Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer 05 (16 page)

 
          
I
reckoned
I’d
do well to hark at his
warning. What he meant was, leave out the name of God. I set down the mattock
and thought for a second of time.

 
          
I
knew the burial service, I knew it well. A couple of times in my life, I'd even
said it myself for somebody, there a-being there was no preacher handy to do
it. I thought over the thing, and then I moved to the edge of the grave and
spoke:

 
          
“We
bring nothing into this world, and it is certain we carry nothing out,” I said
the words and searched my mind for what to say next. Harpe and Alka and Tarrah
stood still and harked at me.

 
          
“I
will lift up mine eyes unto the hills; from whence cometh my help?” I said
another bit I remembered. Where we were right then, no hill was higher up than
Cry
Mountain
. I studied on through what the service
should ought
to be, and came up with another bit of it:

 
          
“We
commit her body to the ground,” I said then.
“Earth to earth,
ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

 
          
I
stooped down and took up a handful of the loose dark dirt we’d dug away there.
I looked down into the grave, at Scylla wrapped up in her blanket. She looked
so little, so little, down in that hole. It struck me that dead folks always
look littler than when they’re alive. I trickled the dirt in on her. I
straightened up.

 
          
“I
hope that’s enough,” I said. “It’s all I’m a-going to say.”

 
          
“I
rejoice to hear it,” said Harpe, and stooped for his shovel.

 
          
“Wait,
wait,” called out Alka. “Wait just a little moment.”

 
          
“Why?”
asked Harpe, the shovel in his hand.

 
          
“Tarrah
and I want to do something, too,” said Alka. “Come on, Tarrah.”

 
          
The
two of them came to the edge of the grave. “Here,” said Alka. She held in her
hand something that looked like a little silver heart on a ribbon. “You admired
this once, Scylla,” she said. “I give it to you.”

           
She tossed it down on the old gray
blanket. It shimmered there.

 
          
“And
here,” said Tarrah. Her hands were at her neck, a-working to unfasten the
necklace she wore. I saw the strange little images on it. She flung it down
into the grave.

 
          
“Yours,
Scylla,” she said.
“Maybe to help you.”

 
          
“Are
you both done?” asked Harpe.

 
          
“No,”
said Alka, and shook her head.
“No, not quite.”

 
          
She
started to dance there. She moved off along the edge of the open grave, along
to her right. Counterclockwise, what I’ve heard named widdershins, the witch
direction. Tarrah danced after her. They
single-footed
it on the rough ground, with a twinkle to their feet. They began to whisper
some kind of song, so low I couldn't make it out. Away they went, widdershins.

 
          
For
a second, just a little bitty second, I thought of falling in behind Tarrah and
dancing with them. But I did no such thing. It's a known fact that if you join
in with witches, you get to be a witch yourself. And that was sure enough a
witch dance, a witch song. I wasn't about to take up air part of it.

 
          
They
rounded the grave, Alka with Tarrah behind her, a-muttering the song. Once or
twice they made a turn so that they danced back to back, do-si-do as the dance
callers say. Then they danced round again. And then a third time, till they
came back to the place where they'd started, and stood still. Tarrah was
a-shedding tears. I couldn't tell about Alka, with those big glasses. Harpe had
watched them, all the three times round, while he leant on his shovel.

 
          
“All
finished?” he inquired them. “Then let's put her under.”

 
          
He
bent down and scooped him up a big high spadeful of earth and flung it in. I
heard the damp clods plop. He bent to spade up more.

 
          
"Wait
a second,” I said.
"
Reach me that shovel.” And I
put out my hand for it.

 
          
"What’s
the idea?” he asked, but he gave me the shovel. I hiked up my own load of dirt.

 
          
"Just
mountain-style doings,” I told him. "At a burying, the folks all take turn
and turn about.”

 
          
I
flung my own bunch in, and held out the shovel to Alka. She stared, but she dug
in and threw in what she dug. "Now Tarrah?” she asked me.

 
          
"Now
Tarrah,” I replied her, and Tarrah took her turn. "Give it back to him,” I
said to Tarrah, and nodded at Harpe.

 
          
He
shoveled some in and passed it to me and I did likewise, and round and round
the four of us the shovel went. The hole filled up fast, until it was to the
top. It looked as dark and moist as a new flower bed. Harpe patted the dirt
with the flat of the blade.

