Karl Wagner - Why Not You and I?

“Then why bring along the assortment of firepower?” Moore asked, jerking a thumb at the rifle and shotgun. “Will that high-power rifle drop a salamander?”

“No.” Chance grinned mirthlessly. “But I don’t think even Dread is proof against a.416 Rigby. There’s a good chance we’ll catch him off guard by breaking in on him like this.”

Moore felt sudden uneasiness. There was something he ought to tell Chance. What was it? He’d been thinking about it just a second ago… Best concentrate on flying.

The mountains lay below them like worn black teeth. Moonlight made a twisting silver ribbon of the French Broad. Moore flew a course that followed the river’s deep valley. He checked his watch. It was getting on toward midnight.

“That’s probably Dillon coming up now,” he judged. “We’ll know damn soon how good a gambler you are.”

The glow from the crystal waxed brighter, filling the cabin with soft emerald radiance. Chance concentrated on its shimmering light.

High on the side of Walnut Mountain the mists that flowed along the streams and rivers had not crept. The night was crisp and clear without the rain and cloud cover of the previous evening. Looming overhead the full moon shone so brightly as to dim the stars that flecked the sky. In the cove where Wells’s cabin lay, sharp moon-shadows pooled beneath the trees and rocks. If danger prowled in the moonlit hollow, it would make a target as it crossed the clearing.

Wells leaned back in his chair beside the cracked-open cabin door, wishing he could light his pipe. Not wanting to show fire as he waited in the shadows of the porch, he contented himself with chewing on the pipestem. In his lap he cradled his old Winchester Model 95.45–70, and the shotgun stood in easy reach just around inside the door. In the moonlight he could watch the wagon trail that crawled up to his cabin, and the pasture and garden that fanned out from the head of the cove. Beside his chair stretched a blacker patch of darkness that was Ben. The Plott hound sensed the danger that waited beyond the clearing and watched with his master.

Inside the cabin a single kerosene lamp made a soft yellow glow on the smooth-hewn log walls. There was a massive stone fireplace at one end of the front room, and two small windows piercing the wall at the other end. A kitchen jutted off back, and overhead were two low-ceilinged bedrooms. Wells’s wife and youngest daughter had earlier that day taken the truck down to Canton where the middle daughter had just presented him with a grandson. They’d be gone till the first of the week, and Wells was glad that they at least were beyond the evil that closed in upon the cabin.

Where the moonlight lanced past the curtained window, Kirsten crouched on the puncheon floor. The girl had carried down the heavy beveled-glass mirror that had been his wife’s wedding gift from her grandmother. Laying the mirror flat where the moonlight touched the floor, Kirsten knelt motionless beside it. Her green eyes stared without wavering into the reflected moonlight. Once Wells had asked her whether she wanted a sweater, but she remained silent. When he glanced at the mirror he saw no reflection other than the green glow of her eyes. Quickly he returned to his station on the porch.

“Good evening, Hampton Wells.”

The mountaineer all but fell out of his chair. By reflex his thumb hauled back the hammer of the Winchester. Ben showed his teeth in a sudden low snarl. Then neither man nor hound moved.

Standing where the shadow of the porch spilled out into the yard was a tall figure dressed in black. Above the featureless metal mask the silver hair was frost in the moonlight, and the thin-lipped smile was not a pleasant thing to see at night.

Wells would have staked his life that no man could have stolen upon him like that without warning. And indeed, he had staked his life on that firm belief.

Behind the mask, eyes black as chipped flint regarded him. “Sometimes it is necessary to attend to matters for yourself in order to be certain they’re concluded to satisfaction, don’t you agree,” the derisive voice goaded him.

Wells wanted to leap to his feet, level his rifle on that arrogant figure in black — pump lead into it as fast as his hand could lever the shells. He might have done so had he not looked into those pupilless eyes. Instead he remained in his chair, sweat twitching on his straining muscles.

Dread set a black boot on the porchstep, then drew it back. “Forgive my bad manners — I haven’t been invited in. And how quaint! Someone’s drawn a Solomon’s Seal on your threshold. The Grafin von Brocken has learned much from John Chance. A pity she didn’t think more closely on her ancestress’ fate when she became Chance’s protegée.”

Far away in the silence of the night they could hear the throbbing drone of an aircraft engine.

“John Chance is punctual,” Dread exulted. “Very thoughtful for the condemned not to keep his executioner waiting. This time I think there will be no problem over mistaken identities — assuming my pet leaves enough when he’s through to tell one pile of ashes from another.”

The sinister intruder withdrew something from his trousers pocket. “Come here,” he commanded.

Wells came to his feet, walked woodenly across the porch. The Winchester clattered to the planks beside the motionless hound.

Dread extended a black-gloved fist. “Take this,” he ordered.

Though he fought to hold his arm at his side, Wells could only obey. He held out his open palm. Dread opened his fist. A bright flicker of red — like a drop of blood — fell from the black-gloved fingers and into Wells’s calloused palm.

“Give that to the Grafin von Brocken with my compliments,” Dread sneered.

The roar of the plane’s engine pierced the star-flecked darkness directly overhead now. The sound passed over, circled and returned. A sudden burst of white exploded against the stars, throwing stark shadows on the open ground as it drifted down over the hollow.

The harsh brilliance of the parachute flare momentarily blinded Wells’s eyes. When his dazzled vision cleared, he saw that he stood alone on the porch steps.

Whining dismally, Ben slunk over to his feet. The Plott hound was shaking like a dog bad scared in a thunderstorm — though Wells had never seen him spooked before in his life. The mountain man knew how the bearhound felt. He was shaking too.

A stirring from behind, and Kirsten emerged from the cabin door. Her face was pale, and she looked like someone who has just started up from a deep sleep.

“John! John Chance is here!” she exclaimed, joining Wells at the porch step. “Where…?”

A second parachute flare burst overhead. By its glare they could see the monoplane low over the treetops in a flat circle as it glided down for the short stretch of open pasture.

Kirsten threw her fist to her mouth. “Herr Gott! He’ll crash!”

Sideslipping to lose speed, the Reliant cleared the treetops close enough for the highest branches to slap at the landing gear. Then the plane straightened out and floated down onto the pasture, its tail well down as it pancaked onto the grassy field. The landing was jolting, but the grass was cropped close and the thin soil hard beneath. The landing gear took the shock and kept rolling. Tall weeds and bushes smacked at the undercarriage, but the high wings cleared potential snags. Bouncing and shaking, the Stinson somehow dodged the limestone boulders that poked like dragons’ teeth through the rocky soil. The plane rolled to a halt with ten yards to spare of the rail fence at the head of the pasture, then taxied to face about in the direction it had landed. The radial engine throttled down and idled.