The Wish Hounds

Sharyn McCrumb

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Oak. Ash. And thorn. Those were the hard ones. His classmates had all

been assigned yard trees, he thought. Pine needles. Maple leaves.

Things that even a first-grader could find, but he was the one who made

the best grades and hardly had to open a book, so Teacher had given him

the toughest task.

His assignment might take a bit more time than pulling leaves off your

mother's rose bush, but he would manage. He'd had the school bus ride

home to think it over, and by the time the bus reached his house, he

had figured out where to find those trees. The big oaks grew on the

steep hillside above the barn, and in the fall their changing leaves

made a banner of gold beside the green pines and the dull brown of the

locust trees on the higher mountain beyond. On his ninth birthday —

last October — his grandfather had pointed out the golden oaks on that

hill, noting that one of the old ones, lightning-struck, was dying, and

would make good firewood for the coming winter. That was how he knew

where to find oak.

He had gone there first, scrambling up the hillside and yanking a

smooth, undamaged leaf from one of the lower branches. He tucked it

between the pages of his science workbook. Later tonight he would glue

it in and label the page: Quercus. English oak. Had these oaks always

grown here, or did the settlers bring acorns with them to the New

World? Teacher was one of the new people from the development up the

mountain, and she was always going on about how people tamed the

wilderness, but, though he didn't dispute her in class, he thought

there was another side to that story. Kudzu, for instance. The dumbest

kid in the class got sent to find that leaf, because it was everywhere.

Brought over from Asia to stop erosion a hundred years back by

well-meaning new people. Idiots. The thing stopped erosion all right.

Then it engulfed all the local plants, and now it looked like it was

going to swallow up everything, even covering the ruins of old

buildings out in the fields.

His grandfather said that they ought to have named the fancy

development up on the ridge "Kudzu City" instead of "Hunting Hills." Be

more fitting, he said. Strangers often meant trouble, even if they were

just plants.

A sweat bee buzzing around his forehead reminded him that time was

passing, and that it would take maybe an hour's ramble through the old

fields to finish the rest of the task. He shouldered his backpack and

started down the hill toward the creek. The sun was slantwise in the

sky now, almost low enough to blind one walking westward. Maybe an hour

of daylight left, maybe less. Night came fast in the valley, once the

sun slid below the mountain tops, and then, homework or no homework,

his mother would expect him on the doorstep, hands washed and ready for

supper.

Ash. Ash was next on the list. The valley didn't have any of the tall

straight ash trees — the kind they make baseball bats out of. Those

grew higher up the slopes — too far to go in late afternoon for one

fool leaf. He would make do with the other kind — mountain ash. The

crooked little trees that flowered white in May just when school was

letting out for the summer, and sprouted red berries right before it

was time to start back in the fall. If you followed the creek out of

the pasture and through the woods, you came to the ruins of a log cabin

in an abandoned field. Whoever had built the place had planted a

mountain ash tree on either side of the cabin door. The birds had

probably eaten all the berries by now, but he didn't need them anyhow.

Just a single small branch with the thin, raggedy leaves, like fraying

threads on an old green blanket.

He wondered if Teacher would even know the difference between ash and

mountain ash her own self. He supposed she could look it up in a book,

but he could always argue that she hadn't specified which sort of ash

she meant. It was a silly sort of assignment anyhow. Leaf gathering.

Sending the whole science class scurrying all over creation hunting up

willow fronds, dogwood leaves, redbud. Fanciful, his folks would have

said. Just what you'd expect from one of the kudzu people from the big

development on the side of Scratch Mountain, where the houses were as

big as barns, but the lots were the size of postage stamps. Hunting

Hills, indeed. And there was a curved brass hunter's horn mounted on

the stone wall by the gate house at the entrance to the development.

The houses cost a fortune, but they were all squashed together so close

that you could smell what the neighbors were having for dinner. Maybe

she was trying to learn all the local trees her own self, he thought.

Maybe trying to figure out what would look best in her little bitty

yard. The people on Scratch Mountain might live in the country, but it

seemed like they did their best not to set foot in it.

Thorn. When she assigned it to him, one of the girls had asked her if

she meant a rose bush, but Teacher just smiled and shook her head, and

then Tamara Harrison, who lived with her grandmother up in one of the

coves, started waving her hand in the air (as usual) and said, "We call

it blackthorn around here, ma'am."

