“All right,” Daniels said. “No trouble. I scarcely know the man.”
“Ben don’t do much farming, either,” said the sheriff. “Hunts and fishes, hunts ginseng, does some trapping in the winter. Prospects for minerals now and then.”
“There are minerals in these hills,” said Daniels. “Lead and zinc. But it would cost more to get it out than it would be worth. At present prices, that is.”
“Ben always has some scheme cooking.” said the sheriff. “Always off on some wild goose chase. And he’s a pure pugnacious man. Always has his nose out of joint about something. Always on the prod for trouble. Bad man to have for an enemy. Was in the other day to say someone’s been lifting a hen or two of his. You haven’t been missing any, have you?”
Daniels grinned. “There’s a fox that levies a sort of tribute on the coop every now and then. I don’t begrudge them to him.”
“Funny thing,” the sheriff said. “There ain’t nothing can rile up a farmer like a little chicken stealing. It don’t amount to shucks, of course, but they get real hostile at it.”
“If Ben has been losing chickens,” Daniels said, “more than likely the culprit is my fox.”
“Your fox? You talk as if you own him.”
“Of course I don’t. No one owns a fox. But he lives in these hills with me. I figure we are neighbors. I see him every now and then and watch him. Maybe that means I own a piece of him. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if he watches me more than I watch him. He moves quicker than I do.”
The sheriff heaved himself out of the chair.
“I hate to go,” he said. “I declare it has been restful sitting here and talking with you and looking at the hills. You look at them a lot, I take it.”
“Quite a lot,” said Daniels.
He sat on the porch and watched the sheriff’s car top the rise far down the ridge and disappear from sight.
What had it all been about? he wondered. The sheriff hadn’t just happened to be passing by. He’d been on an errand. All this aimless, friendly talk had not been for nothing and in the course of it he’d managed to ask lots of questions.
Something about Ben Adams, maybe? Except there wasn’t too much against Adams except he was bone-lazy. Lazy in a weasely sort of way. Maybe the sheriff had gotten wind of Adams’ off-and-on moonshining operation and was out to do some checking, hoping that some neighbor might misspeak himself. None of them would, of course, for it was none of their business, really, and the moonshining had built up no nuisance value. What little liquor Ben might make didn’t amount to much. He was too lazy for anything he did to amount to much.
From far down the hill he heard the tinkle of a bell. The two cows were finally heading home. It must be much later, Daniels told himself, than he had thought. Not that he paid much attention to what time it was. He hadn’t for long months on end, ever since he’d smashed his watch when he’d fallen off the ledge. He had never bothered to have the watch fixed. He didn’t need a watch. There was a battered old alarm clock in the kitchen but it was an erratic piece of mechanism and not to be relied upon. He paid slight attention to it.
In a little while, he thought, he’d have to rouse himself and go and do the chores—milk the cows, feed the hogs and chickens, gather up the eggs. Since the garden had been laid by there hadn’t been much to do. One of these days he’d have to bring in the squashes and store them in the cellar and there were those three or four big pumpkins he’d have to lug down the hollow to the Perkins kids, so they’d have them in time to make jack-o-lanterns for Hallowe’en. He wondered if he should carve out the faces himself or if the kids would rather do it on their own.
But the cows were still quite a distance away and he still had time. He sat easy in his chair and stared across the hills.
And they began to shift and change as he stared.
When he had first seen it, the phenomenon had scared him silly. But now he was used to it.
As he watched, the hills changed into different ones. Different vegetation and strange life stirred on them.
He saw dinosaurs this time. A herd of them, not very big ones. Middle Triassic, more than likely. And this time it was only a distant view—he, himself, was not to become involved. He would only see, from a distance, what ancient time was like and would not be thrust into the middle of it as most often was the case.
He was glad. There were chores to do.
Watching, he wondered once again what more he could do. It was not the dinosaurs that concerned him, nor the earlier amphibians, or all the other creatures that moved in time about the hills.
What disturbed him was that other being that lay buried deep beneath the Platteville limestone.
Someone else should know about it. The knowledge of it should be kept alive so that in the days to come—perhaps in another hundred years—when man’s technology had reached the point where it was possible to cope with such a problem, something could be done to contact—and perhaps to free—the dweller in the stone.
There would be a record, of course, a written record. He would see to that. Already that record was in progress—a week by week (at times a day to day) account of what he had seen, heard and learned. Three large record books now were filled with his careful writing and another one was well started. All written down as honestly and as carefully and as objectively as he could bring himself to do it.
But who would believe what he had written? More to the point, who would bother to look at it? More than likely the books would gather dust on some hidden shelf until the end of time with no human hand ever laid upon them. And even if someone, in some future time, should take them down and read them, first blowing away the accumulated dust, would he or she be likely to believe?
The answer lay clear. He must convince someone. Words written by a man long dead—and by a man of no reputation—could be easily dismissed as the product of a neurotic mind. But if some scientist of solid reputation could be made to listen, could be made to endorse the record, the events that paraded across the hills and lay within them could stand on solid ground, worthy of full investigation at some future date.
A biologist? Or a neuropsychiatrist? Or a paleontologist?
Perhaps it didn’t matter what branch of science the man was in. Just so he’d listen without laughter. It was most important that he listen without laughter.
Sitting on the porch, staring at the hills dotted with grazing dinosaurs, the listener to the stars remembered the time he had gone to see the paleontologist.
“Ben,” the sheriff said, “you’re way out in left field. That Daniels fellow wouldn’t steal no chickens. He’s got chickens of his own.”
“The question is,” said Adams, “how did he get them chickens?”
“That makes no sense,” the sheriff said. “He’s a gentleman. You can tell that just by talking with him. An educated gentleman.”
“If he’s a gentleman,” asked Adams, “what’s he doing out here? This ain’t no place for gentlemen. He showed up two or three years ago and moved out to this place. Since that day he hasn’t done a tap of work. All he does is wander up and down the hills.”
“He’s a geologist,” said the sheriff. “Or anyway interested in geology. A sort of hobby with him. He tells me he looks for fossils.”
Adams assumed the alert look of a dog that has sighted a rabbit. “So that is it,” he said. “I bet you it ain’t fossils he is looking for.”