Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer 05

by The Voice of the Mountain (v1. 1)

  “That,” said Harpe, “is what makes the cry of Cry Mountain.”

  I looked down again into that dark gash with fire below. It made my head swim to look. “I reckon you mean that the wind blows in and makes the sound,” I said.

  “You’re right, John, sometimes the wind does that. But there's a way to make the wind blow. Let me show you.”

  He stepped up to a big tree, a sort of poplar. There was a hole in its bark, and he dived his hand in and fetched out a crooked something that first off looked like bone. It was as long as from Harpe’s elbow to his fingertips, and I saw that it was hollowed out to be a horn, with the small end shaped into a mouthpiece.

  “I’d rather you wouldn’t handle it, John,” he said. “Just look at it.”

  I looked. Its outside was carved in crossed lines, some sort of a design. “What’s it made of?” I inquired him.

  “I think of ivory. Elephant ivory, carved by Indians. It was here when first I came, years ago. Of course, you’re going to say that there were no elephants here in old times.”

  “No, I won’t say that.” I might could have mentioned the Bammat, now and then reported in the mountains, but I didn’t. “The Indians knew about elephants before Columbus, they left images and pictures.”

  “Anyway, this makes the cry.”

  He set the horn to his mouth and blew a long, trembly note.

  Next moment the voice of the mountain rose round us, Awooooooo, sad and drawn out, and so loud right there that the rocks under my boots seemed to shake and dance like a ship’s deck in a storm. I was glad for that moaning call to die out of the air. I looked on Harpe, and likely my face was sort of blank, for he laughed. A musical laugh it was. He put the horn back into its hollow tree.

  “Yes,” he said, “I can do that. It’s all right for you to know, because here you are and here you’ll stay. I was able to watch you as you came up here I let you do it because I’ve heard about you—what you’ve been able to do in your time, really mysterious things. And I decided that it was high time for you to start doing them sensibly, profitably.” He kept his eyes on me. “Doing them helpfully,” he added on.

  “I see,” I said, for I did begin to see. “You want me to join in with you on something. What if I say no?”

  “If you said no, you’d be sorry,” he sort of drawled out. “Up here, nothing is done or left undone except as I say the word, and never will be.”

  “What if you died?”

  “I won’t just die. I’d have to be killed, and what can kill me?”

  Plain as print, he believed what he said.

  “And with me gone,” he went ahead, “you wouldn’t last an hour inside these stockades.” Another look stare up and down me. “Maybe the bees would come in and find you. Maybe something else.”

  “What kind of something else?”

  “Are you a praying man?” he questioned me back, right serious about it. “Then pray that you never find out. But for your own good, John, don’t pray out loud.

  “I’ve promised you hospitality,” he said. “You can be at ease here, happy here. But—well, I’ll put it this way. You’ve read in the Bible, I suppose.”

  “I’ve read the Bible through, a good few times. I asked you, what you a-driving at, and I wait for an answer.”

  So friendly was his smile. “If you’re a Bible reader, John, you’re familiar with what the Bible calls holy names. I must ask you not to say any of those holy names out loud here. There might be something violent happen, to you and to me and to others."

  His smile went, and he shrugged. “Enough of that. Let's go where we can be more comfortable."

  He led me back away from that dark, ugly rip in Cry Mountain, led me amongst tall, thick-grown trees to where there grew a right big clump of laurel. Carefully he pulled aside branches to left and right, till I could see a hole amongst some rocks, not a great big raw one like the one that gave Cry Mountain its name. This was more or less the size of a door, and its shadows were soft. I could see that a slanting path went into it, and that the rock there was as smooth as a sidewalk.

  “Come along," he bade me, and we two went down into that hole.

  “Wouldn't a big rain flood you out here?" I asked.

  “I can control rain," he said, a-leading me along. “I can bring it if we need it, stop it if we don’t. I can do many things."

  “Indians can bring rain, off in the Southwest," I said.

  “Many people can do it. A man named McDonald, people called him Colonel Stingo, could bring rain if the crops needed it, keep rain away if racetracks had to be dry. He’s in a book by A. J. Liebling."

