Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Vol. 110, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 673 & 674, September/October 1997

The Drum by David Ely

© 1997 by David Ely

One never knows how to categorize a David Ely story. As his agent puts it, “his work is wonderfully off center.” He always skirts the edge of the mystery/suspense genre, offering pieces that are eerie and threatening even when a crime is only hinted at. One of Mr. Ely’s early novels, Seconds, became a movie starring Rock Hudson. Also see Journal of the Flood Year (1992).

The beat was steady and low-pitched. Mr. Chance suspected that he must have heard it long before he became consciously aware of it. How long before — days or even weeks — he had no idea. Nor could he be sure where it came from. It seemed sometimes to rise out of the marshes, sometimes from the scrub woods beyond the old sawmill; at other times it seemed to float down from Great Hill, a rise of land that overlooked the country club.

Mr. Chance had thought at first that it came from a construction job, but he realized it didn’t have any of the whine or stutter or boom of cutting or digging equipment, and it kept on going, day in and day out. He even heard it at night. It didn’t annoy him; actually, he found its regularity somewhat soothing.

He mentioned it to his friends around town, but no one else seemed to be aware of it, except for Jake Stolles, the druggist, who said he thought he heard it now and then. L. B. Knowles, the police chief, who was deaf in one ear, said he hadn’t noticed it, but from Mr. Chance’s description he said it might be drumming.

“Could be a couple of Indian boys out there,” he said. “Got their drum going. You know — practicing. I haven’t heard that in years, though.”

Mr. Stolles said he doubted it was drumming because there were hardly any Indians left in town, and most of them were old-timers. Besides, he said, there wasn’t any singing, and didn’t Indians drum and sing at the same time?

The only Indian John Chance knew personally was Charley Bartlett, who worked part-time at the post office and had been chief some years ago when the tribe had lost its land suit against the town. One day Mr. Chance asked him about the drumming.

“What drumming?” Mr. Bartlett said.

Mr. Chance got him to come out from behind the counter and through the little lobby to the walkway outside. “Now you can hear it,” he said. “That sound out there. That’s a beat like a drumbeat.”

“I don’t hear it,” Mr. Bartlett said.

“Well, it’s not very loud,” Mr. Chance said, thinking that the old man was probably hard of hearing, “but who’s out there drumming? You know who’d be doing that?”

Mr. Bartlett shook his head. “Not us,” he said. He was a big man with a heavy, solemn face, deeply wrinkled. “We don’t drum anymore,” he said, and he went back in the post office.

Mr. Chance, who was the town’s leading realtor, had plenty of things to think about besides the drumming (if that’s what it was). Business had been slumping for months.

More people were moving out of town than were coming in, which meant residential prices were falling, and many properties were sitting around unsold. Mr. Chance had made a small fortune in the town in the past fifteen years, but he was holding too much property himself right now, principally the Great Hill development, and he was starting to worry.

He drove up Great Hill later in the afternoon. The autumn sun was hot there. He left his jacket in the car and walked around the place in his shirtsleeves, glancing at the unsold houses on empty streets where weeds crowded the edges of the asphalt. The view was fine — the country club with its golf greens and fairways down below, and the creek that meandered toward the town beyond, with the Beetleback range of hills in the distance. The view, yes, but water and sewage problems had jacked up costs — and now the only three buyers were moving out, anxious to sell at almost any price.

Mr. Chance was a thick man, with a bulldog face and meaty hands that by habit he clenched and opened as he walked around, wondering what to do. Cut prices some more? Wait for an upturn in land value?

It was quiet up there. Not a sound — except the drumming. A soft, steady beat, like wings on air, like waves against the shore.

Nothing moved. There wasn’t a soul in sight, not even a bird. Just these hollow houses, empty streets. Turning, Mr. Chance saw someone at the edge of a thicket of pine trees that sat on the crown of the hill. A man was standing there. Mr. Chance thought of calling out something — a greeting, an inquiry — but did not. He paused to draw his sleeve across his face to wipe the sweat away. When he looked again, the figure was nowhere to be seen.

“He was a tall fellow,” Mr. Chance told his wife at supper that evening, “and his hair was kind of long. Dark hair, pulled back and tied behind his neck. Like an Indian, come to think of it.”

“They used to live up there. That’s what Mrs. Worthy told me.”

