That was it, the place where the Kimbers baptized. From where he stood to estimate the situation, he could not see the cavern where the blue light had blinked, but he could judge where it was, driven into the next rise of Dogged Mountain just beyond that pool. And to that cavern was where he had been bound, ever since he woke up in the darkness before daybreak. It was high time he made himself go there.
He moved to his right through more trees, steadying himself on steeper stretches with his staff firmly set in his right hand, his left usually on a convenient trunk. Now and then he was out of sight of his objective, but he guided himself by the sun overhead. Always he was tinglingly aware of any sound—a bird, an insect, a sigh of breeze among the pine needles. His pace was not swift, but it was steady. At last he completed his prudent approach to where he could enter the hollow. He dropped down to hands and knees to avoid shaking the thick growth of evergreens. Crawling, he reached a point from where he could look into the open.
The pond lay there, bright and quiet and clean-looking, not black as Crispin was painting it. He also saw the mouth of the cavern. It was a spacious one, its upper lip set higher than a man could reach with upraised hand, and its width like that of a broad porch. Within it pulsed and blinked the blue light, softly radiant. It might have been a pane of blue glass slightly clouded, with moving radiances on the inside. He had never seen anything like it in all his life.
Sidelong he moved within that mask of trees. He kept himself behind the outer rank of them, stealing along from trunk to trunk as a hunting cat takes advantage of cover. Once he stopped and turned around, staring into the bosky depths of the woods, but whatever might have moved there gave no hint as he watched. He kept himself from wishing he had never come here. In watchful fashion he gained a point from where it would be only half a dozen swift, leaping strides to the threshold.
Yet once more he gazed across the cleared hollow, looked right and left and behind. He lifted his hickory staff, clutching it below the leather band that looped it around his wrist. Catching his breath, he darted into the open, tore across the grass, and stood before the cavern, almost under the upper lip.
Just inside, within reach of him, was that blue-ness. It filled the irregular opening all the way across and up and down. Seen at close quarters, it looked solid. It pulsed, quivered, as though it drew itself snug there. Gander Eye scowled at it, trying to judge what it was. Very cautiously, tensely, he lifted the pointed end of his staff to prod.
That pointed end encountered nothing solid. It sank into the blue curtain-stuff as though into a sheet of water. It penetrated for a good half-dozen inches of its length. Drawing it back again, he examined it.
The hard hickory had turned a toasty brown where he had thrust it into the blueness. He lifted it for closer scrutiny, but something warned him not to touch it. Wood might turn color like that brown but not black, if it had been baked in a hot oven. Just how hot would it be in there, in the cavern on the other side of this shrouding curtain you could poke through with a stick? Gander Eye wasn't in any mood to hurry about finding out.
He wished that Doc Hannum hadn't laughed at him, that Doc had come along and was here to give his own thought on the subject. But Doc's old bones might never have held together on this ramble over Dogged Mountain's steeps and tumbling drops. Maybe Duffy Parr—but no, not Duffy; nobody would believe Duffy, any more than anybody would believe Gander Eye. Slowly? He wondered about Slowly. She was allowed to visit the Kimbers. She'd been right here at this baptizing place. How much did she know about this cave, and how could he ask her to tell?
He put the thought out of his mind. He lifted the hickory and thrust with it again, probing with its point well through the blue-shimmering curtain.
Something took hold of it from the other side.
Gander Eye cursed aloud and tugged. The something held fast and drew against him so strongly that he almost stumbled against the blueness, almost went through it himself. Frantically he wriggled his hand free of the loop. Another moment he saw his staff snatched through and away, out of sight. The curtain showed no hint of where it had vanished.
He whirled himself around at a dead run and made for the trees from which he had ventured to the threshold of the cavern. He reached them, flung himself headlong among them, ran upslope between them. He changed direction and ran without slacking pace. Nothing seemed to be coming after him, but he ran until he panted, until his feet stumbled. Then he stopped, an arm flung around a trunk for support, and trembled all over.
But he dared not rest for more than moments. He went on from there, scrambled away toward the heights from which he had descended. Once or twice he went up a steep place on all fours. Stopping again, he mopped his sweltering face with a sleeve. He groped shakily for the soda bottle in his pocket, drained it at a gulp, and threw it down between two roots. He hurried on to put distance between himself and that baptizing hollow and that cave, and whatever lurked there.
