Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer 02 (20 page)

 
          
“Do
you understand that we mean exactly what we say?” called Brooke Altic to us.

           
I held up my hands for all to be
quiet, say naught. Well I knew that if we didn’t reply him, Brooke Altic would
have something else to say. That would slow up what he was a-trying to trick on
us. It might even tip his hand. We waited and, sure enough, there came his
voice again.

 
          
“I’ve
asked several times for that jewel, that alexandrite. Let me say, I’ll make a
fair exchange for it—more than a fair exchange, a liberal one. I have here a
ring set with a ten-carat diamond, and all around the diamond are arranged ten
fine rubies. It’s worth a fortune.” His voice rose up. “What do you say to that
offer, Mr. Ben Gray?” “
Don’t talk no
offer to me,”
said Mr. Ben, before I could hush him. “I ain’t got it no more, nohow.”

 
          
“Who
does have it, then?” Altic inquired him from the dark yard.

 
          
“That
there comes under the head of it’s you to find out.”

 
          
“Very well.
My offer stands, though; this valuable ring for
that semiprecious stone. Do I hear a reply?”

 
          
Again
I had my hand up to keep them all quiet.

 
          
“I
see. I suppose that silence means bleak refusal. Then you have only yourselves
to thank for what will happen now.
My profound regrets.”

 
          
He
went quiet, and we felt what we’d felt before, that grinding press of power all
over the house. Our lamp tottered where we’d set it, might could have tipped
over if Hazel Techeray hadn’t caught it up with both hands. The rafters creaked
and popped so loud, I wondered if they weren’t just before a-coming down. And I
felt a feeling I’d known before: a hum in my blood with a sing in my ears, the
same way as I’d felt them out on that straight-drawn trail to the Shonokin
settlement.

 
          
There
was a burny feeling on my right leg, on the outside of it just below the hip. I
thought a spark must have come there to me from somewhere, and I slapped at it

 
          
"What
is it, John?” said Callie to me. "Did something hit you?”

 
          
"I
don't rightly know,” I said with my hand to the place. It felt warm there, but
no sure-enough fire to it. "I can't say for certain what it is.”

 
          
The
cabin settled out of its wigglings. The tingle left out of me. I
dived
my hand into my pants pocket and fetched out the
alexandrite in its little twist of paper and unwrapped it a trifle bit. It
showed pale in our dim light. And it felt warm.

 
          
I
walked over close to where Hazel Techeray still held our lamp. Jackson Warren
came across to my side. He poked at the wadded paper.

 
          
"It
feels almost hot enough to catch fire,” he said. "That'# the alexandrite,
isn't it, John?”

 
          
"
Right,
and they're getting their power line to it somehow.”

 
          
"I
can see one of them a-scrambling round out yonder,” said Mr. Ben from where he
was on watch.

 
          
I
set the thing down on the edge of the table and near about ran to the place. I
looked out betwixt the logs.

 
          
And
sure enough, there was movement in a shadowy place in the yard near the path,
where some bushes grew.
A dark patch the size of a man, or
maybe a little bear.
It hung low. It twitched itself thisaway and that.

 
          
"Just
let me, by God, get him in my sights,” rumbled Mr. Ben, and he ran his gun
barrel through the space to take aim.

 
          
"Hold
your fire, Ben Gray I” sort of wailed somebody out in the dark yard.

 
          
"Sim
Drogus, as I live and draw breath,” said Mr. Ben.

           
I saw the dark shape rise up and
stretch its hands above its head.

 
          
"Hold
your fire,” said Sim Drogus again. “I’ve come here to do you some good, Mr.
Ben.”

 
          
“If
you come here to do me good, it’s the first damn time,” Mr. Ben gritted back at
him. “What you got to say to me? Speak it out, and make it short.”

 
          
“Come
out at the door,” Sim Drogus asked him. “Come out and be a target for your
Shonokin friends? My mother nair raised me to be air such a fool. I’ll come to
the door and talk to you through it, and you come along to where I can see you
plain.”

           
All us others in the house started
to crowd round. I waved for them to get back and stay on watch. Mr. Ben stamped
hard to the door and pulled it a couple inches open with the muzzle of his
rifle. I was close enough to see out at a chink to the front.

 
          
It
was sure enough Sim Drogus who came along the path toward the steps. I knew him
by his slumpy shoulders, his long skinny neck. He stood almost at the foot of
the steps.

 
          
“Mr.
Ben,” he said, “I done come here with a friendly message for you, from Mr.
Brooke Altic.”

 
          
“Hagh!”
snorted Mr. Ben, like a mean horse. “
Me and him
is
through with aught you could call friendly. And you, how come you not to be
a-running to the law with word of shooting here? You’re right good at that.”

 
          
I
saw Sim Drogus sort of twitch and sway himself, like as if he felt embarrassed.

 
          
“Mr.
Ben,” he tried again, “you well know I nair carried no tale on you to them
deputies. It was Hazel Techeray. You got her in there right this minute, and if
she’s honest she’ll tell you the same. Anyhow, ain’t no other neighbor round
these parts is close enough to hark at this fuss you’re a-raising up.”

