Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer SSC (29 page)

"I call that
pretty singing, John," she laughed to me. "You aim to sleep here
tonight? The ground makes a hard bed, that's a natural fact. Let me make you up
a soft bed at my place."

"I mustn't
go from here right now," said Evadare's soft voice. "I've got me
something to do hereabouts."

Nollie quartered
her eyes round to me. "Then just you come, John. I done told vou it'll be
a soft bed."

"I thank you
most to death," I said, "but no, ma'am, I stay here with
Evadare."

"You're just
a damned fool," she scorned me.

"A fool,
likely enough," I agreed her. "But not damned. Not yet."

She sat down at
the fire without being bid to. There was enough of her to make one and a half
of Evadare, and pretty too, but no way as pretty as Evadare—no way.

"All the
folks act pure scared to come near youins," she told us. "I came to
show there's naught to fear from Trill Coster's sins. I nair feared her nor her
ways when she lived. I don't fear them now she's down under the dirt. All the
men that followed her round—they'll follow me round now."

"Which is
why you're glad she's dead," Evadare guessed. "You were jealous of
her."

Nollie looked at
her, fit to strike her dead. "Not for those sorry men," she said.
"I don't touch other women's leavings." She put her eyes to me.
"You don't look nor act like that sort of man, John. I'll warrant you're a
right much of a man."

"I do my
best most times," I said.

"I might
could help you along," she smiled with her wide lips.

"Think that
if it pleasures you," I said. I thought back on women I'd known. Donie
Carawan, who'd sweet-talked me the night the Little Black Train came for her;
Winnie, who'd blessed my name for how I'd finished the Ugly Bird; Vandy, whose
song I still sang now and then; but above and past them all, little Evadare,
a-sitting tired and worried there by the fire, with the crowd and cloud of
another woman's sins she'd taken, all round her, a-trying to dare come get hold
of her.

"If I'd
listen to you," I said to Nollie. "If I heeded one mumbling word of
your talk."

"Jake said
you're named Evadare," said Nollie across the fire. "You came here
with John and spoke up big to take Trill's sin-burden and pray it out. What if
I took that burden off you and took John along with it?"

"You done
already made John that offer," said Evadare, quiet and gentle, "and
he told you what he thought of it."

"Sure
enough," Nollie laughed her laugh, with hardness in it. "John's just
a-playing hard to get."

"He's hard
to get, I agree you," said Evadare, "but he's not a-playing."

"Getting
right cloudy round here," Nollie said, a-looking over that smooth bare
shoulder of hers.

She spoke truth.
The clumpy mist with its eye-greens was on the move again, like before. It hung
close to the ground. I saw tree branches above it. The shapes in it were
half-shapes. I saw one like what children make out of snow for a man, but this
was dark, not snowy. It had head, shoulders, two shiny green eyes. Webbed next
to it, a bunch of the things that minded you of dogs without being dogs. Green
eyes too, and white flashes that looked like teeth.

Those dog things
had tongues too, out at us, like as if to lap at us. Evadare was a-praying
under her breath, and Nollie laughed again.

"If you fear
sin," she mocked us, "you go afraid air minute of your life."

That was the
truth too, as I reckoned, so I said nothing. I looked on the half-made hike of
the man shape. It molded itself while I looked. Up came two steamy rags like
arms. I wondered myself if it had hands, if it could take hold; if it could
grab Evadare, grab me.

One arm-rag
curled up high and whipped itself at us. It threw something—a whole mess of something.
A little rain of twinkles round the root where Evadare had sat since first we
built the fire.

"Oh,"
she whispered, not loud enough for a cry.

I ran to her, to
see if she'd been hit and hurt. She looked down at the scatter of bright things
round her. I knelt to snatch one up.

By the firelight,
I saw that it was a jewel. Red as blood, bright as fire. I'm no jeweler, but
I've seen rubies in my time. This was a big one.

Evadare bent with
both hands out, to pick the things up. From the mist stole out soft noises,
noises like laughter—not as loud as Nollie could laugh, but meaner, uglier.

"Don't take
those things," I said to Evadare. "Not from what wants to give them
to you." I sent myself to throw that big ruby.

"No,"
said Evadare, and got up, too. "I must do it. I'm the one who took the
sins. I'm the one to say no to them."

