Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1952 (11 page)

 
          
“Don’t
you ever know when you’re not wanted?” Randy said, and again produced his
knife.

 
          
The
sycamore was not the sort of tree from which one easily got a strong, straight
piece of wood for a spear shaft, but, after scrambling and searching, Randy
chose a branch of fairly good length and a proper thickness. It was not as
straight as he would like, but it must do. He whittled it around and around until
he could snap it free. Then, sitting on a big bough with his shoulders against
the trunk, he trimmed away the shoots and twigs. From one of his moccasins he
undid the leather tie-thong, and with this he lashed his knife firmly to the
end of the branch, to serve as the point of his spear.

 
          
Thus
armed, he lowered himself through the branches to a point just above the
highest leaps of the dogs. He tried to thrust down at Bugler, then at the
wolfish one. But both of them skipped away, circling the tree. Disgusted with
this unsuccessful warfare, Randy mounted through the upper forks again,
returned along the two big boughs, and dropped down on the roof once more. He
jabbed the knife blade into the shingles, so that his makeshift spear jutted
upward. He looked at his watch.

 
          
It
was past
two o’clock
.
Dinner would be over at New Chimney Pot House. His friends would wonder what
had happened to him. Randy felt both hungry and thirsty. The bright sun beat
powerfully down upon him. His ears seemed to sing with its heat. He scratched
one of them, but the singing noise kept on. He looked down from the eaves at
the dogs, who maintained their sentry duty beneath him.

 
          
“Whatever’s
making that noise, it isn’t you,” he told them. “And I don’t feel like singing
myself.” He glanced around, and listened yet again. “It seems to come from the
stovepipe yonder.”

 
          
He
gazed at the upright black cylinder at the apex of the roof. Was it vibrating
in some strange manner? He walked along the ridgepole toward the pipe. The singing
grew louder and nearer, a steady and rhythmic hum.

 
          
Curiosity
overrode Randy’s other thoughts and feelings. He came close to the pipe and
glanced into its shadows. Then, rapidly and nervously, he backed away again.

 
          
He
went clear to the opposite end of the roof and sat down. Dejectedly he shook
his dark head from side to side. He mopped sweat from his face.

 
          
“That’s
all I need up here with me,” he groaned.
“A big nest of
wasps!”

 
          
WASPS
CAN BE HELPFUL

 
          
At
any other time, without danger below and around him, Randy might have
observed
the wasps with cautious interest. Nature’s ways had
always been his fascinated study, and he knew something about wasps and would
be glad to find out more. Just then, however, he regarded them only as possible
assailants who might at any time come buzzing around—might even come near to
driving him off the roof where he had found refuge.

 
          
The
nest inside of the stovepipe was of clay, neatly and even cleverly built.
Hobert Tasman, the human potter, would have recognized the skilful instinct of
these little winged clay-workers. The early
North Carolina
spring had seen the start of that nest,
when a lone queen wasp began a colony by building a few cells and depositing
eggs in them. Those eggs had soon hatched into worker wasps, that built more
cells for more eggs and more
hatchings
. A visit to the
rooftop toward the end of summer might find a community of more than a hundred.
Even now, there must be at least twenty or thirty, and more hatching in the
little clay snuggeries. The cells, built close together, made a sort of lining
that extended all the way around the pipe, several inches inside its upper
opening. As Randy watched from where he had set himself as far away as
possible, several buzzing explorers bobbed in and out.

 
          
“Wasps
are carnivorous,” he remembered. “They grab spiders to carry home and seal up
for the young grubs to eat. I’ve seen them foraging.”

 
          
He
wiped away more sweat, for the salt in perspiration attracts wasps. One lean,
swift little scout, on its way to the colony in the stovepipe, sang past his
head like a malicious bullet. He forced himself not to duck. A quick movement
might startle and infuriate the owner of a most unpleasant natural dagger.

 
          
“I
can’t stay up here forever with those jet fighters raiding all around me,”
thought Randy gloomily. “If enough of them jab you, you can be in serious
shape. I’ve heard of people getting enough stings to land them in a hospital.
My best stunt would be to plug that pipe somehow.”

