A gaunt little man stood there, a shotgun held across his chest. “What you want?” he demanded.
“Listen, I’m lost,” panted Sugg. “Could I get to stay here tonight? I’ll pay.”
He rummaged his pocket for some bills, but the man shook his clipped grey head.
“I wouldn’t charge folks for a-stopping in with me,” he said. “Put that there money away and come on in. The dog’ll be all right, he ain’t up to much just now. You had your supper?”
“Not a bite.”
Thankfully, Sugg stepped inside. The dog half-lay, half-sat, and gazed mournfully at him. It was a liver-spotted white, a hunting dog by its looks.
“Is he mean?” asked Sugg.
“Not when he’s ailing like now.” The little old man peered out the door. “You here all by yourself? Looks as if it’s somebody else a-coming.”
Sugg felt sick. His knees wavered under him.
“No,” said his host, leaning the shotgun against the wall. “I reckon it was just a shadow out yonder.” He pushed the door shut. “Ain’t got any much to eat tonight, but I was a-fixing some bacon and fried potatoes. I’m a widow-man, no great hand to cook. But if you want some, you’re welcome.”
Sugg tottered to where a pitcher and a tin basin stood on an old apple box. He washed his hands and face and tried to tell himself he felt better. The old man heaped a chipped plate with food and poured coffee into a granite mug. “What might I call you?” he enquired.
“Sugg Harpole, and I really appreciate this.”
“Don’t pester yourself none about it. My name’s Avery Warner – I’m widowed, I told you, and I raised six youngins on this place. They’re all gone off someplace to better theirselfs.”
They ate. The bacon and potatoes tasted good. Sugg looked at the door, now comfortably closed and fastened with a broad latch. He listened. He heard nothing except the chewing of his host.
“You look right peaked,” said Avery Warner at last. “I ain’t feeling much good my own self. My heart acts up. It’s a-humping right now.”
“Is that so? Look here what I picked up in the mountains.”
He produced Halugra’s finger. Avery Warner took it in his own hand, turned it this way and that, then gave it back
“What’s it supposed to be?” he asked.
“Never mind.” Sugg returned it to his pocket. “How’s your heart?”
“Why, now you mention it, it seems to be a-settled down and a-doing all right.”
The dog half-whimpered where he sprawled. Sugg looked at him.
“What’s his name?” asked Sugg, to be polite.
“I call him Nobby, poor old feller, he ain’t up to much. Don’t eat, just lolls around thattaway.”
“Maybe I can fix him up.” Sugg leaned down and held out the stone finger. Nobby lifted his nose to sniff. Sugg pushed the finger against it.
Instantly Nobby came to his feet and ran out his tongue in a happy grin. He romped around the table and put his head in his master’s lap.
“I vow and swear, what’d you do to him?” cried Avery Warner joyously. “What’s that there stone thing you got?”
“Just say it can cure sickness,” replied Sugg, putting it away again.
“You mean, like a madstone? I’ve heard tell of them, how they cure bad bites and all like that. Looky here, you more than paid your way here tonight. I got just one bed yonder, but you can have that and I’ll sleep on the floor.”
Sugg declined, with what he felt was mannerly gratitude. He finished his supper and yawned. “Why not just give me a quilt, next to your fire there?” he asked.
“Sure enough, the night’s kind of airish feeling.” Avery Warner twinkled hospitably at Sugg. “Tomorrow morning, if we get up soon, I’ll take you to a neighbor of mine who’ll drive you past that place you say you left your car. I can do you that favor and he can do me one for old time’s sake.”
Sugg made up his bed on the floor and lay down, taking off only his shoes. He fell into a heavy sleep after the day’s exertions and emotions. Suddenly he woke, sitting up with every nerve at a tingle.
“What was that noise?” he gasped out.
“Me.”
By the light of the coals on the hearth he made out the form of Avery Warner, clad in underwear. Avery Warner stood at the half-open door, his shotgun at the ready. Nobby bristled beside him.
“Somebody or other was a-using round outside,” Avery Warner said casually. “I told him to speak up and say what he wanted. When he didn’t reply me, I just tore down on him with this here old gun.”
