The Man Who Talled Tales: Collected Short Stories of R.A. Lafferty

by R. A. Lafferty

  John Salt's challenges had popular appeal, and it was often possible for him to catch a clutch of faith healers in his trap. He really could, so far, duplicate all their tricks by natural means. But he was himself deathly afraid of the Holy Spirit and he was always careful not to speak any word against the Spirit but only against the ‘Falsifiers and Mountebanks and Fakers of the Spirit’.

  There are two versions as to how John Salt came under the fear of the Holy Spirit. One of them involved the Withered-Hand trick gone wrong, and one of them involved the man-raised-from-the-death trick (the most extreme trick in all of Faith Healing) also gone wrong. For the first version, John Salt had a subject who did have such a severe circulation problem with her hand that it would turn black and appear withered. She could get relief from this condition only by an injection into her wrist twice a day. This injection (she herself said that it was nitroglycerin, and John Salt had a longer name for it) would change the appearance of her hand almost instantly, would make it look like a normal hand again. The trick was for the woman to miss an injection before a performance or faith-healing exhibition, and for John Salt slyly to give her the overdue injection while he prayed over her hand. It was quite effective when people saw a withered hand cured almost instantly like that. But on the last performance of the trick it was disconcerting to the audience and shattering to John Salt when the withered-hand woman cried out in agony: “Oh, no, no, you have not healed my hand! You have destroyed it altogether! It is as though you had dipped it into the boiling brimstone of Hell! Now my hand is afflicted forever and I myself am in unbearable pain. Devil man, what have you done to me!” Oh, this in itself was enough to make a man forswear fake faith healing, for the hand really was destroyed forever in an instant.

  In the second version, John Salt had a traveling companion who could go into a cataleptic trance whenever he wished to do so (and sometimes when he did not wish, which made it tricky). In the trance, he seemed to be dead. Oh yes, he even had grave dirt on him when he was brought before the audience, and the odor of death strongly on him. The ‘odor of death’ that John Salt released for the edification of the audience was really ‘concentrated essence of dead weasel’. There is nothing so essential as a dead weasel. And the man could shake the grave dirt off of himself and come out of his cataleptic death whenever John Salt ordered him to do so. He could do it until that very last time.

  But the whole business of the cataleptic trances was a token of a severe sickness in the man, and the man died on John Salt before an audience of fifty-five hundred and twelve goggle-eyed persons. Oh, that was more than enough to make a man forswear fake faith healing!

  Both the versions were true, and they both happened in the same week. They put the Fear of God into John Salt so strongly that he left off being a bogus faith healer and became an exposer of bogus faith healers.

  John Salt infiltrated the organizations of all the ‘faithies’ that he dogged, and of course he infiltrated the structure of what he called ‘The Meadow Lark Mountebanks’. He found Mary Occhilucenti, who had come to town for a one-shot with the Mountebanks, in the Plugged Nickel Bar. John Salt and Mary had crossed paths many times. She went wherever the faith healers were putting on a top show. She had large bright orange cataracts on both of her eyes, and these dropped off every time she was healed. She had her eyes healed before thousands of people, and always immediately demonstrated her new perfect vision by reading the fine print on a sardine can. “How do you do it, Mary?” John Salt asked her. “I have experimented with quite a few quick-dissolving crystals but I haven't found the ideal one for the trick yet. Tell me what the substance is.”

  “It's too common and too widely-used for you to have noticed it, John,” Mary O said. “What I use is known as Silly Chrystals. It's sold in kits as a children's toy, and three million children got some of it last Christmas alone. I don't know the chemical name of it, but just ask for Silly Chrystals in any toy department. I tell you this now, because I'm about fed up with being on the healing trail and I get the feeling that something dire will happen to me if I don't soon abandon it.”

  “Thank you, Mary,” John Salt said.

  Then John Salt went to talk to Brother Augustine, or Brother Gus, who worked directly as handyman and janitor for the Encounterful bunch, the Mountebanks as John called them.

