The Nine Pound Hammer (11 page)

“A root,” Si replied dryly, placing the cluster in a sack.

“I know that,” Ray said. “What kind?”

“That’s the bindweed,” Conker explained. He then pointed to a number of sprouts pushing their way from the leaves and bracken. “Look over there. See them, with the little green leaves. Those are Indian cucumbers. Dig up some of them.”

Ray pulled out the silver dagger. “No, don’t mess that up,” Conker said. “Here you go.” He handed Ray a brown-handled barlow knife. Ray unfolded it, got down on his knees, and began to dig the plants from the ground.

“I don’t remember Mister Nel mentioning these,” Ray said.

“No, they ain’t for Nel,” Conker said. “They’re for Ma Everett. She likes these for pickling. Awful good, too.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Si said. “You usually eat the whole jar before anyone else gets a taste.”

Conker chuckled as he looked for more plants. While
they worked, Conker explained how to look at the leaf configuration and what nuts the squirrels were collecting and the fleshiness of fruit to determine what was edible. Ray caught on quickly how to spot curly dock and cattail stands, wild plums and black walnuts.

After an hour, they had found all the roots and herbs Nel needed, along with many greens, fruits, nuts, and tubers for Ma Everett’s kitchen. By the time they returned to the
Ballyhoo
with the berry-red sun setting in the west, Ray’s head was swimming with all Conker had shown him.

Si took the sack for Nel to his car, while Conker and Ray headed for Ma Everett’s mess car. She wouldn’t use their findings tonight, as the table was already set for supper. As they approached her car, Conker stopped Ray.

“I been thinking on that lodestone of yours and how come it led you to us.”

“Oh, yeah?” Ray asked, pulling his thoughts from the lists of wild plants he had learned.

“What about the dreams?” Conker asked in a low voice. “Maybe another one of them dreams will tell you how come the lodestone stopped moving when you got here.”

Ray nodded slowly, remembering the horrible hound. The idea of seeing it again frightened him. He would have to muster all his courage. “I’ll let you know what happens.”

“Do that.” Conker smiled. “Come on. Let’s eat. I’m starving.”

*  *  *

That night, after a long, raucous meal followed by a concert in the moonlight by the Everetts and Nel, Ray made his way to his room. He untied the twine knotted around the lodestone. As he undressed and pulled the quilt up over his waist, Ray took a deep breath and clutched the lodestone, holding it to his chest.

Soon he fell asleep.

He dreamed of the Hound.

Ray again found his vantage point in the dream to be that of the man who was helping Buck and the girl escape
.

The man ran faster than before, fueled by something stronger than fear. He had to lead the Hound away from the trail the other two had taken through the swamp. He gauged his speed, not wanting to go so quickly that the Hound caught the others’ path. The frosty beast was slowed by its sheer size. Small trees toppled as it passed, but also hampered its pursuit
.

Reaching the edge of a pond, the man rushed into the black water, wading at first with great steps and eventually having to swim. At the far side, he pulled himself up, heavy with mud and rank water as he turned to wait
.

A howling wind had risen. The trees all around croaked and groaned with the force. He planted his feet at the edge of the water and touched his hand to the flannel bag at his belt. His wet clothes began to harden with ice. Shivering, he stomped his feet and shook his arms as he fought to keep the deadly cold from slowing his movements
.

Caught in the roar of the wind were a thousand smaller horrible sounds; whines and moans—like the rusty gears of a long-fallen machine suddenly coming to life—pierced his ears. Plants that had barely felt a frost, rarely seen a snow, never had a hard freeze, suddenly all constricted at once with the plummeting cold. There were snaps and screeches like taut wires breaking apart. And under all the noise came a low, guttural growl. The man shifted his feet and opened the red flannel pouch tied to his belt
.

Across the pond, a snout emerged six feet above the frozen bracken. White teeth bared. Clouds of frost puffed from its white nose. The snout pushed forward, revealing steel-colored eyes. The hungry rumble from its chest shook the earth. Squeezing out from the trees, the Hound toppled full-grown cypresses at their roots until it stood opposite the man at the other bank of the pond. The beast pulled back and unleashed a hurricane-force roar
.

