by Lon Williams
Silence for seconds was deep and eerie. Its very intensity heralded imminent and terrifying sound.
That sound came as a scream. Nothing rendered by vocal cords could have surpassed it for sheer horror; it pierced downward and echoed among towers and granite walls, its duration long and chilling. Inability to see its source, except as a flicker of shadow, detracted nothing from its harrowing revelation, namely, that a man was falling hundreds of feet to certain death.
Lee sleeved his cold forehead.
Then a quarrelsome, shaken voice reached him from nearby. “What did you think of that, stranger?”
Winters held a tight rein as Cannon Ball shifted nervously. His search disclosed that he was not alone; a bearded small man sat on a ledge above him on his left, his booted feet a-dangle, as from a porch.
Winters gripped his six-gun. “Who are you?” he demanded.
Answer came with snarling unfriendliness. “You’ve no cause to be skeered of me, stranger. Though it’s no concern of yours, I’m only a harmless prospector hereabouts, name of Billy Hornbarker. By that thing shining on your vest, I judge you an officer of sorts.”
“You judge correctly,” said Winters; “I’m Deputy Marshal Lee Winters of Forlorn Gap.”
“Forlorn Gap, eh? That’s almost saying you’re nobody. Why hang around a dead town like that?” Winters had his own brand of unfriendliness. “Though it’s no concern of yours, Hornbarker, I operate from Forlorn Gap because that’s my official station. It’s a crossroads place, a good spot for catching wanted monkeys.”
“You seem right sure of yourself, Winters. That being so, maybe you can explain that light up yonder and that ghostly scream you heard.”
“You ought to know more’n I do about that,” retorted Winters. “You’re a prospector hereabouts, while I’m only a passerby.”
“I know if you look long and careful, you can see another light,” said Hornbarker. “It’s no bigger’n a star; must be a lantern, because it don’t move on and hide behind mountaintops, as stars do. That much I know.”
Winters looked upward, stared hard and long. At last he saw what might have been a light in a small window. “Your manners could be mended, Horny, but I’ll say you’ve got sharp enough eyes. Light up there, all right; being a harmless prospector hereabouts, maybe you’ve seen it before?”
“Yep,” said Hornbarker. “Seed it last night from my camp higher up. Few nights ago, too. Ain’t seed no door open before, though, nor heard no screams. Way I figure, somebody stepped, or was heaved, from that door into eternity. Seein’ as you’re an officer, why don’t you go up there and see what’s doin’?”
“Maybe I don’t want to,” said Winters.
“Sort of figured you didn’t,” sneered Hornbarker. “How come you riding this grizzly-bear trail by night anyhow?”
“Glad you asked me that,” said Lee with angry challenge. “I’m searching for a wanted monkey name of Zin Daker, a name that sounds sort of like Hornbarker. He’s an icy-eyed straw-blond of about thirty, five feet-ten and has a knife scar behind his left ear. Maybe that describes you?”
Hornbarker leaned over and spat. “Nope, not me. My scars are lower down.”
“Maybe you’ve seen him?”
“And maybe I ain’t.”
“If you knowed where he’s at,” said Winters, “you’d be too ornery to tell.”
Hornbarker grunted. “Lost his trail, did you?” Lee reflected with shivers that he’d lost his nerve, as well. He’d tracked Daker to a lonely region where dim trails merged with a maze of ancient warpaths and imagined ghosts could be seen peering from behind every crag and queer-shaped stone. “Yeah,” he said, “I lost his trail.”
“No wonder,” declared Hornbarker. “If you’d had as much sense as that big horse you’re on, you wouldn’t gone into that north country. It’s full of spooks. I never camp there myself; I ain’t that lame-brained.”
Winters lifted Cannon Ball’s reins and kneed his ribs. “You look too much like a spook yourself to be afraid of ghosts,” he said icily. “More’n that, your bad manners make me think maybe you are a ghost. Anyhow, goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Winters. If you’ve nerve enough to see what’s up yonder on that sky-scrapin’ pinnacle, I’d be curious to know.”
Cannon Ball moved away, his feet lifted high with each step. Winters called back, “If you’re so curious, I suggest you go up and see for yourself.”
