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Chapter VI. I Buy A Gun · The House of Skulls

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  Chapter six of the House of Skulls by H. Bedford Jones. This LibriVox
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  recording is in the public domain. Read by Ben Tucker. Chapter six,
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  I buy a gun. I asked Dawson about big birds, but he said
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  there was nothing larger than a buzzard around the lake, and presently I went
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  home again. The rest of the day passed quietly, and after writing a
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  few letters, chiefly on business, I went to bed and slept the sleep
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  of the just I was well satisfied with my new home, and for the
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  coming six months, my partner in New York could run the decorating business without
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  my aid, so there was nothing to worry me. The next morning,
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  I was up and off early, this time in the canoe, and got
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  in an hour's fishing before sunrise, although it was distinctly the wrong season for
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  fish. I trolled down along the shore of the reed beds and picked up
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  two fine bass, both over three pounds. About sunrise, I headed for
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  home, well content with the results. I wanted to at Lakeport this morning,
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  chiefly to see if there was any news from my Los Angeles bank about
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  those checks. That Balliol had struggled along in poverty on his ranch as the
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  newspaper account had said, was quite absurd. That he had died in poverty
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  with eleven thousand dollars in his pocket was entirely nonsensical. Across the little bay
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  from my place, I paused. Suddenly. I had already learned from neighbor
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  Dawson that Balliol had obtained his skull decoration from relics of the red Men,
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  so their gruesomeness was removed in some measure, But that did not explain what
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  I now saw. As it chanced I had found a pair of field glasses
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  in the niche and the cobbled chimney, and had brought them along. Now
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  I raised and focused on my house rather on the front wall under the veranda,
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  where the skulls were located. To my uneasy surprise, I found my
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  eyesight corroborated. The eyes of those six skulls were gleaming and flaming with a
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  brilliant Crimson optical delusion. Not a bit of it reflections from the rising sun
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  on the concrete which filled the skulls to the bone level. Not a bit
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  of it. Such reflections would not come in a scarlet flame from the eyes
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  of each and every skull They were reflecting the lurid sunrise squarely at me,
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  of course, but those hollow eye sockets were filled with red fire. I
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  dropped the glasses, seized the paddle, and spurted for home, savagely,
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  determined to run down the uncanny hoodoo which had settled on this house of mine.
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  As I drew nearer to my landing, I could see those red skull
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  eyes flaming more and more distinctly. There was no optical illusion whatever. Then
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  I was in the boat house beneath the bluff, and of course the house
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  was shut from view. Making fast the canoe, I paused to pick up
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  a broken oar to serve as club, then ran up the path, puffing.
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  I gained the bluff in front of the house. Confound it, I
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  exclaimed, blankly. Am I going off my head? The crimson flame was
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  gone from the skull eyes, there was not a sign of it in the
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  sockets. The white cement came close to the surface, and there could be
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  no mistake. I was completely taken aback by this startling development. Of course,
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  I told myself there must be an explanation. Perhaps the sand in the
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  cement was glassy and at certain angles reflected the sun. That would be plausible
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  in a single instance, but it would not do for twelve eye sockets.
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  Whatever the explanation might be, it was certainly beyond my comprehension. Then again,
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  the color of those eye sockets had been a distinct blood hue. As
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  I stood there staring at the cement wall, I jumped. Suddenly from the
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  kitchen of the house came a banging crash, and I remembered a double boiler
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  I had set out on the stove. Someone or some thing was in the
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  kitchen and it knocked it over. Swearing under my breath, I leaped to
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  the veranda and ran through the house. Now I glanced at every room in
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  my course, and I can swear that the house was absolutely empty. So
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  was the kitchen when I reached it, yet by the stove, whence it
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  had obviously been knocked by some direct agency. The double boiler lay on the
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  floor, a pool of water surging from it, and running directly to the
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  stove. From the doorway, but not back again, was a single line
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  of muddy tracks. They were the tracks of the pterodactyl. I was staggered
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  right enough, a prehistoric monster with a wing spread of twenty five feet does
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  not hide easily in a bare kitchen. Yet I looked around as if expecting
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  to see the brute before me. Then I rushed to the windows. The
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  yard was absolutely empty. The monster might be somewhere in the encircling trees.
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  It might have flown out and down in the lake while I was coming through
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  the house. But by the gods, it had been here. Those muddy
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  tracks on the floor reassured me, certified to my sanity and common sense.
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  Hastening outside, I looked around the barn, which served as garage, was
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  empty. I could discover no hole about the house where any such beast could
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  hide. I flung my club, whirrying in the nearest trees, and strode
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  back into the house. Damn it, I remarked, as I set about
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  cooking my two fish. I'm going to get a shot gun and settle this
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  mystery. I don't believe in fictionists dreams coming true. And as for this
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  flying dragon, I'll settle him with buckshot if I get one crack at him.
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  The red eyes of the skulls had paled into insignificance before this mysterious visitant,
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  and I forgot the lesser matter for the time being that double boiler knocked
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  off the stove, and those muddy tracks settled the pterodactyl once and for all
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  as a living creature, and I meant to go after him. I only
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  regretted that I must have missed him by less than a minute. My second
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  day in my new home was beginning in a way to make me realize why
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  Balliol had come to Los Angeles with the jumps riding him. An hour after
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  these things happened, I had closed up the house and was chugging merrily away
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  from the boat house. In my launch. Navigation was no difficult problem here.