 
          
But
how could he plug it? He looked around, at the old shingles on which he braced
himself. After a moment, he chose one of the largest near at hand, and
carefully pried it loose. It came away whole in his fingers. The noise of his
prying attracted the dogs below, and they prowled close to that point; but, to
his relief, no wasps flew near.

 
          
Next,
Randy divested himself of his shirt. Stripped to the waist, he felt all the
more vulnerable should wasps stage an attack. Whatever he did, he had better do
it quickly.

 
          
Rising,
he moved as quietly as he could toward the pipe. In his right hand he held the
shingle, in his left the shirt. From inside the black cylinder issued the
muttering hum of the wasps. Swiftly and surely Randy came near, cautiously raised
the shingle. Then he clamped it down, flat on top of the pipe.

 
          
At
once the hum increased to a buzzing roar, like the sudden start of a motor. The
shingle under Randy’s clamping palm rattled and quivered with the pattering
blows of many flying bodies, tiny but vigorous. Had he not held the shingle in
place, it might have been knocked clear. With his other hand, Randy threw his
shirt over the shingle, drew it tightly down all around, and used the sleeves
to bind it snugly around the pipe, to hold the shingle in place.

 
          
From
ground level he heard Bugler’s voice, almost snoringly vibrant, as though the
spotted chief of the dog pack was both perplexed and irritated.

 
          
“That’s
that,” said Randy aloud, his voice triumphant. “I’m through with those wasps—or
am I?”

 
          
He
looked at his watch again. It was past
three o’clock
in the afternoon. Wasps or no wasps, Bugler
and his band of four-legged outlaws still held Randy trapped on the roof.

 
          
And
if it was
three o’clock
now, in three more hours it would be six. After that, the sun would sink and go
down. Randy shivered, hot though he was. He was thinking of how he might be
forced to spend the night on the roof of this mysterious old house, next to an
orchard of sassafras trees and hemmed in on all sides by a throng of beasts.

 
          
Yes,
and at sundown a certain baleful two-legged thing might come looking for that
cowskin coat and the unknown tool or weapon in its pocket.

           
“Wasps up here,” he said, “and dogs
down there. I only wish there was some way to bring them together and let them
cancel each other out.”

 
          
Again
he studied the pipe, now closed by shingle and shirt. Its upper joint was fully
three feet long, and clamped on to a lower piece of pipe, almost at roof level.
He came close, took hold, and cautiously worked that upper section forward and
backward. Inside, the wasps churned and sang and strove to get out. He might
drag the joint free, but the imprisoned little warriors inside would
immediately swarm out and over him.

 
          
He
shifted the pipe more delicately. It seemed loose. Randy’s frown of meditation
deepened on his face as he puzzled. Then he came to a decision.

 
          
“I
was right when I said that all I needed was a wasp nest,” he told himself.

 
          
Again
he made a patrol of the roofs slopes. He found a shingle of the right size and
detached it, always with the dogs below for company, and returned with it to
the pipe. There he squatted on his moccasin heels, one foot on either side of
the ridgepole. On his knees he carefully balanced the shingle,
then
with both hands he began, slowly and cautiously, to
loosen the top joint of the pipe.

           
The grumpy war song inside swelled
to a roar, traveling up and down the whole pipe. Probably a squad of wasps,
like little airborne commandos, waited at the point where the two pieces of
pipe threatened to come apart. That, said Randy, would not do. With the utmost
of gingerly care, he continued his loosening operation.

 
          
The
joints fitted together, one corrugated rim over another. He slid the upper part
an inch, two inches, along the lower. When he judged that they were almost
ready to show open space between, he edged closer, the shingle still on his
knees. He put his naked left arm around the pipe as it wobbled all but free.
With his right hand he smacked the upper shingle resoundingly.

 
          
At
once the vibration inside seemed to shift. There was a bombardment of sound
under the shingle at the top, like a brisk rainstorm falling upward. The wasps
were all gathering there at his knock. He took the second shingle in his right
hand.

 
          
“Now,”
he said, to signal himself.

 
          
Up
came the pipe, under went the shingle, and he lowered the pipe upon it. He drew
a sigh of relief, his cheek resting against the rusty black metal that sang
inside with the wings of his captives. Between the shingle lashed above, and
the shingle he held below, he had shut up a whole community of wasps. And they
didn’t like it.

