Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer 05 (5 page)

 
          
“So
I heard Preacher Larrowby say. What's the story on Zeb Plattenburg?"

 
          
So
Tombs told it, like this:

 
          
Zebulon
Vance Plattenburg was named for the governor and senator all these mountains
are so proud of, and he was an upstanding young man of Larrowby who did his
best to be a hero himself. A good shot with a deer rifle (“Maybe near about as
good
as you or either me, John,” Tombs put in), a dancer who
could dance to dawn’s early light, a courter and kisser of a-many a pretty
girl.

 
          
This
Zeb fellow liked to cut shines, pester folks with his talk. Once, at some play
party maybe ten-fifteen years ago, there’d been thunder and lightning and it
was a-pouring the rain, and Zeb had run out in the yard and got himself soaked
through to his underwear and dared God Almighty to strike him down with a
thunderbolt. Nobody at the party had enjoyed to hear him carry on thataway.
Tombs said he’d been there, and had signed a cross on himself to keep evil
away. But folks were right impressed with Zeb Plattenburg. And when
Cry
Mountain
raised its voice, he had a reason to pester
folks
worse yet.

 
          
He’d
vowed and sworn up and down he’d find that mountain (“Just like you, John”) and
he’d climb it, choke off its cry so folks could rest easier. No matter what his
friends could say, he set off to do it. And nair did he come back. Nor did the
bravest man of Larrowby dare go see what had happened to him, all the years
since.

 
          
When
Tombs finished his tale, I said, “And you reckon I’m just another Zeb
Plattenburg when I say I’ll go.”

 
          
“No,
sir,” said Tombs, “you ain’t another Zeb Plattenburg. He was just a brag man.
All he did, the day long from morning to night, was brag on
himself
.
He’d brag himself into fist-and- skull fights one place another, and the most
part of the time he won those fights. You ain’t like that, though I’d reckon
you’d do yourself proud in a little turn-up. But I’d
say,
whatair Zeb said he’d do, he’d do it or die a-trying, and you’re like him
thataway.”

 
          
“Yes,”
1 said, “yes, likely I am. I’ll go out and look for
Cry
Mountain
tomorrow morning.”

 
          
“If
that's your last word—”

 
          
“It's
my last word, all right."

 
          
“If
that’s it," said Tombs, “then all I can do is
help
you the best I can."

 
          
I
shook my head hard at him. “Don’t you try to come
along.
This thing is my business."

 
          
“I
don’t aim to come along. Just to get you started on your way, and pray till you
get back."

 
          
“Pray,"
I repeated him. “Do that, Tombs. Prayer just might
could
be called for."

 
          
I
reckoned it was my time to change a subject, so I picked up my guitar. I didn’t
reckon I’d do a song about aught that was creepy, so I tried some of a cheerful
one:

 
          
“Yonder
comes my pretty little girl,

           
How do you think I know?

           
I know her by her yellow curls,

           
A-hanging down so
low . . .’’

 
          
Tombs
cocked his ear to hark at that, and when I was done he said, “Sing it again one
more time," and I did. When I was done, he
sparkled
his eyes at me for relish of the thing.

 
          
“I
vow up and down,"
he
said, “that there makes me
think of Myrrh."

 
          
“The
way
you are," I said back, “what is there good
and pretty you hear or see that you don’t think of her? You’ve got it bad,
Tombs, or likely I
should ought
to say, you’ve got it
good. I do wish you and Miss Myrrh joy of one another."

 
          
“And
I sure enough wish your wish sure enough comes true." He got up from where
he sat. “Hell, what crazy words did I say just then? Let’s not bother to figure
them out. Let’s just have us another thimbleful of that there how-come-you-so
we picked up on the trail home from Larrowby."

 
          
He
poured us out two drinks, and the liquor was nice on the tongue and warm all
the way down. We sipped and talked, and the sipping and the talking were both
right good. After that, 1 looked out what I’d pack to take with me—the shirts
and socks and so on I’d bought in Larrowby. Tombs fetched me a croker sack to
stow them into, and likewise an old army canteen on an army web pistol belt.

 
          
“You’ll
need that,” he said. “You won’t want to get yourself all dried out, the way you
were when you came to my door.”

 
          
“I
don’t like to take your canteen, Tombs,” I argued him.

 
          
“Shoo,
1 got me more than one of those. Didn’t I tell you that when I was in the
service, I worked some with the supply sergeant?” Then he stopped, and even his
beard went into serious lines. “John, I’ll say one more time, I beg to you,
don’t go up
Cry
Mountain
.”

 
          
“And
one more time, I’ll not listen.”

 
          
“Bullheaded,
ain’t you?”

 
          
“That’s
a true word, Tombs. Now, I’m a-going to lie down and have a sleep.”