She made a
flinging motion with her arm, underhand, the way girls are apt to throw. I saw
those jewels wink in the firelight as they sailed through the air. Red for
rubies, white for diamonds, other colors for other ones. They struck in among
the misty shapes. I swear they plopped, like stones flung in greasy water.

"Give
me," she said, and took the big ruby from me. She flung it after the
others. It made a singy sound in the air. Back from the cloudy mass beat a
tired, hunting breath, like somebody pained and sorrowed.

"All
right," said Evadare, the strongest she'd spoken since first we'd made out
camp. "I've given them back their pay, refused all of it."

"Did
you?" Nollie sort of whinnied.

"You saw me
give them back," Evadare said, "All of them."

"No, not all
of them, look at this."

Nollie held out
her open palm. There lay a ruby, big as a walnut, twice the size of the one I'd
taken up.

"How many
thousands do you reckon that's worth?" Nollie jabbered at us, her teeth
shining. "I got it when it fell, and I'm a-going to keep it."

"Miss
Nollie," I said, "you should ought to have seen enough here tonight
to know you can't keep air such a thing."

"Can't
I?" she jeered me. "Just watch me, John, I'll take it to a big town
and sell it. I'll be the richest somebody in all these parts."

"Better give
it to Evadare to throw back," I said.

"Give it to
little half-portion, milky-face Evadare? Not me."

She poked the
ruby down the front of her dress, deep down there.

"It'll be
safe where it's at," she snickered at us. "Unless you want to reach a
hand down yonder for it, John."

"Not
me," I said. "I want no part of it, nor yet of where you put
it."

"John, said
Evadare, "look at how the cloud bunches away."

I looked; it drew
back with all its shapes, like the ebb tide on the shore of the sea.

"Sure
enough," I said. "It's a-leaving out of here."

"And so am
I," spoke up Nollie. "I came here to talk sense to you, John. You
ain't got the gift to know sense where you hear it. Come visit me when I get my
money and put up my big house here."

She swung, she
switched away, a-moving three directions at once, the way some women think they
look pretty when they do it. She laughed at us once, over her shoulder so bare.
Evadare made a move, like as if to try to fetch her back, but I put my hand on
Evadare's arm.

"You've done
more than your duty tonight," I said. "Let her go."

So Evadare stood
beside me while Nollie switch-tailed off amongst the trees. I reckoned the
misty shapes thickened up at Nollie, but I couldn't be dead sure. What I did
make out was, they didn't fence us in now. I saw clearness all the way round.
The moon washed the earth with its light.

Evadare sat down
on the root again, dead tired. I built up the fire to comfort us. I struck a
chord on the guitar to sing to her, I don't recollect what. It might could as
well have been a lullaby. She sank down asleep as I sang. I put my soogin sack
under her head for a pillow and spread a blanket on her.

But I didn't sleep.
I sat there, awaiting for whatever possibly happened, and nothing happened.
Nothing at all, all night. The dawn grayed the sky and far off away I heard a
rooster crow. I put the last of our coffee in the pot to brew for us, all we
could count on for breakfast. While I watched by the fire, three men came
toward us. Evadare rose up and yawned.

"John,"
said Jake in his timid voice, "I bless the high heavens to see you and
your lady all safe here. This here is Preacher Frank Ricks, and here's Squire
Hamp Dolby, come along with me to make your acquaintance."

Preacher Ricks
I'd met before. We shook hands together. He was thin and old, but still
a-riding here and there to do what good was in his power. Squire Dolby was a
chunk of a man with white hair and black brows. "Proud to know you,
John," he said to me.

"I hurried
in here just at sunrise," said Preacher Ricks. "I'd heard tell of
poor Trill Coster's death, and I find she's already buried. And I heard tell,
too, of the brave, kind thing your lady agreed to do to rest her soul."

"I hoped it
would be merciful," said Evadare.

"How true
you speak, ma'am," said Squire Dolby. "But the sins you said you'd
take, they never came to you. They fastened somewhere else. Nollie Willoughby's
gone out of her mind. Round her house it's all dark-shadowy, and she's in
there, she laughs and cries at one and the same time. She hangs onto a little
flint rock and says it's a ruby, richer than all dreams on this earth."

"Isn't it a
ruby?" I inquired him.

"Why,"
he said, "the gravelly path to my house is strewed with rocks like that,
fit for naught but just to be trod on."