At last he took a moment to be deeply glad that Struve had not been there to see Gander Eye Gentry scared silly, to see him run like a boy caught stealing watermelons.
XI
About five o'clock that evening, Bo came out in his yard. He hailed Gander Eye on the street and, grinning conspiratorially, led him to the basement workshop. There Bo took from his bench a mechanical device, beautifully made. It consisted of an old aluminum cylinder such as might have contained a small, expensive cigar. Two insulated wires extended from it like tentacles.
"I just finished coupling this together," said Bo. "I'm a-going to slip over and hook this up to the ignition in Duffy's old car. It's got a cap in there, and when he cuts on the motor it'll go off as loud as the first gun fired on Fort Sumter."
"Why you want to do that?" inquired Gander Eye.
"Oh, just to fling a scare into old Duffy. He'll think that there car's a-blowing up. Come on with me, I'll let you hold the screwdriver."
"Don't reckon I will, Bo," demurred Gander Eye, gazing across the basement with brooding eyes. "Ain't Duffy in right much of a fix already, new married and all like that, without deviling him?
"Well, come along and stand outside," urged Bo. "You can keep a watch for him if he's coming back while I'm wiring this contraption in under the hood."
"Don't reckon I will," said Gander Eye, and he walked out. Bo crinkled his face to watch him go.
Gander Eye entered Longcohr's store. Pacing along the counters, he chose several things to buy and take home, a small can of salmon, a two-pound sack of corn meal, a carton of cigarettes. As he fetched them to the checkout counter where Mrs. Longcohr waited, Doc and Crispin came in.
"Hello, Gander Eye," Doc greeted him. "I wanted to see you."
"You see me," said Gander Eye. "Do I look all right?"
Both Doc and Crispin laughed. They drew Gander Eye between them to a place between two highstacked counters.
"I've been telling Jim that I keep thinking about dropping off the town board," said Doc. "I'm not getting any younger fast, and I'm more and more caught up in this history of Sky Notch I told you I was trying to do. Producing a written history, particularly of the informative and inspiring sort I intend to write, is apt to be a fairly demanding job. So I'm thinking of getting out of that lofty, demanding world of public offices. "
"I hope you stay in it till you grow a gray beard long enough to step on," said Gander Eye.
Doc laughed again. "No, I've shaved all my life and I'll keep on shaving. What I meant—and Jim here is inclined to applaud the notion—is that it's time you got a sense of civic duty. If I don't run in the next election, how about you to replace me?"
Gander Eye stared at Doc, at Crispin, back at Doc again. "You two act like as if you're putting me on," he charged.
"I was never so serious in my life," Doc assured him.
"Well, now, I thank you kindly, but I ain't a-going to do it," said Gander Eye. "Hell in the bushes, Doc, if I was on the town board I might up and tell some true thing and they wouldn't believe me." He looked deep into Doc's eyes to say it. "They just might could think I was funning with them when all I wanted to do was help them. No, I don't reckon I want to have that come off."
"Listen here, Gander Eye," said Doc earnestly. "If I ever happened to hurt your feelings—"
"They ain't that easy to hurt, Doc." Gander Eye gathered up his purchases. "I sure hope that history of yours is a-making out. And, Jim, whenever you want me to be there in your place again for that picture-painting, I'll do it."
"How about tomorrow morning, Gander Eye?" said Crispin.
"All right, I'll be there."
He went to pay Mrs. Longcohr. As he left the store, Bo Fletcher came in.
"Bo," said Doc, "is it possible that something's plaguing Gander Eye?"
"Just so happens I was a-thinking something of that sort," said Bo. "He ain't like himself today, ain't a-having fun the way he usually does. I sure enough hope he ain't taken sick. "
"Maybe I should pull him in and take his temperature," said Doc.
Gander Eye carried the things he had bought along Main Street. In Derwood Ballinger's front yard stood the mayor and someone else. Ballinger looked up, saw Gander Eye, and beckoned to him. Gander Eye walked into the yard. The other man turned to face him. It was Struve.
"Gander Eye," said Ballinger heartily, "I want you to shake hands with Mr. Struve. Mr. Struve, this is my friend Gander Eye Gentry."
