The Nine Pound Hammer

by John Claude Bemis

  Seth kept coming until he was nearly chest to chest with Eddie. Ray pushed his hands between them. Seth lunged forward again, and Ray shouted, “Enough, Seth! You’re always tearing everybody down all the time.”

  Seth looked back and forth between Ray and Eddie, his eyes narrow and steady. Redfeather refused to look up, his concentration seemingly fixed on mending the rod. Si walked slowly down the steps from the platform, her eyes trained on Seth. Seth watched her for a moment and then let Marisol lead him away.

  Before he left, he glared back at Ray, saying, “You grunts are just jealous. We get the limelight and you have to watch them applaud for us—for me! You’re nothing. You’ve got no talents. You’re nothing but dirty grunts.”

  When Seth and Marisol had disappeared into the passenger car, Ray put his hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “Don’t listen to him,” he whispered.

  Redfeather opened his hands from around the rod. The skin glowed white-hot for a moment before returning to a normal pink color. The driving rod had a slight bubble, like an old wound. “Well, I suppose it’s fixed, strong enough at least to get the Ballyhoo back on the tracks after tomorrow’s show.” Redfeather looked up at Eddie, his eyes blinking. “Come see me before we leave. You can borrow the copper for a bit.”

  Eddie pulled his shoulder sharply out from Ray’s grasp and rushed off.

  Redfeather stood as he watched Eddie leave. “Try to offer a fellow a favor …” He frowned in Eddie’s direction before carrying the rod back to the locomotive.

  Left alone in the setting sun with Si, Ray looked at her. Si nodded slowly to him and then went back to her book.

  The medicine show performed in Spencer. The show did not meet Nel’s expectations, and he hoped their luck would be better in Georgia and Alabama. After packing up that night, Ray decided to visit Jolie again.

  “I was sure you would not come back,” Jolie said, after Ray had closed the door behind him. She sat on the floor with her back against the dresser and her chin resting on her knees.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d want me to,” Ray said, sitting down tentatively across from her. “I’m sorry about Li’l Bill. He was important to you?”

  “Yes.” Jolie jutted her jaw and nodded. “Like a father.”

  “You said Li’l Bill was the last Rambler?” Ray asked.

  “After Ferrol and Sanderson died,” Jolie said. “They protected me, along with Little Bill. But they were not around as often. Buck would come and visit, too.”

  “But Buck’s not a Rambler, is he?” Ray asked.

  “No,” Jolie said. “A Rambler draws his power from the wild. They are skilled in hoodoo magic. They can speak to animals and call upon the elements. Buck has powers, the way he can see even though he is blind. But he does not have powers like Little Bill or Ferrol or Sanderson. Little Bill said once that Buck could have been one, except he lives by his guns. The Rambler has no need for guns.”

  Ray thought about that a moment before asking, “What happened to the other two? Ferrol and Sanderson? Did the Hoarhound kill them?”

  “No,” Jolie said. “The Gog has many agents. Men who serve the Gog tracked them down and killed them.” Jolie hunched forward, pulling her legs tighter to her chest and letting a dripping tangle of hair fall across her face.

  Ray peered through the veil of hair covering Jolie’s expression. He could see the gaunt look about her eyes, as if she had not slept for several days.

  “Are you feeling any better?” Ray asked. “Buck said you were sick.”

  Jolie pushed back the hair and dropped her knees to the floor. “A little better. Mister Nel is giving me his potions.”

  Ray stammered as he asked, “D-do you sleep … in the water? Do you have to be … in there?”

  Jolie smiled slightly. “A true siren must always sleep in water. She can never be from it for more than a few hours. Since I am not a full siren, I do not have to always be near water. I can go longer. I do not know how much longer. I have never really tried.”

  Ray felt his shoulders relax, glad he had not offended her. “Jolie, I’m not just asking about the Ramblers because I want to know. My friend Conker, his father was John Henry. Have you ever heard of—?”

  “The son of John Henry is here!” Jolie gasped. “On this train?”

  “Yeah,” Ray smiled. “So you have heard of him?”

  “Little Bill talked about him all the time. He was there when John Henry died. Little Bill helped lead him to the Gog’s Machine.”