 
          
"Hagh!”
Mr. Ben snorted at him again. "
Them
tore- down Shonokins you got is a-raising the fuss, and
none of them dare step forward to me, so they send you. You’re their little
fetch-and-carry dog, ain’t you, now?”

 
          
"Go
on, cuss me out if that pleasures you,” said Sim Drogus. He had his hands up.
"I won’t hold that hard against you, if you cuss me out. But I’m come to
be a peacemaker betwixt you and Mr. Altic. My message is, he only wants to make
you rich, make you happy. He wants just one little teeny thing from you.”

 
          
"You
come on up here and step inside my door, Sim Drogus,” invited Mr. Ben, with
meanness in air word, "and I’ll write out an answer to that there message.
Right on your weasel face, one that Brooke Altic could read by the moonlight.
If your Shonokin
friends wasn’t
there to help you, I’d
come outside and run you right up the tallest tree there is in miles.”

 
          
"You
won’t listen to reason?” asked Sim Drogus, the same way Brooke Altic had asked.

 
          
"I
won’t listen to you and that’s the naked truth. Now then, I’m a-going to count
three for you to get out of my sight.”

 
          
"I’m
sorry for you, Ben Gray,” squeaked Sim Drogus, and he turned round and made off
quick.

 
          
Mr.
Ben shoved his gun out at the door and fired over him. Sim Drogus dived into
shadows like a frog into a pond.

 
          
"What
poor shooting, Mr. Gray,” mocked Brooke Al- tic’s voice from somewhere behind
his tree. "Or possibly you only meant to scare him. If so, you did that.
But keep on shooting, please. When your ammunition is all gone—”

 
          
"It
ain’t all gone yet, God damn your time,” Mr. Ben busted in at the top of his
voice. "We got plenty more bullets here, and one of '
em's
got your name wrote out on it, loud and clear. Just you step into view, just
step.”

 
          
"A
highly intriguing offer, but I must decline with thanks,” Altic drawled to us.
"However, if you're going to be so inhospitable to Mr. Drogus, here
present are some other neighbors who would like to talk to you.”

 
          
We
waited.
At last: "Mr. Ben?” questioned a man's voice.
"Mr. Ben Gray?”

 
          
"Sure
as I'm born, that there bank-jumping, side-changing Lew Replogle,” grated Mr.
Ben, as hoarse as a rasp on rusty iron. "I'll tell him a thing or two he
should ought
to know about himself.”

 
          
"No,
let me do the talking,” I said, and waved at him to hold his words. I put up my
own voice. "Mr. Replogle, what is it you want?”

 
          
"Is
that John I hear a-talking?” said Replogle, and now I could make him out and
two others, a-standing together in the road just before the head of the path.
"We want to tell Mr. Ben something.”

 
          
"You
can tell it to me, if there's aught to be told,” I said. "What do you
want?”

 
          
"Just
only a peaceable message to give,” said Replogle. "John, me and you met
this day and shook hands to be friends. Here with me I've got
Matty
Groves
and U. G. Bannion, who did likewise. Now,
we want to do this thing right, do it peaceable.”

 
          
"Do
it peaceable, you say?” I asked him out yonder. "And if you can't do it
peaceable, you reckon to do it the other way?”

 
          
"Well—”

 
          
He
didn't go on, but, a-straining my eyes, I saw that those three men had guns out
there to lean on.

 
          
"You
reckon you'll make a fight here, rush this cabin?” I said. "Mr. Replogle,
you don't seem to be gifted enough to see how the Shonokins are a-fixing to use
you. They themselves can’t stand gunfire. They’re afraid one of them will get
himself killed and the rest will have to run off and quit.”

 
          
"And
that’s right enough the lowdown Shonokin way,” husked Mr. Ben beside me.

 
          
"I
count three of you there, in the pay of Brooke Altic,” I went on, "and if
Sim Drogus is still round there with you, that makes four human men who might
could face up to some shooting. All right, but there’s five of us in here, and
we have guns and we can use them right well. Did you air hear tell that tale of
how the monkey got the cat to drag the hot chestnuts out of the fire? You can
get more than your paw burnt here.”

 
          
"John,
I ain’t none used to be talked to thataway,”
said
Replogle, "and I don’t like it.”

 
          
"Nor
I don’t like to talk along such lines myself,” I told him. "But we mean
business in
here,
whatair kind of business comes up.
And if I was you, or Mr. Groves, or Mr. Bannion, I’d pull up and leave out of
here and hope I had a whole skin.”

 
          
"Well—”
he said again.

 
          
I
watched them fade away out of sight amongst trees somewhere.

 
          
"This
is all part of desperation tactics on the part of the Shonokins,” said Warren,
who still stayed at the table. "Remember, they consider themselves an
endangered species, and just now they’re acting accordingly.”

 
          
"I’ll
endanger their old tore-down species,” vowed Mr. Ben. "Give me just air
kind of a good
chance,
and I’ll make them so scarce
and hard to find, folks will pay good money to look at them in a circus.”

           
Hazel Techeray actually laughed. I
near about did myself.