Karl Wagner - Why Not You and I?

“Well, I’ll be damned!” The mountaineer whistled — then hastily: “Begging your pardon, ma’am.”

Kirsten was glad at this touch of courtesy, for she was very conscious of the man’s open stare. Barefoot and tousled, the falling sun made witchery of her slim figure through the torn frock of thin green silk, as she emerged like a bedraggled woodsprite from beneath the boulders. The big mountain man, roughly dressed in flannel shirt, overalls, and boots, might have been an ogre from her native Harz Mountains. He could be worse than an ogre if so inclined, Kirsten reflected, grimly aware that this was a very lonely place.

But the mountaineer lowered his stare and touched his slouch hat in rough gallantry. There was a touch of grey in his slicked-back hair, and his face was big and square. “Begging your pardon for the fright I set you, ma’am,” he rumbled awkwardly. “I didn’t know what old Ben was onto.”

The bright black eyes studied her face. “Ma’am, I don’t allow as you’re any ghost since old Ben sure enough tracked you. But aren’t you Kirsten von Brocken?”

His puzzled tone reassured her. “Yes, I’m Kirsten von Brocken,” she smiled, pronouncing it “Kursten” as he did so as not to appear punctilious.

She stuck out her hand in the American fashion, and he clumsily shook it in his spade-like paw. The touch seemed to relieve his aloofness.

“My name’s Hampton Wells, Miss von Brocken,” he told her. “And I guess your folks’ll be pleased to know that you’re still alive, inasmuch as the papers all are saying you ain’t. Your picture’s in there right on the front page, though I don’t guess I’d of called your name right off if I hadn’t seen you drive up last night at Jack Martin’s store.”

Kirsten wondered who among the idlers he had been, puzzled at his talk of ghosts. “And I’m very glad you’ve found me, Mr. Wells. I’ve been hobbling about all day, quite lost. If there were search parties about, I’m afraid I wasn’t very helpful.”

There was shrewd intelligence in the eyes that studied her from beneath the hatbrim. “Weren’t no search parties, Miss von Brocken,” he said carefully. “There was sure enough two bodies found all burnt up in that wreck. They say one was John Chance and they say the other was you. Ain’t nobody been searching for you.”

He added: “Or nobody I guess you’d want finding you.”

Kirsten’s green eyes stared at him. She said nothing — poised like some wild creature uncertain which way to leap from the deadly danger she sensed was closing in upon her.

“There’s some mistake,” she stammered, knowing the evil that lurked behind the lies in the newspaper. “That wasn’t John Chance who was driving — it was a friend, John Wingfield. And there was no one else with us in the car…” Wells studied her for a long silent interval. The girl was in a frightened quandary. She was uncertain how much to confide. Would this stolid mountain man think her a raving fool if she dared be frank? Dared she trust him? And how much did Wells himself suspect of the evil that cast its dark shadow over these mountains?

Wells seemed to read her anxious thoughts. “Seems to me, Miss von Brocken,” he said gently, “like someone ain’t anxious that you be found. Maybe you know why that would be. I know about John Chance what they print in the papers, and I reckon could be a man like him would be interested in some of the things been happening around here lately.”

“Go on,” she prodded when he paused.

“Always assuming,” he carefully qualified. “But if someone didn’t want John Chance butting in on something… Well, I guess you could better tell me just what kind of accident that was last night, and maybe why hadn’t nothing been seen of Cullin Shelton since you went looking for him from Martin’s. So they pulled two bodies out of that wreck, and the sheriff is satisfied — but you tell me one wasn’t John Chance and you’re here to show the other one wasn’t you. Now then it follows that there’s someone who maybe don’t know that one of them ain’t Chance’s body — but who sure to God knows that the other one ain’t your body what was put there to find. And that somebody wouldn’t be planning on your showing up otherwise. And so, Miss von Brocken, you’d be well advised to take care just who you let find out you’re still alive…”

Wells waited to see the effect of his words.

Kirsten fought to keep her face a mask. “You are a detective, Mr. Wells,” she said with brittle levity. “To have guessed so much, you must know still more.”

A wide-armed gesture took in the darkening slopes. “This here’s Split-Fork Creek on Walnut Mountain, and it’s been Wells land ever since white folk settled. We don’t make a quarrel over what don’t concern us; the right sort know and respect us, and the wrong sort don’t trouble to call. We go about our business and the law don’t much come around.”

Kirsten nodded, but had not understood the inferences.

“So today I’m curious to know why there’s some folks using around these parts like they was sure enough hunting for something. I seen their tracks going up this ridge and down — and I’m here to find out who it is, and why they’re snooping around where they ain’t been asked.”

“You say there are men who search…” Kirsten demanded, losing her composure.

“That’s what I figured I was after finding out when Ben tore off tracking you,” Wells told her. “But now I’m thinking there’s something worse than revenuers poking about here.”

A low growl cut him short. The Plott hound’s nose snuffled the breeze that carried downstream. His hackles made a ridge along his thick, black neck.

“Miss von Brocken,” said Wells, “I think you’d best slip back behind that big twisty hemlock over yonder.”

They made their way confidently down the streambed. Three men, Kirsten saw from where she crouched behind the dead hemlock — three men and an ugly, black hound whose pointed snout hovered inches above the rocks. Two of the men wore outdoor clothing that looked like it had been recently purchased from a hunting goods store. The third wore faded overalls and looked skinny without any shirt; he carried a scoped hunting rifle that looked new. The hound was of a breed unlike Kirsten had ever seen. It was dark and shaggy and rawboned; its legs were too long and there was something repulsive about the way its joints splayed out to let it run close to the ground.

Then Hampton Wells stepped out from the shadow of a boulder and faced them, shotgun ready. They halted at his appearance, imperceptibly fanned out. The shaggy hound darted into the underbrush and vanished.

“Stand there, Ford Colby,” Wells called out. “And tell me where you stole that rifle, and what you’re doing on my land where you know you got a standing dare to set foot.”

They stood there in the mist-hung streambed with shadows deepening about them and cloaking the ridges in grey moss, and the clear water purling past their feet. Over the left of the ravine the full moon had risen and shone bright enough to turn the still pools silver. The two men in city-bought clothes glanced at the third, wanting him to show them how to play it. One looked plump and red-faced and slow; the other was tall and straight as a stiletto and wore a hat whose brim appeared wider than his shoulders.

“Now don’t you fret yourself none, Hampton,” inveigled the man addressed as Colby.

“We’re not fixing to bother about that still you’re running back up there on the ridge.”

“We’re hunters,” explained the red-faced man glibly. “We’ve hired Mr. Colby here as guide.” His was the soft voice she had heard giving orders last night, Kirsten recognized with a sick chill — just as Colby’s had been the mountain twang that had answered from below.