The Spook Hills Mystery E-Book

B.m. Bower

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

No writer of „cowboy” stories can equal B. M. Bower. Ever since „Chip” of immortal memory Bower has been easily first among the writers who stage their dramas in the wide spaces of the cattle country. There is something new about this novel. The old legend about the Spook Hills comes to life when the Sunbeam’s newest hand, a young tenderfoot named Shelton C. Sherman, takes a ride in the hills and discovers tracks made by something that seems neither human nor animal. The subsequent sighting of a bear-like creature might explain the brutal murder of a sheep rancher. Or does it? The mystery deepens and already-high stakes become higher! A very fine story.

Leseprobe

Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER I

SINCE every story must begin somewhere, suppose we start with the muggy evening when Shelton C. Sherman arrived at the Sunbeam, convoyed thither in a somewhat wilted and deprecatory condition by one called Spooky. Shelton C. Sherman was handicapped by his name, over which unaccustomed tongues tripped most irritatingly, and by his complete ignorance of things Western; and by a certain frail prettiness; and by a trusting disposition which he was soon to lose. But he was wise, with a wisdom learned in school fights, and he did what he could toward getting a fair running start when he landed. He said his name was Sherman, and let the rest go for the present. He was amiable along with his prettiness, and he listened with avidity to Spooky’s rambling tales of that wonderland to which anxious kinsfolk had sent him.

This, as a beginning, may sound a bit hackneyed. Since the first story was told of the West, innocent young males have arrived in first chapters and have been lied to by seasoned old reprobates of the range, and have attained sophistication by devious paths not always unmarked with violence. But when you stop to consider, life itself is a bit hackneyed.

Never mind then how many trustful youths had looked wide-eyed upon the sage before ever Shelton C. Sherman stared solemn-eyed up into the face of his mother. This was his turn, and this is his story, partly. And it was Spooky’s pleasing privilege to tell him a good deal that was true and more that was not–about the Sunbeam outfit and the sagebrush country that wrapped it close.

“Yuh don’t want to let Burney put you on the fence first thing,” Spooky coached when they were within five miles of the ranch. “Burney’s all right, you bet, oncet you git to know him right well. There ain’t a straighter, whiter man in Idaho than what Aleck Burney is, you take it from me.”

“Well, what’s queer about him? Does he really try to put people on the fence? And if so, why?” You see how green the fellow was! “I don’t quite get the point.”

“Oh, I meant throw a scare into yuh.” Spooky explained with some patience because the very frankness of Shelton’s ignorance disarmed him. Spooky was not such a bad sort. “He scares kids until they git used to him. But if you go at him right he’ll be all right.”

“Do I have to go at him?” Shelton laid hand upon his thigh, and stretched a long, lean leg over the broken dashboard to relieve a cramped muscle. Spooky reserved his pitying reply while he took a more careful inventory of his passenger.

“Say, you’re all there when it comes to measuring lengthways, ain’t yuh?” he observed. “About how high do you stack up alongside a hole in the ground, anyway? Over six feet, ain’t yuh?”

“Two inches over,” Shelton admitted reluctantly. “The folks sent me out here to get some width to go with my length: Dad’s an architect. He said he’d have to use me for a straight edge if something wasn’t done pretty soon.”

“Unh-hunh! Well, she’s shore a great country–I reckon maybe you’ll widen out some if you stay long enough. What’s your age?”

“Twenty-one,” with more reluctance. “Time will help that, of course. If it will also put some meat on my bones and take off this pretty-pretty complexion I’ll be willing to stay ten years.”

Spooky touched up the off horse, which was inclined to “soldier” on the up-grade pull through a stretch of sand. “Oh, you’ll make out all right,” he said finally in a tone of encouragement. “Once you git out after stock–can you ride, any?”

“You mean on a horse?”

“I mean–on a horse, yes.” Spooky sighed in sheer sympathy with such absolute benightment.

“I never was on one except once. I fell off that time,” Shelton confessed cheerfully. “If it was a bike–but this doesn’t look like much of a wheel country. Too rough.”

Spooky made no reply whatever. He drove on for some minutes in deep thought, his eyes upon the trail ahead.

“You were going to say something when I get out after stock,” prompted Shelton C. Sherman, after a silence.

