Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer 05 (7 page)

 
          
“I’ve
read the Bible through, a good few times. I asked you, what you a-driving at,
and I wait for an answer.”

 
          
So
friendly was his smile. “If you’re a Bible reader, John, you’re familiar with
what the Bible calls holy names. I must ask you not to say any of those holy
names out loud here. There might be something violent happen, to you and to me
and to others."

 
          
His
smile went, and he shrugged.
“Enough of that.
Let's go
where we can be more comfortable."

 
          
He
led me back away from that dark, ugly rip in
Cry
Mountain
, led me amongst tall, thick-grown trees to
where there grew a right big clump of laurel. Carefully he pulled aside
branches to left and right, till I could see a hole amongst some rocks, not a
great big raw one like the one that gave
Cry
Mountain
its name. This was more or less the size of
a door, and its shadows were soft. I could see that a slanting path went into
it, and that the rock there was as smooth as a sidewalk.

 
          
“Come
along," he bade me, and we two went down into that hole.

 
          
“Wouldn't
a big rain flood you out here?" I asked.

 
          
“I
can control rain," he said, a-leading me along. “I can bring it if we need
it, stop it if we don’t. I can do many things."

 
          
“Indians
can bring rain, off in the Southwest," I said.

 
          
“Many
people can do it. A man named McDonald, people called him Colonel Stingo, could
bring rain if the crops needed
it,
keep rain away if
racetracks had to be dry. He’s in a book by A. J. Liebling."

 
          
“I
know a Tombs McDonald."

 
          
“This
was a different McDonald."

 
          
Ahead
of us showed yellow light. Side by side we came into a big cave with smooth
rock walls and ceiling, the size of a pretty fair sitting room. At the center
of the ceiling the yellow light came from a sort of creamy globe. There was a
heavy dark blue carpet on the floor, and on the walls were fixed shelves,
stacked with all sorts of stuff, including a row of books. I made out two
doorways at the back, one shut with a green curtain the color of weeds in a
pond, the other curtained with blood-red cloth. In another wall was what looked
like a window, dull and
gray.
There were stout-made
armchairs of shiny dark wood, with cushions the blue color of the carpet. From
the ceiling in a back comer hung down a rope, braided of brown leather. Right
at the middle of all this was a table made of red-stained wooden planks across
trestles, and on it stood shiny clay cups and a shiny clay jug.

 
          
“Comfortable,
I promised you,”
came
Harpe’s deep voice. “Simple
comfort is enough for me, I don't demand the sybaritic. Know what ‘sybaritic'
means, John?”

 
          
“Yes,”
I said. “I know what that means.”

 
          
He
chuckled
his chuckle. “You’re well informed, John,
articulate. I’m glad to find that in you. Now then, drop all that gear you
carry and draw up a chair to the table, and let’s have a drink and some talk.”

 
          
I
put my things against a wall and drew up a chair, and so did
he,
and we sat down. He crossed a leg over his other knee. I saw that his trousers
were of creamy fringed buckskin, too. He shoved the jug and cups at me.

 
          
“Pour
for us, John,” he invited me, “and give me whichever cup you choose. I wouldn’t
want you to think I’d trick you with some clumsy thing to hurt you. The more so
because I let you come here for our mutual benefit.”

 
          
He
seemed to insist on that thing, mutual benefit. I wondered why, and wanted to
know. Instead I asked something else:

 
          
“Nobody
knows you’re here? Don’t planes fly over?”

 
          
“No
plane can see anything of interest through our trees. And no plane could land,
not even a helicopter—no open space.” He lifted his clay cup. “Here’s to our
better acquaintance. This happens to be an excellent article of what you call
blockade, it’s from a skillful distiller not too many miles from here. Sip it
and tell me what you think.”

 
          
I
sipped it. It was as good as the blockade I’d drunk with Tombs McDonald. “Where
did you get it?” I asked Harpe.

 
          
“I
put in a call for it, you might say.” He drank too, he drank fairly deep. “Now,
John, I’ve shown my interest in you. Why not tell me about yourself?”

 
          
I
had another sup myself. “All right,” I said, “I’ve nair yet been ashamed to do
that.”

 
          
So
I told him.

 
          
About
a-being born in the Drowning Creek country, of a good father and mother, and
how they'd died when I was only a boy. About how an old lady teacher took me in
and raised me up, taught me to read and write and tell the truth and be honest.
About how I'd learned to pick guitar and shoot with a gun, had got to be no
slouch at either of those things. How
I’d
been in the army, had been sent to a stupid war across the sea, how I'd
been in places I wondered myself if I'd ever get out of. How I'd been called
the best scout, the best rifle shot in my whole division. How, afterward, I'd
come back to my mountains and had gone here and yonder amongst them, and had
seen me some strange things in them.

