Wrack and Rune Read online

  “Yeah, that could be it.” Fergy didn’t sound the least bit convinced. “It’s just that every time I think o’ that runestone …” His voice dwindled away.

  “You never knew it was there?”

  “Hell, no. How should I? I ain’t from around here. I don’t even know how I got here, to tell you the God’s honest truth. I was always sort of a wanderer, I guess you’d say. I kind o’ drifted into the area lookin’ for somethin’ to do an’ met a man that run a flea market. He was doin’ pretty good an’ it didn’t look like too hard of a job, so I worked with him awhile to learn the ropes, then struck out for myself. I stuck around here because the pickin’s wasn’t bad. Folks are more into antiques an’ stuff. But I’ve only had the barn for maybe twelve or fourteen years.”

  “Swope gave me to understand you’d been around here a lot longer than that.”

  “Ah, he’s just a kid. Twelve years is more’n half a lifetime to him. Anyway, by the time I come on the scene, I guess that runestone must o’ been all grown over. The old folks had forgot about it an’ the young ones didn’t know. I never heard of it till Spurge got to ramblin’ about it the other night, like I mentioned before, an’ then I figured he didn’t know what he was talkin’ about. Goes to show, don’t it? Maybe that’s why I got this creepy feelin’. Spurge mentions the stone an’ then he gets killed by limestone.”

  “Good Lord, so he did. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Yeah, makes you sort o’ wonder what’s goin’ to happen next, don’t it? If I was Cronk Swope, I’d sure as hell get the brakes on my bike checked, him bein’ the one who—cripes, Professor, you must think I’m soft as a grape, goin’ on like this. A man can’t help wonderin’, that’s all. I better quit gabbin’ an’ go unload my truck. Spurge always used to help me. Goin’ to feel strange doin’ it alone,” Fergy muttered as he climbed aboard his fairly new and lavishly jazzed-up vehicle.

  Shandy stood staring down at the hard-packed driveway for a while, then collected Tim and went back to the Crescent.

  Chapter 10

  “JUST A TINY SLIVER,” said Helen. “I shouldn’t eat another bite, but it’s so good I can’t resist.”

  Peter could have resisted easily enough, but he reflected that Laurie’s cooking was at least a damn sight better than Jemima’s and she ought to be encouraged to keep it up, so he took another sliver, too. It was worth a bellyache to watch Tim enjoying a pleasant evening in his own home.

  The dining room suite Jemima had bought at the time of her marriage to Timothy Ames and proceeded to bury under a quarter-century’s accumulation of clutter had been excavated and cleaned up. Roy and Laurie had painted the wainscot and dado in the dining room a soft antique red and papered the upper half of the wall with a marvelous allover pattern of exotic roosters. They’d switched their biological researches from penguins to poultry, and Laurie went in for relevance.

  The main course, not unexpectedly, had been chicken prepared from a recipe Laurie had got in Peru, or maybe Patagonia. They’d had whiskeys by the fire and wine with dinner, and Peter was feeling blurred around the edges even though it was only about half-past seven. After working all morning at the Horsefalls’ he’d taken a notion to build a rockery in his own yard as a surprise for Helen. Now he wished he’d taken a nap instead. Well, they wouldn’t have to stay long. Tim always turned in early. So, for different reasons, did the newlyweds.

  “Shall we go back to the fireplace for coffee?” Laurie suggested after they’d finished the rather strange dessert. “Oh, excuse me a second. There’s the phone.”

  “I’ll get it.”

  Roy, who’d never lifted a hand except under duress while Jemima was alive, leaped to oblige. He was a good-looking young chap, Shandy thought. He’d inherited his mother’s build, which was a good thing since Jemima had been at least a foot taller than her husband, and her reddish hair. It had been so long since anybody had seen Tim’s face that there was no telling how closely Roy resembled his father, but he didn’t look like his mother and he did have the old man’s feisty sense of humor, along with his shrewd brown eyes and his ability to become totally absorbed by the job in hand. Having been smart enough or lucky enough to marry a competent, sensible, good-tempered woman who not only shared his interests but clearly thought he was the cat’s whiskers, Roy should be heading for a far happier life than his father ever had.

