Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer 02

by After Dark (v1. 1)

  “We don't have to pester ourselves about that,” I said. “They nair gave it to me. I won it off them fair, for my guitar picking. And Miss Callie is a-going to win it off me fair, to trade for the song she's agreed she'll help me learn.”

  “I think John has the right of it," spoke up Warren. “Any sort of enchantment should be broken by the exchange.”

  Callie and I got our guitars and she taught me the song. I could pick the tune right off, and in a while I learnt the words. We sang it verse and verse about, Callie a-singing for the Queen, I for England, like this:

  “Lady, this long space

  Have I loved thy grace,

  More than I durst well say;

  Hoping at the last,

  When all storms were past,

  For to see this joyful day.”

  And of all the verses Callie sang for the Queen, I liked one the best:

  “Yes, yet must I forgive

  All such as do live,

  If they will hereafter amend;

  And for those that are gone,

  God forgive them every one,

  And his mercy on them extend.”

  Jackson Warren listened with all his heart and clapped for us when we finished. I knew well that he wished he could pick and sing along with Callie.

  "Folks,” said Mr. Ben finally, "we'd better get us some sleep if John and I get up soon in the morning to go bee hunting. John, Fve put Jackson up here in our loft, where there's just the one cot bed. How would it be if we made you up a pallet here next the fire?”

  "I thank you,” I said, "but why don't I just bed down out on the porch? I've slept so much in the open, I've come on to like it”

  "If that's what you want, John, but here, let me give you a quilt to go with your blanket. The nights can be airish hereabouts.”

  I took the quilt and blanket out the door and spread them on the planks. Inside, they blew out the lamp and went off to their own rooms. I pulled off my boots and rolled up in the quilt and blanket. I hadn't long to lie there to wait for what I'd more than halfway expected.

  I'd slept, but I woke up quick all over, the way I always do, because I heard the sound of feet. With my ear to the planks of the porch, I heard them a-coming. I sat up and stared out into the yard. There was a bare wash of light from the moon, and I saw three shapes out there.

  They stood close up together. I couldn't rightly make them out, only enough to see that there was something mean about them.

  Softly they whispered to one another:

  "Him?” said one, soft and secret. "No, not him.”

  "Not him,” another repeated the first. "The ones inside. This one is to be kept.”

  "Not to be killed,” muttered the third.

  I got up on my bare feet. "What do you all want?” I called to them.

  They bunched closer together at that.

  “So I'm not to be killed?” I said. “All right then, get out of here. If you don't kill me, I might could kill one of you all.”

  And, barefoot, I walked down the steps into the yard.

  They whipped round and went a-scuttling out of there like thieves caught in a henhouse. A moment later, they were gone amongst the darkness of the trees.

  I sat myself down on the edge of the porch and pulled my blanket up round me, for I felt a touch of chill. I tried to look and see if they meant to come back, but nair sign of them.

  Hunkered there, I passed the time by a-singing to myself under my breath. I went over all the verses I'd learnt from Callie for “Come Over the Bourn, Bessy.” After that, others. One was a charm song I recollected, about “Three Holy Names, Four Holy Saints.” Back in my past, I'd known that one to be of good help.

  Time went on and on, the way it always does, one minute after another. I dozed now and then, but no more than dozed, for I was on watch.

  Finally I saw the stars pale out, yonder to the east, and a little fingery touch of pink where the sun would be a-com- ing up. Inside, I could hear a racket of dishes, so I got on my feet and pulled on my boots and went in.

  3

  They were all awake and dressed up and a-doing things together in there. Ben Gray had built up a hearth fire on last night's bright coals. Callie, in a gingham housedress, was at the stove with a big granite coffeepot. Warren had put him on a checked shirt and now he set us out big plastic cups and saucers. All of them gave me good morning. I didn't speak right off about what had gone on in the yard last night.

  “I’ll root you out some bee gear, John,'' said Mr. Ben, and went to rummage in a corner cupboard. He handed me a roll of mosquito netting and a big pair of thick canvas gloves, engineer-style, with heavy cuffs to them. "You can roll your sleeves down and pull them gantlets high onto your wrists,'' he said. "Now, Callie, pour us out some of that there coffee, and I do hope it's stout."