“I changed my mind. In order to git tanned and looking more humanlike, I guess yuh better set on the sunny side of the corral a couple or three hours a day–till your nose peels.”

“I’d rather sit on a horse, if it’s all the same to you,” Shelton objected. “I could learn to ride, don’t you think?”

“Oh, I guess–maybe you could.” Spooky spoke guardedly. “You’re purty old to start in, but–maybe you could learn.”

“Gee! I was afraid I’d be too young for all the things I wanted to learn. It’s a relief to hear I’m too old for something. What’s that line of hills called over there?”

“Them! Us Sunbeamers call them the Spook Hills. That’s where–”

Spooky stopped, spat over the wheel into the sand, and neglected to finish the sentence. He stared morosely at the jagged black sky line, and touched up old Blinker again more viciously than was needful.

“Why are they called Spook Hills? Are there spooks?” Shelton C. Sherman was gifted–or afflicted, as you choose to consider it–with the frank curiosity of a child.

Spooky meditated upon the advisability of answering the young man truthfully. After a space of silence he said seriously: “There is; leastways they’s one. They’re called that, same as I’m called it. All over the country they call me Spooky, and them the Spook Hills. Do you believe in ’em?”

Shelton stuck both legs out over the dashboard, gazed at the hills, and thought a minute. “I never have,” he said simply. “But I expect I could. I came out here into this country prepared to believe almost anything.”

Whereupon Spooky regarded him warily, gave a snort, and topped it off with a chuckle. He was not a bad sort, though he was an awful liar when the mood seized him and he could find a pair of credulous ears. Again he spat over the wheel, pointed with his whip toward a certain low ridge blocked at either end by high buttes, and by devious conversational bypaths he proceeded to tell a very creditable ghost story.

“Gee!” was Shelton’s tribute, and turned to stare with a new interest at the jagged peaks and gloomy hollows. “I wonder if I could get a sight of it some time? You say it sank into the ground with a low, pitiful moan?”

Spooky squinted at him sidewise. “It went into the ground, yes. I never said it done any moaning. The danged thing hollered so my back hair never settled for four days.” He went at Blinker with the whip, set him into a gallop, and then slowed the horses into a heavy-footed trot again. “Maybe you got your doubts about it being true?” he challenged. “Lemme tell you something, young feller. You ain’t the first to doubt it. Spider, he didn’t believe it, either, when I told about it at the ranch. ‘N’ about two months back, Spider he was prognosticating around over there, trailin’ a mountain lion, and he heard it. And he was so danged scairt he dropped his rifle and come foggin’ home without it. That’s a fact. You can ask any of the Sunbeam boys. You ask Spider what he seen over in Spook Hills. That’s all–you ask him.”

“I will,” Shelton promised obligingly. “I wonder if it would scare me if I saw it.”

“Hunh!” grunted Spooky. “Don’t yuh know?”

“No,” averred the newcomer. “You see, I’ve never been scared. I was in a train wreck once–when two elevated trains smashed together–and that didn’t scare me. And I was in a theatre panic, and I stood upon a seat and watched the people fighting like wild cats to get to the door, and that didn’t scare me. And I’ve been held up and robbed, and upset in a canoe before I’d learned to swim very well. And I was hazed good and plenty at school, of course–but I’ve never been scared. Not scared like some fellows get, you know. I was wondering–”

Spooky twisted his body around in the seat and looked Shelton C. Sherman over carefully. Shelton took in his legs, gave two perfectly unconscious pulls at his trousers–after the manner of a man who hates baggy knees–and returned the stare with clear-eyed candor.

“I was wondering if that spook thing could scare me,” he finished deprecating.

“I–Blinker! I’ll cut the everlastin’ hide offen you if you don’t straighten out them trace chains!”

“Was it the looks of it, or do you think it was the noise that scared you?”

Spooky shifted uncomfortably on the seat. “I dunno. I’ll take you over there some day and let yuh find out for yourself.”

“Oh, would you? Thanks!” The tone of him was so absolutely honest that Spooky withdrew into his shell of taciturnity, and gave over his half-formed plan of mental bedevilment, and drove on in silence save when common decency wrung from him a yes or a no, or his one safe bet, “I dunno.”

