"I've done that thing," I agreed her, "and the poet wasn't right all the time when he said beauty was truth and truth was beauty. Truth can be right ugly now and then."
"Suppose Zeb Gossett was shown a quick way out of here," she said. "Suppose you and I got to be partners in the spring and other matters."
"What kind of partners?"
She winnowed close then. I made out she didn't have on air stitch under her silky dress. She was proudly made, and well she knew it. She stood so close she near about touched me.
"What kind of partners would you like us to be?" she whispered.
"Miss Craye," said I, "no, thank you. No partnerships in the spring or in you, either one."
If she'd had the power to kill me with a look, I'd have died then and there. For hell's worst fury is a woman scorned, says another poet.
"I don't know why I don't raise my voice and set my pack on you," she breathed out in my face, and drew off a step.
"Maybe I can make one of those educated guesses," I said. "Your pack might not be friendly to you, not when you've just failed at something."
"You're the failure!" she squeaked like a bat.
"A failure for you, like Zeb Gossett. Isn't the third time the charm? If it doesn't work the third time, where will the charm put you?"
"I gave you and Zeb Gossett till sundown tomorrow," she gritted out with her pointy teeth. "Just about twenty-four hours."
"We'll be here," I said.
She backed off amongst the trees. They tossed their branches, like as if in a high wind. I turned and went back to the cabin. As I helped Zeb do the dishes, I related him what had passed.
"You bluffed her out of something she might try on you," said Zeb.
"I wasn't a-bluffing. If she's got the power of evil, I've been up against that in my time, and folks will say evil nair truly won over me. I hope some power of good is in me."
"Sure it is," he said. "Look out yonder at that healing spring. But she says bad will fall on us by sundown tomorrow. How can we go all right against that?"
"I don't rightly know how to answer that," I made confession. "We'll play it by ear, same as I play this guitar." And I picked it up to change the subject.
Out yonder was a sound, like a whisper, but too soft and sneaky to be a real voice. And a shadow passed outside a window.
I stopped my picking. Zeb had taken a dark-covered book from the shelf and was opening it. "What's that?" I asked.
"The Bible." He flung the covers wide and stabbed down his finger. "I'm a-going to cast a sign for us."
I knew about that, open the Bible anywhere and put your finger on a text and look for guidance in it.
"Here, the last verse in thirteenth Mark." Zeb read it out: "'And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.'"
"Watch," I repeated. "That's what we'll do tonight."
Shadows at the window again. Zeb looked in the Bible, but didn't read from it anymore. I picked my guitar, the tune of "Never Trust a Stranger." Outside rose a rush of wind, and when I looked out it was darkened. Night, and, from what I could judge, no moon. The owl hooted. On the hearth, the fire burnt blue. Zeb got up and lit a candle. Its flame fluttered like a yellow leaf.
Then a scratchy peck at the door. Zeb looked at me, his eyes as wide as sunflowers. I put down the guitar and went to the door.
It opened by hiking the latch on a string. I cracked it inward a tad and looked at what was out there. A dog? It was as big as a big one, black and bristly-haired. Its eyes shone, likewise its teeth. It looked to be a-getting up on its hind legs, and for a second I thought its front paws were hairy hands.
"Thanks," I said to it, "whatever you got to sell, we don't want any."
I closed the door and the latch fell into place. I heard that big body a-pressing against the wood. A whiney little sound, then the wind again. Zeb put more wood on the fire, though it wasn't cold. "What must we do?" he asked.
"Watch, the way the Bible told us," I replied him.
Things moved heavily all round the cabin. A scratch at a windowpane. Feet tippy-toed on the roof.
"I reckon it's up to you, John," said Zeb, his Bible back in his hand. "Up to you to see us through this night. You've got good in you to stand off the bad."
I thought of saying that Craye had given us to sundown the next day, which should ought to mean we'd last till then. As to the good in me, I hoped it was there. But it's not a right thing to claim aught for yourself, just be thankful if it helps.
