Crockett gave a mirthless snort through his nose. “’Taint likely, Cap’n. Wearing that necklace proved to be a mighty poor idea on ol’ Rance’s part. A couple of weeks after the scrape I just mentioned, me ’n’ my troop was ambushed by a party of Creek warriors down around a place called the Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River. We finally beat ’em back, but ol’ Rance was took captive. I guess them injuns didn’t cotton to the notion of him wearin’ pieces of one of their own kind as a knickknack. By the time me and the boys found ol’Ranee, them Creeks had been having their fun with him for a good twenty-four hours.”

“I presume he was dead,” said Captain Russell.

“Not yet,” Crockett replied grimly. “Though he sure-enough wished he was. Them infarnal varmints had cut a little hole in his belly, yanked out one end of his guts, tied it to a dog, and made the cur run ’round a big wood post ’til Ranee’s innards was all unwound. And that was just for starters! He was still breathing when we found him, but we soon put him out of his misery.”

Several moments elapsed before Captain Russell found his voice. “We must assume, then,” he observed somewhat hoarsely, “that the killer of both Alexander Montague and Elmira Macready is a creature of a similar ilk—someone possessed of a profoundly disturbed imagination that is capable of conceiving the most grotesque horrors and morbid acts. Once we locate such a man, we are sure to have found the perpetrator of these unspeakable crimes!”

“I reckon you are right, Cap’n,” Crockett replied. “But tracking down such a critter is likely to be trickier than—” All at once, the frontiersman interrupted his statement and, in a deeply solicitous tone, inquired: “You feeling all right, Poe?”

“Fine,” I replied—though, in fact, a sudden, sickening wave of dizziness had swept through my brain, causing my head to reel and my vision to darken. Placing one hand over my eyes, I propped my elbow on the tabletop and waited for the vertiginous sensation to pass.

Stepping to my side, the frontiersman gently remarked: “Sorry, pard. I reckon it wasn’t good judgment to go on that way about such horribleness” Reaching down one hand, he laid it upon my shoulder and said: “You have done a rattling good day’s work, ol’ hoss. Let me help you to your feet, and I will fetch you home.”

CHAPTER 18