Double Challenge Part 33

Ted's alarm awakened him at a quarter past one. He reached down in the darkness to shut it off, and as he lay there he knew a cold foreboding.

Until now, the day to put his plan into execution, he had been very sure he was right. But suppose he was wrong? Al would be in Loring Blade's hands, delivered there by his own son! Ted got up and almost grimly clothed himself. His father couldn't stay in the Mahela much longer anyhow, and Ted knew he was right. When he was dressed, he sat down and wrote a note:

Dad; Meet me at the three sycamores near Glory Rock and bring Tammie with you. It's very important. When you get there, hide in the beech scrub until you think it's time to come out. You'll know what it's about after you arrive.

Love, Ted

He put the note in a pliofilm bag and was just on the point of handing it to Tammie when he hesitated. Timing was very important, and certainly Al Harkness was never going to show himself at the three sycamores if he saw Loring Blade anywhere near them. Ted put his doubts behind him. His note said plainly that something was stirring and his father wasn't going to show himself anyway until he knew what it was.

Ted opened the back door, gave the pliofilm bag to Tammie and said, "Take it to Al. Go find Al."

Tammie streaked away in the darkness and Ted turned back to the kitchen.

He set coffee to perking, laid strips of bacon in a skillet and arranged half a dozen eggs nearby. At seven o'clock--and because he was who he was it would be exactly seven o'clock--Nels would go to Carl Thornton and deliver Ted's message. If Thornton was innocent, he'd probably think Nels had gone crazy.

But if Ted was right and he was guilty, Thornton would come up c.o.o.n Valley as soon as possible, to find and destroy any incriminating evidence that lay there. He would get the message at seven. Give him ten minutes to get ready, forty minutes--Crestwood was nearer than the Harkness house--to reach the mouth of c.o.o.n Valley and another twenty minutes to reach the sycamores. If he was not there by nine o'clock, he would not come.

There was a knock on the door and Ted opened it to admit Loring Blade.

"Hi!"

"Hi!" the warden grumped. "I've made all arrangements."

"For taking Dad to jail?"

"For having my head examined!" the warden snapped. "Who in his right mind would let himself in for this sort of thing?"

"In about three minutes," Ted promised, "I'll have hot coffee and bacon and eggs. You'll feel better then."

They ate, the warden maintaining a sour silence and Ted again filled with doubt. All he really knew was that Carl Thornton had killed Damon and wounded Pythias before the season opened. The wounded deer in the beech scrub could have been shot by anyone at all and--

No, they couldn't. Al and Smoky Delbert, as far as anyone knew, had been the only two people in c.o.o.n Valley that day. Al wouldn't shoot an illegal deer and Ted had Loring Blade's word for it that Smoky's rifle had never been fired. There had been a third party, and after Ted chased him out of the thickets on Burned Mountain, Pythias had cut through the beech scrub. Obviously, he knew the route and he wouldn't have remembered that, a couple of months ago, he had almost come to disaster on it. A deer's memory isn't that long.

When the two had finished eating, Ted asked, "Shall we go?"

"I'm ready. But if we're going to Glory Rock, why can't we drive to the mouth of c.o.o.n Valley?"

"You promised to do this my way."

There must be nothing to warn Carl Thornton away--if he came--and fresh tracks leading up c.o.o.n Valley might do just that.

Loring Blade said, "I suppose I might as well be a complete jacka.s.s as a partial one. We'll walk."

They went out into the cold night, while the north wind fanned their cheeks and trees sighed around them. A deer snorted and bounded away, and there came an angry hiss from a weasel that, having all but cornered the rabbit it was hunting, expressed its hatred for humans before it fled from them.

Ted asked, "You tired?"

"Lead on."

The wan, gray light of an overcast morning fell sadly on the wilderness when the pair came again to the three sycamores and Glory Rock. Ted's watch read seven-thirty. Carl Thornton had his message and, if he was guilty, even now he was on his way.

Loring Blade asked, "What now?"

"You'd better hide."

"Oh, for pete's sake--"

"Dad isn't going to walk into your open arms."

The warden said grimly, "All right. But if he doesn't come, there'll be one Harkness hide tacked to the old barn door and it won't be your dad's."

He slipped in behind Glory Rock and it was as though he'd never been.

Ted was left alone with the keening breeze, the murmuring trees and the Mahela. He looked across at the beech scrub where Al was supposed to hide, where he might even now be hiding, and saw nothing. He s.h.i.+vered slightly--and knew that he was lost if Thornton didn't come.

Then he was sure that Thornton was not coming ... but when he looked at his watch it was only five minutes to eight. There simply hadn't been time.... Mentally Ted ticked another hour off. However, his watch said that only seven minutes had pa.s.sed and he stopped looking at it.

Forty-eight hours later, which his faulty watch said was only forty-eight minutes, he looked down the valley and saw motion.

Ted stood very still in front of Glory Rock, and a prayer went up from his heart.... When the approaching man was very near he said, "h.e.l.lo, Thornton."

Carl Thornton stopped, and for a moment shocked surprise ruled his face.

But it was only for a moment. He replied coolly, "h.e.l.lo, Harkness."

"I see," Ted observed, "that you got my message?"

"Message?"

"The one Nels Anderson gave you at seven o'clock this morning. The one that sent you up here."

"What are you talking about?"

"This--and I found it within six feet of where you're standing. Now do you think it could be the bullet that went through Smoky Delbert?"

Ted took from his pocket the bullet he had dug out of Pythias and held it up between thumb and forefinger. Again, but only for an almost imperceptible part of a second, Carl Thornton's composure deserted him.

Then, once more, he was the master of Crestwood and as such he had no a.s.sociation with ordinary residents of the Mahela. He said scornfully, "Give me that bullet."

"Well now, I just don't think I will. The Sheriff, the State Police--and maybe others--will sure be interested as all get out. You'll have some explaining to do, Thornton, and _can you explain_?"

"I want that bullet!"

"Why do you want it, Thornton?"

"Give me that bullet!"

"Not so fast. I might _sell_ it to you. What's it worth for you to have it?"

Carl Thornton's laugh carried an audible sneer. "You slob! You hill monkey! You're even lower than I thought! Sell the evidence that would clear your own father for money!"

"Then you _did_ shoot Smoky!"