The Whitewright Sun (Whitewright, Tex.), Vol. 56, No. 31, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 28, 1935 Page: 3 of 8
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A
’Thursday, March 28, 1935.
PAGE THREE
THE WHITEWRIGHT SUN, WHITEWRIGHT, TEXAS
EBONY WATERS
By ANNA McCLURE SHOLL
Y
•Y
was
Balder
told,”
MODERN
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fre-
t
J
W'
4k.
•=
“He was nearly dead
A
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CHAPTER IX
Wilton had not seen anyone from
the academy for several days, and he
was all the more anxious because the
notes in the old tree had ceased. The
end of a morning’s impatience was
the mile walk to the tree through the
nipping air.
“I am on a fruitless errand,” he
muttered. “If there’s no note I am
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When the news of Appomattox
reached Washington, Lincoln when,
asked to make a speech called on the
band to play Dixie.
the bit of paper. It had a queer, fishy
look to me. I says to your friend,
‘Miss Bernice never wrote this note.”
“Who did, then?” Wilton broke in.
“I asked that same question,” said
Arthur. “Jerry wanted to know if I
had seen Balder anywhere, and then
we both agreed that, whoever wrote
the note, only Balder could keep an
appointment at the whirl. Haskell
has never been up the ravine since
the Bracebridge children were
drowned there, Jerry tells me. We
decided at once to come to the mouth
of the gorge and look for footprints.
We both felt that Balder had decoyed
you up there with a fake note, it was
for nothing short of murder. We
found the prints at once — Balder’s
huge footsteps, and the smaller ones
we knew were yours. Then we hur-
ried like mad.”
Wilton grasped their hands. “God
bless you! I made him know I knew
—that he had killed the Bracebridge
children!”
His two companions gasped.
“There’s his weapon! He pointed,
to the tree. Jerry and Arthur gazed
in horror at it.
“I always knew somethin’
wrong,” Jerry muttered.
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might hurt somebody.”
“What are you in the way for?”
The words conveyed more than
their obvious meaning, and were ac-
companied by a sound, half laugh,
t half snarl. Nature in framing Balder
on a great scale had perhaps for the
warning of others presented him
without disguise of the inner man.
Over his broad, blank countenance
i something passed like a cloud, oblit-
I___x:_______ i.:~_________ i___x Txr:ix„»^
going on to the academy. He couldn’t instinctively felt that he was in great-
But there was a note and he
opened it greedily. It had neither be-
ginning nor ending—only the few
lines:
“Meet me Thursday afternoon at'
three, just above the whirl—onathej
dangerous side. We’re not likely to '
be followed there.”
He went back to tell Jerry that he
would be gone all afternoon in case
any of his pupils conceived the holi-
day to be at an end. Jerry, half
asleep over the fire, raised himself,
viewed his lodger benevolently and
nodded again. Wilton went into his
bedroom and made ready for a cold
afternoon out of doors.
He had to make a long detoui*
around the shores of the lake to
reach the entrance to the ravine, but
a cart road opened between the pines;
and in the heavy silence of the win-
ter landscape he trudged, brushing by
evergreen boughs and shaking off
their weight of snow in a powdery
cloud. He saw the dark waters of the
ravine creek between the white
banks, and found the path that
skirted “the dangerous side” without
much difficulty. The wild and lonely
gorge was magnificent. Icicles hung
from monstrous black boulders; the
dark water seemed to be churning up
ice-like cream. The air stung as if
full of invisible frost needles.
More than once he paused to see
if she were in sight; to see if she
were following him up the dangerous
qjath which at times measured its
width by inches above the ebony
water. Here and there a fallen tree
sent the foam high where the impetu-
ous current broke against its bulk.
“Poor children,” he thought, and
then: “If there had been time to get
a message to her I would have
bidden this. Dangerous—much
dangerous.’*
But he plodded on, thinking
quently that he heard the snapping of
twigs behind him. “We can’t talk
long! We’ll have to be out of this
place by four o’clock,” he thought,
“or we’ll not see our way back.”