Zeb gave us both a whet out of a jug of good blockade, and again I picked guitar. He joined in with me to sing "Lonesome River Shore" and "Call Me from the Valley," and wanted me to do the one that had minded him of Tilda. Things quietened outside while we sang. The devil's afraid of music, I'd heard tell from a preacher in a church house one time.
But when I put the guitar by, I heard another kind of singing. It was outside, it was a moanish tune and a woman's voice a-doing it. I tried to make out the words:
Cummer, go ye before, cummer, go ye,
Gif ye not go before, cummer, let me . . .
And I'd heard that same song before. It was sung, folks said, near about four hundred years back, at North Berwick, in Scotland, to witch a king on his throne and the princess he wanted to marry. I didn't reckon I'd tell Zeb that.
"Sounds like Craye Sawtelle's voice," he said as he listened. "What does cummer mean, John?"
"I think that's an old-timey word for a chum, a friend," I replied him.
"Then what cummers are out there with Craye?" His face was white—so white I never mentioned the dog-thing that had come to the door.
"She'd better not fetch her cummers in here," I said to hearten him. "They might could hear what wouldn't please them."
"Hear what?"
I had to tell him something, so I took the guitar and sang:
Lights in the valley outshine the sun,
Look away beyond the blue . . .
He looked to feel better. Outside, the other singing died out.
"Would it help if we had crosses at the windows?" he asked, and I nodded him it wouldn't hurt. He tied splinters of firewood crosswise with twine string and put two at the windows and hung another to the latch of the door. Out yonder, somebody moaned like as if the somebody had felt a pain somewhere. Zeb actually grinned at that.
Time dragged by, and the wind sighed round the cabin, or anyway something with a voice like wind. I yawned and stretched, and told him I felt like sleep.
"Take the bed yonder," Zeb bade me. "I'll sit up. I won't be able to sleep."
"That's what you think," I said. "Get into your bed. I'll put down this blanket I fetched with me, just inside the door."
And I did, and wropped up in it. I didn't stay awake long, though once it sounded like as if something sniffed at where the door came down to the bottom. Shoo, gentlemen, you can sleep if you're tired enough.
What woke me up was the far-off crow of a rooster. I was glad to hear that, because a rooster's crow makes bad spirits leave. I rolled over and got up. Zeb was at the fireplace, with an iron fork to toast pieces of bread. A saucepan was a-boiling eggs.
"We're still here," he said. "It wonders me what Craye Sawtelle was up to last night."
"Just a try at scaring us," I said. "She gave us till sundown tonight, you recollect."
Somehow, that pestered him. He didn't talk much while we ate. I said I'd fetch a pail of water, and out I went with it to the spring. There, at the spring but not right close up beside it, stood Craye Sawtelle. This time she wore a long black dress, with black sandals on her bare feet, and her hair was tied up with a string of red beads.
"Good day, ma'am," I said. "How did you fare last night?"
"I was a trifle busy," she answered. "A-getting ready for sundown."
I dipped my bucket in the spring. The water looked sweet.
"I note by your tracks that you've been round and round here," I said, "but you nair once got close enough to dip in the spring."
; "That will come," she promised me. "It will come when the spring's mine, when there's no bar against me. How does that sound to you, John?"
"Why, since you ask, it sounds like the same old song by the same old mockingbird. Like a try at scaring us out. Miss Craye, I've been a-figuring on you since we met up yesterday, and I'll give you my straight-out notion. There's nothing you can do to me or Zeb Gossett, no matter how you try."
"You'll be sorry you said that."
"I'm already sorry," I said. "I hate to talk thisaway to
lady-folks, but some things purely have to be said."
"And yonder comes Zeb Gossett," she said, pointing. "He'll do like you, try to talk himself out of being afraid."
Zeb came along to where I stood with the bucket in my hand. He looked tight-mouthed and pale under his brown beard.
"Have you come to talk business?" Craye inquired him, and showed him her pointy teeth.
"I talk no business with you," he said.
"Wait until the sun slides down behind the mountain," she mocked at him. "Wait until dark. See what I make happen then."
