On the last notes Callie sang, Mr. Ben slogged in, a-hugging in both his arms a big heap of planks of different sizes. He leaned them to the wall.
“Sure enough pretty-sounding, that there song/' he sort of grumbled out, “but I don't know just how it'll help us out in what we got to do hereabouts.”
“I can't agree you all the way on that, Mr. Ben,” I said, a-putting my guitar back on my heap of gear in the corner. “Fve heard it said, you can't have an army without music.” “Hah!” he grumbled out again. “All right now, whoever said such a thing as that, I want to hear tell.”
“I believe that that observation is generally attributed to Robert E. Lee,” said Warren as he watched Callie pour a glass jarful of home-canned tomatoes into the soup kettle.
“Oh?” said Mr. Ben, quieter this time. “Oh, him. That's all right then. Only I sure enough could wish that Robert E. Lee was right here with us in this here old cabin, to maybe help us figure out what to do against them torn- down Shonokins.”
I could have near about wished the same thing; or, if we couldn't have some big, smart old general like Lee or Washington or Napoleon, I could have just wished for a few smart-thinking, sharp-shooting friends I knew. If Obray Ramsey could have been there then, as good with a deer rifle as he is with a banjo, which means first class. Or either Eddy Herron from up in the Toe River country, with his two tall sons Clay and Gavin.
“Mr. Ben,” I said, “let's you and me get those boards you brought in up over these windows, against what might could try to come through at us.”
I looked over the boards he'd fetched. There were some rough-sawed planks, and others that were just thick, split slabs of different trees. Mr. Ben searched out a couple of hammers and a handful of big spike nails, more or less the sort of thing that Jael the wife of Heber must have knocked straight through the skull of Sisera in the Bible—a common sort of trick, as I'd always reckoned. He and I went into the back bedrooms, first one and then the other, and spiked on planks over the windows there, from top to bottom. There was a bureau in each room, and we shoved the bureaus against the planks. Next, in the front room, we closed in all the windows the same way, with just cracks betwixt the planks so we could peek out from inside. It made the room sort of darkish, but light soaked in through the spaces where the chinking was out of the logs. Finally, we headed once more up to the loft, and just one plank was enough to block the little window there.
“How about that trap?” asked Mr. Ben again, with his eye on it.
“No, forget it,” I judged. “We just might could want to get up there our own selves.”
Down we climbed again. Another thought had started to feel itself round in my mind, a something I'd heard tell years before from an Indian chief I'd met at a county fair.
He was a leather worker, of the Osage tribe that has a reservation in Oklahoma. He'd been to government schools and was up to what the books allowed about this and that, but he likewise remembered the tales of his old folks; especially about the big wars that the Osages had fought with the Utes before the white man's government came along and put a stop to them. And he'd narrated to me what the old Osage war-makers believed, like this:
A part of the Osage religion was belief in life after death. They allowed that, if you should kill a man, his ghost would hang round. Then, the next time you had a fight, that ghost would come in on the side of the man you fought. By the time you killed three-four enemies, their ghosts would all pitch in to help whoever you fought next. And the odds got bigger and bigger, the more people you killed. The Indian who told me that was civilized, as Fve said, but I got the notion he believed in what he was a-talking about. And now, when I recollected it, I wondered myself if there might not be some truth to it
Killing? There come times when a man naturally has it to do. I didn't think much about things I'd had to do in war—I always try to forget that war as much as possible. But there were other things in my past.
For instance, there'd been Mr. Onselm, who'd fallen down stone dead when I struck dead the Ugly Bird that was his familiar spirit. And then Mr. Loden, a witchman who'd lived the most part of three hundred years before I'd used a charm of silver against him, silver that was destruction to his sort. And Hoph, who'd needed a silver bullet to settle his low-flung hash. And Shull Cobart, maybe the most devilish evildoer I'd air known in all my life; I’d fed him right smack into the skeleton hands of Kalu, the bone- demon who haunted Hosea's Hollow. Yes, and others. Not all of these had I struck down in battle, but I’d been the death of them as sure as if Fd gone after them with a double-bitted ax. Whenever Fd come to stand before the judgment seat, their blood would be on my hands, for good or evil.
