Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer SSC (21 page)

 
          
"Does
it hurt?" she asked. "You got some grease I could put on it?"

 
          
He
lifted his head, heavy, but didn't look at her. He looked at me. "I lied
to you all," he said.

 
          
"Lied
to us?" I asked him.

 
          
"I
did call for the rain. Called for the biggest rain I ever thought of. Didn't
pure down want to kill off the folks in the Notch, but to my reckoning, if I
made it rain, and saved Page up here—"

 
          
At
last he looked at her, with a shamed face.

 
          
"The
others would be gone and forgotten. There'd be Page and me." His dark eyes
grabbed her green ones. "But I didn't rightly know how she disgusts the
sight of me." His head dropped again. "I feel the nearest to nothing
I ever did."

 
          
"You
opened the drain-off and saved the Notch from your rain," put in Page, her
voice so gentle you'd never think it. "Called down the lightning to help
you."

 
          
"Called
down the lightning to kill me," said Rafe. "I never reckoned it
wouldn't. I wanted to die. I want to die now."

           
"Live," she bade him.

 
          
He
got up at that, standing tall over her.

 
          
"Don't
worry when folks look on you," she said, her voice still ever so gentle.
"They're just wondered at you, Rafe. Folks were wondered that same way at
Saint Christopher, the giant who carried Lord Jesus across the river."

 
          
"I
was too proud," he mumbled in his big bull throat. "Proud of my
Genesis giant blood, of being one of the sons of God—"

 
          
"Shoo,
Rafe," and her voice was gentler still, "the least man in size you'd
call for, when he speaks to God, he says, 'Our Father.'"

 
          
Rafe
turned from her.

 
          
"You
said I could look on you if I wanted," said Page Jarrett. "And I
want."

 
          
Back
he turned, and bent down, and she rose on her toetips so their faces came
together.

 
          
The
rain stopped, the way you'd think that stopped it. But they never seemed to
know it, and I picked up my guitar and went out toward the lip of the cliff.

 
          
The
falls were going strong, but the dram-off handled enough water so there'd be no
washout to drown the folks below. I reckoned the rocks would be the outdoingist
slippery rocks ever climbed down by mortal man, and it would take me a long
time. Long enough, maybe so, for me to think out the right way to tell Mr. Lane
Jarrett he was just before having himself a son-in-law of the Genesis giant
blood, and pretty soon after while, grandchildren of the same strain.

 
          
The
sun came stabbing through the clouds and flung them away in chunks to right and
left, across the bright blue sky.

"John, the
children have opened their presents, and I want them to have some hot rations inside
them before they start in on that store-bought candy you fetched them. So why
don't you tell us a Christmas story while Mother's putting dinner on the
table?"

"Be
proud to do so. And this won't be any far-away tale—it happened to
neighbor-folks you know."   

You all and I and
everybody worried our minds about Mr. Absalom Cowand and his fall-out with Mr.
Troy Holcomb who neighbors with him in the hills above Rebel Creek. Too bad
when old friends aren't friends my more. Especially the kind of friend Mr.
Absalom can be.

You've been up to
his place, I reckon. Only a man with thought in his head and bone in his back
would build and work where Mr. Absalom Cowand does in those high hills up the
winding road beyond those lazy
creek-bottom patches. He's
terraced his fields up and up behind his house on the slope, growing some of
the best-looking corn in this day and time. And nice cow-brutes in his barns,
and good hogs and chickens in his pens, and money in the bank down yonder at
the county seat. Mr. Absalom will feed ary hungry neighbor, or tend ary sick
one, saving he's had a quarrel with them, like the quarrel with Mr. Troy
Holcomb.

"What for did they quarrel, John?"
  

"Over something Mr.
Troy
said wasn't so, and Mr. Absalom said was.
I'll come to that."  

That farm is Mr.
Absalom's pride and delight. Mr. Troy's place next door isn't so good, though
good enough. Mr. Absalom looked over to Mr. Troy's, the day I mention, and
grinned in his big thicketty beard, like a king's beard in a history-book
picture. If it sorrowed him to be out with Mr. Troy, he didn't show it. All
that sorrowed him, maybe, was his boy, Little Anse—crippled ever since he'd
fallen off the jolt-wagon and it ran over his legs so he couldn't walk,
couldn't crawl hardly without the crutches his daddy had made for him.

It was around
noon when Mr. Absalom grinned his tiger grin from his front yard over toward
Mr. Troy's, then looked up to study if maybe a few clouds didn't mean weather
coming. He needed rain from heaven. It wondered him if a certain somebody
wasn't witchin it off from his place. Witch-men are the meanest folks God ever
forgot. looking up thataway, Mr. Absalom wasn't aware of a man coming till he
saw him close in sight above the road's curve, a stranger-fellow with a tool
chest on his shoulder. The stranger stopped at Mr. Abasalom's mail box and gave
him a good day.