Hornbarker’s response was a taunting, flat laugh.
But it was not Hornbarker that disturbed Lee’s thoughts. Indeed, he hardly had any thoughts. What he felt was of much greater depths. Up there on that stony height was certainly some puzzle of dangerous import. Either a sentence of death had just been executed in a terrifying manner, or supernatural forces had fashioned its ghostly voice and spectral image. An individual man, in contrast to nature’s immensity in earth and darkness, was infinitesimal. Yet death, so recently enacted and personified, was all-pervasive in its inexpressible coldness.
Winters, scared and shivering, hunched down into his vest and listened hazily to Cannon Ball’s clattering, monotonous hoofs.
* * * *
In Forlorn Gap, night was still young. This town was, truly, a haunted place. Ghostly remnant of a town that was, it presented but few dwellings among its many deserted, windowless, moaning houses. One bright spot remained, however, where wayfarers spent pleasant hours while waiting to journey on northward to Pangborn Gulch, or westward to Elkhorn Pass. This lively spot was Doc Bogannon’s saloon, only institution of its kind that was left.
Bogannon, its owner, was himself a man of mystery, his origin undisclosed, a man of talent and education, but content to stay in this nowhere-place as operator of a saloon and to live with a half-breed Shoshone for a wife.
He had just finished serving drinks and was relaxing with folded arms behind his bar. He was tall, broad-shouldered, darkly handsome with his black hair and magnificent face. In disposition he was even-tempered, generous, kind and philosophical. To him in some particulars, human tides were like morning fogs driven by gentle winds. They passed, indistinct, unrevealing, soon forgotten.
But now and then an unforgettable individual emerged from that drifting obscurity to stand for a while, clear and distinct. Sometimes he was a braggart, sometimes a ruthless killer. Occasionally there came an orator, dyspeptic, squint-eyed monkey, lunatic, or insufferable dude.
And now, at last, a poet!
This character placed a small coin on Bogie’s bar. He drew himself up proudly, gray-haired, shabby, thin, but confident in his excellence of mind and spirit. He held in his hands a musical instrument that roughly resembled a banjo with many strings.
“Wine, Bogannon,” he said haughtily. When he had received and swallowed his drink, he smacked his wide lips and added pompously, “I, Greenleaf Baytree, am a wandering minstrel and troubadour. Poetry and music are my forte, companion arts in whose mastery I am without a peer.”
“Indeed,” said Bogie, instantly curious. “And that instrument you have?”
Baytree responded proudly, “It is a zither, sir. I made it myself. This handle which you might call a neck is for convenience in holding it. Like my instrument, my poems, also, are my own creation. For example: I sing to rocks and rills; to vales and templed hills; from them in echoes clear, my song goes everywhere; to all who mourn it brings sweet healing in its wings.”
He continued at length and strummed his zither meanwhile.
When he had stopped, Bogie exclaimed, “Excellent!”
Customers tossed small coins, which clinked at Baytree’s feet.
Baytree bowed and gathered them up. “Thank you, gentlemen.”
“What kind of poetry do you call that, what’s recited to music?” a bearded customer asked. “Lyrical couplets, my dear sir.”
“Couplets? What’s couplets?”
A teamster spat into a sandbox. “Aw,” he drawled, “couplet is what you couple a wagon with. It’s a kingpin, that’s w
hat.”
* * * *
Greenleaf Baytree’s countenance expressed acute pain. “There, Bogannon,” he commented sadly, “is an illustration of things that have broken my heart and spirit. Ingratitude. Incapacity for appreciation. Cold, impenetrable density of human minds.” He indicated with a hand wave. “These wretched creatures in human form scoff at my genius, and consolation for me is only in knowing that they are but mere scum and dregs. But so has it always been. It was said of Homer, divine poet of antiquity, Seven cities contend for Homer dead, wherein the living Homer begged his bread. There’ll be a time, sirs, when every oaf of you will boast of having seen this humble poet and heard him sing his own song. But, alas, you will remember me only to realize too late what fools you were.”
