Mountain Magic

by David Drake

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

  "He'd come if anybody would, John."

  "He didn't," I said. "And I did. Do you care to talk about it?"

  She acted glad to talk about it, once she started. She'd worked at weaving for Shull Cobart, with maybe nine-ten others, in a little town off in the hills. He took the cloth to places like Asheville and sold at a high mark to the touristers that came there. Once or twice he made to court Evadare, but she paid him no mind. But one day he went on a trip, and came again with the black fiddle.

  "And he was different," she said. "He'd been scared and polite to folks before that. But the fiddle made him somebody else. He played at dances and folks danced their highest and fastest, but they were scared by his music, even when they flocked to it. He won prizes at fiddle-playing. He'd stand by the shop door and play to us girls, and the cloth we wove was more cloth and better cloth—but it was strange. Funny feel and funny look to it."

  "Did the touristers still buy it?" I inquired her.

  "Yes, and payed more for it, but they seemed scared while they were buying it. So I've heard tell from folks who saw."

  "And Shull Cobart made you run off."

  "It was when he said he wanted me to light his darkness."

  I saw what those words meant. An evil man speaking them to a good girl, because his evil was hungry for good. "What did you reply him?"

  "I said I wanted to be quiet and good, he wanted to be showy and scary. And he said that was just his reason, he wanted me for my goodness to his scariness." She shivered, the way folks shiver when ice falls outside the window. "I swore to go where he'd not follow. Then he played his fiddle, it somehow made to bind me hand and foot. I felt he'd tole me off with him then and there, but I pretended—"

  She looked sad and ashamed of pretending, even in peril.

  "I said I'd go with him next day. He was ready to wait. That night I ran off."

  "And you came to Hosea's Hollow," I said. "How did you make yourself able?"

  "I feared Kalu another sight less than I fear Shull Cobart," Evadare replied me. "And I've not seen Kalu—I've seen nothing. I heard a couple of things, though. Once something knocked at the door at night."

  "What was it knocked, Evadare?"

  "I wasn't so foolish for the lack of sense that I went to see." She shivered again, from her little toes up to her bright hair. "I dragged up the quilt and spoke the strongest prayer I remember, the old-timey one about God gives His angels charge over us by day and by night." Her blue eyes fluttered, remembering. "Whatever knocked gave one knock more and never again, that night or ary night since."

  I was purely ready to talk of something else. "Who made this cabin for you?" I asked, looking around.

  "It was here when I came—empty. But I knew good folks had made it, by the cross."

  I saw where her eyes went, to the inside of the half-shut door. A cross was cut there, putting me in mind of the grave by the trail.

  "It must have been Hosea Palmer's cabin. He's dead and buried now. Who buried him?"

  She shook her head. "That wonders me, too. All I know is, a good friend did it years ago. Sometimes, when I reckon maybe it's a Sunday, I say a prayer by the grave and sing a hymn. It seems brighter when I sing, looking up to the sky."

  "Maybe I can guess the song you sing, Evadare." And I touched the guitar again, and both of us sang it:

  Lights in the valley outshine the sun—

  Look away beyond the blue!

  As we sang I kept thinking in my heart—how pretty her voice, and how sweet the words in Evadare's mouth.

  She went on to tell me how she hoped to live. She'd fetched in meal and salt and not much else, and she'd stretched it by picking wild greens, and there were some nuts here and there around the old cabin, poked away in little handfuls like the work of squirrels; though neither of us had seen a squirrel in Hosea's Hollow. She had planted cabbages and seed corn, and reckoned these would be worth eating by deep summer. She was made up in her mind to stay in Hosea's Hollow till she had some notion that Shull Cobart didn't lie in wait for her coming back.

  "He's waiting," she felt sure. "He laughed when I spoke of running off. Said he'd know all I meant to do, all he needed was to wonder a thing while he played his fiddle and the answer was in his mind." Her pink tongue wet her lips. "He had a song he played, said it had power—"

  "Was it maybe this one?" I asked, trying to jolly her; and again I touched the strings. I sang old words to the music I heard inside:

  My pretty little pink, I once did think

  That you and I would marry,

  But now I've lost all hope of you,

  And I've no time to tarry.

