Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer SSC (31 page)

"Then I'll
see ye when the sun comes up."

He shuffled off
to his shack. Ung stayed there and looked at me. I didn't mind that, I was
a-getting used to him.

Well, gentlemen,
I stirred up the fire and put on some chunks of pine so it would burn up strong
and bright. I opened the Bible and looked through to the Book of Isaiah,
thirty-fourth chapter. I found what I'd recollected to be there:

It shall not be
quenched night nor day: the smoke thereof shall go up for ever, from generation
to generation it shall lie waste . . . 
 

On past that
verse, there's talk about dragons and satyrs and such like things they don't want
you to believe in these days. In the midst of my reading, I heard something
from that open door, a long, grumbling sigh of sound, and I looked over to see
what.

The two red
lights moved closer together, and this time they seemed to be set in a lump of
something, like eyes in a head.

I got up quick,
the Bible in my hand. Those eyes looked out at me, and the red of them burned
up bright, then went dim, then bright again. Ung, at my foot, made a burbling
noise, like as if it pestered him.

I put down the Bible
and picked up a burning chunk from the fire. I made myself walk to the door. My
chunk gave me some light to see inside. Sure enough it was a cave in there;
what looked like a house outside was just a front, built on by whatever had
built it for whatever reason. The cave was hollowed back into the mountain and
it had a smooth-looking floor, almost polished, of black rock. Inside, the
space slanted inward both ways, to narrowness farther in. It was more like a
throat than anything I could say for it. A great big throat, big enough to
swallow a man, or more than one man.

Far back hung
whatever it was had those eyes. I saw the eyes shine, not just from my
flashlight. They had light of their own.

"All
right," I said out loud to the eyes. "Here I am. I look for the
truth. What's the truth about you?"

No answer but a
grumble. The thing moved, deep in there. I saw it had, not just that black head
with red eyes, it had shoulders and things like arms. It didn't come close, but
it didn't pull back. It waited for me.

"What's the
truth about you?" I inquired it again. "Might could your name be
Molech?"

It made nair
sound, but it lifted those long arms. I saw hands like pitchforks. It was
bigger than I was, maybe half again bigger. Was it stronger?

A man's got to be
a man sometime, I told myself inside me. I'd come there to find out what was
what. There was some strange old truth in there, not a pretty truth maybe, but
I'd come to see what it was.

I walked to where
the door was fallen off the leather hinges. The red eyes came up bright and
died down dull and watched me a-coming. They waited for me, they hoped I'd get
close.

I put my foot on
where the door-log had been once. It was long ago rotted to punk, it crumbled
under my boot. I took hold of the jamb and leaned in.

"You been
having a time for yourself?" I asked the eyes.

There was light
from the chunk I carried, but other light, a ghost of a show of it, was inside.
It came from on back in there. It was a kind of smoky reddish light, I thought,
you might have called it rosy. It made a glitter on something two-three steps
inside.

I spared a look
down there to the floor. Gentlemen, it was a jewel, a bunch of jewels,
a-shining white and red and green. And big. They were like a bunch of glass
bottles for size. Only they weren't bottles. They shone too bright, too clear,
strewed out there by my foot.

There for the
picking up—but if I bent over, there was that one with the red eyes and the
black shape, and he could pick me up.

"No," I
said to him, "you don't get hold of me thattaway," and I whirled my
chunk of fire, to get more light.

There he was,
dark and a-standing two-legged like a man, but he was taller than I was, by the
height of that round head with the red eyes. And no hair to his black hide, it
was as slick as a snake. Long arms and pitchfork hands sort of pawed out toward
me, the way a praying mantis does. The head cocked itself. I saw it had
something in it besides eyes, it had a mouth, open and as wide as a gravy boat,
wet and black, like a mess of hot tar.

"You must
have tricked a many a man in here with those jewels," I said.

He heard me, he
knew what I said, knew that I wouldn't stoop down. He moved in on me.

Those legs
straddled. Their knees bent backward, like a frog's, the feet slapped flat and
wide on the floor of the cave, amongst more jewels everywhere. Enough in there
to pay a country's national debt. He reached for me again. His fingers were
lumpy-jointed and they had sharp claws, like on the feet of a great big hawk. I
moved backward, I reckoned I'd better. And he followed right along. He wanted
to get those claws into me.

I backed to the
old door-log and near about tripped on it. I dropped the burning chunk and
grabbed hold of the fallen-down door with both hands, to stay on my feet. I got
hold of its two edges and hiked it between me and that snake-skinned thing that
lived inside. I looked past one edge of the door, and all of a sudden I saw him
stop.

