THE WHITE WOLF (19 page)

With difficulty Trent tried to remember something—about that gun—about Pierre. Yes, that was it—target practice yesterday. The pores of Trent's forehead released sweat. Good God! Did Pierre think
himself
in danger?

Pierre got up, half turning toward the window. Trent ducked. When, in a moment, he again looked into the room, Pierre had replaced the parts of the rifle, and was standing in a corner at a cabinet on which rested an object of fascinating silvery brilliance. The object was across the room and Trent’s vision was blurred. He could not identify the object.

But now he saw something else—bullets on the table; a Bunsen burner, and on a stand above the burner a small iron cup. Solidified drippings of bright white metal hung from the lip of the cup.

Trent’s puzzled eyes narrowed—and he must have made some sound. For Pierre turned suddenly toward the window.

When Pierre appeared, flashlight in hand, he found only tracks leading from and returning to the Old Post Road. When he went back into the house, he thought about those tracks for a long time. But he was not afraid.

The stars that came out on Christmas night at dusk were brushed away by clouds. The air grew still. And snow fell.

The snow fell almost without a sound. And then a breeze was born in the northeast. And the snow that had fallen quietly now fell in dancing whorls.

The breeze became a wind. It blew in cold, sharp gasps, and the snow began to beat slantwise against the earth.

The wind became a gale. The snow drummed the earth. Yet Pierre, shod in the same old leather boots that had carried him after caribou in the Northern Woods, still tramped up and down the Neshaminy. The snow stung his cheeks.

For four hours Pierre marched, gun slung under his right arm. At midnight, he returned, to Fountain Head. Sara was in her room. Immediately, Pierre went outdoors. He circled the house. But such was the drifting of the snow that he could not tell from which direction she had approached.

He re-entered the house. On his way to his room he paused at her door. He opened it, and looked in. She sat at the long mirror of her dressing table. In the mirror he saw her face. And she saw his.

“Don’t look at me like that!” she cried.

He went to his room.

It was noon when Pierre awoke. His mind was still of one determined piece But there came to his thought a sense of new urgency. For this was the first of the Twelve Nights. And he must hurry, hurry.

He ate sparingly in the kitchen. He did not trouble to prepare a tray for Sara. Not since that night when his own eyes told him that he had lost her had he troubled. He returned to the library, switched on the radio. He heard the news announcer’s voice tell of a happening more awful in its suggestiveness than some of the actual crimes: of how Wendell Mawson, mortician at Melton Crossing, heard the night before the hard breathing of beasts sniffing about the rear door of his mortuary.

Pierre switched off the radio.

The day dragged. Once, peering out the window, Pierre saw the snow-veiled figures of a group of hunters in a far field. They walked slowly and they kept close together, their guns slung under their arms. a Pierre thought: If they could only know their hunting was in waste. . . .

BY EVENING the snow had stopped falling. But the sky was still coated wilh heavy clouds and when Pierre went out, he found the woods—despite the dull reflection from the snow—dark and difficult of passage.

Again, for four hours, he tramped the course of the Neshaminy. And again he returned. And now a sense of panic gripped him. He slept fitfully. He dreamt dreams of paralytic helplessness. And in the morning he was not rested. It was Tuesday. But it was more than Tuesday. It was the second of the Twelve Nights, and God in His Heaven alone knew the power for evil that burned in these passing hours.

When Pierre saw Sara, he saw the hungry look. And he did not know whether to be glad that she, too, had failed in her mission or to fear that her hunger forecast a desperation.

Horror to come. . . .

Again, that day, the hunt continued in the countryside. But at dusk the hunters trooped wearily to their homes. And only the State Police were left to carry on. And even they patrolled only the lanes and roads.

. The waiting pressed on Pierre. It was more with nervousness than chill that he trembled when he left the house. If he failed. . . .

