From Stoke’s story, I’d pictured a canny malcontent importing or discovering or raising some unknown species of canine and letting it prey on whom it might. This feint with Old Pharaoh bespoke more active agency. Our as-yet unknown enemy had Red Shuck trained as a sheepdog. Doubtless, the doggie was tutored in amusing tricks — fetch out the fellow’s throat, jump up and bite, roll over and kill. In Wessex, it wouldn’t even take a mastermind. A half-skilled shepherd could manage the trick, and the region was thick with the bastards. If I survived the afternoon I’d call on the Priddle hovel with harsh questions for a well-known ram-withholder.
I was still trying to make a fist, to control the knot of pain at the end of my arm.
Venn coughed blood. It smeared his chin, matching his skin. Even his teeth were red.
Saul, in the centre of the clearing, shrugged off his sample-bag, ears pricked. The Albino was by him, reloading. Besides Old Pharaoh, he had shot several trees — which bore fresh, white scars.
The howling stopped, but I didn’t think the beast had gone away. It had been called to heel.
Saul whistled again, drawing out his trill.
I brought up my revolver. I’m a fair left-hand shot, and the pistol was best for close work anyway.
In answer to Saul’s whistle came a low growl.
‘Shuck be hungry,’ Venn said.
‘Chalky,’ I called. ‘It’ll be under the mist. Can you shoot fish?’
The Albino nodded.
‘If it comes into the clearing, blast it!’
I flapped my crushed hand, as if telling Nakszynski — and whoever else might be spying — I was out of the fight. My thought was to leave the sheepdog to the Albino and save my silver for the shepherd.
Saul whistled again, higher — as if trying out signals.
‘Shut up, you damn fool,’ I shouted. ‘Dog knows we’re here. Dog don’t need a foghorn to find us.’
Saul swallowed and was silent. Who’d have thought such a fairy-footed fellow could do so much damage? My hand felt as if it’d been stamped on by an elephant in clogs.
I didn’t like the way this expedition was going.
Either you bring back trophies or scars — often, both. I could claim Old Pharaoh’s horns, but ram wasn’t the game I’d set out for.
Unlike Old Pharaoh, our new caller came stealthily. The mist was all about like a smoking pool, thickening by the moment. I couldn’t see my own boots. The ram’s hump was barely an island. Saul was in it up to his chest. Nakszynski, furthest off, was almost a ghost.
I heard the dog. It might be a Wessex Wolf or a Trantridge Terrier, but it was a dog. Only dogs pant that way. Only dogs rattle spit as they contemplate din-dins.
We were supper on the hoof.
Though it was only early afternoon and less than a mile from Trantridge Hall, we were lost in nighted jungle, with monsters on all sides.
‘Why be you smiling?’ Venn asked.
‘If you don’t know, I can’t tell you,’ I said.
I might die in The Chase. The notion made me hot and angry. It rankled I was so ill-prepared as to find myself in this fix. But a curl of my brain — which everyone from the fulminating Sir Augustus to the calculating Professor Moriarty found fault with — was alive now as at no other time. Some chase women, some chase opium dragons, some chase pots of gold. Dammit, some chase postage stamps or currant buns. I chase these edge-of-life-and-death moments — when an animal or man tries to kill me, and I kill them instead. It’s the surge inside — in the water, behind the eyes, in the loins. That’s what Basher Moran’s about. All the rest is fancy trimming. Nice enough to have, but not real. I’d protested when the Prof diagnosed my ‘addiction to fear’ on our first meeting, but had come to see he’d known me better than I knew myself in those innocent days.
There was that smell again. The Chase smell, vile to the nose and eyes. Old and faint on the reddleman, sharp and new on the dog.
Nakszynski was taken by a red devil which leaped up on his chest and bore him under the mist. I glimpsed eyes of flame and teeth like yellow knives. No point in firing wild. I guess the Albino dropped his guns and tried to get a grip on the neck of the thing with its fangs in his throat.
A long string of terrible Polish words came out of Nakszynski — the only speech I ever heard from him. I’d thought him mute. Then, with a liquid gurgle, his verbal torrent petered out.
‘Saul, run,’ I shouted.
He needed no further orders and bolted for one of his tunnel-paths. I looked for a red streak in the white — and took aim. If Saul Derby played hare to this hound, it might afford me a shot.
No movement.
I turned to Venn, to suggest he watch our backs. Red Shuck could come at us from any direction.
The reddleman’s face was an open-mouthed mask of surprise. He saw something behind me. A whining, straining, inhuman sound assaulted my ears. I turned and brought up my gun. A heavy length of wood smacked into my skull.
A human figure rose out of the mist, head hung to one side. It was veiled, wore a long black dress and held Venn’s stave.
I wondered if silver bullets were good for ghosts.
Before I could fire, the apparition swung. I took a whack to my head. Hot wet blood gouted from my ear and I went down. This time, I went out too.
XIII
I woke up in an earth-floored, flame-lit space. My cold, wet clothes were now hot, wet clothes. Blood crusted in my ear, under a field dressing. My fingers were splinted and bound.
I tried to sit up, which hurt.
Venn, bent over the fire, stirred a cauldron of broth. With his flame-lit, scarlet face, he could pass for a pantomime demon. The sulphurous smell was thick. Runic scratchings marked rock walls. Stick-figure men chasing big-mouthed, pointy-eared dogs twice their size.
‘Where are we?’ I asked.
Venn noticed I was awake. ‘Red’s Hole. Old, old place. Be my home, for now. Plenty live here afore me, back to Bible times.’
That was a comfort.
‘It might sound ungrateful to ask, but why aren’t we dead?’
‘Brokeneck Lady. Drove off Shuck. Patched you up.’
I’d expected to be torn to pieces by the beast which brought down Nakszynski. Unconscious, I couldn’t have put up a fight.
‘Where is this spectral Flo Nightingale now?’
‘Outways,’ Venn said, jerking his thumb towards a woven curtain of vines.
‘She have much to say?’
‘Not so you’d note. Ghosts, generally, don’t.’
My head hurt from more than the thwacking now. I’d failed to make the proper deductions…
By my watch, it was getting on in the evening. I still had my half-hunter, though my guns had been taken.
I was hungry enough to try the reddleman’s soup.
The curtain rustled. A white, long-fingered hand gathered a fold and switched it aside. Into Red’s Hole came the Brokeneck Lady…
A wet dress dragged on the ground. The veil hung to the waist on one side but almost up to the ear on the other. I’ve seen hanged men. Their heads loll just the same.
Venn glanced up, but kept stirring.
The ghost’s head rolled, as if it were trying to set skull on spine like a cup and ball game. For a moment, the head was in its proper position. Then it inclined in the other direction. And back again. Then, evenly, it nodded from side to side. The veil swung.
I knew that cobra-neck wobble!
The veil was lifted.
‘Moriarty,’ I shouted. ‘You f--ing c-t!’
Professor Moriarty showed teeth and hissed. His eyes were flint.
‘What I mean to say is… damn it, what’s the meaning of this?’ I blustered. Few call the Prof a ‘f--ing c-t’ and live to write their memoirs. ‘How? Why? What the…’