There was the
rosy light in yonder, and outside my chunk blazed where it had fallen. I could
see that door rightly for the first time.

It was one of
those you used to see in lots of places, made with a thick center piece running
from top to bottom betwixt the panels, and two more thick pieces set midpoint
of the long one to go right and left to make a cross. In amongst these were set
the four old, half-rotted panels. But the cross stood there. And often, I'd
heard tell, such doors were made thattaway to keep evil from a-coming through.

So, in the second
I did my figuring, I saw why the front had been built on the cave, why that
door had been hung there. It was to hold in whatever was inside. And it had
worked right well till the door dropped down.

It was a heavy
old door, but I muscled it up. I shoved on back into the cave, with the door in
front of me like a shield.

Nothing shoved
back. I took one step after another amongst those shining jewels, careful to
keep from a-tripping on them. I cocked my head leftways to look past the door.
That big black somebody moved away from me. I saw the flicker of the rose light
from where it came into the cave.

The cross, was it
a help? I'd been told that there were crosses long before the one on Calvary,
made for power's sake in old, old lands beyond the sea. Yes, and in this land
too, by Indian tribes one place and another. My foot near about skidded on a
rolling jewel, but I stayed up.

"In this
sign we conquer," I said, after some king in the olden days, and I
believed it. And I went on forward with the door for my sign.

For as long as a
breath I shoved up against him. I felt him lean against the other side, like
high wind a-blowing. I fought to keep the door on him to push him back, and
took a long step and dug in with my foot.

And almighty near
fell down a hole all full of the rosy light.

He'd tricked me
there where his light came up from. I hung on its edge, a-looking down a hole
three-four feet across, deeper than I could ask myself to judge, and away down
there was fire, a-dancing and a-streaming—a world, it looked to me, of fire.

On the other side
of the door he made a noise. It was a whiny buzz, what you'd expect from a bee
as big as a dog. His long old arm snaked round the edge of the door, a-raking
with its claws. They snagged into my shirt—I heard it rip. I managed to
sidestep clear of that hole, and he buzzed and came again. I shoved hard with
the door, put all I could put into it. Heat come in all round me, it was like
when you sit in a close room with a hot stove. I smelt something worse than a
skunk.

The pressure was
there, and then the pressure was all of a sudden gone. I went down, the door in
front of me, to slam on the floor with a rattly bang.

I got up quick,
without the door. I wondered how to face him. But he wasn't there. Nowhere.

I stood and
trembled and gulped for air. Sweat streamed all over me. I looked up, all
'round me. Sure enough, he was gone. I was all alone in that dark cave, me and
the door. And the rosy light was gone.

For the door had
fallen whack down on top of it.

I put a knee down
on the panel. I could feel a tremble and stir underneath.

"By God
Almighty, I've got you penned in!" I yelled down to what made the stir in
that fiery hole.

It was a-humping
to me there. I reached out and grabbed a shiny green jewel. It must have
weighed eight pounds or so. I put it on a plank of the cross. I got up on my
feet, found more jewels. I laid them on, one next to another, along both arms,
to make the cross twice as strong.

"You're shut
up in there now," I said down to the hole it covered.

The door lay
still and solid. No more hum below.

I headed out
toward the gleam of the cooking fire. My feet felt weak under me. Ung sat out
there and looked at me. I wondered if I should ought to get a blanket. Then I
didn't bother. I must have slept.

It was morning's
first gray again, with the stars a-paling out of the sky, when I sat up awake.
Maltby Sanger was there, a-building up the fire. "Ye look to have had ye a
quiet night," he said.

"Me?" I
said, and he laughed. Next to the fire he set a saucepan with eggs in it.

"Duck
eggs," he told me. "Ung found them for our breakfast. And I got
parched corn, and tomatoes from my garden."

"And I've
got a few pinches of coffee, we can boil it in my canteen cup," I said.
"Looky over yonder at the cave."

He looked. He
pulled his whiskers. "Bless my soul," he said, "the door's plumb
gone off it."

"The door's
inside, to bottle up what was the trouble in there," I said.

While he was
a-cooking, I told him what I'd met in the cave. He got up with a can of hot
coffee in his hand and stumped inside. Out again, he filled one of his old
buckets with dirt and stones and fetched it into the cave. Then back for
another bucketful of the same stuff, and then another. Finally he came out and
washed his hands and served up the eggs. We ate them before the either of us
said a word.

"Moloch,"
Maltby Sanger said then. "Ye reckon that's who he is?"

"He didn't
speak his name," I replied him. "All I guess is, he'll likely stay
under that door with the cross and the weight on it, so long as it's left to
pen him in."