So then he had known what she wanted without having to put himself out

by asking. Blackthorn. Teacher had called it hawthorne, but then when

they found it in the tree book and saw the nicknames it went by, she

allowed as how it was the American cousin of the plant she had in mind,

and if he could find one of those, it would do. She'd looked

embarrassed about it, as if they'd caught her out, and he'd begun to

think that she wasn't altogether sure what grew in these parts and what

didn't. Thorn was in the valley all right, but it would still take more

effort than most of the other ones assigned.

The sun was lower in the sky now, bleeding the color out of the spring

grass and turning the trees into dancing shadows.

Easiest place to find blackthorn was in the oldest fields, the ones

that had been pasture land before barbed wire was invented. He hadn't

known that, either. He'd stopped in at Harnett's Store on the way home

and asked old man Harnett, who was old enough to remember outhouses and

oil lamps.

"Why h'it's organic bob wire," the old man had said. "Them thorns work

just the same as the wire, so in the old days folks planted blackthorn

trees in a line, and kept 'em trimmed into hedgerows to fence in the

pasture. Couldn't no cow walk through a thorn hedge."

Sure enough, in the old field between the tumbled down cabin and the

creek, there was a line of shrubs so unkempt and weedy that it looked

like underbrush gone wild, but when he got up close, he could see the

sharp little thorns along the shoots of greenery. He had his pocket

knife to cut it with, but he still managed to prick his thumb trying to

hold the stem so he could lop off a twig.

He stuffed the spiky branch into the sack with the rest of the leaves,

and turned to look at the red glow of clouds on the horizon. All done

now. Oak. Ash. And thorn. An hour or so pasting the leaves down on

colored paper and lettering each page, and he'd be done with his tree

project. But he'd never make it home before dark, not even if he ran

flat out in a beeline for the family land. It was for school, though,

he told himself. Even his mother couldn't object to his doing his

homework, but she'd still be mad about him being out after dark. Ever

since that little girl from over in the Red Bird community had gone

missing last spring, the parents had been hellbent on getting the

young'uns home before nightfall, even big fifth-graders like himself,

who had his own .22 and went squirrel hunting with the menfolk.

He wished he had the .22 with him now. All of a sudden he had noticed

how almighty quiet it had become out here in the fields. Not even a

mourning dove to break the silence. Only the rustle of the wind in dry

grass and the thud of his own heart, and —

Far off. So faint that at first he thought he had only imagined it, a

deep, low tone echoing across the ripple of mountains. One long,

lowing, musical, but also in the gathering darkness, chilling. The

sound was growing louder now. Closer.

It was time to go home.

The boy looked around at the black shapes of trees on the ridge above

the creek. Was something moving up there? A lost bull, he thought.

Perhaps a buffalo. There used to be buffalo here once — in Daniel

Boone's time. Elk, too. Surely that bugling call was some great hoofed

beast bawling in its solitude. Closer, now. Now the metallic tone was

unmistakable. A horn. Hunters' horn.

Now, dropping his sack of leaves, he ran for the path at the far end of

the pasture. There was a cluster of odd-shaped boulders there, big

enough to hide under, so that horses couldn't run him down. His

grandfather had once told him that if he ever got scared out in the

fields — from a thunderstorm, maybe — that he should seek shelter among

those stones. So he ran.

He did not look back again. No time. No time. Running flat out now, his

breath knifing through his chest. Faster. A few more seconds would see

him safe. No looking back, but he could not help hearing the other

sounds now, a descant below the blaring of the horn. Hoofbeats. But not

cow. Not elk.

Horses.

Maybe a dozen of them. Coming closer.

Coming straight at him.

He almost made it to the circle of stones.

[IMAGE]

When the Winstead boy went missing last week, that made the fifth child

to be taken from here in a space of a year, and not even the state

police could find

anything that led to an explanation of who took them or where they

went. We're talking desperate here. Parents afraid to let their kids

out even in broad daylight. The Winsteads and the other grieving

families out of their minds with fear and sorrow, and screaming for

blood. The community knew it had to do something. Well, the old

community, anyhow. Nobody had gone missing from the fancy development,

so they weren't overly concerned about some missing locals. But

everybody else went to the meeting in the Free Will Baptist Church, and

decided that extreme measures were called for.