  “So John Henry did fight the Gog’s Machine,” Ray said. “I told Conker that. See, Conker doesn’t really know what happened to his father. Nel doesn’t want him to know, and he made Buck promise not to tell either.”

  “It is wrong that I am telling you? Will Buck be upset?”

  “No,” Ray waved his hands. “I think he wants you to tell us. But what I still don’t understand is who this Gog is! You only said he wasn’t really a man. Something about him being made of clockwork. What’s he after?”

  “To complete his Machine.” Jolie’s eyes flashed as she spoke. “I will tell you what others have told me. Little Bill and siren elders. They spoke of a time, years and years ago, when sirens lived in many of the wild places, swamps and lakes and rivers. Then the world began to change with machines. Machines running on steam and coal—such devices that a siren would never understand. As men started clearing land for farms, finding new places to settle, the sirens began to leave for the open water, out to sea, maybe even out of this world altogether. My sisters raised me in the swamps of the Terrebonne, protected, we hoped, from the changing world.”

  Ray was listening intently. He glanced down a moment to Jolie’s crossed arms, and saw her fingernails digging against her skin as she spoke.

  “Before I was born, years back, word began to spread of a man known only as the Gog, who built machines, but not just ordinary machines. There have been many ordinary machines that have brought no harm to the sirens. They have been a benefit to your kind. And there have been many ordinary machines that have led to our worsening, siren and human. But this Machine that the Gog built was for an evil purpose. It does not just kill. This is a Machine to ruin one’s soul.”

  “I thought John Henry destroyed the Machine?” Ray asked.

  “He did,” she said. “With Little Bill’s help, John Henry found the Gog’s Machine. He broke it open with his weapon—the Nine Pound Hammer. John Henry died doing this. But the Gog was not destroyed. He has begun rebuilding his Machine. He is making a new and far more terrible Machine.”

  “So why is he after you?” Ray asked.

  “I do not know,” Jolie replied, fear twitching at her brow. “He wants a siren for some purpose, but I do not understand why.” Jolie leaned forward on her hands. “Bring your friend. I want to meet John Henry’s son. Will you do that?”

  “Of course,” Ray said.

  Jolie stood and turned to go to her tank. Ray had reached the door when Jolie said, “Thank you, Ray.” She was perched on the top of the glass.

  “For what?” Ray asked.

  She smiled before plunging into the dark waters.

  As he reached the sleeper car, Ray stopped on the vestibule and looked out at the moon rising through the trees. The Gog was after Jolie. They were in danger: all of them aboard the Ballyhoo, all these performers in the medicine show, these children of Ramblers.

  Ray took out the lodestone. His father had told him it would guide him. It had. He had discovered so much. But what was he to do? His father was dead. The Ramblers were all dead.

  An image of the Hoarhound flashed in Ray’s mind, its terrible jaws, the grinding of the machinery beneath its frost-armored hide. Ray shoved the lodestone back in his pocket. The train would set off in the morning, continuing the medicine show’s tour of the South. And somewhere out there the Hoarhound was looking for Jolie.

  * * *

  The Ballyhoo reached the tobacco warehouses and factories on the outskirts of Atlanta the following aftern
oon. Ray helped the others set up for the next show. As he was carrying another crate from the boxcar, Si met him half way to the tent.

  She looked around to make sure nobody else could hear her. “Conker says you’re taking him with you to talk to the siren.”

  Ray adjusted the heavy crate in his arms. “Yeah.”

  “I want to come with you.” She held his gaze firmly.

  “Okay,” Ray said. “Tonight. After supper?”

  Si’s mouth twitched a moment before she muttered, “Thanks.” Then she turned, whipping the long braid around from the top of her head and heading back to the boxcar.

  After supper, Conker and Si waited for him as Ray got the key from Buck’s room. Thunder echoed in the distance, and a spattering of warm rain began to fall. Coming down from the vestibule, he heard the whine of Ox Everett’s fiddle, the clunk and twang of Shacks and Eddie playing banjo and guitar. The others would be listening to the music in the mess car.

  “Come on,” Ray said, and went up the steps to Jolie’s door. As he opened the door, he called inside, “Jolie?”