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  I merely had to head straight up the lake, which I did.
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  The voyage was monotonous, as are all launch trips in ordinary craft, and
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  as I throbbed along the wind ruffle water, the memory of m j B
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  recurred to me with a twinge of self irritation that I had not even her
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  name. Why had she warned me? And who was the dark complexed chap
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  who had cut at my tires back at mc gray's tavern, and who had
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  fired that shot at me? These were perplexing problems, but m j B
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  was more perplexing. Yet I once again pictured her face before my mental vision,
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  the trim sweetness of her, the capable manner which she wore, the
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  energetic womanhood that lay in her blue eyes. Hang it, i exclaimed,
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  I'm getting romantic. It won't do Yorke Desmond. You'll never see that girl
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  again, So forget her. Easier said than done. I was still thinking
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  of her as I tied up the dock at Lakeport and walked up town,
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  past the library to the main street, and within five minutes I was thinking
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  of her again. The telegraph office was a dingy little place, messages being
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  received here by phone. When I inquired for any wires, the young lady
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  in charge handed me an envelope. I found it to be a night letter
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  from the cashier of my bank in Los Angeles. It read as follows,
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  check for ten thousand cashed yesterday, First National, San Francisco, returned here
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  this afternoon. Endorsements John Balliol, Martha J. Balliol, no further developments,
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  suicide, good luck with Ranch. The ulterior meaning of this message gradually
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  percolated through my brain, and I wandered forth to a bench on the court
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  House square and sank to rest. The check had been cashed. The same
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  morning I left San Francisco, and it had been cashed by Martha J.
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  Balliol, no other than my m j B. No wonder she had seemed
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  to know my name when she must have borne in her pocket that check of
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  mine. Balliol had given it to her the previous night, just before his
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  suicide. So much was evident. But she had been Balliol's sister, then
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  why she not admitted her identity. Perhaps she would have done so, I
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  argued, but for the news of her brother's death after that, to find
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  herself trapped in her brother's car with the man who had bought that car and
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  the ranch to boot must have disconcerted her immensely at first, And after telling
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  me that she was a friend of Balliole, she probably had lacked the nerve
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  to confess her white lie and give her real name. Perhaps she had merely
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  considered it unnecessary. I felt relieved, folly, though it undoubtedly was.
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  I'd indulged a secret conviction that m. J. B. Was Balliol's sweetheart.
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  Now she proved to be his sister. But although this fact afforded great
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  relief, it nonetheless gave me new anxiety. I've always noticed that girls,
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  especially very charming and attractive girls like Martha Balliol were all too seldom free in
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  heart whole. Somebody else always seems to get acquainted with them first. That
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  was one reason that I was still a bachelor. But never had I met
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  anyone like Martha Balliol. The more I thought about her, the more I
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  felt like a fool for having left her in San Francisco as i'd done.
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  At last, realizing that I had bungled everything very sadly, and that it
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  was now close to noon and I was very hungry, I got up and
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  sauntered toward the bank, seeking information. On the way, however, I
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  passed a hardware store and bethought me of the pterodactyl. There was an attractive
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  display of guns in the window, so I entered and besought the proprietor to
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  sell me a shotgun. What a license I suppose, he inquired amiably.
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  I'm the game warden here. You know, I don't know why you're going
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  after deer with a shotgun. I'm not, I rejoined, I'm going after
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  pterodactyls, and there's no close season on them. He rubbed his chin and
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  with a mystified air, agreed with me. Well, I reckon, not,
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  hey, you the man just bought the Balliol ranch. Yes, Desmond
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  is my name? Stark's mine, gladimet ye seen any ghost around there yet?
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  Ghosts? I met his eye and he chuckled, what do you mean?
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  Well, that place is belt right close to where the old engine chiefs
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  is buried. Can I hear tell their ghosts around there? At times?
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  Nothing doing? I rejoined cheerfully, Not so far. Anyhow, where's the
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  place to get a meal in town? Well? You might go several places,
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  but if I was you, I'd go up to missus St. John's
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  back at the court house. He directed me, leaving the shotgun till after
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  luncheon. I went to the boarding house back of the town square. Ghosts,
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  eh, that was a new angle at The natives played unpleasant jokes upon
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  John Balliol because of his skull decoration. No, the very notion was silly,
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  grave, stolid farmer folks like Dawson were not given to such trivial foolishness.
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  Besides, Balliol's affrighted nerves must have come from months and years of fear,
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  not days or weeks, and jokes do not extend over months and years.
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  I found the boarding house simple and thoroughly delightful, the cooking wholesome,
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  and the company very mixed, ranging from a stage driver to an itinerant preacher.
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  It was a warm noon, and conversation flagged. I was just finishing
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  my meal when in the intermittent and broken off speech of farming men, two
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  workmen at the other end of the table spoke. Heard young balliol sister come
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  in this mornin', said one. Uh, said the other, and looked
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  toward the stage driver. Good look or Matt. The stage driver glanced up,
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  got him? Be it all hollow? He observed, come in on
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  the morning train, goin up the lake, I reckon. I paid for
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  my meal and departed, feeling a bit dizzy Balliol's sister, what the deuce
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  was she doing here? Calling for my gun at the hardware store. I
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  arranged about mail at the post office and went down to the dock and out
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  on the dock all alone, she was standing. End of chapter six.