 
          
“I
know just how you feel,” he addressed them. “I’ve been trapped myself, for more
than three hours. I’ll give you plenty of dogs to take revenge on.” Holding the
entire arrangement carefully and tightly, Randy hoisted himself erect from his
full- knee squat. He turned around,
then
moved, step
by step, along the ridgepole. He studied the ground below. On the side of the
house opposite the sycamore was a space of fairly clear ground. Down the slope
toward it he walked, as slowly and apprehensively as though he were advancing
over a surface paved with eggs. Close to the very eaves he paused. He raised
his voice.

 
          
“Hey!”
he yelled. “Ahoy, down there below— hurry, hurry, hurry! I’ve got a present for
you!” With the fingers of the hand that held the pipe he tapped against the
metal. It resounded like a tomtom, and the dogs came from everywhere, as he had
foreseen. He saw Bugler, he saw the wolfish specimen with the bushy tail, the
red-brown hound, all the others. As they came close beneath, he quickly counted
them—all ten were there. They looked as though they expected and awaited his
downward jump.

 
          
“Here’s
your treat!” Randy called to them. “It’s something very special, something
every wild dog should experience and enjoy!
Ready, gentlemen?
One—two—three—stand by to receive supplies!”

 
          
Down
among them he hurled the shirt-swaddled stovepipe.

 
          
He
waited, teetering on his toes at the very eaves, long enough to see the pack
scatter away from the falling object. Then, as it bounced on the ground, they
charged back at it from all sides. The agile Bugler, first to reach it, had his
teeth in Randy’s shirt, was rending it away. Randy waited no longer. He whirled
around, raced back up the slope of the roof, over the ridgepole, and down the
other side.

 
          
His
improvised spear still stuck, handle up, before him. Without slackening his
pace, he shot out his hand and snatched it free. He gained the place where the
sycamore’s branches projected within reach, caught hold, and swung himself upon
him.

 
          
At
that very instant, there rang out in the bright afternoon air a shrill,
startled howl of pain, which was echoed by a whole chorus of cries. The wasps
were out of their nest, out of the pipe, and had gone into deadly action
against the nearest living things they could find.

 
          
Randy
grinned fiercely as he scrambled along, made his way to the trunk and beyond,
then along another swaying branch on the opposite side.

 
          
Just
beyond the sycamore grew a sturdy young pine, emerging from its sapling stage.
As Randy spied it, a daring inspiration came, and he nerved himself to it. He
leaped with all his strength from the sycamore, caught hold of the pine’s top
with his free arm, and let his whizzing weight carry him forward. He seemed to
soar, as though his shoulders had sprouted gigantic wasp-wings. But the springy
young pine wood slowed his headlong flight, and the tree bent itself down and
down. He saw the ground coming up from below, swiftly but not too swiftly. This
must be like a parachute jump, he had time to think. Judging the point where
the pine bent closest to the ground, he let go and dropped, landing on his
knees and his free hand. At once he was up again, running like the wind. Behind
him the pine snapped erect once more.

 
          
And
he could hear the dogs yelping and screaming their frightened pain as stings
jabbed their hides.

 
          
Away sped Randy.
Never, he knew
,
had he run faster, on football field or cinder track. And never had he known a
better reason to run. He
buck
- jumped and broke
sideways, right and left, to avoid smashing into trees, but he did not slacken
his pace for them. Blundering through some waist-high scrub, he saw a trunk up
ahead, and on that trunk was a notch. It meant that he had come to the blazed
line of the Chimney Pot property.

 
          
Those
blazes would show him the way back to New Chimney Pot. He strove to increase
speed.

 
          
His
swift feet had carried him a long distance in that mighty spurt. Already the
racket of the dogs sounded muffled behind him. Again a grin touched his lips as
he ran. Those wasps must have driven any thought of a cornered boy clear out of
their minds. He sneaked a backward glance over his shoulder.

 
          
No,
he’d been wrong. Something pursued him.

 
          
It
was the wolf-gray dog with the big ears, sharp muzzle, and bushy tail. Somehow
this single member of the pack had sensed or guessed Randy’s retreat and
scramble through the trees. Now it was racing after him. And it came along in
murderous silence.