The Invaders | Page 4

from the sheriff."
Watson hoisted his big frame, and sighed. "Jerry's right, boys. We got a nasty situation building up. Right now, my old woman's so mad at the Dark Valley people she could spit. And why? Only because she can't figger 'em out."
He brushed his mustache and looked at Tipton. "Them people are human bein's, ain't they?"
Tipton scowled, but nodded.
"Anything they done that couldn't be explained by natural causes, no matter how silly or complicated?"
Tipton thought about it, and had to shake his head.
"Believe me, boys, the only thing to get excited about is the stuff that's missin'. If they're pinchin' it, we can catch 'em, and punish 'em. They may be foreigners but they sure as hell have to obey the law of the land!"
"Now," Hammond said, "we're talking sense."
"Give me a list of what's missin'," Watson added, "an' I'll go to Dark Valley this afternoon and take a look around the place."
"Everybody satisfied?" Jerry asked.
Everybody was.
* * * * *
Sheriff Watson frowned at the list as Jerry drove into the first barnyard. They scattered chickens, ducks, and children--seen blurrily as they scrambled to hide. They remained a few minutes, ostensibly visiting, then went on to the next farm, and the next....
Beyond the last one, on the rise that led to the Carver cabin, Jerry stopped the car. They looked at one another. Watson rubbed his face irritably. "I'm beat, Jerry. There's somethin' here I can't get my hands nor my head onto."
"I know."
The sheriff banged one big hand against the crumpled list. "That butter churn of Mulford's. By God, I saw it! Same brand, same color. Even had scratches around the base where that old cat of his sharpened her claws."
"I know," Jerry said again. "But it had a letter 'Z' cut into it. Worn and weathered, so you'd swear it had been there for years and years."
"That spring-toothed harrow of Zimmerman's."
"Except the one we saw had twelve teeth instead of fifteen. And even the man who made it couldn't find where it had been altered or tampered with."
It had been the same with a score of other things. Each one slightly changed, just different enough to make identification impossible to prove.
Slowly, Jerry said, "Wood gets weathered, metal oxidizes, honest wear is unmistakable. And these all take time, which can't be faked."
His implication hung in the air. If the things had been stolen, then altered to avoid identification, whoever did it had more than human ability.
"Magic," Watson muttered.
"There's ... no ... such ... thing!"
"No, there absolutely ain't."
They sat looking with troubled eyes out over Dark Valley, till Jerry said abruptly, "I'm going on up to see the Carvers."
Watson reached for the door handle. "They don't have no use for me. I'll wait here. I got plenty to think about."
Jerry nodded. The sheriff would be remembering the seeds already sprouting in the kitchen gardens. The leaves that had jumped out on the old fruit trees. The lambs and calves capering in pastures washed with the green of new grass.
The road was smooth, its ditches cleared and deepened. Bright clothing napped on shiny new clotheslines (those were on the list, but how can you identify a roll of wire?). Cordwood was stacked in every yard. New shingles spotted the roofs, the windows held glass again, fresh paint glistened on porches. In the fields, corn and oats and hay were shooting upward....
Jerry found the Carvers waiting for him, their wrinkled old faces tense. They didn't answer his greeting, just jerked their heads. They led him past 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. But it was two feet across, and pressed more than an inch into the hard, dry soil.
Finally Ed Carver nudged Jerry. The gnarled finger pointed to a twig of wild lilac eight feet off the ground. Caught on the twig were several coarse black hairs, six inches long. Jerry looked from them back to the Carvers, then down at the ground again. He didn't speak. What was there to say?
As they started back toward the cabin, Ed Carver said harshly, "We found that two nights ago."
Jerry brooded for some distance, then he said, "Ned Ames has the best hunting dogs in the country."
They looked at him disgustedly.
"Dammit, you have to do something! Come back to town with me. We'll get some of the boys together, and hunt it down."
They had passed the cabin and reached the car. The Carver brothers looked 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 a derisive snort. "Those old coots got bats in their belfries!"
"But I saw the print."
Watson dismissed such evidence with a