Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1953 Read online

  THE RAIDERS OF BEAVER LAKE

  MANLY WADE WELLMAN

  THOMAS NELSON & SONS

  Copyright, 1950,

  BY MANLY WADE WELLMAN

  By the Same Author

  The Mystery of Lost Valley

  The Sleuth Patrol

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  By Berwick & Smith Company, Norwood, Mass.

  To

  Frederick Creighton Wellman

  . . . He yet remains; long may he bide To hold by liege and land;

  High is his fame, high is his might, And high is his command.

  —From Another Ballad of Hardyknute

  Contents

  STRANGER IN THE SANDHILLS

  RANDY’S NEW HOME

  FISTS AND FRIENDSHIP

  NATURE’S CHIEF ENGINEER

  THE FACE IN THE DARKNESS

  JEBS IS MYSTERIOUS

  THE PERMANENT FOOTPRINT

  THE HOBNAIL CROSS

  THE TROUBLEMAKER

  THE BEAVER PATROL

  NOISES IN THE NIGHT

  TRAPS!

  A TRAP FOR TRAPPERS

  BEAVER PATROL TO THE RESCUE

  TRAPPED BEAVER —TRAPPED BICKRAM

  THE BICKRAM LAIR

  SUPERSTITION

  UNEXPECTED VISITOR

  RANDY TAKES THE TRAIL

  THE TRAP CLOSES

  FLIGHT

  TRAIL’S END

  STRANGER IN THE SANDHILLS

  The big diesel locomotive whooped and droned, so far up ahead of the car where Randy Hunter sat that it sounded like another train on another track. The wheels slowed their whir. A white-coated porter slipped along the aisle.

  "Aberdeen,” he called. "Aberdeen.”

  Randy rose and followed the porter, who swung down the steps as the train stopped, set Randy’s suitcase on cinder- sprinkled ground, and smilingly accepted half a dollar.

  "Good-by, sir,” said the porter, mounting the steps again.

  A man emerged from the car just ahead and happily greeted a woman and a little boy. Many cars beyond was the engine, idling opposite a station of red brick. Two workmen loaded a hand truck from the baggage car. Randy saw his own olive-colored foot locker come into sight.

  "All aboooooard!” rang a distant warning, and the train began to move away.

  Randy, left alone on a cinder path between the tracks and a cement curb, felt lonely despite his five feet ten inches of height and his sixteen years.

  So this was the North Carolina Sandhills country. Randy had heard it called the "knee-deep South.” Coming into Aberdeen, he had gazed with interest at groves and thickets of longleaf pine, tall straight trunks with shaggy tussocks of double-length needles, but here in Aberdeen were few such trees, and those in the distance. Several cars stood parked at the cement curb beside him. Beyond the cars was a paved street, and beyond the street a row of two-story business buildings. The town looked sleepy, and it looked strange. Hardly anybody moved on the streets, and nobody at all noticed him.

  Randy was a stranger, hundreds of miles from any person he ever remembered seeing. He squared his shoulders in the tweed jacket, shoved back the lock of dark hair from his brow. He told himself to act like a soldier. Wasn’t he the son of one regular army officer and the grandson of another? Anyway, somebody must be here to meet him. There was bound to be. He’d been told to come to this strange place that wasn’t like New Jersey or Philadelphia, or that earlier, less remembered army post in Oklahoma. He picked up his suitcase and began to walk toward the station where his foot locker had been unloaded.

  " ’Scuse me,” said a soft, deep voice from somewhere. ''Might you be Mist’ Randolph Hunter?”

  Randy stopped and looked for the voice’s owner. Just opposite him stood a dimmed but serviceable looking pickup truck of bright yellow, and leaning against the open door on the driver’s side was a middle-sized man in washed-out dungarees, tan shirt and old felt hat. The man’s face was broad, with a wide good-humored mouth and deep-set level eyes.

  "Yes,” said Randy. "I’m Randolph Hunter.”

  "Your grandpa — the Major — say you cornin’ on this train. You get in this truck and I’ll carry you home.”