Sugg got up and approached gingerly. “Did you hit him?”
“Can’t see aught of him out yonder now. Reckon he took off.” Avery Warner pushed the door shut. “It’s a-getting on to be dawn, son. We’d better set out across the field to put you in the car with my neighbor. Name of Blue Griffin, you’ll like him. And, just in case somebody ain’t taking the hint, comes back where he ain’t got no business, I’ll just fetch the gun along.”
When they walked out, the eastern sky was pallid with the coming day. Avery Warner ordered Nobby to stay home and led the way across the back yard, through a scrub of trees beyond, and on to a ruinously rutted dirt road. Ahead of them showed lights in a square, dark house. They reached it just as a powerfully built man in rough clothes came out to a dusty grey sedan. “Avery,” he said hoarsely, “whatever you a-doing up so early. Who you got with you?”
“His name’s Sugg Harpole,” Avery Warner made introductions. “Sugg, this here’s Blue Griffin. Blue, I ask you to kindly take Sugg along to where his car’s been left. He’s a right good feller, he done cured me of a touch of something, cured my dog Nobby too.”
“I wish the hell he’d cure me,” grumbled Blue Griffin. His stubby face was at once fat and furrowed. “Had a hangover yesterday, got all drunked up again to get shed of it, and here is is, back with me today. Boys, it’s mean. Ain’t sure I can drive this car.”
“Here,” said Sugg, producing the stone finger.
Blue Griffin extended a hand like a mitten. Sugg touched the finger to it.
“I declare to never.” Blue Griffin almost squealed. “It’s gone – I’m all right! How’d you do that, mister?”
“Professional secret,” smiled Sugg.
“Hop in, hop in. Avery, I thank you for making me acquainted with this feller. Sugg – that’s your name, ain’t it? – tell me where to carry you.”
As they left the driveway and started bumping along the miserable road, Sugg looked back along the way to Avery Warner’s home. It was grey morning now, and he saw a scarp of shadow toward the trees there. He said to himself it must be Avery Warner going back, though it looked too massive and did not move. Then Blue Griffin drove them around a bend and away. Eastward they traveled, with the risen sun in their creased faces.
Blue Griffin chattered amiably to the man who had cured his hangover. It became evident, without exactly those words said about it, that Blue Griffin made blockade whiskey good enough for his own drinking, and transported it to a dealer near Asheville. Sugg congratulated him on such a profitable and interesting occupation.
“You should ought to move into our neck of the woods,” said Blue Griffin. “What you done for me you could do for eight-nine fellers air day of the week, and they’d pay money for it.”
“Money,” repeated Sugg thoughtfully.
They were good friends by the time Blue Griffin let him out at the place where he had left his pickup truck.
Driving away from there, Sugg looked toward the mountains. Afar in the distance rose a murky outline, thrust up at the roadside like a stump. Sugg speeded up as much as the rough road would let him. He looked back no more. He thought his mind was playing him tricks. It was like the old tale of the ghost coming for its golden arm or diamond ring, or whatever it was. That had scared him plenty when he was a boy. You could get to seeing what wasn’t there. Better study on something that wasn’t practical. Such as, why give the finger to t
he Greek?
Why, indeed? That would get him just a lousy two thousand, which didn’t mean riches these days. If he didn’t turn the finger over in Winston-Salem, if he drove on somewhere else, changed his name, started his own healing business; he’d heard of healers buying whole towns for their cults.
He felt triumphant when, after some hours, he left the bad road for good pavement. Eastward lay lots of people in big towns. He was shaking off his scare, was leaving it in the mountains. He stopped for barbecue at a roadside stand and had beer with it. Coming out, he declined to panic at a dark blotch back there to the west. That had to be a hitch-hiker. On he drove, reaching Winston-Salem in the early evening and driving through, allowing himself a smile when he thought of the waiting Greek. He passed around Greensboro, then outside Burlington. He drove cautiously, and it was late afternoon when he approached Durham and checked into an auto court on the edge of town.