"So long as
it's left," he agreed me. "Only ye used them jewels for weight. If
somebody comes a-using 'round here and sees them, he might could wag them off.
So I put a heap of dirt over them to hide them best I could. Nobody's a-going
to scrabble there so long's I'm here to keep them from it."

He stroked his
beard and grinned his teeth at me. "My time's been long hereabouts, and
it'll be longer. Only after I'm gone can somebody stir him up in yonder. Then
the world can suit itself about what to do about him."

He squinted his
eyes to study me. "Now," he said, "ye'll likely be a-going yore
way."

"Yes, sir,
and I'm honest to thank you for a-letting me found out what I wanted to
know."

I stowed my pack
and strapped on the blanket roll.

"Last
night," he said from across the fire, "I'd meant

to ask ye to stay
on watch here and let me go."

"Ask me to
stay?"

"That's
what. And ye'd have stayed, John, if I'd asked ye the right way. Stayed and
kept the watch here."

I couldn't tell
myself for certain if that was so.

"I aimed for
to ask ye," he said again, "but if I was to go, where'd I go?
Hellfire, John, I been here so long it's home."

Ung twinkled an
eye, like as if he heard and understood.

"I'll just
stay a-setting here and warn other folks off from a-messing round where that
door is," said Maltby Sanger.

I slung my pack
on my shoulders and picked up my guitar. "
Sunrise
now," I said.

"Sure
enough, sunrise. Good-bye, John. I was proud to have ye here overnight."

We shook hands.
He didn't seem so dwarfish right then. I found the path I'd come in by, that
would take me back to people.

The sun was up.
Daytime was come. Back on the way I went, I heard the long, soft hoot of an
owl.

I'd dropped my blanket roll and
soogin sack and guitar and sat quiet on the granite lump as those eight men in
rough country clothes fetched their burden along. It was a big chest of
new-sawed planks, pale in the autumn afternoon, four men on each side.

As they tramped, they watched me. I
got to my feet. I reckoned I was taller than any of them, probably wider
through the shoulders. I wore old pants and boots and rumply hat, but I'd
shaved that morning and hoped I looked respectable.

They came close to me amongst those
tree-strung heights and set the chest down with a bump. I figured it to be nine
feet long and three feet wide and another three high. Rope loops were spiked to
the sides for handles. The lid was fastened with a hook and staple, like what
you use on a shed door. One of the eight stared me up and down. He was a
chunky, grizzled man in a wide black hat, bib overalls, and a denim jacket.

"Hidy," he drawled, and
spit on the ground. "What you up to here?"

"I was headed for a place
called Chaw Hollow," I replied him.

They all stared. "How you name
yourself?" asked the one who had spoken.

"Just call me John."

"What do you follow,
John?" asked another man.

I smiled my friendliest.
"Well, mostly I study things. This morning, back yonder at that
settlement, I heard tell about a big skeleton that had been turned up on a Chaw
Hollow farm."

"You a government man?"
the grizzled one inquired me.

"You mean, look for blockade
stills?" I shook my head. "Not me. Call me a truth seeker, somebody
who wonders himself about riddles in this life."

"A conjure man?" put in another
of the bunch.

"Not me," I said again.
"I've met up with that sort in my time, helped put two-three of them out
of mischief. Call that part of what I follow."

"My name's Embro
Hallcott," said the grizzled one. "If you came to poke 'round them
bones, you're too late."

I waited for him to go on, and he
went on:

"I dug them bones up on my
place, a-scooping out for a fish pond. Some of us reckoned that, whoair he was,
he should ought to be buried in holy ground, yonder at Stumber Creek church
house. So we made him a box, and that's where we're a-going with him now."

"Let me give you a hand,"
I said, and slung my guitar and other things to my shoulders.

"He's a stranger man, Mr.
Embro," said the scrawny man.

"Sure, but he looks powerful
for strength." Hallcott raked me with his eye. "And you feel puny
today, Oat. All right, John, grab a hold there where Oat's been a-heaving on
this here thing."

I shoved my hand through the loop
and we hoisted the coffin. It was right heavy, at that. I heard the others
grunt as we took the trail through the ravine. On the trees, autumn leaves
showed yellow, different reds, and so on, like flowers. Half a mile, maybe, we
bore our load along.

"Yonder we are, boys,"
said Hallcott.

We came out into a hollow amongst
shaggy heights that showed rocky knobs. One, I thought, looked like a head and
shoulders. Another jabbed up like a finger, another curved like a hawk bill.
The lower ground into which we tramped was tufted with trees, with a trickle of
water through it. Beside this stood a grubby white house with a steeple.
Stumber
Creek
Church
,
I figured it to be.

