of the prairie above, rotten tree-trunks, stumps, and spots of thicket. As I approached the shanty, a faint gleam through one of its two small windows showed that it was inhabited. In the rear, a space of a quarter of an acre, inclosed by a huge fence, was evidently the vegetable-patch, at one corner of which a small stable, roofed and buttressed with corn-fodder, leaned agai
nst the hill.

  I drew rein in front of the building and was about to hail its inmates when I observed the figure of a man issue from the stable. Even in the gloom, there was something forlorn and dispiriting in his walk. He approached with a slow, dragging step, apparently unaware of my presence.

  “Good evening, friend!” I said.

  He stopped, stood still for half a minute, and finally responded:

  “Who air you?”

  The tone of his voice, querulous and lamenting, rather implied, “Why don’t you let me alone?”

  “I am a traveller,” I answered, “bound from Peoria to Bloomington, and I have lost my way. It is dark, as you know, and likely to rain, and I don’t see how I can get any farther tonight.”

  Another pause. Then he said, slowly, as if speaking to himself—

  “There a’n’t no other place nearer ’n four or five mile.”

  “Then I hope you will let me stay here.”

  The answer, to my surprise, was a deep sigh.

  “I am used to roughing it,” I urged; “and besides, I will pay for any trouble I may give you.”

  “It ain’t that,” said he; then added, hesitatingly—“fact is, we’re lonesome people here—don’t often see strangers; yit I s’pose you can’t go no further. Well, I’ll talk to my wife.”

  Therewith he entered the shanty, leaving me a little disconcerted with so uncertain, not to say suspicious, a reception. I heard the sound of voices—one of them unmistakable in its nasal shrillness—in what seemed to be a harsh debate, and distinguished the words, “I didn’t bring it on,” followed with, “Tell him, then, if you like, and let him stay,” which seemed to settle the matter. The door presently opened, and the man said:

  “I guess we’ll have t’accommodate you. Give me your things, an’ then I’ll put your horse up.”

  I unstrapped my valise, took off the saddle, and, having seen Peck to his fodder-tent, where I left him with some ears of corn in an old basket, returned to the shanty. It was a rude specimen of the article a single room of some thirty by fifteen feet, with a large fireplace of sticks and clay at one end, while a half-partition of unplaned planks set on end formed a sort of recess for the bed at the other. A good fire on the hearth, however, made it seem tolerably cheerful, contrasted with the dismal gloom outside. The furniture consisted of a table, two or three chairs, a broad bench, and a kitchen-dresser of boards. Some golden ears of seed-corn, a few sides of bacon, and ropes of onions hung from the rafters.

  A woman in a blue calico gown, with a tin coffee-pot in one hand and a stick in the other, was raking out the red coals from under the burning logs. At my salutation, she partly turned, looked hard at me, nodded, and muttered some inaudible words. Then, having levelled the coals properly, she put down the coffee-pot, and, facing about, exclaimed—“Jimmy, git off that cheer!”

  Though this phrase, short and snappish enough, was not worded as an invitation for me to sit down, I accepted it as such, and took the chair which a lean boy of some nine or ten years old had hurriedly vacated. In such cases, I had learned by experience, it is not best to be too forward: wait quietly, and allow the unwilling hosts time to get accustomed to your presence. I inspected the family for a while, in silence. The spare, bony form of the woman, her deep-set gray eyes, and the long, thin nose, which seemed to be merely a scabbard for her sharp-edged voice, gave me her character at the first glance. As for the man, he was worn by some constant fret or worry, rather than naturally spare. His complexion was sallow, his face honest, every line of it, though the expression was dejected, and there was a helpless patience in his voice and movements, which I have often seen in women, but never before in a man. “Henpecked in the first degree,” was the verdict I gave, without leaving my seat. The silence, shyness, and puny appearance of the boy might be accounted for by the loneliness of his life, and the usual “shakes”; but there was a wild, frightened look in his eye, a nervous restlessness about his limbs, which excited my curiosity. I am no believer in those freaks of fancy called “presentiments,” but I certainly felt that there was something unpleasant, perhaps painful, in the private relations of the family.

  Meanwhile, the supper gradually took shape. The coffee was boiled, (far too much, for my taste,) bacon fried, potatoes roasted, and certain lumps of dough transformed into farinaceous grape-shot, called “biscuits.” Dishes of blue queensware, knives and forks, cups and saucers of various patterns, and a bowl of molasses were placed upon the table; and finally the woman said, speaking to, though not looking at, me—

  “I s’pose you ha’n’t had your supper.”

