Manly Wade Wellman - John Thunstone 02

by The School of Darkness (v1. 1)

  Instantly Thunstone recognized Exum Layton, covered to his naked chest with a sheet. His face was blank and dully pale. His eyes were closed. His mustache straggled.

  “There’s no mark on him, no indication of any injury,” Dr. Forrester told them again. “No external evidence of anything like poison of any kind. I feel that we’d like permission for somebody to do an autopsy.”

  “Since he hasn’t any family, can’t we speak as his friends?” asked Thunstone. “Say that we’re in favor of an autopsy?”

  Dr. Forrester pondered that. “Let me have you talk to our director,” he said. “He’s Dr. Clark, Dr. Christopher Clark.”

  They went upstairs into the lobby again. Dr. Forrester took a telephone at the desk and talked earnestly into it. Then, “Come with me,” he said, and they went by elevator to an upper floor. In a front office there, a secretary bade them, “Please go in,” and Forrester ushered them into the room behind. It was an imposing place, with file cabinets against most of the walls and a single oil painting of a landscape that seemed to be English countryside. At a paper- stacked desk sat a blocky man in a beautifully cut blazer of dark blue. He wore a gray beard, also beautifully cut and carefully brushed. Rising, he responded to Forrester’s introductions,

  “I know who you are, Mr. Thunstone,” he said, “Fve read about you in various journals. Are those accounts true?”

  “Not always,” said Thunstone.

  “I promise myself great profit in hearing you speak tonight.” Dr. Clark studied Manco, who stood with brown expressionless face between the brackets of his braids. “Chief,” he said, “I could wish you’d lecture our pre-meds, on Indian medicines,”

  “WaghManco said in his deep voice of formality. “They’d not believe.”

  “But sit down, sit down,” said Dr. Clark. “We have chairs enough here. Let’s go into this problem about the body of—what was his name?”

  “Exum Layton,” said Sharon.

  “Yes, yes. What an unfortunate matter. Mr. Thunstone, you and your friends ask to speak and decide as his close friends. Of course there will be some expenses, here and also for some sort of funeral.”

  “I’ll stand good for those expenses,” said Thunstone promptly, “I happen to be solvent. I can give you the address of my bank in New York and of my investment broker.”

  “And I’ll conduct the funeral service,” added Father Bundren. “I’ll stay over in Buford to do that.”

  “You’re kind,” said Dr. Clark. “Gracious. Just what I’d expect.”

  He took up a telephone and talked to the secretary in the front office. She brought in papers, which all of them signed. Then they gave their addresses at the Inn, and left. The air outside seemed bright, but away somewhere sounded a mutter as of distant thunder.

  “Thunder on the left,” said Thunstone, walking along with Sharon. “That’s supposed to be a warning of some important happening to come.”

  “We don’t need thunder to tell us that,” said Manco. As he walked, he filled his pipe from the pouch that held his ritually mixed tobacco and herbs. He popped a wooden match alight on his thumbnail, lighted the pipe and puffed, then handed it to Thunstone.

  “Smoke,” he said. “All of you smoke. Pray while you smoke.”

  Thunstone drew a mouthful of the pungent vapor and passed the pipe to Sharon. She also puffed and held the pipe behind her to Shimada, who was talking earnestly in Japanese to Kyoki. They drew smoke, and then Father Bundren. The pipe came back to Manco, who tapped it clean and stowed it away.

  “Ahi,” he said. “Professor Shimada, you spoke today about attempted murder. I call this an attempted murder that succeeded.”

  “How did they manage it?” asked Sharon.

  “It’s done everywhere,” said Manco. “My friend Thunstone says they tried to manage it with him last night. I’ve studied reports. People are prayed to death in a hundred ways. It happens in the South Seas, in Italy, in New York. Among Indian tribes. Everywhere.”

  Sharon’s blue eyes were daunted. “Poor Exum Layton,” she said to Thunstone. “He looked so small, somehow, lying there.”

  “The dead always seem to shrink,” Thunstone told her, remembering experiences of his own.