  Randy liked that face on sight. It was creased with lines and wrinkles, like very old and dark harness leather. Randy smiled, and the wide mouth smiled in turn, showing a row of square white teeth. A big hand took his suitcase and set it in the rear of the truck.

  "We been lookin’ out to have you with us,” the gentle voice told him. "Me and your grandpa. My name’s Henry. I knew your papa when he was round about your age. He called me Uncle Henry.”

  "I’ve heard about you,” cried Randy, grateful for even a memory of old stories to start acquaintanceship. "Dad used to talk a lot about you before he —”

  Randy did not finish. His last recollection of his father, Colonel Joseph Hunter, went back to his own tenth year. That was good-by for him and his mother, and Colonel Hunter had taken his troops aboard ship and off to war, the war from which Colonel Hunter had never returned. After that, they’d lived on the insurance and on his mother’s salary as a lawyer’s secretary, and now his mother was dead, too.

  Then the telegram from Moore County, North Carolina, had come. Randy still had it, in the hip pocket of his gabardine slacks:

  COME HOME AS SOON AS YOU CAN VIA SEABOARD AIRLINES TRAIN TO ABERDEEN WIRE TIME OF ARRIVAL

  GRANDFATHER

  Randy did not remember his grandfather. He only knew that Major Martin Gary Hunter had been a second lieutenant on the slopes of San Juan Hill and had lost a leg commanding a battalion of the Eighteenth Infantry at Cantigny in 1918. What kind of grandfather would he be?

  Uncle Henry — Randy had decided to call him that — backed the truck from the curb.

  "Your grandpa’s right good off in health these days,” he observed, as though reading the boy’s mind. "Spring always chucks him up. He looking forward a right smart to seein’ you.”

  “And I’m looking forward to seeing him,” replied Randy. “Let’s stop at the station for my foot locker.”

  They drove there, and Randy presented his baggage check. Uncle Henry picked up the foot locker as though it were a box of crackers, and set it lightly in the truck beside the suitcase. Randy drew off his jacket, for the air was warm. Up in New Jersey, spring had just arrived, but here it seemed nearly summer. Of course, it was six hundred miles south of New Jersey, that meant ten degrees closer to the equator. What would August be like?

  The truck traveled along a side street, past a hardware store and a bank, then gained a highway on which cars sped swiftly. They ambled out of Aberdeen, and Uncle Henry speeded up.

  “You goin’ to have fun on your grandpa’s place,” he predicted, as he studied him sidelong. “The place needs a young chap on it. Your gran’pa calls it by the name of Laurels. We got plenty laurel bushes there.’’

  “Laurels,” Randy repeated the name with interest. “A real Southern plantation?”

  Uncle Henry laughed deeply. “You talks like Virginia and South Carolina folkses, Mist’ Randy. No, it's more a farm, like. Quite some cleared land your grandpa hires out, and quite some not-cleared land, too.”

  “Timber, like those longleaf pines I’ve been seeing along the road?”

  “A right smart of them, Mist’ Randy, and jack-oak some places. Myrtle, laurel, juniper. Likewise swampy places, full of brush and vines. Your grandpa got about eight hundred acres altogether.”

  “More than a square mile,” Randy said. “What animals live there?”

  Uncle Henry touched the brake as they went down a long slope of highway between ploughed fields.
"Oh, we got three-four pigs, some chickens, one old mule—”

  "I mean wild animals in the timber, Uncle Henry.”

  Again Uncle Henry glanced at him sideways above the steering wheel. "Might as well tell you, your grandpa don’t favor no huntin’ on his place. He got it posted all round the edge, no huntin’ there. He says, don’t kill what you don’t fix to eat.”

  "Good for him,” approved Randy quickly. "I don’t mean to hunt, I’m just interested in wild animals. What kinds are there?”

  "Raccoon. ’Possum. A right few deer. Maybe some foxes. Quail, woodcock, lots of birds. Once in a while I see a wild turkey, though they’s plumb scarced out.”

  "Is that all?” Randy’s heart beat excitedly at the news of all this rich wild life.

  "Could be more things, back in deep timber. Nobody knows them thickets, Mist’ Randy.”