Struve crinkled his slate-grained face in a smile and held out a shaggy hand. "I've already met Mr. Gentry," he said cordially. "He and I ran into each other up in the woods on that mountain. I was interested in everything he said."
"In the woods?" said Ballinger, interested. "Is your organization thinking of the lumber-cutting business, Mr. Struve?"
"Nothing of that sort at all," Struve said, smiling more broadly. "I'm impressed with how pleasant this little town is, and of how much more pleasant it can become. And I'm thinking of how Mr. Gentry can help you and me make it so, Mr. Mayor."
"Just now," said Gander Eye tonelessly, "I ain't a-being any great big help to nobody. I reckon I'm too ignorant to know what might could happen to Sky Notch." He fixed Struve with his gaze. "All I can say for certain is, I'm a-hoping the best for everybody living here in town."
"That means you'll be hoping the best for me," declared Struve. "I've been talking to Mayor Ballinger about moving in here. Somebody named Crispin did that recently, and his example strikes me as a good one to follow."
"I hope you do good in our town, Mr. Struve," said Gander Eye. "But right now I got some business to tend to."
"One thing more, Gander Eye," said Ballinger. "I hear tell there's going to be some music at Longcohr's Grocery tonight."
"I ain't been told aught about that," said Gander Eye, "and I just come from there. Maybe I didn't hang round long enough to hear the news."
"I'll be waiting to hear you picking banjo," Ballinger smiled. "Mr. Struve wants to be at the store for that music."
"I can't rightly say if I'll be there," said Gander Eye darkly. "Like what I said, I got business to look after."
He left the yard. Ballinger and Struve watched him go.
"I declare, there's something a-chewing on Gander Eye," said the mayor. "I never yet heard tell of him not being there when there's music."
Both of them laughed. Gander Eye, hearing the laughter, fought with himself to keep from turning back, from saying something that would provoke anger in Struve, maybe even make him fight. Struve was bigger built than Gander Eye, but he didn't move or stand as if he'd be hard to hit. And if he could be hit, he could be whipped.
Slowly came walking along Main Street. He quickened his own pace, and she looked around and smiled.
"I noticed you there, a-talking to Mayor Ballinger and that new stranger in town," she said as Gander Eye caught up. "What sort of a fellow is he?"
"I can't say I'm right much caught up to like him," said Gander Eye. "I heard he's a-going to be at the singing tonight at the store."
"You'll be there, naturally."
"I don't reckon I will," Gander Eye almost growled, and Slowly looked at him sidelong, as though startled.
Struve, that fellow's name is, and he talks like as if he knows Jim Crispin." Gander Eye changed the subject. "I'm a-going to ask Jim about him tomorrow morning, when he's a-painting me into that picture of his. "
"I'll be there to pose, after you do," said Slowly, and as she spoke she drew herself up tall, as though she was proud to pose. Gander Eye felt his bones grow unhappily cold inside him. He wondered if Slowly was getting to love Crispin, if possibly Crispin knew it and was starting to do something about it. But the coldness in him was not the flaming fury he had known when he talked to Struve.
"You don't act much like yourself, Gander Eye," Slowly was telling him.
"I don't know who else I'm acting like," he replied. "I'll be seeing you round."
He watched her turn and walk with dignity across the old schoolyard. On he trudged to his own house. Entering, he went to the kitchen and started to open the can of salmon for his supper. Never before had he felt lonely in his home, not as far back as he could remember, but that was how he felt now.
He opened his pocketknife and pried the cork out of a half-empty bottle of wine. Crispin had given him that wine; Gander Eye had enjoyed it. Turning up the bottle, he took a big drink. Then he tightened his lips as though the wine had gone sour. He sat down on the kitchen chair, found a slab of corn bread, and dug a fork into the salmon. He ate, without any particular appetite. His eyes wandered to the rear window and out across his back yard.
Suddenly the fork fell from his hand. Out there, on the other side of Bull Creek, a murky shadow stirred among laurels.
Gander Eye was out of his chair and all the way to the back door without thinking. He stopped only when his hand clutched the knob, stopped to realize that if he went out there, the dark shape would only fade away into the woods, out of his sight and reach.
