July 4,, 1998
Chapter 2
Tommy & Joe Meet The Devil
The day was bright and sunny. Chirping birds, at the first light of day, awakened Tommy and Joe. They were both anxious to get out of the cabin to discover what mysteries might be lying in store for them. Somehow they both seemed to sense that this day would be different than any before!
Hurrying down from Tommy’s room, they discovered that Tommy’s Mom already had breakfast prepared, and the delicious smell of flapjacks cooked on a wood stove mingled with the delicately fresh scent of the Spring Cottonwoods that drifted through the open kitchen window. When Tommy sat down at the table his Mother had some curious news.
"Your Dad was in Portland yesterday, while you and Joe were exploring out in the forest. He heard some folks talking about a cave near Mt. Scott where the Andrews’ used to live." Tommy remembered how he and young David Andrews had been best friends until the whole family mysteriously disappeared!
Everyone blamed the Indians for the Andrews’ disappearance. The natives, it was said, had carried them away for settling on land which was sacred to the great spirit-wolf, Wah-te-jah. Wah-te-jah was highly favored by the Great Spirit of the Smoking Mountain.
"They say they’ve heard eerie sounds like people in torment coming from that cave. I think that you and Joe have plenty of places to go other than that God-forsaken neck o’the woods!"
"I didn’t figure on headin’ that direction," Tommy said. "But I’d sure like to know more about that Andrews’ Cave. I don’t recall seein’ any cave when me ‘n Dave used to play there. Ya s’pose that cave had anythin’ t’do with folks never findin’ out for sure what became of the Andrews Family?"
Beth Sharp had grown to know her son’s curiosity and hunger for adventure all too well to honestly believe that she could ever persuade him to stay away from the Andrews’ former homestead. Only a direct order to stay away would deter Tommy, for he was anything but a disobedient boy.
"I don’t know, or care, if that cave did have anything t’do with it! I’ve just heard too many strange tales concernin’ that place! I don’t think it’s a healthy place for man nor beast. Not a good place for any God-fearin’ person t’want t’go!" Beth knew that Tommy and Joe would be oblivious to her apprehension. In fact, Tommy was already thinking about the shortest route to Mt. Scott.
Tommy finished his breakfast, kissed his mom as he grabbed his rifle, and literally flew out the door with Joe hot on his heels.
As Beth watched her ten year old son disappear into the forest she was seized by a sudden surge of pride. She knew that Tommy and Joe would be home in time for supper unless he’d told her otherwise. If she’d given him a direct order to stay away from the Andrews’ Place she knew that he would have. He loved his Mom, and because he loved her he wanted to do as she asked.
Everything that Tommy ever undertook he did well. He could track as well as his legendary Dad, or shoot the eyelash off a Gnat from a hundred yards. He moved through the forest like a breeze, and could wrestle a full grown Brown Bear to it’s knees! Yes, even as a boy Tommy could put many grown men to shame, but Beth’s greatest pride was in the knowledge that Tommy was obedient and never thought of himself as better than anyone else.
The grass was still wet with the morning dew, but Tommy’s moccasins were barely damp. His feet seemed to float through the air. Never touching the ground except when he was standing still. The sweet, fresh smell of Cottonwoods in the Spring filled the air. Life was surging through the barren winter landscape painting the forest a thousand pastel shades as the trees and bushes burst forth with blossoms. The Pussy Willows had already turned gold with pollen, and the Trillium was shooting forth in the shade of the dense forest. This was Tommy’s favorite time of year!
Tommy and Joe soon found themselves on the bank of Johnson Creek. This normally placid tributary of the Willamette River was swollen to twenty-five or thirty feet wide. Normally the creek was only ten or fifteen feet wide, but the snow-pack in the mountains was beginning to melt. Unhesitatingly the boy and his dog leapt across the muddy rapids with ease. A "piece of cake" for Tommy and Joe.
Moments later they were standing on the former site of the Andrews’ Cabin. Incredible as it was, there wasn’t a trace of it to be seen. In fact, if Tommy weren’t so familiar with the area where he and David had spent so many pleasant hours, just six months previous, he’d swear that human beings had never set foot within miles of where he was presently standing! No Indians could have so effectively removed any trace of human habitation on the countryside so completely!
"Joe," Tommy commanded, "find the cave!" Joe had been silently scanning the pristine meadow before them for any sign of imminent danger. At Tommy’s command he sprang across the meadow and reached an outcropping of rock, on the far side, in a moment. "Owoooooorrrr!" Joe howled, signaling Tommy that he’s found what he’d been seeking. Tommy was by his side in a moment.