  Uncle Henry spoke almost mysteriously, and the thought of unknown wilderness brought the slightest of chills to Randy’s enthusiasm. They rode in temporary silence past a concentration of filling stations, small stores and dwelling houses among the tall, green pines.

  "That there’s Pinebluff,” Uncle Henry told him. "Our place where we do some shoppin’. Other things we generally buys at Mist’ Markum’s store, right close to Laurels. Down past here we makes a turnoff.”

  They left the paved highway for a road of pale packed sand, that curved among trees and patches of cleared ground. One or two small houses, no more than shanties, sailed past. Randy looked at the shabby brown shacks, wondering who lived in them. From the sand road Uncle Henry turned the truck upon another sand road, smaller and rougher and more winding still. Then, where two big pines rose like sentinels on duty, he spun them into a driveway and put on the brakes. The truck stopped beside a house.

  It was one story, made of long logs. The spaces between were filled with whitewashed plaster. Its front was a stoop and a broad door, in two halves like a Dutch door, but on this side a screened porch ran all the way from front to back. Behind the house, through a line of shrubs, Randy saw a shed, a barn, and what was probably a run for the chickens Uncle Henry had mentioned.

  "This is home, Mist’ Randy," smiled Uncle Henry, getting out and reaching into the rear of the truck for the suitcase.

  Someone emerged from the screen porch, an active, lean figure in a corduroy jacket, and strode toward them with the slightest of limps. Randy saw a smiling face, a high bald brow, a bristling gray moustache and a spike of beard.

  "Welcome, Randolph,” a ringing voice greeted him. "I’m your grandfather.”

  RANDY’S NEW HOME

  Randy’s hand was gripped with a vigorous strength that made him wince. Major Martin Gary Hunter was straight and sinewy, for all he must be seventy years old and past, and the beard-spiked face that smiled into Randy’s looked almost maddeningly familiar. After a moment Uncle Henry told them why.

  "I swear to goodness,” said Uncle Henry, lifting the foot locker out after the suitcase, "it’s like lookin’ at the same man twice, or seein’ somebody peekin’ into a mirror. You each the pattern of the other.”

  Randy saw that it was true. He and his grandfather had the same features, broad brow and wide mouth and three- cornered dark eyes. When they smiled, their jaws creased alike at the corners. Maybe in about fifty years, if Randy’s hair got gray and thin and he grew a moustache and a beard tuft, he’d be exactly like Major Hunter.

  "I’m glad to be here, sir,” Randy told his grandfather, and all of a sudden he forgot being strange and meant just what he said.

  “Come have breakfast, sonny,” his grandfather invited.

  “I had some on the train,” said Randy.

  “Then come watch me have mine.”

  The major led him into the porch, tapping its floor with the cane he carried. From that they entered a great square front room which seemed to serve all purposes without being cramped. Its walls were paneled halfway up in dark wood, and to one side opened a fireplace big enough to roast a sheep. There was a desk strewn with papers and a shelf of books that covered one entire wall.

  "I like the weather here,” said Randy.

  The major smiled and sat down at a table on which stood a coffeepot, a plate, a cup and silverware.

  "That’s right, you must always comment on weather in a new place. Spring’s been with us almost long enough to go, Randy. Sit down, son. Yes, it’s nearly June now. I’m going to start enjoying myself. Through my life I’ve noticed that whenever I manage to live through March and April, I know I’ll last the rest of the year.”

  Uncle Henry came from a rear door to the kitchen, carrying a plate of steaming flapjacks.

  "Those smell good, sir,” said Randy.

  "You can’t have eaten much on that train,” decided Major Hunter. "Uncle Henry, fetch a plate for my grandson.” Randy found himself eagerly devouring cakes and syrup, while his grandfather told him about Laurels.

  "Both you and your father were born on military posts, he in Texas, you in Oklahoma. But don’t forget that Laurels is the home of the Hunters, their only real home for more than a hundred years. When my leg came off in 1918, here’s where I came home to, and it was from here that your father went to West Point the year after that. Look yonder on the wall. That sword you see hanging there was carried by your great-grandfather in 1861, when he was a captain in the Bethel Regiment. I expect North Carolina tar to go easily on to your heel, and Sandhills sand to trickle easily into your shoes.” And a grin split the grizzled moustache away from the grizzled goatee.