"I fetched
these folks here on your account, John," said Jake. "You done told me
you and Evadare hoped to be married."

"And we can
do that for you," allowed Preacher Ricks, with a smile to his old face.
"Squire Dolby here has the legal authority to give you a license here and
now."

"It's sure
enough my pleasure," said Squire Dolby.

He had a pad of
printed blanks. He put down Evadare's name and mine, and he and Jake signed for
the witnesses.

"Why not
right now, under these trees and this sky?" said Preacher Ricks, and
opened his book. "Stand together here, you two. John, take Evadare's right
hand in your right hand. Say these words after me when I tell you."

Time had passed,
two years of it, when I got back to those mountains again and took a notion to
visit the spring.

When I was first
there, there'd been just a muddy, weedy hole amongst rocks. A young fellow
named Zeb Gossett lay there, a-burning with fever, a-trying to drink at it. I
pulled him onto some ferns and put my blanket over him. Then I knelt down and
dragged out the mud with my hands, picked weeds away and bailed with a canteen
cup. Third time I emptied the hole to the bottom, water came clear and sweet. I
let Zeb Gossett have some, and then I built us a fire and stirred up a hoecake.
By the time it was brown on both sides, he was able to sit up and eat half of
it.

Again and again
that night, I fetched him water, and it did him good. When I picked my
silver-strung guitar, he even joined in to sing. Next day he allowed he was
well, and said he'd stay right where such a good thing happened to him. I went
on, for I had something else to do. But I left Zeb a little sack of meal and a
chunk of bacon and some salt in a tin can. Now, returned amongst mountains
named Hark and Wolter and Dogged, not far from Yandro, I went up the trail I
recollected to see how the spring came on.

The high slope
caved in there, to make a hollow grown with walnut and pine and hickory, and
the spring showed four feet across, with stones set in all the way round.
Beside the shining water hung a gourd ladle. Across the trail was a cabin, and
from the cabin door came Zeb Gossett. "John," he called my name, "how
you come on?"

We shook hands.
He was fine-looking, young, about as tall as I am. His face was tanned and he'd
grown a short brown beard. He wore jeans and a home-sewn blue shirt.
"Who'd expect I'd find Zeb Gossett here?" I said.

"I live
here, John. Built that cabin myself, and I've got title to two acres of land. A
corn patch, potatoes and cabbages and beans and tomatoes. It's home. When you
knelt down to make that spring give the water that healed me, I knew this was
where I'd live. But come on in. I see you still tote that guitar."

His cabin was
small but rightly made, of straight poles with neat-notched corner joints,
whitewash on the clay chinking. There was glass in the windows to each side of
the split-slab door. He led me into a square room with a stone fireplace and
two chairs and a table. Three-four books on a shelf. The bed had a blazing-star
quilt. Over the fire bubbled an iron pot with what smelled like stewing deer
meat.

"Yes, I live
here, and the neighborhood folks make me welcome," he said when we sat down.
"I knew that spring had holy power. I watch over it and let others heal
their ills with it."

"It was just
a place I scooped out," I reminded him. "we had to have water for
you, so I did it."

"It's cured
hundreds of sick folks," he said. "I carried some to the Fleming
family when they had flu, then others heard tell of it and came here. They come
all the time. I don't take pay. I tell them, 'Kneel down before you drink, the
way John did while he was a-digging. And pray before you drink, and give thanks
afterwards.'"

"You
shouldn't ought to give me such credit, Zeb."

"John,"
he said, "that's healing water. It washes away air bad thing whatsoever.
It helps mend up broken bones even. Why, I've known folks drink it and settle
family quarrels and lawsuits. It's a miracle, and you did it."

I wouldn't have
that. I said, "Likely the power was in the water before you and I came
here. I just cleaned the mud out."

"I know
better, and so do you," Zeb grinned at me.

Outside, a sweet
voice: "Hello, the house," it spoke. "Hello, Zeb, might could I
take some water?"

He jumped up and
went out like as if he expected to see angels. I followed him out, and I reckon
it was an angel he figured he saw.

She was a slim
girl, but not right small. In her straight blue dress and canvas shoes, with
her yellow curls waterfalled down her back, she was pretty to see. In one hand
she toted a two-gallon bucket. She smiled, and that smile made Zeb's knees
buck.