"And good
day to you," Mr. Absalom said, stroking his beard where it bannered onto
his chest. "What can I do for you?"

"It's what
can I do for you," the stranger replied him back. "I had in mind that
maybe there's some work here for me."

"Well,"
said Mr. Absalom, relishing the way the stranger looked.

He was near about
as tall as Mr. Absalom's own self, but no way as thick built, nor as old. Maybe
in his thirties, and neat dressed in work clothes, with brown hair combed back.
He had a knowledge look in his face but nothing secret. The shoulder that
carried the tool chest was a square, strong shoulder.

"You ain't
some jack-leg carpenter?" said Mr. Absalom.

"No. I
learned my trade young, and I learned it right."

"That's bold
spoken, friend."

"I just say
that I'm skilled."

Those words
sounded right and true.

"I like to
get out in the country to work," the carpenter-man said on. "No job
too big or too small for me to try."

"Well,"
said Mr. Absalom again, "so happens I've got a strange-like job needs
doing."

"And no job
too strange," the carpenter added.

Mr. Absalom led
him around back, past the chicken run and the hog lot. A path ran there, worn
years deep by folks' feet. But, some way past the house, the path was chopped
off short.

Between Mr.
Absalom's side yard and the next place was a ditch, not wide but deep and
strong, with water tumbling down from the heights behind. Nobody could Call for
any plainer mark betwixt two men's places.

"See that
house yonder?" Mr. Absalom pointed with his bearded chin.

"The
square-log place with the shake roof? Yes, I see it."

"That's Troy
Holcomb's place."

"Yes."

"My
land," and Mr. Absalom waved a thick arm to show, "terraces back off
thataway, and his land terraces off the other direction. We helped each other
do the terracing. We were friends."

"The path
shows you were friends," said the carpenter. "The ditch shows you
aren't friends any more."

"You just
bet your neck we ain't friends any more," said Mr. Absalom, and his beard
crawled on his jaw as he set his mouth.

"What's
wrong with Troy Holcomb?" asked the carpenter.

"Oh,
nothing. Nothing that a silver bullet might not fix." Mr. Absalom pointed
downhill. "Look at the field below the road."

The carpenter
looked. "Seems like a good piece of land. Ought to be a crop growing
there."

Now Mr. Absalom's
teeth twinkled through his beard, like stars through storm clouds. "A
court of law gave me that field. Troy Holcomb and I both laid claim to it, but
the court said I was in the right. The corn I planted was blighted to
death."

"Been quite
a much of blight this season," said the carpenter.

"Yes, down
valley, but not up here." Mr. Absalom glittered his eyes toward the house
across the ditch. "A curse was put on my field. And who'd have reason to
put a curse on, from some hateful old witch-book or other, but Troy Holcomb? I
told him to his face. He denied the truth of that."

"Of course
he'd deny it," said the carpenter.

"Shoo, John, is Mr. Troy Holcomb a
witch-man? I never heard that."   

"I'm just telling what Mr. Absolum
said. Well."  

"If he was a
foot higher, I'd have hit him on top of his head," grumbled Mr. Absalom.
"We haven't spoken since. And you know what he's done?"

"He dug this
ditch." The carpenter looked into the running water. "To show he
doesn't want the path to join your place to his any more."

"You hit it
right," snorted Mr. Absalom, like a mean horse. "Did he reckon I'd go
there to beg his pardon or something? Do I look like that kind of a
puppy-man?"

"Are you
glad not to be friends with him?" the carpenter inquired his own question,
looking at the squared-log house.

"Ain't
studying about that," said Mr. Absalom. "I'm studying to match this
dig-ditch job he did against me. Look yonder at that lumber."

The carpenter
looked at a stack of posts, a pile of boards.

"He cut me
off with a ditch. If you want work, build me a fence along this side of his
ditch, from the road down there up to where my back-yard line runs." Mr.
Absalom pointed up slope. "How long will that take you?"

The carpenter set
down his tool chest and figured in his head. Then: "I could do you
something to pleasure you by supper time."

"Quick as
that?" Mr. Absalom looked at him sharp, for he'd reckoned the fence job
might take two-three days. "You got it thought out to be a little old
small piece of work, huh?"

"Nothing too
big or too small for me to try," said the carpenter again. "You can
say whether it suits you."

"Do what I
want, and I'll pay you worth your while," Mr. Absalom granted him.
"I'm heading up to my far corn patch. Before sundown I'll come look."
He started away. "But it's got to suit me."

"It
will," the carpenter made promise, and opened his chest.

Like any lone
working man, he started out to whistle.

His whistling
carried all the way to Mr. Absalom's house. And inside, on the front room
couch, lay Little Anse.

