Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer SSC (3 page)

 
          
His father got hung for horse stealing, His
mother got burned for a witch, And his only friend is the Ugly Bird, The dirty
son of—

 
          
Something
hit me like a shooting star from overhead.

 
          
It
hit my back and shoulder, and knocked me floundering forward on one hand and
one knee. It was only the mercy of God I didn't fall on my guitar and smash it.
I crawled forward a few scrambles and made to get up, shaky and dizzy.

 
          
The
Ugly Bird had flown down and dropped the sack of meal on me. Now it skimmed
across the clearing, at the height of the low branches, its eyes glinting at
me, and its mouth came open a little. I saw teeth, sharp and mean, like a
garpike's teeth. It swooped for me, and the wind of its wings was colder than a
winter storm.

 
          
Without
stopping to think, I flung up my both hands to box it off from me, and it gave
back, flew backward like the biggest, devil-ishest humming bird ever seen in a
nightmare. I was too dizzy and scared to wonder why it gave back; I had barely
the wit to be thankful.

 
          
"Get
out of here," moaned Mr. Onselm, who hadn't stirred.

 
          
I
shame to say that I got. I kept my hands up and backed across the clearing and
into the trail beyond. Then I half realized where my luck had been. My hands
had lifted the guitar toward the Ugly Bird, and somehow it hadn't liked the
guitar.

 
          
Just
once I looked back. The Ugly Bird was perching on the log and it sort of
nuzzled up to Mr. Onselm, most horrible. They were sure enough close together.
I stumbled off away.

 
          
I
found a stream, with stones to make steps across. I turned and walked down to
where it made a wide pool. There I knelt and washed my face—it looked pallid in
the water image—and sat with my back to a tree and hugged my guitar and rested.
I shook all over. I must have felt as bad for a while as Mr. Onselm looked like
he felt, sitting on the log waiting for his Ugly Bird and—what else?

 
          
Had
he been hungry? Sick? Or just evil? I couldn't say which.

 
          
After
a while I walked back to the trail and along it again, till I came to what must
have been the only store thereabouts.

 
          
It
faced one way on a rough road that could carry wagon and car traffic, and the
trail joined on and reached the door. The building wasn't big but it was good,
made of sawed planks well painted. It rested on big rocks instead of posts, and
had a roofed open front like a porch, with a bench where people could sit.

 
          
Opening
the door, I went in. You'll find a many such stores in back country places
through the land. Counters. Shelves of cans and packages. Smoked meat hung one
corner, a glass-front icebox for fresh meat another. One point, sign says
u. s.
post office, with half a dozen pigeonholes
for letters and a couple of cigar boxes for stamps and money-order blanks. The
proprietor wasn't in. Only a girl, scared and shaking, and Mr. Onselm, there
ahead of me, telling her what he wanted.

 
          
He
wanted her.

 
          
"I
don't care
if
Sam Heaver did leave
you in charge here," he said with the music in his voice. "He won't
stop my taking you with me."

 
          
Then
he swung around and fixed his squint eye and wide-open eye on me, like two
mismated gun muzzles. "You again," he said.

 
          
He
looked hale and hearty. I strayed my hands over the guitar strings, and he
twisted up his face as if it colicked him.

 
          
"Winnie,"
he said to the girl, "wait on him and get him out of here."

 
          
Her
eyes were round in her scared face. I never saw as sweet a face as hers, or as
scared. Her hair was dark and thick. It was like the thundercloud before the
rain comes down. It made her paleness look paler. She was small, and she
cowered for fear of Mr. Onselm.

 
          
"Yes,
sir?" she said to me.

           
"Box of crackers," I
decided, pointing to a near shelf. "And a can of those sardine fish."

 
          
She
put them on the counter. I dug out the quarter Mr. Bristow had given me, and
slapped it down on the counter top between the girl and Mr. Onselm.

 
          
"Get
away!" he squeaked, shrill and mean as a bat. He had jumped back, almost
halfway across the floor. And for once both of his eyes were big.

 
          
"What's
the matter?" I asked him, purely wondering. "This is a good silver
quarter." And I picked it up and held it out for him to take and study.

 
          
But
he ran out of the store like a rabbit. A rabbit with the dogs after it.

 
          
The
girl he'd called Winnie just leaned against the wall as if she was tired. I
asked: "Why did he light out like that?"

 
          
She
took the quarter. "It doesn't scare me much," she said, and rung it
up on the old cash register. "All that scares me is—Mr. Onselm."

 
          
I
picked up the crackers and sardines. "He's courting you?"

 
          
She
shuddered, though it was warm. "I'd sooner be in a hole with a snake than
be courted by Mr. Onselm."

 
          
"Why
not just tell him to leave you be?"

 
          
"He'd
not listen. He always does what pleases him. Nobody dares stop him."

 
          
"I
know, I heard about the mules he stopped and the poor lady he dumbed." I
returned to the other subject. "Why did he squinch away from money? I'd
reckon he loved money."