It was enough to make me feel long in the face when I thought of fighting Brooke Altic. Only—hadn't Brooke Altic probably caused some deaths on his own part? Might not those ghosts come and work against him when the other ghosts worked against me—might they sort of cancel things out a little on my side? I couldn’t know. I could only hope that.
Mr. Ben stowed away the hammers and nails and came to look into the soup kettle. “Now, that’ll eat good some time tonight,” he vowed. “And I feel that we’re likely as ready for trouble as we can get. What do you say, John?”
“I say more or less the same,” I told him. “How about you, Jackson?”
But he wasn’t a-harking at me right that moment, because Callie was a-talking to him, and he hadn’t an ear for a word from all the world else.
“I keep feeling so guilty,” she said to him softly. “Why have I put you into all this, Jackson? What have I got you into?”
“You’ve got me into where you happen to be at the moment,” he replied her, with all the meaning he could put into it. “And, come what may, I’d be glad to be beside you under any circumstances, Callie.”
Mr. Ben watched them. His strong face-lines looked a heap gentler as he harked at what they said.
“I’m glad to be with you too, Jackson,” Callie almost whispered. “You’re strong and wise and brave. And we both trust in John.”
“That’s right,” said Warren. “With John on our side, we really outnumber those Shonokins.”
I stood and hoped to heaven that there might could be something in what they said. At last Warren looked round.
“Did you ask me something, John?”
“Nothing to matter,” I said. “I figure I can count on you, against the Shonokins or the Devil they say they don’t believe in.”
“The Devil,” he repeated after me. “That reminds me of what Sir Walter Raleigh wrote once, about the fallacy of frightening the Devil away.”
"The Devil's supposed to be afraid of music,” said Callie.
"Raleigh thought that charms and spells against Satan didn't make much logical sense,” Warren went on. "He pointed out that a magic line drawn to pen Satan in wouldn't really stop a mouse. He reminded us that Satan hadn't been afraid to mobilize an army of fiends and make war on God himself.”
"I heard tell about that at a camp meeting one time,” I said. "The preacher allowed that once there was such a war, and Satan's side didn't last but three seconds against God's angels.”
"I could wish we had a few angels with us, then,” said Mr. Ben.
I put on my hat. "Folks,” I said, "I'm a-going out for a while.”
They all swung round on me and scowled their faces and stared. I'd nair before seen six eyes bugged out thataway.
"Hold on,” said Mr. Ben. "You ain’t a-going to do no such a thing.”
"Hold on yourself,” I said back to him. "You all chose me to be the captain here, and the captain gives the orders. All right, in a battle we need reconnaissance, we need information. I aim to scout out along that track of theirs—”
"How'll you dare do that, you gone gump?” Mr. Ben broke in on me.
"It’s been a good hour since those neighbor-folks of yours came here to talk about a-fetching off that dead Shonokin to their burying ground,” I made a reminder. "I want to be cert
ain sure they did that thing. Likewise I expect to find out a couple other useful things.”
"I don't like it, John,” Mr. Ben argued at me.
"Sorry, but here I go,” I said again. "Mr. Ben, you be in charge till I get back.”
“What if you don't get back?" Warren inquired me. “I'll get back, all right."
And, as I said that, I somehow knew I spoke the naked truth.
10
There next to the steps, I saw for the first time, leaned an ash stick, about three feet long and as thick as a hoe handle. I picked that up to carry along with me. And I stopped for a second to look down at the Indian pink that Hazel Techeray had begged for and hadn't been given. A purely pretty flower, that was, healthier to look at than the flowers round the Shonokin houses at Immer Settlement. As I studied it, I heard the clickety-clickety note of a seedeater. There it sat, black and white and little, in a beech tree. I headed on, but I didn't step onto that trail with its tingle. I kept to the woods beside it.