  “I know a Tombs McDonald."

  “This was a different McDonald."

  Ahead of us showed yellow light. Side by side we came into a big cave with smooth rock walls and ceiling, the size of a pretty fair sitting room. At the center of the ceiling the yellow light came from a sort of creamy globe. There was a heavy dark blue carpet on the floor, and on the walls were fixed shelves, stacked with all sorts of stuff, including a row of books. I made out two doorways at the back, one shut with a green curtain the color of weeds in a pond, the other curtained with blood-red cloth. In another wall was what looked like a window, dull and gray. There were stout-made armchairs of shiny dark wood, with cushions the blue color of the carpet. From the ceiling in a back comer hung down a rope, braided of brown leather. Right at the middle of all this was a table made of red-stained wooden planks across trestles, and on it stood shiny clay cups and a shiny clay jug.

  “Comfortable, I promised you,” came Harpe’s deep voice. “Simple comfort is enough for me, I don't demand the sybaritic. Know what ‘sybaritic' means, John?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I know what that means.”

  He chuckled his chuckle. “You’re well informed, John, articulate. I’m glad to find that in you. Now then, drop all that gear you carry and draw up a chair to the table, and let’s have a drink and some talk.”

  I put my things against a wall and drew up a chair, and so did he, and we sat down. He crossed a leg over his other knee. I saw that his trousers were of creamy fringed buckskin, too. He shoved the jug and cups at me.

  “Pour for us, John,” he invited me, “and give me whichever cup you choose. I wouldn’t want you to think I’d trick you with some clumsy thing to hurt you. The more so because I let you come here for our mutual benefit.”

  He seemed to insist on that thing, mutual benefit. I wondered why, and wanted to know. Instead I asked something else:

  “Nobody knows you’re here? Don’t planes fly over?”

  “No plane can see anything of interest through our trees. And no plane could land, not even a helicopter—no open space.” He lifted his clay cup. “Here’s to our better acquaintance. This happens to be an excellent article of what you call blockade, it’s from a skillful distiller not too many miles from here. Sip it and tell me what you think.”

  I sipped it. It was as good as the blockade I’d drunk with Tombs McDonald. “Where did you get it?” I asked Harpe.

  “I put in a call for it, you might say.” He drank too, he drank fairly deep. “Now, John, I’ve shown my interest in you. Why not tell me about yourself?”

  I had another sup myself. “All right,” I said, “I’ve nair yet been ashamed to do that.”

  So I told him.

  About a-being born in the Drowning Creek country, of a good father and mother, and how they'd died when I was only a boy. About how an old lady teacher took me in and raised me up, taught me to read and write and tell the truth and be honest. About how I'd learned to pick guitar and shoot with a gun, had got to be no slouch at either of those things. How I’d been in the army, had been sent to a stupid war across the sea, how I'd been in places I wondered myself if I'd ever get out of. How I'd been called the best scout, the best rifle shot in my whole division. How, afterward, I'd come back to my mountains and had gone here and yonder amongst them, and had seen me some strange things in them.

/>   He harked at all I said, now and then having a sip of his blockade. Then: “What strange things?” he asked.

  So I went on to tell him about how I killed the Ugly Bird, and won the thanks of folks and the prayers of Winnie. And how, on top of a mountain named Hark, I met One Other and drove him back into his pool. More things you’ve likely heard about—the deaths of witch-people like Aram Hamam and Mr. Loden and Fomey Meechum and Shull Cobart—all of them mightily evil and evilly mighty, and all of them gone now to the place where they were a sure thing to go. Harpe heard me out, and he snickered.

  “I must honestly say, John, it’s a great pleasure to listen to you,” he said. “To hear the language you speak.”

  “Language I speak?” I repeated him. “Why, it's just only the language of folks.”

  “Exactly,” he nodded. “Your mountain language is expressive—I might even call it poetical. I hear you with admiration.” That would have been flattering, I reckon, if he didn't act so lofty about it, like as if he patted me on the head. He snickered again.

