The Early Asimov. Volume 2

The bartender broke the spell. He reached for a bottle behind him without looking at it, placed it on the counter before Harley. He poured a glass of water from a jug, set it down with a shot glass beside the bottle.

'I could of told you that would happen,' he said casually. 'Only you wouldn't of believed me. You had to meet Hank for yourself before you'd believe he was there.'

Harley remembered his thirst and drained the glass of water, then poured himself a shot of the whiskey and swallowed it without waiting for the chaser to be refilled. The whiskey felt good going down, almost good enough to stop his internal shakes.

'What are you talking about?' he said finally. He twisted his body and leaned forward across the bar to partly hide the stains on his coat. The saloonkeeper laughed.

'Old Hank,' he said. 'I knowed who you was right away, even before Tom came back and told me where he'd took you. I knowed you was Zeb Harley's no-good nephew, come to take Harley Hall an' sell it before he was cold in the grave.'

The blackjack players were still watching him, Russell Harley saw. Only the lean man farther along the bar seemed to have dismissed him. He was pouring himself another drink, quite occupied with his task.

Harley flushed. 'Listen,' he said, 'I didn't come in here for advice. I wanted a drink. I'm paying for it. Keep your mouth out of this.'

The saloonkeeper shrugged. He turned his back and walked away to the blackjack table. After a couple of seconds one of the players turned, too, and threw a card down. The others followed suit.

Harley was just getting set to swallow his pride and talk to the saloonkeeper again - he seemed to know something about what Harley'd been through, and might be helpful - when the lean man tapped his shoulder. Harley whirled and almost dropped his glass. Absorbed and jumpy, he hadn't seen him come up.

'Young man,' said the lean one, 'My name's Nicholls. Come along with me, sir, and we'll talk this thing over. I think we may be of service to each other.'

Even the twelve-cylinder car Nicholls drove jounced like a hay-wagon over the sandy ruts leading to the place old Zeb had - laughingly - named 'Harley Hall.'

Russell Harley twisted his neck and stared at the heap of paraphernalia in the open rumble seat. 'I don't like it,' he complained. 'I never had anything to do with ghosts. How do I know this stuff'll work?'

Nicholls smiled. 'You'll have to take my word for it. I've had dealings with ghosts before. You could say that I might qualify as a ghost exterminator, if I chose.'

Harley growled. 'I still don't like it.'

Nicholls turned a sharp look on him. 'You like the prospect of owning Harley Hall, don't you? And looking for all the money your late uncle is supposed to have hidden around somewhere?' Harley shrugged. 'Certainly you do,' said Nicholls, returning his eyes to the road. 'And with good reason. The local reports put the figure pretty high, young man.'

'That's where you come in, I guess,' Harley said sullenly. 'I find the money - that I own anyhow - and give some of it to you. How much?'

'We'll discuss that later,' Nicholls said. He smiled absently as he looked ahead.

'We'll discuss it right now!'

The smile faded from Nicholls' face. 'No,' he said. 'We won't. I'm doing you a favor, young Harley. Remember that. In return - you'll do as I say, all the way!'

Harley digested that carefully, and it was not a pleasant meal. He waited a couple of seconds before he changed the subject.

'I was out here once when the old man was alive,' he said. 'He didn't say nothing about any ghost.'

'Perhaps he felt you might think him - well, peculiar,' Nicholls said. 'And perhaps you would have. When were you here?'

'Oh, a long time ago,' Harley said evasively. 'But I was here a whole day, and part of the night. The old man was crazy as a coot, but he didn't keep any ghosts in the attic.'

'This ghost was a friend of his,' Nicholls said. The gentleman in charge of the bar told you that, surely. Your late uncle was something of a recluse. He lived in this house a dozen miles from nowhere, came into town hardly ever, wouldn't let anyone get friendly with him. But he wasn't exactly a hermit. He had Hank for company."

'Fine company.'

Nicholls inclined his head seriously. 'Oh, I don't know,' he said. 'From all accounts, they got on well together. They played pinochle and chess - Hank's supposed to have been a great pinochle player. He was killed that way, according to the local reports. Caught somebody dealing from the bottom and shot it out with him. He lost. A bullet pierced his throat and he died quite bloodily.' He turned the wheel, putting his weight into the effort, and succeeded in twisting the car out of the ruts of the 'road,' sent it jouncing across unmarked sand to the old frame house to which they were going.

'That,' he finished as he pulled up before the porch, 'accounts for the blood that accompanies his apparition.'

Harley opened the door slowly and got out, looking uneasily at the battered old house. Nicholls cut the motor, got out and walked at once to the back of the car. "

'Come on,' he said, dragging things out of the compartment. 'Give me a hand with this. I'm not going to carry this stuff all by myself.'

Harley came around reluctantly, regarded the curious assortment of bundles of dried faggots, lengths of colored cord, chalk pencils, ugly little bunches of wilted weeds, bleached bones of small animals and a couple of less pleasant things without pleasure.

Pat. HISS. Pat. HISS -

'He's here!' Harley yelped. 'Listen! He's someplace around here watching us.'

'Ha!'

The laugh was deep, unpleasant and - bodiless. Harley looked around desperately for the tell-tale trickle of blood. And he found it; from the air it issued, just beside the car, sinking gracefully to the ground and sizzling, vanishing, there.

'I'm watching you, all right,' the voice said grimly. 'Russell, you worthless piece of corruption, I've got no more use for you than you used to have for me. Dead or alive, this is my land! I shared it with your uncle, you young scalawag, but I won't share it with you. Get out!'

Harley's knees weakened and he tottered dizzily to the rear bumper, sat on it. 'Nicholls -' he said confusedly.

'Oh, brace up,' Nicholls said with irritation. He tossed a ball of gaudy twine, red and green, with curious knots tied along it, to Harley. Then he confronted the trickle of blood and made a few brisk passes in the air before it. His lips were moving silently, Harley saw, but no words came out

There was a gasp and a chopped-off squawk from the source of the blood drops. Nicholls clapped his hands sharply, then turned to young Harley.

Take that cord you have in your hands and stretch it around the house,' he said. 'All the way around, and make sure it goes right across the middle of the doors and windows. It isn't much, but it'll hold him till we can get the good stuff set up.'

Harley nodded, then pointed a rigid finger at the drops of blood, now sizzling and fuming more angrily than before. 'What about that?' he managed to get out.

Nicholls gri

Harley inadvertently inhaled a lungful of noxious white smoke and coughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks. When he recovered he looked at Nicholls, who was reading silently from a green leather book with dog-eared pages. He said, 'Can I stop stirring this now?'

Nicholls grimaced angrily and shook his head without looking at him. He went on reading, his lips contorting over syllables that were not in any language Harley had ever heard, then snapped the book shut and wiped his brow.

'Fine,' he said. 'So far, so good.' He stepped over to windward of the boiling pot Harley was stirring on the hob over the fireplace, peered down into it cautiously.