Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer 02

by After Dark (v1. 1)

"The others at the roundup,

  They gathered round and said,

  "There's none of us will claim that calf,

  Now both of them are dead.”

  "A running iron they heated,

  The calf they roped and tied,

  And in big, burning letters

  Spelled MURDER on his hide.”

  I heard the whole listening bunch draw in their breath.

  “They drove him out to roam the hills,

  And when his time was full,

  He grew up big and terrible,

  The maverick Murder Bull.

  "And many a year's been born and died,

  But still he prowls at night

  With MURDER branded on his flank

  In letters red and bright.

  "If you live in East Texas,

  Be always on your guard,

  Because some night the bull may come,

  Walk right into your yard.

  "While you sit in there, watching

  The fire that dulls and dies,

  He’ll come up to your window

  With MURDER in his eyes.

  "Then turn and look the other way

  And hold your frightened breath,

  For if you face the Murder Bull

  His eyes will give you death.”

  I finished and laid my palm on the guitar strings to make them quiet. Then I bowed and waited.

  There was dead silence all over, for while I counted about half a dozen ticks. Then they broke out with their racket. I walked off, and Brooke Altic met me as I came down the steps from the stage. He grabbed my hand in his thin, strong one and shook it.

  “That was magnificent, John,” he said. “Listen to them applaud.”

  We waited until the noise died down. Then Brooke Altic walked up there again and took the mike in hand. Callie Gray and Jackson Warren came up on my right and left.

  “That song’s a great one,” said Callie. “It made me shiver but it’s great.”

  “You’re a true artist, John,” said Warren.

  “I wonder myself why he asked me to sing a ghost song,” I told them.

  Meanwhile, Aide’s voice was a-coming on loud over the public address system. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “thank you for seeming to enjoy our efforts here tonight. Now it’s time to give the prizes.”

  One of the black-coated men, likely the one who’d taken up the money at the gate, brought a tray with gold-shining cups.

  “I’m going to read out the names in the various categories,” announced Altic. “Please clap for whoever you think should win.”

  He read out the names for fiddle, banjo, guitar, dance, and so on. There was clapping for name after name, but most of all came when, in the guitar class, Altic said, “John.”

  “Go on up,” said Warren, and I went up. Several other winners were there, the fiddling Hunters amongst them. Altic gave out the cups, one by one. Mine was a beauty, a round one to hold better than half a pint, with a foot to stand on. We all of us bowed our thanks and left the stage. Warren looked at the cup.

  “This may well be worth a fortune,” he said.

  “And now, my friends,” Altic boomed over the system, “you may have heard that this event has been staged to raise money for a good cause, the advancement of freedom and justice and progress. It is possible that some of you would care to help that cause further along. I'm going to ask the Four Seekers to play for us while we pass the hat.”

  The Four Seekers hurried on stage and went into another wild, drum-roily piece of music that seemed to flicker round them in the lantern light While they did that, I saw the black-coated fellows out in the aisles with little baskets, a-passing them back and forth like for a collection in church. People along the rows put things in the baskets and handed them back. One of the fellows walked to where we three stood beside the steps to the stage and held out his basket

  “Thank you, but I don't reckon I will,” I said, a-looking into his basket. It was three quarters full of money bills and what looked like jewels—ladies' rings and bracelets and so on. That was a rich harvest without anything from me, and no I reckon about it. He looked at me, with deep eyes and a nose pooched out like the beak of a bird. Then he went on past me.

  “So you didn't contribute, John,” said Jackson Warren, close to my ear.

  “No. I didn't feel like it.”

  "Neither did I.” He barely whispered that. "Maybe you suspect this crowd.”

  "Maybe."

  "Well," he said, "they're Shonokins."

  "Shonokins?" I didn't recollect air a-hearing that name before. "What's that mean?"

  "Keep your voice down.” His eyes watched mine. "Since you're here, it's high time you found out. You and I would do well to work together, perhaps. Where are you staying tonight?"