“I don’t think they lived there. They hunted up there or used it for their ceremonies, but Lord, that’s twenty years ago or more, when this town was just a wide spot in the road.”

“This must have been a pretty place,” said Mrs. Chance, “before the trees were cut down.”

“We didn’t cut all the trees, Shirley. There are some left. Anyway, you’ve got to utilize your resources.”

Mrs. Chance, having heard her husband’s views many times, listened with a patient smile.

“Why, when this was a mostly Indian town,” Mr. Chance went on, “they had a one-room schoolhouse and one paved road and a tumbledown general store, and the whole shebang wasn’t worth a plugged nickel. But we’ve got a solid tax base now. We’ve got value and we’ve got conveniences. You can’t live without conveniences.”

“They did.”

“Ha,” said Mr. Chance. “You think they were better off? Why, they were selling beaded stuff to the tourists then. That’s all they had for income. And we brought in service industries and the sawmill and the textile mill—”

“That didn’t last long.”

“All right, we lost the textile mill, but you can’t win ’em all.”

“The Dixons are going to Cleveland,” said Mrs. Chance. “Naomi told me today.”

“Moving away? They’re leaving?”

“And Estelle Faber. She said she and George have about decided to go to Florida.”

“That can’t be,” said Mr. Chance. “George would never leave.”

“Estelle said he says the fishing’s about gone, and that’s what he cares about. He says it’s all the runoff from the lawns and golf greens, it’s poisoned the marsh and got the bay shore choked with weeds and done something to the bottom so the fish can’t feed.”

“Nonsense,” said Mr. Chance. “There are plenty of fish.” Then he cocked his head. “Hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“That drumming. Hear it?”

“I don’t hear anything,” said Mrs. Chance.

Mr. Chance continued to wonder about the long-haired man on Great Hill. There weren’t more than a dozen Indian families left, living near the sawmill, and he thought he knew all the adults by sight. He’d never seen that fellow before, though. He mentioned the intruder (as he had come to think of the man) to several people around town. The druggist, Mr. Stolles, remembered he’d seen a dark-skinned man down by the creek, just beyond the fifteenth green on the golf course.

“Indian man?” asked Mr. Chance.

“Could be,” said Mr. Stolles.

“Bet it was.”

“Well, he wasn’t tall like yours,” Mr. Stolles said. “He was sort of squat-shaped, nobody I’d ever seen before, and he just stood there, not hiding or anything, just watching. It sort of distracted me. Made me miss my putt.”

Mr. Chance frowned at this, and addressed himself to Police Chief Knowles. “It might be something to look into,” he said. “I mean, if we’ve got a couple of vagrants in town—”

“We don’t know they’re vagrants,” said the chief.

“They’re strangers, and they don’t five here. Maybe they’re the ones doing the drumming. I tell you, I don’t like it. That drumming — it’s a public nuisance. I didn’t mind it at first, but now it keeps me awake at night.”

“I can’t hear it. You hear it, Jake?”

“Not at night,” said Mr. Stolles.

“Well, I hear it,” said Mr. Chance, “and when I don’t actually hear it, I’m aware of it.”

“Oh, hell, John,” said the chief. “Let ’em drum if that’s all they want to do. What else have they got, anyhow?”

“What have they got?” said Mr. Chance. “Why, they’ve got the same as we have as citizens of the town.”

“They may not see it that way,” said the chief. “This used to be their town.”

“It wasn’t theirs,” said Mr. Chance. “They didn’t own it. We proved that in the land suit, didn’t we? And what evidence did they have? Just a wad of old papers all creased and folded so you couldn’t make them out, and then that moldy old rag they said was a treaty. The town lawyer made short work of that, all right.”

“That was your lawyer, really, John.”

“Well, I went out and got him, L. B. We needed the best land attorney in the state for this. We couldn’t afford to lose. We couldn’t have built the country club.”

“We could have put it somewhere else.”

“Anyway, we kept the land, and we improved it. We’ve got to remember that. We invested. We took risks — with our own money. We created something of value! And now what do we see? We’ve got vagrants and intruders coming in, and that damned drumming day and night...”

Mr. Chance went on like this for a while, and then he mopped his brow and apologized to his friends for having become overexcited, and headed for his office farther along on Main Street.

