The Howling Man

by Beaumont, Charles

  The sheriff brought his pipe to life again. "I like to see a real civic-minded citizen, Tom, I do. Somebody all the time thinking about the community. Shows real fine spirit. I just wish that you and your paper had of seen to it that we got us a decent jail before you come in here bellering for me to arrest half the town . . ."

  Tom ran a hand through his hair. The sheriff's word stung, for it was true. He hadn't ever taken much interest in the condition of the jail. The man had a point, anyway.

  "But let me tell you something else," Parkhouse went on dryly. The way he looked, sitting there, made it suddenly easy to understand why certain people feared him. "Even if we had a calaboose the size of San Quentin, I still wouldn't go out and start hauling everybody in. Tom, you don't seem to see. Half of those people were kids. School kids. Throwing them in jail would be like giving them a Christmas present."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, every kid wants to get put in a cell for a night or so. It's a lark. Hell, they'd have so much fun they'd probably tear this old place down to the ground!"

  "Maybe so, but--"

  "And here's something else that I guess you ain't thought about. Who, exactly, do we arrest? The ones who was actually touching the car? The ones in the street, whether they did anything or not? Or, just to be on the safe side, should we arrest everybody who attended the meeting?" Parkhouse chuckled. "That'd include you and your daughter. She was there, I heard."

  "Who told you that?"

  "Jimmy, or somebody. What's the difference? I'm just trying to show you why I can't 'take action.' And I wouldn't waste my time this way, either, if I didn't know you was a man with some sense."

  Somewhere in the jail, somewhere upstairs, a voice was raised in song. It was not a particularly mournful or moving sound.

  "But one thing still remains. A crime was committed and nobody's been punished. They got away with it, clean. So what's to stop them from doing the same thing tomorrow night?"

  The sheriff took a bottle of pop from the refrigerator behind the desk and removed the cap.

  "The people in this town are good," he said. "I ought to know that better than anyone else, ain't that so? They're good. But it's hot, and somebody just got them riled, that's all. Now it's out of their system. We--"

  "That's right," Tom snapped. "Somebody got them riled. You might even say, somebody talked them into doing what they did."

  Parkhouse nodded.

  "You know what that's called, Rudy?"

  "I don't get you."

  "That's called 'inciting to riot.' It's a crime. If you don't believe me, look it up."

  "I know what's a crime and what isn't," the sheriff said. "I don't have to look nothing up."

  "Then why don't you throw Adam Cramer into jail?"

  "Who?"

  "Oh, for Christ's sake!" Tom slammed his palm down on the desk. "The kid who gave the speech! The kid who started the whole thing in the first place, who got the people all inflamed. Adam Cramer!" "Oh." The sheriff emptied half of the bottle of Dr. Pepper down his throat and leaned back in his chair. "Well," he said, "I can't very well do that, either, Tom."

  "You can't very well do that, either--why not?"

  "Just take it easy, now, and I'll explain--just like I explained the other things. I can't arrest Cramer because he wasn't even around when the niggers drove up. To get him for sedition and inciting to riot, we'd have to catch him right there at the front of the mob, leading 'em on. As it was, he was in Joan's Cafe, having a cup of coffee with Verne Shipman, when it happened."

  "With Verne?" The anger in Tom gave way suddenly to confusion, and fear.

  "That's right," the sheriff said. "And you know, Tom, you can't put a man in jail for speaking his mind. If you don't believe me, look it up." He smiled. "Maybe you and me don't go along with that, now, but it's in the Constitution. If a man wants to, he can get out on a street corner and call the President of the United States a son of a bitch--and nobody can stop him. He can say America is no good and we ought to all be Communists--hell, he can say anything--and nobody's allowed to touch him. It's what's called Freedom of Speech. Besides, the way I heard it, this fella didn't say one solitary thing that everybody in town ain't been saying right along. What have you got against him, anyway?"

  "Adam Cramer is a rabble-rouser," Tom said, in a hopeless voice.