  "Why," I said, "I hadn't much thought about that. Likely I'll find a place to make a fire and roll up in my blanket."

  Callie came up beside Warren. "Come with us, John," she invited me. "My father knows who you are. He'll be glad to have you at our house."

  "And you and I can talk," Warren added on, and it sounded to me like as if I'd be a-hearing something right strange, maybe right unchancy.

  2

  Jackson Warren's car was old and dim and rusty, with two-three dents that told you it had been bumped in its time; but when he got it out of the parking area with Callie a-sit- ting at his side and me with my gear in the back seat, it ran all right, strong and smooth. It had to, on the bumpy, wiggly dirt road we followed, with the rows of big, dark trees to either side.

  "This is more or less my father's road nowadays,'' said Callie. "Nobody much lives along this stretch. It hooks on to another track outside our place, the old Immer Road.''

  "Immer," I repeated her. "That's what the old settlement was called."

  "In German, that means something like always or forever," said Warren.

  "Likely it was just somebody's name once," said Callie. "But, John, we wondered why you didn't contribute there at the singing."

  "Something told me not to,” I said.

  "And something told you right,” said Warren. "Apparently you have a good sense of what to do and what not to do."

  "You were a-going to tell me about the Shonokins," I reminded him.

  And, as he drove, he told me about the Shonokins.

  Not many folks knew any more about them than I'd known when he'd first said the name to me. They were an old, old people, he allowed, who'd been a-making themselves hard to find or even to notice over nobody could say how many years. Warren knew about them because he'd worked up North with somebody named John Thunstone— “The same good name you have, John”—and Thunstone had managed to do things against them, even in New York City. But lately, they'd started to show up here, in these mountains.

  It wasn't easy, Warren went on to tell, to make out a Shonokin as different from ordinary folks. One way was by their eyes, which in the daytime had a pupil that ran up and down like a cat's instead of a round circle. And on their hands, the third fingers were longer than the middle fingers.

  “Always you see males,'' said Warren, “if you see any Shonokins at all. I've heard Thunstone say that he wonders if there are any female Shonokins.''

  I thought that over to myself for a second or two. “If they don't have females, how does science explain where Shonokins come from?'' I asked finally.

  “Science doesn't recognize that there are any such things as Shonokins.”

  He'd told all that in a few words, and he brightened up when Callie allowed that he talked like a scientist himself.

  “No, Callie,” he said, a-rolling her name on his tongue. “I'm just an obscure seeker for the truth, old enough to be your father.”

  “You're no such thing.” She smiled back. “My father's Ben Gray, and he's near about old enough to be your father.”

  “You’re very kind,” he sort of chuckled, “but my hair's popping out in pale patches while I study the way the Shonokins are co
ming out of their hiding in these parts. I wonder if John believes any of this?”

  “Why shouldn't I believe it?" I came back at him from where I sat behind. “You sound honest enough to tell it."

  About then he brought us into a hollow, with wooded hills just barely to be seen all round about. There, among some pines, stood a cabin. It was made of logs and easy to see just then, because the chinking had been picked out to let in summer air and light, and now it let out light at us from inside. It shone sort of like a jack-o'-lantern, rosy streaks betwixt the dark logs. As Warren stopped the car in the yard, the front door opened and a man stepped out on the puncheon porch.

  “Oh," he said, “it's youins, back from that singing. Come on in the house."

  He blinked down at me from the porch. We got out and walked toward the cabin. “John," said Callie, “this is my daddy, Mr. Ben Gray."

  He was a ready-looking, middling built man in work pants and shirt, with lots of curly hair as gray as his name. He had a good face, shaped like a wedge, and there was a plenty of room at the top of it for sense. His eyes were deep-set and his nose was long and straight, with under it a moustache like a frosty strip of fur. “John," he said at me. “John."

  “Yes, sir," I said. “I'm John."

  He studied the guitar under my arm. “I reckon you must be the John that just goes by that name. The one we hear tell all sorts of good things about. Then you're kindly welcome to my house and aught I can do to make you comfortable."