He took the young man to the house and left him standing there in the heavy dusk with his baggage stacked beside him and bewilderment in his eyes. The Sunbeam, like many another ranch, did not run to artistic housing, and it is very probable that the young man experienced a keen sensation of disappointment when he stood before the low, dirt-roofed cabin that sprawled upon a sun- baked area of sand, and realized that this was the official headquarters of the Sunbeam Ranch.

Spooky lifted up his head and yelled a summons, and a door opened to let out a huge figure that loomed monsterlike in the dusk. Spooky went to the head of Blinker and stood there fumbling with the harness–which was his way of masking the curious stare he fixed upon Shelton C. Sherman.

The gigantic figure came closer and closer until he towered above his visitor; towered, though Shelton owned to six feet two. Spooky grinned in anticipation, and moved closer in the pretense of looping up Blinker’s line.

Shelton C. gave one surprised look and went forward, smiling.

“Are you Mr. Burney? I’m Shelt Sherman. I think you expected me–unless mother’s letter went astray somewhere.”

The giant took the hand of Shelton C. Sherman and crushed the bones in an excruciating grip. Spooky watched the face of Shelton C.–watched and saw him smile wryly, and heard him make the amazing statement that he was pleased to meet Mr. Burney. Under his breath Spooky named the place where little boys who steal watermelons must go when they die, and led the team away to the stable.

He met Spider on the way, and he stopped long enough to announce that he had brought a pilgrim home with him. “He’s a purty-purty, and he ain’t never been scairt in his life, and he ain’t never been on a hoss in his life but once, and he laid his trustin’ little hand in Burney’s and said he was happy to meet him. You know how Burney shakes hands!”

“Huh!” said Spider, picturing mentally the incident. “‘S he going to stay?”

“I dunno. He thinks he is.” Spooky was stripping the harness off the horses. “He’s got a banjo. He ain’t so worse–but he sure is tender!”

“He’ll get over it,” Spider stated wisely. “If he stays long enough.”

“Yeah–if! Wonder what Burney wanted him out here fur? Looks like he’s got his hands full enough without takin’ no kid to raise.”

CHAPTER II

IN that part of Idaho which lies south of the Snake, the land is spotted with forest, sage flats, lava beds, and grassland. You can find anything there–anything in the shape of wild desolation. In the days when the Sunbeam held by right of possession the range which lay east and south of Spook Hills, you could find more of the desolation, more of the forbidding wilderness than the land holds now. The Sunbeam Ranch–which means that bit of fertile land where stood the Sunbeam buildings–was tucked away in a coulee so hidden that one might ride to the very rim of it before suspecting its nearness.

Idaho is full of such coulees. You ride through miles and miles of bleak desert with nothing to break the monotony save a distant pile of rock-crowned hills. You enter a nest of thick- strewn bowlders, perhaps, and turn and twist this way and that to avoid the biggest of them. Then you find yourself on the brink of a steep hill–when it is not a cliff–and just below is a green little valley with trees; or a gray little valley with sagebrush crowding upon the narrow strip of grass which borders the stream; or a black hole of a valley that looks like the mouth of hell itself, with gleaming ledges of lava interspersed with sharp-cornered rocks the size of your head, and stunted sage and greasewood and no water anywhere. If you go down there you will hear the buzz of a rattler before you find your way out, and you will see horned toads scuttling out of sight in little crevices, and lizards darting over bowlders into hiding beyond. You will see the bluest sky in the whole world–or perhaps it only seems so when it bends above so much that is black and utterly desolate.

It was in a gray little valley that the Sunbeam cabins stood. Farther along there was a meadow, to be sure, where hay was cut for the saddle horses to feed upon in winter. But that was around a black elbow of lava that thrust out toward the stream like the crook of a witch’s arm hiding jealously the green little nook she had found for herself. The cabins were built upon barren sand–perhaps because the green places were too precious to be used improvidently for mere comfort in living.

The cabin was low and gloomy for want of windows. Burney bent his head level with his chest every time he entered or left his own door, and never thought of building a house to match the immensity of his frame. Burney was six feet and eleven inches tall when he stood barefooted. His cabin was a little more than seven feet to the ceiling inside; so Burney, desert bred though he was, never wore his hat in the house; bareheaded he did not scrape the ceiling when he walked about, unless he went close to the wall; when he did that he ducked unconsciously.

