Vigorish
Page 6
no way to see her at all.Perception is nice in the dark. I tracked her automatically.
"What was the vow you broke?" I said.
She sighed, near me. "I divorced my husband, my own darlin' Billy," shesaid. "There's no divorce in Heaven."
"Tough," I said. I thought _I_ was her darlin' Billy. Talk aboutDouble-think! "Will you miss never having a man again? I mean, onceyou've been a wife--" I added, letting it drift off.
"God has been good to me," she said out of the dark. "He let me see myown future, that he would give me a husband again."
That was a curve. "Isn't that an even worse breaking of vows?" I said."I mean, if in God's sight you're still married to Billy Joe?"
"Would be," she conceded from the black, now right next to me. "But Hetold me that the man I should seek _would be_ Billy Joe--hit's a miracleworked for me." Her voice lowered. "A miracle that come to pass tonight,my darlin' Billy." A shiver ran its fingers up my spine. She meant everyword of it. I _was_ her darlin' Billy.
* * * * *
I wasn't in any mood to get married, and least of all to a seeress.Precognition is the least understood of the Psi powers, and the mosterratic. But of all people, I could least afford to sneer at the powerof Psi.
For the first time, I guess, I realized the awful helplessness thatcomes over the Psiless when a TK invokes his telekinetic power. I wantedno part of the future this corn-fed oracle had conjured up. But it mightbe the only future I'd ever have.
I tried to recall her looks. Thinking about them, they really added upto no more than hysterical sniffles, not enough to eat, and the patheticevidence that there hadn't been any money for orthodonture. Fatten herup, straighten her teeth and--Talk about _religious_ rationalization!
I snapped out of it. Maybe she could call the turn of dice. But I'd bedamned if she could call the turn of people. Let her try _me_.
I sat up on the parapet, swinging to put my feet on the gravel of theroot. "So tonight you found the husband God's been going to give you?" Iasked.
"Yes," she said softly.
"And I'm the one?"
"Yes!"
"Not that again!" I growled, grabbing her thin shoulders and shakingher. Her glasses bobbled on her nose. "I'm _not_ your darlin' Billy, andyou well know it. Admit it!"
She closed her lips over her buck teeth and sniffled. "I reckon not,"she said, raising her head and looking at me without flinching. "I liedto you."
"Why?"
"Kind of made me feel more decent about bein' divorced."
I gave her a last shake for the lie. "Let's have it," I went after her."How much of what you've been feeding me is just window dressing?"
She shrugged, but stayed silent.
"_Have_ you been married?" I insisted.
"Yes, Billy Joe."
"_And_ divorced?"
"Oh, darlin' Billy," she sighed. "I jest shouldn't never a _done_ that.But I did," she added.
"Talk English," I snapped. "This chitterlin's and corn pone are justmore window dressing, right?"
Her face was solemn behind the glasses. "When you are a smart girl, andyou know the future, too, they hate you and try to hurt you," she said."They don't seem to mind it so much if it comes from a piece of whitetrash that never could be 'no account.' By the time I was twelve or so Ihad learned to act just a little stupid and corn-fed."
* * * * *
This, her longest speech, she delivered in quiet, Neutral American, thespeech that covers the great prairie states and is as near accentlessand pure as American English ever is. It branded her Ozark twang as alie, and a great many other things about her. But it added somethingvery solid to her claims of prophecy.
"All this," I said. "Because you see the future?"
"Yes, Billy Joe."
"And this talk about losing your prophecy because of divorce was justthat, talk?" I insisted.
Her mouth worked silently. "I talk like trash, and sometimes I start tothink like it," she confessed. "I even act like it. I've tried not tosee things acomin'. But," she added, drifting back into her Ozark lingo."Always I knowed I was to find you. I knowed I was to go and search inspots of sin, for there you would be. And it kept getting stronger on mewhere to seek. This night I knew it was the time. I never got a dressand all before."
The chilly fingers touched me again. Still, what she was saying madesome weird kind of sense. "What about the healing?" I tried, feeling atrap slowly descending over me.
She smiled at that. "I guess I put that punishment on myself for what Idone," she said.
"Then you can still heal the sick?" I asked. She shrugged. "I want youto try," I added.
"Not till I get a sign," she said, moving uneasily. "I'm to get a sign."
I waved my hands in disgust and turned away from her. "There had to besome fakery in it somewhere," I said. "You couldn't heal a hang-nail!"
"Not a fake!" she said hotly. "I _have_ healed the sick!"
"Don't get uppity," I said. "So have I. You see," I told her. "I'm adoctor. Not much of a one," I admitted, pointing to my weak right arm."I can't heal myself."
"Oh, yore pore arm," she said.
"Show me," I said, turning on her. "Heal me!"
"I'm to have a sign!" she wailed.
Well, she got one. I took her to my room, pointed at the dresser. One ofthe glasses on the tray beside a pitcher rose, floated into the bathand, after we had both heard the water run, came back through the airand tilted to trickle a few drops of water onto her head.
Her words gave her away--she was no mystic. She swung her eyes back tome: "TK!" she gasped. She recoiled from me. She'd had a viper to herbosom.
"Heal me!" I snapped at her. "You've had your sign, and I'm your darlin'Billy."
"I got to find it," she said desperately. "The weak place."
I flopped on the bed, stretched my arm out against the counterpane. Sheran her fingers over it--the old "laying on of hands." If she were thereal thing, I knew what it was--perception at a level a TK can't match.The real healers feel the nerves themselves. I'd been worked on before.The more hysterical healers, some really creepy witches, had given mesome signs of relief, but none could ever find the real "weak place," asshe called it.
She was mumbling to herself. I guess you could call it an incantation. Igot a picture of a nubile waif, too freakish to fit where she'd beenraised. What had her Hegira been like? In what frightful places had shefound herself welcome? From her talk, it could have been an Ozarkbackwater. I didn't want to know what backwoods crone had taught hersome mnemonic rendition of the Devil's Litany.
Her hands passed up beyond my shoulder, to my neck. "It's in yore haid,"she said. "In yore darlin' haid!" Fingers worked over my scalp. "Oh,there!" she gasped. "Hit's ahurtin' me! Hurtin', hurtin', and I'm adraggin' it off'n yuh!" Her backwoods twang sharpened as she aped somecontemporary witch.
Hurt? She didn't know what it meant. She fired a charge of thermite inmy head, and it seared its way down my arm to my fingers. My right armcame off the bed and thrashed like a wounded snake. She wrestled it,climbed onto the bed, and held it down with her boney knees. Her fingerskneaded it, working some imaginary devil out through the fingertips,till the hurt was gone.
* * * * *
We sat close together on the edge of the bed at last, as I worked andmoved my arm, one of us more in awe of what had happened than the other.It was weak--with those flabby, unused muscles, it had to be. But Icould move it, to any normal position.
"I never done like that before," she breathed. "Jest small ailin'."
"You're a healer, all right," I said. "And a prophetess, too, from whatI saw at the dice table. You know what a Psi personality is?" I askedher. "Say, what is your name, anyway?"
"Pheola," she said. "Yes, I've heard of them," she said.
"You're one," I told her. "You can heal many people."
She shook her head. "Only could do it because I love you, Billy Joe,"she said.
"Lordy!" she gasped.
"You're as good as in it," I told her. "Now tell