They settled down to wait for Rocky and they both knew Rocky would find them. Markel waited grimly, because if his theory were correct Rocky was a threat to his dream.

Against the cliff Markel built a crude lean-to and the Earth Mother picked flowers, hanging them around the walls. Markel, working constantly, made several traps for Rocky in the area around the ledge. When he finished these there was nothing to do but wait.

Markel liked it there. Big autumn clouds shadowed the ledge; mist drifted in the green valleys in the mornings and at night the loons called through the wind in the woods. The Earth Mother grew tan in the sun and she sang to herself. Markel sat by the waterfall, cleaning and polishing the M-1. And, inevitably, one morning Rocky came.

CHAPTER III

He came walking across a hogback and Markel, watching through his binoculars, grinned and inspected the M-1 again. For an hour he watched Rocky, until he was hidden by the slope. Time passed: silver, morning time. Then a yell shattered the stillness and Markel was up and running down the path.

Where the ledge began to dip onto the slope he found Rocky. He almost bumped into him. Rocky hung upside down over the path, his right ankle noosed in a rope that was tied to a bowed sapling, his head about on a level with Markel's. "Crisake! Get me down outta here!" Rocky said.

Markel stood silent. Coming up behind Markel, the Earth Mother stopped, saw Rocky, and screamed half-heartedly.

"Hey, doll! Get me down outta here, will you?" Rocky said.

"I don't want nothing to do with vampires," she said.

"You outta your mind? Come on, get me down!"

Markel said, "I told you he wasn't a vampire."

"Yeah? Then why ain't he dead?"

Markel jabbed Rocky's chest with the muzzle of the M-1. "Precisely what I want to know, Rocky. As our girl friend puts it, why ain't you dead?"

"Look, man, I'm getting dizzy. Cut me down, then we'll talk."

"I'll give the orders, Rocky. What are you, Rocky?"

 Prev. P 16/25 next