Shelton C. Sherman spent the whole of the first evening in watching Burney with something of the incredulity which marks the gaze of a small country boy when confronted unexpectedly by an elephant. When Burney rose from his chair–it was made of planks spiked together so that it formed a square stool that would have borne the weight of a horse–Shelton glanced involuntarily upward to see how close he came to the roof. When Burney turned his back, Shelton C. measured mentally the breadth of his shoulders, and fought with his disbelief at the figures his mind named for him. When Burney sat down before the fire, Shelton stared at the huge boots thrust forward to the heat, half expecting that Burney would presently call out: “Wife, bring me my hen!” If you have never heard the story of Jack the Giant Killer you will not see any sense in that. When Burney filled his pipe Shelton wondered how he managed to avoid crushing the bowl of it in his fingers. Shelton C. Sherman caressed the swollen knuckles of his right hand and stared astonished at the light touch of Burney when he picked a coal from the fire and dropped it neatly into the center of the pipe bowl.

There were two things small about Burney. They were his eyes, which in the firelight looked like little, twinkling, blue sparks, and his voice, which, when he spoke, was high and thin and almost womanish. Only he seldom spoke.

At the bunk house the boys discussed the newcomer and wondered how he felt, shut up alone with Burney. Spooky’s curiosity led him as far as the window of the cabin. He peeked in, with Spider looking over his shoulder. The scene within was disappointing in its tranquillity. Shelton C. Sherman was sitting on an upturned nail keg, smoking a pipe and staring meditatively into the fire. Three feet away, Burney sat upon his plank stool with his great made-to-order riding boots thrust away out toward the blaze, also smoking his pipe and staring meditatively into the fire.

Spider craned for a good look at the pilgrim, saw him lift his right hand, after a quiet moment, and run finger tips gingerly over his knuckles; he glanced afterward inquiringly toward Burney, and Spider snickered and nudged Spooky in the ribs.

“Looka that?” he whispered. “Bet he carries that paw in a sling to-morra.”

“Unh-hunh–but he stood for it like a little major, and said he was pleased to meet him,” Spooky testified, also in a whisper.

“Huh!” murmured Spider, and led the way back to the bunk house.

Breed Jim was there, having just put up his horse after a late ride from over toward Pillar Butte. That in itself was not far enough away from the commonplace to be interesting. But the look on Breed Jim’s face as he glanced up at the two caught their attention and drew their speech away from the visitor.

“Say,” Jim began, without prelude of any sort, “where was it you seen that there ghost of yourn, Spooky?”

“Ghost uh mine! I ain’t paying taxes on no ghost,” Spooky denied indignantly. “What you driving at, anyhow? Come in at this time-a night and begin on me about–”

“Oh, I ain’t beginning on nobody.” Jim pried off the corner of a fresh plug of tobacco and spoke around the lump. “I seen something out on the aidge of the lava bed. Follered me for about a mile. I couldn’t ride away from it and I couldn’t git within shootin’ distance. ‘S too dark to make out what the thing was–but it was something. Scared m’ horse so I couldn’t hold him hardly.”

“Whereabouts on the lava bed?” Spider wanted to know. “Up next the hills? That’s where I seen something last winter.”

“It wasn’t there–I was away over on the fur side-a that black coulee. You know the one I mean–the one that heads up into the big butte. I hit the coulee just about dusk–she got dark quick to-night–and I was driftin’ along to-ward the Injun trail to come across and on home when I first felt the thing a-follering.”

“Felt–”

“Yeah–I felt it. Something told me I was bein’ follered, and I looked back. First I didn’t see nothing. I was comin’ along through the rocks and I couldn’t a seen a hull army of soldiers. I went on a little piece further and looked back again; and I never seen nothing that time neither. But there was something–I could feel my back crawl cold. More’n that, m’ horse got to actin’ on-easylike, and lookin’ back. It went along like that till I come to the Injun trail–and then I seen something back a piece behind me, jest duckin’ behind a big rock.”