And, right off, they were another sight different woods than the trusty woods at Mr. Ben Gray's place. They had the feel I'd known in that clearing where Hazel Techeray had said her spell and made her witch fire, the feel I'd made go away with my own spell.
It was like as if the trees had a sort of life to them, like as if their trunks stirred like bodies and their branches moved like arms. Amongst their bunches of green leaves, you could make out something like faces, and not goodlooking faces either. There’d be a shadowy green clump, with dark splotches in it like eyes, maybe like a toothy mouth, like a skull, sort of, or the face of an animal of a sort you weren't purely sure of. Well, that would mean I was out of the Ben Gray land and the spell I'd said to protect it. Here, there wasn't air good spell, and I doubted if it would much help to say one for whoever's land it was.
I said to myself that it was just imagination. I hoped that was so. I kept a-going along through thickets of unchancy trees. All the time I kept in sight of that Shonokin track, but I stayed off it.
Once again I called back to mind all those witch people I'd met with and some of them I'd destroyed. Mr. Onselm, Mr. Tewk, Shull Cobart; yes, and Mr. Howsen who'd served the wants of what they called One Other beside the Bottomless Pool on Hark Mountain. Likewise there'd been Polly Wilse, the witch woman who'd stayed seventy-five long years in the desrick on Yandro, with all round her such things as the Bammat, the Flat, the Behinder. Shoo, the Behinder. I wished to my soul I’d nair had a glimpse of that, to give me the shivers from time to time all the years since.
As to these woods I walked, I'd come to reckon they must belong to the Shonokins, by those law titles they'd managed to get somehow or other. It stood to reason that they must own the land right up to Mr. Ben's yard, which now they wanted so that they could run their power track across it and on. Well, that made these same woods haunted, and that was a naked fact. I looked at a thicket. I had a notion of something on the move the other side of it. I even thought I heard feet, slow and heavy, a-keeping pace with me.
I stopped dead. If there'd been feet a-sounding, they stopped dead, too. Did whatever it was have an eye on me there? I strained my eyes, but I couldn't see aught through the branches. I only felt something, all the same. A something outdoingly big and sneaky.
I recollected what I'd been told about things they called dinosaurs, once thick and ugly all through this country. All gone now, all dead and gone. But then, you’d expect the Shonokins to be dead and gone, too, and they weren’t Nothing has to be dead and gone just because you don’t know it’s there. I hated the thought. I walked on. Imagination . . .
No birds sang in those woods. Then came the throaty rattle of a raven, off to my left. A raven a-talking on your left means, look out, you’re in trouble. I’d another sight rather have had it on my right.
Just then, something did sure enough come into view, and my heart hopped right up against the back of my tongue.
It wasn’t aught of a great big thing, at that. It scuttled in some juniper scrub, a quick flutter of something black. Next moment, it came out in plain sight of me.
A little black dog? No, and not a cat either. It might could have been a groundhog or a big weasel thing. No, not them. It headed for open ground amongst the trees ahead of me, and stopped there and slewed itself round to look at me.
It had big eyes that shone, pale and ugly, and it had teeth bare in its mouth, pale and ugly too. Those eyes and teeth shone like chips of feldspar. I pointed at it with my ash stick, and it went a-sliding away again, up there ahead of me. It sort of scrabbled its feet and headed straight across, like as if to draw a line over my path. I walked toward it, but at the line something made me stop and stand still. The little animal, whatever it might could be, went a-racing all the way round behind me and up in front again, a-drawing a circle round me. It crouched.
All right then, a spell was a-being put on me, a ring drawn to shut me inside. I recollected what Jackson Warren had said about Sir Walter Raleigh, how such a line shouldn’t ought to stop a mouse. But I decided to do something other than just step over, another remembry from The Long Lost Friend.
I hiked up my stick in my hand and recited the words:
"Like unto the blessed cup and the wine, given unto the holy saints,” I said, a-spacing the words out slow, "may I be guarded and defended in the daytime and at night, that no serpent bite me, no wild beast tear me, no weapons, no steel, no iron hurt me, no false tongue injure me, no rogue enrage me, and that no fiends, no witchcraft, no enchantment harm me.” I raised my voice. "Amen!” I said, loud and clear.