  I'll take my sack upon my back,

  My rifle on my shoulder,

  And I'll be off to the Western States

  To view the country over . . .

  "That's the tune," she said, "but not the words." Again she shivered. "They were like something in a dream, while he played and sang along, and I felt I was trapped and tangled and webbed."

  "Like something in a dream," I repeated her, and made up words like another thing I'd heard once, to fit the same music:

  I dreamed last night of my true love,

  All in my arm I had her,

  And her locks of hair, all long and fair,

  Hung round me like a shadow . . .

  "That's not his song, either," said Evadare.

  "No, it isn't," a voice I'd heard before came to agree her.

  In through that half-open door stepped Shull Cobart, with his sooty hair and his grin, and his shiny black fiddle in his hand.

  "Why don't you say me a welcome?" he asked Evadare, and cut his eyes across at me. "John, I counted on you being here, too."

  Quick I leaned my guitar to the wall and got up. "Then you counted on trouble with me," I said. "Lay aside that fiddle so I won't break it when I break you."

  But it was to his chin, and the bow across. "Hark before we fight," he said, and gentlemen, hush! how Shull Cobart could play.

  It was the same tune, fiddled beyond my tongue's power to tell how wild and lovely. And the cabin that had had red-gold light from the fire and soft-gold light from Evadare's hair, it looked that quick to glow silver-pale, in jumping, throbbing sweeps as he played. Once, a cold clear dry winter night, I saw in the sky the Northern Lights; and the air in that cabin beat and throbbed and quivered the same way, but pale silver, I say, not warm red. And it came to my mind, harking helpless, that the air turned colder all at once than that winter night when I'd watched the Northern Lights in the sky.

  I couldn't come at Shull Cobart. Somehow, to move at him was like moving neck-deep against a flooding river. I couldn't wear my way a foot closer. I sat on the stool again, and he stripped his teeth at me, grinning like a dog above a trapped rabbit.

  "I wish the best for you, John," he said through the music. "Look how I make you welcome and at rest here."

  I knew what way he wanted me to rest, the same way Hosea Palmer rested out yonder. I knew it wouldn't help to get up again, so I took back my guitar and sat quiet. I looked him up and down. He wore a suit of dark cloth with a red stripe, a suit that looked worth money, and his shoes were as shiny as his fiddle, ready to make manners before rich city folks. His mean dark eyes, close together above that singing, spell-casting fiddle, read my thoughts inside me.

  "Yes, John, it's good cloth," he said. "My own weaving."

  "I know how it was woven," Evadare barely whispered, the first words she'd spoken since Shull came in.

  She'd moved halfway into a corner. Scared white—but she was a prettier thing than I'd ever seen in my life.

  "Like me to weave for you?" he inquired me, mocking; and then he sang a trifly few words to his tune:

  I wove this suit and I cut this suit,

  And I put this suit right on,

  And I'll weave nine yards of other cloth

  To make a suit for John . . .<
br />
  "Nine yards," I repeated after him.

  "Would that be enough fine cloth for your suit?" he grinned across the droning fiddle strings. "You're long and tall, a right much of a man, but—"

  "Nobody needs nine yards but for one kind of suit," I kept on figuring. "And that's no suit at all."

  "A shroud," said Evadare, barely making herself heard, and how Shull Cobart laughed at her wide eyes and the fright in her voice!

  "You reckon there'll be a grave for him here in Kalu's own place, Evadare?" he gobbled at her. "Would Kalu leave enough of John to be worth burying? I know about old Barebones Kalu."

  "He's not hereabouts," Evadare half-begged to be believed. "Never once he bothered me."

  "Maybe he's just spared you, hoping for something better," said Shull. "But he won't be of a mind to spare all of us that came here making a fuss in his home place. That's why I toled John here."

  "You toled me?" I asked, and again he nodded.

