Manly Wade Wellman - John Thunstone 02 (8 page)

 
          
“How
can you explain your method in bringing rain and then stopping it?” ske asked.

 
          
“Certainly
I can explain,” answered Manco, his voice deep in his chest. “I make a certain
mystic sign with my arms and hands, I sing a certain song and dance a certain
dance. And that brings the rain, and more of the same sends it away.
Next question?”

 
          
A
man rose this time, gaunt and bearded. “Could you teach your rain-making method
to me?” he asked.

 
          
“Not
unless you’re of the true Cherokee blood and are apprenticed to learn the art
and wisdom of a medicine man,” said Manco. “There are other tribes, mostly off
in the Southwest, who dance and pray to bring rain. I understand that they,
too, are careful about revealing the secret.” Someone else wanted to know how
the Cherokee nation had descended from the Mound Builders, and Manco quoted the
opinions of archaeologists and spoke of similarities between recovered
artifacts from certain mounds and later tools and ornaments among his own
people. Another questioner rose to bring up Manco’s remark about respect for
rattlesnakes. To that, Manco said that respect for poisonous reptiles did not
extend to pushing too close to them, and that Cherokee medicine included the
use of remedies for snake bite.
Other questions on various
subjects.
One of these by a lady, about Cherokee cooking, Manco answered
with a smile as though of relish. At last:

 
          
“No
more questions?” he asked.
“None?
Thank you, ladies
and gentlemen, for listening with such patience.”

 
          
He
walked off stage, and Lee Pitt came on and spoke into the microphone.

 
          
“It’s
now
half past two
,
more or less,” he said. “At
three o’clock
, we’ll hear from Father Mark Bundren, on
the history of diabolism and the influence of its belief today. Tonight, at
eight o’clock, the Department of Dramatic Arts presents, under direction of Ms.
Grizel Fian, a program of scenes from the plays of William Shakespeare that
deal with the supernormal. Now, suppose we take a brief recess until three.”

           
Everyone rose; everyone began to
talk. As Thunstone followed Father Bundren into the aisle, he felt, as he would
feel a physical touch, eyes fixed upon him. Someone had turned at the outer
door to look, someone with a bald head and a huge, hooked nose above big
shoulders.

 
          
“Is
that someone you know?” Father Bundren asked.

 
          
“Yes,”
said Thunstone. “Yes, it is.”

 
          
For
it was Rowley Thome. It could be nobody other than Rowley Thome,

 
          
Rowley Thome, who once had slid away into nothingness before
Thunstone’s eyes.
Rowley Thome, who now had returned from nothingness,
had returned here upon this campus, whose presence was a black threat to
Thunstone and to
Sharon
, Countess Monteseco.

           
“Is that someone you know?” Father
Bundren asked again.

           
“I’m pretty sure it’s someone I
know,” replied Thunstone. “Will you please wait, right here in the aisle, for a
few moments?
Stay with Father Bundren,
Sharon
.
I’ll see you both later.”

 
          
He
walked quickly forward, jostling people without apology. He came out into the
vestibule and through that to the outer porch above the steps. Rowley Thorne
waited there. For a moment Grizel Fian was in sight, too, but she seemed to
hurry away somewhere.

 
          
Thome
faced Thunstone. His high skull was bald with a faint sheen, his nose was a
beak, and his wide mouth held itself thin and hard.

 
          
“All
right, here I am,” Thome said. “What now, Thunstone?”

 
          
“I’ve
had glimpses of you again and again, ever since I came here,” said Thunstone,
looking Thome up and down. They were
both big
men,
more or less of a height, and both of them strongly, muscularly built. Thome
wore a suit of dark, dull cloth, and his neck was swathed in the folds of a
black-checked scarf. Above the scarf, his face had cheeks like slabs, a thrusting
chin, a colorless mouth, shrouded eyes as hard and gray as gunmetal. The
colorless mouth worked slightly.

 
          
“If
I hadn’t wanted you to see me and talk to me, I wouldn’t have waited for you,”
said Thome. People moved past them and into the open. One or two glanced
curiously at the two big, stem-faced men. “Let me ask you a plain, civil
question, Thunstone,” Thome said after a moment. “What do you think you’ll do
about my being here?”