"I don't have to wait," he said. "I've made my mind up."
"Then why should I wait, either?" she snarled out, "Why not do the thing now?"
She lifted up her hands, crooked like claws. She began to say a string of wild words, in whatever language I don't know. Zeb gave back from her.
"I hate things like this, folks," I said, and I upped with the bucket and flung that water from the spring all over her.
She screamed like an animal caught in a trap. I saw yellow foam come a-slathering out of her mouth. She whirled round and whirled round again and slammed down, and by then you couldn't see her on account of the thick dark steam that rose.
Zeb ran back off a dozen steps, but I stood there to watch, the empty bucket in my hand.
The steam thinned, but you couldn't see Craye Sawtelle. She was gone.
Only that black dress, twisted and empty, and only those two black sandals on the soaked ground, with no feet in them. Naught else. Not a sigh of Craye Sawtelle. The last of the steam drifted off, and Zeb and I stared at each other.
She's gone," Zeb gobbled in his throat. "Gone. How did you—"
"Well"—I steadied my voice—"yesterday you said it washed away air bad thing whatever. So I thought I'd see if it would do that. No doubt about it, Craye Sawtelle was badness through and through."
He looked down at the empty dress and empty sandals. "Blessed water," he said. "Holy water. You made it so."
"I can't claim that, Zeb. More likely it was your doing, when you started in to use it for help to sick and troubled folks."
"But you knew that if you threw it on her—"
"No." I shook my head. "I just only hoped it would work, and it did. Wherever Craye Sawtelle's been washed to, I don't reckon she'll be back from there."
He looked up along the trail. Yonder came Tilda Fleming.
"Tilda," he said her name. "What shall I tell Tilda?"
"Why not tell her what's in your heart for her?" I asked. "I reckon she's plumb ready to hark at you."
He started to walk toward her and I headed back to the cabin.
Owls Hoot in the Daytime
That time back yonder, I found the place myself, the way folks in those mountains allowed I had to.
I was rough hours on the way, high up and then down, over ridges and across bottoms, where once there'd been a road. I found a bridge across a creek, but it was busted down in the middle, like a warning not to use it. I splashed across there. It got late when I reached a cove pushed in amongst close-grown trees on a climbing slope.
An owl hooted toward where the sun sank, so maybe I was on the right track, a path faint through the woods. I found where a gate had been, a rotted post with rusty hinges on it. The trees beyond looked dark as the way to hell, but I headed along that snaky-winding path till I saw the housefront. The owl hooted again, off where the gloom grayed off for the last of daylight.
That house was half logs, half ancient whipsawed planks, weathered to dust color. Trees crowded the sides, branches crossed above the shake roof. The front-sill timber squatted on pate rocks. The door had come down off its old leather hinges. Darkness inside. Two windows stared, with flowered bushes beneath them. The grassy yard space wasn't a great much bigger than a parlor floor.
"What ye wish, young sir?" a scrapy voice inquired me, and I saw somebody a-sitting on a slaty rock at the house's left corner.
"I didn't know anybody was here," I said, and looked at him and he looked at me.
I saw a gnarly old man, his ruined face half-hid in a blizzardy white beard, his body wrapped in a brown robe. Beside him hunkered down what looked like a dark-haired dog. Both of them looked with bright, squinty eyes, a-making me recollect that my shirt was rumpled, that I sweated under my pack straps, that I had mud on my boots and my dungaree pant cuffs.
"If ye nair knowed nobody was here, why'd ye come?" scraped his voice.
"It might could be hard to explain."
"I got a lavish of time to hark at yore explanation."
I grinned at him. "I go up and down, a-viewing the country over. I've heard time and again about a place so far off of the beaten way that owls hoot in the daytime and they have possums for yard dogs."
An owl hooted somewhere.
"That's a saying amongst folks here and yonder," said the old man, his broad brown hand a-stroking his beard.
"Yes, sir," I agreed him, "but I heard tell it was in this part of the country, so I thought I'd find out."