 
          
She
shook her head. The thundercloud hair stirred. "He never needs any. Takes
what he wants without paying."

 
          
"Including
you?"

 
          
"Not
including me yet. But he'll do that later."

 
          
I
laid down my dime I had left. "Let's have a coke drink, you and me."

 
          
She
rang up the dime too. There was a sort of dry chuckle at the door, like a stone
rattling down the well. I looked quick, and saw two long, dark wings flop away
from the door. The Ugly Bird had spied.

 
          
But
the girl Winnie smiled over her coke drink. I asked permission to open my fish
and crackers on the bench outside. She nodded yes. Out there, I worried open
the can with my pocket knife and had my meal. When I finished I put the trash
in a garbage barrel and tuned my guitar. Winnie came out and harked while I
sang about the girl whose hair was like the thundercloud before the rain comes
down, and she blushed till she was pale no more.

 
          
Then
we talked about Mr. Onselm and the Ugly Bird, and how they had been seen in two
different places at once—

 
          
"But,"
said Winnie, "who's seen them together?"

 
          
"Shoo,
I have," I told her. "Not long ago." And I told how Mr. Onselm
sat, all sick and miserable, and the conjer bird crowded up against him.

 
          
She
heard all that, with eyes staring off, as if looking for something far away.
Finally she said, "John, you say it crowded up to him."

 
          
"It
did that thing, as if it studied to get right inside him."

 
          
"Inside
him!"

 
          
"That's
right."

 
          
"Makes
me think of something I heard somebody say about hoodoo folks," she said.
"How the hoodoo folks sometimes put a stuff out, mostly in dark rooms. And
it's part of them, but it takes the shape and mind of another person—once in a
while, the shape and mind of an animal."

 
          
"Shoo,"
I said again, "now you mention it, I've heard the same thing. It might
explain those
Louisiana
stories about werewolves."

 
          
"Shape
and mind of an animal," she repeated herself. "Maybe the shape and
mind of a bird. And they call it echo—no, ecto—ecto—"

 
          
"Ectoplasm,"
I remembered. "That's right. I've even seen pictures they say were taken
of such stuff. It seems to live—it'll yell, if you grab it or hit it or stab
it."

 
          
"Could
maybe—" she began, but a musical voice interrupted.

 
          
"He's
been around here long enough," said Mr. Onselm.

 
          
He
was back. With him were three men. Mr. Bristow, and a tall, gawky man with
splay shoulders and a black-stubbled chin, and a soft, smooth-grizzled man with
an old fancy vest over his white shirt.

 
          
Mr.
Onselm acted like the leader of a posse. "Sam Heaver," he crooned at
the soft, grizzled one, "can tramps loaf at your store?"

 
          
The
soft old storekeeper looked dead and gloomy at me. "Better get going,
son," he said, as if he'd memorized it.

           
I laid my guitar on the bench.
"You men ail my stomach," I said, looking at them. "You let this
half-born, half-bred hoodoo man sic you on me like hound dogs when I'm hurting
nobody and nothing."

 
          
"Better
go," he said again.

 
          
I
faced Mr. Onselm, and he laughed like a sweetly played horn. "You,"
he said, "without a dime in your pocket! You can't do anything to
anybody."

 
          
Without
a dime . . . the Ugly Bird had seen me spend my silver money, the silver money
that ailed Mr. Onselm. . . .

 
          
"Take
his guitar,
Kobe
," said Mr. Onselm, and the gawky man,
clumsy but quick, grabbed the guitar from the bench and backed away to the
door.

 
          
"That
takes care of him," Mr. Onselm sort of purred, and he fairly jumped and
grabbed Winnie by the wrist. He pulled her along toward the trail, and I heard
her whimper.

 
          
"Stop
him!" I bawled, but they stood and looked, scared and dumb. Mr. Onselm,
still holding Winnie, faced me. He lifted his free hand, with the pink forefinger
sticking out like the barrel of a pistol.

 
          
Just
the look he gave me made me weary and dizzy. He was going to hoodoo me, like
he'd done the mules, like he'd done the woman who tried to hide her cake from
him. I turned from him, sick and afraid, and I heard him giggle, thinking he'd
won already. In the doorway stood the gawky man called Hobe, with the guitar.

 
          
I
made a long jump at him and started to wrestle it away from him.

 
          
"Hang
onto it, Hobe," I heard Mr. Onselm sort of choke out, and, from Mr.
Bristow:

 
          
"There's
the Ugly Bird!"

 
          
Its
wings napped like a storm in the air behind me. But I'd torn my guitar from
Kobe
's hands and turned on my heel.

 
          
A
little way off, Mr. Onselm stood stiff and straight as a stone figure in front
of a courthouse. He still held Winnie's wrist. Between them the Ugly Bird came
swooping at me, its beak pointing for me like a stabbing bayonet.