  “Gus,” he said, “I am going to do a hit job on your bunch. I am going to catch them in a corner that they cannot back out of. But I am worried about one thing, and that thing is you. I have felt your power before, and it is real. I don't believe that you have any particular commitment to the Mountebanks: your commitments are to things less grubby. And yet your just being around, even in your role as handyman and janitor, might lend your power unconsciously to their attempts.”

  “And what are you up to this time, John Salt?” Brother Gus asked.

  “I'm going to catch them in the biggest trap of all. I will catch them in the perfect mouse-trap, and it is the mountain. There have been several fables of the mountain and the mouse and most of them have been misunderstood.”

  “See that you yourself don't misunderstand it, John Salt.”

  “I'm going to challenge them to the one demonstration of faith that can't be faked. I'm going to put them to the test that Christ Himself suggested to separate the prophets from the boys, the one feat that can in no way be misunderstood, that cannot seem to be performed unless it is performed.”

  “Oh that! What do you want of me then, John Salt?”

  “I want your word that you will not lend your power, whatever it is, to the demonstration of the Mountebanks, should they take me up on it. I want you to promise me to stand clear of it and not abet them either consciously or unconsciously.”

  “You have my word, John Salt. I will stand clear of it all. I will not lend any powers I might have to them. I will not abet them either consciously or unconsciously. Besides, it's an enormity of which I would not be capable. I can move a pecan, John. I can't move things that are billions of billions of times larger.”

  If you have Faith Sufficient you can say to this mountain ‘Be you moved’, and it will be moved. And nothing shall be impossible to you.

  —Matthew 17:20

  It is the one demonstration of faith that cannot be faked: Moving a Mountain. Everything else can be faked, but this is too big to fake. The lame can walk, the blind can see, the lepers can be cleansed, and the poor can have the Gospel preached to them, all by well-done fakery without really doing the things. They can be done by a convincing fakery when the real things do not flow from the fountain of life. But to move a mountain, for a substantial distance, on a clear and sunny afternoon, before thousands of witnesses both clotted together and scattered over the miles, they viewing it from different directions, through eyes direct or through field glasses or telescopes, from different angles, with different plays of light-and-shadow, with camera and with TV eye, with some witnesses watching from certain points for ‘something unusual’ but not told what they are watching for, with all of them seeing the mountain separate itself from the earth and rise jiggling into the air — this is beyond faking. Even John Salt was not sure that he would be able to duplicate the feat by natural means if the Meadow Lark Mountebanks should indeed move Turkey Mountain.

  But how was he to trap the Mountebanks into attempting it? Oh, they entrapped themselves into it, after John Salt had shot three of them with darts. That's right, shot them with darts.

  The only one who saw John Salt shoot the three persons with darts was Brother Augustine: for the three persons were coming up the slope of Meadow Lark Mountain late one afternoon to question this same Brother Augustine. The darts that John Salt shot were insect-small, and they looked like insects, and their hitting felt no more powerful than a fly-bite. But they penetrated their three victims with ‘overconfidence toxin’, with ‘intrepidity’, with ‘away-with-caution toxin’, and with the trickiest of all, the ‘what-the-hell venom’. John Salt, hiding behind little cedar shrubs
on the slope of Meadow Lark Mountain, shot the darts with a little blow-gun into the napes of Outreacher Preacher Jerome Healing-Hands, of Super-Sister Susanna-Of-The-Spirit, and of Father Raphael whose name, as he always explained it to people who came to his healing services, meant literally Father Healing-of-God. All three of these persons brushed their hands over the backs of their necks when they felt the nick of the small darts, but they felt nothing there and they thought no more of it. Then they came to humble Brother Augustine and they held confab with him.

  “Brother Goose,” Super-Sister Susanna-Of-The-Spirit said to him, “I feel, we all feel, that you have certain powers, however slight. Will you lend them to us in a demonstration of faith against an infidel?”

  “No, I will not,” Brother Gus said. “I have given my word that I will stand clear of it all, that I will not lend any powers that I may possibly have to anyone, that I will not abet you or anybody else.”