There he was informed by his assistant, Miriam Krug, that two buyers had backed out of deals that had been almost concluded, and that Jack Landis, who owned the bakery, wanted to put it on the market. Mr. Chance at once telephoned the bakery. While he was waiting for Mr. Landis to come to the phone, he got a call on his second line from Marshall Pickering, the high-school music teacher, who said he’d gotten a job offer from out of state, and wondered how much Mr. Chance thought he could get for his house.

“What’s this town coming to?” Mr. Chance muttered to himself after these calls were concluded. Deals broken! Bakery for sale! No high-school music teacher!

Through the front window he noticed someone standing across the street, partly obscured by parked cars. A woman, a dark woman. Facing his way. She was wearing some kind of embroidered shawl. “Miriam,” he called out to his assistant at her desk in the corner. “Look out there.”

“Where?”

“Across the street. That woman.”

A large van was moving by. It passed. Mr. Chance couldn’t see the woman now.

“Never mind,” he said.

He woke during the night and listened. Couldn’t hear it. That didn’t mean it wasn’t there. He put on his robe and padded out onto the deck above the garage. It was a moonless night: dark, but full of stars. Mr. Chance tried to make out their zodiacal forms — scorpion, archer, goat. The longer he looked, the more his gaze was filled by the brilliance of these giant sparks. They seemed to glow and wink, to twist, to spin toward him in slow profusion, as if the solar system had exploded and its blazing fragments were drifting down on him in a cascade of dazzling light. Now he heard thunder in the distance, with steady steps advancing. No, not thunder. It was the drum. He could hear it from all directions, like the gradual gathering of some great assembly in the sky. He thought he should go back in, but did not move, not for some time, and stood as though mesmerized beneath the plunging stars.

The next afternoon he drove out along the sawmill road. It had once been a trail through the forest, but then the forest was cut down. The road, now paved, ran between patches of secondary growth that had sprung up among the stumps of the old trees.

He reached the cluster of bungalows and cottages that housed what remained of the Native community. Laundry was strung on clotheslines, old cars sat in the yards, children played in the dirt by the roadside. Mr. Chance slowed and stopped. He looked at the women, at the men. He recognized some, although he realized he didn’t know their names, except for Mr. Bartlett, who was sitting on his front porch.

Mr. Chance got out of his car and approached the old man, who offered him a chair. Mr. Chance didn’t take it. He was looking around, trying to see if he could pick out the people he had noticed — the tall man, the woman in the shawl. He couldn’t see them.

“How’s business?” Mr. Bartlett said politely.

“Just fine,” said Mr. Chance, with a smile. Some of the children were around his automobile. He hoped they wouldn’t touch it. “Actually,” he added, “things aren’t booming right now.” Mr. Bartlett made no comment. “Take Great Hill, for example,” said Mr. Chance. “Three years ago that was a standout property, and we developed it, but now nobody’s buying.”

He paused for a moment. “Well, I know this may be a sensitive subject for you folks. I mean the land suit. But we won it fair and square in court, didn’t we? Tell you what,” he said, in sudden inspiration. “How about you people take it over? Live up there for free. Well, for a modest rental. Those houses need maintenance. They’re going to pieces up there. If you folks would keep them in shape — you know, a nail or two, a dab of paint—”

Mr. Bartlett was solemnly watching him, but still said nothing. Others had come closer, gathering around so gradually that Mr. Chance hadn’t been aware of movement.

“See, this way you could be back there again,” said Mr. Chance. “Not as owners — but you could utilize the place. That would be fine with me, and I know I could sell the idea to my partners.” He waited for a reaction. There was none. Mr. Bartlett and the others were watching him inquisitively, as if his meaning had to be determined in some way other than by his words. “Know what?” said Mr. Chance with enthusiasm. “How about you make it a sort of Indian village? You know — put up a few wigwams, maybe a totem pole, stuff like that? We could get tourists to go up there at something like ten bucks a head, plus parking, and we could split the proceeds, so there’d be something for you and something for us, and nobody comes away empty-handed. How about that?”

No one said anything. Mr. Chance waited for a few moments. “Well,” he said, “think it over. Plenty of time.”

