seeds alreadysprouting in the kitchen gardens. The leaves that had jumped out on theold fruit trees. The lambs and calves capering in pastures washed withthe green of new grass.
The road was smooth, its ditches cleared and deepened. Bright clothingnapped on shiny new clotheslines (those were on the list, but how canyou identify a roll of wire?). Cordwood was stacked in every yard. Newshingles spotted the roofs, the windows held glass again, fresh paintglistened on porches. In the fields, corn and oats and hay were shootingupward....
Jerry found the Carvers waiting for him, their wrinkled old faces tense.They didn't answer his greeting, just jerked their heads. They led himpast the cabin, through open brush, and halted at a bare place. Slowly,Jerry sank to his knees.
Except for its size, it could have been a splayed-out cougar print. Butit was two feet across, and pressed more than an inch into the hard, drysoil.
Finally Ed Carver nudged Jerry. The gnarled finger pointed to a twig ofwild lilac eight feet off the ground. Caught on the twig were severalcoarse black hairs, six inches long. Jerry looked from them back to theCarvers, then down at the ground again. He didn't speak. What was thereto say?
As they started back toward the cabin, Ed Carver said harshly, "We foundthat two nights ago."
Jerry brooded for some distance, then he said, "Ned Ames has the besthunting dogs in the country."
They looked at him disgustedly.
"Dammit, you have to do something! Come back to town with me. We'll getsome of the boys together, and hunt it down."
They had passed the cabin and reached the car. The Carver brotherslooked out over Dark Valley and shook their heads. "We've lived alone,"Ed said. "We'll fight alone."
When Jerry told the sheriff about the giant spoor, Watson gave aderisive snort. "Those old coots got bats in their belfries!"
"But I saw the print."
Watson dismissed such evidence with a wave of his hand. "They made itup, probably. Forget it till you see the animal itself. You'll have timeto believe it then. We got enough to worry about already."
Jerry couldn't forget it. But there was a kind of reassurance in suchhearty skepticism. With each passing minute, that huge print seemed moreunreal.
* * * * *
Halfway through the valley they stopped to look at the river. The bedwas half full--muddy, debris-laden, with a sheen of dust on the surface.But it was water--wet, tangible, undeniable.
Watson took off his hat and rubbed his head and swore.
"Good afternoon."
They turned. Joe Merklos was smiling at them.
"Hello," Jerry said. Watson just glowered.
Merklos moved beside them and looked down. His brilliant teeth flashed."Good, is it not?" The guttural words came out flat, one at a time, asthough shaped carefully.
"Better than money, in this part of the world." Jerry's eyes narrowed."Did you know about the water when you bought the valley?"
Merklos smiled again. He was bare-headed, dressed in dark trousers and aloose, short-sleeved blouse. His neck and muscular forearms gleamedbronze in the sunlight. "You like what we do here?" he asked in hisdeep, hesitant manner.
"You've done wonders," Watson said shortly.
Merklos' smoky eyes held Jerry's. "My people are used to work."
Slowly, significantly, Watson said, "The thing we don't understand ishow you managed to bring so much equipment. The exact things youneeded--right down to the last nail."
Merklos' inscrutable gaze swung around. The smile lingered on his face."We are a careful people. We plan a long way ahead."
Watson opened his mouth for another question--and shut it. Merklos'attention had left them. The man was listening, his head slightlycocked. After a moment he turned. "I am happy to see you making a visit.I hope you come again." He nodded and walked swiftly away.
Wordlessly, Jerry and the sheriff got back in the car. "Could you hearwhat he was listening to?" Jerry muttered.
"I didn't hear a thing."
"Notice anything else about Dark Valley?"
* * * * *
Watson shook his head.
"No flowers. Not one dog." Jerry's hand tightened on the steering-wheel."And who has ever gotten a single, clear look at one of the kids?"
Jerry spent a restless night. On the way to his office the next morninghe met Watson, talking to a farmer on the courthouse steps.
"Listen to Carson, here," the sheriff said grimly.
Carson's straw hat bobbed as he talked. "I'm waitin' to see the farmadviser. Somethin's gone wrong out at my place on the South Fork. I'm ongood bottom land--highest yield in the county. But in the last two,three weeks my corn, my wheat, even my berries has _stopped growin'_!"
Jerry's eyes jumped to Watson.
"Yep," Carson went on, "every single ear o' corn is still a nubbin." Hethrew out his arms. "And, by God, even my wife's radishes has stoodstill. Ain't anything on earth that'll slow up a radish."
"How about other stuff? How about eggs?"
"Same thing. Cut right down. Hens lay one in ten now, mebbe. An' myalfalfa has turned a funny gray-green. Even the fruit--"
"What about the river?" Watson broke in. "You still got water in theSouth Fork?"
"Way down for this time o' year. But we got enough."
Several people had stopped to listen. One of them, a big, tow-headedSwede, burst out excitedly. "Mister, you got the same trouble as mycousin. His crops, they're growin' _backwards_!"
There was more of the same impossible talk. Jerry made an excuse to getaway to his office. He sat at his desk and stared out the window.
There wasn't any problem, he tried to tell himself. Anything he couldnot measure by experience and logic was out. And that had to includegiant paw-prints and mysteriously missing objects as well as radishesthat wouldn't grow.
Dark Valley was taking on life and freshness. Fact. The South Fork, andportions of the North Fork, seemed to be losing fertility. Fact. But toconclude from this that Dark Valley was gaining at the expense of theothers--that was the road no reasonable man could allow himself to take.
From his window, he saw the huge old trees that shaded Wide Bend. Theylooked suddenly wrong. Weren't they less green, less thick than before?The buildings and streets looked dingier, too. And when did all thosebroken fences, cracked windows, missing shingles show up...?
Jerry lunged from his chair and strode up and down the room. Then thetelephone bell tore through his nerves. He grabbed the instrument.
"Watson. I just wanted to tell you, two boys have been reportedmissin'."
"No!"
"The Simmons kids. But they've run away before. They'll be back."
Jerry's hand went slowly down. The sheriff's voice echoed hollowly fromthe lowered receiver. "Well, won't they?"
* * * * *
It was after midnight when the doorbell rang. It didn't wake Jerry--hewas sitting in bed, staring into the darkness. There was a pile of booksbeside him; he knocked them over getting up to answer the door.
Mike Carver stumbled in. He dropped into a chair, panting. Jerry wentfor a bottle and glass. Carver gulped the drink, then held the tumblerout for another.
"I run all the way down the ridge," he gasped, "till I catched a ride. Ifiggered you ought to know what happened. It got my brother Ed."
Jerry's lean face hardened.
"Yeah. It was prowlin' around. We went after it, an' shot it."
"But you said ..."
"I said it killed Ed." The old lips tightened. "We gave it one slugthrough the heart and one through the head. They didn't even slow itdown."
"You mean," Jerry asked carefully, "that they didn't have any effect atall?"
Mike nodded. He tipped the glass, wiped his ragged sleeve across hisface, and rose.
"Where are you going?"
"Back to the cabin."
"Mike, you can't go there!"
"That's where my brother's body is."
; "Look," Jerry said evenly, "you can't help him now. Stay here with me,and we'll go up in the morning."
Carver shook his head. "My brother's there at the cabin. I got to set upwith him." There was no arguing against that tone of simple and utterfinality.
"All right. Wait till I get some clothes on, and I'll drive you back."
A few minutes later they passed through Wide Bend's deserted streets andstarted out the road to the valley. Carver rolled down his window andspat tobacco juice. "Feller was up to see us," he said gloomily.