  “I do thank you, sir," I said.

  “Don't call me sir; I wasn't nair an officer in the war. Just a sergeant. Come round, John, come on in."

  We went up the porch steps and followed him inside. I already felt a right much at home.

  There was a great big front room, the whole width of the house, and doors to more rooms behind and a ladder up to a loft. A fire rippled on the hearth, for it had turned off chillish in the night. I saw a cast-iron stove and a sink against one wall. A shelf held rows of old books. There was a big bearskin for a rug, and a table and chairs, and a couple of rockers up beside the fireplace. Over the door was set a pair of six-point deer horns, and across them lay a rifle, an old army Springfield.

  "Have seats,” Ben Gray invited us. "What went on at that singing?”

  Callie told him all about the picking and singing and dancing, and how I’d won the prize for guitar. I had the prize cup in my hand, and now I leaned in my chair and reached it out to her.

  "I’d be mightily proud if you took it and kept it, Miss Callie,” I said.

  Her big blue eyes got bigger. "Oh no, I couldn't do that, John,” she said, and I had it in mind that Warren watched me in a funny sort of way. "I couldn't take it from you. You won it fair and square. You're the best guitar picker Fve heard in my whole life.”

  I still reached the cup out. "If you won't take it as a gift, take it as a trade. You can teach me that song about 'Come Over the Bourn, Bessy.' Fd another sight rather have the song than the cup.”

  She took it then, and sort of cradled it between her little hands. "You truly want to learn that one?” she asked.

  "I aim to sing it to a girl I know, named Evadare.”

  Warren slacked off when I said that. He twinkled his eye at me to show how glad he was to hear tell that I was a-thinking of some other girl than Callie. He put out his hand for the cup and held it to weigh it.

  "I say it’s made of solid gold,” he allowed. "It weighs heavier than lead, like gold.”

  We all stood up then and came round to look. It was a right pretty cup. It looked to be hammered out all round. Warren turned it over and over.

  "No carat mark,” he said. "But it's of home manufacture, anyway. Til swear again, it's of gold.” He gave it back to Callie. "Worth hundreds of dollars.”

  "Then John shouldn't ought to be a-giving it away so free,” said Ben Gray.

  "I've done already given it away,” I told them, "or anyhow traded it away, for that song I'd rather have.”

  "I'm sure Callie will be glad to teach it to you, John,” said Warren, his voice a-sounding happier every minute. "But first of all, I want to talk about the Shonokins.” He looked hard at each of us in turn. "The Shonokins were plainly in charge at that program.”

  "Sure enough?” said Ben Gray, scowling.

  "Yes, and I want what help I can get from you, Mr. Ben.”

  Ben Gray sat back down in his chair next to the fire. By now, I'd had time to see he was the right sort of mountain man, the sort I knew and liked. He wasn't too much older than Warren and me, but he'd seen life, seen lots of it. He was brown-faced from a-working outdoors; he had good teeth and hands and eyes. From a fruit jar he poured us drinks of pale, straw-colored blockade whiskey. I sipped mine and allowed how good I thought it was.

  "I'm proud to hear you say so, John.” He grinned. "I made it myself.”

  "Then you've got good reason to be proud,” I said back. "A man who does air thing as good as this deserves to be given credit, same as if he's a good blacksmith, say.”

  "Or builds a good house or grows and harvests a good crop,” added on Warren, and Callie beamed at him for that.

  “I do thank you one and all for what you’ve got to say about this here blockade,” said Mr. Ben, "but it ain’t all I do, not by a long shot. I grow me vegetables and tobacco and truck them off to sell. And likewise I’m a bee hunter.” "Nair in all my life have I gone bee hunting,” I said. "All right then, let’s you and me go out and hunt a couple of bees along about sunup tomorrow,” he invited me. "But Jackson here said he wanted to talk some about them Shonokins.”

  "Yes, sir.” Jackson sipped at his drink. "I came here in the first place because my friend John Thunstone said you’d sent him some mention of them.”

