Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer 05
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Authors: The Voice of the Mountain (v1.1)
MANLY WADE
WELLMAN
Silverjohn—so
named for the lithe and powerful strings of his ever-present guitar—is back. In
this fifth and most exciting novel in the series, Manly Wade Wellman’s popular
hero is called by the voice of
Cry
Mountain
... into a confrontation with his most
threatening adversary.
There
are a wealth of cryptic stories about Cry Mountain, and as John listens to the
tales of eerie, hostile animals, of brave daredevils who fared up the slopes
never to return, and hears the enigmatic, unnatural keening voice emanating
from the mountain, his adventuresome spirit is aroused. Too curious and
intrigued—some might say foolhardy—to be dissuaded, John begins his long,
perilous trek up the steep mountainside. There he finds mystery and danger
enough for any man, and eventually meets the courtly, assured Ruel Harpe,
descendant of the
(
continued
on back
flap)
By Manly Wade Wellman
THE VOICE OF THE MOUNTAIN
WHAT DREAMS MAY COME
THE HANGING STONES
THE LOST AND THE LURKING
AFTER DARK
THE OLD GODS WAKEN
THE VOICE OF THE MOUNTAIN
MANLY WADE WELLMAN
DOUBLEDAY
&
COMPANY, INC.
GARDEN CITY,
NEW
YORK
1984
All of the characters in this book
are fictitious, and any resemblance
to actual persons, living or dead,
is purely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging in
Publication Data
Wellman, Manly Wade, 1903—
The voice of the mountain.
I.
Title.
PS3545.E52858V6
1984
813'.54
isbn
:
0-385-18397-6
Library of Congress Catalog Card
Number 84-10114
Copyright
©
1984
by Manly Wade Wellman
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED IN THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
FIRST EDITION
For three old and
valued friends
Bob
Bloch
Fritz Leiber
Frank Belknap Long
One
man with a dream, at pleasure, Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And
three with a new song’s measure Can trample an empire
down.
—Arthur William O’Shaughnessy
FOREWORD
Be
it pointed out, the various books of supernatural science and philosophy herein
referred to actually exist, or in one case is intriguingly rumored to exist.
Several actual persons come in for mention, though they do not take part in the
story. And certain monsters are part of the folklore of the Southern mountains.
But,
so far as I can learn, there is no mountain called Cry anywhere in the world,
and its tale as told here is entirely imaginary.
Manly
Wade Wellman
Chapel
Hill
,
North
Carolina
April 22, 1984
Adventure
was his coronal,
And all his wealth was wandering. —Henry
Herbert Knibbs
Back
in and round here, amongst all these tall heights and deep hollows, there used
to be places nobody outside knew much about; because nobody outside had air
been there to find out about them. When it comes down to the true fact today,
there are still a right good few unbeknownst places here and yonder. But no way
near so many of them as there were back then, that day I went a-shammocking
round and round and found out that for hell’s sake I’d gone and lost myself on a
great big old mountain slope of trees.
What
I’d gone into those parts for was to learn what I might
could
find out about something I’d heard was named
Cry
Mountain
. Folks here and there and yonder allowed
that it was a mountain that could cry out aloud to heaven above and earth
beneath, which you all will agree me was a curious enough tale.
Curious enough even for me, who’d seen and done some curious things
on other mountains called Hark and Dogged and Yandro and so on.
That day
I’d stopped at Sam Heaver’s crossroads store, where one time earlier I’d done a
good deed by a- killing the terrible thing they called the Ugly Bird. Pretty
Winnie still worked for Mr. Sam, and she gave me a smile, and her hair was like
the thundercloud before the rain comes down. Back yonder that time, she’d said
to me that she’d say a prayer for me air night of her life, and now she told me
that she’d kept her word on that.
Mr.
Sam and I sat on the store porch and ate canned ham spread on soda crackers and
drank from bottles of pop. I asked him could I leave my gear there behind his
counter—my bedroll and spare shirt and soogan sack—and go have a look round in
the woods there.
“Sure
enough and welcome, John,” he granted me, and so I strolled away. My
silver-strung guitar I took along, just from force of long habit. A-walking in
amongst tall, leafy trees up- slope, I strummed to myself and sort of whispered
some old songs 1 liked.
