A cold treachery - Charles Todd [99]
But he said nothing.
She pointed to the table. “There's pen and paper there. I can go on talking to myself, if that's what pleases you. But my father, God rest him, always told me that facing the monsters under the bed gave you power over them.”
He didn't seem to understand what she was saying. Heaving herself out of her chair, she crossed to the table, found a clean sheet in the assortment of papers she kept there. Taking up a pencil, she concentrated on drawing for several minutes.
The boy stole closer, for a better look, and she shifted in her chair so that he couldn't see what it was she was doing.
Then, satisfied, she leaned back, set the pencil down, and got to her feet.
“That's what terrified me at your age. Now I'm going to rest for a little. This leg aches like the very devil! There must be a change coming in the weather.”
She walked to her room, closed the door, and sat down on the bed.
The boy crept to the table to see what she had drawn, and stood there fascinated.
A blackness against greater blackness, shaped like a hulking human figure, its broad shoulders crowding out everything else. It loomed above a child's narrow bed, menacing in the extreme. The image was crudely drawn, but the power of it was immense, the pencil strokes bold and vigorous, as if the memory was real and fresh.
Underneath, Maggie had scrawled The Man of the Mountain.
He had listened to Mr. Blackwell's classroom account of the man who had lived in one of the shielings on the mountains and crept down at night into the village, hungry for human flesh. It was an old Norse legend carried to England by early settlers in the region, and with the passage of time had come into local folklore as a threat for naughty children.
“If you don't mind your mother, the Man of the Mountain will come for you. Wait and see . . .”
“If you're not back by dark . . .”
“If you fail to say your prayers . . .”
Mr. Blackwell had called it superstitious nonsense, but there were those in the classroom who had surreptitiously crossed their fingers against invoking the Man. He had more reality than the Devil and was closer to home. The schoolmaster had also told his students that the Man owed much to Beowulf, but the boy hadn't recognized the name. Someone living in another valley, he thought.
To the boy, an outsider over whom the power of the legend held no sway, it was no more than a delicious tale meant to send a shiver down the spine.
He smiled a little as he looked at Maggie's work. And then, turning the sheet over, he studied the blank paper for a time.
Then he picked up the pencil and with shaking fingers made his own drawing before hiding it deep in the pile on the table.
After the boy had gone to bed, Maggie looked for and finally found the sheet. She was chilled to see a stark outline of a gallows, with a dangling, empty noose.
A swift foray into the kitchen was unsuccessful, but Rutledge found what he was looking for in the barn.
The cow, which the neighbor had been caring for while Harry Cummins was away, lifted her head from the manger where hay had been strewn for her, and stared at him with dark, soft eyes.
He spoke to her as he went out, and she went on placidly chewing.
Rutledge left the hotel to drive back to the Elcott farm. Paul's carriage was there, but he didn't go to the kitchen to find the man.
Instead, he got out of the motorcar and walked around to the front door.
Moving quietly, he went up the stairs to Josh Robinson's bedchamber. He went carefully through the boy's belongings again, frowning as he worked. Clothes, shoes, stockings, belts—a cricket bat and ball—
And then he remembered the set of broken cuff links. Taking them, he put everything else back where he'd found it.
Outside again, he climbed the slope behind the house. The going was still difficult, but he took his time and watched where he set his boots.
Far up on the shoulder, where the scree began, was the Elcott sheep pen.
A pregnant ewe had taken shelter there, scraping at the snow cover