The beard stirred as he clamped his mouth. "Is that all ye got to do with yore young life?"
"Mostly so," I told him the truth. "I find out things."
The animal alongside him hiked up its long snout.
It was the almightiest big possum I'd ever seen, big as a middling-sized dog. Likely it weighed more than fifty pounds. Its eyes dug at me.
"Folks at the county seat just gave me general directions," I went on. "I found an old road in the woods. Then I heard the owl hoot and it was still daytime, so I followed the sound here."
I felt funny, a-standing with my pack straps galled into me, to say all that.
"I've heard tell an owl hoot by daytime is bad luck," scraped the voice in the beard. "Heap of that a-going, if it's so."
"Over in Wales, they say an owl hooting means that a girl's a-losing her virginity," I tried to make a joke.
"Hum." Not exactly a laugh. "Owls must be kept busy a-hooting for that, too." He and the possum looked me up and down. "Well, since ye come from so far off, why don't me bid ye set and rest?"
"Thank you, sir." I unslung my pack and put it down and laid my guitar on it. Then I stepped toward the dark door hole.
"Stay out of yonder," came quick warning words. "What's inside is one reason why nobody comes here but me. Set down on that stump acrost from me. What might I call ye?"
I dropped down on the stump. "My name's John. And I wish you'd tell me more about how is it folks don't come here."
"I'm Maltby Sanger, and this here good friend I got with me is named Ung. The rest of the saying's fact, too. I keep him for a yard dog."
Ung kept his black eyes on me. His coarse fur was grizzled gray. His forepaws clasped like hands under his shallow chin.
"Maybe I'd ought to fix us some supper while we talk," said Maltby Sanger.
"Don't bother," I said. "I'll be a-heading back directly."
"Hark at me," he said, scrapier than ever. "There ain't no luck a-walking these here woods by night."
"There'll be a good moon."
"That there's the worst part. The moon shows ye to what's afoot in the woods. Eat here tonight and then sleep here."
"Well, all right." I leaned down and unbuckled my pack. "But let me fix the supper, since I came without bidding." I fetched out a little poke of meal, a big old can of sardines in tomatoes. "If I could have some water, Mr. Sanger."
"'Round here, there's water where I st
ay at."
He got off his rock, and I saw that he was dwarfed. His legs under that robe couldn't be much more than knees and feet. He wouldn't stand higher than my elbow.
"Come on, John," he said, and I picked up a tin pan and followed him round the house corner.
Betwixt two trees was built a little shackly hut, poles up and down and clay-daubed for walls, other poles laid up top and covered with twigs and grass for a roof. In front of it, in what light was left, flowed a spring. I filled my pan and started back.
"Is that all the water ye want?" he asked after me.
"Just to make us some pone. I've got two bottles of beer to drink."
"Beer," he said, like as if he loved the word.
He waddled back, a-picking up wood as he came. We piled twigs for me to light with a match, then put bigger pieces on top. I poured meal into the water in the pan and worked up a batter. Then I found a flat rock and rubbed it with ham rind and propped it close to the fire to pour the batter on. Afterward I opened the sardines and got my fork for Maltby Sanger and took my spoon for myself. When the top of the pone looked brown enough, I turned it over with my spoon and knife, and I dug out those bottles of beer and twisted off the caps.
We ate, squatted on two sides of the fire. Maltby Sanger appeared to enjoy the sardines and pone, and he gave some to Ung, who held chunks in his paws to eat. When we'd done, not a crumb was left. "I relished that," allowed Maltby Sanger.
It had turned full dark, and I was glad for the fire.
"Ye pick that guitar, John?" he inquired. "Why not pick it some right now?"
I tuned my silver strings and struck chords for an old song I recollected. One verse went like this:
We sang good songs that came out new,
But now they're old amongst the young,
And when we're gone, it's just a few
Will know the songs that we have sung.
"I God and that's a true word," said Maltby Sanger when I finished. "Them old songs is a-dying like flies."
Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer SSC Page 22
