Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer SSC (25 page)

He went through
the door, hat, beard and rifle, and closed it behind him, and off far again we
could hear that hound-dog bark.

We were quiet as
a dead hog there in the room. Finally:

"Well, God
bless my soul!" said Professor Deal.

"It
happened," I said.

"But it
won't be believed, John," he went on. "No sane person will ever
believe who wasn't here."

I turned to say
something to Moon-Eye and Dr. McCoy. But they were looking at each other, and
Moon-Eye's both arms were around that doctor lady. And if I had said whatever I
had in mind to say, they'd not have been hearing me.

Mrs. Deal said
something from that room where she'd gone to do her sewing, and Professor Deal
walked off to join her. I felt I might be one too many, too, just then. I
picked up my silver-strung guitar and went outside after Devil Anse Hatfield.

He wasn't there,
nor yet those who'd come with him. But on the porch was the diagram in chalk,
and I had enough light to see that the word-square read right side up again,
the way it had been first set down by Dr. Anda Lee McCoy.

McCoy. Mackey.
Devlins. Devil Anse. Names change in the old songs, but the power is still
there. Naturally, the way my habit is, I began to pick at my silver strings,
another song I'd heared from time to time as I'd wandered the hills and
hollows:

Up on the top of the mountain,
 
Away from the sins of this world,
 
Anse Hatfield's son, he laid down his gun
 
And dreamed about Ran McCoy's girl. . . .
 
 

High up that
mighty steep rocky slope with the sun just sunk, I turned as I knelt by my
little campfire. Looking down slope and down to where the river crawled like a
snake in the valley bottom, I saw her little black figure splash across the
shallow place I'd found an hour back. At noontime I'd looked from the mountain
yonder cross the valley and I'd seen her then, too, on another height I'd left
behind. And I'd thought of a song with my name in it:

On yonder hill
there stands a creature,
Who she is I do not know . . .
 
Oh no, John, no, John, no! . . .  
 

But I knew she
was Evadare. I'd fled from before her pretty face as never I'd fled from any
living thing, not even evil spell-throwers nor murder-doers, nor either from my
country's enemies when I'd soldiered in foreign parts and seen battle as the
Bible prophet-book tells it, confused noises and garments rolled in blood.
Since dawn I'd run from Evadare like a rabbit from a fox, and still she
followed, climbing now along the trail I'd tried not to leave, toward the smoke
of the fire I'd built before I knew she was still coming.

No getaway from
her now, for night dropped on the world, and to climb higher would be to fall
from some steep hidden place. I could wait where I was or I could head down and
face her. Wondering which to do, I recollected how first we'd come on each
other in Hosea's Hollow.

I'd not rightly
known how I'd wandered there—Hosea's Hollow. I hadn't meant to, that was
certain sure. No good-sensed man or woman would mean to. Folks wished Hosea's
Hollow was a lost hollow, tried to stay out of it and not think about it.

Not even the old
Indians relished to go there. When the white folks ran the Indians off, the
Indians grinned over their shoulders as they went, calling out how Kalu would
give white men the same hard times he'd given Indians.

Kalu. The Indian
word means a bone. Why Kalu was named that nobody could rightly say, for nobody
who saw him lived to tell what he looked to be. He came from his place when he
was mad or just hungry. Who he met he snatched away, to eat or worse than eat.
The folks who'd stolen the Indians' country near about loaded their wagons to
go the way they'd come. Then—and this was before the time of the oldest man I'd
heard tell of it—young Hosea Palmer said he'd take Kalu's curse away.

Folks hadn't
wanted Hosea to try such. Hosea's father was a preacher—he begged him. So did
Hosea's mother and so did a girl who'd dreamed to marry Hosea. They said if
Hosea went where Kalu denned,

he'd not come
back, but Hosea allowed Kalu was the downright evil and couldn't prevail
against a pure heart. He went in the hollow, and true he didn't come out, but
no more did Kalu, from that day on. Both vanished from folks' sight and
knowledge, and folks named the place Hosea's Hollow, and nary path led there.

How I myself had
come to the hollow, the first soul in long years as I reckoned, it wondered me.
What outside had been the broad open light of the day was cloudy gray light
here among funny-growing trees. Somewhere I heard an owl hoot, not waiting for
night. Likewise I half-heard music, and it came to me that was why I'd walked
there without meaning to.

Later, while I
watched Evadare climb up trail to me, I recollected how, in Hosea's Hollow, I'd
recollected hearing the sure enough music, two days before and forty-fifty
miles off.

