Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer 05 (20 page)

 
 
          
I
waked myself in what must be about the dawn of the day, and got up and headed
out along the hallway to the main room.

           
Harpe was there at the table, all
alone. He wore the hunting shirt with the fringes and beads, the one he'd worn
when first we’d met at his gate. He had his blockade jug and his clay cup, and
likewise a china coffeepot and two china cups. He looked up and nodded me, but
he didn’t smile. He looked all business.

 
          
In
front of him on the table, as I came to it, was a stack of written paper pages,
and he had him a ballpoint pen in his hand to finish a-writing on one last
page. Also spread out there was a bunch of crackly, crumbly strips of what
looked like dried-out tanned skin, aged to a brown color. On the skins showed
faint letters that I took to be Greek.

 
          
“Have
a cup of coffee before we talk, John,” he said, a-pour- ing it out for me.
“Will you have a bit of whiskey in it? Whiskey and coffee go good together.”

 
          
“No,
I thank you,” I said. “Give me just the naked black coffee.”

 
          
I
drank my cupful, and he drank his. The coffee was hot and strong. We finished
and Harpe got up.

 
          
“Will
you step outside with me, where we can be private?” he asked.

 
          
“Aren’t
you a-going to put your writings away first?”

 
          
“No,
just leave it here.” He flung his pen down on the papers. “I won’t have to warn
our ladies not to touch it. None of them would dare do that. Come on.”

           
We went out together. It was airish
in the open,
a mite chilly, with the sun just come
up
to the west and a-trickling its rays to us, but fog hung here and yonder
amongst the trees, inside the stockade and out. Harpe led me off, toward the
gash in
Cry
Mountain
, toward the grave where we’d put Scylla
away. He stopped next the grave and wheeled round to face me. His eyes were
glittery.

 
          
“I
don’t suppose you want to die, John,” he said, a-drawing it out so slow and so
cold.

 
          
“Why,
no,” I replied, “not particularly. Why? Did you fetch me out here to kill me?”

 
          
“To
talk to you,” he said.
“To talk sense to you.
I’ll
start by saying that there are no impossibilities if you know what to do to
make them possible. Then the possibilities can become realities.”

 
          
“I
don’t know what you’re a-driving at,” I confessed to him.

 
          
“While
I waited for you this morning, I finished with my translation of the Judas
Gospel,” he said. “It’s an amazing fabric of what to do in the world. It fills
in some things only hinted in
The Book of
Abramelin
and other works I’ve studied. I propose to put it in operation
this very day.”

 
          
A-standing
with him, I watched him close as I could, for I didn’t know what he might
could
start with me. “You talked that notion to me before
this,” I said. “You’ve been a-fixing to do something to the whole world. Do
away with millions of folks you decide you don’t like. And then be on the top
throne of all, with what folks are left a-looking up to you,
folks
a-doing honor to the name of Ruel Harpe.”

 
          
“Maybe
I’ll change my name,” and his voice went sort of dreamy. “Maybe they can call
me Pachacuti.”

 
          
“Call
you what?”

           
“Pachacuti,” he repeated it. “That's
the title they gave the Inca Yupanqui, long ago in
Peru
before the Spaniards came. It means 'he who
changes the world.'"
Dreamy again.
“I’ll change
the world.”

 
          
“And
where do you fit me in?” I asked him.

 
          
“I'll
fit you in just as I've told you. After great hosts of unprofitable people are
swept away, those who remain must be taught a new way of life that is really
old, forgotten. They'll have to be taught how to build sensible houses, raise
their food sensibly,
gain
a sensible outlook. That's
where you come in. You're a natural man, the most natural man I've ever known.
And Myrrh is a natural woman, and with her as your helpmeet —oh, you'll take
her as a helpmeet—the two of you can teach people, and they can teach others—”

 
          
“Yes,
yes,” I broke in on him. “You've talked this to me before. And you think I’ve
got to do your bidding. But I don't think air such a thing.” I heard my voice
rise. “You can just count me out.”

 
          
He
walked close at me, so close I could smell the liquor on his breath. “Listen—”
he started to say.

 
          
“You’re
smart,” I said, a-cutting him off again. “But no way as smart as you think you
are. You misjudged Myrrh Larrowby, look how bad you misjudged her. Just because
you tell her to love me isn't enough. You misjudged her.”

 
          
“And
I fear I misjudged you, too,” he said, with the icy chill back in his voice. “I
took you for a sensible, reasonable man.”

 
          
“Thanks
for that compliment,” I said.

 
          
“A
sensible, reasonable man,” he repeated himself.
“A man who
could have big, rich rewards shown to him and who could accept them.
This world will
change,
this whole world. You can go
along with it and thrive with it, or you can perish with the perishing.”

 
          
“I
already told you, count me out.”

 
          
He
shoved his face almost against mine. He scowled so deep, the lines in his face
looked to be cut with plowshares. His eyes shone on me like coals of fire. His
mustache bristled like a bobcat’s.