"Badger," Preacher said to me the next day, "We're calling in some

specialists in supernatural goings-on." Told me that they'd sent for a

big strange-looking fellow, kin to the devil, and hailing from the

place that is eternally hot.

"Well, bring him on," I says to him. "I've met folks from Florida

before."

Turns out, though, that this Hellboy fellow was a sight more tolerable

than the tourist types we usually get around here. He didn't seem to

think that the place was a theme park, for one thing. And he didn't

want to buy large chunks of land and then try to duplicate Tampa in a

cooler climate. He had even heard of our valley before.

"Abbots Ford," he said, turning the words over in his mouth until he

could place them. "Wasn't there a quantum physicist who came from here?

MacKenzie something? — No. Joshua MacKenzie."

"Oh, you heard of him?" I said.

"Only that he disappeared about twenty years ago. He was working on

some kind of army project dealing with — what was it? String theory or

something, and one day he just wasn't there."

"Maybe he got zapped by his own machine," I said. "But, yes, he was

born and raised here. Went off to the university, and people say he

never looked back. Maybe they'll put up a historical marker to him out

at the main road some day. But that's not what you've come about."

He grunted. "No. Missing children take precedence over misplaced

scientists. Odd that there weren't any ransom notes. You'd think — " He

nodded at the McMansions straddling the crest of Scratch Mountain.

"You've got the wrong end of the cow, son," I told him. "I expect most

of the people who live up there could raise a few hundred thousand to

get their child back. But the thing is: none of the missing children

came from up there. They were the farm kids from down here in the cove.

Families that have been here two hundred years."

We started down the road that stretched between the hills, dividing

meadows from well-kept yards and white frame houses. He digested this

information. "Only the old families. Did this kind of thing happen in

the past? Previous generations?"

I stared at him. It's amazing how many people put their mouths in gear

with their brains in neutral. "Well, no, it never happened before. Do

you think people would still be living here if they knew that the place

would take their children?"

He shrugged. "I never take common sense for granted. Do you?"

"Me? Oh, I mostly mind my own business," I said. "I wouldn't even be

out and about talking to you except for this trouble the community is

in. Since I'm an old-timer without a day job, people trusted me to show

you around."

"Where do you live?"

"Oh, just an old cabin up in the woods," I said. "Nobody goes there,

but I'm easy to find. Try the general store any time you want me."

We ambled along while he looked at the ground and touched the odd leaf

here and there, as if he thought the signs from the Winstead boy's

disappearance would still be evident. 1 thought about telling him how

many rainstorms we'd had since then, but then I decided that he was

just trying to get in tune with the land, so I held my peace.

"I have a case file on the missing children," he said at last. "But I'd

like you to tell me again."

"Not much to tell," I said. "The police can't make head nor tail of it.

We've lost half a dozen children in three years. Ages range from three

years old to eleven. Boys. Girls. There's no rhyme or reason that we

can discern in the disappearances. You'd think if it was a human

predator they'd be more — what's the word I want? Specialized, maybe."

He nodded. "If the explanation were that simple, they wouldn't have

called us in. We don't do run-of-the-mill human monsters."

"What do you do?"

"Vampires. Goblins. Things that people don't believe in — if they're

lucky."

1 nodded. I was thinking that taking one look at this guy would make

everything in the fairy-tale books seem downright plausible. If he was

possible, what wasn't? Hellboy was built like a thumb, lobster red with

two polled horns there on the front of his head, a great fist that

looked as if it was made of stone, and a long tail, just as if he'd

been a Hereford bull in a former life and didn't quite make the

transition. He didn't scare me, though. I was just glad that we were on

the same side.

"So how long have people lived in this valley?" he asked me, looking at

a split-rail fence bordering one of the old fields.

"Two hundred years or so," I said. "The settlers mostly came down from

Pennsylvania, following the long valleys that go like corridors between

the mountains. Before that, they were in the mountains of Wales or

Scotland, so I suppose they felt at home when they got here."

He nodded. "I wonder if they brought anything with them."

"Not much in the way of material possessions. But they carried a lot in

their heads. Fiddle tunes. Quilt patterns. The formula for whisky. Old

stories."