His room cost him twenty-two dollars in advance, but he still had a great deal of the expense money the Greek had given him. He strolled to a nearby shopping center to buy two shirts, some clean socks and underwear, a razor. He wondered who would ever find the camping gear he had run away from in the mountains. Halugra could have that, he joked to himself. He ate dinner at a place called Kirk’s and bought a six-pack of cold beer to carry back to the room. He turned on the television. A stock-car race was in progress. Lying on the bed, a can of beer in his hand, he meditated.
How to cash in, was his question to himself.
He had proved that he could cure anything. People would pay for that; Blue Griffin had said so. Better go to some faraway big town – Detroit for choice, he had been there. Get something printed in the papers about himself, hold a meeting for sick people, dramatically cure them, take up a collection. That would start him off.
Then hold bigger meetings, with bigger collections. He might preach. He’d have to read the Bible and quote from it. Yes, and change his name so that the Greek wouldn’t send somebody unpleasant to find him. Do everything in the name of God Almighty and call for contributions to his miraculous work. Found a whole new church, a whole new religion.
He imagined himself wearing long white robes like a sort of saint, with a beard maybe. He’d gather thousands of disciples, including rugged types for bodyguards to keep the Greek away. There’d be women, too. Women always joined things like that. Some of them would be pretty. Sugg licked his lips and drank more beer.
Now for a new name, so nobody could trace Sugg Harpole. The Good Doctor. The Great Healer. The Healing White Prophet – there, that was the one. He’d be the Healing White Prophet, rich and worshiped.
Now to rest a little, sleep a couple of hours, no longer than that. Later on, in the night, he’d head for the bus station, buy his ticket –
A knock at the door.
More a scrape than a knock, but someone was there to look for him.
Sugg whirled himself off the bed and up on his feet, heart thumping. He’d been a damned fool after all, parking the green pickup just outside. The Greek’s errand boys would recognize it, know it. What must he do now?
If you don’t know what to do, don’t do anything. Sugg did nothing but stand there, his mouth gone as dry as a lime pit.
Another scraping knock, then a shove, slow and powerful. Sugg’s eyes widened as he watched the door. They’d have guns. Of course, if they shot him and he didn’t die at once, the finger would fix him up, but –
All that weight on the door, making it bulge in, dragging the lock from its place, like a carrot out of a garden bed. The door scraped slowly inward, and something stood on the threshold.
It was Halugra.
Brown and broad and scowling, with blue eyes under the brow ridges. Halugra was coming in. Standing up, Halugra was taller than Sugg, and twice as broad. Halugra trod slowly, heavily, with all the purpose in the world.
“What do you want?” Sugg wheezed out, as if he didn’t know.
Halugra closed in on him.
“Wait, wait,” Sugg blustered, and dug the broken finger out of his pocket and held it out. “You can’t hurt me when I’ve got this – ”
Almost against Sugg, Halugra slapped ponderously. The finger flew out of Sugg’s grasp. Halugra caught it in midair. Halugra was upon Sugg, against him.
“No!” Sugg pleaded as he went floundering down.
The stone weight of Halugra fell upon him, pressing him to the floor, until he was through with hoping, fearing, through with everything.
Lolomie and Ehkaho were probably the handsomest young woman and man of their tribe, and among the best educated. Both had graduated from Mars Hill College. Lolomie was a secretary for a farm machinery company, Ehkaho a television repairman. They attended the mission church on their reservation and were as honest believers as most fellow-members. But, if they saw modern truths, they did not leave ancient truths behind. They planned to marry by tribal rites, not a church ceremony. Just now they swarmed up a certain long, steep slope of a remote mountain because of what Antoka Manco, the medicine man, said they would find at the top.
“Halugra,” said Lolomie as Ehkaho helped her along by the hand. Her face would have looked like that of Beatrice Cenci if she had not worn thick glasses. “Halugra,” she said again. “Some people say he left his seat, and that he walks a trail somewhere.”
“Probably somebody dreamed that,” laughed Ehkaho, tall and coppery-skinned and lean. “Where would a stone image walk? We’ll know in a minute.”