At
Haynie's Fork, hunters had shot a hog that belonged to nobody, and butchered it
up while the lady-folks baked pones of corn bread and sliced up coleslaw, and
from here and yonder came folks carrying jugs of beady white liquor and music
instruments. I was there, too, I enjoy to aid at such doings. We ate and drank
and had dancing, and the most skilled men gave us music. Obray Ramsey picked
his banjo and sang
 
O where is
pretty Polly, O yonder she stands, with rings on the fingers of her lily-white
hands
, on to the last line that's near about the frighteningest last line
ary song had. Then they devilled me to play my silver-strung guitar and give
them
 
Vandy, Vandy
 
and
 
The
Little Black Train
. That led to tale-tellings, and one tale was of Hosea's
Hollow and fifty different notions of what might could have gone with Hosea and
whatever bore the name of Kalu. Then more music, with Byard Ray fiddling his
possible best, the way we never thought to hear better.

But a tall thin
stranger was there, with a chin like a skinny fist and sooty-colored hair. When
Byard Ray had done, the stranger took from a bag a shiny black fiddle. I
offered to pick guitar to harmony with him, but he said sharp, "No, I
thank you." Alone he fiddled, and, gentlemen, he purely fiddled better
than Byard Ray. When he'd done, I inquired him his name.

"Shull
Cobart," he replied me. "You're John, is that right? We'll meet
again, it's possible, John."

His smile was no
way likeable as he walked off, while folks swore no living soul could fiddle
Byard Ray down without some special fiddle-secret. That had been two days
before, and here I was in Hosea's Hollow, seeming to hear music that was some
way like the music of Shull Cobart's black fiddle.

The gray air
shimmered, but not the least hot or bright, there where owls hooted by day. I
looked at a funny-growing tree, and such flowers as it had I'd not seen before.
Might be they grew from the tree, might be from a vine scrabbled up. They were
cup-shape, shiny black like new shoes—or like Shull Cobart's shiny-black
fiddle, and I felt I could hear him still play, could see him still grin.

Was that why I
half-heard the ghost of his music, why I'd come to these black-flowered trees
in the shimmery gray air? Anyway, there was a trail, showing that something
moved in Hosea's Hollow, between the trees so close-grown on each side you
wondered could you put a knife blade among them. I headed along the trail, and
the gray dancing shimmer seemed to slow me as I walked.

That tune in my
head; I swung my guitar around from where it hung with my soogin sack and
blanket roll, and tweaked the music from the silver strings. The shimmer dulled
off, or at least I moved faster, picking up my feet to my own playing, around a
curve bunched with more black flowers. And there, under the trees to one side,
was a grave.

Years old it had
to be, for vines and scrub grew on it. A wooden cross showed it was sure enough
a grave. The straight stick was as tall as my chin and as big around as my both
hands could grab, and the crosspiece wasn't nailed or tied on, it grew on. I
stopped.

You've seen
branches grown to each other like that. Two sorts of wood, the straight-up
piece darker than the crosspiece. But both pieces looked alive, though the ends
had been cut or broken so long back the raw was gone and the splinters rubbed
off. Little-bitty twigs sprouted, with broad light-green leaves on the
cross-piece and narrow dark laurel-looking ones on the straight pole. Roots
reached into the grave, to sprout the cross. And letters were carved on, shaky
and deep-dug and different sizes:

PRAy
foR
HosEA PALMeR

So
here was where Hosea Palmer had lain down the last time, and some friend had
buried him with the word to pray for him. Standing alone in the unchanciness, I
did what the cross bade. In my heart I prayed,
 
Let the good man rest as he's
earned the right and when it's my time, O Lord, let me rest as I've earned the
right; and bless the kind soul who made and marked a long home for Hosea
Palmer, amen.
 
 

While always my
hands moved to pick that inner-heard tune, slow and quiet like a hymn. Still
picking, I strolled around another curve, and there before me was a cabin.

I reckoned one
main room with clay chinking, with a split-plank door on leather hinges and a
window curtained inside with tanned hide. A shed-roofed leanto was tacked to
the left, and it and the main cabin had shake shingles pegged on.

The door opened,
and I popped behind a tree as a girl came out.

Small-made; yet
you saw she was grown and you saw she was proud, though the color was faded
from her cotton dress till it was gray as a dove. Her bright, sun-colored hair
was tied behind her neck with a blue ribbon. She brought a rusty old axe with
her, walking proud toward a skimpy woodpile, and on her feet were flat, homemade
shoes with the hair still on the cow-hide. The axe was wobble-handled, but
there was strength in her little round arms. She made the axe chew the wood
into pieces enough for an armful, carried the wood back into the cabin, and
came out again with an old hoe on her shoulder.