He slipped on a bit of ice and
caught himself just in time to save
him from going over the bank into
the welter of hurrying water. His
anxiety was very great. Bernice.must
never venture such a thing again.
The path had become a mere
thread at the bottom of a precipice.
The great fall hung just ahead of
him. At its foot the vortex was in
full swing. The whirl was dancing a
mad defiance of winter; even zero
cold could not harness it.
He did not care to gaze at it too
long. “What a place! She must nev-
er, never come here again.”
Turning quickly, he slipped, but in-
stantly regained his balance by a vio-
lent lurch backward. In the same
moment he felt the heavy impact of
something against his shoulder—a
glancing blow—and wheeled around
to find his hands violently and in-
stinctively clutching the square green
base that he knew very well indeed;
the base to which was attached the
old tree.
At the other end of the tree was
Balder’s dark and angry face, watch-
ful, keen and sly. Wilton had a cine-
ma flash of events converging to and
diverging from this encounter. Mov-
ing across this screen were figures
both familiar and strange—Bernice
in her patient beauty; Haskell roam-
ing the old academy like some were-
wolf; the immobile waxen children.
That glancing blow on his shoulder—
was it an accident? He would soon
know—and along the avenues of his
mind approached another figure—
himself, tragically snared.
“See here, Balder,” he tried to
speak with friendly indifference. “Be
a little more careful when you’re
throwing rubbish into the whirl. You
“Wilton! Wilton!”
Wilton had suddenly sunk down on
the rock, feeling faint, not really
sure that Balder had been gulped
down the black, icy throat of the
whirl. He turned his head and saw
Arthui* and Jerry hurrying up.
“Thank God, we’re not too late!”
“Too late!” he pointed to the
whirl. “He’s gone—there’s no get-
ting him out of there now.”
“You don’t want him out, do you?”
“He sprang at me—he meant—to
throw me in.”
“That’s plain enough. We saw it
all! We came up like mad—nearly
fell in ourselves once.”
“How on earth did you track me
up here?”
“You dropped this.” he held out
the note. “I missed you by five min-
utes. This bit of paper was lying
near the gate. Looked to me like
Bernice’s handwriting — and I
couldn’t help but read it. I went in
and asked Jerry if you had gone to
the whirl, because it seemed strange
to me! Bernice is sick in bed with, a
cold.”
“‘The whirl!’ I says,” broke in
Jerry. “ ‘No man in his senses would
go up that ravine in dead of winter—
it’s known to be dangerous’.”
“ ‘A man in love might,’ I told Jer-
ry, but as it happens Miss Brace-
bridge couldn’t keep this appoint-
ment, if it’s a genuine one.”
“I knowed it wasn’t when I read
make no bargains. He ain’t open and
square like that. He hints—walks all
around his design, never comes out
bold and free with it. But he pays
high for little jobs—moving trunks
or books—five hundred for moving
his books after—”
“After you struck one of the
Bracebridge children with this weap-
on and cost the lives of the others,”
Wilton finished deliberately. He
knew he had taken away forever his
chance for life, but in this last grim
hour it was a satisfaction to wring
out the truth; and it comforted him
to add to the indictment “Your mas-
ter, Haskell, never wanted to go with
those four young people to protect
them, but to steal up behind them as
you did. He urged them not to tie
themselves together in this Alpine
game they were so fond of playing—
he urged them—not for their safety;
he knew their aversion to him, and
knew they’d do exactly the opposite
of what he told them.”
Balder regarded him with round,
ugly eyes in which a tiny gleam of
admiration flickered. “You’re a
psycho—what? Mebbe there’s some-
thin’ in it. Mebbe it’s gospel truth.”
“And maybe it’s gospel truth that
when Jerry found you in the vege-
table garden you had beaten him
there by about twenty minutes, I cal-
culate. And maybe it’s gospel truth
when he said, ‘All four drowned,’ you
knew right away it was children—not
sheep! You didn’t ask one question!”