  “Will you be present at the test?” Father Raphael Healing-of-God asked.

  “Oh yes. I am still a boy who cannot pass up so good a show as Moving a Mountain.”

  “Whoever is not against us is with us,” said Outreacher Preacher Jerome Healing-Hands. “If you will give us your word that you will not use your power against us, we will be satisfied. Power-for-Good needs only to be present to manifest itself. Have we your word?”

  “I give my word that I will not use any powers of mine against you,” Brother Augustine swore. “There, I have sworn my word twice this day, and I will swear it no more. There's an old saying that whoever swears his word three times will have forsworn it at least once. Lord, keep my words locked in my mouth for the rest of the day.”

  “Let's do it” cried Father Raphael. “I have a sudden surge of super-confidence. Let us find John Salt and tell him that we accept the challenge.”

  “Yes, yes, yes!” cried Outreacher Preacher Jerome Healing-Hands. “Let's do it! I have a sudden surge of intrepidity. Where is John Salt. Let him know that we accept his wager.”

  “I'm for it thumpingly!” Super-Sister Susanna-Of-The-Spirit resounded. “I have a sudden surge of away-with-caution feeling and of what-the-hellism. We can do it now. Let us make compact with the devious John Salt, and stand justified before the world, and be ten thousand dollars richer for our agreement. We accept the deal. John Salt, where are you?”

  “I'm right here,” John Salt said softly, and (it was at least a quasi-miracle) he stood in the midst of them. It was only a quasi-miracle and not a full miracle because John Salt had been standing all the while behind a cedar bush there on the slopes of Meadow Lark Mountain, no more than three feet from the Mountebanks. Dusk had begun to gather then, and he seemed more of a sudden and ghostly apparition than he really was.

  Arrangements and appointments were quickly made. Meadow Lark Mountain was only a low and scrubby mound between Turkey Mountain and Rock-Crusher Road on the West side of the River. And they didn't want to take any chances on cracking the walls of their Covenant Building by moving their own mountain. But Turkey Mountain was of a respectable size; so Turkey Mountain was the one targeted to be moved.

  They did it at noon the next day.

  And now quick victory and quicker vaunt,

  And still more quick abusing the infirm,

  Nor doubts be given room to roost and haunt.

  But Victory may yet contain a Worm.

  —Endymeon Ellenbogen, Fog-Horn Symphony

  They hadn't as much coverage as they wished. Only a few of the National Media persons had come. After all, nothing had happened yet. But there were promises of a true gala the following day if something should have happened. And all those committed to the happening believed that they could give as many and as grand repeat performances as they wished.

  “Turkey Mountain will henceforth be a Holy Mountain,” Frockless Sister Specially-Esteemed-By-The-Spirit cried out, “like Mount Zion, like Mount Sinai, like Mount Tabor. The Spirit is running, and we can all feel a small but incredibly powerful dynamo of faith pulsating somewhere nearby.”

  The people from the local TV stations and the two city newspapers were on stand-by. And a person from the mayor's office had checked it all out. There were only four houses on the approximately forty acres covered by Turkey Mountain. None of them had city water; all used only cisterns. It was summer, and none of them would need gas for a little while. People from the gas company uncoupled the main union to the pipe that ran up the mountain. All four houses had their electricity from one transformer. The line to it came off the main line at the foot of the mountain. “Does anybody know how high you're going to raise the mountain?” a Public Service Company lineman asked. “No? You're going to raise a mountain and you don't know how high you're going to raise it? I better cut the lines loose here then. They won't need lights this noontime anyhow.” The people in all of the houses said they would stay on the mountain just for the ride, and several newspersons went up on the mountain with them.

