Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer SSC (16 page)

 
          
Clay
breathed on it, and passed it to Mr. Hoje. Then it came to me, and to Mr. Eddy,
and back to Reed Barnitt. He stooped again, and held it above that sick-white
heat. Back he jumped, quick, and yelled out loud, "Earth on the fire!
Smother it before we lose the true word!"

 
          
Clay
and his father flung on dirt. Mr. Hoje and Reed Barnitt walked side by side to
the porch, whispering together. Then Mr. Hoje called in to Sarah Ann,
"Fetch out the lamp, honey."

 
          
She
did so. We gathered round to look at the paper. Writing was on it,
spidery-looking and rough, the way you'd think it was written in mud instead of
ink. Reed Barnitt gave it to Sarah Ann.

 
          
"Your
heart is good," he said. "Read out what it says for us."

 
          
She
held the lamp in one hand, the paper in the other.

 
          
"Do
right, and prosper," she read, soft and shaky, "and what you seek is
yours. Great treasure. Obey orders. To open the way, burn the light—"

 
          
"We
put out the light," said Clay, but Reed Barnitt waved him quiet.

 
          
"Turn
the paper over, Miss Sarah Ann," said Reed Barnitt. "Looks like more
to read on the other side."

 
          
She
looked at more muddy-looking scrawl on the back. She went on:

 
          
"Aram
Harnam has the light. Buy it from him, but don't tell him why. He is wicked.
Pay what he asks. The power is dear and scarce."

 
          
She
looked up. "That's all it says," she told us, and gave the paper back
to Reed Barnitt.

 
          
We
all sat down, the lamp on the porch floor among us. "Anybody know that
man, what's-his-name?" asked Reed Barnitt.

 
          
"Yes,"
answered Mr. Hoje. "We know Aram Harnam."

 
          
At
least, I'd heard what others along Rebel Creek said about Aram Harnam, and it
wasn't good.

 
          
Seems
he'd gone to a college to be a preacher. But that college sent him to be tried,
with a sermon to some folks in another county.

           
His teachers went to hear. When he
had done, as I heard it told, those teachers told Aram Harnam that from what
he'd said under name of a sermon they wanted him to pack his things and leave
the college before even another sun rose.

 
          
So
he came back to Rebel Creek. One night he went up on a bald hill most folks
stayed away from, and put his hand on his head and said that all beneath his
hand could be Satan's property. After that, he did witch-doctoring. Nobody
liked him but ary man, woman and child in the Rebel Creek county feared him.

 
          
"I
take it that Aram Harnam's a bad man," Reed Barnitt suggested.

 
          
"You
take it right, sir," allowed Mr. Eddy. "So does whoever wrote on that
paper."

 
          
"Wrote
on the paper?" Reed Barnitt said after him, and held it out to the light.
It was white and empty; so was the other side when he turned that up.

 
          
"The
writing's been taken back," he said, nodding his pale face above it.
"But we all remember what it said. We must buy the light, and not let Aram
Harnam know why we want it."

 
          
"When
do we go see him?" asked Mr. Hoje.

 
          
"Why
not now?" said Reed Barnitt, but Mr. Hoje and Mr. Eddy spoke against that.
Neither of them wanted to be trucking round Aram Harnam's place in the dark of
night. We made it up to meet tomorrow morning for breakfast at Mr. Eddy's, then
go.

 
          
Mr.
Eddy and Clay left. Mr. Hoje and Sarah Ann made up pallets for Reed Barnitt and
me just inside the front door. Reed Barnitt slept right off quick, but I lay
awake a good spell. There was a sight of hoot owls hooting in the trees round
the cabin, and a sight of thoughts in my head.

 
          
Way
I've told it so far, you might wonder why we came in so quick on Reed Barnitt's
spell and scheme. Lying there, I was wondering the same thing. It came to mind
that Clay had first said he'd join. That was for Sarah Ann, and Clay without
land or money, wanting to marry her and have enough to make her happy. After
Clay spoke, Mr. Eddy and Mr. Hoje felt bound to do the same, for with them the
kingdom and the power and the glory tied up to their young ones, and they
wanted to see them wed and happy. Mr. Hoje special. He worked hard on a little
place, with corn patches on terraces up slope you had to hang on with one hand
while you chopped weeds with the other, and just one cow and two hogs in his
pens.

 
          
I
reckoned it was hope, more than belief, that caused them to say yes to Reed
Barnitt. And me—well, I'd gone a many miles and seen a right much more things
than any of my friends, and some of the things not what you'd call everyday
things. I reckon I was hoping, too, for a good piece of luck for Clay and Sarah
Ann. Never having had anything myself, or expecting to, I could anyhow see how
he and she wanted something. So why not help out? Maybe, one or two things I'd
watched happen, I could know to help out more than either of their fathers.

 
          
Figuring
like that, I slept at last, and at the dawn gray we up to meet at Mr. Eddy's.

 
          
My
first look at Aram Harnam, sitting in front of his low-built little shanty, I
reckoned I'd never seen a hairier man, and mighty few hairier creatures. He had
a juniper-bark basket betwixt his patched knees, and he was picking over a mess
of narrow-leafed plants in it. His hands crawled in the basket like
black-furred spiders. Out between his shaggy hair and his shaggy beard looked
only his bright eyes and his thin brown nose, and if he smiled or frowned at
us, none could say. He spoke up with a boom, and I recollected how once he'd
studied to preach.

