Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer SSC (13 page)

 
          
"Who
made it?" I asked him.

 
          
"Reckon
I did," he said, looking long at me. He waited to let me feel that news.
Then he said, "Maybe it was the song decided Donie Carawan to deal with
the Hickory River Railroad, agreeing for an income of money not to run the High
Fork train no more."

 
          
I'd
finished my barbecue. I could have had more; but I didn't feel like it. "I
see," I told him. "She reckoned that
if
no train ran on the High Fork tracks, it couldn't be her death
and destruction."

 
          
He
and I put our paper plates on one of the fires. I didn't look at the other
folks, but it seemed to me they were quieting their laughing and talking as
the night got darker.

 
          
"Only
thing is," the mouth-harp man went on, "folks say the train runs on
that track. Or it did. A black train runs some nights at
midnight
, they say, and when it runs a sinner
dies."

 
          
"You
ever see it run?"

 
          
"No,
John, but I've sure God heard it. And only Donie Carawan laughs about it."

 
          
She
laughed right then, joking the two men who'd feathered up to fight. Ary man's
neck craned at her, and women looked the way you'd figure they didn't relish
that. My neck craned some, itself.

 
          
"Twenty
years back, the height of her bloom," said the mouth-harp man, "law
me, you'd never call to look at anything else."

 
          
"What
does she mean, no more curse?"

 
          
"She
made another deal, John. She sold off the rails of the
High Fork Road
, that's stood idle for twenty years. Today
the last of them was torn up and carried off. Meanwhile, she's had this house
built, across where the right of way used to be. Looky yonder, through the
dog-trot. That's where the road ran."

 
          
So
it was the old road bed made that dark dip amongst the trees. Just now it
didn't look so wide a dip.

 
          
"No
rails," he said. "She figures no black train at
midnight
. Folks came at her invite—-some because
they rent her land, some because they owe her money, and some—men folks—because
they'll do ary thing she bids them."

 
          
"And
she never married?" I asked.

 
          
"If
she done that, she'd lose the money and land she heired from Trevis Jones. It
was in his will. She just takes men without marrying, one and then another.
I've known men kill theirselves because she'd put her heart back in her pocket
on them. Lately, it's been big Jeth. She acts tonight like pick-herself a new
beau lover."

 
          
She
walked back through the lamplight and firelight. "John," she said,
"these folks want to dance again."

 
          
What
I played them was "Many Thousands Gone," with the mouth-harp to help,
and they danced and stomped the way you'd think it was a many thousands
dancing. In its thick, Donie Carawan promenaded left and right and do-si-doed
with a fair-haired young fellow, and Jeth the dance-caller looked pickle-sour.
When I'd done, Donie Carawan came swishing back. "Let the mouth-harp
play," she said, "and dance with me." "Can't dance no
shakes," I told her. "Just now, I'd relish to practice the black
train song."

 
          
Her
blue eyes crinkled. "All right. Play, and I'll sing." She did. The
mouth-harp man blew whistle-moanings to my guitar, and folks listened,
goggling like frogs.

 
          
A bold young man kept mocking, Cared not for
the warning word, When the wild and lonely whistle Of the little black train he
heard. "Have mercy, Lord, forgive me! I'm cut down in my sin/ O death,
will you not spare me?" But the little black train rolled in.

 
          
When
she'd sung that much, Donie Carawan laughed like before, deep and bantering.
Jeth the dance-caller made a funny sound in his bull throat.

 
          
"What
I don't figure," he said, "was how you all made the train sound like
coming in, closer and closer."

 
          
"Just
by changing the music," I said. "Changing the pitch."

 
          
"Fact,"
said the mouth-harp man. "I played the change with him."

 
          
A
woman laughed, nervous. "Now I think, that's true. A train whistle sounds
higher and higher while it comes up to you. Then it passes and goes off,
sounding lower and lower."

           
"But I didn't hear the train go
away in the song," allowed a man beside her. "It just kept
coming." He shrugged, maybe he shivered.

 
          
"Donie,"
said the woman, "reckon I'll go along."

 
          
"Stay
on, Lettie," began Donie Carawan, telling her instead of asking.

 
          
"Got
a right much walking to do, and no moon," said the woman. "Reuben,
you come, too."

 
          
She
left. The man looked back just once at Donie Carawan, and followed. Another
couple, and then another, went with them from the firelight. Maybe more would
have gone, but Donie Carawan snorted, like a horse, to stop them.

 
          
"Let's
drink," she said. "Plenty for all, now those folks I reckoned to be
my friends are gone."

