Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer 02

by After Dark (v1. 1)

  "You said you expected me here," I reminded him. "Expected me here to do what?"

  "To see wisdom. Recognize profit. And now you're here."

  I looked again at that nearest house, with its eye-windows, its draped door.

  "Go on,” Brooke Altic bade me. "Go on in. There's no danger.”

  "No danger feared, but I won't go in where I don't reckon I'm wanted.” I stood with my feet apart, and tried to act as easy about things as he did. "Mr. Altic,” I said, "you can just call me a truth seeker. I'd admire to know the whole truth about you Shonokins.”

  "But I've already tried to tell you some things,” he said. "And I've tried to reach peaceable terms with you.”

  "Peaceable terms,” I repeated after him. "Peaceable like those three Shonokins that came with guns after Mr. Ben Gray, to rob him and maybe kill him?”

  "They weren't sent after you, John.”

  "One of them nair made it back to here,” I said. "He's a-laying back on that straight, straight track of yours, where his friends left him to lie. I wonder myself if I shouldn't go bury him, a-seeing you Shonokins don't seem to have much mind to it.”

  "I was told he fell, but I didn't hear where.” He didn't seem to let on to feel aught of sorrow for the death of one of his own kind. "But you say you came here to know the truth. Truth about what?”

  While he was a-saying that, he walked toward the yard of the nearest house. I walked along beside him. Again I saw the things, the strange things, that grew in the yard. The hand-flowers on the bushes had flecks and streaks of deeper color in their pink, like a sort of orangey brown. And they stirred and half opened, then half shut again.

  On the ground grew the little blades I'd noticed, but they weren't grass as at first I'd thought. They looked tight and a lively green.

  "You can eat those shoots,” said Altic to me. "When you chew them, it clears your mind for better thinking. It nourishes your body for whole days of effort.”

  He stooped down and tweaked off a couple and chewed them. I didn't do likewise. Instead, I looked at the fruity clumps on other plants.

  "Go ahead, eat some of those,” Altic invited me. "They’re like wine to the taste. And they can cure sickness, almost any sickness.”

  "I thank you, but I’m not ailing,” I said. I looked at more of the houses, farther back. "Where’s the rest of your crowd?”

  "Resting quietly in their homes, or perhaps busy with certain affairs. John, I wonder at you. You came almost two miles to get here, but all of a sudden you’re not curious enough to do any investigating.”

  "Almost two miles,” I repeated him, for that had been near about what I’d guessed the distance to be. "Two miles, dead straight over the face of the land.”

  "Naturally,” he said, a-looking at me through his dark glasses.

  "No,” I said. "Not naturally, Mr. Altic. Because a straight line isn’t natural. And anyway, a track usually turns and bends back and forth, to follow the best, easiest ground for it to run.”

  He smiled his smile. "But straight lines are indeed natural. Think about it. A beam of light is perfectly straight. The fall of an object, by the law of gravity, is straight.”

  I thought back on the flight of those bees Mr. Ben and I had traced that morning—shoo, was it just that morning? So much had been a-happening since. There might could be a lot in what Altic said. I turned from him and headed back for where I’d left the track. He strolled along beside me, a-swinging his polished black cane.

  Right all of a sudden I didn’t want to be round him much, not that I’d truly wanted to from the start. I reached the track and headed back along it. Right away, the jangle came back in my blood and nerves. He moved to come alongside me, he moved right well, like a man in good shape. I sort of wore my way up that steep rise, and at the top he was with me.

  "Now, suppose we pause up here a second/' he said to me. "I don't think I have to ask you if you experience a certain interesting sensation."

  "There’s a hum or a shake inside," I said. "It was with me all the way here."

  "Now look at this."

  He jammed the silver point of his stick down hard. It drove into that packed ground. He let go of the knob and looked at it, a-smiling. I saw the thing begin to bob back and forth, slow at first, then faster.

  At first I thought he'd sort of sprung it with his hand to make it do that. But then I made out that it moved of its own self. And it moved strongly. First it whipped one way, then back the other. Maybe like the pendulum of a clock. Maybe like something moved by electricity.