Whatever that little black thing was, it was gone. I wondered myself however it could move so fast to get itself out of sight. I stepped on out of the circle it had drawn to pen me in and went a-walking ahead.
And there yonder, beyond the next belt of trees, there she was.
Hazel Techeray stood bowed over and scared-looking, like some naughty child that waited for somebody to beat on it. Even her clothes—the blue blouse and the quiltwork skirt—looked dull and timid. Her brown hair was swept down over her face. She stood and didn't look up at me.
"John,” she said mournfully. "John. Your power's too much.”
"And your power's too little, Miss Hazel,” I said, and stopped next to her and leant on my ash stick and waited.
"My power?” she repeated me. "It's nothing, John. Not now. It's gone from me.”
What new trick might could she be up to? But those words I'd said to her, before in the clearing and just now, when her little pet creature, her familiar if you'd care to call it that, had put away something from against me. The woods moved and sighed round us, but I didn't let myself feel scared.
"What's gone with your little familiar animal?" I inquired her.
"It—it's deserted me."
Her face was pale, right to her mouth that was red no more, just pale, sick pink. I felt a mite sorry for her.
"You tried another spell, and it wouldn't work," I said.
She twisted her face. "I only wanted to stop you. I had to see you."
"All right," I said, "you see me. How do I look?"
Another twist of her face. "Please listen to me, John. Have pity on me. I—I want to change sides."
That put me in mind of Brooke Altic's talk to me that morning, about winning sides and wrong and right sides. "Which side do you want to change to?” I asked of Hazel Techeray. "Which have you been on so far?”
She flung out her arms wide, and her hands trembled. She looked at me at last, with the unhappiest eyes on this earth.
"I was on the Shonokin side. I took orders from Brooke Altic, but that's no good for me now," she stammered. "John, I want to come and be with you and your friends."
And she swayed so that for a second I thought she might fall down there. I started to put out a hand to help her, but she got hold of herself.
"All this talk's because you think my power's the greatest," I guessed. "You just want to be on the side that's got the heaviest artill
ery."
"No. No, not that alone. It’s—it's what they want me to do for them." She looked up, and her mouth twiddled, like as if she had had a stab of pain. "When I talked to Brooke Altic a little while back, he said—"
She stopped and shuddered.
"Said what?"
"I reckon he thought it was a reward of some kind. John, you know the Shonokins don’t have women amongst them.”
“So I’ve heard tell, Miss Hazel. That makes it right peculiar that there can be Shonokins, just male Shonokins.”
“Oh,” she whispered out. “They use women—human women.”
It was my turn to stare. “You don’t say so.”
“But it’s true. And Brooke Altic wants me to come in with them, to—”
“I understand,” I said, to keep her from a-saying words that might could bust her up. “Well, this explains things a little bit. But if Shonokins have human mothers, then they aren’t pure-bred Shonokins, are they?”
She didn’t bother to go into that. “And they want Mr. Ben Gray’s daughter, Callie,” she whimpered. “For the same thing.”
“Her?” I said. “They’d better not hold their breath till Mr. Ben lets them have her.”
Again she quivered her hands. “John, that’s the real reason they want that jewel that means such a heap to him. They figure it for special with him. If they could get it, it would give them power to rule over him—make him do whatair thing they’d tell him. Even make him give Callie over to them.”
Again I thought over my talk with Altic, how he’d wanted to trade me for my belt that Evadare had given me. He might could have noticed that it meant a right much to me. I’d heard of witch doings like that, with a lock of somebody’s hair or a handkerchief, all like that. You could use such things to make a girl love you, they allowed, or cause a man to drop dead in the full of his health, or give you all his money. The Shonokins, who were a-knowing so much, would know about that sort of business.
"And now I want to get away from them,” she said. "John, it's awful.”
Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer 02 Page 11