Those
were songs that had won their service stripes, like “Young Hunting” and “Poor
Ellen Smith” and “Rebel Soldier” and “My Lord, What a Morning.” I likewise
tried to work out one I was a-making up myself at the time:
“What’s
up across the
mountain,
What’s there on the yonder side?
Nobody’s here to tell me,
Nobody to be my guide,
But nair you doubt,
I’m a-going to find out,
All over this world so wide . . .”
It
took me a patch of time to pick all those and think them over in my mind, while
I went on up a sort of slope and down another, a-working westward by where the
sun had started its sink to the tall horizon. And I went another sight farther
than I’d truly meant to go, a-being so long in my legs in their old jeans
pants. I felt a tad tired and sat down on a round rock to peel off my slouch
hat and wipe the sweat off my face. With my guitar betwixt my knees, I looked
to where two hemlocks grew up beside a serviceberry tree from which the white
flowers had long gone with the spring. Somehow other, it seemed to me, those
two hemlocks and that serviceberry looked a right much like some other trees
I’d looked on before; though where that might could have been, I couldn’t
rightly say.
I
got up off the rock and lit out again, upslope and down, mostly through pine
and laurel and hickory and sourwood. Those trees looked familiar, but why not?
They grow all through these mountains. I walked on for maybe better than an
hour, and decided I’d have me another rest. I wished I’d fetched along my old
army canteen full of water. I sat down on a rock, and looked to where grew two
hemlocks and a service- berry tree.
This
time, 1 well knew they were the same trees I’d seen before. And I was on the
same rock where I’d sat myself a while back. I’d just been a-traveling in a big
old blind circle.
I
fear I cussed out loud at myself for a-doing such a fool thing. But my next
thing to do had better be a smart thing, one way or the other.
I
sat on that rock just long enough to make up my mind on what to do. I sure
enough didn’t know which way to take to get back to Sam Heaver’s store, nor yet
halfway which one. I’d just been a-rambling round, a-singing to myself like a
gone gump, without an eye to my back trail. Well then, I took a look to where
the tree-grown slope rose above me, with the sun a-mak- ing long shadows here
and yonder. If I kept on and up and up, I’d come to the top of some ridge. From
there, if somehow I got my luck back, perhaps I’d see something of the country
below me, see something that might could be a help to a man who'd gone and got
himself lost on that lonesome mountainside.
So
I took off again, a-starting to feel thirsty. There was no trail thereabouts,
and the trees and brush
were
a hamper to me. By then,
the light was a-getting dimmed out. Evening was on its way in and it turned
things gray. And no spring, no stream could I find. I reckoned I’d come right
high up at that point, and likely there’d been no rain lately. I kept on and
on, near to three hours longer, till the air turned from gray to plumb gloomy,
and well I knew there was no sense a-roving into the night.
I’d been a damn fool enough already,
and I couldn’t be more of a damn sight bigger one if I tried to climb that
slope in the dark, the moonless dark under a sky all speckly with stars above
the branches of the trees. I was tired and thirsty and lost, but I purely had
to make me a camp.
So
I stooped down and dragged together chunks of dead branches. I broke them up to
the right size. In my pocket I had me a little bitty box of matches, and I
gathered dry twigs and set them afire, then put bigger pieces in. That gave me
some sort of cheer in the gathered-down night. I could hear tree frogs
a-singing off there somewhere, and once an owl spoke, a long wail. I sat there
by my fire and wished I had me some of that food I’d eaten on the porch of Sam
Heaver’s store, and a long drink of water from his spring. What a cool spring
that was, I recollected. I picked my guitar and somehow I found myself
a-picking one of the saddest songs I know:
“Poor
little lamb,
Poor little lamb,
Lost way down in the valley,
Birds from the skies a-picking out
its eyes,
And the poor little thing cried
'Mammy’ .
.
I
stopped then. My voice sounded right cracked and pasty. For lack of water, I
put a pebble in my mouth to see if that would wet it. It didn’t wet me much,
but somehow I wasn’t as bad off as that poor little lamb. Not quite. Not yet. I
huddled down close to my fire, and somehow I slept.