  There was a splash and Ray heard Jolie land on the wooden floor. “Ray,” she said.

  “I’ve brought Conker,” Ray said, peering into the dark. “And Si.”

  Jolie lit the oil lamp as Conker and Si came in after Ray, their eyes curiously darting around the car. Jolie backed a step away from them, her chin tucked.

  Ray said, “Jolie, this is Conker and Si.”

  Jolie smiled at Si and then up at Conker. Her eyes lingered on the giant a moment longer, and she said, “You … you are very large.”

  Conker laughed his easy laugh. “Yes, I reckon I am.”

  “We’re glad to meet you,” Si said, sitting on the floor. The others followed her lead.

  “So,” Jolie began. “You are performers?”

  “Not Ray,” Si said. “Did he tell you he was?”

  “No, I didn’t,” Ray said.

  Conker said, “Unless we count that show he put on for Marisol.”

  Conker and Si burst out laughing, and Ray forced a chuckle.

  “What do they mean?” Jolie asked. Si quickly told her about when Ray first arrived and met Marisol on the vestibule. “You were walking around with nothing on?” Jolie asked with a smile.

  “No,” Ray said with chagrin. “I had my underwear on. Conker just forgot to bring my clothes back.”

  Jolie looked from Ray to Conker and Si. “So what do you do in the show?”

  Conker and Si began telling her, going back and forth, until soon Jolie was leaning forward, eagerly hearing all about the different performances and about life in the medicine show. Soon Ray relaxed, too, settling back on his elbows as the evening got later and later.

  After a while, the four grew quiet and listened to the patter of rain on the roof. Conker gave a wide yawn.

  Jolie looked around at them. “I know you need to go. You are all so kind to visit me. I have seen the others out my window. The boy who makes fire, and the yellow-haired boy with the swords, and the girl with the snakes. They are all so … beautiful. But I am …”

  “What are you talking about?” Si scowled.

  Jolie ran her fingers over the marks across her arms, the scars on her neck and cheek. “These are ugly. I am ugly.”

  Conker shifted uncomfortably, shaking his head as he said, “No, you’re not!”

  “They’re … just scars,” Ray said. “You got them escaping from the Hound. Having scars just means you faced something terrible and difficult, but you survived. They show that you’re brave—braver than any of us have ever been. You just need to get out of this car some. Then you’ll feel better.”

  Jolie pulled her legs back up to her chest. She wrapped her arms around them, holding herself tightly.

  “When we were escaping from the Hoarhound, I was scared. But if I see it again, if the Gog comes for me, I will fight. I will not let others die to protect me. If Little Bill and the Ramblers were brave enough, then I will be, too. I hate being in here, locked away.”

  “I’ll ask Buck,” Ray began, a little hesitantly. “See if you can get outside.”

  “Will you?” Jolie asked, her eyes wide.

  “Sure,” Ray said. “But don’t get your hopes up.”

  The next day, as everyone was preparing for the first show in Atlanta, Ray spied Buck alone, resting in the shade on the stage.

  The cowboy lifted his head as Ray approached. Buck was running his fingers over one of his revolvers, and giving the chamber a spin, he holstered it neatly. “How did it go with Conker and Si?”

  “Fine,” Ray said. “I think Jolie likes them.”

  A horrible look came over Buck’s ragged face and, after a moment, Ray realized that this was what passed for a smile with the sharpshooter.

  “Jolie …,” Ray began. “She wants to come outside … if you think that’ll be okay.”

  “Good idea,” Buck said, more easily than Ray had imagined. “I think meeting you has really helped her. I’ve been talking to Nel about her getting more fresh air, some sunshine.”

  “What about her needing to be hidden?” Ray asked. “Isn’t there … danger?”

  “The bottletrees will protect her fine.”

  Ray cast a glance at the cedar poles covered in colored bottles that he and Conker had been putting up at every show.

  “I thought they were just for decoration.”

  Buck hopped down from the stage, his cowboy boots jangling as he landed. “No, they’re not decoration,” Buck said. “They’re old magic. Hoodoo.” He leaned close, whispering in his raspy voice, “They keep the Gog’s servants away. If they got too close, they’d be trapped in the bottles.” Then walking away from Ray, he said, “I’ll tell Nel about your idea.”