  “Their souls depart,” said Father Bundren from behind. “I predict that the autopsy will indicate that his heart just stopped. And it did stop—it was stopped with a murderous vengeance. High time that those who stopped it were stopped from doing more evils.” He drew a deep breath. “But he died a believer. He was killed for being a believer. His soul has rest.”

  “Yes, it does,” said Sharon. Then again to Thunstone, hand on his arm: “You said you’d assume those expenses for him. That will run into money.”

  “Nothing I can’t afford,” he said.

  “Listen. Let me share the expenses with you.”

  “But—”

  “Yes, let her,” put in Manco. “She wants to help. Her help makes her one of us, more than ever. She says a good thing.”

  “Well,” said Thunstone, “all right, Sharon.”

  She smiled up at him and her hand squeezed his arm tightly.

  Shimada and Kyoki kept on talking in Japanese. At last Shimada looked at his watch.

  “It is just past five o’clock,” he reported in English. “Oishi here has some suggestions for what to do.”

  “Let’s all go to my room,” invited Thunstone. “Maybe have a drink there. We’ll talk for a while and then go to dinner together.”

  “Dinner?” repeated Sharon. “Do you think of dinner?”

  “I’m thinking of it now,” replied Thunstone. “I want to eat well before I speak, before whatever happens when I speak.”

  “Something will happen,” vowed Manco, “Or will try to happen.”

  “Something we won’t let happen,” said Father Bundren stoutly. “We’ve defeated them again and again, except in the case of poor Exum Layton. Whatever they try to do, we won’t let it happen.”

  “No,” said Kyoki. “No.”

  They reached the Inn, went up to Thunstone’s room. Kyoki went out to bring back a supply of ice. Thunstone brought another bottle of brandy out of his suitcase and found glasses for all. They sat wherever they could. Sharon was in the armchair, Shimada on the straight one. Thunstone and Father Bundren sat together on the bed. Both Manco and Kyoki were on the floor, cross-legged. All sipped the brandy thoughtfully.

  “Mr. Thunstone,” said Shimada at last, “we are your guests here, and all of us, I think, feel that you are the special target chosen by the enemy. Let us call you the chairman of this committee. Speak first.”

  “If that’s the will of all of you, let me start by summing up what we’ve summed up before,” said Thunstone. “These creatures—Rowley Thome and Grizel Fian and their followers—have been defeated several times. They grew desperate, and they killed Exum Layton. I agree with the thought that when I speak tonight they’ll try to do something to strike me permanently silent. Some other spell, perhaps, to kill me as they killed Layton.”

  “Wagh, ” boomed Manco. “I’ve said that there are many ways to kill. The bad spirits of the Cherokee know those ways. It is for a medicine man to defend against them.”

  “Sir,” said Kyoki beside him. “Chief, should I call you? You speak again and again like somebody who instinctively understands Shinto. How did you learn?”

  “I learned young,” said Manco. “When I was a boy, I was taken to raise by an old medicine man. Tsukala was his name. He taught me to get up early and sing the sunrise song. He taught me to listen, as he told tales of the world’s early times, when men and animals and plants all lived and talked together as friends and neighbors.”

  “That is true Shinto teaching,” offered Shimada, and, “Yes,” said Kyoki.

  “Tsukala taught me the use of plants for medicine, for charms, for protection,” Manco went on. “He taught me the secret songs and prayers. He built a sacred fire, and told me to tend it for long days and long nights. He put sa
cred herbs into the fire, and I breathed their vapors. When I dreamed, he told me how to read what the dreams meant. Under his guidance, I performed many things. Sometimes frightening things. When Tsukala died, the people called me their medicine man. I have been a medicine man ever since. I am one now. This buckskin shirt I wear is a medicine man’s shirt, the beads on it make strong magic. My work is to find out dangers and drive them back, to cure sickness, to gather wisdom where I can and use it to help others.” “Shinto,” said Kyoki to him. “That is Shinto you describe.”

  “Weigh,” said Manco. “It is the belief of my people.” He looked around at the others. “There are several beliefs here, several roads. All roads are good if they bring us to good things.”