"Tilda"—he
said her name like a song—"you don't have to ask for water, just dip it.
Somebody in your family ailing?"

"No, not
exactly." Then her blue eyes saw me and she waited.

"This is my
friend John, Tilda," said Zeb. "He dug the spring. John, this is
Tilda Fleming. Her folks neighbor with me just round the trail bend."

"Proud to be
known to you, ma'am," I made my manners, but she was a-looking at Zeb,
half nervous, half happy.

"Who's the
water for, then?" he inquired her.

"Why,"
she said, shy with every word, "that's why I wondered if you'd let me have
it. You see, our chickens—" and she stopped again, like as if she felt
shamed to tell it.

"Ailing
chickens should ought to have whatever will help them, Zeb." I put in a
word.

"That's a
fact," said Zeb, "and a many a fresh egg your folks have given me,
Tilda. So take water for them, please."

She dropped down
on her knees and bowed her head above the spring. She was a pretty sight,
a-doing that. I could tell that Zeb thought so.

But somebody else
watched. I saw a stir beyond some laurel, and looked hard thataway.

It was another
girl, older than Tilda, taller. Her hair was blacker than storm, and her
pointy-chinned, pale face was lovely. She looked at Tilda a-kneeling by the
spring and she sneered, and it showed her teeth as bright as glass beads.

Zeb didn't see
her. He bent over Tilda where she knelt, was near about ready to kneel with
her. I walked through the yard toward the laurel. That tall, black-haired girl
moved into the open and waited for me.

She wore a long
dress of tawny, silky stuff, hardly what you'd look for in the mountains. It
hung down to her feet, but it held to her figure, and the figure was fine. She
looked at me, impudent-faced. "I declare," she said in a sugary-deep
voice, "this is the John we hear so much about. A fine-looking man, no
doubt in the world about that. But that's a common name."

"I always
reckoned it's been borne by a many a good man," I said. "How come you
to know me?"

"I heard you
and Zeb Gossett a-talking. I can hear at a considerable distance." Her
wide, dark eyes crawled over me like spiders. "My name's Craye Sawtelle,
John. You and I might could be profitable acquaintances to each other."

"I'm proud
to be on good terms with most folks," I said. "You come to visit with
Zeb, yonder?"

"Maybe, when
that little snip trots her water bucket home." Craye Sawtelle looked at
Tilda a-filling the pail, and for a second those bright teeth showed. "I
have business to talk with Zeb. Maybe he'll find the wit to hark to it."

Zeb walked Tilda
to the trail. Craye Sawtelle had come into the yard with me, and when Tilda
walked on and Zeb turned back, Craye said, "Good day to you, Zeb
Gossett," and he jumped like as if he'd been stuck with a pin.

"What can I
do for you, Miss Craye?" he said.

She ran her eyes
over him, too. "You know the answer to that. I'll make you a good offer
for this house and this spring."

He shook his head
till his young beard flicked in the air. "You know the place isn't for
sale, and the spring water's free to all."

"Only if
they kneel and pray by it." She smiled a chilly smile. "I'm not a
praying sort, Zeb."

"Nobody's
heart to kneel before God," said Zeb.

"I don't
kneel to your God," she said.

"What god do
you kneel to?" I inquired her, and her black eyes blazed round to me.

"You make
what educated folks call an educated guess," she said to me. "If you know
so much, why should I answer you?"

She turned back
to Zeb. "What if I told you there's a question about your title here, that
I could gain possession?"

"I'd say,
let's go to the court house and find out."

"You're
impossible," she shrilled at him. "But I'm reasonable. I'll give you
time to think it over. Like sundown tomorrow."

Then she went off
away, the other direction from Tilda. In that tawny dress, air line of her
swayed.

Just then, the
sun looked murkier over us. Here and there amongst the trees, the leaves showed
their pale undersides, like before a storm comes.

"Let's go in
and have something to eat," Zeb said to me.

It was a good
deer-meat stew, with cornmeal dumplings. I had two helps. Zeb said he'd put in
onions and garlic and thyme and bay leaf, with a dollop of wine from a bottle
he kept for that. We finished up and drank black coffee. While we sipped, a
sort of lonesome whinnying sound rose outside.

"That's an
owl," said Zeb. "Bad luck this time of day."

"I figured
this was the sort of place where owls hoot in the daytime and they have possums
for yard dogs." I tried to crack the old joke, but Zeb didn't laugh.