 
          
I
stretched out on his sofa with the blue blanket on me, and my eyes closed and I
drifted right off, quick and easy.

 
          
Maybe
I had dreams, I sure enough
should ought
to have had
dreams to warn me of what would come; but if I did dream, I’ve purely forgotten
what it was. I woke when the morning was at a gray, to hear Tombs a-bustling
here and yonder.

 
          
“You
lie back, take it easy, you’ve got a hard day ahead of you,” he said. “I’m
a-fixing us what’ll be a good breakfast. I’d put baited lines in the branch out
yonder, and I’ve pulled us out two of the best trout you could call for.”

 
          
He
said the truth that time. He’d scaled and gutted those trout before they’d more
than stopped a-wiggling, and with hoecake and honey and coffee they were fit
for the best folks on earth to eat. I had a quick shave and dragged on my boots
and picked up the croker sack he'd given me, and slung on my guitar.

           
"Belt that canteen on
you," he told me. "I put spring water in it, and there's an old
saying round here that if you drink the spring water in these here parts,
you'll find your way back to drink it again, come hell or heaven or the
day of judgment
."

 
          
"I
hope to my heart that that comes true for me," I said.

 
          
"And here."
He held out something in a paper poke.
"I split some hoecakes and
laid
in slices of that
wild hog ham. You may find that worth your biting into along your way." He
squinted
his eyes at me. "John, I pure down wish
you'd change your mind."

 
          
"I
don't do that when my mind's made up," I said.

 
          
"Oh, sure, sure."

 
          
He
walked out with me and all the way to his branch where he panned his specks of
gold. He took me to where big rocks stuck up, with the water a-swirling round
them.

 
          
"You
can cross over here, John," he said.

 
          
"And which way to
Cry
Mountain
on the other side?"
I asked.

 
          
As
I spoke, I heard that cry,
Awoooooo
.

 
          
"Just
you keep an ear ready to hark at that," said Tombs. "That'll guide
you. John, I ain't about to tell you goodbye. Goodbye has a sort of final
sound. I'll just say
,
do your best where you're
a-going, and come back here and stay a week."

 
          
We
shook hands together. His grip was as strong as a trap. Then I put myself to
that crossing on the rocks. One-two of them
were
mossy
and slippery, but I made the trip all right. On the far side I turned. Tombs
still stood there. I put up a hand to him, and he put up a hand to me. Then I
headed in amongst the trees on my bank of the stream, and I saw him no more.

 
          
No
trail there, but I set my face for where
Cry
Mountain
’s cry had risen.

 
          
Those
trees were thick-grown and big, all kinds. From high on some of them hung down
crawly vines. 1 pushed along under them. It was dead quiet under there, quiet
as in some church where they were a-getting ready to bury somebody that was
dead. And it was dim dark, too; the sun was up but it didn’t get through all
the leaves and vines. Underfoot, my boots found fallen twigs and pine straw,
and likewise pebbles and rocks. That part of the mountain forest was like as if
no living soul had air walked in it except maybe the panther, bear, and fox.
Just
them
and, one time back yonder, that Zeb
Plattenburg man they’d told me about. And he, if I was to credit them, had gone
only one way through, had nair come back to tell of it.

 
          
I
wondered myself did I truly stay on the right way to Cry Mountain I’d been
a-trying to seek that way for an hour. I stopped and tasted the good sweet water
in the canteen lent me by Tombs McDonald. Then I stood still and harked, with
naught to hear but my own breathing. I stood till
Cry
Mountain
cried out.

 
          
Yes,
I was headed right, and no I reckon about it. I walked toward where the cry
rose, walked even before it died out, and kept on a-walking.

 
          
I
scrambled up a slope under more trees and more. I came to where the trees
thinned. The way along got easier, and I kept my feet to it. Once again I
rested and supped enough water to wet my mouth inside. At last I got to the top
of a ridge.

 
          
Beyond
the ridge, the trees were just brush for quite a
stretch,
and above them and on past them I saw what purely had to be
Cry
Mountain
.

 
          
All
right, gentlemen, you all wonder me what did
Cry
Mountain look like, and how came me to know it was
Cry
Mountain
?

 
          
From
off where I stood up to look, it sort of flew up against the sky. It was tall,
tall, and it was bare, bare, and it was steep, steep, steep. It was shaped like
a bucket turned upside down. The naked rock it was made of had a tan-gray
color, and looked so straight up and down that you'd reckon a mountain boomer
squirrel would have its job cut out for it to climb up. High at the top, which
figured to be flat, grew trees, thick and green. And on the tan-gray side of Cry
Mountain a-facing me ran a crooked line up, like some Z’s one on top of the
other. That line looked green, too, a dark green, and if trees hung on there, a
man might hang on to the trees to help him mount up.