  "I played a little tune so you'd come alone, John. I reckoned Kalu would relish finding you here. Being he's the sort he is, and I'm the sort I am, it's you he'd make way with instead of me. That lets me free to take Evadare away."

  "I'll not go with you," Evadare said, sharper and louder than I thought possible for her.

  "Won't you, though?" Shull laughed. His fiddle-music came up, and Evadare drew herself tight and strong, as if she leaned back against ropes on her. The music took on wild-sounding notes to fit into itself Evadare's hands made fists, her teeth bit together, her eyes shut tight. She took a step, or maybe she was dragged. Another step she took, another, toward Shull.

  I tried to get up, too, but I couldn't move as she was moving. I had to sit and watch, and I had the thought of that saying about how a snake draws a bird to his coil. I'd never believed such a thing till I saw Evadare move, step by step she didn't want to take, toward Shull Cobart.

  Suddenly he stopped playing, and breathed hard, like a man who's been working in the fields. Evadare stood still and rocked on her feet. I took up my muscles to make a jump, but Shull pointed his fiddle-bow at me, like a gun.

  "Have sense!" he slung out. "You've both learned I can make you go or stay, whichever I want, when I fiddle as I know how. Sit down, Evadare, and I'll silence my playing for the time. But make a foolish move, John, and I might play a note that would have the bones out of your body without ary bit of help from Kalu."

  Bad man as he was, he told the truth, and both of us knew it. Evadare sat on the other stool, and I put my guitar across my knees. Shull Cobart leaned against the door jamb, his fiddle low against his chest, and looked sure of himself. At that instant I was dead sure I'd never seen a wickeder face, not among all the wicked faces of the wide world.

  "Know where I got this fiddle, you two?" he asked.

  "I can guess," I said, "and it spoils my notion of how good a trader a certain old somebody is. He didn't make much of a swap, that fiddle for your soul; for the soul was lost before you bargained."

  "It wasn't a trade, John." He plucked a fiddle-string with his thumbnail. "Just a sort of little present between friends."

  "I've heard the fiddle called the devil's instrument," said Evadare, back to her soft whisper; and once again Shull Cobart laughed at her, and then at me.

  "Folks have got a sight to learn about fiddles. This fiddle will make you and me rich, Evadare. We'll go to the land's great cities, and I'll play the dollars out of folks' pockets and the hearts out of folks' bodies. They'll honor me, and they'll bow their faces in the dirt before your feet."

  "I'll not go with you," she told him again.

  "No? Want me to play you right into my arms this minute? The only reason I don't, Evadare—and my arms want you, and that's a fact—I'd have to put down my fiddle to hold you right."

  "And I'd be on you and twist your neck around like the stem on a watch," I added onto that. "You know I can do it, and so do I. Any moment it's liable to happen."

  As he'd picked his fiddle-string, I touched a silver string of my guitar, and it sang like a honey-bee. "Don't do that any more, John," he snapped. "Your guitar and my fiddle don't tune together. I'm a lone player."

  To his chin went that shiny black thing, and the music he made lay heavy on me. He sang:

  I'll weave nine yards of other cloth

  For John to have and keep,

  He'll need it where he's going to lie,

  To warm him in his sleep . . . .

  "What are we waiting for?" I broke in. "You might kill me somehow with your fiddling, but you won't scare me."

  "Kalu will do the scaring," he said as he stopped again. "Scare you purely to death. We're just a-waiting for him to come."

  "How will we know—" began Evadare.

  "We'll know," said Shull, the way he'd promise a baby child something. "We'll hear him. Then I'll play John out of here to stand face to face with Kalu, if it's really a face Kalu has."

  I laughed myself, and heaven pardon me the lie I put into my laugh, trying to sound as if naught pestered me. Shull frowned; he didn't like how my laugh hit his ear.

  "Just for argument's sake," I said to him, "How do you explain what you say your music can do?"

  "I don't do any explaining. I just do the playing."

  "I've heard tell how a fiddler can be skilled to where he plays a note and breaks a glass window," I recollected. "I've heard tell he might possibly even make a house fall down."

