Cat and Mouse Page 4
this, absently smoothing the strange furon his knee. For an old-timer like himself, things weren't too hot inthis world. Fur didn't bring much of a price any more, and he couldn'tget it in as he had when he was younger. His wants were simple, butthere was a certain rock-bottom minimum he had to have. Too, the winterswere starting to bother him a little, the arthritis in his hands wasgetting worse every year, times he hardly had the strength in his lefthand, which was the worst, to hold an ax. Another five, ten, years andit would be the Pioneers' Home for him--if he did not get stove up orsick sooner and die right here in the cabin, too helpless to cut woodfor the fire. He had helped bury enough others, bed and all when theydidn't come down the river at breakup and somebody had to go up and lookfor them, to know it was possible.
The other world was milder, it had game and fur--good fur, too, from thelooks of it, something new that could lick any mutation or synthetic onthe market, and the income tax had still left a few fellows who couldpay through the nose to see their women look nice.
And, the country was new. He'd never thought he'd have a crack at a newcountry again, a new, _good_ country. Often, he'd thought how luckypeople had been who were born a hundred and fifty years ago, moving intoan easy, rich country like the Ohio or Kentucky when it was new, insteadof the bitter North.
The Harn would be a nuisance--Ed did not think of it as the Harn, ofcourse, but just as "they"--but he supposed he could find a way to cleanthem out. A man generally could, if varmints got troublesome enough.
And the man in forest-green whipcord, well, he _could_ have been just anhallucination. Ed did not really believe in hallucinations, but he hadheard about them, and there was always a first time.
Ed sighed, looked at the clock, measured the bottle with his eye--stillbetter than three quarters full.
All in all, he guessed, he'd leave the door into the other world open.
He put old Tom out and went to bed.
* * * * *
The first order of business seemed to be to get better acquainted withthe Harn, and first thing in the morning he set about it. He took therabbit out of the live box and tethered it in a spot in the other worldclose to the hole, where raw earth had been exposed by a big blowdown,sweeping the ground afterward to clear it of tracks.
Getting better acquainted with the Harn, though, did not mean he had tohave it come in and crawl in bed with him.
Before going to bed the night before, he had set half a can of snuff tosteep in some water. He loaded a bug gun with this and sprayed theground around the hole into the other world. From the reactionyesterday, he judged the stinging units did not like tobacco juice, andthis should discourage them from coming through.
He checked his bear snares and found three in good enough shape tosatisfy him--the large Harn beast, he suspected, would be about like agrizzly to hold. Three would hardly be enough for a serious trappingprogram. Ed made his own snares from old aircraft control cable, using alock of his own devising which slid smoothly and cinched down tight andpermanently. He got out his roll of wire and box of locks and startedmaking up some more, sitting where he could watch the rabbit he hadstaked out.
By the middle of the afternoon the snares were done, but there had beenno action with the rabbit, nor was there for the rest of the day.
In the morning, though, it was gone. There were three new sets of tracksin the bare spot--two smaller ones, either of which would have fittedthe stinging unit, and what looked like a carrier's. The action wasclear enough. The small things had prowled around the rabbit for sometime, stopping frequently as if uncertain and suspicious. Finally, onehad moved in, with a little flurry of action when it met the rabbit.Then it had moved back and squatted again.
The big tracks came directly to the rabbit and went right out again.They were heavy enough to be clear in the grass beyond the bare spot.
* * * * *
Ed went back to the cabin and rummaged till he found a pair ofsnakeproof pants a Stateside sport had once given him--heavy duck withan interlining of woven wire. They were heavy and uncomfortable to wear,and about as useless as wings on a pig in Alaska, where there are nosnakes; but they had been brand-new and expensive when given to him, andhe had put them away, thinking vaguely he might find a use for them someday. It looked like that day might be now.
He slipped them on, took his rifle and hunting pack, and set out tofollow the animal that had taken the rabbit.