From the dug well
she drew the bucket—it was old, too, with a couple of silver trickles leaking
from it. She dipped a drink with a gourd dipper and lowered the bucket again.
Then she went to the cleared patch past the cabin, and leaned on the hoe to
look at the plants growing.

There was
shin-high corn, and what looked like cabbages. She studied them, and her face
was lovely. I saw that she yearned for her little crop to grow into food for
her. She began to chop the ground up along a row, and I slid off down trail
again, past the grave to where I heard water talking to itself.

I found a way
through the trees to the waterside. Lay flat and took a big drink, and washed
my face and hands. I dropped my gear on a flat rock, then unlaced my shoes and
let the water wash my feet. Finally I cut a pole, tied on a string and hook and
baited it with a scrap of smoke meat.

Fishing was good.
Gentlemen, fresh fish are pretty things, they show you the reason for the names
they've earned—shiner, sunfish, rainbow trout. Not that I caught any such, but
what I caught was all right. When I had six I opened my knife to clean them,
and built a fire and propped a stone beside it to fry meat on and then a couple
of fish for supper. They ate good, just as the sun went down across the funny
trees, and I wondered about the bright-haired girl, if she had a plenty to eat.

Finally, in the
last dim light, I took my handaxe and chopped as much dry wood as I could tote.
I wrapped the four other fish in leaves. I slung on my guitar, for I never walk
off from that. Back I went along the trail to the cabin. Firelight danced in
the window as I sneaked through the door-yard, and bent to stack the wood by
the threshold log and lay the fish on it.

"What are
you doing?"

She'd ripped the
door open, and she had the axe in her hand. I took a long jump away before she
could swing that rusty blade.

She stood with
feet apart and elbows square, to fill the door as much as her small self could.
Her hair was down around her shoulders, and shone like gold fire in the light
from inside.

"Oh,"
she said, and let the axe sink. "You're not—"

"Whom am I
not?" I inquired her, trying hard to sound laughy.

She leaned tired
on the axe. "Not Shull Cobart," she said.

"No,
ma'am," I said. "You can say for me that I'm not Shull Cobart, nor I
wouldn't be. I saw him once, and I'm honest to tell you he doesn't suit
me." I pointed at what I'd brought. "I'm camped by the branch yonder.
Had more fish and wood than I needed, and figured you might like them." I
bowed to her. "Good night."

"Wait."
There was a plea in that, and I waited. "What brought you here, Mr.—"

"I'm named
John. And I just roamed in here, without thought of why."

"I'm
wondered, Mr.—'

"John,"
I named myself again.

"I'm
wondered if you're the man I've heard tell of, named John, with a silver-strung
guitar."

"Why,"
I said, "I'd not be amazed if I had the only silver-strung guitar there
is. Nobody these days strings with silver but me."

"Then I've
heard you called a good man." She looked down at the wood and the fish.
"You've had your supper?" she asked, soft.

"Yes, ma'am,
I've had my supper."

She picked up a
fish. "I've not eaten. If you—maybe you'd like some coffee—"

"Coffee,"
I repeated her. "I'd mightily relish a cup."

She picked up the
rest of the fish. "Come in, John," she bade me, and I gathered the
wood in my arms and walked in after her.

"My name's
Evadare," she told me.

The inside of the
cabin was what I might expect from the outside. Chinked walls, a stone
fire-place with wood burning in it, a table home-pegged together, two stools
made of split chunks with tough branches for legs. In a corner was a pallet
bed, made up on the floor with two old patch quilts. A mirror was stuck to the
wall chinking—a woman purely has to have a mirror. Evadare took a fire-splinter
from the hearth and lighted a candle stuck on the table in its own tallow. I
saw by the glow how pinky-soft her skin was, how young and pretty; and bigger,
bluer eyes than Evadare's you couldn't call for. At last she smiled, just a
little hopeful smile.

I laid more wood
to the fire, found a skillet and a chunk of fat meat. I rolled two fish in
cornmeal and commenced frying them. She poured coffee from a tin pot into two
tin cups. Watching, I had it in mind that the bottom of the pot was as sooty
black as Shull Cobart's hair.

Finally I forked
the fish on to an old cracked white plate for her. She ate, and I saw she was
hungry. Again she smiled that little small smile, and filled my cup again.

"I'd not
expected ary soul to come into Hosea's Hollow," she finally said.

"You
expected Shull Cobart," I told her to recollect. "You said so."

"He'd come
if anybody would, John."