Hallcott, at a front loop, steered
us into a weedy tract with gravestones here and yonder. "Set her
down," he wheezed, and we did so. "Yonder comes Preacher Travis Melick.
I done sent him the word to meet up with us here."

From the church house ambled a
gaunt man in a jimswinger coat, a-carrying a book covered with black leather.
Hallcott walked toward him. "Evening, Preacher," he said. "Proud
to have you here."

"The grave's been made
ready," said the other in a deep-down voice, and nodded to where a long,
dark hole gaped amongst the weeds. Then he faced me. "Don't believe I know
this gentleman."

"Allows he's named John,"
grated the scrawny one called Oat.

"I've heard of John,"
said Preacher Melick, and held out his skinny hand. "Heard of good things
you've done, sir. Welcome amongst us."

Hallcott's crinkly face got easy.
"If you say he's all right, Preacher, that makes him all right," he
said. "I'll tell you true, he made better than a good hand, a-wagging this
coffin the last part of the way."

We hiked the coffin to the side of
the grave. On the bank of fresh dirt lay three shovels. Oat touched the hook on
the lid.

"Ain't we supposed to view the
body?" he wondered us. "Ain't that the true old way?"

"I've done seen the
thing," snapped out Hallcott.

"Open it for a moment if you
feel that's proper," said the preacher man.

Oat worked the hook out of the
staple and hoisted the lid. The hinges creaked. "Wonder who he was,"
he said.

The bones inside were loose from
one another and half-wrapped in a Turkey Track quilt, but I saw they were laid
out in order. They were big, the way Hallcott had said, big enough for an
almighty big bear. I had a notion that the arms were right long; maybe all the
bones were long. Thick, too. The skull at the head of the coffin was like a big
gourd, with caves of eyeholes and two rows of big, lean teeth. Hallcott banged
the lid shut and hooked it again.

"That there's enough of a look
to last youins all day and all night," he growled round at the others.

"Brothers," said Preacher
Melick, a-opening his book, "we're here to bury the remains of a poor lost
creature. We don't even know his name. Yet I've searched out what I hope is the
right text for this burying."

He put his knobby finger to the
page. "Book of Ezekiel," he said. "Thirty-seventh chapter, third
verse. 'And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered,
O Lord God, thou knowest.'"

He closed his book. "The Lord
God knoweth all things. We're taught that after death will come the life we
deserve. Let us pray."

We bowed our heads down. Preacher
Melick said, "In the midst of life we are in death," and so on. When
he finished, I said, "Amen," and so did Hallcott and two-three
others.

"Now lower the coffin,"
said Preacher Melick.

We took hold and set it in the
grave. It fitted right snug, its lid was just inches below surface. Preacher
Melick sprinkled a handful of dirt. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,"
he repeated, and then we all said the Lord's Prayer together. Finally the
preacher man smiled 'round at us. The service was over.

Three men shoveled in the earth. It
took just minutes to fill the grave up.

Hallcott offered some crumpled
money bills to Preacher Melick, who waved them away.

"You took it on yourselves to
make the stranger a coffin and bring him here to rest," he said. "The
least duty I can do is speak comfortable words without expectation of pay.
John, to judge from the gear you brought, you're a-looking for lodging for the
night. Will you be my guest?"

"Thanks, maybe later," I
said. "I reckon I'll wait here a spell."

"If you come later on, it's
half a mile up the trail the far side of the church."

He walked away with his book. The
coffin-makers headed the other direction. The sun was a-dropping red to the
edge of the western heights.

One of the shovels had been fetched
to lean under a fair-sized walnut tree. I put down my stuff next to the roots
and sat with my back against the trunk. On the silver strings of my guitar I
made a few chords to whisper. The air got gloomy.

"It's kindly creepy a
night," said a voice at my elbow. That quick I was up on my feet. Embro
Hallcott stood there, his crinkly face a-smiling.

"For a man your height, you
move quick as a cat, John," he said. "I done heard you tell Preacher
Melick you'd stay 'round, so I decided myself to stay too, for whatever's
up."

"What do you reckon's
up?" I inquired him.

"If you don't know how to
answer that, neither do I."

I sat down under the tree again,
and Hallcott hunkered down beside me. He dragged out a twist of home-cured
tobacco and bit off a chunk the size of half a dollar.

"I was right interested by
Preacher Melick's text from Ezekiel," I said. "All that about could
these bones live."