  "It's stout all right, Daddy," she said, and it was. Sooty black and powerful for strength. It grabbed hold on my insides the right way.

  "Want another cup, John?'' Mr. Ben inquired me. "No? All right then, come along. We’ll fetch us back some wild honey for breakfast."

  He picked him up a sort of squirt-pump thing and an ax and gave me an iron kettle to carry. He and I went out, and then at last I told him, in a few words, about those three things in the yard during the night.

  "Shonokins," he said, like a cussword, while we walked round the house to the back and past a chicken run and hogpen and into a trail in the woods behind. "I swear, John, Fve had my possible fill of them. I don't value them no way. There just ain't no luck where they push in with their outlander ways, all their poking round where they ain't wanted. But come along here to my fishpond.”

  It was a right good one he'd hollowed out where a stream flowed down. “Looky yonder,” he said, and pointed with his gloved forefinger. “Them there bees always comes here to get themself a drink. Make ready to follow on.”

  We watched a few bees where they'd settled down by the waterside. A couple of them took off with a quick zip and so did Mr. Ben, fast, right there on their track. I followed along. We pushed amongst some thick-grown hemlocks and buckeyes and beeches, and then on underneath a big old oak tree that must have been five feet through at the root. Finally he stopped.

  “Lost them,” he said. “But the thing is to wait right here; there's bound to be another one will pass by directly.”

  One buzzed along past us right when he said the words, and we took off on the straight line it drew. We came to a little run of water amongst bushes, jumped across, and climbed a rise. Yet another bee went zip over us, like a bullet.

  “Yonder we are,” said Ben Gray.

  He meant the low, broken stump of a rotten old tulip poplar that likely was once as tall as a church steeple. Most of it had fallen away and there were only two or three twisty branches still a-putting out their few leaves. In its belly showed a big, black hole. From off where we were, I saw a stir of bees there, like steam above a hot pot.

  “Now's the time to get that there netting hooded on to you,” Mr. Ben said to me. “Spread it over your hat and fetch it down all round to tuck into your shirt and then button your collar to hold it snug. That's the way. Now, you've pulled them gloves on snug, too. All right, let's go get it."

  He'd put on his own netting and gloves. We walked up on that poplar stump. It stood maybe seven feet high and most of it looked as rotten as punk. The bees came a-buzz- ing out round us. Some of them lit on the mosquito netting right in front of my face. That close, they looked as big as toad frogs, their legs and wings a-working. Mr. Ben walked to where that hole showed and set up his squirt- pump thing and lighted it somewhere with a match.

  "I made this here smoker my own self," he said, above the buzzing of all those bees. “What I got inside it is a mixtry of stuff—tobacco and such things. Now."

  He pumped clouds of black smoke into the place. I saw bees come a-tumbling into the open like as if they'd been told their rent had run out. More smoke he pumped and more, puff after puff. It smelled
strong and bitter.

  “Use that there ax, John."

  I set my feet wide apart and slammed the ax into the rotten wood. I cut a notch, another notch. The whole punky stump cut easy, and the chips showed as pale as buttermilk. I heard the stump crack and looked to see which way it would tilt. More whacks into it. It began to go over.

  “Look out the way!" yelled Mr. Ben, but already I'd dodged myself clear of the fall of it. Down it slammed, with a sort of screech as it broke open its whole length and popped into two halves. I could see its hollow inside, built full of shiny, brown, dripping combs, square feet of them. Bees crawled over the honey, a nation of bees. Some came a-clouding to light on us, but their stingers couldn't get to us through the nets and shirts and gloves.

  “There's enough there to sell for about fifty dollars in town.” I heard Mr. Ben say. "But let’s just take us enough for breakfast."

  He had a big spoon, and he scooped honeycombs out of the hollow to fill the kettle. "Now," he said, "we're right close on to the old Immer Settlement Trail. We'll take that out; it's an easier way back home."