"Some memories are better left behind," he muttered.

"Well, people were pretty happy here as long as they got left alone. Of

course, property taxes may get to be a problem. Ever since they built

that excrescence on the ridge up there, the land values around here

have gone up like a SCUD missile."

"Well, if children keep disappearing around here, I doubt you'll get

too many prospective buyers — Hey, what's this?"

"Rocks," I said.

He gave me a look, so I elaborated on my answer. "Just some boulders,

Hellboy. They've been there as long as anybody can remember. People

used to have picnics out here and sit on them as if they were benches."

He was counting the stones, then running his huge hands along the

smooth gray surface of the nearest one. "Have they ever stood upright?"

I shook my head. "Not that I've ever heard. You mean like Stonehenge?

You don't think they're just a natural formation?"

"I don't know. They look too well-matched to me. Smooth and elongated —

like fallen statues. This was once Cherokee country, wasn't it?"

"Yes, but they didn't go in for great stone circles. Now out in Ohio,

you had the mound builders — giant earthworks in animal shapes. But not

here."

"Okay. Forget the stones, then. Any old Indian legends about monsters?"

"Sure. Everybody has monster stories. They had a cattywampus — that was

a big cat. I have my own idea about that, though. Around twelve

thousand years ago, when the ice age was on the wane, and the first

people moved into these mountains, there were monsters here. Mastodons.

Birds of prey with a tweny-five-foot wingspan. And sabertooth tigers. I

think one of those ancient tribesmen saw a sabertooth one day, and

talked about it for the rest of his days. That story filtered down to

us as a monster tale, but the core of the tale has a grain of truth. Of

course, there aren't any more tigers or mastodons around here. Turned

out that people were more deadly than the monsters." Hellboy grunted.

"I hear you," he said.

[IMAGE]

Hellboy wanted to talk to the people up in the McMansions on Scratch

Mountain, even though they hadn't lost any children to whatever-it-was.

"Will they talk to me?" he wanted to know.

Silly question.

He might be straight from hell and smell of smoke, but he was something

of a celebrity, wasn't he? Not a strip miner or a real-estate baron or

a mine owner, not anybody really bad enough to be staggeringly rich and

politically useful, but they reasoned that if the rumors about Hellboy

were correct, then his father was a former angel, which was something

like being the kid of an ex-senator — or better yet, the old man was

presently the ruler of hell, which made Hellboy just another dictator's

kid. Might as well make the acquaintance of the ruling family of a

place you may one day have to visit, right?

Damned if they didn't give him a reception.

I went along with him, since I was nominally his guide — not that they

expected me to know which fork to use, either. We didn't get too

dressed up for the occasion, since it was only an afternoon affair. I

went back to my cabin and put on a clean shirt. Hellboy kept on his

trenchcoat, and off we went.

The party was held in the Hunting Hills clubhouse, with all residents

present to get a look at the visiting celebrity, ask him fool

questions, and cast about for a mutual acquaintance. Hellboy stood

there glowering over a cup of punch and answered all the twittering

with a few curt words.

After a very few minutes of small talk, he worked his way to the portly

man in the dark suit who was holding a brandy snifter instead of a cup

of fruit punch.

Seeing Hellboy approach, the man broke off his conversation and thrust

out his hand, but one look at Hellboy's massive fist made him change

the gesture to a pat on the arm. "Glad to see you, Hellboy," he said.

"Benjy Geare. I'm president of the residents' association. I'd be glad

to show you around."

Hellboy grunted. "We need to talk about the missing children."

Geare's face assumed a suitably solemn expression. "One feels for the

parents, of course," he murmured. "But I would have thought the police

or perhaps the FBI might be handling it. We thought perhaps a child

pornography ring?"

"The children vanished from the valley. No strangers seen. No tire

tracks. We've pretty much ruled out the simple answers," said Hellboy.

"I just thought it was funny that no children from up here have gone

missing."

Geare shrugged. "We have been fortunate. Or perhaps more careful. Are

they keeping the children indoors these days?"

"I think the Scouts are still having their campout tonight," I told

him. "But they'll all be together."

A smiling blond woman thrust a silver tray of hors d'oeuvres between

the two of them. "Canape, Master?" he said.