The following week Mr. and Mrs. Chance gave a farewell party for the Dixons and the Fabers, who were leaving, too, and for Harry and Leona Hammond, who had just decided to move to New Orleans, where Harry was becoming a partner in his brother’s construction business. Many friends and acquaintances had been invited. The Chances’ huge living room was crowded. Waiters from the catering service moved about with trays of canapés and drinks.

Mr. Chance, as host, moved from one group to another, smiling and joking. Despite the noise of a score of conversations, he could sense the drumming. He wondered if others were aware of it, but didn’t ask. People were talking about the high-school football team, which had lost its first three games, and about a state environmental investigation, which had found that the town’s water supply was contaminated. A treatment plant would have to be built, which would mean higher taxes.

“We need to attract new business,” said Mr. Chance, and someone laughed. “Hell, John,” said Mr. Dixon, “we can’t keep what we’ve got. This town is going down the tubes.”

“It was fine while it lasted,” said George Faber, who had joined the group. “We’ve made a bundle. You sure have, John. That lumber deal alone would set a man up for life.”

“Well, I’ve still got plenty tied up in Great Hill,” said Mr. Chance. “So do Rob Winston and Jerry Fain. We are damned well going to get it out somehow.” He had to go to the kitchen to get some ice. Back in the living room, he found himself next to Mr. Faber. “Tell me, George,” he remarked, “do you still hear the drumming?”

“The drumming? Well, John, I don’t know if I ever actually heard it,” said Mr. Faber.

“Well, sometimes you can’t really hear it, so you might have missed it.” He chuckled, and nudged Mr. Faber. “I’ve figured it out, George. They move it around. One night it’s down by the bay, and the next it’s in the woods. See what I mean? They hide it.”

“Think so?” remarked Mr. Faber.

Mr. Chance lifted his glass and spoke in a loud voice. “Here’s a toast, everybody. To our friends and neighbors who are moving on. May they find happiness and prosperity wherever they go! And may their places be taken by new friends and neighbors — our future fellow townspeople!”

This raised some mild cheers from the guests, who ceremoniously drank in fellowship.

But as the days and weeks went by, the new people didn’t come.

The air grew colder, the shadows longer. Mr. Chance drove up Great Hill to inspect houses for weathering and vandalism. He had a caretaker who came now and then to do urgent repairs — patch a leaky roof, replace a broken pane — but the project, while still intact, had taken on an oddly insubstantial appearance with its curtainless windows and empty little plots of browning grass, as if it were built of cork and cardboard, which one brisk breeze would blow away.

From the overlook at the brow of the hill, Mr. Chance surveyed the view. It was not an encouraging sight. Even in November there were usually some golfers on the greens and fairways of the country club below, but there weren’t any now. Nor were there many vehicles moving along the streets of the town beyond — and although from this distance Mr. Chance couldn’t see the pedestrians on Main Street, he knew there’d be just a few, if any, for business was slow, slower than ever. Two more stores had closed. Others had cut business hours and reduced staff. Even the trees along Main Street looked despondent, with their branches stripped of leaves.

The wind now came in gusts, making Mr. Chance’s eyes water. Clouds sailed down from the north, sending their shadows racing across the land, darkening everything. Mr. Chance turned his coat collar up. The wind was beating in his ears. It made him step back, unsure of his footing.

Then there was a break in the clouds, and a shaft of sunlight burst through. With it came a rush of warm air. From the overlook Mr. Chance saw in this sudden brilliance the meadows and woods spread beneath him greened and full, and there rose the summery scent of earth, of plants, of trees. A hawk soared high above him. He experienced a moment of confusion. He could not see the country club. He could not see the town. The roads were gone; houses and buildings had vanished.

It was an illusion — a trick of light — something that happened when the clouds broke and the sun dazzled him. He knew that. And it was over in an instant. Now he saw everything as before. What he had created. It was still there. No reason for him to feel this confusion, this unease. He had worries, but they were business worries. Nothing else. Why should he be troubled? If he hadn’t come here to develop this land, this town, someone else would have done it.

“You’re working too hard, John,” Mrs. Chance said that evening. “You need a vacation.”

“How can I leave now?”

“You said yourself nothing’s moving on the market. Miriam can run the office. Why don’t we go to England? I’ve always wanted to.”

“Go back where we came from?” Mr. Chance remarked sarcastically. “They’d like to see us move out, that’s for sure.”