“Listen to that, will you?” a card player with a sense of humor shouted. “He’s a prophet, too. Toss him a coin; here.”
More coins were tossed. Baytree picked them, up, calmed and began again to strum his zither.
Then Bogie’s batwings swung in and a lean, wiry, weather-beaten gentleman with badge and dark mustache strode in.
“Winters!” exclaimed Bogannon. “Come in, Winters.”
Winters strode up and planked down a coin. “Wine, Doc.”
“Wine it is,” declared Bogie, happy to have his friend Winters present. He filled a glass. “You look right solemn, Winters: didn’t run afoul of ghosts, did you?”
“No, Doc, it’s a right peaceable world.” Winters picked up his glass and turned around for glances at Bogie’s customers. He recognized no wanted monkey, but a long-haired character with a musical instrument and a contemptuous eye caught his attention. Winters drank and nodded. “Who’s he, Doc?”
“Ah,” exclaimed Bogie. “My apology, Winters. This is my new friend Greenleaf Baytree, poet and musician extraordinary; Baytree, meet my old and trusted friend Deputy Marshal Lee Winters.”
Neither Winters nor Baytree offered to shake hands. Winters was wary of Bogie’s new friends, while Baytree’s expression of unbounded contempt explained his own aloofness.
“Poet, eh?” said Winters. “Now, that’s a notch on Caesar’s pistol. I’ve seen musicians, but never before a real live poet. Right interesting.”
“A rare privilege,” agreed Bogie, “to meet a man who is not a mere reciter of verses, but one who composes his own.”
“I’ve often wondered,” said Lee, “how those fellers looked who wrote verses, but never figured ’em to be so long-haired and starved looking. Does writing poetry give a man that look, or is it only hungry-lookers that can write poems?”
Baytree’s nostrils spread with accentuated scorn. “Any fool can scoff, but where is there a fool who can write a poem?”
“There,” said Bogie, “I call that a fair question.” Winters put down his empty glass. “I admit I could never write verses, but I sure learned one when I was a button that has stuck to me like a wart.”
“Do tell,” said Bogie. “Recite it, Winters.”
“Certainly,” said Winters. “It was one my pa learned from his pa long before he ever saw Texas. My pa learned it to me and I recited it at a speeching in a schoolhouse down in Trinity Valley. I remember it as well as if it was yesterday.” He squared his shoulders, drew in his chin, and recited:
Once I had an old coon dog;
Now I wish I had him back;
He chased the big hogs over the fence,
And the little ones through the crack.
“Hooray!” several guests shouted.
“Winters, you’re a genius,” observed a sarcastic one.
Bogie said, “That’s real poetry, Winters. It’s got everything—devotion, pathos, action, imaginative suggestion, vivid realism. I’d say, without fear of contradiction, that it deserves immortality.”
Greenleaf Baytree was indignant. “It’s an inexcusable debasement of life’s sublimest art. You recite vulgar, clumsy doggerel and call it poetry! You should die by torture.”
Winters put down another coin. “Wine for our poet friend, Doc. I’ve recited all I know. Now that my reputation with Green Baytree is beyond improvement, I give you goodnight.” He took one more searching glance at Bogie’s customers and left.
A moment later one of those customers rose, came forward and laid his hands gently on Baytree’s shoulders. “Sir, I could almost call you brother.”
Both Bogie and Baytree stared at him. In Bogie’s opinion, here was a character, if ever such there was. He was tall, slender, straight. A dark cloak, fastened by a string at his throat, fell gracefully down his shoulders and back. His nose was extraordinarily thin and sharp, his cheeks prominent, his eyes dark, hypnotic. There was no hint of humor in his expression. That which proclaimed itself as something to be remembered was his unsmiling sublimity. Its quality suggested sweet realms unknown to ordinary men.
Baytree said as one enchanted, “I—indeed, I do have a feeling of exalted kinship. Pray tell, who are you?”
“My name, sir, is Alexander Murdoc. A name, however, does not answer your question. Who I am can only be learned from close and intimate association. In earthy inadequate terminology, I am a poet. Could you understand if I should tell you that I am a reincarnation of antiquity’s greatest poet? And that poet not a man, but a woman called Sappho?”