 
          
“That’s
a question I don’t care to answer,” said Thunstone, who at the moment had no
answer. “What I’ll do depends a great deal on what you do or try to do, because
I’m sure you’ll try something. But I’m sorry to see you at all. I did have some
optimistic notion that you were gone forever, gone into another dimension, or
another plane or something like that.”

 
          
“You
turned my helpers against me,” Thome said, in a tone of harsh accusation. “I
summoned them, and you drove them back out of this world. And they took me with
them.”

 
          
“They
must have kept you for quite a while,” said Thunstone in the most casual of
manners. “What happened to you, wherever you went?”

 
          
“I
wouldn’t tell you if I knew, and I don’t really know,” Thome flung back. “How
should I know for certain? It’s like a dream, half-forgotten—you’d wonder if it
was real time or space. But I was brought back by the prayers of someone to
whom I’ll always be grateful.”

 
          
“Prayers?”
repeated Thunstone. “Who prayed for you?
To what gods?”

 
          
“I’ve
come back,” grated Thome, “to this place called Buford.” His heavy brows locked
themselves in a scowl. “Now,” he said, “
you’ll
try to
persecute me, won’t you? Try to send me back there again.”

 
          
“Remember
that your journey into nowhere was your own doing. You called on a whole
battalion of evil names against me. When I was able to banish them, they took
you along. I didn’t exile you—they did. You ought to find better company to
consort with.”

 
          
“That’s
as may be,” said Throne. “But now, here I am in Buford, listening to the
speeches at this symposium. No law forbids me to do that. Goodbye for now, I
think we’ll be seeing each other again.”

           
“I wouldn’t doubt it for a minute,”
said Thunstone.

 
          
Thome
turned and fairly ran down the steps outside the auditorium. For all his size,
and he was as big as Thunstone, he moved swiftly, surely. He vanished into a
passing group of students.

 
          
Thunstone
stood where he was.
Sharon
’s voice spoke at his side, a hushed, unhappy voice.

 
          
“Rowley
Thome,” she was saying. “Rowley Thome’s really here.”

 
          
“You’re
right, he is,” replied Thunstone. “But I’m here, too. He and I have had
encounters before this, and so far he’s never had the better of any of them.”

 
          
“We’ll
be in for trouble,”
Sharon
almost whispered.

 
          
“Trouble,”
repeated Father Bundren at Thunstone’s other elbow. “If I’ve heard correctly
about your Rowley Thome, he more or less delights in causing trouble. Count on
me if you think you need me.”

 
          
“Thanks,”
said Thunstone. “I’ll certainly do that.”

 
          
They
had walked down the steps to the pavement. They could see university buildings
on both sides of the street. They walked a few steps farther, and to the left
they could see a wide stretch of open space, green with grass and set with huge
old trees. In its middle rose a sort of obelisk.

 
          
“I
wonder what that monument commemorates,” said Thunstone.

 
          
“I
wonder the same thing,” said Father Bundren, “but I’d better get back to the
auditorium. I’m due to speak, and I hope speak to some purpose, in about ten
minutes.”

 
          
They
returned and went inside together. Father Bundren moved purposefully along the
aisle toward the stage. Lee Pitt came past him to meet Thunstone.

 
          
“I
want to invite you to a sort of potluck dinner before the Shakespearean
performance tonight,” he said. “I can’t invite all the
guests,
there won’t be enough for everybody.”

           
“I’m afraid that I must have dinner
with Countess Monteseco here,” said Thunstone.

 
          
Pitt
looked at her, smiling his admiration. “Bring her along, too. It will be
simple,
I say—-just a big pot of minestrone and some garlic
bread. Let me find you in the lobby of the
Inn
, say a
quarter to six
. We’ll eat early and then go watch Grizel
Fian’s show.”

 
          
“That
will be a pleasure,” said
Sharon
. “Thank you, Professor.”

 
          
Pitt
went away. Reuben Manco came to join Thunstone and Sharon.

