"Then let's go," and he started up the trail.
It wasn't folks' feet had worn that trail. I saw a hoofmark.
"Deer," grunted Mr. Yandro; and I said, "Maybe."
We scrambled up on a rightward slant, then leftward. The trees marched in close around us, with branches above that filtered only soft green light. Something rustled, and we saw a brown, furry shape, big as a big cat, scuttling out of sight.
"Woodchuck," wheezed Mr. Yandro; again I said, "Maybe."
After an hour's working upward we rested, and after two hours more we rested again. Around 11 o'clock we reached an open space where clear light touched the middle, and there we sat on a log and ate the corn bread and smoked meat Miss Tully had fixed. Mr. Yandro mopped his face with a fancy handkerchief, and gobbled food for strength to glitter his eye at me. "What are you glooming about?" he said. "You look as if you'd call me a name if you weren't afraid."
"I've held my tongue," I said, "by way of manners, not fear. I'm just thinking about how and why we came so far and sudden to this place."
"You sang me a song, and I heard, and thought I'd come to where my people originated. Now I have a hunch about profit. That's enough for you."
"It's not just that gold story," I said. "You're more than rich enough."
"I'm going up there," said Mr. Yandro, "because, by God, that old hag down there said everybody's afraid to do it. And you said you'd go with me."
"I'll go right to the top with you," I said.
I forebore to say that something had come close and looked from among the trees behind him. It was big and broad-headed, with elephant ears to right and left, and white tusks like bannisters on a spiral staircase. But it was woolly-shaggy, like a buffalo bull. The Bammat. How could such a thing move so quiet-like?
He drank from his whiskey bottle, and on we climbed. We could hear those noises in the woods and brush, behind rocks and down little gulleys, as if the mountain side thronged with living things as thick as fleas on a possum dog and another sight sneakier. I didn't let on I was nervous.
"Why are you singing under your breath?" he grunted after a while.
"I'm not singing," I said. "I need my breath for climbing."
"I hear you!" he charged me, like a lawyer in court.
We'd stopped dead on the trail, and I heard it, too.
It was soft, almost like some half-remembered song in your mind. It was the Yandro song, all right:
Look away, look away, look away over Yandro, Where them wild things areflyin' From bough to bough, and a-mating with their mates, So why not me with mine?
"That singing comes from up above us," I told Mr. Yandro. "Then," he said, "we must be nearly at the top." As we started climbing again, I could hear the noises to right and left in the woods, and then I realized they'd quieted down when we stopped. They moved when we moved, they waited when we waited. There were lots of them. Soft noises, but lots of them.
Which is why I myself, and probably Mr. Yandro too, didn't pause any more on the way up, even on a rocky stretch where we had to climb on all fours. It may have been an hour after noon when we came to the top.
Right there was a circle-shaped clearing, with the trees thronged around it all the way except an open space toward the slope. Those trees had mist among and between them, quiet and fluffy, like spider webbing. And at the open space, on the lip of the way down, perched the desrick.
Old-aged was what it looked. It stood high and looked the higher, because it was built so narrow of unnotched logs, set four above four, hogpen fashion, as tall as a tall tobacco barn. The spaces between the logs were clinked shut with great masses and wads of clay. The steep-pitched roof was of shingles, cut long and narrow, so that they looked almost like thatch. There was one big door, made of an axe-chopped plank, and the hinges must have been inside, for I could see none. And one window, covered with what must have been rawhide scraped thin, with a glow of soft light coming through.
"That's it," puffed Mr. Yandro. "The desrick."
I looked at him then, and knew what most he wanted on this earth. He wanted to be boss. Money was just something to greaten him. His idea of greatness was bigness. He wanted to do all the talking, and have everybody else do the listening. He had his eyes hung on that desrick, and he licked his lips, like a cat over a dish of cream.
"Let's go in," he said.
"Not where I'm not invited," I told him, as flatly as anybody could ever tell him. "I said I'd come to the top. This is the top."
"Come with me," he said. "My name's Yandro. This mountain's name is Yandro. I can buy and sell every man, woman and child in this part of the country. If I say it's all right to go into a house, it's all right to go into a house."
