He had lit the campfire although it was not yet sundown, and glanced up as he gingerly inserted a dry log into the blaze.
“Did you find your Indian comic books?” he asked.
“Yes—the records are buried with the remains, just as I thought they would be. I took only a sampling today, but the pictographs seem remarkably well preserved. But, a rather curious thing—I didn’t see the grave of Pauquatoag, although that should be the most clearly indicated of them all, with at least a rock cairn atop it.”
Varnum looked into the fire with an expression of absolute disinterest.
“Perhaps the old faker was assumed into the Indian heaven. He was supposed to be a witch doctor or something, wasn’t he?”
“Well, perhaps I overlooked the grave. But it should be large and easy to find, what with the immense number of trappings they buried their shaman with.” I poured myself a cup of coffee. “How did your day go? Any sign of—anything?”
Varnum laughed shortly. “Not a thing. Those old women who call themselves lumbermen are afraid of a will o’ the wisp, just as I said. No tracks, nothing unusual for miles around. A moving blue light—nonsense!”
“But what of the animals in the millpond?” I asked.
“How should I know? Maybe they take some sort of a fit that makes them leap into the water. It could be anything like that.” He was complete in his confidence, but his self-assuredness did not relieve me of that foreboding which was now almost a part of my mind.
We finished supper shortly after total darkness enveloped the forest. Varnum rose in the circle of firelight, stretched, and rubbed his unshaven jowls.
“Are you going digging tomorrow”” he asked.
“Yes, I’ll try to find the grave of Pauquatoag. And you?”
“I’ll ride north-west about eight miles. There’s a stand of pine that looks good from here.” He scratched his sides and, without a further word, entered his tent and drew down the doorflap.
Since the night chill had come up, I banked the fire and retired to my tent, bringing the few birch rolls with me. By the light of the kerosene lantern I sat for an hour deciphering those of the records which were easily legible.
Although fragmentary, they spoke of the last days of the tribe during the smallpox epidemic, which they believed was a curse levied upon them because of the illicit congress between Pauquatoag’s wife and the colonist. One roll mentioned that at the first sign of smallpox tokens on her body the woman was slaughtered most cruelly and her carcass literally thrown to the dogs. But this gesture of appeasement to the gods was ineffectual—each succeeding roll was covered with drawings of dismembered bodies, the Massaquoit method of depicting death from disease. The living perished even as they keened the dirges for the dead in their birch lodges.
When I found myself drowsing over the records I snuffed the lantern, bedded down, and was immediately asleep. But it was not long after midnight when I suddenly awoke to the feel of Varnum shaking me. In the glare of his battery lantern I could see his rifle glinting in his hand.
“Get up,” he said. “Something’s wrong outside.”
I drew on my leggings and seized my own rifle. In the darkness of the campsite the ashes of the banked fire glowed hotly.
“To the northeast,” Varnum whispered. “Animal noises.”
I listened carefully, straining to hear over the roiling of the Penaubsket, which had risen during the night. When I had retired the only sounds were the metrical chirruping of the crickets and the eerie call of a night-roving whippoorwill. I could still hear only these sounds, and the river. I looked at Varnum and shrugged.
“Wait till the wind swings around,” he said.
The breeze, which had been at our backs, began to turn with excruciating slowness until it cooled our faces as we stared off into the black wood. As its direction shifted, the wind brought with it at first the merest suspicion of a sound on the very edge of audibility, which gradually burgeoned into a high murmur. With a thrill of fear I recognized the sound as a frantic chorus of animal voices.
“Coming this way,” Varnum said. He snapped off the safety on his rifle.
“What’s driving them?” I asked.
“I don’t know—never saw anything like this.”
Even as he spoke the murmur became a steady wail of individual yipping ululations. From the edge of the camp came the noise of bodies thudding through the thickets of scrub pine. We dropped to our knees by the tents, rifles at the ready, just as a wave of small dark shapes burst into the lantern-lit clearing filling the night with a mad chattering as they swept over the ground. Some of the larger animals could not check their momentum and plunged through the fire, sending a plume of sparks through the tops of the pines and hemlocks. Missing their grips on the dark branches above, squirrels dropped into the light, then scurried in confusion back into the total darkness. Under the press of bodies the two tents collapsed. Loose gear was thrown about the camp and into the thickets on the edge of the clear ground. All at once a full-grown buck exploded into the clearing and made for us blindly, his great rack of antlers lowered. We fire simultaneously, and the shock of the slugs lifted the spray from his sides as he leapt high in the air, then thudded dead to the earth. All the animals headed unerringly for the Penaubsket, as if they were being herded to their destruction. Behind us we heard splashings as the first of the wave skittered down the steep banks into the flood. But the noise did not subside—a horrible collective moan, made in the extremities of terror.
Then, as quickly as it had begun, the stampede ended. The night was still again, save for the river, the crickets, and the lone whippoorwill. We waited without a word for fifteen minutes, each on one knee, safeties still off and torches out, peering into the forest. Although the air was chill Varnum mopped his brow.
“Did you see anything?” I asked.
“I—I don’t know.” Varnum rose hesitantly and began building up the fire. “For a time I thought I saw something—something blue, like a glow, through the trees. But it was so faint I’m not sure.”
I was baffled. “What could have caused such a flight? There was no fire, no sound except that of the animals. Yet they were running for their lives.”
In the glow of the fire Varnum’s face was haggard.
“Do you really think I look like Prester?” he asked.
“Why—yes. The resemblance is a bit startling. Why do you ask?” There was a macabre oddity about his question in these circumstances. “Never mind—-just a thought.” He laughed, but it was a dry, whickering sound, rooted not in humor but in fear.
For the remainder of the night we sat by the fire, dozing on our rifles, never daring to fall asleep completely. The first timorous glow of dawn through the ground mist rising from the marshes was a welcome sight. With the coming of day we repegged our tents and retired for a few hours’ rest.
By nine o’clock the fat sun had dispelled the forest chill. Varnum approached me as I tightened the harness about the pack horse in preparation for the short trek to the burial ground.
“Say, how much longer do you want to stay here?” His manner lacked the arrogance which had grated on me at other times. As he spoke, his tone was almost supplicating.
“After last night, I’m not sure,” I replied. I had planned to stay at least a week, but now it seems there is something wrong in this forest. The warden should be notified about the animals.”
“But how much longer?” he asked.
“If I can find the grave of Pauquatoag today, we can leave in three days at the very latest.”
“Then I’ll give you a hand,” Varnum said. Apparently his desire to see the timber resources in the area had vanished.
We rode to the burial ground, each sunk in his own thoughts. Varnum was undoubtedly troubled by the wave of animals which had come to a watery end in the Penaubsket. As for myself, I was frankly puzzled and not a little disturbed. As far as I knew, there was nothing in the natural order that could cause such a phenomenon except fire—and in the fungused, dripping underbrush that night there had been no fire, save for the eerie but harmless glows over the fens adjoining the river. Disease organisms could cause such madness, but I knew of none that affected such a large number of species simultaneously. Had I been a zoologist, perhaps I would have exulted over the chance of discovering new information about the behavior of forest dwellers. As a student of ancient records, versed only incidentally in animal lore, I could only stand in awe and bewilderment.