  "Well, hell, maybe we need a little rabble-rousing here!" The sheriff laughed goodnaturedly. "But it could be I didn't get my facts straight. You were there. Did he tell those folks to stop the niggers in the car?"

  "No."

  "Did he tell them to do anything except maybe join this organization of his?"

  "I--no. No, that's all he told them."

  "Well, see, that ain't hardly grounds for arrest. Just good old Freedom of Speech in action, Tom!"

  "Yes," Tom said.

  "That's Democracy."

  "Yes."

  The sheriff slapped Tom's shoulder affably. "Don't get me wrong," he said. "I hate to see anybody get hurt in my town. I don't care whether he's white or black. But I personally think this particular nigra must of been one of those wise ones that are moving into the county from the North; I think he must of started shooting off his mouth: otherwise nothing like this would of happened, and you know it. They're good people here, but they won't put up with a smart-ass nigra. I can't blame them for that. Can you, Tom?"

  "No, I can't blame them for that," Tom said and started out the door.

  "Get some sleep," the sheriff called. "And don't worry. They got it all out of their system tonight!"

  Got what out of their system? Tom thought.

  The night air was moist and hot and windless, and the dark streets were empty now. Tom McDaniel walked to his car, got in and lit a cigarette.

  The people I've lived with most of my life would have murdered that Negro, he thought, if I hadn't called Parkhouse. That's certain.

  What is it that the people have to get out of their systems? What is it that stays so close to the surface that a few words from a Yankee stranger can send it flooding out?

  Tonight, he thought, was the beginning.

  A war is coming to my town; and I don't even know whose side I'm on.

  * * *

  Introduction to MOURNING SONG

  (by Jerry Sohl)

  * * *

  Those of us who knew Charles Beaumont well called him Chuck, when talking to him directly or referring to him with others, but looking back, the name doesn't fit. It doesn't fit because it makes him an ordinary guy, and Chuck was anything but ordinary.

  It's hard to remember him as anything but the finished product, the hypnotic weaver of dreams, fright, awe, hungers and dreads, the man possessed of talents we all wished we had, in the telling, in the plotting, in the air of distinction and completeness that he brought to every piece he wrote. It is difficult to think that Charles Beaumont actually worked hard for many years to achieve his style, his effect, his discipline, yet we all know it wasn't easy and that he struggled to become the master story-teller he was.

  That he fought against terrible odds can be seen in almost all his works, for he understood how it was for the dreamers, those who hunger after things or ideas or experiences or people because he had been there. He was able to bring to each tale a prismatic view of the world, a facet we are privileged to see and which we might never have seen if he hadn't written it.

  "Mourning Song" is one of those stories that Beaumont was so good at, a tale of simple people simply told, about those who believe and one who does not. The blind singer of the "Mourning Song," is Solomon, and to have him sing the mourning song for you means you're going to die. Solomon was whispered about and feared like the plague, but he was respected. That is, until Lonnie Younger doesn't believe it when the song is sung for him and he tries to fight the inevitable, and we see how Beaumont has gently ledus where he has, to show us how Lonnie's disbelief only helps make Solomon's song come true in a startling, ironic twist that is Beaumont's hallmar
k.

  * * *

  MOURNING SONG

  * * *

  He had a raven on his shoulder and two empty holes where his eyes used to be, if he ever had eyes, and he carried a guitar. I saw him first when the snow was walking over the hills, turning them to white velvet. I felt good, I felt young, and, in the dead of winter, the spring wind was in my blood. It was a long time ago.

  I remember I was out back helping my daddy chop up firewood. He had the ax up in the air, about to bring it down on the piece of soft bark I was holding on the block, when he stopped, with the ax in the air, and looked off in the direction of Hunter's Hill. I let go of the bark and looked off that way, too. And that's when I saw Solomon for the first time. But it wasn't the way he looked that scared me, he was too far away to see anything except that it was somebody walking in the snow. It was the way my daddy looked. My daddy was a good big man, as big as any I ever met or saw, and I hadn't ever seen him look afraid, but he looked afraid now. He put the ax down and stood there, not moving or saying anything, only standing there breathing out little puffs of cold and looking afraid.