 
          
"A
mountain custom, you called it,” he said to me. "It’s a sensible custom.
Many hands make light work. Nobody does the biggest share of it and gets tired
while others watch. What are you looking for, John?”

 
          
I
stepped here and yonder amongst the trees, till I saw a rock, smoothed out by
time.
A sort of gray in color, like Scylla’s blanket.
It looked sort of like a pillow.

 
          
"This,”
I said.

 
          
I
bent and grabbed it. That was a considerable weight to lift, but I
muscled
it up and wagged it to where I could chunk it down
just above where Scylla’s head would be underground.

 
          
"That
was good of you, John,” breathed Tarrah.

 
          
"Very good of you,” Harpe seconded her, not with a sneer this
time.
"My friends, perhaps you feel that I’ve been matter- of-fact
about Scylla.”

 
          
Matter-of-fact,
he’d said. Sure enough, we all felt that about him.

 
          
“If
that’s true, it’s been my way of doing things, all the years of my life,” he
said. “You make me feel embarrassed.”

 
          
But
he
nair looked
nor talked like as if he was
embarrassed. He sighed.

 
          
“I’ll
miss Scylla, but she’s dead,” he said. “And the dead don’t care.”

 
          
“I
beg to differ with you,” I said. “The dead care a heap, or why do they rise up
and talk to people, time and time again?”

 
          
“I
won’t offer you an argument there,” he drawled. “But now, since all of you have
contributed to Scylla’s funeral, I’ll do something to tell her a long goodbye.”

 
          
He
went to the hollow tree beside the cleft in the top of
Cry
Mountain
, put in his hand, and fetched out that
carved ivory horn.

 
          
“Let
this be like the bugler’s call of Taps for her,” he said, and set the horn to
his mouth and blew.

 
          
The
peal rang out, clear and long, and I felt the ground tremble and shake under my
feet,
saw the trees round about as they tossed and
pitched. Their leaves snarled in the air, like as if a high wind blew.

 
          
Harpe
sounded him another blast. Another heave of the ground, and I staggered like as
if a blanket was a-being pulled under me. He blew a third time. All the top of
Cry
Mountain
moved and staggered with it, then went
quiet again. Harpe slid the horn back into its hollow.

 
          
“I
should say that we’ve done our best with these obsequies,” he allowed. “Let’s
go back inside. All my blowing may have stirred up a storm overhead.”

 
          
On
the way back to the headquarters room down in the cave, Harpe began to talk,
and sounded right cheerful. It was some way like a military funeral, where they
play you to the burying ground with “The Dead March,” and then after the firing
squad and the bugle, they play you away again with the liveliest march music
they know. Harpe looked up through the cloak of tree branches and allowed that
if rain came, it was needed right then. Then he said, “Let the dead past bury
its dead.” I knew the poem he quoted from, but I didn't remind him that another
line says, “Trust no future, howair pleasant.”
For he seemed
like as if he trusted the future to be pleasant.

 
          
When
we got into the main room, he picked up that Judas book bundle from the table.
He held it and felt it over and over.

 
          
“It's
been sewed up in skins and maybe fabrics, layers of them to protect it,” he
said. “Probably nobody has looked at it for centuries. Now, my friends, it's
nearly
time
for lunch, but you'll excuse me if I eat
alone while I work.”

 
          
To
the braided hide rope he went, and tugged. Into his hand came a big sandwich of
some sort, and I wondered myself where it came from. He tucked the goatskin
bundle under his elbow and pulled the rope again. There, he had a bottle of
beer. It looked shiny dark in the bottle.

 
          
“You’ll
excuse me for a time,” he said again, and went to the red curtain and in past
it and out of our sight.

           
I followed him in, and went past his
shut door to my own room at the end of the hall. I was dirty and sweaty, and I
washed my hands and arms and face with lots of soap. Then I came out again into
the main room, Alka and Tarrah stood there. They hadn’t moved from where they’d
stood before.

 
          
“I
suppose we should eat, too,” said Alka tiredlv. “Will you bring a tray,
Tarrah?”