“You d—d spy, you! I know
you’ve been spyin’ on us ever since
the first afternoon when you walked
in the evergreen walk with your cloak
flyin’—like a great bat.”
“You talk as if the establishment
down there wouldn’t set anybody
spying.” The psychologist in him was
uppermost now, obliterating even his
sense of danger in the effort to track
down the curious states of mind of
Gordon Haskell and his confederate.
“And when I find an old Christmas
tree in its stand carefully preserved
behind a locked door, I know that
fear is back of its being there. You
were afraid to burn it! Somebody
might be looking on, and you were
afraid they would see in your face
that this tree is ‘a horrible tree—a
I tree of death.’ Oh, a murderer is al-
ways seeing trifles as huge signposts.
The universe is one great eye, and
the eye is on him. You bring it down
with its flag on—because you don’t
dare not to notice it when Jerry is
with you. If you’re careless toward
that tree—if you leave it up here, its
very look will tell some passer-by
there’s something wrong with it.”
Balder grunted. “You know a lot
—you do!”
“Yes—I know that undiscovered
murderers can poison the very air
about them. The infection of small-
pox would be light in comparison.
People weren’t afraid of the figures.
They were afraid of what they stood
for—horror and a strange, hidden
killing, a wrecking of all the joy and
innocence of life.”
“Ya-ah! You’ve talked too much!
You’ll never talk again!” He rose
slowly; then, with a spring like a
jungle beast, he leaped for his prey.
Wilton had already calculated that he
had but once chance for his life—to
face his foe, never taking his eyes
from him, and, when he sprang, to
• dodge him with the hundredth chance
of himself hurling Balder into the
whirlpool. As the huge creature
jumped, Wilton dodged. Balder had
over-calculated the width of the ledge
and landed on its extreme ice-cov-
eded edges. He slipped, and .for a
fraction of time performed a strange,
wild piroutte, his long arms like the
huge wings of a sawmill in motion.
Then, with a shriek that echoed and
re-echoed between the bleak walls of
the gorge, he plunged into the whirl.
His great body was swung around
and around like a cork for a moment,
then disappeared. Shouts at the
same moment reverberated above the
roar of the fall.
CONTINUED—CHAPTER VIII ; ’ ’
Arthur felt safer himself for her do more than shoot me!”
company, and they went cautiously
•down the main staircase, the lamp
casting a circle ahead of them whose
edges Mrs. Denver viewed fearfully.
In the lower hall they paused.
“That pounding comes from the
Lasement.” Her voice was faint.
“Listen 1—someone’s calling—as if
Tor help.”
Muffled imploring sounds reached
them. Once they thought they made
■out the word “Balder.”
“Oh, well, there’s nothing for it
but to go down to the basement.”
“These sounds seem to come—
from where the figures are!”
She grew white. “Mr. Fleming,
you don’t think he’s—killed!”
“A dead man couldn’t make such a
racket.”
He moved toward the basement
stairs and began to descend, his com-
panion close beside him. At the foot
they paused. “Yes, it’s down that
way!”
Someone was pounding on the in-
side of the door which guarded the
figures. As they neared it—a sin-
gular spectacle met their eyes. Gor-
don Haskell’s face, over which the
"blood was running from a cut on his
forehead, was framed in the circular
inset of glass. His eyes, wild with
fright, glared out at them for an in-
stant. Then he shouted: “Let me out
of here.”
“Where is the key?”
He called directions. Arthur went
on to the next room, found the loose
brick and the key. Mrs. Denver was
close at his heels, very pale, but she
said nothing. Arthur unlocked the
door and Haskell stepped out panting,
growling, wiping the blood from his
forehead.
“That brute Balder locked me in
here for a practical joke, I suppose.
S~ I was looking—for something I drop-
ped here yesterday, and he slammed
the door to. I was helpless. One can
only open it from inside—with the
key. In my haste I fell and cut my-
self. Fleming, will you bring that
candle?”
Arthur went into the schoolroom.