They gained the verge with the precipice beyond and stood up and stretched. Lolomie wore blue slacks and a striped top and sneakers. Her jet-black hair was bound with a checkered scarf. Ehkaho had a western shirt and Levis and beaded moccasins, and a broad hat like a rodeo rider. He looked with eyes of love at Lolomie, then along the plunge to where the gaunt pinnacle stood opposite.
“So much for Halugra taking a walk,” he said. “There he sits with his hand out, just where he’s sat ever since the First People made him.”
“I heard something else,” said Lolomie as they paced along to stand opposite the pinnacle and its image. “About an effort to steal his finger.”
“If that’s the truth, we’ve had our ramble for nothing. Stand here, I’m hopping across.”
He seemed to fly over the abyss. Against the sky on the skimpy surface, he bent close to the statue.
“A visitor was here, all right,” he called back to Lolomie, picking up something, then something else. “A hammer and chisel left on the rock, but his finger’s all right, he holds it out like a school teacher. Now, jump across and I’ll grab you.”
She teetered nervously on the brink. “What if I don’t make it?”
“Then I’ll reach all the way down and bring you up.”
Lip caught in her teeth, she sprang with all her might. Ehkaho clutched her wrist and steadied her on the rock beside him.
“I’ll keep these tools, they’re good ones,” he said, stowing them in his pockets. “Now, touch his finger. I’d touch it myself, but there’s nothing wrong with me that I want to cure.”
Lolomie’s own slender fingertip extended. It touched the stubby stone projection. She pulled the spectacles from her face.
“I can see without them!” she cried, and pitched the spectacles away into the deep plunge as emptiness. “My eyes are as good as they ever were,” she rejoiced.
“Which proves that Halugra still helps our people. All right, are you ready for the return trip? I’ll get over there first and be ready to catch you again.”
He faced the precipice opposite. Lolomie studied Halugra’s carven scowl.
“He looks so fierce, but he cured my eyes. I wonder what he’d do if somebody really tried to steal his finger.”
“I wonder,” said Ehkaho.
TERRY LAMSLEY
The Toddler
TERRY LAMSLEY WON the World Fantasy Award in 1994 for his short story, “Under the Crust”, from his debut collection of the same title. Ash Tree Press has recently pub
lished his second collection of tales, Conference With the Dead, in hardcover, and he is working on a third volume of stories. When that is completed, his next project will be three interconnected supernatural novellas set in England during World War II, with the Blitz as a background. His M.R. Jamesian ghost stories have also recently appeared in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Dark Terrors, Vengeance Is and the magazine Ghosts & Scholars.
About the story that follows, he reveals: “I first visited Haddon Hall about seven years ago, on a day when it was full of tourists. There, in the old kitchens, is a whole collection of so-called dole cupboards on display, lined up along the walls. To me, they looked like small, squat, upright coffins designed to contain the flattened corpses of deformed midgets, whose dead eyes could well have been staring back at me through the air holes cut in the doors at the front. Their true function is explained in the story.
“They were, and still are, the most sinister pieces of furniture I have ever seen, and I knew I was going to have to use them in a story. For a long time no story came, though I had a hunch it was going to be about two very different women: one ancient and one modern. Fortunately, one day, for God-knows-what reason, I began to speculate about the drains under the kitchen! Things started to fall into place then – a plot jumped up at me, and I sat down and wrote . . .”
By the way, Lamsley also doesn’t make any apology for the pun in the final line of the first part of the story. In fact, “Bad as it is, I’m proud of it!” he boasts.
I
A WOMAN IN a torn blue smock much too big for her stood by a long scrubbed oak table preparing a meal for her master’s cousin, Sir Rufford De Quintz. He had been hunting in the Royal Forest for two days and, in the company of a few companions, had returned late, exhausted, and hungry. The woman had been working since first light that morning, but, nevertheless, had undertaken to cook for him. She seemed eager to please. She laboured almost in the dark, without a wick burning, but she knew her place of work well, and everything was to hand. She was unclean and hot. Sweat from her brow streamed down her nose and dripped, unnoticed by her, onto the Knight’s supper. Her crow-black hair hung forward over her shoulders and she constantly smeared it back past her neck with her long, greasy fingers.
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