The second of the Twelve Nights was clear and sharp and cold. It was a night of crystal. The stark trees were etched against the glittering snow by the light of the stars. In the north smouldered the aurora borealis:

He walked farther than on the previous nights. He followed the path northward and westward along the Neshaminy. A lacelike fringe of ice clung to the sides of the banks. He found tracks, animal tracks. But whether they had been laid there only hours ago or whether on the preceding night, he could not tell.

Grimly he went on.

He reached the canyon on Trent’s land; the narrow canyon where Crane and Summers had lain in wait; where, a little beyond, Heinrich had raised his gun and fired. And he passed through the canyon and came to the clearing. And he came out so suddenly that at first he could not believe his eyes. For, from the other side, their huge paws crunching the snow, emerged the forms of two shadowy animals.

A merciful memory fled that moment. In the after time Pierre seemed to recall that from some far distance two reports sounded in quick succession-. But when again memory served, he was bending over Sara, holding her head in his arms, holding her close—watching by the light of the stars a miraculous transfiguration return to him his daughter. His daughter—his child—her long black hair warm against his hands, her eyes shining and wet with tears of gratitude.

He felt her body tremble only once. It was a little wave, rippling down from her head, coursing along the muscles to her legs. The light went out of her eyes. Pierre laid her head upon the ground.

Still crouching beside her, he glanced up—and saw David towering over him; David, his eyes on Sara but his right arm clutching his wounded left and his face contorted with pain.

Yet there was amazement in the look of pain. He glanced, bewildered, about him: at the rifle in the snow, at Pierre, and. again at Sara.

“You . . . . Did you . . .

Pierre straightened, and stood up.

“I did it,” he said simply.

David’s voice was a whisper.

“She’s . . . . Is she dead?”

“Yes. She’s dead.”

“B-but—” David’s bewilderment grew. The impediment of his speech returned. “B-but why? Why did you?” His voice rose. “Why?”

Pierre was never more composed.

“To save her,” he said. “To save her soul. To save you.”

The pain in David’s arm sharpened. But wonder still covered the pain.

“S-save?” He turned, the word over. “Kill—to save? D-don’t talk nonsense!”

“It’s not nonsense,” Pierre said evenly. “To save you from the form—the wolf’s form; from the very dev.il himself, David.”

Suddenly horrified, Pierre stepped forward. He touched David.

“David! Don’t you remember, David?” The frantic quality of his voice increased. “Don’t you remember?”

Angrily, suspiciously, David shook him off, his voice rasping. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Are you mad?”

Still clutching his arm, David bent over Sara. “Darling, darling. You can’t die! Speak to me, darling.” His tormented words faded. “But darling,” he sobbed, “you can’t leave me!”

Pierre turned away. He walked toward the canyon. He walked blindly. David stood up, watching Pierre's stumbling retreat. And in that moment he understood. He turned, looked down again at the still form.

“He had to do it, Sara. He had to do it.” Pierre kept on walking,, stumbling through the snow. And about him the curtain of the irrationality of the past weeks fell away and he saw the vista of the future revealed for what it was. With each step that he placed upon the snow he knew that the footprint would be followed and would support whatever story David chose. But had he not already known that in his heart?

He emerged from the southern mouth of the canyon. There was still Manning, he thought. There was still Dr. Hardt. And then he knew there weren’t. The lamp of cold reason was lighted, and he knew of no human bond that could stand the test he might apply.

David’s words echoed and re-echoed. They became a damning retrain:

“We were just out walking—walking along the path.”

One foot, then the other; one bootprint, then another. They’d have ballistics experts. They’d match the bullets with the gun. They’d find his fingerprints on the trigger. They would make casts of the bootprints. They would match them with his boots. . . . And there would be the chalice, with part of its lip missing—the part he had melted down for bullets.

But the attacks would cease! Yes, yes. The attacks would cease. Pierre thought of that excitedly. Still—a clever district attorney could show there were never any beasts at all. The beasts were Pierre, roaming the country at night. And there would be David: “We were just out walking. . . .”

Pierre’s body sagged. He walked more slowly. And then, again, he saw the gratitude in Sara’s eyes.

As published in
Famous Fantastic Mysteries
, August 1952