 
          
Both
of them went to the rope Alka tugged on it, put something on Tarrah’s tray,
tugged again, put on something else,
tugged
the third
time. Tarrah brought the tray to the table, with three big sandwiches. Alka
went in past the green curtain and fetched out a half-full bottle with a cork
in it. In her other hand she fetched three clay cups

 
          
“This
is a good Chablis, a very good Chablis,” she said, a-setting the things on the
table '‘I’ve enjoyed part of it, and I’d like to share it with you.”

 
          
We
all sat down. I picked up my sandwich and took me a bite of it. It was smoked
tongue and lettuce and some sort of dressing on buttered white bread. I took me
another mouthful. Likely that was a right good sandwich, but at the time I
didn’t know. We’d all had us a rough morning to bury Scylla.

 
          
Alka
poured us out her wine in the clay cups, Tarrah tasted hers. "It’s
delicious,” she said, though she was sad-faced to say it. We went ahead and ate
and drank, and we talked.

 
          
"Scylla
could be so difficult,” said Alka. "She could be short and sharp, and she thought
that she was better than Tarrah or me, because she was here first. But I did
like her. I truly did.” "So did
I
,” Tarrah put
in. "Truly. And, John, you said you were sorry for her. You spoke so
beautifully beside her grave.” "She hated my guts and the marrow in my
bones,” I said, as I took the last bite of the sandwich. "I reckon she
couldn’t help being thataway.”

           
“She resented you,” said Tarrah.
“Maybe she resented Ruel, too.”

 
          
“That's
probably true,” said Alka. “She wanted her own way, and who of us ever gets our
own way about anything?”

 
          
“She
sure enough didn't seem happy to me, not the least bit,” I said, a-sipping that
good Chablis wine. “I wondered myself if she air was happy in her whole life.”

 
          
“Now
that you speak of it, I don't suppose she was,” said Alka, and toyed with her
cup. “Oh, Scylla could be harsh.
But not truly harsh to Ruel.
She was afraid of him. I suppose we all are.”

 
          
“I'm
not,” I said, because it was there for me to say. “Hark at me, ladies, I
climbed up here to find out why
Cry
Mountain
cried. I'm here now because I reckon a man
would be a plumb country fool to go out the gate yonder, amongst what waits for
him. Harpe reckons I'll be of some use to him, but me, I don't reckon to be.”

 
          
“Hush,
John,” Tarrah begged to me. “He's in there, but he can hear what you say if he
wants to.”

 
          
“Let
him hear what I say, I've got to say it.”

 
          
“What
if he should come out here and punish you?” Alka sort of whined, in a way that
wondered me if she'd air been punished for something that Harpe didn’t like.

 
          
“If
that should happen,” I said to her, “I'd do the best I can. My best might just
to turn out to be good enough.”

 
          
The
moment I said that, in came Harpe. He grinned at me, a dry grin. It might
could
be that he had heard what I'd said, but if so he did
naught about it, maybe he would save up for later.

 
          
“I've
been busy,” he said. “Scholar's work is hard. I’ve been sweating over Judas's
writing in there, as I sweated digging the grave for Scylla. Suppose we have a
little taste of liquor.”

 
          
He
sat down with us. He'd fetched along his jug of blockade, and he poured in our
cups for us, and poured one for himself. “Cheers,’” he said, the way I’ve heard
Englishmen say, and drank. I tasted at mine. It was sharp and it bit, but it
bit just right. I realized I was glad for the bite, for that burying had made
me feel right gloomy.

 
          
“I’ve
always felt that making excuses was a confession of guilt,” Harpe went on in
his smooth, easy way. “And maybe I do feel something of guilt about how I
behaved at the funeral we gave Scylla. But remember, her death was her own
idea. She used a very special poison she stole from me, and she died with a
curse on her lips. Yet, when John spoke his words of peace over her, I found
myself hoping that she’d have peace. I even felt peace within myself, and it
was a happy feeling. I’ve thought it over, and I say again, let the dead past
bury its dead. What do you say to that?”

 
          
None
of us said aught. We only just looked at him.

 
          
“Silence
gives consent, Oliver Goldsmith tells us,” he said at last. “I hoped for that,
looked for it. I begged the question, so to speak, but I wasn’t really abject
in my begging. Let’s change the subject.”

 
          
He
drank again, a good pull at his cup.

 
          
“The
Gospel According to Judas is in Greek,” he said then. “Not very good Greek, I’m
afraid—Judas must have had a hit- or-miss education. But from the very first
sentence, it’s an arresting document, a priceless one.”