  "Dogs howl when fiddles play," said Evadare. "From pain it makes."

  Shull nodded at us both. "You folks are right. There's been power-music long before this. Ever hear of a man named Orpheus?"

  "He was an old-timey Greek," I said.

  "He played his harp, and trees danced for him. He played his way down to the floor of hell, and back out again. Maybe I've got some of that power. A fiddle can sing extra sharp or extra sweet, and its sound's solid—like a knife or club or rope, if you can work it."

  I remembered in my mind that sound goes in waves like light, and can be measured; and a wave is power, whether of sound or light. Waves can wash, like the waves of the sea that strike down tall walls and strong men. Too bad, I decided, that educated folks couldn't use that black fiddle, to make its power good and useful. In devil-taught hands, it was the devil's instrument. Not like my silver-strung guitar, the way harps, certain harps in a certain high place, are said to be strung with gold . . .

  Shull listened. You could almost see his ears stick up, like the ears of an animal. "Something's out there," he said.

  I heard it, too. Not a step or a scramble, but a movement.

  "Kalu," said Evadare, her eyes the widest yet in the firelight.

  "Yes, it's Kalu," said Shull. "John, wouldn't it be kindlier to the lady if you met him outside?"

  "Much kindlier," I agreed him, and got up.

  "You know this isn't personal, John," Shull said, fiddle at his chin. "But Kalu's bound to have somebody. It won't be Evadare, because some way he's let her be. And it won't be me, with you here. You've got a reputation, John, for doing things against what Kalu stands to represent. I figure he wants something good, because he's got plenty of the strong evil."

  "The way you think you've got to have Evadare," I said.

  "That's it. You're in the line of what he wants to devour." He began to play again. "Come on, John."

  I was coming. I'd made up my mind. The weight of the music was on me, but not quite as deadening and binding as before. Shull Cobart walked out, fiddling. I just winked at Evadare, as if I figured it would be all right. Then I walked out, too.

  The light was greeny-pale, though I saw no moon. Maybe the trees hid it, or the haze in the sky.

  "Where will you face him?" asked Shull, almost polite above his soft playing.

  "There's a grave down yonder—" I began to say.

  "Yes, just the place. Come on."

  I followed after him on the trail. My left hand chorded my guitar at the neck, my right-handed fingers found the strings. What was
it Evadare had told me? . . . I say a prayer by the grave and sing a hymn. It seems brighter when I sing . . .

  Then there could be two kinds of power-music.

  I began to pick the tune along with Shull, softer even than Evadare's whisper. He didn't hear; and, because I followed him like a calf to the slaughter-pen, he didn't guess.

  Around the bend was the grave, the green light paler around it. Shull stopped. All of a quick, I knew Kalu was in the trees over us. Somewhere up there, he made a heaviness in the branches.

  "Stand where you want to, John. I vow, you've played the man so far."

  I moved past him, close to the cross, though there wasn't light enough to see the name or the prayer.

  "Drop that guitar!" Shull howled at me.

  For I began to play loud, and I sang to his tune, changing the rhythm for my own quick-made-up words:

  I came to where the pilgrim lay,

  Though he was dead and gone,

  And I could hear his comrade say,

  He rests in peace alone—

  "Hush up with that!"

  Shull Cobart stopped playing and ran at me. I clucked away and around the cross, and quick I sang the second verse:

  Winds may come and thunders roll

  And stormy tempests rise,

  But here he sleeps with a restful soul

  And the tears wiped from his eyes—

  "Come for him, Kalu!" Shull screamed.

  Kalu drop-leaped out of the branches between us.

  Gentlemen, don't ask me to say too much what Kalu was. Bones, yes—something like man-bones, but bigger and thicker, also something like bear-bones, or big ape-bones from a foreign land. And a rotten light to them, so I saw for a moment that the bones weren't empty. Inside the ribs were caged puffy things, like guts and lungs and maybe a heart that skipped and wiggled. The skull had a snout like I can't say what, and in its eye-holes burned blue-green fire. Out came the arm-bones, and the finger-bones were on Shull Cobart.