  "Do you see the proof of power here?" Altic inquired me.

  "Whatever makes it do thataway?"

  Always his smile beneath the dark glasses that hid whatever might could be in his hidden eyes. "I doubt if I have the ability to tell you what, or if you have the ability to understand if I do tell you."

  "I've seen a water witch with his forked stick, and it bobbed like that. Anyway," I said, "you might could try me on for understanding you. I'm interested in how you talk, air minute. I nair heard a man talk quite like you. What you say about Shonokins."

  "I've already told you that Shonokins aren’t men." He smiled above the bobbing stick where it was stuck in the ground. "Maybe that puts a speculation into your mind, as to what or whom I might actually be.” He pulled the cane out and tucked it under his arm and turned his glasses back to look at me. “I wonder,” he said slowly, “if you're turning to one of your quaint human beliefs in a certain old personage who tempts mortals.”

  I went down from the rise and along the track, and again Altic walked with me.

  “I reckon what you're a-getting at is, do I think you're the Devil,” I said.

  “If you've thought that, you flatter me.” He twiddled his cane to and fro. “Your Devil is supposed to have a most impressive manner and a courtly way of talking. But no, John, I'm not the Devil.”

  “You make me glad to hear you say so,” I said. Though I hadn't suggested that he was aught like that, nor yet I hadn't truly thought it.

  “You flatter me, I think.”

  “The Devil,” I said as we walked along the humming, jangling way. “He's always a-being told about when he tries to win somebody's soul.”

  “Ah, there you have it, John,” he said, right cheerfully. “We—the Shonokins—have never been prepared to admit the existence of souls.”

  I just shook my head over that, because I couldn't imagine not to have a soul. I gave him a glance out of the side of my eye. His clothes were fine clothes, and no question at all. I'd nair had such. I didn't expect to be that finely dressed, not even when I married Evadare. I felt shabby, in my old pants and boots and hat, the sort of things I'd wear to go out and work in the field.

  “Belief in the soul calls for faith,” he said. “A particular religious faith. And we—we're more concerned with proofs. Material proofs. For instance, I'm not only not the Devil; I don't believe in him.”

  "That should ought to comfort you, Mr. Altic,” I said.

  He laughed. "You said that you liked to hear me talk. All right, I like to hear you talk. You're highly original and, if I weren't pretty much on my guard, you'd be highly persuasive.”

  We walked along together. I felt the tingle in my blood.

  "Anyway, John,” he said at last, "this little stroll you’ve taken with me must have begun to convince you that the Shonokins are a curious people and not without interesting powers. And I’ve made you some attractive offers, on which by now you might ponder with some profit to yourself.”

  Devil or no Devil, Brooke Altic could purely talk well. I kept a-walking along with him.

  "What is it you want me to do for you?” I inquired him finally.

  "Ah,” he said. "Ah, at last. You're beginning to see reason. All right, I wish you'd begin by getting hold of that jewel Mr. Ben Gray carries in his pocket.”

  "The alexandrite,” I said. "What you sent three Shonokins to get from him, and they nair got done what they came to do.”<
br />
  "Yes,” he said. "If we could have that—and now we'll have it You will help us.”

  "Hold on now,” I said, quick. "I just only inquired you what you wanted me to do for you. I didn't say I'd do it.”

  I started in to walk faster, but he kept up, easily, a-swing- ing his cane.

  "You're beginning to irritate me,” he said gently, "and irritating me isn't going to help either of us. You came to our settlement, you say, to find out something about us. And I'm telling you about us. What are you looking at, up ahead there?”

  “Naturally you don't know. Come along and see for yourself.”

  We didn't either one do aught of talking while we slogged along to where we reached the place where that dead Shonokin lay in the ditch where he had been flung.

  Altic came on up behind me and looked, too. I heard his breath draw itself in, sharp and scared.

  “No!” he sort of burbled. “No-”

  And with that, he whipped round in the half of a second and headed back toward his settlement. I watched him go. He flew, almost. His feet looked fuzzy, they were a-moving so fast. Altic was a runner, and that was a pure natural fact.

