looka’ here, Larrigan, I’m orderin’ you not to go up thar. ‘Specially not in one of mah boats.”
Larrigan dismissed him with a wave of his hand. “You couldn’t stop me if you had two good arms, Taggart.” The screen door banged shut behind him.
As obscure as the creek’s entrance had been in the full light of day, Larrigan expected that he might not be able to find it at night. To his surprise, he had no difficulty at all. In fact, he located it with such ease that it almost seemed as though his finding it had been preordained.
As he cruised up the stream toward the old house, he almost could sense that the skiff was gathering speed, as though being irresistibly drawn toward some rendezvous. Earlier that day he had perceived an absence of life in the swamp. Now, lights glowed eerily among the trees, lending a macabre effect to the darkened slough. Too large to be fireflies, he thought uneasily, must be swamp gas or foxfire caused by certain fungi in the decaying vegetation.
As he penetrated deeper into the bowels of the swamp, Larrigan began to hear strange sounds. They were unlike anything he had ever heard. It was easy to imagine them as the cries of tormented souls. Ever the rational Western man, he dismissed them as the calls of foraging night creatures. He tried shining the powerful beam of his flashlight into the dark recesses beyond the banks of the narrow creek, but the light would not penetrate beyond the trees that lined its edges. It seemed as though the stygian blackness totally absorbed the rays at that point. Batteries probably are getting weak, Larrigan thought.
He experienced a certain measure of relief as he exited the gloomy tunnel through which the creek flowed. To his surprise and disappointment, however, the lake was nearly as dark. The full moon now was obscured by a thick layer of nearly opaque clouds. As he eased back on the throttle, he thought he could hear the sounds of things moving in the dark waters.
He was further surprised to see a light glowing in the old house. It was not an unpleasant sight. Rather, it seemed to Larrigan like a friendly beacon inviting the weary mariner to a safe port. Its warm emanation seemed to dispel the baleful effect of the gloomy atmosphere.
Nevertheless, Larrigan elected to approach the house with caution. He gently beached his craft, and, after wrapping the mooring line securely around a tree stump, slipped quietly up a path that he thought should have been more overgrown.
Three rotting steps elevated him to a porch with warped and broken planks that were littered with the detritus of the decaying mansion. Weeds grew in abundance through cracks in the boards. Cobwebs hung in profusion. The front door gave the appearance of not having been opened in many years. From darkened recesses came the sounds of things scurrying. The strange, acrid aroma he first had smelled earlier that day now was much stronger, burning his eyes, nasal passages and throat.
Larrigan edged carefully across the littered surface of the porch. He paused at the sill of a pane-less window. As he craned his neck to peek into the old house, the front door suddenly burst open. It so startled Larrigan that he nearly wrenched his neck as he spun to face it. The action frightened him almost to the point of panic. Instinct urged him to run, but reason prevailed. He held his ground.
After a moment, a kindly, reassuring voice called out, “Welcome, young fellow, welcome. It isn’t often that a lonely old man gets a visitor way out here.”
The fear began to ebb, replaced by a mixture of relief and curiosity. Larrigan approached the door and peered beyond it into the shadows. He could distinguish the outline of a stooped, aged man. Encouraged by the presence of another human, he boldly entered.
Once inside, Larrigan discovered a rather pleasant, comfortable atmosphere. It was permeated even more strongly, however, by that same strange odor that was so tantalizingly familiar, yet unidentifiable. He felt ashamed of his earlier burst of fear. His host’s appearance seemed benign enough. He was an elderly gentleman with a white goatee wearing a worn and faded smoking jacket that seemed to stretch nearly to the floor. He reminded Larrigan of an evanescent Southern aristocrat, an anachronism from a bygone era.
Small in stature and somewhat bent with age, the old man hobbled forward, briar pipe in hand, to greet his guest. “To what good fortune do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” he said with a warm smile.
“Curiosity, mostly. I saw this place earlier today and decided to have a closer look.”
“Well, you are most welcome here. Will you join me in a drink? You must be quite thirsty after traveling through such an oppressively hot evening.”
Suddenly a bit uneasy, Larrigan said, “A drink of what?”
“Why… a drink of… bourbon, of course. I always drink bourbon,” his host said graciously.
“Bourbon? Sure, that’ll be fine.”
The old man hobbled over to a small table. On it were two glasses, a decanter of bourbon, and a small bucket of ice cubes. It occurred to Larrigan that the ice was curiously out of place in this wilderness setting. He wondered where and how it had been obtained.
The old man poured a generous amount of bourbon into each glass and added a few ice cubes. He limped back toward Larrigan, gently swishing the ice around in the glasses. The warmth of the room caused the cubes to begin to melt rapidly, returning to its liquid state.
He handed a glass to the journalist and said, “A toast to you, my young friend, for ignoring silly superstitions to bring some moments of pleasure and companionship to a lonely old man.”
Larrigan acknowledged the toast and raised the glass to his lips. As he sipped its contents, he suddenly identified the strange odor. Brimstone.
As the old man raised his own glass, the action caused the hem of his long robe to rise. Larrigan shot a quick glance at the old man’s feet. His heart froze within his chest. Now he understood why his host seemed to hobble. In place of feet, he had cloven hooves.
The squall raged with unusual fury around the fishing camp. Inside, Taggart and the two Englishmen sat at the small table, playing cards.
“Dammit, Major, you’ve gone and done it again!” Taggart said above the din created by the raindrops pounding on the shack’s tin roof. “Why do you keep dealin’ four hands? There’s never been no more than jest the three of us here. What the hell’s the matter with you?”
“Yes, terribly sorry, old man,” Smythe-Thomas said, his natural florid complexion reddening even more. “It is strange, but even you’ve done it a time or two.”
“It is most queer,” Sir Edward said quietly. “But I, too, have the strangest feeling that someone else ought to be present. I simply cannot imagine who it could be.”
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