“What are you talking about? I’m just suggesting a little vacation. As a matter of fact, the Johansons did move back — to Sweden, where their great-grandparents were born — and I don’t see why we wouldn’t enjoy looking at where our own people had their roots. Who knows? We might like it. We’ve got to think of our retirement before long, and frankly, I’m not sure I want to stay around here. I just don’t have a feeling of belonging in this place. So if it has to be somewhere else, why not England?”

Mr. Chance frowned, but said nothing. He was listening to her, but he was also aware of the drum. It was louder; not much, just a little. Each day, louder.

Driving one day on Meadow Lane, where some of the town’s finer homes were, Mr. Chance saw some workmen clustered around Mark Plummer’s place. He pulled over and stopped to take a look. They were putting some jacks in there, to raise the house.

He got out of the car and approached Mr. Plummer, who was conferring with the contractor.

“What’s the project, Mark?” Mr. Chance asked cheerfully. “Going to extend your basement a bit?”

“We’re moving it, John,” said Mr. Plummer.

“Moving it?”

“We knew we couldn’t sell it here the way things are, so we’re moving it to Crystal City. We’ve got a lot there.”

“Moving it?” Mr. Chance gazed at Mr. Plummer, at the jacks, at the workmen. “I see,” he said, and returned to his car. It was raining now; a storm was coming. There were flashes of lightning over the Beetleback range. First the people, he thought. Now houses.

Mr. Chance drove cautiously. It was near freezing; there might be icy patches. This wasn’t the day he ordinarily went up to Great Hill, but he went up anyway, and drove around, looking at his unsold houses.

Something seemed not quite right to him. He began counting, going along one little street and then another; got mixed up, lost the count, and had to begin again. At the end of each block he stopped and made a note on a sheet of paper. He still wasn’t sure. Maybe he’d made a mistake adding them up.

One missing.

He made another round, squinting through the rain-streaked glass.

Now he got the proper count — but on a third circuit he came up with the figure he’d gotten on the first try. One short.

But how? There’d be the foundation, there’d be traces — torn ground, litter, tracks.

He closed his eyes, leaned against the steering wheel; breathing hard, perspiring. Come up another day, he thought. Count them again. Get Shirley to help.

He drove back to town, then out along the sawmill road. When he reached the Native settlement, he stopped in front of Mr. Bartlett’s house and got out. There was nobody in sight. He stood by the car in the cold rain; heavy drops beat against his face, beat on the roof of the car, and now he was aware of the drum. Quick, steady strokes like the rain.

It seemed close now, quite close. He began walking along the road, past the cottages, pausing now and then to listen, then going on, wondering who would be out drumming in the cold and wet.

His shoes were muddy, his head and shoulders were soaked with the rain. He passed the last dwellings and went into the scrub woods that had grown up where the old forest had been cut. The drumbeats seemed to come from every side. He chose a direction at random and pushed his way through the underbrush. There were a few of the original trees back there; they had escaped the saws. He reached them, and stopped. The drum was louder. He expected to see it all now — the drum, the drummers — but there were only the old trees rearing up in a stubble of stumps, their high branches shaking and scraping in the stormy wind.

Mr. Chance went this way, that way, peering through the rain. “I know you’re here,” he called out. He was going in a circle among the ancient trees. He would seem to glimpse figures moving at the edge of his vision and would swing around to bring them better into view, but he never could quite manage this, for the figures — if they were figures — would slip away and reappear in another corner of his sight, so he turned and twisted there, circling and lurching, until he stumbled over one of the old stumps, and fell.

He lay exhausted in the rain for a time and then slowly started to rise, getting onto his hands and knees.

Someone stood before him.

It was Mr. Bartlett, who had seen him at the road and followed him into the woods, to see if he was all right.

Mr. Chance, smeared with mud and leaves, remained on his knees, gazing up at the other man. The drumming had stopped. There was only the wind and the patter of rain.

“You knew we couldn’t last, didn’t you?” Mr. Chance said. Mr. Bartlett remained silent, looking down at him. “You knew,” Mr. Chance said again. He wiped his face and hair with his hands. “Didn’t you?”

There was no answer. Mr. Chance pushed himself upright. The drumming had started again, but from another direction, farther away. Mr. Chance looked around, but he was alone now. Mr. Bartlett had gone, leaving him to find his way out by himself.