  “Yes, that is Shinto you speak,” declared Shimada. “You American Indians have been here a long time, tens of thousands of years. Yet, before you came from Asia, Shinto was a developing fact in Japan. Perhaps your people brought some Shinto teachings along, and keep them to this day.” “Wagh, ” said Manco again. He was smoking his elephant pipe. “There’s much in what you say, but we’re here to make a plan for tonight, when Thunstone speaks.”

  Kyoki seemed to stare into space. “They plan, too. Plan against us. They are careful, they try to think behind a wall.

  But I know this much, they plan murderously.” He looked at Thunstone. “Plan murderously against you. I see their thoughts, your image in their thoughts. And there is blood on your image.”

  “What will you do?” Father Bundren asked Thunstone.

  “Do? I’ll get up there and tell them to their faces. Dare them.”

  “We’d all better be up on stage with you,” said Father Bundren. “Out of sight of the audience, but up there. Ready to make a stand in force, so to speak.”

  “What do you expect to happen, Father?” asked Sharon.

  “My child, I don’t know what to expect. Maybe to expect everything.”

  “Suspect everything,” said Manco, puffing smoke. “Be ready to fight it.”

  “Let me be there,” said Sharon.

  “Of course,” said Thunstone. “You must be with us at all times. And you must carry protection, all the time.”

  “This.” She touched the cross at her neck. “And this.” She held out the silver bell. It whispered its music.

  “I’ll be protected, too,” declared Thunstone. “My cane and its silver blade. And wait, something else.”

  He reached to the bureau for the book that lay there. “The Long Lost Friend, ” he said. “John George Hohman’s talisman against spiritual dangers. Father Bundren, you questioned this once, then you seemed to endorse it.”

  “It worked well for us,” said the priest. He took the book and opened to its preface.

  “ ‘Whoever carries this book with him is safe from all his enemies, visible or invisible,’ ” he read aloud. “I pray that this will be true for you.”

  “I pray the same,” said Sharon.

  “It says that you can’t die without the ‘holy corpse’ of Jesus Christ,” said Father Bundren, still studying the preface. “Let me say that, when all things are settled, I’ll administer the sacrament to you. Not until then.”

  Shimada took the book in turn and leafed through it. “Many good things are in here,” he said, and passed it back to Thunstone, who slid it into the side pocket of his jacket.

  “It is well for you to have that strong protection,” said Shimada. “For Oishi and me, there is Shinto. We are grateful for Shinto.”

  “I have my strong medicine shirt, and I have this,” said Manco, displaying his elephant pipe. “With it goes the special tobacco.”

  “And I’m never without help and protection,” said Father Bundren.

  Thunstone rose from where he sat and picked up his sword cane.

  “I’d say that we’re all as ready as possible,” he said. “Let’s go and have some dinner.”

  They went out together. It seemed to Thunstone that they walked purposefully along the corridor to the elevator. They were, he thought again, like a fighting force, ready to meet any threat. Even Sharon was ready.

  XIV

  Entering the dining room, they found a table where ail six of them could sit. A waiter came quickly to hand menus around. Thunstone had not noticed this waiter before. He was a slim young man, with dark hair carefully combed to his head, and his white jacket seemed to have been tailored to him.

  Sharon ordered a lamb chop and some green vegetables. Shimada and Kyoki asked for servings of something made with shrimps and rice, Thunstone brooded over the menu.

  “I see I can get a small sirloin steak,” he said. “Let me have it rare, and a baked potato and a salad,” He smiled around at his companions. “That’s more or less the pregame meal we used to have back when I played football.”

  “You make a wise choice,” said Father Bundren. “I think I’ll have the same.”

  “And so shall I,” said Manco. “And black coffee.”

  They all ordered coffee and the young waiter went away to the kitchen, Thunstone narrowed his eyes and thought. He was to speak. He must speak. He wouldn’t use the speech he had prepared. Shimada had begun for him, He would finish.

  “A pregame meal,” Father Bundren was saying. “When I was younger, I played football, too. X had those pregame meals. Those were balanced. The steak was protein, and the baked potato was for carbohydrate.”