He meant that thing. The world and everybody in it was just there to let him walk on. He took a step toward the desrick. Somebody hummed inside, not the words of the song, but the tune. Mr. Yandro snorted at me, to show how small he reckoned me because I held back, and he headed toward the big door.
"If she's there, she'll show me the gold," he said.
But I couldn't have moved from where I stood at the edge of the clearing. I was aware of a sort of closing in all around the edge, among the trees and brushy clumps. Not that the closing in could be seen, but there was a gong-gong farther oft", the voice of the Toller norating to the other creatures their feed was near. And above the treetops sailed a round, flat thing, like a big plate being pitched high. A Skim. Then another Skim. And the blood inside my body was cold and solid as ice, and my voice turned to a handful of sand in my throat.
I knew, plain as paint, that if I tried to back up, to turn around even, my legs would fail and I'd fall down. With fingers like twigs with sleet stuck to them, I dragged around my guitar, to pluck at the silver strings, because silver is protection against evil.
But I didn't. For out of the bushes near me the Bammat stuck its broad woolly head, and it shook that head at me once, for silence. It looked me between the eyes, steadier than a beast should look at a man, and shook its head. I wasn't to make any noise. And I didn't. When the Bammat saw that I'd be quiet, it paid me no more mind, and I knew I wasn't to be included in what would happen then.
Mr. Yandro was knocking at the axe-chopped door. He waited, and knocked again. I heard him growl, something about how he wasn't used to waiting for people to answer his knock.
Inside, the humming had died out. After a moment, Mr. Yandro moved around to where the window was, and picked at the rawhide.
I could see, but he couldn't, as around from behind the corner of the desrick flowed something. It lay out on the ground like a broad, black, short-furred carpet rug. But it moved, humping and then flattening out, the way a measuring worm moves. It moved pretty fast, right toward Mr. Yandro from behind and to one side. The Toller said gong-gong-gong, from closer in.
"Anybody in there?" bawled Mr. Yandro. "Let me in!"
The crawling carpet brushed its edge against his foot. He looked down at it, and his eyes stuck out all of a sudden, like two door knobs. He knew what it was, and named it at the top of his voice.
"The Flat!"
Humping against him, it tried to wrap around his foot and leg. He gasped out something I'd never want written down for my last words, and pulled loose and ran, fast and straight, toward the edge of the clearing.
Gong-gong, said the Toller, and Mr. Yandro tried to slip along next to the trees. But, just ahead of him, the Culverin hoved itself half into sight on its many legs. It pointed its needle-shaped mouth and spit a pebble. I heard the pebble ring on Mr. Yandro's head. He staggered against a tree. And I saw what nobody's ever supposed to see.
The Behinder flung itself on his shoulders. Then I knew why nobody's supposed to see one. I wish I hadn't. To this day I can see it, as plain as a fence at noon, and forever I will be able to see it. But talking about it's another matter. Thank you, I won't try.
Then everything else was out—the Bammat, the Culverin, and all the others. They were hustling him acros
s toward the desrick, and the door moved slowly and quietly open for him to come in.
As for me, I was out of their minds, and I hoped and prayed they wouldn't care if I just went on down the trail as fast as I could set one foot below the other.
Scrambling and scrambling down, without a noise to keep me company, I figured that I'd probably had my unguessed part in the whole thing. Seventy-five years had to pass, and then Mr. Yandro come there to the desrick. And it needed me, or somebody like me, to meet him and sing the song that would put it in his head and heart to come to where his granddaddy had courted Polly Wiltse, just as though it was his own whim.
No. No, of course, he wasn't the man who had made Polly Wiltse love him and then had left her. But he was the man's grandson, of the same blood and the same common, low-down, sorry nature that wanted money and power, and didn't care who he hurt so he could have both. And he looked like Joris Yandro. Polly Wiltse would recognize him.
I haven't studied much about what Polly Wiltse was like, welcoming him into the desrick on Yandro, after waiting inside for three quarters of a century. Anyway, I never heard of him following me down. Maybe he's been missed. But I'll lay you anything you name he's not been mourned.