  “But what's been your profit in all these things?”

  I shook my head to him. “I've nair studied profit. I've just gone my way along, in the hope that I was a-doing right.” “And you've gone along into desperate perils and great toils,” he judged. “Wouldn’t you like to go easier and find some profit, some reward for your manifest talents?”

  “Oh,” I said, “time and time again I've been offered money, but I don't take that, don’t much need it.”

  “Well,” he said, “have you had the love of beautiful women?”

  “None to speak of it,” I replied him, for it wouldn't have been the right thing to speak up of beautiful women I'd known.

  “Very well, let the thought sink in. Turn it over in your mind. But just now, it's more or less lunchtime. Join me in eating a little something, and I'll guarantee it will be savory.” He slapped his big hands together, and I saw shiny rings on the both of them. He slapped them again, and a third time. Those slaps were as loud as pistol shots.

  The green curtain stirred out of one of the doorways, and in came a woman.

  She was old. Her long straight hair was snowy white and her face was all chopped up with wrinkles, with a hooked nose and a hooked chin like the jaws of a pair of pliers, but she stood as straight as a pine sapling. Her dress was a dark blue, with silvery symbols on it, and round her scrawny neck she wore three jewel necklaces, white diamonds and green emeralds and red rubies.

  They must have been worth a right big fortune apiece. She carried a big silver tray, with dishes all covered with napkins, and a bunch of knives and forks.

  "Thank you, Scylla,” said Harpe, grand as a king. "Sit down and eat with us. This is our guest, John.”

  She put the tray on the table and glared me with slitty eyes. "John,” she said, harsh and shrill. "What do you think of what you’ve seen on the way up here, John?”

  I’d got on my feet to reply her. "I’ve seen a right much strangeness, Miss Scylla, things that folks will wonder themselves about when I get down again to tell of them.”

  "What makes you think you’ll be getting down again?” she shrilled at me.

  "Scylla has a sardonic gift of speech,” said Harpe, "but you’ll get used to it. She’s been my invaluable associate for many years. Will you be so good as to draw her up a chair?”

  She sat down, and so did I again. Harpe took the napkins off the dishes and served us our plates. There was sliced roast beef, pink-brown. There were likewise rolls of hot white bread, and a dish of greens.

  "Perhaps you’d like to ask a blessing, John, but remember my warning about Bible names,” said Harpe, but there was a mock in his voice.

  I bowed my head and recited:

  "Three holy names guard me, and be and remain with me on the water and upon the land, in the forests or in the fields, in cities or deserts, in the whole world wherever I am.”

  Both Scylla and Harpe looked long at me. "Is that out of a prayer book?” asked Harpe as he cut himself a bite of beef.

  "A sort of one,” I said. "It’s how I remember from The Long Lost Friend. ”

  I cut and ate some beef myself. It was prime.

  “John is suspicious of us,” muttered Scylla above her own plate.

  “Then we'll allay his suspicions,” said Harpe.

  We ate our meat and greens and bread, and Harpe inquired Scylla about dessert. She got up and went out past that green curtain and fetched back a basket of oranges and grapes. We ate of those, and they were good. Then Harpe poured us all a taste of the blockade.

  “John,” he said, “you fetched your guitar all the way up to us. Won't you favor us with some music?”

  “Why, sure,” I agreed him and fetched my guitar over. I tuned it awhile and then I sang the one I'd made up at the start of this whole journey, made it up only about four days ago, a time that by now seemed long years back:

  “What's up across the mountain,

  What's there on the yonder side?

  Nobody's here to tell me,

  Nobody to be my guide,

  But nair you doubt,

  I'm a-going to find out,

  All over this world so wide . . .”

  “That's not much of a song,” vowed Scylla when I'd done.

  “On the contrary, it's very much of a song,” said Harpe. “It's an exercise in self-revelation for John. John the wanderer, John the seeker.”

  “I'll clear up,” Scylla sniffed. “I'll leave you men to yourselves here.”

  She stacked the dishes on the tray and went a-stomping off with them. Harpe drank some blockade.