 
          
“What
does it say?” I inquired him, but he waved that away.

 
          
“I’d
hesitate to tell anyone that,” he allowed. “But, as I say, the Greek is
slipshod. We must remember that Judas wrote it in a hurry, in a matter of
hours, and then went and hanged himself because things had gone wrong for him.
And that old, old parchment is faded and cracked and brittle. I’m steaming it
slightly—I have a Bunsen burner in my room, to heat water for the steam. And I
can use a preservative I have here somewhere/’

 
          
He
knocked back the rest of his drink and got up and went to his shelves. For the
first time I saw that there was a drawer at the bottom. He pulled that open and
pawed round in it and fetched out a little corked-up bottle.

 
          
“This
is what I need/' he said, and off he went back of behind the red curtain again.
He went in a quick hurry, like somebody who’s got behind in the work he must
do. Alka and Tarrah both looked on me. Alka’s eyes behind her glasses were
puzzled. Tarrah looked more or less scared.

 
          
“I
never knew him so busy before,” said Alka, deep and soft within herself. “He’s
finding out something in there.”

 
          
“Did
he air tell you ladies about the Gospel According to Judas?” I asked of them.

 
          
“I
heard him mention it once or twice, but that’s all,” said Tarrah.
“Mentioned it once or twice before you came.
He has a great
gift of silence when he wants to use it. That’s when he’s at his most
frightening.”

 
          
“I
take it he frightens the both of you,” I said. “Yet you let him fetch you
here.”

 
          
“I
was in trouble, up there when I was in the library,” said Alka. “The law was
beginning to notice me. I was glad to get away at the time.”

 
          
“So
was I in trouble where I was,” Tarrah put in. “Big trouble. People wanted to
kill me. If Ruel Harpe hadn’t come when he did, I wouldn’t have lived to tell
the tale.”

 
          
“He
brought you here to be his helpers,” I summed it up for them. “Was that his
only reason?”

 
          
Alka
smiled, but it was a smile as tight as a guitar string. “What you mean is, did
he want us for love, for sex,” she said. “No, John. He found that when he went
out into the world. I doubt if I ever expected it, but there was none. Maybe
Scylla expected it. Maybe that drove her to killing herself,”

           
“Love," Tarrah spoke the word
out. “I don’t think I ever expected it from him, either. John, I can speak
honestly to you. When you came here, 1 thought you’d been brought for me. It
hasn’t been like that, though.’’

 
          
“No,
ma’am,’’ l agreed her, without a-seeing
air point
in
a-telling her why I’d been able to back away from her.

 
          
She
leant toward me, her hands clasped together on the table. “I don’t hold that
against you, John,’’ she said. “I’m not going to hate you, and I promise I
won’t kill myself to make you sorry.’’

 
          
“I
do purely hope not,’’ I said, and meant it.

 
          
“Why
should Ruel Harpe need either of us women?’’ said Alka. “He can go to any
country on earth whenever he chooses, take whatever woman pleases him. He roams
the world, John, he’s been in far places.’’

 
          
“Well,’’
I said, “
so
have I. That was on a sort of government-
sponsored tour—the Army. I’ve been in some far places myself.’’

 
          
“What
was it like?’’ Tarrah asked me.

 
          
“It
happened to be a war,’’ I replied. “A thousand fell at my side, and ten
thousand at my right hand, but it didn’t come nigh me. Somebody or other said
one time, war is expensive and in bad taste. I’ll just add onto that, war is
terrible. When
Sherman
said war was hell, he didn’t know enough swear words.”

 
          
“Were
you afraid in the war?” Tarrah wanted to know. “I can’t imagine you being
afraid.”

 
          
“Well
then, just stretch your imagination, Tarrah,” I told her. “Sure enough I was
afraid. If a man in a war isn’t afraid, he doesn’t have much sense. I was
afraid a big sight of times.”

 
          
“What about those times?” she kept after me.
“The times you
were afraid?”

 
          
“In
those times, I just kept on a-fighting, though I well knew how crazy-headed war
is. I fought on. Afraid or not, a man’s got to be a man.”

 
          
They
were both quiet to listen, a couple or three breaths of time, and both of them
looked on me with their wide eyes.