The House of Dies Drear (21 page)

But Mayhew had his mind on something entirely different. For one thing, he was burning hot. He could feel perspiration trickling down his neck onto his shoulders, then down his arms. He, too, lay on his stomach, hidden by trees and grass and bushes. He was dressed in a heavy, odd-fitting, old-fashioned suit. He wore a long, blondish wig streaked with white, which fell to his shoulders. The wig had been treated with a phosphorous spray paint, and the effect of it in the dark, when he removed his hat, was spectacular. His face and neck were covered by a cream-colored mask, fitting over his skull under the wig. Never had he imagined that one day he would play the part of a white abolitionist. He didn’t find the prospect funny at all, however. He would play his role with all the grim skill he had. He fully intended to be the most superb apparition of all.

Slowly Mayhew lifted his head about an inch, just high enough for his eyes to scan the top of his father’s cave across the clearing, directly above the wood doors in the cave mouth. Hidden there, among the trees, was Pesty.

Poor baby! he thought. Has she fallen asleep? I should have my head examined for letting her stay out here. They’ll become suspicious.

He had tried to provide an alibi for Pesty staying out late this night. In his best feminine hand, he had written to Mr. Darrow, and had allowed Pesty to deliver the note saying that the child wished to stay in the big house until Mr. Pluto returned. The child was unusually upset over Mr. Pluto’s sudden illness, the note had said, and the Smalls would be pleased to have her stay the night, if Mr. Darrow did not object. Darrow had not replied, and Pesty had come anyway, since she always went where she wished and returned home when she felt like it.

If she falls asleep, we’re sunk, thought Mayhew.

Lying the way they were, facing the clearing and the cave, neither Mr. Small nor Thomas, nor Mayhew either, had any way of knowing if the Darrows were creeping about among them. Pesty was to watch for them and give the signal because, being the kind of child she was, she knew enough about night and Darrows to know when they were moving.

Then Mayhew heard it. Just a soft sound it was, like a bird giving its last weak chirp before sleep overcame it. The sound came from above the cave. It was Pesty’s signal.

Mayhew grinned uncontrollably.

Come on, Darrow. Come on in.

Mr. Pluto was calm and comfortable. He sat within the cave tunnel, just beyond the partly opened plank doors in the cave mouth. He rested in a cushioned chair Mayhew had provided for him. Wrapped snugly around his shoulders was his heavy brown throw. Upon his head was his black stovepipe hat. He played no man but himself and he was the same as always, except for Mayhew’s warm, hide gloves on his hands and a wool blanket bunched around his legs.

Pluto could see the whole clearing and the trees surrounding it, without being seen himself. But he couldn’t see Thomas or Mr. Small or Mayhew. He had stared at the clearing and trees for hours; he knew the three of them lay out there, but, after a time, he began to think maybe they’d gone and left him. Maybe they had tricked him, and an ambulance would burst suddenly into that clearing and take him away.

Halfway through the waiting, the staring, he had become afraid. The night settled around him; the minutes hung inside him in even lengths of cold. He felt his mind getting further away from him. He became frightened that he might see the real ghosts of old Mr. Drear and the two slaves, as he had seen them before when he was sick and tired with despair. There had been a time when what he saw was just the Darrows walking stealthily behind him, never too near and never too far away. They had followed him down the years, as had those ghosts, so that, oftentimes, he couldn’t tell which he was seeing.

But now his mind settled back. He had caught hold of one thought he had tried earlier to fix in his mind. He could even doze off now and again, sitting in the chair with his chin resting in his beard. But always that one idea stayed close to his ear; that much of his mind was alert and ready.

He dozed.

If I do nothing more, the thought went, I’m going to fix up those Darrows once and for good!

He opened his eyes. He hadn’t heard Pesty’s signal. At least, he didn’t know if he had. But darkness was moving ever so carefully back in the trees and from three directions. Darkness was making just the gentlest, swishing noises in the pine boughs.

Without effort, Pluto stood up. Straight and tall he was, easing the chair away from him with the calves of his legs. He placed his palms on each of the plank doors. There was no other thought in his head but the one thought he would never again, after this night, need to hold onto.