Vandy, Vandy
1 hat valley hadn't any name. Such outside folks as knew about it just said, "Back in yonder," and folks inside said, "Here." The mail truck dropped a few letters in a hollow tree, next to a ridge where a trail went up and over and down. Three, four times a year, bearded men in homemade clothes and shoes fetched out their makings— clay dishes and pots, mostly, for dealers to sell to tourists. They carried back coffee, salt, gunpowder, a few nails. Things like that.
It was a day's scramble on that ridge trail, I vow, even with my long legs and no load but my silver-strung guitar. No lumberman had ever cut the thick, big old trees. I quenched my thirst at a stream and followed it down. Near sunset, I heard music jangling.
Fire shone out through an open cabin door, to where folks sat on a stoop log and frontyard rocks. One had a guitar, another fiddled, and hands slapped so a boy about ten or twelve could jig. Then they all spied me and fell quiet. They looked, and didn't know me.
"That was pretty, ladies and gentlemen," I said, but nobody remarked.
A long-bearded old man with one suspender and no shoes held the fiddle on his knee. I reckoned he was the grandsire. A younger, shorter-bearded man with the guitar might be his son. There was a dry old mother, there was the son's plump wife, there was a younger yellow-haired girl, and there was that dancing little grandboy.
"What can we do for you, young sir?" asked the old man. Not that he sounded like doing anything—mountain folks say that even to the government man who's come hunting a still on their place.
"Why," I said, "I sort of want a place to sleep."
"Right much land to stretch out on yonder," said the guitar man.
I tried again. "I heard you all playing first part of Fire in the Mountains."
"Is they two parts?" That was the boy, before anyone could silence him.
"Sure enough, son," I said. "Let me show you the second part."
The old man opened his beard, likely to say wait till I was asked, but I strummed my own guitar into second part, best I knew how. Then I played first part through, and, "You sure God can pick that," said the short-bearded one. "Do it again."
I did it again. When I reached second part, the old man sawed fiddle along with me. We went around Fire in the Mountains once more, and the ladyfolks clapped hands and the boy jigged. Still nobody smiled, but when we stopped the old man made me a nod.
"Sit on that rock," he said. "What might we call you?"
"My name's John," I told him.
"I'm Tewk Millen. Mother, I reckon John's a-tired, coming from outside. He might relish a gourd of cold water."
"We're just before having a bite," the old lady said to me. "Ain't but just smoke meat and beans, but you're welcome."
"I'm sure honored, Mrs. Millen," I said. "But it's a trouble."
"No trouble," said Mr. Tewk Millen. "Let me make you known to my son Heber and his wife Jill, and this here is boy Calder."
"Proud to know you," they all said.
"And my girl Vandy," Mr. Tewk finished.
I looked at her hair like yellow corn silk and her eyes like purple violets. "Vandy?" I said after her father.
Shy, she dimpled at me. "I know it's a scarce name, Mr. John, I never heard it anywhere but among my kinfolks."
"I have," I said, "and it's what brought me here."
Mr. Tewk Millen looked funny above his whiskers. "Thought you said you was a young stranger man."
"I heard the name outside in a song, sir. Somebody allowed the song's known here. I'm a singer. I go far after a good song." I looked around. "Do you all know that Vandy song, folks?"
"Yes, sir," said little Calder, but the others studied a minute. Mr. Tewk rubbed up a leaf of tobacco into his pipe.
"Calder," he said, "go in and fetch me a chunk of fire to light up with. John, you certain you never met my daughter Vandy?"
"Certain sure," I made reply. "Only I can figure how ary young fellow might come a far piece to meet her."
She stared down at her hands where she sat. "We learnt the song from papa," she half-whispered, "and he learnt it from his papa—"
"And my papa learnt it from his," Mr. Tewk finished for her. "It goes a way back, that song, I figure."
"I'd sure enough relish hearing it," I said.
"After you heard it," said Mr. Tewk. "After you learnt it, what would you do?"
"Why," I said, "I reckon I'd go back outside and sing it some."
I could see that's what he wanted to hear.
"Heber," he told his son, "you pick it out and I'D scrape this fiddle, and Calder and Vandy can sing it for John."