  "I feel them both here already,” admitted Randy, finishing his flapjacks. "Where can I change my clothes, sir? I want to look all around this place.”

  At the Major’s direction, Uncle Henry led Randy to a rear bedroom, compact but adequate. There was an iron cot that looked like army surplus, made up with brown army blankets; an old walnut bureau, like the table in the front room, and a mirror hanging above it; walls of horizontal boards, painted cream color and hung with pictures. There was a photograph of a World War I company in spiral puttees and campaign hats, a copy of a Frederick Remington painting of Indian warriors, an engraving of Abraham Lincoln, and another of Robert E. Lee.

  "This used to be your papa’s room,” Uncle Henry said. "Those is his pictures. I’m goin’ work outside, maybe I see you later.”

  Randy swiftly changed into his oldest slacks, a pair of moccasins and a jersey. He walked out through the porch, where the Major sat with a magazine, and crossed the rear yard toward the barn. Uncle Henry gravely introduced him to three pigs, white-girdled over black skins, in the sty, and to a flock of speckled chickens in the run. Through the barnyard fence a brown mule named Dix looked calculatingly at Randy, as though to remember him in future. Gazing beyond, Randy tried to estimate the extent of the ploughed clearing between the outbuildings and the nearest belt of trees.

  "Ain’t so much as a full acre,” Uncle Henry answered his query. "We ourselfs don’t try to make much crops — small rations in the garden, potatoes, corn for the stock, and yonder we got a strawberry patch. Like I say, the most of our cleared land is rented out, over that-a-way,” and he pointed west.

  "Those trees look full of adventure,” commented Randy.

  "Any place is full of adventure,” put in Major Hunter, who had limped out to join them, cane in hand. "Uncle Henry, what do you figure to do on the place today?”

  "Beans,” replied Uncle Henry. "Don’t you think this is the right time —”

  "Don’t ask me what I think,” interrupted the Major, almost sharply. "You’ve forgotten more about farming and gardening in this part of the world than I ever knew, and you haven’t forgotten much at that. I leave it to you. Randy, what’s your program, or have you settled on one yet?”

  "I want to explore a little,” said Randy. "I see what looks like a trail leading into the woods. But,” and he looked down at his slacks, "maybe these clothes won’t take it. They’re city stuff, really.”

  "You need dungarees,” said h
is grandfather. "Everybody hereabouts needs dungarees, and when it’s hotter they need seersuckers. How would you like to hop into the truck and ride with me to Markum’s Store? You can get dungarees there, and just about everything else.”

  The Major drove carefully but competently, despite his artificial leg, into new stretches of farm land and pine thicket. Randy stared at one belt of trees after another, remembering that he had heard somewhere that a good half of North Carolina’s area was forest. Forest! The word suggested wild animals, hunters clad in buckskin, adventure and mystery. The truck reached a road surfaced with tar and gravel, and crossed an old metal bridge that rumbled under their wheels. Below the bridge flowed a clear, shadowed stream, its banks thronged with bushes and trunks, its central current roofed with thickly matted boughs.

  "A branch of Drowning Creek,” Major Hunter informed his grandson. "I saw you jump when you heard that name. Everybody does. They say the Indians named it. Another arm of it runs through our woods. Here we are at the store.” He halted the truck in front of a sprawling structure that stood where another sand road crossed the surfaced way. Plainly Marcum’s Store had begun as a small frame building, with later wing additions of concrete block masonry. Above the main door was painted in big letters:

  C. C. MARKUM

  And two other signs, one on either side of the door, read:

  Groceries

  Hay

  Meats

  Feed

  &c

  &c

  "Is this where we buy the dungarees?” asked Randy, sliding a hand into his pocket. "I’ve brought some money—”

  "You just keep it, Randy,” bade his grandfather. "I never had but one son, and you’re the only son he had. Let me buy those dungarees for you.”