  He didn’t look happy when he returned to the dining room, however. “That was Henny Horsefall, Dad. There’s been something in the paper about a stone getting ruined on his property—I didn’t understand it, but anyway he’s having trouble with trespassers. He called the police but they wouldn’t come, so he wants you and Professor Shandy.”

  “Stone getting ruined?” said Shandy. “Are you sure he didn’t say runestone?”

  “Probably he did. Why?”

  “There’s a runestone on his property. Young Cronkite Swope from the Fane and Pennon rediscovered it yesterday, and President Svenson’s uncle went out there last night. They think it may be a real one. Swope has undoubtedly written something about it for the paper, but that doesn’t come out till tomorrow.”

  “No, it came today,” said Laurie. “Just before you people arrived. Some boy came whizzing around on a bicycle. I went out because I heard the thump when he threw the paper up on the porch, and thought it might be you. I didn’t take time to look at it.”

  “Where is it, quick?”

  “In the woodbox.” She fished it out. “I almost used it to start the fire.”

  “Good God! They’ve put out an extra.”

  Shandy stared aghast at what was usually a placid enough little weekly. DID VIKING CURSE KILL LAST OF LUMPKINS? was plastered across the front page. QUICKLIME CLAIMS HEIR TO FORTUNE ON HORSEFALL FARM. There was more of the same, but he didn’t stop to read it.

  “Come on, Tim. We’d better get out there. You too, Roy.”

  “How about us?” Laurie demanded. “Helen and I demand equal rights.”

  “Forget it. That’s the New Hampshire road and they’re probably getting a bunch of drunks from God knows where.”

  “Then Daddy Ames can’t—”

  “Daddy Ames can still hold a pitchfork,” snapped her father-in-law.

  “Then we can boil oil,” said Helen. “Isn’t that the traditional woman’s role during invasions? Come on, Laurie, at least we can drive them over and move the car away where it won’t get a rock through the windshield.”

  This was no time to argue. They piled into the Ameses’ new car and headed for Lumpkin Corners. Before they got to Fergy’s Bargain Barn, it was clear they were heading into a massive traffic jam.

  “Let us out here,” Shandy commanded. “Don’t get trapped in this mess, Laurie. Turn around and go back, fast. Get hold of President Svenson and any able-bodied males you can find around campus. Bring them over here and send them in through that old logging road—it’s by the big boulder on the right, about a quarter of a mile back. Tell them to guard the runestone or people will be hacking it to pieces for souvenirs. And if you happen to come across that bastard Swope, shove him head-first into the cow pond with my kindest personal regards.”

  Shandy did Swope a grave injustice. When he reached the Horsefall farm with Roy a close second and Tim a very poor third, he found Cronkite already manning the barricades, aghast at the monster he’d unleashed.

  “Hey, you can’t come—oh, Professor Shandy! Gosh, I never thought—”

  “Obviously. Know anybody within running distance who owns a mean bulldog?”

  “Would a couple of dobermans—?”

  “Go get ’em. Schnell!”

  Cronkite vanished at a little under the speed of light. Shandy took a rapid survey. Sightseers were milling, around regardless of the young plants Henny and the late Spurge had toiled to get started, knocking down the wire around the hen run, disturbing the cows, chipping off bits of the spreader where Spurge had met his doom, demanding, “Where’s the runestone?” as if they had
a right to know.

  Eddie, Ralph, and an assortment of sons and neighbors were trying to cope, doing a lot of shoving and yelling but not accomplishing much. Up at the house, though, all was in hand. Miss Hilda had borrowed the Lewises’ geese. She and some other women were keeping them herded close to the house. Anybody who got too near was confronted by a hissing gander with great wings beating savagely and neck outstretched to attack. Henny was standing in the barn door with a loaded shotgun, daring anybody to come in. The buildings were safe. The grounds were the problem. Cars and tramping feet could ruin the place if something wasn’t done to keep them out.