The candlestick stood on the old desk,
imparting to the old place the appear-
ance of a school in which the pupils
. had been kept too late. Mrs. Denver
glanced at the figures apprehensive-
ly. The golden heads were bent. How
terrible if they should look up, all of
them! Haskell, in slipping, had evi-
dently hit his head against the iron
leg of a desk, for there was blood on
the floor close to the feet of the little
waxen Isabel.
He had disappeared when they
came out—and they heard his foot-
steps echoing off toward his own
quarters. Arthur and Mrs. Denver
looked at each other with mutual in-
quiries as to the significance of this
so-called practical joke.
“He was afraid,” she uttered sol-
emnly. “He was nearly dead of
fear!”
“Of course! That’s why he slipped.
He scarcely knew what he was do-
ing.”
“Why did Balder lock him up?”
“To pay him off for something—
I suppose.”
“Why is he so afraid of the fig-
ures?”
“Perhaps he didn’t treat the Brace-
bridge children as he should. They
certainly hated him. I think the night
will be quiet from now on, Mrs. Den-
ver.”
| erating even his purpose; but Wilton
I er danger than he had ever* been in
his life. Life! it might be measured
only in moments now.
Then a terrible fear. Had this man
been sent to kill them both—had he
, already killed Bernice?
He tried to think calmly and to de-
cipher the black shadows on that
huge face.
Baldei’ said: “Let go that end. I’ll
give it another throw.”
“You let go your end. I am near-
est the stream.”
For answer Balder’s hand gripped
the tree trunk tighter. Wilton no-
ticed the bits of .tinsel still wound
about one dry stump of a limb.
“It’s time that Christmas tree is
thrown away,” he said, realizing in
the same instant that such comments
could not but make his situation
worse.
“It’s my business, not yours. Turn
around now.”*
“What for?” Wilton asked, trying
to speak carelessly.
“Do as you’re
roared.
Wilton’s thoughts raced on* To\
make a sudden dart for liberty was
impossible. The fellow could over-
take him with three swings of his
great legs; only strategy availed now.
Balder seated himself on a fallen
limb, and, in this position, so steep
was the cliff, he seemed almost hang-
ing above Wilton’s head. The latter
thought best to drop the base, and he
let it down gently so as not to jerk
the trunk out of Balder’s hand.
“Pleasant spot,” Wilton remarked,
“though it must have looked different
the day the Bracebridge children
were drowned.”
“A grunting voice came from
above, “This ain’t an easy place to
leave.”
“I mean to leave it.”
“You do—do you?”
“Certainly. I must get back be-
fore dark.”
“Suppose you never went back?”
“What do you mean?”
“Suppose you stayed here?”
“I have no intention of staying
here.” He spoke firmly, but his inner
terror revealed to him at last what
connection lay between his own im-
mediate danger and a long ago trag-
edy. The withered tree was the link
—again to be an instrument of
death. “Throw in your tree when
you choose. I am going home.”
Balder’s laughter echoed even
above the roar of the fall. “I weigh
two hundred and ten pounds. I am
six feet three in my socks. My
muscle is iron. ‘And you—you are
just a schoolroom plant. I listened in
at one of your teaching times. You
said more about nothin’ than any man
I ever heard talk. You don’t deserve
to live, you don’t!”
“And maybe I don’t deserve to die
any—more than—” he paused, then
hurled his boomerang — “the Brace-
bridge children. Am I to have the
same execution?”
He knew he had signed his own
death warrant, but at least he could
bring for one instant into stark day-
light the suspected crime whose shad-
ow lay along the corridors of Lost-
land Academy and haunted its decay-
ing rooms. The great face above him
grew quite livid for an instant, but
no rebound of denial came from his
lips.
“How much is he going to give you
for this job?”
The boldness of the question dis-
turbed Balder’s poise. His snarl
came slowly, uncertainly. “He don’t
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Doss, Glenn. The Whitewright Sun (Whitewright, Tex.), Vol. 56, No. 31, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 28, 1935, newspaper, March 28, 1935; Whitewright, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1230784/m1/3/: accessed July 8, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Whitewright Public Library.