To Thomas, it had been years since Pesty had given the signal. His mind leaped and twisted. He tried to calculate how fast the Darrows were moving. He thought many times that they must have got by him. In another minute, he would have to yell out because of the exhaustion and excitement he felt. Then beside him stood a Darrow, when there had been nothing but trees a second before.

Thomas hadn’t seen the Darrow come. He dared not move his head enough to see the man’s trouser legs. But he knew the Darrow was there, standing in line with a tree. Standing so still, the Darrow could have been staring down at Thomas. Then he evaporated and went on. But this took minute upon minute. Thomas felt he would faint. He was suffocating, trying not to breathe out loud, when his insides ached for air and more air.

Once the Darrow had passed, Thomas couldn’t help lifting his head and turning it quickly to the side. Fresh air hit him, cool and black. He breathed slowly and silently. He breathed so deeply, he thought he would explode.

There was another Darrow close to Thomas’ father. Standing there, he was gone in a blink of Thomas’ eye.

They are Mohegans, Thomas thought. We are Tuscaroras and they are Mohegans, not of our people.

He didn’t see the third and last Darrow until the faint shape of him was in the clearing, close to where Mayhew lay. Next, all three forms were together and not moving. Thomas raised the lower part of his body upon his knees, keeping his head well down.

Darrows were whispering and looking around in all directions.

“I tell you he’s gone, like they said,” one was saying.

Another spoke quite clearly. “I don’t like it—why ain’t his torches burning on the cave?”

“Because he ain’t here to light them, fool!”

“Mebbe so, but I can’t see hardly a thing.”

“When we get to the door, we can use the flashlight.”

The forms moved slowly forward, ready to break away at the slightest sound. When they were about a foot in front of the cave, one of them turned on the flashlight.

Pluto slid himself out between the plank doors, blocking the Darrows before they had time to realize what had happened.

In the few minutes it had taken the Darrows to reach the cave, old Pluto had had an idea close to inspiration. Quickly bending down, he untied his shoes and removed the laces. Then, catching one end of his throw in his palm, he tied it to his wrist with a shoelace. When both ends of the throw were tied to both wrists, he pulled the neck of the throw behind his head, and fitted it over his top hat. What greeted the Darrows as they beamed their flashlight was a grotesque and chilling scene.

From the black mouth of the cave came an enormous bat with wings outstretched. By the time the Darrows realized it was Pluto, he was towering over them. With his arms held out to the height of his shoulders, he began to speak, his face turned toward the heavens.

“Come, my winged bird, my glory, night-bird! Come, all ye demons three who walk with me forever. Come parade awhile with Pluto, who has missed ye so!” His voice roared through the clearing. The Darrow men ducked down. One of them dropped the flashlight. When it hit the ground, it broke and went out.

In the trees on top of Mr. Pluto’s cave, Pesty let drop the canvas sheet that had hidden the painted brilliance of Mr. Pluto’s bay horse. Already mounted on the horse, she took a sure hold on each of the gossamer wings attached to his withers. As she dug her bare toes into the bay’s flanks, she began to work the wings up and down.

What the Darrows saw was a glowing giant of a thing, with wings as translucent as glimmering silk. The great wings brushed the air as lightly as feathers. The thing itself seemed to rise up and down, making only a muffled, soft sound.

There was a moan, as one Darrow sank down before the winged creature atop the cave.

Another one of them was yelling in a kind of strangled, husky scream.

The third and last began to jump up and down, first on one foot and then on the other.

The sight of the glowing bay with glimmering wings was indeed terrifying. Thomas, who was now supposed to come forward with Mr. Small and Mayhew, thus trapping the Darrows between ghosts and devils, was sagging down himself. He had not been prepared for the way Pluto looked, nor for the flashlight suddenly full on him. And no one had told him Pluto would say anything. Why had Pluto said what he had?

All at once Thomas was overcome with the night and with all the fear of Pluto that was buried deep inside him. He could not see Pesty on the bay’s back. The reason he couldn’t was that she was lying nearly flat, but Thomas didn’t think of that. He simply saw that glowing devil of a horse and he began to sink down.

Mayhew grabbed hold of Thomas and carried him forward.

“Come to,” he whispered. “We have got them. Stand up!”

Thomas stood, but barely. He and Mayhew and Mr. Small now spread themselves in a half circle behind the Darrows.

