Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer 02 (16 page)

 
          
"Did
youins hark at what I said? God bless you, I said. I ain't
spoke
them words, not in long years.”

 
          
At
last Mr. Ben leaned his gun to the wall beside the closed door. But he still
scowled.

 
          
Jackson
Warren walked over to the shelf where Mr. Ben had his books lined up, and
studied them over. Finally he came back to where Hazel Techeray sat. He'd
brought along a book with black covers and red edges.

 
          
"Miss
Techeray,” he said to her, as solemn as a judge a-getting ready to pass out a
sentence in court, "
take
this Bible in both your
hands and repeat after me what I tell you to say.”

 
          
She
got up out of her chair, a-quivering all over, and took the Bible and held it
tight against her crumply blue blouse.

 
          
"You
want me to take some kind of oath?” she inquired him.

 
          
The
rest of us stood still and waited, a-wondering ourselves what in the name of
gracious he was up to. But he just shook his head, and his tight face loosened
itself out into a smile.

 
          
"No, ma'am,” he said, very quiet.
"You don't have
to swear anything at all.” He smiled wider. "You’ve proved yourself.”

 
          
She only gopped at him, as lost as all of us others.

 
          
"When
you took hold of the Bible,” he said, very careful of his words, "when you
touched it without any hesitation, you showed you'd given up witchcraft, and
that you honestly meant it in your heart. A real witch couldn't have done that.
The touch of the Bible would have scorched her fingers."

 
          
"I
doggies," came out Mr. Ben, deep in his deep chest, "and that there's
the God's truth.
I done
knowed that."

 
          
We
all of us started a-feeling better, right that moment.

 
          
"Then
youins believe my word for sure," whimpered Hazel Techeray, and she bent
over the old Bible and hugged it to herself like as if it would save her from
a-drowning in deep water. "Oh, folks," she said, "this here is a
happy moment for me."

 
          
"And
you said you were hungry," said Callie gently. "Come and sit down at
the table."

 
          
She
ladled out some of the soup into a blue bowl and set it on a corner of the
table. She fetched over a spoon and a paper napkin and a square of the
cornbread left from what we'd had at lunch. Hazel Techeray sort of whispered
out a couple of words, maybe a thank you, and she went to sit herself down and
pick up the soup.

 
          
"Hold
on just a second," said Mr. Ben. "Before you eat, wait."

 
          
He
tramped to his shelf and got his jug of blockade and poured a good man-sized
drink into a glass. He fetched it to Hazel Techeray.

 
          
"If
you're a-feeling puny, Miss Hazel," he said, "that
should
ought
to help set you right."

 
          
That,
I told myself, was the first time he hadn't spoken to her, or about her, as
Hazel Techeray, her whole name, like the saying of some bad word. He stood
beside her and poured himself
a good
bait, too. The
two of them drank together. It was something like what you hear about the old
Indians when they smoked a pipe of peace. Hazel Techeray downed her drink like
so much water and then she started to go after that soup.

 
          
"Why
don't I have me some of that, too?” said Mr. Ben. "It does smell right
good, daughter. Let's all have us some. It's past five,
it's
close on to suppertime.''

 
          
"Let
me just keep a watch while the rest of you all eat,'' I made offer.

 
          
The
others gathered round to the table. Mr. Ben said him a grace, and they began to
eat.

 
          
Me,
I moved thisaway and that in the room, a-looking out to each side in turn,
through the spaces betwixt the logs. The evening sun was bright out yonder, and
I saw no movement but the branches of the trees. I went into a back room and
had a look out from there, too. No movement behind the house, either. But there
was a-going to be something there; there was bound to be. The Shonokins had set
things up to come and visit us, and be the worst range of visitors when they
did.

 
          
The
folks talked to one another at the table, just like a bunch of old friends.
Didn’t say aught about the Shonokins as I recollect, just something about the
weather and how crops might come along, the like of that. But I, back in the
front room again, had me a look at the guns all leaned against the wall by the
door. They were loaded and ready. They said nothing whatever, but they were all
set to speak when the speaking time came.

 
          
Finally
Mr. Ben shoved back his chair and drew in his breath. "I've had me a
plenty, John,” he said. "Sit down here and have you
something,
and I'll take on the guard.”

 
          
"I'll
do it with you,” said
Warren
, a-getting up along with Mr. Ben. "Callie, when you’re ready to do
the dishes, I'll wipe them.”

 
          
"No,
I'll do that,” said Hazel Techeray.

 
          
By
that time, I felt hungry. I was glad to dip me out a bowl of that soup, red
with tomatoes and tangy with onions. It was champion to eat, without salt or
either pepper —Callie must have put them in when she mixed it up. As I dipped
my spoon in, Callie left the table to look at what was left in the kettle.
Hazel Techeray still ate, slowly and carefully, like as if she took note of air
spoonful. She looked up at me, some stronger and better-spirited than she'd
been up to then.