  "Well, they’re hereabouts all right,” allowed Mr. Ben, and he didn’t sound glad to tell of it. 'They started a-com- ing in when I wasn’t much past being just a chap. It was after old Dr. Ollebeare died and went to his rest, and folks started to move out of that settlement they’d named Immer. Moved out and forgot their places here; forgot their ownership, and let the places come up for back taxes, and the Shonokins would get hold of them.”

  "Back taxes?” Warren repeated him. "Did the Shonokins go to the courthouse to get titles to the land?” Ben Gray studied that for a second. "Can’t rightly answer that, Jackson. Maybe somebody appeared to get the titles for them some way, but they got them. Only I stayed on, and three-four others here and there. And the Shonokins have begun to run into me, in the woods mostly, and they try to talk to me about would I sell my place to them. But they talk more about something else of mine they pure down want me to let them have.”

  "The alexandrite,” said Callie.

  “What's that?" I inquired him, for it was another new word to me.

  “This here is what."

  He dug in the pocket of his blue pants and handed something to me.

  It was a pretty thing, and no I reckon about that. A jewel like naught I could remember a-seeing my whole life long. It was as big as my thumb and it shone a shiny red, with dark lights in it.

  “When the sun's out, it's green," Mr. Ben said. “It changes to this red color by lamplight. I got it when I was away to the war in Germany. My outfit met some Russian soldiers in a little town where our lines sort of touched, and one of them traded this to me for my watch and some iron rations I had. I heard tell from a major that the Russian czars thought there was power in them kind of stones, back when the Russians had czars."

  “It was called alexandrite after a czar named Alexander," said Warren, a-taking it in his hand and a-turning it this- away and that. “And you may be right about a power in it. I've heard of mystics, people that are called psychometrists, picking up strong impulses from alexandrites. But why do the Shonokins seem to want it?"

  “They've nair come out and told me that. They seem to know I've got it, and they want to buy it a right much. Offered me big money. I allowed that if it's worth that much to them, it's wo
rth that much to me. You see, folks, I don't much value a-being round with them Shonokins, no way."

  “Whatever had they done against you?" I asked.

  “Oh, nothing much so far. I've reckoned I could take care of my end of whatever they might could try on with me.” He looked like as if he meant that thing. “But I'm like Jackson. What I crave to know is, how come them to want it so much?” He shook his head. “One of youins is a-going to have to ask them. They ain't nair told me yet.” “Things were the other way round with Thunstone,” said Warren. “The Shonokins tried hard to give him a rather peculiar jewel, and he managed to destroy it. Thunstone connected the matter with something that happened long ago in Connecticut, back in the 1850s, when a woman named Mary Staplies had two brightly shining jewels she said were gods of some savage sort. Thunstone showed me the case in John Taylor's history of old witchcraft trials in Connecticut.”

  “I've been a-doing some thinking here,” I came in to say. “If there's aught to this Shonokin tale that they were here in America before the Indians, there's maybe some justice on their side.”

  “That's been their argument, again and again,” said Warren. “But I keep asking myself, what sinister enchantment are they mixing into it?”

  “I've heard it said, air thing that deceives may be said to enchant,” allowed Ben Gray.

  I looked up at him. “Where did you get that, Mr. Ben?” “Out of Plato's Dialogues yonder.” He cut his eye over toward his shelf of books. “Old Dr. Ollebeare gave that one to me when I was just ten years old, a-helping him chop some wood for his hospital fires. I've done read through it, time and time over again.”

  “I know the passage,” Warren told us. “As a matter of fact, Plato was quoting Socrates.”

  Callie had set the cup on the fireboard above the hearth, and Ben Gray got up and walked over to look at it.

  “Enchantment,” he said over again. “Why ain't they scared?”

  “The Shonokins mostly fear just their own dead,” said Warren. “So Thunstone has found out.”

  “Hark at me, John and Jackson,” went on Mr. Ben. “Should we ought to keep this here cup thing, when the Shonokins gave it to John, maybe with something or other wrong in there where we can't make it out?”