I reached for one, but Geare waved her way.

Hellboy stared after the retreating woman. "Master?" he said.

Geare shifted uncomfortably. "Just a nickname," he said quickly. "Now,

I wanted to — "

He was interrupted again, this time by a sleek couple who tapped his

arm and said, "Good night, Master."

Hellboy did not react to their farewells addressed to him. He was

staring out the clubhouse window at a bright sunny afternoon. For the

few more minutes that he stayed at the reception he seemed distracted.

Finally he mumbled his thanks for the party and strode out the front

door, with me hustling along trying to keep up with those long strides

of his.

"I was born in England," he muttered. Then he said, "You go home. I'm

going to walk around and think about this."

[IMAGE]

Some of the oldest land on earth. These hills were the western remnant

of a mountain chain that had once soared higher than Everest, broken

apart by tectonic forces and now divided by the width of an ocean. The

Appalachians, islands in a sea of time, were moored on one side of the

Atlantic, while on its eastern shore lay the other half of that ancient

chain — the mountains of Britain. In the 18th century when the pioneers

arrived in this wilderness, they knew they were far from home, but

something about these mountains looked right and felt right, and so

they homesteaded there in the fold of the hills — these exiled Scots

and Irish, the Welsh and the Cornishmen, all drawn to a strange but

familiar place, and never knowing that they were right back in the same

mountains they had just left.

But perhaps these people's frontier ancestors weren't the only

immigrants who had found sanctuary in these remnants of the ancient

mountains. Other beings had left the shores of Britain ... banished to

the lands in the west, according to the legends ... to the lands in the

west...

He walked along the dirt road in the gathering twilight, thinking about

strangers in a strange land, and wondering what other wanderers had

found themselves a home in these ancient mountains. Some things are

best left behind.

The wind had picked up now, and he hunched his shoulders and trudged on

toward the hillside pasture, listening for the sound of distant horns.

The fading light had leached the color out of the landscape, so that

leaves and grass were only different shades of gray, and the sky was

the color of pewter.

"Master," Hellboy muttered, and his customary scowl deepened. People

who said, "Good night, Master," in the broad daylight of a sunny

afternoon.

He'd only heard that greeting once, and that was back in his childhood

in England, years ago when Trevor Bruttenholm had taken him on a visit

to a country house in Sussex. The professor had driven up the long

track through ancient oaks and into the circular carriage drive in

front of the wide stone steps of the manor house. The lord of the

manor, a minor aristocrat named Foley, had been expecting them, but

first he'd had to take his leave of his other visitors. Foley, it

seemed, was the master of foxhounds with the local hunt, and the side

lawn of the manor was now filled with red-jacketed fox hunters astride

thoroughbred hunters. Hellboy remembered comparing his own out-sized

fist to the rock-like hoof of a bay horse and wondering if they were

kindred spirits. It had been a friendly horse, not at all discomfited

by the sight of a small red demon capering at its feet. He had stroked

its plaited mane and allowed it to sniff at his stubbed horns.

It had been a bright, crisp autumn afternoon, but the departing riders

had each saluted their host and said, "Good night, Master."

"But it isn't night," Hellboy had murmured to Bruttenholm.

"It's an old custom," the professor told him. "No matter what time it

is, the traditional valediction when one takes leave of the master of

the hounds is Good night, Master."

Hellboy had not thought of that oddity from that day to this, but

suddenly hearing the phrase again in the club room of Hunting Hills had

made him realize who these people were. What they were.

[IMAGE]

There it was... only a faint moan, muffled by the trees on the nearest

ridge, but unmistakably a musical thrum sounding in the distance ...

Hunting horns. Hellboy nodded grimly, a suspicion confirmed. Hunting

Hills might be a newly built community of outsiders, but this gathering

was very old, indeed, only it had always been associated with a

different place — with these mountains' kindred hills an ocean away in

Britain. The Wish Hounds... the Wild Hunt... the Devil's Huntsmen ...

They went by many names in the folklore of England and Scotland and

Wales, where they still told tales of spectral beings who rode across

the moors on dark nights, with a pack of phantom hounds baying at their

horses' heels, hunting — not foxes — but humans out wandering alone in

the night, never to be seen again.