The man’s clothes tightened across his chest, rippling at the back. He had to take a step to brace his stance. Bitter cold encased him, stiffening his muscles into knots. The trees behind him exploded into a thousand shards. A white wave of solid ice swept out across the pond, encasing one of the man’s tall boots where he stood. He pulled a yellow stub of tallow candle from his flannel pouch and held it at his hip
.

“Come to me, Hoarhound!” he cried. The beast responded with another roar. The man’s shirt and pants became a heavy plate of ice. The man raised the candle and it
burst into flame. An enormous orange light surrounded him. The Hoarhound stepped out onto the ice, cracks extending from its heavy paws with each step
.

“Come, you clockwork devil, so I can drive you back into the Gloaming, where you were forged!” the man shouted
.

The Hoarhound continued forward slowly. Its fur was bone white, as were its curling gums and claws. It lowered its face until its nose was nearly touching the frozen pond
.

With his other hand, the man removed a small, wrapped parcel of ground herbs. He squeezed it until the paper crumbled in his palm. The Hoarhound reared back on its haunches, its muscles tightening like the coils of a spring
.

As it leaped forward, the man cast the powder into the air in a great arc. It caught fire and swept out to meet the Hoarhound in an explosive collision. For a moment the spot, midway across the pond, burned in a blinding flash. The man rushed onto the ice, running toward the wall of flame. Out of the light the Hoarhound burst, teeth snapping, swinging its jaws back and forth. Frost-laden wind whipped apart the flames
.

The two fought: The Hoarhound with its clanking jaws and hammerlike snout. The man with charms of root and bone, powerful talismans of glass and stone. Finally, when his charms were exhausted, the man leaped upon the beast in a frenzied impact: fire meeting ice, fur and flesh, man and hound
.

Ray knew—the man knew—that he would not defeat the beast. He had to escape. Mustering all his strength, all his power, the man changed. He transformed. At that moment, as he was disappearing from the swamp, transporting himself a great distance, the jaws of the beast closed over his hand, teeth sinking into bone
.

The two locked together and vanished
.

Ray woke with something heavy shaking his shoulder. A pair of full-moon eyes peered out of the dark. “You okay, Ray?” Conker asked.

Ray sat up, trembling with the nightmare vision and struggling to regain his senses.

“I heard you from the hallway. Thought you might be catching fever again—”

“No. I did it!” Ray opened his damp palm to show the lodestone.

“You have that same nightmare again?” Conker asked, squeezing into the shallow space on the floor by Ray’s bed.

“I saw what happened after that monstrous hound found the man. It’s called a Hoarhound, and it’s mechanical. The man knew that, the man who I was in the dream. He had this pouch with all these charms and objects inside. He was so powerful.”

“A Rambler!” Conker gasped.

Ray mashed his fist to his temple, thinking. “Has Buck left the medicine show recently?”

“He’s always leaving unexpectedly. Disappears for a few days or a few weeks, then comes back.”

“When was the last time?” Ray asked.

“Left maybe a month ago. Got back”—Conker paused, his eyes widening—“around the same time Nel bought that car.”

“A month ago, Conker,” Ray said. “That was about the same time I started dreaming of the Hound. The same time the lodestone began guiding me here.”

They were quiet a moment before Conker asked, “Why’s the lodestone showing you that man?”

“I don’t know, but I know who does,” Ray said.

“Buck?” Conker’s eyes bulged.

“I don’t mean Buck,” Ray said. “I mean the girl.”

“The girl from the dream?”

“What if Buck brought her here after they escaped from that Hoarhound? She could be the one who was singing in that locked car.” Ray tapped a finger to his chin. “Will Si help us?”

Conker whistled a low, cautious whistle. “She won’t like this. … ”

Ray was certain she wouldn’t.