 
          
"Hoje
Cowand," he said, "y°
^u
'
^re
welcome, and your
friends, too. I knew you all was coming."

 
          
"Who
done told you that?" asked Mr. Hoje.

 
          
"Little
bird done told me," said Aram Harnam. "Little black bird with green
eyes, that tells me a many things."

 
          
It
minded me of the Ugly Bird, that once I killed and freed a whole district of
folks from the scare of it.

 
          
"Maybe
your little bird told you what we want," said Mr. Eddy, standing close to
Clay, but Aram Harnam shook his head.

 
          
"No
sir, didn't say that." He set down the basket. "I'm a-waiting to
hear."

 
          
Mr.
Hoje introduced Reed Barnitt and me, and neither of us nor yet Aram Harnam made
offer to shake hands.

 
          
"It's
a light we want of you, Aram Harnam," said Mr. Hoje then. "A special
kind of light."

 
          
"Oh."
Aram Harnam leaned back against the logs of his shanty.

           
"The light that shows you what
you'd miss else? I can fix you such a light."

 
          
"How
much?" asked Clay.

 
          
Aram
Harnam's furry hand fiddled in his beard. "It's a scarce thing, that
light. Cost you five hundred dollars."

 
          
"Five
hundred dollars!" whooped out Mr. Eddy.

 
          
The
eyes among all Aram Harnam's hair came to me. "Hear that echo, son?"
he asked me. "Right clear today—these hills and mountains sure enough
give you back echoes." Then, to Mr. Eddy. "Yes, sir. Five hundred
dollars."

 
          
Mr.
Hoje gulped. "We ain't got that kind of money."

 
          
"Got
to have that kind of money for that land of light," said Aram Harnam.

 
          
"Step
aside with me, gentlemen," said Reed Barnitt, and Aram Harnam sat and
watched us pull back a dozen or twenty steps to talk with our heads together.

 
          
"He
knows something," Reed Barnitt whispered, "but not everything, or I
judge he'd put his price higher still. Anyway, our spell last night told us
there's treasure, and we need the light to find it."

 
          
"I
ain't got but forty dollars," said Mr. Eddy. "Anybody else got enough
to put with my forty dollars to make five hundred?"

 
          
"Twenty's
all I have," Reed Barnitt told us, and breathed long and worried.
"That's sixty so far. John?"

 
          
"Maybe
the change in my pockets would add up to a dollar," I said. "I'm not
right sure."

 
          
Aram
Harnam laughed, or coughed, one. "You all make a big thing out of five
hundred dollars," he called to us.

 
          
Mr.
Hoje faced around and walked back toward him. "We don't have it."

 
          
"Cash,"
said Aram Harnam after him. "I might credit you, Hoje Cowand."

 
          
"Five
hundred dollars' worth?" asked Mr. Hoje. "What on?"

 
          
"We-ell
. . ." The word came slow out of the hair and whiskers. "You've got a
piece of land, and a house, and a cow and a pig or two . . ."

 
          
"I
can't give you those," Mr. Hoje put in.

 
          
"You
could put them up. And Mr. Eddy could put up his place, too."

           
"The two places are worth
plenty more than five hundred dollars," Mr. Eddy started to argue.

 
          
"Not
on the tax bills, the way I hear from my little green-eyed black bird."

 
          
Reed
Barnitt beckoned us round him again. "Isn't there any way to raise the
money?" he whispered. "We're just before finding a fortune."

 
          
Mr.
Hoje and Mr. Eddy shook their heads.

 
          
"Gentlemen,
we've as good as got that Ancients' treasure," Reed Barnitt said, and
rummaged money from his pocket—a wadded ten, a five and some ones. "I'll
risk my last cent, and take it back from off the top of whatever find. You
others can do the same."

 
          
"Wait,"
said Mr. Hoje.

 
          
He
put his arm around Mr. Eddy's neck, and the two of them mumbled together a
while, and we others watched. Then they turned, both of them, and went back to
Aram Harnam.

 
          
"We'd
want a guarantee," said Mr. Hoje.

 
          
"Guarantee?"
repeated Aram Harnam. "Oh, I'll guarantee the light. Put it in writing
that it'll show you what you seek."

 
          
"Draw
us up some loan papers," said Mr. Eddy. "Two hundred and fifty
dollars credit to each of us, against our places, and a guarantee the light
will work, and sixty days of time."

 
          
Mr.
Eddy spoke sharp and deeply. Aram Harnam looked at him, then went into the
shanty. He brought out a tablet of paper and an ink bottle and an old stump of
a pen. He wrote two pages, and when Mr. Hoje and Mr. Eddy read them over they
signed their names.

 
          
Then
Aram Harnam bade us wait. He carried the papers back inside. What he did in
there took time, and I watched part of it through the open door. He mixed stuff
in a pot—I thought I smelled burning sulphur, and once something sweet and
spicy, like what incense must smell like. There was other stuff. He heated it
so it smoked, then worked it with those furry hands. After while he fetched out
what he'd made. It was a big rough candle, as big around as your wrist and as
long as your arm to the elbow. Its wick looked like gray yarn, and the candle
wax was dirty black.