  He went a-plunging out of sight where some tree branches grew down, and I was left alone with that body that lay so still, and I looked down at it.

  As I did so, I had a feeling, or rather I missed a feeling. No jangle in my blood, in my nerves, right there. The power, whatever it was, didn't work where the body was.

  I bent, but didn't touch it. It lay on its back, with its wide hat down over a face gone as pale as candle wax. The hands were flung over the chest, and I reckoned the dead one's friends hadn't done that, the hands had just fallen there. One sleeve was twitched up. The skin of the arm looked funny. Not true hair on it, only a fine down. I swear, the down had a rib to it, like fluff feathers on a baby bird.

  I'm honest to say, I felt a mite sorry for the poor thing. In that moment I felt sorry for all things that had to die in a fight. The war I'd seen, what I did see of it, had taught me how senseless it was to kill or be killed, how war brought closer the end of the world. I looked at the dead Shonokin as he lay flung out. I didn't feel like laying him any straighter, but I felt like a-doing something for him.

  Right at that point the ditch was scooped out deep, like as if something had bit a chunk out of the ground and then spit out the dirt on the far side. I shoved at that pile of dirt with my booted foot. Clods fell in on the Shonokin’s body. I more or less covered him up thataway, not deep but at least enough to hide him, not leave him there in the open with his own sort afraid to do it for him. All the time, I wondered myself why I was acting the gravedigger. I thought a second I might could say a prayer, but then I recollected how Altic said the Shonokins didn’t believe in the soul. Finally I picked up some rocks and laid them on top of the dirt. Then I took off along the jangly trail, that jangled more weakly than it had done.

  1 hadn’t made many steps before I inquired myself, with that body covered up out of sight, might could not the Shonokins lose their fear, come a-following after me? I took a look back, but no movement on the track, and I kept ahead, hard and dead straight on the dead straight way, with less twinge and stir in me. I moved right fast.

  The quivering jangle came up in me again. I reckoned I was a-getting near to that balanced rock. And sure enough, I was, and somebody else stood there next to it.

  6

  That quick, I jumped off to where some rocks lay in a bunch, and I grabbed up a chunk of quartz as big as my fist. If a Shonokin was there to give me trouble, Fd feed him back enough trouble to satisfy him a long time. But- next instant, I saw it wasn’t a Shonokin, no such thing.

  It was only Jackson Warren, and he didn’t wear that long coat and wide hat I figured meant the Shonokin kind. He had on the country clothes he’d worn earlier to go a-looking for honey, and his head was bare. He stood yonder to study the balanced rock, like as if it was the Washington Monument and he was a-seeing it for the first time in his life.

  “Hey!” I hollered him, and he turned round to look at me, while I made my way to him.

  “Whatever’s brought you here?” I inquired him.

  “I followed you,” he said back. “I couldn’t let you risk it out here all alone.” His eyes were wide and shiny. “Careful, John, don’t touch that balanced stone. There’s a shock in it that will almost knock you down.”

  “I found that out already, the hard way,” I said. I kept hold of my lump of quartz. “Stand off from it, and off the track.”

  He moved clear, and I flung the chunk I had. It hit the balanced rock. It teetered thisaway, then back again, and I felt its strong current go through me. We watched while it slowed down its motion.

  "I've been to what used to be Immer Settlement,” I said. "All the Shonokins there seemed to be a-sleeping by day. All but Brooke Altic.”

  "Altic?” His eyes crinkled. "Where is he?”

  "He came along this track with me, but he got scared back the way he came, by the sight of one of his own dead. I reckon that's the Shonokin Mr. Ben Gray took down with a shot this morning.”

  Warren drew his mouth tight. "You went all the way? All the way to the settlement? How far, John?”

  "I figure about two miles.”

  "Two miles?” he repeated me.

  "Not more than that, as it seemed to me.”

  "No more than that?” he repeated me again.

  "So far as I can reckon by the walk I made. Why? Is it important?”

  "It could be. But I'll have to look at some references before I go into that.”