There, before them, was a shadowy gap between two large boulders. There weren’t any "sounds of torment" issuing from the darkness. Only a foul stench that irritated the nostrils like the smoldering embers of a forest fire after consuming the flesh of unfortunate creatures trapped by the inferno.
"Gotta find a Pitch-pine for a torch! We can’t go in there without some light." It wasn’t any time at all before Tommy had found a pitch-covered Pine branch, and had it burning brightly. Confidently walking into the cave, the darkness soon swallowed them up.
The deeper they went into the cave, the stronger grew the stench they’d discovered at the cave entrance. A damp and warm draft was issuing from deeper within the darkness. A more faint-hearted soul would not have gone further. As Tommy and Joe continued into the cave the draft grew stronger and hotter until, suddenly, it extinguished the torch and they found themselves in the blackest darkness they’d ever experienced!
As the strangeness of experiencing total darkness subsided, Tommy whispered "Joe, do y’think we should clear outa here?"
"Owoooorrrr!" howled Joe.
"Yeah, you’re right Joe," Tommy said. "I think we should keep goin’ too, but we gotta be careful in this dark. Is that a speck of light up ahead? Keep close t’the wall and let’s head for that light." Tommy put one hand on the slimy wall and continued into the darkness.
They had taken but a few cautious steps when, suddenly their feet descended upon thin air and they tumbled helplessly into the empty blackness! Down, down, down they plunged. With no way of telling how far or how long they fell, it seemed to be for hours!
Then, as suddenly as the ground had disappeared, they landed. Thump! Thump! They had landed on something soft and spongy.
"Holy Cow!" exclaimed Tommy! "Where are we?
"Owoooorrrr!" came Joe’s usual response.
There was an eerie red-orange glow that surround them. The first thing that Tommy did was to try and figure out what had broken their fall. It appeared to be a big greenish-blue mound of what felt like moss. After they had climbed off the fifteen foot high pile of "moss", they soon discovered that it wasn’t moss, for this "moss" had begun to move!
"Whoah!" Tommy gasped. "What in tarnation is it? Whatever it is, it’s headed for us!"
Joe had been making a soft, guttural, growling sound since they landed on the oozing mound of whatever it was. Suddenly his growling stopped. Everyone knows that, when Joe stops growling something is not going to be around much longer!
Joe sprang like coiled steel, jaws open, toward the creature that was nearly on top of him and Tommy. As Joe glided by the creature he never appeared to have touched it. Nevertheless, where the fearless dog grazed the beast’s flesh, the tissue parted like a ripe tomato with a sharp knife. His razor-sharp fangs left a gaping wound fully eight feet long! Thick, black blood was oozing out of the wound and forming tar-like puddles on the cavernous space they now occupied.
The disgusting creature gave a final shudder and then lay motionless. Tommy could now see that it appeared to be an enormous slug! It had teeth much like a giant Catfish. Each was about 3 inches long, and there must’ve been hundreds. It’s hideous head had eyes like glowing coals. It now appeared to be quite dead.
"Tommy! Tommy, it’s me!" The voice that broke the deathly silence seemed familiar to Tommy, but he couldn’t quite remember where he’d heard it before. "Tommy, don’t you remember me? It’s me, Dave!" Suddenly Tommy remebered who the voice sounded like. It couldn’t be. It was! It was Dave Andrews! When Tommy turned in the direction of the voice and saw his friend who had disappeared so many months before, you could’ve knocked him over with a feather!
"Dave! How did you get here? Where have you been? We thought the Indians had carried you and your parents off and done ya in!" Tommy ran to his friend and they embraced joyously. "Jeez! It’s really good to see ya, but what’re ya doin’ here, and where is here?"
"Am I ever glad to see you!" Dave said enthusiastically. "Mom, Dad, and me’ve been down here hidin’ out from that critter Joe just finished off ever since the earth swallowed up our homestead and us several months back! Not only that, but you probably won’t believe this, but I think The Devil lives down here!"
"Well I don’t believe in the Devil, or black magic," Tommy said. "My Dad told me that the Devil has no power over folks who don’t believe in his wickedness and evil!"
"I hate to break this to you, Tommy, but I reckon you’re gonna sing a different tune directly, ‘cause that there critter Joe kilt was his pet, and I figure he’ll be missin’ him about now!" Dave told Tommy.
Just as if it were right on cue, a thunderous voice boomed from the darkness, "Where’s Gloxkul? Where’s my old friend? Woe to any who trifles with my pet!" Tommy and Joe could hear the voice, but couldn’t see where it came from. They were still looking around when they suddenly saw a burst of fire and smoke! Where there had been empty space, there stood the owner of the voice!