“Certainly,” said Baytree. “That I can easily believe. And could you believe that I have John Milton’s soul, reincarnate? That which made me realize as much was an experience in memorizing poetry. Simple verses I remember with difficulty. But when I read Paradise Lost, it was like reading something I had written myself. With one reading I knew it by memory. Here, I can recite it to you.”
“No, no,” Alexander Murdoc interposed quickly. “Some other time; just now my companions await me.”
“Are they poets, too?”
“They are poets. I should say, poets extraordinary.” He turned from Baytree and put down a coin. “Bogannon, wine for me and my esteemed brother in art.”
Bogie came out of momentary enchantment. “Oh, yes. Baytree has a free drink coming; I’d almost forgotten.” He filled two glasses and his artist guests drank with grace and appreciation.
“I was about to say,” Murdoc resumed, “that my companions and I reside in regal splendor not far from here. We live in and maintain what we reverently call Time’s Mytilenean Mansion of Divine Sappho. I almost invited you to join us. That, of course, would be unfair to other members of our society. But you could pay us a visit. After we have heard you more extensively, we might invite you to become one of us.”
Baytree emptied his wine glass of its last drop and put it down. “Ah, at last I see glory’s beckoning light; it reaches up with golden beams; in its sweet magic heaven gleams; it gilds and burns the mountain height. ”
A customer yelled, “Whiskey! Where’s that loafing bartender? Whiskey!”
Bogannon jerked, startled. “Oh, yes, whiskey. It’s on its way.”
Murdoc put an arm about Baytree’s shoulders. “Come along with me, my friend; let us leave this vulgar place. You will find at journey’s end, an abode of endless grace.”
Baytree yielded to Murdoc’s charms and they went out without a backward look. They mounted horses and rode eastward, then northward along a trail splashed with light from a newly-risen moon. Their course was steadily upward until they reached a high grassy cove, where they left their horses. Thereafter they ascended afoot, at last by ladders, until they were on a flat-topped pinnacle and outside a log cabin large enough for no more than one room.
“Yo-ho,” Murdoc called loudly at a heavy door. He knocked and called again, “Open for a kindred spirit and his honored guest.”
There was delay; but sounds of hurried movements drifted from within which suggested that occupants might have been in bed and were getting dressed.
Murdoc explained, “My fraternal associates may have been in meditation, or even in sleep. You will kindly pardon their seeming tardiness.”
“Of course,” said Baytree.
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While they waited, he glanced about in fearful admiration. This cabin was perched upon an overhang, so high that he breathed with difficulty in its rarified atmosphere. Horizons were so far distant that stars could be seen by one who looked down, as well as up. It was an awesome pace, yet inspirational, too. Where was there a poet who could not find his Muse in a place like this?
Hinges creaked and a door opened with a suddenness that suggested eagerness and unparalleled hospitality. And such was his greeting.
“Come in, come in, and welcome,” voices called happily.
His volition lost in anticipated delight, Baytree was rushed inside, where he was smothered in handshakes and swift, though gentle attentions. Soft voices purred, Ah, ah, ah, ah. Before he was completely at himself again, his pockets had been emptied and he had been stripped of his hat, vest and coat and draped in a flowing, scarlet cloak.
“There,” sighed Murdoc, “you have taken your first step as candidate for admission to our sublime order. Now I shall introduce you to my comrades in glory.” Three men in black cloaks immediately arranged themselves side by side and tensed to attention. They were tall, long-haired, thin, sallow, and in features strangely alike. In their expressions rested that same unearthly sublimity seen so memorably in Murdoc’s countenance.
Murdoc indicated from left to right. “Michel de’Angelo. Apollo Belvedere. Hermes Talaria. Each is a reincarnation of him for whom named. And our guest,” said Murdoc, indicating Baytree himself, “is, like ourselves, an artist. Though his name is Greenleaf Baytree, he claims he is in truth England’s profound singer, John Milton.”
Murdoc’s fraternal brothers nodded stiffly in recognition.
Hermes Talaria said, “We accept no pretensions, but only proof; let us be seated, brethren, while Baytree proves his claim.”