W
ITH LITTLE JEWELS OF DEW STILL SPARKLING IN THE
grass, the busy work of preparing for the medicine show began. Nel shouted instructions from behind the briarwood pipe clamped in his teeth. Place the stage there. Hoist the tent. Tie the curtain a little higher on the
Ballyhoo
. Put those crates of tonics up on the stage.

Soon all the supplies from the boxcar were unloaded. The timing was right. There wouldn’t be anybody around the locked car.

As Ray and Conker secured the ropes for the tent, their eyes flickered toward the back of the train.

“She said she’d do it?” Ray asked as he held the peg for Conker to hammer into the soft earth.

“Took a little convincing,” Conker whispered. “I had
to tell her about your lodestone and the dream. Hope that’s all right?”

Ray nodded. “Sure. When’s she doing it?”

“Now. Look! Here she comes,” Conker said, wrapping the rope around the peg and tightening the tension on the tent.

Si had a bundle of ribbon in her arms to rope off the performance area. She was grinding her teeth when she reached Ray and Conker. With a quick glance around to make sure nobody was listening, she growled, “Okay, I unlocked the door. I hope you two know what you’re doing.”

“Thanks, Si,” Ray said. “I really appreciate—”

Si snatched Ray by the collar of his shirt, pulling him down until they were nearly nose to nose. “If you get us into any kind of trouble doing this, you won’t have to worry about what Buck does to you … ’cause you’ll have me to deal with. You understand?”

“Y-yes,” Ray stammered. “I … just want to find out why the lodestone led me here. That’s all.”

Still holding Ray’s collar tightly, Si shook her head in confusion. Conker reached in to gently pull Si back. “Don’t worry, Si. You can trust him. Ray’s a good guy.”

Si let go of Ray’s shirt and began untangling the ribbon.

Conker looked around. “Okay, Ray. Buck’s over there talking to Mister Everett. Looks like everyone’s out here working. Get on over there and be back quick, before someone notices.”

Ray gave one sly glance around the lot as he adjusted
his cap. Trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, Ray cut through the gap in the
Ballyhoo’s
cars and turned once he was on the back side of the train.

When Ray reached the car, he walked tentatively up the steps. He decided to give a knock, rather than just barge in. “Hello,” he called softly. There was no answer, and he grasped the handle.

The door opened with a click, and he slipped inside.

His eyes took a moment to adjust after the bright sunlight outside. The interior was a vast boxcar with narrow windows near the ceiling, but they did little to illuminate the dark. The first quarter of the space was an ante chamber with a dresser decorated with a solitary oil lamp. This seemed ordinary enough, but what surprised Ray was that the remainder of the car was encased in glass three-quarters of the way to the ceiling and filled with water. Wax and pitch sealed the seams.

What was this? he wondered. Where was the girl? There was a dresser, but no bed, no chairs. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe Buck and Nel were not hiding the girl here. So what was so important that Nel and Buck needed to act secretive about a circus car full of water?

As he faced the tank, Ray felt a chill come over him.

Slowly he approached the glass. The tank must have extended to the other end of the car. Ray squinted but could not see that far. As the light from the narrow windows entered the water, it dwindled rapidly into deep midnight murk. Ray leaned closer and pressed his hands to the
glass. Had he heard something? A splash, maybe. He listened. There was the faint ring of hammers in the distance, but the tank was silent. For an instant he thought he saw a shadow move in the watery gloom. His pulse quickened as he put his nose nearly to the glass.

A burst of bubbles struck the tank in front of him, scattering like a school of minnows. Ray yelped and jerked back from the glass. When the bubbles parted, a face appeared before him. For a moment, Ray was panic-stricken that the girl might be drowning in the tank. But then he saw her expression; it was not the face of one drowning.

The girl’s face was placid with a hint of curiosity, but Ray perceived a cool malice from the storm-cloud-colored eyes. She seemed that uncertain age between a girl and a young woman, with her bracken-brown hair drifting in a tangle of twists and snares. Hovering in the water, she wore a greenish gown that clung to her bare ankles.