Just then, the Darrow who had fallen to his knees was lifted up by another Darrow and dragged away from the specter of Pluto and the winged demon, only to be dropped brutally at the sight of the three apparitions at the edge of the clearing. They shimmered so brightly that all three Darrows fell down.

All the Darrow men were yelling now. And Mayhew, as old Mr. Drear, was laughing in a most horrifying, crazed sound, screeching and groaning as he inched toward them. The laugh tore through what little courage Thomas had left, and he folded up again.

Mr. Small hissed at Thomas, rattling his chains and moaning so that Thomas would at least pump his arms, causing some of his own chains to clank.

The effect of Thomas’ own fear was perhaps most convincing to the Darrows, for it seemed to them that he was a slave ghost still driven by invisible tormentors.

“Let me out of here!” one Darrow screamed.

“Mr. Pluto, Lordy, call ’em off. Call ’em off! Please, let me go! I won’t come back, oh please!”

Mr. Pluto commenced to laugh. It was a deep, hateful sort of laugh, full of malice and memory of malice. He laughed and laughed. With his laughter, and Mayhew still screeching as Dies Drear, the whole hill rocked with the most earsplitting noise.

“Get them, my demons, get them!” cried Pluto.

Mr. Small raised his chains. So did Thomas. Mayhew folded his flowing arms around the closest Darrow.

Men were scrambling all over the clearing, Thomas got caught in his own chain and nearly broke his ankle; someone pulled him to his feet. He found himself face to face with a Darrow, and the Darrow was about ready to foam at the mouth. Suddenly all the Darrows broke away and were running free.

Mayhew began to laugh in his own voice. He slapped his hip and threw back his head and bellowed. One Darrow stopped dead in his tracks, just at the edge of the clearing where Thomas had been hiding. Mr. Pluto began to laugh, too, like a man who had successfully played a wonderful joke on someone. His was now a pleasant, healthy sort of laugh; he put his arm around Mayhew, folding him tenderly inside his throw. The Darrow stared at the two of them for the longest moment, then walked away.

When the Darrows had gone for sure, Mr. Small said, “You laughed too soon. The last one of them knew we were putting on for them.”

“They would have figured it out, all of them, in another minute anyhow,” Mayhew said. “The point is that for about fifteen seconds, we scared the living daylights out of them. And to make it worse, we laughed at them to their face because they allowed themselves to be fooled.”

“You have to know Darrows,” said old Pluto to Mr. Small. “It’s bad enough that anybody would dare trick them. But to get away with that and then to laugh at ’em right in front of ’em, why they’ll never live it down!”

“And they’ll be about ready to pray we won’t spread it around how we made fools out of them,” Mayhew said. “I’m going to have Pesty tell them we let all the Carr boys watch!”

Mr. Small had to smile. “You are surely something,” he said.

Then Mayhew and Pluto laughed and laughed.

Gently Mr. Small led Thomas into the cave. The boy was trembling all over. Mr. Small tried not to let Thomas know he had noticed.

Thomas was so ashamed. He would never be an actor. Never in a million years.

Chapter 19

IN THE CAVERN
of Dies Drear, Mr. Pluto sat behind his elaborate desk with a most satisfied grin upon his face.

Mr. Small and Thomas were tired out. They had changed from their slave costumes into their regular clothes. They’d finished removing the makeup and had piled their chains, wigs and such into a heap.

Pesty came in with the gossamer wings, which she placed on the very top of the heap. “I put the bay back in his stall,” she said to Mayhew. “I cleaned the paint off him, too.”

“You are a good baby,” Mayhew said. “Now you ought to go to bed.”

“Come here, Miss Bee,” Pluto said to her. “Come sit on my lap. You know, you handled that horse and those wings just about perfect.” He folded the smiling child within his throw, so that only her head, with eyes black and bright, peeked out.

“That was about the best show I’ve ever seen,” Pluto said. “And you all wanted to put me in a hospital!”

“My mistake, Father,” said Mayhew. He hadn’t felt so friendly toward his father in a long time. “How in the name of heaven did you think up fixing that throw the way you did?”

“When you came out of that cave,” said Mr. Small, “you looked like a huge, frightful bat.”