“Maybe he should be taken to town, sir,” Ward suggested.
The captain said: “Nonsense! The doctor will come here. Move now, you men!”
Two of the lads from the truck brought a stretcher and we loaded the boy on it. About that time the rest of the boys started streaming down the road to us, so I knew the two that had gone on ahead and told the captain, had also told their friends.
The captain took the first five he saw and got them in the back of the truck and said: “This will be enough. Lieutenant Ward, you and Mr. Bryant will come with me.”
He went down that rough mountain road at forty miles an hour.
Chapter Three
With a .45
We hadn’t needed to hurry but we didn’t know that until we’d climbed down to the wreck. It wasn’t hard to find — a section of the road was entirely missing, and the truck was at least a hundred feet below. Comiskey had been killed instantly, his head crushed in like an eggshell. The cab seat on the truck had buckled and had caught him like a vise, when some roll of the truck had pitched him up against the roof. The boy that had been driving the car was still alive but unconscious. We got there just in time to watch him die. The one that had been pinned under the car was also dead — and I pitied him the most. He’d known what was coming and he’d just had to stay there and wait for death.
Rawlins spread blankets he’d brought over the bodies and said: “We’ll leave them here tonight, I’ll stay and watch, gentlemen. It will be better to move them in the morning.”
I said: “This is murder, Captain Rawlins. I’m almost certain we should leave them as they are until the county authorities are notified and examine the scene.”
Rawlins said, in a voice that didn’t sound like his own: “They’d better get here early then. I’ll not leave these boys out here like this. It isn’t decent.” Then he added: “Call the coroner, Lieutenant Ward, immediately upon your return to camp. Tell him I’d appreciate it if he’d start for here at once. You had also better notify the sheriff as well as the state police. This is out of our hands.”
The boys that had ridden down with us, in case we needed help in lifting the truck, were standing by. Two of them were crying and trying to act as though they weren’t.
One of the others said: “If we catch the guy that did this we’ll hang him.”
I looked a little closer when I heard him speak and saw it was the same boy that had been at the hold-up in the cookhouse — Richard Deiss — the one who hadn’t been frightened.
Rawlins also recognized him because he said: “That will do, Deiss. The law will handle this matter.”
Deiss muttered something and I said: “I’ll stay with you, Captain.”
“You are in no condition to stay, Mr. Bryant,” he said. “Please go back with Lieutenant Ward.”
He was only about five feet away from me and I thought the boys couldn’t hear me from where I stood. I said, very softly: “Captain! Give me a break! I’ve got a notion the man that did this will come back to see how it worked out. I missed him once tonight — maybe I won’t again.”
“Are you armed?”
“Yes, sir.”
He raised his voice and said: “Lieutenant, Mr. Bryant wishes to stay with me here by the wreck. Please return to camp and notify the authorities, as I have requested.”
Ward gave me a hard look and started the boys up the bank toward the truck. I knew he’d had the same thought I’d had and was wishing I hadn’t spoken about it first.
We could hear the truck back and fill as they turned it toward the camp, and then the captain said: “Mr. Bryant, I am at a loss about this. It seems so senseless. There’s no reason why a thing like this should happen. Deliberate murder, for no reason. I can’t believe these lives were taken just because some of the natives objected to our presence here. That isn’t reasonable.”
I agreed with him.
He said, as though thinking aloud: “There was no trouble last year, or I’d have been told about it. You know this camp was established last year, Mr. Bryant.”
I’d taken that for granted because of the obviously weathered condition of some of the buildings. I said: “Well, of course I’ve only been here a couple of days. I haven’t had much of a chance to find out about things like that.”
“The camp was built early last year and about one hundred and fifty men were stationed here. It was decided to abandon this site, however, and the camp was vacated last fall, with the exception of the usual caretaker left under those conditions. A change of plans occurred during the winter and the camp was again to be put in use, though what caused the change I don’t know, naturally. All I know is that I was given this assignment and brought the men here.”
“How long ago?”
“Possibly a month — time goes rapidly on a job of this kind. The camp had to be put in shape for more men — more cabins had to be constructed and the older ones repaired. And I admit it’s the first time I was ever detailed on such duty, and so I was working under a handicap. I feel responsible for what’s happened. I thought it just some malcontent, objecting to our presence here because of some silly personal reason. I can’t understand this, Mr. Bryant. Murder — for no reason.”
“There’s a reason,” I said. “There has to be a reason for murder.”
I got a flashlight from the wrecked truck and dug out the box of shells Ward had given me at the same time he’d handed me the pistol. I filled the clip and jacked a shell into the chamber, and said: “I’m going up and take a look at what was done to the road. And find a hide-out that I can sneak back to in the dark between here and the road. It would be a good plan if you built a little fire, over at the side, and maybe put some blankets in the shadow so it would look as though you were asleep. Have you got a gun, sir?”
He said: “I didn’t take time to pick it up. I thought it just an accident at the time, though the boy that brought the message from you assured me his friend had been shot. It was unbelievable — or so I thought then. I know better now.”
Making quite a lot of noise and flashing the light back and forth, I started up toward the road. I’ll admit I was hoping the killer hadn’t had time to get back to the scene of the wreck. With nothing but a flashlight and an unfamiliar gun between me and a man, or men, who’d already killed three people that same evening, I had a funny creepy feeling running up and down my back that I couldn’t manage to control.
I made it up to where the road was cut out, dreading every step. The road had been built just by cutting into the side of the hill, and all the wrecker had done was cut under the lower side of it. I don’t think he’d taken out more than three dozen shovelfuls of dirt in all. But he’d taken ’em out in such a way that the right front wheel of the truck just sank and down the gully it went.
Above the road he’d just started a little landslide — enough to block the inner edge of the road. Altogether, it hadn’t taken much work to wreck that truck and kill three men for no reason that either the captain or I could figure out. I spotted a little clump of firs, just above the wrecked truck and maybe fifty feet from it, and I made plenty noise going back to the fire Captain Rawlins had built.
He came out of the darkness back of it and said, very softly: “I made what looked like two people sleeping and put them in the shadows. If a man got close he’d know they’re dummies — but from a few feet away he couldn’t tell.”
I said, “Swell” and we pretended to go over that way, just in case anyone was watching.
And then I ducked back and went up to my fir thicket, doing it as quietly as I could — and expecting to see a gun flash out fire at me every step I took. I really had the jitters. Woods at night like that have a funny kind of quiet — the trees creak and groan and there’s a steady rustling, whishing sound from the wind through the pine needles — and though I’d been brought up in that country and knew what to expect, even familiar noises can sound ominously different when you’re keeping watch over three dead men. Men killed for no apparent reason.