 
          
“Might
we sit together?” he said. “I looked for Shimada while I was speaking, but I
never spotted him. And I can’t see him anywhere now.”

 
          
They
found seats. Around them, voices jabbered.

 
          
“Why
would Shimada want to miss your speech?” Thunstone wondered.

 
          
“You’ll
have to ask him. The mysterious East, you know.”

 
          
Pitt
and Father Bundren were on stage. As Pitt spoke into the microphone, the babble
of voices died down. Pitt introduced Father Bundren, who took his place at the
lectern. His head bowed for a moment; perhaps he was praying. Then he looked
up. His eyes quested over the well-filled auditorium.

 
          
“I’ve
been introduced here as a priest of the Roman Catholic Church,” he began, “but
I won’t try to preach a sermon. For some years I’ve been occupied in the study
of world history, particularly in that bracket that deals with diabolism. At
present I’m at work on what I hope will be an informative book on the subject.
Perhaps some day it will be published and will be found worth inclusion in your
fine library here. But while you wait for that, there is already a good
assortment of books on creepy supernatural subjects in that same library of
yours. You’ll find, for instance, the works of Father Montague Summers on
witchcraft and devil worship, as well as on the werewolf and the vampire. He is
tremendously
erudite,
he quotes authorities in various
languages which he expects you to translate for yourself. And he believes
implicitly in witches, monsters, magical phenomena and ghosts—indeed, he claims
to have seen a ghost. I recommend his books to you.”

 
          
Again
he studied his audience. Sitting beside Thunstone, Manco made notes on a pad of
paper. Thunstone saw that he wrote in the Cherokee alphabet.

 
          
“Devil
worship goes back to prehistoric times,” Father Bundren went on. “We find laws against
it in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, at one time
ascribed to Moses. Ancient
Greece
and ancient
Rome
recognized and feared diabolism. That
interesting, perverse worship came in strongly with Gnosticism, almost as the
Christian era began. The Twelve Apostles opposed it, fought it, not with entire
success—Gnosticism still exists here and there. But when you’re told that there
was bloody persecution of witch belief and witch organization from the
beginning of the Church—that’s an oversimplification, and a false one.”

 
          
He
waited for his words to sink in. Thunstone and Sharon listened silently. Manco
continued to take notes.

 
          
“As
a matter of demonstrable historical fact,” Father Bundren said, “the early
Church fathers preached against witchcraft for centuries without advocating
stem reprisals. The first papal bull launched against witchcraft was that of
Pope Alexander the Fourth, in 1258. That was followed by a series of campaigns
against the belief, in which I don’t know how many thousands of accused witches
were executed, in various untidy fashions. The last Pope to make a clear
condemnation was Urban the Eighth, in 1631. But witches were accused and tried
and condemned for many years after that, by both Catholic and Protestant
courts. In these enlightened times, we recognize that many were found guilty
who were only demented or deceived or just driven to confession by torture.
Here in
America
, twenty accused witches went to trial and punishment in
Salem
. Maybe some were innocent and were
condemned by confused judges of that frontier court, but two or three, anyway,
were guilty.” Again he looked around. “Guilty!” he repeated.
“Guilty
of what?
Of transgression against the English law that, of course,
prevailed in the American colonies. It made the practice of witchcraft a crime.
Two or three, I say behaved in a manner that showed that they believed
themselves to be practicing witchcraft. Therefore they were guilty of breaking
a law, and the court found them so.”

 
          
Somewhere
in the crowd, Thunstone sensed a flutter, and looked in that direction. It was
Grizel Fian, seemingly stirred. She seemed almost to be ready to stand and say
something.

 
          
“And
now,” said Father Bundren, “it behooves us to consider another definition, the
definition of justice. But I can’t offer you any such definition. I find myself
harking back to what was said once by an illustrious pagan, Socrates, as quoted
in Plato’s
Republic
. Years ago, I was
impressed enough to commit to memory what Socrates said, and here it is, if any
of you would like to note it down.”

 
          
Another wait.
Thunstone saw Manco poise his pen above his
pad.