  But preparations for this first Day of the Mountain Moving were lagging. There would be a massive faith healing ceremony after the moving, however; or, if possible, while the mountain was still in the air. Oh, the Spirit was moving, and already Turkey Mountain had begun to rumble. Snakes by the dozen slid out of the mountain in cowering fashion. Earth rumbles frighten snakes. “Generation of Vipers, who has shown you to flee from the wrath to come?” Outreacher Preacher Jerome Healing-Hands asked them loudly. It was a pretty good line to come up with, but the snakes all seemed to be of the blacksnake sort (Coluber constrictor or Elaphe obsoleta) and not vipers at all. The gibbering in unknown tongues rose in crest after crest, but the shouting was all as seemly as it was inspired.

  And then, and then, and then—

  And then Turkey Mountain arose wobbling about a hundred feet into the air. That was it. Faith Sufficient really had moved a mountain. Some of the ‘faithies’ continued their babble to try to maintain the mountain in the air while the Super Healing Ceremony took place. But, after about ten minutes, Turkey Mountain slowly sank to earth again and assumed its accustomed place.

  No matter. They'd moved the mountain once, and they'd do it again tomorrow, to great acclaim and world-wide coverage.

  John Salt sauntered over to Outreacher Preacher Jerome Healing-Hands and his triumphant Meadow Lark Mountebank group. John counted out one hundred one-hundred dollar bills into the hot hands of Healing-Hands. “But you'd better put it into escrow,” John Salt said. “I have two days to duplicate it by natural means.” But they laughed him to scorn.

  But the Super Faith Healing Ceremony busted almost at the start. The Meadow Larkers started with tried and true subjects, and the most tried-and-true of them all was Mary Occhilucenti. The orange-colored cataracts on her eyes were made out of Silly Chrystals, and Silly Chrystals could be dissolved suddenly by jolting, by quick heat, or by the sparking of a small palm-of-the-hand electric capacitor with pen-light battery. The Faith Healers had been doing her cataracts mostly by this capacitor-with-battery when they touched her eyes with their healing hands. It was Outreacher Preacher Jerome Healing-Hands himself who touched the large cataracts on Mary's eyes, and they did come unchrystaled, they did dissolve and disappear. But then Mary gave a great cry of anguish: “I'm blind, I'm blind, I'm blind forever now. My eyes have grown shut. Devil man, what have you done to me?” Her eyes were indeed grown shut. It was as if they had grown shut ten years ago, and she would never see again. She'd had perfect vision before this.

  And several other attempts at healing also busted, even the sure things.

  “Never mind,” Frockless Sister Specially-Esteemed-By-The-Spirit consoled them. “It is that we are all tired from the mountain moving, too tired to entertain the Spirit properly. Tomorrow we will be rested.”

  John Salt came to Brother Gus.

  “Brother Augustine, it would be impossible in your case,” John Salt said in his fulgent style that he even used in one-to-one conversations, “but it seems that you lied to me and fa
iled your word. You gave me your word that you would not lend your power, whatever it is, to the demonstration of the Mountebanks. Well, somebody loaned extraordinary power to them. Did you keep your word to me, Brother Augustine?”

  “Yes, I kept my word, John. I stood clear of it all the way.”

  “Then there is another and likely much stronger power very close to us here. I must find it and bargain with it.”

  A telegraph boy brought a telegraph to Brother Gus, and the gram read in part: “—a report has reached me that the mouse, lab-named ‘Bright-Eyes’, subsequent name ‘Brother Mus’, has not been destroyed. Dammit, find him and kill him at once, Gus! He may be the unfortunate aberration of one of our contingent studies ‘The Mouse That Destroyed The World’, a comic study-title that has now become horribly uncomic. A report has also reached me of the happening at your place an hour ago. Remember, Gus, that mountain-moving can become addictive! Remember that the mice in our experiment received injections of a ‘faith toxin’, but in at least one case, that of the mouse ‘Bright-Eyes’, it mutated into a ‘flaming faith toxin’. This mouse has total faith, so there is nothing it cannot do. Present the corpus of that mouse here within one hour (the corpus is of course ‘signatured’ in a way you can't know) (yes, you can make it if you kill the mouse immediately and catch the Delta flight), or I will have your own corpus.