The trail showed well in the morning dew, going straight away along thehillside as if the thing were headed some place definite. Ed followedalong for a quarter mile or so, then found himself on a fairly wellbeaten path, which presently joined another, and then another, till itwas a definitely well used trail. It began to look to him like the thingmight have a den of some sort, and he might be getting pretty close toit. He left the trail and climbed up into a lone tall tree,fire-scorched but still struggling for life. From there, he could followthe trail pretty well with his glasses for a couple of hundred yardsbefore he lost it. Finally, he settled on a spot under an old burntstump as a likely spot for the den.
He focused the glasses carefully and after a few minutes saw a flash ofmovement there, as if something had slipped in or out. Nothing elsehappened for about an hour. Then the grass along one of the trails beganto wave and a large beast, similar to the one he had shot, trotted intosight. It slipped in under the stump and disappeared.
For the rest of the morning, nothing went in or out.
There was a very good reason for this, and Ed was it.
* * * * *
All night and day after he shot the stinging unit and the carrier unit,the Harn had stayed in its nest. By the second evening, it was gettinghungry. It ventured out and found a few morsels, but the organizedhunting network it ordinarily maintained had been disrupted, it had losttrack of things, and the pickings were poor. Then it stumbled on therabbit Ed had staked out.
Its first impulse was to leave the rabbit strictly alone. In spite ofits early promise, the other world had so far given nothing but trouble.On the other hand, the rabbit was meat, and very good meat, by the smelland looks of it....
The Harn kept its observation unit prowling irresolutely around thetarget for half the night before it finally gave in to appetite and sentin a stinger to finish the rabbit off, a carrier to pick it up.
It was still uneasy about this when it noticed Ed near the nest the nextmorning, confirming its fears. It promptly broke up the net it had beenre-establishing and pulled all units back in. Maybe if it left himstrictly alone, he might still go on about his business, whatever thatwas, and let the Harn get back to its harvesting.
* * * * *
By noon, Ed was getting pretty stiff sitting in the tree. He climbeddown and eased over toward the stump, watching where he set his feet. Hewas pretty sure the snakeproof pants would stop the stingers, but he sawno point in putting them to the test until he had to.
About fifty yards away, he got a good view, and it did look like theremight be a sizable hole under the stump. He studied it carefully withthe glasses. There was a smooth-beaten mound in front, and exposed rootswere worn slick.
As he got closer, he noticed an unpleasant smell, and near the mouth ofthe den he got a sudden whiff that almost gagged him--a sour, acid,carrion stink like a buzzard's nest. He moved back a little. The holewas wide and fairly high, two or three feet, but too dark to see backinto. Still, he had a sense of something stirring there not too farback.
Ed had considerable respect for caves and dens with unseen occupants--hehad once helped carry in the bodies of two men who had poked a stickinto a spring grizzly's den. At the same time, he wanted pretty badly toknow what was in there. He suspected there was a good deal more thanwhat he had already seen.
The bug gun loaded with tobacco juice was in his pack, and a flashlight,a small light one designed for a lady's purse which he always carriedwhen away from camp. He got them
out and leaned his rifle against a rootsticking out just to the left of the den. Taking the bug gun in his lefthand and the flashlight in his right, he stooped over to shine the lightin, keeping as well clear of the entrance as possible.
All in all, he must have got about a five-second look, which is a lotlonger than it sounds when things are happening.
His first impression was a jumble--eyes, scurrying movement, and bulk.Then things started to shape up. About ten feet back from the entrancewas a huge, flattish, naked, scabrous bulk, pimpled with finger-sizedteats. Clustered around and behind this were a tangle of slinging units,carrier units, observation units. Some had their mouths fixed to teats.
For a long second or two the scene stayed frozen.
Then the front edge of the bulk split and began to gape. Ed foundhimself looking down a manhole-sized gullet into a shallow puddle ofslime with bits of bone sticking up here and there. Toward the near enda soggy mass of fur that might have been the rabbit seemed to be visiblymelting down. At the same moment,