  He led the way across through belts of other trees, a- breaking twigs on the branches air step he took. Bees followed us along a piece, but they pulled back off from us when we got on a footpath amongst heavy thickets. That footpath looked beaten down hard, and I reckoned that it ran as straight as a guitar string, straight enough even to be drawn by surveyors. The second I put my foot on it, I felt a sort of tingle in my blood, like as if something hummed inside me. Not strong, but it was there.

  Ben Gray pulled the netting off his hat "Do you feel something funny, John?” he inquired me over his shoulder.

  "I'm glad you mention it, so I'll know I'm not a-using my imagination," I said back to him. "What causes that feeling?"

  "I don't rightly know how to answer that. I've only noticed it myself lately."

  We tramped on and on, and when we got to his yard and off the track, the tingle left out of me. By then, the sun was up and a-showing through the pines, and I saw for the first time how good the cabin looked. It had been run up by some builder who knew how to build a cabin, and that was a fact—the logs notched so they lay close one above the other, the corners square as a box, the shakes on the roof cut square and heavy. The front yard had summer flowers to grow in it, bunches of white and yellow and blue, here and there like as if somebody had flung them down there by the handfuls. As we came along up the stone-flagged path to the door, I could smell pancakes and hear them pop in the skillet.

  Inside, Callie gave us a smile. She had a pancake turner in her hand and was a-putting stacks on plates that Warren set out on the table. He likewise poured us more of that good coffee. Beside each stack Callie served a couple of brown sausage patties. Then we all sat down together and Mr. Ben said a blessing. We squeezed honey out of the combs with a spoon and had us as good-tasting a breakfast as a man could call for. That honey had the tang of sour-wood to it. The sort of eating that makes you want to go out in the sun and loosen up and breathe deep, like a lizard.

  “I’ll wash up here,” said Callie, "and then maybe Jackson will go with me to fetch back the rest of that good honey.”

  "No, daughter, you go on now,” Mr. Ben bade her. "Me and John will do these here dishes one time. Youins can take the Immer Settlement Trail. I broke off twigs to show youins where to head into the woods.”

  "All right, but sometimes that trail gives me a squiggly feeling,” said Callie, and she hiked her pretty shoulders to show what she meant.

  "It ain't no far way from here,” said Ben Gray, "and anyway, I'd like for Jackson to see if he picks up that same feeling while he walks the trail.”

  The two of them found big hats and draped on the netting, and each of them took two big kettles to pack the honey in. Out they went, a-talking to one another right fast and friendly.

  We filled a big pan with hot water and Mr. Ben Gray washed the dishes while I wiped them on a towel made of a flour sack.

  "I got them out of here so we could talk,” Mr. Ben said.

  "John, what's your idea of this Jackson Warren man?” "I've only just met him,” was all I could reply. "I like him so far.”

  "Well, I ain't been a-knowing him but a couple days my own self. I reckon him to be all right, a-being as how Mr. Thunstone sent a letter by him to say he was a good fellow. But after all, I got to pay him some mind, the way he seems to like Callie and Callie don't seem to hate him.”

  He went on to tell me how much store he set by Callie. She'd been a scholar at Flomoy College, a-studying to be a music teacher, but when her mother had died all of a sudden, she'd come right back home to keep house for her daddy. And she seemed to feel happy about that, and nowadays her only music study was the old, old songs of the mountains. It seemed to Mr. Ben that Callie wanted to leam those pretty much the same way I'd always wanted. But about Jackson Warren:

  "It's always been my way to make up my mind quick on a stranger,” he said. "Decide by just how I feel about him if I'm a-going to trust him as a friend, or either not even talk to him if I ain't got a business reason to. And I ain't much gone wrong on that sort of plan. I liked Jackson Warren from the first five minutes. Now, of course, he's older than Callie. Maybe twelve-fifteen years.”

  "Sure enough,” I said, "and I take notice that he reminds that thing to her, wants her to take it into air thought about him. I call that a-being honest.”

  "And I agree you there. Well, let's talk about something else. The Shonokins.”

