Page:Weird Tales v01n03 (1923-05).djvu/94

Then her attention centered on Margaret. She stood erect. Her face betrayed no sign of fear. Instead—she smiled!

Then, as Jennie watched, Margaret moved toward the door, opened it, and walked out into the night.

She was never seen again!

Jennie called to her frantically, but there was no reply. She had moved as one might walk in a sleep-her eyes wide open, but fixed straight before her, gazing vacantly.

Within the next three months, until about the beginning of the spring rains, other strange things occurred in the valley.

Lucy Duval met the monster at dusk one evening as she followed the path through the woods behind the Rhodes' place. She had swooned from terror, and, recovering, fled in panic to her home, fainting again from exhaustion as she reached the door. Safely within the house, she noticed for the first time that her long hair, which had been coiled upon her head, now hung unfettered. The pins and two side-combs, which had held it in place, were missing! Aside from the shock she was uninjured.

A school child, too, saw the beast as she came from school, and while it was yet daylight. Her parents went in frantic search when she failed to arrive at the usual time, and found her cringing in terror by the roadside. Her leather school-bag, containing her books and writing materials, was nowhere to be found.

It was a very long time before the child recovered from the fright inspired by "the big hairy man" as she described the monster.

Again, on a gusty, moon-haunted night, it was heard by Jule Darien and his wife—right in their yard! Had they dared, they could have looked from the window and seen it, but instead they bolted the door of their room and lay face down upon the bed—a fact they were not at all ashamed to admit.

In the morning Jule's clothing still fluttered from the rope clothes-line, which spanned between oak trees in the yard behind the cabin-but every garment belonging to his wife had disappeared! An even greater misfortune was the loss of three soft, heavy, woolen blankets. But Jule Darien and his wife considered this a trivial matter in view of the fact that they had been unharmed.

It was Delia Callahan, of all the valley folk, who found aught that was amusing in these uncanny doings.

"It's true-as ol' man Gibson's always maintained-th' devil's a woman; ain't it proven, right 'ere in th' valley?" she demanded. "An' it's an eddication she's goin' to git, too. Some fine day she'll be comin' to th' school wi' her books in th' school bag, an' her hair done up wi' Lucy Duval's side-combs, an' like as not a' dressed up in Fan Darien's clothes. Ha! Ha!—it's too funny!" Shaken with laughter, she rocked back and forth until tears rolled from her bright blue eyes.

But she was quite alone in her mirth, for there was none who laughed with her. None dared to laugh. They feared to make sport of The Evil One.

The long winter broke at last with a protracted period of drenching rains. Never in all the experience of the valley dwellers had there been so much rain in such a length of time. Rivers could not be forded; the rich, loamy soil was washed in great patches from the fields; little gullies, usually dry, now ran brimming with muddy water. Cattle were drowned and the spring planting was long delayed.

But when the sun again broke through the gray clouds people began to remark that for a long time they had not heard The Thunder Voice.

As a matter of fact it was never heard again.

SO RAN the stories, and so often did my grandfather tell them, in order to humor my childish demands, that at length I could repeat them all—just as he told them, and almost word for word.

One by one, the years dropped into history, and recollection of "The Thunder Stories" came to me but rarely; and brought, instead of thrills of horror, only a mild amusement, as I would reflect on them as folk-lore of the Valley of Trelane.

But, there was the disappearance of Margaret Kingsley. That was difficult to explain away. A normal, healthy young woman walks out into the night and is never seen again!

Hunters accustomed to trailing animals and Indians utterly failed in their efforts to find her, or to track this evil monster to its lair. Often its spoor was plainly marked—a four-toed foot of unfamiliar shape. Bloodhounds had been brought from a distant settlement; but, as with the human hunters, the trail ended at the base of a huge white-oak tree. There the dogs looked up and whined; they could follow the scent no further.

Along with fairy tales, and stories of grim giants, told to me in childhood days, these stories of the Thunder Voice might have passed into hazy forgetfulness, but for a grisly reminder which occurred while I was studying to become a physician.

In the college I found much interest in visiting the library and poring over bound volumes of The Medical Journal. Some of these dated back to many years before my birth.

It was while reading one of these that I suddenly started into quickened interest at sight of a familiar name—Bartien Delloux!

For a few moments I could not recall where I had heard the name, and then came back to me my grandfather's stories. I pictured again, as I had often done before, the log cabin peopled with sympathetic neighbors come to console Bartien Delloux. The dead body of his wife in an adjoining room. The dull rumble of distant thunder, with now and again flashes of lightning. And then, suddenly, from out the black night—The Thunder Voice!

It was he—the same Bartien Delloux—his name handed down on these age-brown pages in a history of most unusual kind.

A physician had told the tale in plain matter-of-fact language. Briefly it was as follows:

A patient, who said his name was Bartien Delloux, lay dying in a charity hospital. He asked for a priest. The priest remained with him until he died. Then, coming to the doctor, the priest had remarked:

"I think that man's story is of more concern to your profession than to mine. I'm sorry you didn't hear it."

"How so?" the doctor inquired.

"Well, because it dealt with the bodily, not the spiritual side of life. It was not confided to me under the sanctity of the confessional, for the man had nothing to confess in the matter. He simply wanted my opinion, and if possible some comforting assurance. Given under these conditions I can repeat it to you."

Urged by the doctor, the priest continued:

"At one time the man lived in one of the Eastern Townships of the Province of Quebec, in a district known as the Valley of Trelane. Once a year it was his custom to go to Quebec and market his stock of furs, for, like others who dwelt in the valley, he combined the pursuit of farmer with that of a hunter and trapper.

"On one such trip his wife accompanied him. This was against his wishes, since the journey at that early day was beset with dangers and hardships.

"One day, as they walked about the city, they came upon a tentshow, stationed on a vacant lot. Outside the tent,