  I accepted the invitation with a simple “No,” and ate enough of the rude fare (for I was really hungry) to satisfy my hosts that I was not proud. I attempted no conversation, knowing that such people never talk when they eat, until the meal was over, and the man, who gladly took one of my cigars, was seated comfortably before the fire. I then related my story, told my name and business, and by degrees established a mild flow of conversation. The woman, as she washed the dishes and cleared up things for the night, listened to us, and now and then made a remark to the coffee-pot or frying-pan, evidently intended for our ears. Some things which she said must have had a meaning hidden from me, for I could see that the man winced, and at last he ventured to say—

  “Mary Ann, what’s the use in talkin’ about it?”

  “Do as you like,” she snapped back; “only I a’n’t a-goin’ to be blamed for your doin’s. The stranger’ll find out, soon enough.”

  “You find this life rather lonely, I should think,” I remarked, with a view of giving the conversation a different turn.

  “Lonely,” she repeated, jerking out a fragment of malicious laughter. “It’s lonely enough in the daytime, goodness knows; but you’ll have your fill o’ company afore mornin’.”

  With that, she threw a defiant glance at her husband.

  “Fact is,” said he, shrinking from her eye, “we’re sort o’ troubled with noises at night. P’raps you’ll be skeered, but it’s no more ’n noise—unpleasant, but never hurts nothin’.”

  “You don’t mean to say this shanty is haunted?” I asked.

  “Well yes, some folks’d call it so. There is noises an’ things goin’ on, but you can’t see nobody.”

  “Oh, if that is all,” said I, “you need not be concerned on my account. Nothing is so strange but the cause of it can be discovered.”

  Again the man heaved a deep sigh. The woman said, in rather a milder tone—

  “What’s the good o’ knowin’ what makes it, when you can’t stop it?”

  * * * *

  As I was neither sleepy nor fatigued, this information was rather welcome than otherwise. I had full confidence in my own courage; and if anything should happen, it would make a capital story for my first New York supper. I saw there was but one bed, and a small straw mattress on the floor beside it for the boy, and therefore declared that I should sleep on the bench, wrapped in my cloak. Neither objected to this, and they presently retired.

  I determined, however, to keep awake as long as possible. I threw a fresh log on the fire, lit another cigar, made a few entries in my notebook, and finally took Dumas’ The Man in the Iron Mask from my valise and tried to read by the wavering flashes of the fire.

  In this manner another hour passed away. The deep breathing—not to say snoring—from the recess indicated that my hosts were sound asleep, and the monotonous whistle of the wind around the shanty began to exercise a lulling influence on my own senses. Wrapping myself in my cloak, with my valise for a pillow, I stretched myself out on the bench and strove to keep my mind occupied with conjectures concerning the sleeping family. Furthermore, I recalled all the stories of ghosts and haunted houses which I had ever heard, constructed explanations for such as were still unsolved, and, so far from feeling any alarm, desired nothing so much as that the supernatural performances might commence.

  My thoughts, however, became gradually less and
less coherent, and I was just sliding over the verge of slumber when a faint sound in the distance caught my ear. I listened intently, certainly there was a far-off, indistinct sound, different from the dull, continuous sweep of the wind. I rose on the bench, fully awake, yet not excited, for my first thought was that other travellers might be lost or belated. By this time the sound was quite distinct, and, to my great surprise, appeared to proceed from a drum, rapidly beaten. I looked at my watch; it was half-past ten. Who could be out on the lonely prairie with a drum at that time of night? There must have been some military festival, some political caucus, some celebration of the Sons of Malta, or jubilation of the Society of the Thousand and One, and a few of the scattered members were enlivening their dark ride homewards.

  While I was busy with these conjectures, the sound advanced nearer and nearer and, what was very singular, without the least pause or variation one steady, regular roll, ringing deep and clear through the night.

  The shanty stood at a point where the stream, leaving its general southwestern course, bent at a sharp angle to the southeast, and faced very nearly in the latter direction. As the sound of the drum came from the east, it seemed the more probable that it was caused by some person on the road which crossed the creek a quarter of a mile below. Yet, on approaching nearer, it made directly for the shanty, moving, evidently, much more rapidly than a person could walk. It then flashed upon my mind that this was the noise I was to hear, this the company I was to expect! Louder and louder, deep, strong, and reverberating, rolling as if for a battle-charge, it came on; it was now but a hundred yards distant—now but fifty—ten—just outside the rough clapboard wall—but, while I had half risen to open the door, it passed directly through the wall and sounded at my very ears, inside the shanty!