"Ezekiel," Hallcott
repeated me, a-folding his ridgy hands on the knees of his overalls. "I
done read in that, some time back. Strange doings in Ezekiel—the wheels in the
wheels. Some folks reckon that means what they call UFOs."

"They were unknown and they
flew, so they were UFOs all right," I nodded him. "And all those
prophecies about nation after nation, and the brass man a-walking round to measure
Jerusalem
. And I've heard it
explained that the four faces of the living creatures meant the Four Gospels.
But the strangest of all the things is the
Valley
of
Dry Bones
, where the bones join
together and come to life."

A moon rose up and shone down on
the burial ground. Hallcott moved to pull together some pieces of wood and
light them with a match. I went to the stream and dipped water in my canteen
cup and set it on a rock where it could heat. "I don't reckon you brought
aught for supper," I said.

"I've done without no supper
before this."

"I've got something left from
my
noon
lunch." I pawed through
my soogin and came up with two sandwiches wrapped in foil. "Home-cured ham
on white bread."

Hallcott took one and thanked me
kindly. As the water grew hot, I trickled in instant coffee and stirred it with
a twig. We ate and passed the cup back and forth.

"I appreciate this,
John," said Hallcott as he swallowed down his last bite. "How long
you aim to stop here?"

"That depends."

"I reckon you'll agree with
me, them bones we buried were right curious. Great big ones, and long arms,
like on an ape."

"Or maybe on Sasquatch,"
I said. "Or Bigfoot."

"You believe in them
tales."

"I always wonder myself if
there's not truth in air tale. And as for bones—I recollect something the
Indians called Kalu, off in a place named Hosea's Hollow. Bones a-rattling
round, and sure death to a natural man.'

"You believe that, too?"

"Believe it? I saw it happen
one time. Only Kalu got somebody else, not me."

"Can these bones live?"
Hallcott repeated the text. "Ain't there an old song about that, the bones
a-coming together alive?"

"I've sung it in my
time," I said, and picked up my guitar and struck out the tune. "It
goes like this:

Connect these bones, dry bones, dry
bones,
Connect these bones, dry bones, dry bones,
Connect these bones, dry bones, dry bones,
Hear the word of the Lord."

Hallcott sang the verse with me,
his voice rough and husky:

The toe bone's connected to the
foot bone,
The foot bone's connected to the heel bone,
Hear the word of the Lord.

And we sang the rest of it
together, up to the end:

The shoulder bone's connected to
the neck bone,
The neck bone's connected to the jaw bone,
The jaw bone's connected to the head bone,
Hear the word of the Lord.
Connect these bones, dry bones, dry bones,
Connect these—

Hallcott broke off then, and so did
I.
"John," he said, "looky yonder where
we buried him. What's that there white stuff?"

I saw it, too. In the shine of the
moon above the grave stirred a pale something or other.

It made just a sneaky blur, taller
than a tall man. It came toward us with a ripple in it.

"Mist," Hallcott
stuttered. "Comes from that there fresh-dug-up dirt—"

"No," I said,
"that's no mist."

I leant my guitar to the walnut
tree and got up on my feet as whatever it was came nearer, started to make
itself into a shape.

I heard Hallcott say a quick cuss
word, and then there was a scrambly noise, like as if he was a-trying to make
his way off from there on hands and knees. I faced toward whatair the shape
was, because I reckoned I had to.

As it came slowly along, the
moonlight hit it fair. It looked scaffolded some way. That was because it was
just bones. I could see a sort of baskety bunch of ribs, and big, stout arm
bones with almighty huge hands a-hanging down below crooked knees. The shallowy
skull had deep, dark eyeholes. The long-toothed jaw sank itself down and then
snapped shut again. The skull turned on its neck bone and gave me a long, long
look.

Then it reached out its right hand
with finger bones the size of table knives, and laid hold on a young tree and
yanked it out by the roots, without air much a-trying. It stood and tore off
branches, easy as you'd peel the shucks from an ear of corn. It made itself a
club thataway, and hiked it over the low skull and moved to close in on me
again.

No point in it for me to try to run
away from such a thing, and well I knew it. Turn and run from a haunt or a
devil, it runs after you. If it catches you, then what? I quick grabbed up the
shovel where it leant on the walnut trunk. Compared to that club the bony thing
had, it was like a ball bat against a wagon tongue.

"What you want of me?" I
said, but I felt I didn't have to be told that.

Bones like those, long worn bare
and scattered apart and now joined and made to live by words of power, they'd
wake up hungry. They'd be starved for food. If they got food, maybe they'd put
flesh back on themselves, be themselves as they'd been once before. What food
was closer to hand than I was?