  Then, after a while, the man walking in the snow walked up to the road by our house, and I saw him close. Maybe I wouldn't have been scared if it hadn't been for the way my daddy was acting, but probably I would have been. I was little then and I hadn't ever in my whole life seen anybody without eyes in his head.

  My daddy waited until he saw that the blind man wasn't coming to our house, then he grabbed me off the ground and hugged me so hard it hurt my chest. I asked him what the matter was, but he didn't answer. He started off down the road after the blind man. I went along with him, waiting for him to tell me to get on home, but he didn't. We walked for over two miles, and every time we came to somebody's house, the people who lived there would stand out in the yard or inside at the window, watching, the way my daddy did, and when we passed, they'd come out and join the parade.

  Pretty soon there was us and Jake Overton and his wife and Peter Briley and old man Jaspers and the whole Randall family, and more I can't remember, trailing down along the road together, following the blind man.

  I thought sure, somebody said.

  So did I, my daddy said.

  Who you suppose it's going to be? Mr. Briley said.

  My daddy shook his head. Nobody knows, he said. Except him.

  We walked another mile and a half, cutting across the Pritchetts' field where the snow was up to my knees, and nobody said anything more. I knew the only places there was in this direction, but it didn't mean anything to me because nobody had ever told me anything about Solomon. I know I wondered as we walked how you could see where you were going if you didn't have eyes, and I couldn't see how you could, but that old man knew just exactly where he was going. You knew that by looking at him and watching how he went around stumps and logs on the ground.

  Once I thought he was going to walk into the plow the Pritchetts left out to rust when they got their new one, but he didn't. He walked right around it, and I kept wondering how a thing like that could be. I closed my eyes and tried it but I couldn't keep them closed more than a couple of seconds. When I opened them, I saw that my daddy and all the rest of the people had stopped walking. All except the old blind man.

  We were out by the Schreiber place. It looked warm and nice inside with all the lamps burning and gray smoke climbing straight up out of the chimney. Probably the Schreibers were having their breakfast.

  Which one, I wonder, my daddy said to Mr. Randall.

  The old one, Mr. Randall said.

  He's going on eighty.

  My daddy nodded his head and watched as the old blind man walked through the snow to the big pine tree that sat in the Schreibers' yard and lifted the guitar strap over his head.

  Going on eighty, Mr. Randall said again.

  Yes.

  It's the old man, all right.

  Everybody quieted down then. Everybody stood still in the snow, waiting, what for I didn't know. I wanted to pee. More than anything in the world I wanted to pee, right there in the snow, and watch it melt and steam in the air. But I couldn't any more than I could at church. In a way, this was like church.

  Up ahead the old blind man leaned his face next to the guitar and touched the strings. I don't know how he thought he was going to play anything in this cold. It was cold enough to make your ears hurt. But he kept touching the strings, and the sound they made was just like the sound any guitar makes when you're trying to get it tuned, except maybe louder. I tried to look at his face, but I couldn't because of those holes where his eyes should have been. They made me sick. I wondered if they went all the way up into his head. And if they didn't where did they stop?

  He began to play the Mourning Song then. I didn't know that was the name of it, or what it meant, or anything, but I knew I didn't like it. It made me think of sad things, like when I went hunting by myself one time and this doe I shot fell down and got up again and started running around in circles and finally died right in front of me, looking at me. Or when I caught a bunch of catfish at the slew without bait. I carried them home and everything was fine until I saw that two of them were still alive. So I did what my daddy said was a crazy thing. I put those catfish in a pail of water and carried them back to the slew and dumped them in. I thought I'd see them swim away happy, but they didn't. They sank just like rocks.

  That song made me think of things like that, and that was why I didn't like it then, even before I knew anything about it.