They played the tune once without words. The notes were put together strangely, in what schooled folks call minors. But other folks, better schooled yet, say such tunes sound strange and lonesome because in old times folks had another note scale from our do-re-mi-fa today. And little Calder piped up, high and young but strong:
Vandy, Vandy, I've come to court you,
Be you rich or be you poor, And if you'll kindly entertain me,
I will love you forever more.
Vandy, Vandy, I've gold and silver, Vandy, Vandy, I've a house and land,
Vandy, Vandy, I've a world of pleasure, I would make you a handsome man.
He got that far, singing for the fellow come courting, and Vandy sang back the reply, sweet as a bird:
/ love a man who's in the army, He's been there for seven long year,
And if he's therefor seven year longer, I won't court no other dear.
What care I for your gold and silver, What care I for—
She stopped, and the guitar and fiddle stopped, and it was like the death of sound. The leaves didn't rustle in the trees, nor the fire didn't stir on the hearth inside. They all looked with their mouths half open, where somebody stood with his hands crossed on the gold knob of a black cane and grinned all on one side of his toothy mouth.
Maybe he came up the down-valley trail, maybe he'd dropped from a tree like a possum. He was built spry and slim, with a long coat buttoned to his pointed chin, and brown pants tucked into elastic-sided boots, like what your grandsire had. His hands on the cane looked slim and strong. His face, bar its crooked smile, might be handsome. His dark brown hair curled like buffalo wool, and his eyes were the shiny pale gray of a new knife. Their gaze crawled all over the Millens and he laughed a slow, soft laugh.
"I thought I'd stop by," he crooned, "if I haven't worn out my welcome."
"Oh, no sir!" said Mr. Tewk, standing up on his two bare feet, fiddle in hand. "No sir, Mr. Loden, we're proud to have you, mighty proud," he jabber-squawked, like a rooster caught by the leg. "You sit down, sir, make yourself easy."
Mr. Loden sat down on the seat-rock Mr. Tewk had left, and Mr. Tewk found a place on the stoop log by
his wife, nervous as a boy stealing apples.
"Your servant, Mrs. Millen," said Mr. Loden. "Heber, you look well, and your good wife. Calder, I brought you candy."
His slim hand offered a bright striped stick, red and yellow. You'd think a country child would snatch it. But Calder took it slow and scared, as he'd take a poison-snake. You'd think he'd decline if he dared.
"For you, Mr. Tewk," went on Mr. Loden, "I've fetched some of my tobacco. An excellent weed." He handed Mr. Tewk a pouch of soft brown leather. "Empty your pipe. Enjoy it, sir."
"Thank you kindly," said Mr. Tewk, and sighed and began to do what he'd been ordered.
"And Miss Vandy." Mr. Loden's croon petted her name. "I wouldn't venture here without hoping you'd receive a trifle at my hands."
He dangled it from a chain, a gold thing the size of his pink thumbnail. In it shone a white jewel, that grabbed the firelight and twinkled red.
"Do me the honor, Miss Vandy, to let it rest on your heart, that I may envy it."
She took the jewel and sat with it between her soft little hands. Mr. Loden turned his eye-knives on me. "Now," he said, "we come around to the stranger within your gates."
"Yes, we come around to me," I agreed, hugging my guitar on my knee. "My name's John, Mr. Loden."
"Where are you from, John?" It was sudden, almost fierce, like a lawyer in a courtroom.
"From nowhere," I said.
"Meaning, from everywhere," he supplied me. "What do you do?"
"I wander," I said. "I sing songs. I mind my own business and watch my manners."
"Touche!" he cried in a foreign tongue, and smiled on that same side of his mouth. "You oblige me to remember how sometimes I err in my speech. My duties and apologies, John. I'm afraid my country ways seem rude at times, to world travellers. No offense."
"None taken," I said, and kept from adding on that real country ways were polite ways.
"Mr. Loden," put in Mr. Tewk again, "I make bold to offer you what poor rations my old woman's made—"
"Sir," Mr. Loden broke him off, "they're good enough for the best man living. I'll help Mrs. Millen prepare them. After you, ma'am."
Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer SSC Page 4