  Ray looked over once more at a bottletree, and went to get ready with the others for the first performance.

  As the Ballyhoo traveled from town to town over the next week, Jolie wavered between days of improvement and lapses into weariness. Finally Nel agreed that Jolie would benefit from fresh air. Although Ray had been anxious—anxious about Seth, anxious about the Gog’s men or the Hoarhound storming suddenly from the forest, neither happened. Seth, along with Marisol and Redfeather, watched Jolie curiously when Ray led her outside that first day, but none of them bothered her.

  As Jolie began getting outside more often, many days Conker and Si joined her and Ray on walks within the perimeter of the bottletrees, listening to stories about John Henry and his fabled Nine Pound Hammer. But Conker and Si were often busy helping with the show, and during those times, Jolie and Ray would sit in the grass by the shadow of the train and talk.

  She told him stories about the Ramblers and tales she had heard from Li’l Bill and the others when they had kept watch over her. She told Ray about Jonathan Chapman, who stole a silver apple from a witch in Hudson Valley and broke it open with a rock to spread the seeds in his vast travels. She told him about Colonel Pierce and his band of Ramblers meeting the White Buffalo, who was Boss of the Western Plains, and who taught the Ramblers the power of animal speech. Ray especially enjoyed the tale of Old Tea Mat, the monstrous catfish who lived beneath the waters of Lake Pontchartrain.

  Jolie was curious about the outside world and about Ray’s life before he met the medicine show. She asked about Sally and about surviving on the streets of lower Manhattan.

  One afternoon, when he was telling her about a time he had been caught stealing a drunken man’s wallet, Jolie fainted. She stayed in her tank for several days after that, coming from the water only long enough to share a few words with Ray or Si and Conker. She looked weak and ate little of the food they took to her. Sometimes she seemed to be in a dark depression and would not come out even to say hello to Ray.

  That was around the same time the lodestone began pulling again.

  * * *

  Ray twisted and turned sleeplessly on his straw mattress. The night was hot and all the mosquitoes in Alabama seemed to have found th
eir way into Ray’s room. He kicked off his sheets in agitation and stepped to the floor. His foot landed hard on something. Bending down, he touched the lodestone.

  As his fingers met it, the stone moved. Ray sat up, watching as the lodestone began sliding across his palm. What was it doing? He closed his fingers around it, but still felt the urgent pull pressing into his palm.

  Ray ran out his door and jumped down from the vestibule, heading across the grass, already wet with the muggy summer night. He had to tell Conker; maybe he was still awake. As he went under the tent, it took Ray a few moments of stumbling to find the stage in the darkness. “Conker,” he whispered but got no reply.

  A large dark shadow lay upon the stage, murmuring with a dream. His eyes slowly adjusting to the dark, Ray saw that Conker was twitching in his sleep, his face mashed onto a thin feather pillow.

  The giant was dreaming. With the lodestone still in his hand, Ray reached out to shake Conker’s shoulder.

  As his fingers touched him, Ray’s mind exploded with a vision.

  A cavern far under the earth was illuminated with the dim glow of a kerosene lantern. A huge man, nearly the same size as Conker but older and harder-faced, was carrying a heavy long-handled hammer. He turned to a man behind him, small by comparison.

  The large man had to shout to be heard over the buzzing, hissing noises that filled the tunnel. “Go back, Li’l Bill!”

  The small man had a thick blond beard and long hair run through with gray. He looked as if he was going to speak, but the fierce, not unkind resolve on the large man’s face stifled any argument. Li’l Bill hesitated a moment before clamping his hands affectionately to the large man’s arms. Words seemed to fail to come to his lips, and he turned, receding into the dark.

  Alone, the large man with the hammer held up his lantern.

  Before him were a thousand clawing, churning movements, like a wall of maggots writhing in the oily light. But they were not insects. They were intricate bits of machinery. The hissing of pistons firing, the grinding of gears and rumbling chains filled the tunnel. The cold, grease-slick machinery was enormous and extended into the rock surrounding it. There was no focal point to the steel mass, no obvious function of the mechanization. It was as if this were only a small portion of some larger machine encased in the earth.