Sci Fiction Classics Volume 4 (8 page)

"John Bunyan, you son of a bitch!" said the Sheriff. "You're under arrest
for hampering the King's business. I'll see you rot."

Walton watched the coils of line on the surface slowly sink into the brown
depths of the Slough of Despond.

He began to cry, fatigue and numbness taking over his body.

"I denied God," he said to Cotton. "I committed the worst sin." Cotton
covered him with a blanket.

"Oh Charles, I denied God."

"What's worse," said Cotton, "you lost the fish."

Percy and Marburton helped him up. The carters hitched the wagons, the
horses now docile. Bunyan was being ridden back to jail by constables, his
tinker's bag clanging against the horse's side.

They put the crying Walton into the cart, covered him more, climbed in.
Some farmers helped them get the carts over the rocks.

Walton's last view of the slough was of resolute and grim-faced men
staring at the water and readying their huge grapples, their guns, their
cruel, hooked nets.

They were on the road back to town. Walton looked up into the trees,
devoid of ghosts and demons. He caught a glimpse of the blue Chiltern
Hills.

"Father Izaak," said Cotton. "Rest now. Think of spring. Think of clear
water, of leaping trout."

"My dreams will be haunted by God the rest of my days," he said tiredly.
Walton fell asleep.

He dreamed of clear water, leaping trouts.

The End

© 1982 by Howard Waldrop. First published in
Universe 12,
edited by Terry Carr, Doubleday & Co., Inc. 1982

Manly Wade Wellman

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,
The heel bone's connected to the ankle
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.