Hellboy scowled in the direction of the dark hillside. "Bring it on,"

he muttered to himself. He was heading for the cluster of elongated

stones that hadn't looked accidental to him. Maybe once, long ago,

somebody here remembered, he thought.

The bugling of the horns was louder now, and he could hear the clatter

of hoofbeats in the distance. Maybe the hunters were headed for that

Scout encampment, where many of the local children would be gathered

around tents and campfires, but the hunt would have to pass by here

first. He didn't have much time to stop them, but he did have a hunch

about what might work.

He reached the cluster of toppled boulders, and ran his hand along the

nearest one, feeling its cold rough surface, and faintly a tingle of

something, as if it vibrated in response to the spectral music. He

knelt beside one of the fallen stones and, pushing with all his

strength against it, he began to shoulder the massive rock upright into

a vertical position. And then he propped up another, opposite the first

monolith, creating a portal. Stone after stone, pushed upright like

petrified giants — as they must have been erected by the first people

to settle this ancient valley. The Cherokee? The Scots-Irish pioneers?

Long ago someone had known about the hunters of men.

The last and smallest stone he hefted easily — three men could have

done it by themselves, he supposed. With a bound he executed a perfect

lay-up, setting the elongated boulder neatly atop the two parallel

stones — the lintel crowns the posts. The stone archway was once more

in place.

He could see the riders now. He wondered if they would also be visible

to ordinary people, or if they would only be sensed as a force of

terror. But Hellboy could see them: gray riders on dark horses

thundering across the colorless field in the twilight. They were

heading straight for him.

He stood in front of the stone henge, arms folded, waiting for the

huntsmen.

As they clattered closer, he could see that the riders swathed in black

cloaks were human-shaped, but not in any sense human. Their eyes burned

in white death masks and each grinning mouth was a rictus caricature of

a smile. The black hounds flowed across the landscape with gaping jaws

and glowing eyes.

Several of the riders started to cut away from the pack as if to ride

around the stone arch, but he sprinted off in front of the horses and

punched one of them squarely between the eyes. The black beast

staggered for an instant, and then the rider drew rein and galloped

back toward the others.

Hellboy chivied and punched, kicked at phantom hounds and charged at

demonic horses until finally the huntsmen galloped through the stone

archway — and vanished.

The stones crackled with blue flames as Hellboy edged toward them, and

then with one great kick he toppled the standing stones. There was a

flash and a rumble, and then darkness and the night silence of a

country meadow. Off somewhere an owl called out. The Wild Hunt was

gone.

Hellboy nodded with satisfaction. "One other thing Bruttenholm told me

about the customs of the hunt," he muttered. "Whoever opens the gate

always has to close it."

[IMAGE]

Awhile later he knocked at the door of a small ramshackle cabin on a

ridge near the creek. When the old man peered out through the half-open

door, Hellboy said, "It's taken care of, Badger."

"It was the new people, wasn't it?"

Hellboy nodded. "But you knew that, didn't you — Dr. MacKenzie?"

The old man sighed. "You'd better come in."

The cabin, a rustic ruin on the outside, was all chrome and glass and

polished oak within. Rows of bookshelves lined the walls around the

fireplace, and a computer held pride of place on the round walnut

table. "I wanted to come home," he said simply. "I wanted to spin out

my little theories on physics in pure abstraction, but the people I

worked for wanted weapons made. So I left."

"And they never found you?"

"Well, they're looking for a Fulbright scholar and a quantum physicist,

not a crazy old coot in a shack. And the new people — even the human

ones — would never look for a scholar here." His accent had flattened

out now, and the eyes of a shrewd and learned man looked out of his

lined, genial face. "The killers weren't human, were they?"

"No. You knew that, I suppose. You took me to those stones."

"Well, I knew nobody else would believe me if I started babbling about

supernatural beings, so I thought: fight fire with fire. Hence: you,

Hellboy. I did think there might be some sort of interdimensional

quality to those monoliths, and I had to hope you'd figure it out and

that you'd have the power to send them through it into wherever they

came from."

"I did. You're safe now."

The old man gave him a sad smile and pointed to a coffee mug emblazoned

with the logo of Hunting Hills. "Oh, don't you believe it, Hellboy," he

said. "There are some gates that can never be closed."

Hellboy nodded. "Good luck with the new people," he said.