 
          
Cry
Mountain
, naked and steep, stood so high above other
heights right and left, they looked like brushy knolls. It stood where it was
and, if I'd had aught of a doubt, it named itself to me with its cry,
Awoooooo
. . .

 
          
I
headed for it.

 
          
The
trees were thinned out as I went down a long slope, and there was some coarse
grass that whispered against my boots. A spotted snake went whipping away as I
came. I didn’t see what kind it was, but I jumped about a foot. My idea of
nothing to do is mess round with snakes. The sun was a-getting high in a blue
sky without a cloud in it, and I judged it to be maybe
half past ten
when I started that approach march toward
Cry
Mountain
. I kept on my way, but I stopped maybe each
twenty minutes or so, just to squat down and breathe a few breaths. By
noon
I came to a clear little branch of sweet
water and I took me more of a blow there. I didn’t eat the lunch Tombs had
fixed for me, but I did drink from the branch and filled up my canteen again
and washed my face and neck and ears. I felt as good and fresh as I could hope
when I headed along through little belts of trees, toward
Cry
Mountain
off there.

 
          
It
was an hours-long walk again, with all the time the steep bare mountain
a-coming closer and closer, till it took up a big bunch of the country ahead. I
got to where I could make out the way the rock of it was, steep and mostly
smooth and a little bitty bit shiny in the sun. It didn’t call to me now, maybe
it just waited. There was no sound except a little puff of wind, a-rustling the
grass and the leaves of trees here and there.

 
          
It
was still a right good walk to the foot of
Cry
Mountain
. Trees thinned out into brush and tussocky
grass, and the sun got hot and bright. By the time I stopped again, the sun
said maybe
five o’clock
and
Cry
Mountain
shut off all things in sight ahead, and
rose up above me near about straight.

 
          
But
I came no closer. I’d been on the march all day, and there wouldn’t be enough
light for me to get all the way up. I camped, under some pines and oaks.

 
          
To
do that thing, I raked up leaves and pine straw into a heap to lie down on.
Then I pulled together dry twigs of pine for kindling, and broke up fallen
branches of oak for longer burning. All that wood I stacked together to be
used. My canteen shook like as if it needed to be filled full again, so I made
a little scout at the foot of the mountain. Sure enough, I found a nice running
stream that must be what came down from above, and I drank a handful and it was
as good as a man might want. So I filled the canteen and headed back to where I’d
fixed to stay the night.

 
          
The
sun was a-dimming away beyond the height, and things got slatey gray. I busted
up a couple of handfuls of pine twigs and took just the one match to light
them. On that blaze I put chunks of hardwood, little ones first, then big, and
the fire handled them and grew bigger and brighter. It was a comfort- abler
fire than my other one had been, when I was lost on the mountain betwixt Sam
Heaver's store and Tombs McDonald's cabin. I wondered myself how Tombs was
a-doing right then, and I hoped in my soul he didn't pester himself on account
of me. By then I'd got right hungry, and I fetched out the johnny- cake and ham
and enjoyed to eat it. At last I went and fetched in big wood chunks and piled
them close to my fire, but not close enough to catch. I dragged off my boots
and stretched out on the bed I'd made of leaves and pine straw and looked up to
where the sky had gone black and little crumbs of stars were out, like pieces
of the day.

 
          
I
studied those stars. I'll nair get tired out a-studying them. The patterns they
make: the Big Bear and its baby, the Little Bear, with the North Star, Polaris,
at the tip of its tail; over across the sky from those, Cassiopeia like a big
bright W of stars; all the other patterns I'd been taught to pick out, back
when I was a boy. I thought about how long the stars had been spread out
thataway, how when men lived in caves and made their knives and hatchets out of
stone, the stars had been like that for the cave folks to wonder at. How far
off they were, I'd had that told to me too, but my poor mind couldn't figure
it. But they were there, the stars were there, and I was there too, and it
might
could
be they studied me the way I studied them.
I hoped to myself that they wished me the best of luck. So then, I slept.

 
          
Sleeping
was no chore, gentlemen. After all, I'd come maybe something like fifteen tough
miles since morning, up and down slopes and amongst trees and all like that, so
I felt like a-stretching out for sleep. I woke up once in the wee small hours,
because my fire had died down and I was chilly. I pushed on more wood, watched
it catch and blaze, and looked up at all the stars. They were still up there,
in their forever pattern. Back to sleep I went, and when I roused again it was
dawn, gray dawn with some pink in it, which should ought to mean a fine day
with no rain.

 
          
I
had more johnnycake with ham. Tombs had given me three. I wondered where I’d
eat the third, and what would be a-going on. I drank from my canteen and picked
up my stuff and slung my guitar behind me. I headed for
Cry
Mountain
, which just then took up all the space in
front of me.