He appeared to be a man, but stood as high as a house, had a long pointed tail, horns like a steer, fiery eyes, and his flesh was the color of glowing embers in a smoldering fire. When he caught sight of the dead beast, which must’ve been Gloxkul, he cried out in anguish. "Oh, Gloxkul! What have they done to you? I swear I’ll disembowel whoever did this to you!" Now, obviously enraged, this demonic creature shouted, "Impudent intruders! You’ve sealed your fate! You’ll soon be joining my faithful Gloxkul!"
"What d’you want with us?" Tommy challenged. "Who are you?"
"I’m Satan! Lord of the underworld! Your pathetic lives are worthless as a bleach in a blizzard!"
Dave had prudently disappeared the moment he heard the voice of Satan. Joe, on the other hand, had tensed. The coal black hair on the back of his neck began to bristle. He crouched, close to the ground, in preparation for leaping at an instant’s notice. He had begun to growl, deep in his chest, when the devil appeared. Now his growling stopped and he sprang through the air like a cannonball in flight. His jaws were open until he reached the wrist of Satan, and they snapped tightly on the devils flesh and locked.
"Impudent beast!" shouted the devil. "You’ve breathed your last!" So saying he gave his wrist a contemptuous flick, thinking that Joe would go sailing. Instead his jaws locked tighter and his razor sharp teeth penetrated deeper into the devils nauseating flesh. Satan’s face reflected his shocked bewilderment, but anyone who knew of Joe knew that once Joe’s jaws are set the only power on earth that can persuade him to release his grip is a command from his master, Tommy! Struggle is fruitless, for not even the devil can break the grip of a Spirit-dog such as Joe!
At first Satan was merely annoyed with this pest that clung to his wrist. When a flick of his writs failed to dislodge Joe he shook his wrist again, and again, and again. To no avail. Each time, Joe’s teeth would sink deeper into his flesh until his blood began to spill out freely from the gaping wounds opened by Joe’s knife-like fangs. Satan began to pound his wrist, and Joe with it, on the ground, but Joe’s teeth continued to sink inexorably deeper! Satan summoned up his demons to try to pull Joe free, but it was fruitless. He tried using his powers of deception to appear to be a snarling, terrifying demon of darkness, but all in vain. Now, in desperation, the devil resorted to trickery and deceit to entice Tommy into calling off his dog!
"I’ll give you one last chance to redeem your worthless souls" the devil hissed. "If you call off this mangy beast I’ll spare you and this loathsome creature you call Joe!"
Tommy’s Dad had warned him of treachery born of desperation, and saw through Satan’s trickery. He knew that as soon as he called Joe off he would no longer have any bargaining power unless he had some sort of assurance that the devil would hold true to his worthless promises. "If you release David Andrews and his folks, free me and Joe, and promise, in writing, to never bother any of us again, I’ll call Joe off!
The devil knew that Tommy had seen through his treachery, but he was desperate. "Done!" shouted Satan as a contract appeared with all Tommy’s terms incorporated. "Sign, and I’ll be well rid of you all!"
Tommy read the contract over to be certain that the devil wasn’t up to any of his trickery and, seeing that it was as he’d requested, he signed. The moment that he signed and called Joe off, he suddenly found himself back in the Andrews’ meadow. Everything was exactly as it had been before he entered the cave except that the Andrews’ cabin was back where he remembered it, and Dave and his folks were standing in the meadow with him and Joe.
They might have all thought it was just a bad dream, but there on the ground beside where they stood, there was a piece of parchment. It was the contract that he had made with Satan!
"You did it Tommy!" Shouted Dave. "You really did it! You got us all out of that hell-hole in one piece!"
"Shucks, Dave. It’s Joe that deserves the thanks, not just me!"
"Well you can bet we all owe Joe a big debt of gratitude too!" Dave gave Joe a flurry of warm pats on his muscular side making the dust fly from his fur in a cloud. "Ma and Pa asked if you and Joe would stay and have supper with us. It’s the least we can do to show our appreciation for what you two have done for us!"
"Well I’d like to, but how about a rain-check. Me ‘n Joe gotta be home in time for supper tonight. C’mon Joe!" Tommy and Joe started off toward home at a brisk trot. A startled Chipmunk scurried across through the lush green grass and into a nearby thicket, chattering furiously as they disappeared. The birds were singing, the warm sun was shining, and all was as it should be. All things considered, it had been a busy morning for Tommy and Joe and, without a doubt, different than any before!
-end-
|