  “We’d eat well before game time, about ten o’clock in the morning,” said Thunstone. “And no butter on the potato in those far-off days, but I’m going to have some now.”

  “The meat is for strength,” intoned Manco. “Man is himself a creature of meat. I believe in meat. I don’t hold with the vegetarians.”

  “Leave the vegetarians alone,” said Sharon. “They may not know what they’re doing, but they think they do. To eat meat is to be guilty of the death of a fellow creature. Didn’t Shelley say something like that?”

  “And Byron liked Shelley, but he didn’t agree with him there,” said Father Bundren. “Neither do I.”

  “Thoreau,” said Sharon, and Thunstone laughed. “Thoreau was an Orientalist, he talked about being a vegetarian,” he said. “But he’d catch fish and eat them—fish suffer when they’re caught—and when he visited Emerson or Hawthorne, he seems to have done pretty well at eating beef or pork or whatever was on the table.”

  “We will face enemies who eat the flesh of killed animals,” offered Shimada. “Enemies who come out of underground dens, with underground motives. From their caves, their fast places. Coming into the sun and the air, to do their enchantments. From far below.”

  “ ‘Caverns measureless to sun,’ ” quoted Thunstone. “Now we’re back to Coleridge,” said Father Bundren. “ ‘Caverns measureless to man, down to a sunless sea.’ But it’s my notion that dark underground life isn’t healthy. The sun and the air, you said, Professor Shimada. I don’t believe that life is very good without sun and air. I’ve never tried it myself.”

  “Should we have wine with our dinner?” asked Shimada.

  “Not for me,” said Thunstone. “I’ll stick to coffee with my training meal. Maybe later.”

  “Later,” said Sharon dismally, and Thunstone shook his head at her.

  “You have better faith in me than that,” he chided her.

  “You’ve seen me deep into whatever dangers anyone dreamed up for me, and you’ve seen me out again.”

  “As you got out of your caverns,’’ she said, not comforted. “I know that story about you over in England, and it was a miracle that you escaped there.’’

  “It is a miracle that we have all escaped here,” said Shimada. “To escape, to live, it is all a miracle.”

  They mused on that. The waiter brought them their coffee, and they sipped. Then he was back with a huge tray and set down their various dinners.

  “Let me just say a grace,” requested Father Bundren, and bowed his head. He spoke softly in Latin, then he looked up.

  “I prayed
for other things when I said thanks for what we’re about to eat.”

  “About to eat,” Thunstone said after him, looking at his plate.

  Upon it was a steak, brown with red juices upon it, and a potato gashed open, with a big pat of butter beside it. But also on the plate lay a small heap of what looked like rosy- dark preserved fruits.

  “What are those?” he asked. “You people heard me order. I didn’t order those.”

  Shimada craned his neck to see. He studied carefully. At last he drew back and stroked his mustache.

  “In Japan, they tell of certain fruits which, if you eat them with a protein, will kill you,” he said. “Myself, I have never seen such things, I have never known why they do believe in them. Yet they may be in this world. They may be here as well as in Japan.”

  Manco struck a brown fist on the table. “Where’s that waiter?” he growled. “Call him over to take them away.”

  “No,” said Thunstone. “Leave him out of it just now.”

  He took a spoon and carefully scooped the fruits away into an ash tray. With a fork he pulled his steak and potato across the plate to where no fruit juice had reached.

  “Maybe that was to do something to me,” he said. “Maybe. If it was, the rest of my dinner should be all right.” “Deo volente, ” said Father Bundren,

  Thunstone cut the potato open more widely and put butter on its mealy interior and sprinkled salt and pepper. All watched as he trickled Worcestershire sauce on the steak and cut off a morsel and put it in his mouth. “Excellent,” he announced, and took a forkful of potato to follow.

  “Wait,” said Father Bundren abruptly. “Don’t eat any more until we share something here.”

  He had produced from a pocket a sort of cup. It was perhaps an inch high, and about four inches in diameter. Thunstone thought it was made of some sort of cream- tinted ivory. Its sides bore curved lines, as of a spiral. Father Bundren poured coffee from his cup into it.