You all know how
Little Anse couldn't hardly stand on his poor swunk up legs, even with
crutches. It was pitiful to see him scuff a crutch out, then the other, then
lean on them and swing his little feet between. He'd scuff and swing again,
inching along. But Little Anse didn't pity himself. He was cheerful-minded,
laughing at what trifles he could find. Mr. Absalom had had him to one doctor
after another, and none could bid him hope. Said Little Anse was crippled for
life.

When Little Anse
heard the whistling, he upped his ears to hear more. He worked his legs off the
couch, and sat up and hoisted himself on his crutches. He clutched and scuffed
to the door, and out in the yard, and along the path, following that tune.

It took him a
time to get to where the carpenter was working. But when he got there he
smiled, and the carpenter smiled back.

"Can I
watch?" Little Anse asked.

"You're
welcome to watch. I'm doing something here to help your daddy."

"How tall
are you?" Little Anse inquired him next.

"Just
exactly six feet," the carpenter replied.

"Now wait, John, that's just foolish
for the lack of sense. Ain't no mortal man on this earth exactly six feet tall."
  

"I'm saying what the stranger
said."   

"But the only one who was exactly six
feet—"   

"Hold your tater while I tell about
it."  

"I relish
that song you were whistling, Mr. Carpenter," said Little Anse. "I
know the words, some of them." And he sang a verse of it:

I was
a powerful sinner,
I sinned both night and day,
 
Until I heard the preacher,
 
And he taught me how to pray:
 

Little Anse went
on with part of the chorus:

Go
tell it on the mountain,
 
Tell it on the hills and
everywhere—
 

"Can I help
you?"

"You could
hand me my tools."

"I'll be
proud to."

By then they felt
as good friends as if they'd been knowing each other long years. Little Anse
sat by the tool chest and searched out the tools as the carpenter wanted them.
There was a tale to go with each one.

Like this:
"Let me have the saw."

As he used it,
the carpenter would explain how, before ary man knew a saw's use there was a
saw-shape in the shark's mouth down in the ocean sea, with teeth lined up like
a saw's teeth; which may help show why some folks claim animals were wise
before folks were.

"Now give me
the hammer, Little Anse."

While he pounded,
the carpenter told of a nation of folks in
Europe
, that
used to believe in somebody named Thor, who could throw his hammer across mountains
and knock out thunder and lightning.

And he talked
about what folks believe about wood. How some of them knock on wood, to keep
off bad luck. How the ancient folks, lifetimes back, thought spirits lived in
trees, good spirits in one tree and bad spirits in another. And a staff of
white thorn is supposed to scare out evil.

"Are those
things true, Mr. Carpenter?"

"Well, folks
took them for truth once. There must be some truth in every belief, to get it
started."

"An
outlander stopped here once, with a prayer book. He read to me from it, about
how Satan overcame because of the wood. What did he mean, Mr. Carpenter?"

"He must
have meant the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden," said the
carpenter. "You know how Adam and Eve ate of the tree when Satan tempted
them?"

"Reckon I
do," Little Anse replied him, for, with not much else to do, he'd read the
Book a many times.

"There's
more to that outlander's prayer," the carpenter added on. "If Satan
overcame by the wood, he can also be overcome by the wood."

"That must
mean another kind of tree, Mr. Carpenter."

"Yes, of
course. Another kind."

Little Anse was
as happy as a dog at a fish fry. It was like school, only in school you get
wishing the bell would ring and turn you loose. Little Anse didn't want to be anywhere
but just there, handing the tools and hearing the talk.

"How come
you know so much?" he asked the carpenter.

"I travel
lots in my work, Little Anse. That's a nice thing about it."

Little Anse
looked over to Mr. Troy Holcomb's. "You know," he said, "I don't
agree in my mind that Mr. Troy's a witch." He looked again. "If he
had power, he'd have long ago cured my legs. He's a nice old man, for all he
and my daddy fussed between themselves."

"You ever
tell your daddy that?"

"He won't
listen. You near-about through?"

"All
through, Little Anse."

It was getting on
for supper time. The carpenter packed up his tools and started with Little Anse
toward the house. Moving slow, the way you do with a cripple along, they hadn't
gone more than a few yards when they met Mr. Absalom.

"Finished
up, are you?" asked Mr. Absalom, and looked. "Well, bless us and keep
us all" he yelled.

"Don't you
call that a good bridge, daddy?" Little Anse asked.

For the carpenter
had driven some posts straight up in the ditch, and spiked on others like cross
timbers. On those he'd laid a bridge floor from side to side. It wasn't fancy,
but it looked solid to last till the Day of Judgment, mending the cutoff of the
path.

"I told you
I wanted—" Mr. Absalom began to say.

He stopped. For
Mr.
Troy
Holcomb came across the bridge.

Mr. Troy's a
low-built little man, with a white hangdown moustache and a face as brown as
old harness leather. He came over and stopped and put out his skinny hand, and
it shook like in a wind.