  Luckily it was still daylight. “Here,” Shandy said, handing out all the pitchforks he could find. “Four of you get down by the end of the driveway. Surround any car that tries to turn in and tell ’em to stay the hell out if they don’t want their tires punctured. Tim, take my notebook and pen. Write down the numbers of any cars already parked on the property. We’ll make damn sure they get tickets for trespassing and you can tell ’em so if they ask. Ralphie, take this shovel and go with Professor Ames. If anybody tries to interfere with him, let them know you’re not there for fun. The rest of you guard the plowed fields. Head people over toward the oak grove. They won’t get far when they strike the squirrel briers. Now clear off. I’m going to start the tractor.”

  He drove the noisy old clatterbox straight down to the mouth of the driveway, scattering trespassers right and left. “Listen to me,” he bellowed. “This is private property. You have no right to trespass and it’s damned indecent to create a disturbance the night before a funeral.”

  “Boo! We want to see the runestone,” yelled one young smart-mouth, and others took up the chant.

  “It’s not here,” Shandy roared. “Go back down the old logging road. Half a mile past Fergy’s Bargain Barn. You’ll have to walk in because it’s overgrown. Somebody will be there to show you the way.”

  He hoped.

  Cronkite’s arrival with two huge, lean black dobermans straining at their leashes helped to convince some of them. His gasping “Help me! I can’t hold ’em” convinced a few more.

  Ralph took one of the dogs, gave his pitchfork to a willing young neighbor, and went to guard the path Swope had cleared yesterday to the runestone. Eddie took the other up to the barn, to give Henny some relief. Shandy started patrolling back and forth with the tractor. Gradually something like order began to take shape on the farm, though what was happening down along the logging road he didn’t care to think. He could only pray Helen and Laurie had managed to bring Thorkjeld over there in time to guard the runestone.

  Some determined invaders had braved the squirrel briers, but by now enough of them were trapped among the viciously clinging vines to serve as direful warnings to the rest. Swope was up on the tractor with Shandy, going wherever the crowds were thickest and most unruly, snapping pictures as fast as his Polaroid would allow.

  “Boy, what a story this will make,” he chortled, conveniently forgetting who’d started the brouhaha with his previous story. “WHERE WERE POLICE WHEN RIOT RAGED? WHY WON’T CHIEF PROTECT PROPERTY SISTER WANTS TO SELL DEVELOPER?”

  “Don’t ask me,” snarled Shandy, who was pretty well fed up by now. “Ask him. Could you get through that traffic jam with your motorbike? Take some of these pictures to show him what’s happening out here. Leave the best ones with me, in case he takes a notion to confiscate them for evidence or some damn thing and keep them out of the paper. If we don’t get police protection there’ll be hell to pay once it gets dark. Ah, I see we’re getting reinforcements from the college.”

  He’d spotted a few Balaclava Busters football helmets among the mob. Helen and Laurie must have managed to rally the troops. “But there aren’t many men around campus right now, and they’re not trained for this sort of thing anyway. Oh, Christ, why didn’t I think to have them bring in Bashan of Balaclava?”

  “Huh?”

  “Our prize bull. He’s roughly the size of a tyrannosaurus rex and ought to scare the pants off anybody who comes lurking around the barn, though in fact he’s fairly amiable as bulls go. We’ll get him over here tomorrow. Horsefall will have to put chastity belts on the cows, I suppose. Bashan takes his profession seriously. Get going, will you?”

  Cronkite got. Shandy turned over the tractor to Roy and went on foot to reconnoiter. Traffic on the twisty two-lane road was backed up God alone knew how far by now. He hoped Helen and Laurie had managed to get clear after they’d delivered their passengers. How he and the Ameses would get home, if they ever did, would have to be figured out later.

  He made the mistake of trying to use sweet reason with a couple of louts who were trying to uproot one of the Horsefall gateposts and found himself embroiled in a fistfight that was only resolved by some of the stalwart lads of Balaclava, using the old flying wedge formation. As he was dusting himself off and wishing he’d had time to change out of his good suit, he heard a thunder of hooves and a hearty “Hi-yo, Horsefall!” The Lolloping Lumberjacks of Lumpkin Corners had arrived, spearheaded by a disheveled but triumphant reporter on a motorbike.

  “The cops gave me the runaround,” Cronkite panted, “so I called out the cavalry. Okay, Professor?”

  “Good thinking, Swope.”