"Let me say
what's been here," he said. "The trouble's with that witch-girl,
Craye Sawtelle. She makes profit by this and that—says strings of words
supposed to make your crops grow, allows she can turn your cows or pigs sick
unless you pay her. What she wants is this spring, this holy spring. Naturally,
she figures it would make her rich."

"And you
won't give it over."

"It's not
mine to give, John. I reckon it saved my life—I'd have died without you knelt
to scoop it clear for me. So I owe it to folks to let them cure themselves with
it. Oh, Craye's tried everything. You've seen what sort she is. First off, she
wanted us to be partners—in the spring and other things. That didn't work with
me, and she got ugly. I'll banter you she's done things to the Flemings, like
those sick chickens you heard tell of from Tilda. And she told me she'd put a
curse on my corn patch. Things don't go right well there just now."

I picked my
guitar. "Hark at this," I said:

Three holy kings,
four holy saints,
 
At heaven's high gate that stand,
 
Speak out to bid all evil wait
 
And stir no foot or hand . . . 
 

"Where'd you
catch that song, John?"

"Long ago, from
old Uncle T. P. Hinnard. He allowed it was a good song against bad stuff."

Zeb crinkled his
eyes. "Like enough it is, but it sort of chills the blood. You know one of
a different kind?"

The owl quivered
its voice outside as I touched the strings again.

Her hair is of a
brightsome color
 
And her cheeks are rosy red,
 
On her breast are two white lilies
 
Where you long to lay your head. 
 

"Tilda,"
said Zeb, a-brightening up. "You made that song about Tilda."

"It's older
than Tilda's great-grandsire," I told him, "but it'll do for her. I
saw how she and you lean to one another."

"If it
wasn't for Craye Sawtelle—" And he stopped.

"Tell me
about her," I bade him, and he did.

She'd lived
thereabouts before Zeb built his cabin. She followed witchcraft and didn't care
a shuck who knew it. Some folks went to her for charms and helps, others were
scared to say her name out loud. When Zeb began a-letting sick folks drink from
the spring, she tried air way she knew to cut herself in. She'd tried to
sweet-talk Zeb, even tried to move into his cabin with him. But by then he'd
met Tilda Fleming and couldn't think of air girl but her.

"When she
saw I wouldn't love her, she started in to make me fear her," he said.
"She's done that thing, pretty much. You wonder yourself why I don't speak
up to Tilda. I've got it in mind that if I did, Craye would do something awful
to her. I don't know what it would be, likely I don't want to know."

I made the guitar
string whisper to drown out the owl's voice. "What would she do with the
spring if she had it?"

"Make folks
pay for its water, I told you. Maybe turn its power round to do bad instead of
good. I can't rightly say."

I leaned my
guitar on the wall. "Maybe I'll just go out and walk round your place
before the sun goes down."

"Be careful,
John."

"Shoo,"
I said, "I'll do that. I may not be the smartest man in these mountains,
but I'm sure enough the carefullest."

I went out at the
door. The sun had dropped to a fold of the mountains. I walked back and looked
at Zeb's rows of corn, his bean patch with pods a-coming on, the other beds of
vegetables. Past his garden grew up trees, tall and close together, with
shadowy dark amongst them.

"We meet
again, John," said a voice I'd come to know.

"I reckoned
we might, Miss Craye," I said, and out she came from betwixt two pines.
She carried a stick of fresh wood, its bark peeled off.

"If I
pointed this wand at you and said a spell," she said, "what would
happen?"

"We'll never
know without you try it."

She tossed her
hair, black as a yard up a chimney on a dark night. Her teeth showed, bright
and sharp. "That means you figure you've got help against spells,"
she said. "I'm not without help myself. I don't go air place without
help."

"Then you
must be hard pushed when it's not nigh."

I felt the presence
of what she talked about. Back in the thicket, I knew, were gathered things. I
couldn't see them, just felt them. A stir and a sigh back yonder.

"John,"
she said, "you could go farther and fare worse than by making a friend of
me. You understand things these country hodges nair dreamt of. You've been up
and down the world and grabbed onto truths here and there."

"I've done
that thing," I agreed her, "and the poet wasn't right all the time
when he said beauty was truth and truth was beauty. Truth can be right ugly now
and then."