  He swung round and headed the way to Ben Gray's. "Let's get out of here,” he said, in a hushed-down voice. "I touched that balanced stone, and it rocked back and forth like a shirt blowing in a high wind. And it made me feel as if I was being electrocuted.”

  Together we headed along the track, with that tingle in us. It came into my mind that now the tingle didn't truly hurt. It even seemed to make my feet pick up better. It did me good, sort of.

  "I'm getting a theory about this straight travelway,” Warren said. "One that will interest you, I think. But I'll not talk about it until we're back at the Gray cabin and I can dig out a book that possibly will fill us in.”

  We marched along, side by side. Warren looked calmer by now; his face wasn't so paled out. I talked to him about how those houses at the settlement had looked, and the strange things that grew in their yards, and Brooke Altic's new line of talk which I hadn't harked at to buy aught of it.

  "He says he's not the Devil, but he's up to deviltry," said Warren when I'd finished. "He's a wrong guy, John. He more or less told you he'd sent those Shonokins to rob Mr. Gray of his jewel, maybe kill him for it"

  "Yes," I said, "he did. But they nair got it done."

  "Whatever he means to do, he's only started to do it."

  We came to where the trail ended. "All right," I said, "here's the house. Who are those men a-talking to Mr. Ben?"

  We stepped out of the tingly track into the yard. A gray sedan was parked beside the old car Warren drove. Mr. Ben stood on his bottom step. Two fellows were there together. They wore big wide hats and I saw badges on their tan shirts. One of them said something, and Mr. Ben snapped back at him. We walked up close enough to hear.

  "If youins is here today to worry me about blockading," he told them, "go on. Look round my place if you have a mind, see if you can find a still.”

  "Oh, we ain't interested in no still you might could have," said the biggest of the two. "We ain't a-studying no blockade where you're concerned. What we tried to tell you was, your neighbors allowed there was some shooting a-going on here at your place, so we just thought we'd drop by and—"

  "I fired a shot at some kind of varmint was right here in my yard," Mr. Ben broke him off sharp. "I've yet to hear there's a law of the land that says I can't do that How come you to be here so quick about it?"

  "We just happened to be in these parts," said the biggest man. "Heard te
ll, and come over."

  “Heard tell from what loose-jawed talker?” Mr. Ben growled.

  “Let’s just call that classified information.”

  While that talk went on, Warren and I came along. The other man turned round to look at us. He was a youngish fellow, pudgy and rosy-faced. He grinned.

  “As I live and draw breath,” he said, “if it ain’t John. How you come on, John, and what you up to in these here parts?”

  I knew him then; Dode Griffith, a fairly smart deputy sheriff, who’d now and then been to play-parties where I’d picked and sung.

  “Howdy, Dode,” I said. “Me? Oh, I’m just a-passing a little time here, on a visit with Mr. Ben.”

  The other deputy knew me, too. “Glad to see you, John,” he said. “So you’re a-staying with Mr. Gray here? We just come over to inquire him a few things about some shooting was heard round here.”

  “It was like Mr. Ben was a-telling you just now,” I said. “He saw something sort of dark over at the edge of those trees yonder, and he took a couple of shots and it ran off from here.”

  “Was you round here when it happened, John?” asked Dode Griffith. “Did you get a look at what it was? It wasn’t no man, was it?”

  “No,” I replied him. “I didn’t see it at all clear, but it wasn’t aught human. I can guarantee you that.”

  “A bear, maybe?” wondered the big deputy.

  “No,” I told him. “At least, I couldn’t rightly call it a bear.”

  Mr. Ben’s mouth tightened up under his grizzly moustache. “All right, will John’s word satisfy you fellows?” he wanted to know.

  “John's word sure enough satisfies me,” allowed Dode Griffith, and nodded his head.

  “And it satisfies me, too," said the other deputy. “When John here says something, it should ought to satisfy air man who knows John."

  Mr. Ben toned down a trifle. “Then all right, folks," he said, some friendlier. “Since that’s been settled with youins, come on in the house and have some coffee with us. I’d even offer you a grain of blockade if there was such a matter here round my place."