 
          
I
went straight there, to where that winding line of trees came down. Water came
down with them, fell about five-six feet in a little tumble, and I had a drink
and filled up my canteen again. Then I looked at what had to be the way up.

 
          
That
was the start of things, gentlemen, and nair have I had air such a climb. In my
day, both before then and later, I’ve been on mountains, with strange things to
happen on them. Up on
Hark
Mountain
I’d scrambled alone one time, and
One
Other waited in the pool at the top. I’d gone up Yandro,
and a thousand things made me thankful I could find my way down again. And
likewise Teatray, and Wolter, and one named
Dogged,
and others without names I can call to mind. And those mountains had things on
them, things I’d just as soon not call to mind either. High mountains are a
feeling, Lord Byron said once, but he nair said what sort of feeling. I’ve had
my troubles on high mountains.

 
          
Not
that
Cry
Mountain
would be champion tall. I’d say it stuck up
about fourteen hundred feet above the ground on all sides, though that ground
would be considerably up above sea level. But the going up was what took it out
of even a good climber with lots of gristle in him. Along that stream that wandered
here and there along ledges and down in falls to other ledges below, that was
the one and only way up. As I've told you all, trees and bushes grew along it,
to grab hold of to help you. There were bunches of laurel and little strings of
pine and then oaks and gums and thorns and now and then black walnut. I grabbed
onto those to pull myself along.

 
          
It
was work to tire the best climber, and I stopped and stopped again to get my
breath back. I
heard naught
, no bird nor either the
rustle of an animal, but along the way I learnt there were things there.

 
          
At
one place the stream beside me had hollowed out a wide, deep place, and the
water in there was as clear as glass, with green weeds a-swaying in it.
Green weeds and something else.
I saw the something, and it
saw me. Half-hidden amongst the green stuff, it looked like a woman under the
water, a pretty woman naked as a jaybird, with streaming brown hair and two
eyes fixed on me.

 
          
If
that's truly what it was, she shifted down there and her naked arms reached up
toward me. That's when I moved right out and up past another cataract, to where
the stream was narrower and faster and, as I reckoned, safer to rest by. I'd
heard tell of the Dakwa, the water-spirit of the
Cherokees,
that
tempts you to within grab reach and drowns and eats you. Luns Lamar
had spoken of such a thing, and there's a bunch of notes about it in Mr.
Mooney's book of Cherokee beliefs. I didn't stay there to make sure it was a
Dakwa. There
might could
be a fatal way of a-finding
out.

 
          
Along
the flowing water, my side of
it,
was soft earth in
patches, and here and yonder amongst sprawly roots and tufty grass you might
could see a footprint, or more footprints than one. I looked at a set of those.

 
          
They
were hoofmarks, like what a right big deer would leave if it could climb that
far up on
Cry
Mountain
. Sure. Only— what deer would walk on just
only two feet?

           
Those tracks were made one by one,
the way a man walks, a-putting one foot ahead of the other.

 
          
Well,
maybe such a thing lived and walked on this earth. I recollected a book I’d
seen in the library once,
Oddities
by
Rupert T. Gould. And that Gould fellow knew what he was a-doing when he named
his book that. Right the first chapter in it told what had happened more than a
hundred years back, the westernmost part of
England
. There’d been a heavy snow to fall, and
there were hoofmarks in it—hoofmarks in place after place, on top of houses and
on walls.
Hoofmarks, of something that walked on two hoofs.
And folks in
Devonshire
were scared to go outdoors, and how should
a man feel, all alone with a set of hoofmarks like that, on a mountain with a
bad name?

 
          
I
took me a good look all round, through the trees, and I was glad not to see
aught that had such feet and walked thataway on only two of them.

 
          
Where
there came down another little fall I pulled myself up to the ledge above, that
sloped so that the stream could run along there. The trees I saw were oak and
maple and locust, a-growing on both banks, with brush under them. I could see
betwixt the trunks how far
I’d
come
up, and likewise how far up the steep rocky face was above me.
Still no sound of a bird or aught else.
But if I could hear
naught, I could feel. As I made my way on, I had me a feeling of something that
followed.

 
          
That's
no sure enough good feeling to have, all alone by
yourself
on such a climb. Because, as some of you all have heard tell, there’s a thing
in some parts of this mountain country they call the Behinder. It sneaks up
along behind a lonely traveler, and he nair sees it because it’s on his back
quick as a mink on a setting hen, and that's the last second of his life. It so
happens that once I had me a glimpse of a Behinder, up on the top of Yandro
Mountain, and I'm honest to tell you that the glimpse is enough to last me
forever, if I live to be a hundred and twelve.