 
          
He
harked at all I said, now and then having a sip of his blockade. Then: “What
strange things?” he asked.

 
          
So
I went on to tell him about how I killed the Ugly Bird, and won the thanks of
folks and the prayers of Winnie. And how, on top of a mountain named Hark, I
met
One
Other and drove him back into his pool. More
things you’ve likely heard about—the deaths of witch-people like Aram Hamam and
Mr. Loden and Fomey Meechum and Shull Cobart—all of them mightily evil and evilly
mighty, and all of them gone now to the place where they were a sure thing to
go. Harpe heard me out, and he snickered.

 
          
“I
must honestly say, John, it’s a great pleasure to listen to you,” he said. “To
hear the language you speak.”

 
          
“Language
I speak?” I repeated him. “Why, it's just only the language of folks.”

 
          
“Exactly,”
he nodded. “Your mountain language is expressive—I might even call it poetical.
I hear you with admiration.” That would have been flattering, I reckon, if he
didn't act so lofty about it, like as if he patted me on the head. He snickered
again.

           
“But what's been your profit in all
these things?”

 
          
I
shook my head to him. “I've nair studied profit. I've just gone my way along,
in the hope that I was a-doing right.” “And you've gone along into desperate
perils and great toils,” he judged. “Wouldn’t you like to go easier and find
some profit, some reward for your manifest talents?”

           
“Oh,” I said, “time and time again
I've been offered money, but I don't take that, don’t much need it.”

 
          
“Well,”
he said, “have you had the love of beautiful women?”

 
          
“None
to speak of it,” I replied him, for it wouldn't have been the right thing to
speak up of beautiful women I'd known.

 
          
“Very
well, let the thought sink in. Turn it over in your mind. But just now, it's
more or less lunchtime. Join me in eating a little something, and I'll
guarantee it will be savory.” He slapped his big hands together, and I saw
shiny rings on the both of them. He slapped them again, and a third time. Those
slaps were as loud as pistol shots.

           
The green curtain stirred out of one
of the doorways, and in
came
a woman.

 
          
She
was old. Her long straight hair was snowy white and her face was all chopped up
with wrinkles, with a hooked nose and a hooked chin like the jaws of a pair of
pliers, but she stood as straight as a pine sapling. Her dress was a dark blue,
with silvery symbols on it, and round her scrawny neck she wore three jewel
necklaces, white diamonds and green emeralds and red rubies.

 
          
They
must have been worth a right big fortune apiece. She carried a big silver tray,
with dishes all covered with napkins, and a bunch of knives and forks.

 
          
"Thank
you, Scylla,” said Harpe, grand as a king. "Sit down and eat with us. This
is our guest, John.”

 
          
She
put the tray on the table and glared me with slitty eyes. "John,” she
said, harsh and shrill. "What do you think of what you’ve seen on the way
up here, John?”

 
          
I’d
got on my feet to reply her. "I’ve seen a right much strangeness, Miss
Scylla, things that folks will wonder themselves about when I get down again to
tell of them.”

 
          
"What
makes you think you’ll be getting down again?” she shrilled at me.

 
          
"Scylla
has a sardonic gift of speech,” said Harpe, "but you’ll get used to it.
She’s been my invaluable associate for many years. Will you be so good as to
draw her up a chair?”

 
          
She
sat down, and so did I again. Harpe took the napkins off the dishes and served
us our plates. There was sliced roast beef, pink-brown. There were likewise
rolls of hot white bread, and a dish of greens.

 
          
"Perhaps
you’d like to ask a blessing, John, but remember my warning about Bible names,”
said Harpe, but there was a mock in his voice.

 
          
I
bowed my head and recited:

 
          
"Three
holy names guard me, and
be
and remain with me on the
water and upon the land, in the forests or in the fields, in cities or deserts,
in the whole world wherever I am.”

 
          
Both
Scylla and Harpe looked long at me. "Is that out of a prayer book?” asked
Harpe as he cut himself a bite of beef.

 
          
"A
sort of one,” I said. "It’s how I remember from
The Long Lost Friend
.
”

 
          
I
cut and ate some beef myself. It was
prime
.

 
          
“John
is suspicious of us,” muttered Scylla above her own plate.

 
          
“Then
we'll allay his suspicions,” said Harpe.

 
          
We
ate our meat and greens and bread, and Harpe inquired Scylla about dessert. She
got up and went out past that green curtain and fetched back a basket of
oranges and grapes. We ate of those, and they were good. Then Harpe poured us
all a taste of the blockade.

 
          
“John,”
he said, “you fetched your guitar all the way up to us. Won't you favor us with
some music?”

 
          
“Why,
sure,” I agreed him and fetched my guitar over. I tuned it awhile and then I
sang the one I'd made up at the start of this whole journey, made it up only
about four days ago, a time that by now seemed long years back:

 
          
“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,