Carefully he stole back to a point from which he could peer through the window. He crouched low to the floor, a hand on it, and gazed from a lower corner of the bottom pane. It was still there, the dark thing. It had come to scout his home. It knew he lived there; it must be certain that he was someone to scout, to speculate on, to learn about. Probably it had been there already, there in those laurels, when he had come home; perhaps it had been waiting to see him come in.
He stooped motionless, probing for that black silhouette tucked among the rich greenery. It moved again, and he had a sense that it flashed with that upper lump of a head. Another flash, in the bright evening sunlight. Did it wear glasses of some kind, perhaps something to help it see more clearly, closely, toward the house?
Another long moment of intense study, then he drew cautiously away from the window, left the kitchen, and went to his front door and out. He looked up and down Main Street. Nobody moved or showed in his sight. He flung himself prone to earth and crept around to the side of the house, among a scramble of weeds there. He moved as he had moved when a boy, first beginning to hunt, trying to sneak up on a rabbit so that it wouldn't catch sight of him until he was within shooting distance of it. He reached the rear corner and pulled stems of coarse grass aside with delicate care so that he could see through them to the creek and the laurels.
The stranger-thing still hung where it watched from among the leafy branches. If he had thought to bring a rifle, he could have fired, could have hit it. He felt glad that he did not have any weapon and the temptation it would beget within him. He studied the ground so close in front of his face, slid away from the clump of grass and took advantage of some juniper scrub to crawl into the back yard and across it.
The Beyonders, Struve had called them, Gander Eye had heard Ballinger call them. Over there across Bull Creek, that must be a Beyonder spying. Gander Eye crept among the junipers to where he could see the next stretch. Only a straggle of weeds, but if he could go forward among them without giving himself away, he would come to a big lump of rock at the creek's edge, a lump long ago dropped there in a flood to jam at the side next to his yard. It was the right size to be up yonder above the Kimber road across Dogged Mountain, where a destroying avalanche poised itself ready to be set free. Gander Eye lay as flat as a snake and dragged himself with his elbows, keeping his head down among the weeds, pointing for where he had seen the rock.
It took minutes to accomplish it, three or four minutes. If he stirred the low cover, it would look like a touch of breeze and no more. He wanted to get close in, damned close in, within short yards of the creature that had come here to spy on him. He congratulated himself on how well, how silently and skillfully he moved. Up ahead, the piece of rock became visible. It stood high above him as he lay; it would hide him until he decided to do whatever he was going to do. Gratefully he drew himself close to it, lifted himself behind it, and squatted on his heels.
He timed himself by drawing three long breaths and then he stood up, a pulse beating in the roof of his mouth.
Over across there, no more than the width of his back yard away, it stood all among the laurels. It was man-sized but not man-shaped, not really. Maybe more like a big lizard risen up on its tail. Its body looked like scorched metal, was studded with what might be rivets, and the head-lump had something bright and glossy in front. Where it ought to have shoulders lifted two black lengths of something like chunks of thick cable, and at the free ends of them stirred spidery tangles like shoelaces. He'd been right, it had no legs or feet. It tapered down to the ground and seemed to balance there. Wisps of steam came away from it.
It couldn't be a man dressed up to play jokes; no man could have quite fitted into that rig. It was more like somebody's half-done effort to make a manshape out of iron or black tin or something, an effort begun and then given up.
It stood there, and Gander Eye stood there.
"So you came here to see me," called out Gander Eye. "All right, here I am."
The creature seemed to stir and quiver, the way a fence post looks to be dancing on a hot, hot day. Steam curled around it.
"Are you one of what they call the Beyonders?" Gander Eye asked of it.
One of the cablelike limbs made a motion toward him, and Gander Eye hopped quickly to one side. It was throwing something across Bull Creek. Then it slid backwards, seemed to glide in retreat, deep out of sight into the heart of the laurel thicket.
Gander Eye looked at what it had thrown. The object lay there, seven or eight feet away from where he stood. Hurriedly he ducked back behind the big knob of rock. If that was a bomb . . .
But there was no explosion, no shaking of the earth. Gander Eye waited under his cover, counting. He counted slowly up to twenty. Then he stepped in to view again.
It was as though he had seen that object before, the one tossed at him. It was an oblong, the size of a cake of soap again, tawny yellow and bright in a ray of evening sun. Gold as before. Another offer of gold, to buy whatever they wanted from him.