 
          
“How
we a-going to face them, John?" she asked me.

 
          
“More
or less play it by ear, Miss Hazel," I said. “We do know one thing—they
can't stand to be killed. Likely they figure to do all the killing that'll be
done."

 
          
“I'm
here to help," she said, quickly, strongly. “I'm one of youins now. When I
took that there Bible in my hand, I knew I'd got to be one of you. Mr. Ben can
let me have one of them guns."

 
          
“I
don't reckon to be a-doing that, Miss Hazel," said Mr. Ben, who'd been
a-harking at us from over at one side of the room.

 
          
She
looked at him, a wondering look,
a
worried look. And
he sure enough gave her a smile.

 
          
“Not I don't trust you,”
he said, right gentle in the voice.
“I wouldn't have drunk with you nor had soup with you if I didn't trust you.
But I'm a-stretching one point to let Callie yonder have a gun with us, and I
been a-teaching her how to aim and pull trigger all her life long. These here
two men, John and Jackson, they been soldiers in their time and I figure they
can be relied on.
But you, Miss Hazel, you been a right much
excited and stirred up.
I don't want to have no gun a-going off at the
wrong time and maybe a-hitting the wrong mark."

 
          
She
gave him a long look, and ducked her head in a nod.

 
          
“I
see what you mean, Mr. Ben,” she said. “Likely there's a lot in what you say.”

           
"I hope and trust I'm right,”
he said. "If I know the first thing about what we're up against, I figure
it for the biggest danger I ever seen; and I seen enough danger in my time to
last a healthy man a hundred long years.”

 
          
"Yes,
sir,” she said. "What must I do?”

 
          
"You
ask John that; he's the captain.”

 
          
"Help
us,” I told her. "Take a turn at the watch. Maybe you can figure on some
of the Shonokin doings. That'll be good on our side.”

 
          
Hazel
Techeray and I finished eating. We carried our dishes to the sink. Callie and
Warren had started in to wash up there, a-talking while they did that, but
Hazel Techeray took the towel from
Warren
and said she'd help Callie.
Warren
didn't look whole-souled about quitting,
but he went to watch at the back. Mr. Ben beckoned me over by the door.

 
          
"Here's
the situation as I see it,” he said. "They'll be a-coming here. Likely
they're on their way now. If they wait for night, at least we'll have some part
of a moon up there to help us. Now, we've all said you're in command. How do we
handle it?”

 
          
"Keep
quiet and keep the lights down,” I said. "One lamp at the dimmest it can
be burned. There are five of us now—that should give two of us lying-down time
now and then to rest while the other three
use
round
the house and spy out for Shonokins. Make as little noise as possible. And not
a shot fired without a-being sure it'll smack home.”

 
          
"Smack
home,” he said the words after me, and he truly seemed to love to say them.
"Maybe wait till they're almost up against the house, and then let them
have it where they're biggest.”

 
          
"One
thing Hazel Techeray said,” I reminded him.
"About your
alexandrite.
They want to get hold of it. They reckon it'll give them
command over you.”

           
“All right, it stays right here in
my pocket,” he said, and slapped the place.

 
          
“No,
hold on,” I said, and made up my mind as I spoke. “Likely they’ll do what they
can to lay hold on you and get it away from you. That thing should be put
somewhere else, where they wouldn’t count on it being.”

 
          
“Where?”

 
          
“Let
me take it.” I held out my hand, and he passed it over. A beam of sunlight came
through a space in the logs and made it glitter green. I tore off a scrap of a
paper napkin and rolled the thing up in that, and stowed it deep in the pocket
of my own old pants.

 
          
“They
purely want that alexandrite, and they figure on a-getting it from you,” I
said. “But now, if they lay hold on you, you won’t have it. And let them try to
get it from me, even if they find out I’ve got it.”

 
          
“That’s
a good notion, John,” he said. “All right, let them try their tricks on me.
They can kill me, but they can’t scare me.”

 
          
And
dogged if he didn’t say it the way you’d figure he purely meant it.

 
          
Callie
and Hazel Techeray were a-finishing up the dishes.
Warren
looked from a rear door and looked at
Callie, and she knew he was a-looking. She sang a few words of a song, “Little
Margaret” as I recollect, and he tried to sing it with her, not as tuneful as
she was.

 
          
“Callie,”
he said, “when this business is over, you and I ought to sit down together and
make a book of the songs you know. I know some publishers.”

 
          
“I’d
love to,
Jackson
,” she said back to him.

 
          
And
no doubt in her voice but that this would be all over and the two of them could
do that thing. When they talked thataway, it made me feel better about the
trouble we were in, betwixt the rock and the hard place, you might call it; and
about how we could figure to win out some way.

 
          
Hazel
Techeray came to where I was. That good soup and that sup of blockade had done
wonders for her. She stepped stronger and her face wasn't so peaked up.