A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, April 1950 — page 72: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

72 A; MERRITT’S FANTASY it'll do me another two seasons, now.” “A pause. All four eyed Gees almost furtively, and he sensed that they resent- ed his presence. The newcomer spoke: “Well, did ye find anything today in them woods?” “Aye,” said one of the three, dryly, and left it at that. ~ “You mean—that you got what done for poor little Letty?” the younger man asked. One of the three said: “I reckon we did,” and another put far more of cer- tainty into his somberly uttered: “Aye.” The tractor-man glanced at Gees, hesi- tated, and then asked: “‘What was it, then—a tiger broke loose?” “No. It were a cat. Just a cat, an’ not a tiger.’’ Gees heard a definite satis- - faction in that denial of the surmise. “But a cat could never—” the younger man began, and stopped. “Tt were a she,” his more emphatic in- formant said. “Laid up in a holler tree wi’ three kittens—well, near on half- grown, they was. An’ the mother was the biggest I ever see. Must ha’ weighed not far short of a stone—ten or twelve pound, I’d put it at. A great yeller brute, an’ it come at us like a ragin’ lion—wild as Hell, it were, an’ savage, too. oR red here let it have both barrels, an’ we shot the kittens too. Put the car- casses in a sack an’ took ’em along to the sergint. An’ if you git along to the in- quest tomorrow an’ see them claws, you'll see whether it could do or couldn’t do— what was done.” “Then it was livin’ his questioner asked. “We reckoned it come there not long back, maybe before the kittens was born, an’ maybe arter. Not so long back, any- how. An’ it’d be the one which Mrs. Bell said scared that gal at the Grange—”’ “But she said there was two,” younger man objected. in them woods?” the 664 %N WHAT Mes. Bell said,” the one referred to as Fred observed, “the gal was so scared she’d hardly know what she did see. An’ a she-cat wi’ young ‘kittens gener ily lay up alone, like this one, There ain’t no doubt 1 my mind it’s what got poor little Letty. “Vou'd only got to see the way it come at us, like a-ragin’ lion. I’d pity the grown man who had to stand up against a thing like that with no gun, let alone a child her size. Them claws’d make a rare mess of him, I reckon.” “Well,” the tractor-man observed, “that gal said she seen two, an’ I ain't lettin’ my youngster go about alone till I hear t’other one’s been put paid to. It looks too risky to me.’ “Tt’ll be some while afore any kids dast run about alone i’ these parts, I reckon.” The one of the first three who, up to that point, had maintained silence delivered judgment with slow emphasis. “Kids may be venturesome some ways, but not after a thing like that, I reckon.” “How d’you make it hadn’t been there long?” the young man asked. “Tf it had,” Fred said, “there’d been more tracks an’ signs round the place where it’d made the nest for the kittens —some sorter reg’lar track the way it come an’ go when it went huntin’. More’n that, it’d been seen or heard around here. It'd been out huntin’, an’ people’d missed fowls an’ ducks an’ things, before now.” The four of them ceased their disctts- sion and looked toward the door as a fifth patron entered. He was a bulkily built, middle-aged, bearded man 1n tweed coat, breeches and gaiters, with a heavily- bandaged right hand, and he made his way to the bar and called for a double brandy, putting down a ten-shilling note clumsily with his left hand. Then he turned and nodded at the group. “Lo, Arthur,” Fred greeted him. “Whatcher been doin’ to that hand? Ketched it in somethin’ ?” “Claws,” said Arthur, and turned to the bar with: “Thanks.” “Claws?” Fred inquired. “You ain't come across t’other one, by no chance, did you? I mean another wild cat, like the one we shot.” “Tt was my own cat, gone mad, I reck- n,” Arthur said. ‘Else, I dunno what come to it. It was asleep on the hearth- rug, an’ my little Millie was at the table doin’ of her home lessons. She got down off her chair an’ come to ask me some- thin’, an’ all at once Frosty—that's the cat—woke up an’ started spittin’ an’ swearin’ like all ec, icomi cS cbooks.co