But
I woke up like as if I’d heard a sound and, as I woke, I could still hear it.
Off yonder, nobody could possibly have said where, a big old voice made a moan
in the night.
Awooo awooo
. . .
And,
gentlemen, that was a right pitiful sound to hear.
While
I lay beside my fire and wondered, it died away. What on this earth could make
such a lonesome sound? I listened, but all was quieted down again. I put more
wood on the dying coals, and finally I got myself back to sleep again.
When
I woke up for good, it was a gray morning with lacy hunks of fog all amongst
the trees round about me. 1 fought the best I could against all the tiredness
and thirstiness I felt. I shoved on my old hat and slung my guitar behind me,
and started on up that slope again.
Still
no water, air place I went, but 1 had me a trifle of luck when I found a bird’s
nest in a bush, with four freckled eggs in it. I sucked those four eggs. They
weren’t what you’d call rightly fresh, but they gave some ease to my dried-out
throat, and when I moved on ahead, they kept me a-moving.
It
was about
ten o’clock
by sun when I came to the rocky backbone ridge of that mountain so high, and I
could look all round me for I can’t rightly tell how many miles in all
directions.
That
crazy-headed way I’d come up didn’t have what a man could call a safe promise
for a-going down again. Back down yonder I could just see hollows and rises,
plumb fluffed over with trees. Naught
that looked like Mr.
Sam’s store or air
other house, high or low. So I set my eyes forward to
the west, down an everlasting slope to a deep valley and what seemed to be,
right far off and far down, a dark crease at the bottom that might could be
where a stream ran. I wished to my soul that I was next to that stream, to
drink deep from it, maybe to jump right into it with all my sweaty clothes on.
But then I likewise made out, in a little clearing down there, a cabin.
So
far down and away was that cabin that it didn’t look as big as the matchbox in
my pocket, it looked more to be about the size of the joint of my thumb. There
it stood, so far down below me. From where its chimney would have to be, a gray
thread of smoke came a-tumbling up into the air.
A cabin chimney with smoke to it
meant that somebody was at home there.
Just possibly, a
kind-hearted, helpful somebody.
For Td got to where 1 could use some
kind-hearted help. I said myself
a congratulation
with
my dried-out lips, then I said a prayer for strength, and started down to that
cabin.
And,
gentlemen, I was something like three hours on the way. For the slope of the
mountain was high, high, steep, steep, all the long way down, as steep as it
could be and still get itself named a slope. You purely had to lower yourself
from rock to rock on it, all amongst trees and clumpy patches of brush
a-hanging there with their roots in the rock. Time and time again, I'd come
down to a rocky ledge as high above the next one below as the eaves of a house.
And meanwhile, as I scrambled my way, I was dead tired and near about gone
crazy from thirst. I took me a tumble or two on that hellacious journey down.
Once, if I hadn't landed in a bunch of thorny bushes, likely I'd have smashed
my guitar that I loved with all my heart.
I
lay where I'd fallen for a moment, a-feeling to see if the bushes had kept my
bones from a-being busted here or there, and that's where I heard again what
I'd heard in my camp the night before, that muttering moan with a howl cut up
into it.
Awooo awooo
awoooawoooawooo
.
. ,
Not rightly what you'd love to hear,
if you'd got yourself lost and alone.
The
cry died out. I was right glad to hear it no more, and I made myself busy to
crawl out from amongst those bushes that had broken my fall. The thorns on them
raked my hands and face. I picked up my hat and, more careful
now,
I started my climb down again. I was thirsty right down
to my toenails, and I felt weaker with air foot. I made it toward the bottom of
the slope below. Gentlemen, I’d nair wish you all such a task as that.
But some way or other I did make it,
came all the way to more level ground and the cabin and its gray chimney smoke.
I sort of staggered toward the door of it. That was a cleated- together door,
of two broad planks chopped with an adze. My knees shook under me like grass
stems in a high wind
From
somewhere down in my dry
throat I got strength enough to call out:
“Hello,
the house! Hello!”
The
cleated plank door opened in the wall of clay-chinked logs, with a creak of
rusty hinges. A man came out and gopped at me.