  While we finished up the last of the dishes and put them away, we talked about the Shonokins. He allowed that they'd been sort of to themselves, off there in that tom-down old settlement of Immer where the folks had left out and the Shonokins had come in. The Shonokins seemed to do all right for themselves there. One place and another they’d even helped some of the folks still a-living round, had cured sickness with plants they knew and the like of that. But he didn’t relish what he kept a-calling the “outlander” way they had, and how they wanted to pester him to sell his place, and especially how they went on about that alexandrite stone he always carried with him.

  “John,” he said, “I aim to leave that jewel stone to Callie when I go. It ain’t for the Shonokins.”

  “Maybe they’re up to some good sort of thing,” I said, though I didn’t much think that as I said it.

  “Not them.” Mr. Ben shook his grizzled head. “If they’re up to aught of good, it’s their own good. It’s like this: I done told you I liked Jackson Warren right off, because that’s a mountain man’s way with strangers. But I’ll likewise add on to that—I ain’t nair liked the Shonokins right off, nor yet as time keeps on.”

  He dumped the dishwater into his sink.

  “Hello, the house!” came a holler from outside.

  Mr. Ben tramped to the door and opened it. “Who’s out yonder?” he yelled back. “Oh. It’s you, Mr. Altic.” Nor did he say to come in. I walked over to look. Brooke Altic stood on the flagstones. He wore another suit of fancy clothes, a sharp plaid jacket and plaid pants, with a white turtle neck to his shirt. On his hands were pearly-gray gloves, not big ones like what we’d worn to go bee hunting, but drawn snug as his skin. His eyes were hidden behind his dark glasses. His long black hair was as slick as if it had been painted down with a brush. I thought his nose looked sharper than a knife, and his teeth showed white when he smiled them at us.

  “Whatever do you want of me?” Mr. Ben inquired him, and he didn’t sound as if he’d much give what was wanted. “Little enough of you this morning, sir.” Altic’s voice was as soft and friendly as a summer wind amongst the flowers. “I want only to speak a profitable word or two with the guest you have here. The master guitar player you call John.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” I told Mr. Ben Gray, and stepped out on the porch. "Yes, sir, what can I do for you?”

  "Suppose you and I sit on the step here.” He smiled and smiled. "And let me tell you how I want to make your fortune.”
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br />   I sat down and so did he. He crossed one leg on the other. The boots he wore were a sort of shiny blood-red, like a berry. I bet myself they'd been specially made and cost a plenty.

  "Since last night I’ve been hearing about you, John, and everything I’ve heard is greatly to your credit,” he said, with a show of his teeth. "I want you to join the winning side in what's due to happen.”

  "I’ve always more or less wanted to join the right side,” I said back, while I figured on him with those fine clothes.

  "In this case, the winning side happens to be the right side,” he said. "The side that's due to be proved right by respectable federal law. It concerns the Shonokins. Have you ever heard of the Shonokins, John?”

  "Lately I’ve heard tell two-three things,” I replied him.

  "I got up early this morning to tell you more things. Morning isn't really the best Shonokin time. After dark, the Shonokins.” He studied me. "Perhaps you've been told something about the Shonokin right of ownership of the whole of America; a lawful title that goes back for tens of thousands of years, to times long before the people you call Indians invaded from Asia and seized the land from them?”

  "Yes, sir,” I said. "I’ve been a-hearing something along that line. What you want to say is, the Indians haven’t got the first true rights to America.”

  “Quite ably put,” he said, a-studying the shiny toe of his boot. “Of course, the Indians think they have those rights. Just now, they’re at law in half a dozen places to prove those so-called rights. It’s something rather gigantic, particularly up in the northeastern states, where the old tribal lands are being demanded again.”

  He started a-telling it off on his fingers. He touched the first one.

  “About ten million acres in Maine for the Passmaquoddies and Penobscots.” He touched another finger. “More big returns of territory demanded in Massachusetts, for the Mashpees on Cape Cod and the Wampanoags on Martha’s Vineyard and other places.” Another finger. “Again, for the Pequods and Mohegans and others in Connecticut.” Yet another finger. “For the Oneidas and Cayugas and Mohawks in New York State.” He’d used up the four fingers on that hand, and touched the thumb. “Here in the South, a big slice of South Carolina for the Catawbas and another slice in Louisiana for the Chitamaches. To say nothing of claims in the Southwest.”