  “It was your idea really,” the youth replied modestly. “When you mentioned about the bull, I thought of horses. Want me to try the Headless Horsemen of Hoddersville?”

  “Let’s—er—hold them in reserve for the moment. Get a few of the mounted men out in the road directing traffic, will you? If we can break up this jam, maybe some of these oafs will go home.”

  “Sure thing, Professor.”

  Cronkite began deploying his new recruits. Shandy decided it was safe enough now for him to leave the scene of major turmoil and find out what was happening down by the runestone. He walked along the narrow road, anxiously scanning the tangle of cars for any sight of his wife and Laurie. To his relief, he didn’t find them. With any luck they were safely back at the Crescent now, drinking the coffee he could so well have done with a cup of himself and talking over their experiences as women have such a profound need to do.

  Fergy’s parking lot was choked with vehicles. The Bargain Barn appeared to be doing a land-office business thanks, no doubt, to the spate of traffic. Fergy had a couple of helpers, Shandy noticed. There was a woman presiding over the cashbox wearing three or four sweaters although the evening was still balmy. Perhaps she was the current Mrs. Fergy, or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

  He also noticed how dark it was getting. The college owned some portable searchlights. If the Lumberjacks could get the road passable, maybe they could be got over here. He’d have to ask the president, if Svenson was in fact among those present.

  The logging road toward which Shandy had been so glibly directing sightseers all evening even though he himself had never gone up it proved easier to find than he’d expected. A huge boulder did in fact mark its opening and a cordon of Balaclava students in a remarkable assortment of protective coverings had it well policed.

  “You’ll have to go to the end of the line, sir, and wait your turn,” said an individual wearing a black velvet riding cap, a fencing visor, hockey shin guards, and a baseball catcher’s chest pad.

  “I’m Professor Shandy.”

  “Oh, sorry, sir.” The student lifted her steel-mesh mask for a better look. “We’re trying to keep them from all jamming in at once.”

  “And you’re making an admirable job of it. Keep up the good work. I have to see President Svenson about searchlights. Is he in there?”

  The visored vigilante so far forgot herself as to giggle. “Can’t you hear him?”

  “Now that you mention it, I do catch a distant rumble. I thought it must be an oncoming thunderstorm. I gather he also has the situation well in hand.”

  “With nickel-plated knobs on, Professor. Walk straight in and don’t trip over the blackberry vines. Nobody remembered to bring any Band-Aids. M
ove along there, please.”

  The latter remark was addressed not to Shandy but to the lines of people who were entering the road shoving and snickering, and coming back awestruck and silent. Shandy joined the ingoers and found out why.

  By now it was getting quite dark there under the oak leaves. The runestone stood in a little pool of yellow light provided by a battery lantern the president in his infinite wisdom had thought to fetch along. Over and behind it loomed a shape such as nightmares are made of.

  Thorkjeld Svenson was wearing gray work pants and a dark gray flannel shirt with the sleeves turned back halfway to the elbows. Lost in the gathering murk, the gray clothing turned his body to an amorphous mass. The great hands and forearms, the noble yet ferocious head loomed impossibly large, incredibly threatening, as though the spirit imprisoned in the stone had sprung forth as a living menace. The fact that Svenson was leaning negligently on his own personal forged-to-order double-bitted ax with a handle five feet long did not tend to dispel the illusion. Anybody blind enough or mad enough to stretch forth a hand toward the runes caused him to emit a rumbling “Arrgh” that could reduce even the boldest to a palpitating jelly.

  “God, President,” Shandy gasped, “you scared the hell out of me.”

  “Good.” Svenson shifted his position slightly, striking a dull glitter from the sharpened ax edge in the lantern’s rays. “What’s happening?”

  “Riot, rapine, and general pandemonium, but I think we’re getting it under control. The students are doing a great job.”

  “Damn well better.”

  “What’s worrying me now is the light situation. Could we get those portable floodlights over here from the college?”

  “Why the hell not? Call Buildings and Grounds. No, don’t. Yackasses all goofing off this time of night. Security. Lomax boys. Tell ’em I said get a move on. Arrgh,” he added as some near sighted maniac got too close to the runestone.