“Do ghosts ever duck?” Shelton was standing by the half-open door listening fascinatedly. Now that he had spoken, he entered the room, his hat in his hand. “Pardon me for listening. I didn’t mean to, but I arrived just at the point where your back crawled cold. That sounded interesting, so I waited for the rest of it. Sherman is my name, fellows. I’m just as green as they make them in stories; possibly a shade greener. But Mr. Burney sent me down here to sleep, so I’ve just about got to force myself on you and crawl into some corner where I won’t be too awfully conspicuous.” He grinned down at Jim with that cheerful candor which had disarmed Spooky. “Won’t you please go on with your story?” he begged. “I didn’t mean to interrupt, honest. But I was so interested I forgot my manners.”

“Hunh!” grunted Jim from behind the mask of stolidity which he wore before strangers, and comforted himself with more tobacco. He made no attempt to go on with his story, however.

“This is only the young feller I brung out from town,” Spooky explained. “Burney’s took him to raise; name of Shep–or something like that. You don’t want to mind him, Jim. Go on and tell us.”

“What did it look like? A man?” Spider sat down on the end of a bunk and leaned forward interestedly.

Jim shook his head, with a quick glance at Shelton from under his black eyebrows. “I d’no what it was like.”

“Didn’t yuh see it ag’in?”

“Nh-hn!” Jim rose and went to the door and looked out, mumbled something about his horse, and disappeared.

“Oh, say! I’m afraid I spoiled the whole story,” Shelton protested remorsefully. “I didn’t mean to do that. What was it all about, anyway? Did he really see something?”

“I dunno,” Spooky answered him tonelessly. “You can sleep in that bed over there, Shep. Nobody lays any claim to it. The feller that owned it blowed his brains out right in that there bed last fall.”

“Oh, it’ll do all right for to-night,” Shelton C. assured him amiably. “I’m tired enough to sleep any old place. Don’t bother about me–I’ll be all right.”

“We ain’t bothering about you, Shep,” smiled Spooky deceitfully. “Not a-tall, we ain’t bothering.”

He watched covertly while Shelton C., having brought in his suit cases, robed himself in a nightshirt and went to bed. He sent a meaning glance toward Spider because of the nightshirt, which to Spooky seemed absolutely ridiculous. And after that he lifted his eyebrows inquiringly toward Spider when Shelton C. turned back the blankets and with a long sigh of animal comfort stretched himself out in the bed where a man had blowed his brains out. Spooky was suspicious of Shelton C.’s seeming indifference to the gruesome history of that bed. He picked up a deck of cards, shuffled them absently, and made a “spread” for that game of solitaire which he called Mex.

“You don’t want to git to dreaming about pore old Mike,” he warned Shelton by way of reopening the subject. “The only feller that tried to sleep there after it happened woke us all up screaming and fightin’ the air. He was foaming at the mouth something fierce when we got the lamp lit. Took four of us to hold ‘m down. I dunno what got aholt of ‘im, but next day he blowed his brains out.” He glanced at Spider for the grin of approval he felt he had earned.

Shelton C. yawned widely and involuntarily, and turned over on his back. “Say, you fellows out here must have all kinds of brains to waste,” he observed sleepily, and yawned again. “This cabin must have a very brainy atmosphere; maybe–I’ll–catch some if I sleep–” He trailed off into mumbling. Presently he opened his eyes with a start and looked toward Spooky. “Good night, fellows,” he muttered. “Hit me a punch if I–bother you with–sn-snoring.” Then he went to sleep in earnest, and breathed long and deep.

Spooky played in silence until the game was hopelessly blocked. He dropped the remainder of the deck upon the table, got up, took the lamp, and went over and held the light close to the sleep-locked eyes of Shelton C. Sherman. He waved the lamp back and forth twice, saw the sleeper move restlessly away from the glare without waking, and stood up and looked at Spider.

“I’m a son of a gun!” he stated flatly. “Whadda yuh know about a kid like that?”

Breed Jim went into the cabin where Burney still bulked before the dying embers, his pipe held loosely in his great fingers, his little blue eyes fixed abstractedly upon the filming coals. Jim went over and leaned an elbow on the rough mantel, and stared down reflectively into the fire, the Indian in him being strong enough to induce a certain deliberateness in beginning what he had come to say.

There was no Indian blood in Burney; yet he sat perhaps five minutes before he stirred. At last he shifted his feet, gave a great sigh as if he were dismissing thoughts that were somber, and looked up.

“Well, what did you find out, Jim?”