  “I asked you for your story,” he said, “and it's only fair play for me to tell you mine.”

  6

  “Let's begin with an ancestor of mine," Harpe said. “We've mentioned his name already. Micajah Harpe—Big Harpe, who frightened the whole old frontier."

  “I’ve heard some little about him," I said.

  “I'll tell you all about him. He was bom in Orange County, North Carolina, somewhere about 1765. His parents were Scots emigrants, Tories in the Revolutionary War. He and his father were with Patrick Ferguson on Kings Mountain in 1780."

  “Patrick Ferguson," I said the name after him. “I've read about him and his battle back then. Didn't he invent some kind of breech-loading rifle?"

  “He did," said Harpe, “but the British didn't have the sense to adopt it and manufacture it. He told his troops that he was king of Kings Mountain, and all the devils in hell couldn’t drive him off."

  “The devils in hell nair made the try in person," I said. “It was a bunch of mountain men who got up there and killed or captured his whole British outfit."

  “You know history, you continue to amaze me," said Harpe, with a smile. “Though at that, they didn't drive Ferguson off. They killed him up there, shot him full of bullets. What's that you're playing on your guitar?"

  “Just a little old country song I hear sung now and then."

  “Let’s hear it, I like your songs."

  So I did what he said. I sang:

  “Johnson said to Dixon, one cold October day,

  'Let’s go up on Kings Mountain and drive the foe away;

  A host of British Tories, up there they take their stand,

  Because they rule the mountain, they think they rule the land . . .”

  “Bravo,” Harpe cried out when I’d finished, and clapped his big hands. “You’re right, John, they killed or captured all the Tories. They killed Micajah Harpe’s father and they captured Micajah, but he managed to slip away when they marched their prisoners off. He found his younger brother Wiley at home, and they went to live with the Cherokees and founded the profession of American outlawry.”

  He said it right proud, as if Micajah Harpe had founded the profession of American doctoring or the profession of American poetry-writing. He went ahead with his tale:

  “They learned Indian methods and Indian wisdom; from the Cherokees and other tribe
s. Not just woodcraft; Indian medicine—Indian magic. They knew enough to get out of the Cherokee town of Nickajack, just before Andrew Jackson destroyed it. After that, they were their own tribe, that pair of brothers.” “That pair of brothers,” I repeated after him. “I’ve read that they were someway supernatural—they killed like werewolves or vampires, the book said.”

  “The book you refer to is over there on my shelf. It’s called The Spawn of Evil, it’s a history of the early American outlawry the Harpes started—names like Mason, Ford, Murrel, and so on. But those later men only imitated the Harpes.” His voice rose again, with that pride in it. “The bravest frontiersmen of Tennessee and Kentucky feared the very name of Harpe. But at last, in 1799, Micajah Harpe was captured and killed. They had a very, very hard time killing him, and he died game. His head was cut off and stuck to the branch of a tree. The place still bears his name—Harpes Head.”

  And the pride with that, too, like as if Ruel Harpe gloried in it.

  “His brother got away that time,” I recollected.

  “Yes, all the way to the Mississippi. But he was identified and killed, too, and his head cut off, too, and set in a tree on the Natchez Trace.” He studied me with his smokey eyes. “While the Harpes lived, they were kings in a country that feared them.”

  “And you're a Harpe, too.”

  “I'm a Harpe, too. Micajah Harpe had women with him from time to time. One of them was Betsy Roberts, and she’d borne Micajah a son. She also happened to have this amulet.”

  He held out the thing on his neck-chain. It was no crucifix, it was T-shaped, gold, with a twisty thing a-climbing on it, a dark thing that might could have been a monkey or either a lizard.

  “If Micajah had been wearing it when they closed in on him—” said Harpe, half dreamily. “But he hadn’t. After he was killed and his head cut off, Betsy Roberts married a man named Sol Hofstetter. By all accounts, her husband was what you’d call a fairly honest, ordinary fellow.” A bit of a sneer to say that. “And the boy was called Joe Roberts, and grew up and joined the army.”