  The old blind man started singing. You wouldn't expect anything but a croak to come out of that toothless old mouth, but if you could take away what he was singing, and the way he looked, you would have to admit he could really sing. He had a high, sweet voice, almost like a woman's, and you could understand every word.

  Long valley, dark valley . . . hear the wind cry! . . . in darkness we're born and in darkness we die . . . all alone, alone, to the end of our days. . . to the end of our days, all alone . . .

  Mr. Schrieber came outside in his shirtsleeves. He looked even more afraid than my daddy had looked. His face was white and you could see, even from where I stood, that he was shaking. His wife came out after a minute and started crying, then his father, old man Schreiber, and his boy Carl who was my age.

  The old blind man went on singing for a long time, then he stopped and put the guitar back over his head and walked away. The Schreibers went back into their house. My daddy and I went back to our own house, not following the blind man this time but taking the long way.

  We didn't talk about it till late that night. Then my daddy came into my room and sat down on my bed. He told me that the blind man's name was Solomon, at least that was what people called him because he was so old. Nobody knew how he lost his eyes or how he got around without them, but there were lots of things that Solomon could do that nobody understood.

  Like what? I asked.

  He scratched his cheek and waited a while before answering. He can smell death, he said, finally. He can smell it coming a hundred miles off. I don't know how. But he can.

  I said I didn't believe it. My daddy just shrugged his shoulders and told me I was young. When I got older I'd see how Solomon was never wrong. Whenever Solomon walked up to you, he said, and unslung that guitar and started to sing Mourning Song, you might as well tell them to dig deep.

  That was why he had looked so scared that morning. He thought Solomon was coming to our house.

  But didn't nothing happen to the Schreibers, I said.

  You wait, my daddy said. He'll keep on going there and then one day he'll quit.

  I did wait, almost a week, but nothing happened, and I began to wonder if my daddy wasn't getting a little feeble, talking about people smelling death and all. Then on the eighth day, Mr. Randall came over.

  The old man? my daddy asked.

  Mr. Randall shook his head. Alex, he said, meaning Mr. Schreiber. Took sick last night.

  My daddy turned to me and said, You bel
ieve it now?

  And I said, No, I don't. I said I believed that an old blind man walked up to the Schreibers' house and sang a song and I believed that Mr. Alex Schreiber died a little over a week later but I didn't believe any man could know it was going to happen. Only God could know such a thing, I said.

  Maybe Solomon is God, said my daddy.

  That dirty old man without any eyes in his head?

  Maybe. You know what God looks like?

  No, but I know He ain't blind, I know He don't walk around with a bird on His shoulder, I know He don't sing songs.

  How do you know that?

  I just do.

  Well and good, but take heed--if you see him coming, if you just happen to see him coming down from Hunter's Hill some morning, and he passes near you, don't you let him hear you talking like that.

  What'll he do?

  I don't know. If he can do what he can do, what can't he do?

  He can't scare me, that's what--and he can't make me believe in him! You're crazy! I said to my daddy, and he hit me, but I went on saying it at the top of my voice until I fell asleep.

  I saw Solomon again about six months later, or maybe a year, I don't remember.

  Looking the same, walking the same, and half the valley after him. I didn't go along.

  My daddy did, but I didn't. They all went to the Briley house that time. And Mrs.

  Briley died four days afterward. But I said I didn't believe it.

  When Mr. Randall himself came running over one night saying he'd had a call from Solomon and him and my daddy got drunk on wine, and Mr. Randall died the next day, even then I didn't believe it.

  How much proof you got to have, boy? my daddy said.

  I couldn't make it clear then what it was that was tormenting me. I couldn't ask the right questions, because they weren't really questions, then, just feelings. Like, this ain't the world here, this place. People die all over the world, millions of people, every day, every minute. You mean you think that old bastard is carting off all over the world? You think he goes to China in that outfit and plays the guitar? And what about the bird? Birds don't live long. What's he got, a dozen of 'em? And, I wanted to know, why does he do what he does? What the hell's the point of telling somebody they're going to die if they can't do something about it?