 
          
“You’d
better do what I tell you if you want to stay alive another minute,” he said,
from in betwixt his gritted teeth. “I want your help, but I can do without it
if I have to. I could just wish it, and you’d fall dead at my feet.”

 
          
His
scowly face was within inches. I saw his amulet a-swing- ing inside his collar.
He uses his amulet for airthing,
Tarrah had said.

 
          
That’s
when I did what I’d figured the night before I’d have to do.

 
          
I
shot out my right hand and grabbed the amulet where it showed. With one hard
yank I broke its chain, and quick I danced away from him backward, maybe a good
half dozen steps clear of him. As I moved, I shoved the thing down deep into
the hip pocket of my jeans.

 
          
“Now what?”
I inquired him.

 
          
His
mad-looking face had gone blank. His eyes flickered back and forth in it.

 
          
“You
give me that back,” he snarled, and ran at me, but I dodged to the side, clear
of him again. I grinned.

 
          
“I’ll
do no such a thing,” I told him. “That’s your power. I’ve seen it be your
power. What are you without it?”

 
          
“Give
it back,” he said again, and charged. I slipped away from him as before.

 
          
“Now
it’s just you and me,” I said, and kept a-grinning him. “Which of us do you
reckon is best?”

 
          
He
hunched his shoulders up to his ears. It made him look thicker and tougher than
he’d looked already.

 
          
“I’m
the best,” he said.
“Of course.”

 
          
He
reached his right hand under the tail of his fringed shirt.

 
          
He
brought it out with a big knife. It looked to be more than a foot long, wide
across and straight, made of dull-shiny dark steel. I saw that its both edges
were whetted sharp.

 
          
“I'm
through with you, John,” he growled.

 
          
“Not
yet, you're not through with me,” I said, from where I stood away from him. I
moved my feet and jiggled my knees, to make sure I was loose and ready for a
quick move.

 
          
“Give
me back that amulet or I'll kill you,” he mouthed out.

 
          
“Come
try it on,” I invited, a-taking big deep breaths.

 
          
He
moved in on me, a-walking slow and heavy this time. He held that big,
mean-looking knife out at me, a-jiggling its point. Gentlemen, he looked like
an advance agent for Judgment Day, with his knife and his face with its
crumpled scowl and all his teeth a-shining out. His arms looked thick with
muscle,
his legs were like chunks of a tree. But he came at
me sort of flatfooted, and I saw that his toes pointed out, like a-walking in
three directions at once. He was big and strong and murder bent, but I didn't
reckon he was in air sort of good shape, not as good as I was at least.

 
          
I
quartered right and left so he’d have his troubles if he made another running
charge.

 
          
“You
haven’t got a chance, John,” he said, and that long steel blade flipped up and
down like a pump handle in a windstorm. “Recognize that and say you surrender,
and we’ll go back together and have a hearty breakfast.”

 
          
“There’s
no such a thing as no chance,” I told him back, “and I do have this.”

 
          
I
scooped out my pocket knife and yanked it open with a snap that sounded like a
pistol a-being cocked.
“You a-going to try some action?”
I dared him. “Or will you just stand there and try to talk me to death?”

 
          
He
ran dead at me, a-darting out his point as swift as the head of a snake. He ran
heavy but he ran fast, his feet a-hitting flat on the ground like a bear up on
its hind legs, and he was right on me before I could dodge. I flung up my own
knife and beat his blade aside, but his point snagged the back of my hand. We
were almost up against one another for a second, and with my free fist, my
left, I drove a good belt into his thick belly. I heard him grunt with it, and
again we both fell back, half a dozen steps apart from one another again.
Harped mustache twitched with his grin.

 
          
“First
blood,” he said, happy over it, but a-panting a little to say it.

 
          
I
replied him nair a word, and I sidled to his left, away from a straight stab
from his big weapon. He closed in again, slower this time, always a-flicking
his point up and down, and that tongue of steel looked as sharp as a razor.

 
          
“I’ll
cut you open,” he sort of gurgled, but I saved my own breath. He was big, he
had muscle on his bones, but he wasn't in the best of shape. He hadn't roamed
and climbed and exercised the way I had, and I'd seen how much liquor he drank,
day in and day out. He was a-getting winded some.

 
          
But
in on me he came again, and I slipped aside and inside from his thrust, and our
bodies pure down slammed against one another. I dropped my knife and shot him
another in his guts, then two quick half-arm punches to his face, and again
down below. He staggered, and he dropped that great big old hog- sticking
knife, and as it hit the ground I gave it a kick away from us into some bushes.

 
          
What
he called me then I won't repeat in this polite company. He went a-scrambling
off after his weapon, but I was right there after him. I came up alongside and
landed him a set of knuckles right under his ear. He staggered again, but
stayed on his feet. He turned and grabbed for me with both hands.