 
          
Maybe
two-three others faded away, between there and the barrel. Donie Carawan dipped
herself a drink, watching me over the gourd's edge. Then she dipped more and
held it out.

 
          
"You
drink after a lady," she whispered, "and get a kiss."

 
          
I
drank. It was good stump-hole whisky. "Tasty," I said.

 
          
"The
kiss?" she laughed. But the dance-caller didn't laugh, or either the
mouth-harp man, or either me.

 
          
"Let's
dance," said Donie Carawan, and I picked "
Sourwood
Mountain
" and the mouth-harp moaned.

 
          
The
dancers had got to be few, just in a short while. But the trees they danced
through looked bigger, and more of them. It minded me of how I'd heard, when I
was a chap, about day-trees and night-trees, they weren't the same things at
all; and the night-trees can crowd all round a house they don't like, pound the
shingles off the roof, bust in the window glass and the door panels; and that's
the sort of night you'd better never set your foot outside. . . .

 
          
Not
so much clapping at the end of "
Sourwood
Mountain
." Not such a holler of
"More!" Folks went to take another drink at the barrel, but the
mouth-harp man held me back.

 
          
"Tell
me," he said, "about that business. The noise sounding higher when
the train conies close,"

 
          
"It
was explained out to me by a man I know, place in
Tennessee
called
Oak Ridge
," I said. "It's about what they
call sound waves, and some way it works with light, too. Don't rightly catch on
how, but they can measure how far it is to the stars thataway."

 
          
He
thought, frowning. "Something like what's called radar?"

           
I shook my head. "No, no
machinery to it. Just what they name a principle. Fellow named
Doppler—Christian Doppler, a foreigner— got it up."

 
          
"His
name was Christian," the mouth-harp man repeated me. "Then I reckon
it's no witch stuff."

 
          
"Why
you worrying it?" I asked him.

 
          
"I
watched through the dog-trot while we were playing the black train song,
changing pitch, making it sound like coming near," he said. "Looky
yonder, see for yourself."

 
          
I
looked. There was a streaky shine down the valley. Two streaky shines, though
nary moon. I saw what he meant—it looked like those pulled-up rails were still
there, where they hadn't been before.

 
          
"That
second verse Miss Donie sang," I said. "Was it about—"

 
          
"Yes,"
he said before I'd finished. "That was the verse about Cobb Richardson.
How he prayed for God's forgiveness, night before he died."

 
          
Donie
Carawan came and poked her hand under my arm. I could tell that good strong
liquor was feeling its way around her insides. She laughed at almost nothing
whatever. "You're not leaving, anyway," she smiled at me.

 
          
"Don't
have any place special to go," I said.

 
          
She
upped on her pointed toes. "Stay here tonight," she said in my ear.
"The rest of them will be gone by
midnight
."

 
          
"You
invite men like that?" I said, looking into her blue eyes. "When you
don't know them?"

 
          
"I
know men well enough," she said. "Knowing men keeps a woman
young." Her finger touched my guitar where it hung behind my shoulder, and
the strings whispered a reply. "Sing me something, John."

 
          
"I
still want to learn the black train song."

 
          
"I've
sung you both verses," she said.

 
          
"Then,"
I told her, "I'll sing a verse I've just made up inside my head." I
looked at the mouth-harp man. "Help me with this."

 
          
Together
we played, raising pitch gradually, and I sang the new verse I'd made, with my
eyes on Donie Carawan.

 
          
Go tell that laughing lady

           
All filled with worldly pride,

           
The little black train is coming,

           
Get
ready to take a ride.

 
          
With a little black coach and engine

 
          
And a little black baggage car,

 
          
The words and deeds she has said and done

 
          
Must roll to the judgment bar.

 
          
When
I was through, I looked up at those who'd stayed. They weren't more than half a
dozen now, bunched up together like cows in a storm; all but Big Jeth, standing
to one side with eyes stabbing at me, and Donie Carawan, leaning tired-like
against a tree with hanging branches.

 
          
"Jeth,"
she said, "stomp his guitar to pieces."

 
          
I
switched the carrying cord
off
my
neck and held the guitar at my side. "Don't try such a thing, Jeth,"
I warned him.

 
          
His
big square teeth grinned, with dark spaces between them. He looked twice as
wide as me.

 
          
"I'll
stomp you and your guitar both," he said.

 
          
I
put the guitar on the ground, glad I'd had but the one drink. Jeth ran and
stooped for it, and I put my fist hard under his ear. He hopped two steps away
to keep his feet.

 
          
Shouldn't
anybody name me what he did then, and I hit him twice more, harder yet. His
nose flatted out under my knuckles and when he pulled back away, blood
trickled.