Windmaster's Bane (6 page)

David closed the book and looked over at Alec, who lay full length by the fire, his eyes closed, his mouth slightly open.

David walked over to him and kicked him gently on the sole of his boot. “Up, thou rump-fed runion!” he cried. “I didn’t bring you up here to sleep.”

“Aw, shucks! I was hoping you’d think I was really asleep and leave me alone, like any considerate person would do.”

“No way.”

They talked for a long time then, about Celtic mythology first, and then about the next school year, and Big Billy’s tyranny, and what to make of Liz Hughes. But there was something a touch disquieting about the way David’s conversation jumped erratically from subject to subject—something a little forced, as if he sought to disguise some underlying tension. It worried Alec, but he suppressed his concern, and then an unshakable drowsiness overtook him, and he crept off to the tent, leaving David awake with the stars.

A long time later Alec awoke and found David still absent. He drew aside the mesh door of the tent and saw his friend still sitting near the ledge, gazing northwest toward Bloody Bald. It was almost dark of the moon, and the night sky glittered with the constellations of summer, Cygnus foremost among them.

“Still seeing castles in the air?” Alec asked sleepily, coming to squat beside David.

“It was on the ground, not in the air, and no, I don’t see it. I
must
have been seeing things…but
damn,
Alec, it was so real!” David pounded the rock with his fist.

‘Well, you know, it could have been some kind of mirage or something, reflecting part of Atlanta onto the mountains, or something like that. I’ve never heard of mirages on a mountain, though.”

“I’ve never heard of castles on mountains in north Georgia, either. All that cold water must have done something to my eyes.”

Alec clapped an arm on his shoulder and shook him gently. “No use losing sleep over, though.”

“I guess not,” David sighed wearily. He stood up, stretched, and yawned. Back in the tent he flopped down atop his sleeping bag and lay there trying to think about the magic of Ireland, trying to picture in his mind’s eye the coming of the Tuatha de Danaan. But another image kept intruding in his thoughts, refusing to give way: the image of a shadowy castle on a mountain top.

Sleep claimed David finally, but he awoke again shortly before sunrise to lie quietly with his face by the door, looking out into the swirls of white mist awaiting banishment by the sun. A trace of the uncharacteristic coolness remained in the air, and he snuggled gratefully into his sleeping bag, heard Alec groan and roll over onto his back.

Yeah, just a couple more minutes and he would get up and watch the sunrise from his Place of Power. It was the Celtic thing to do, after all. He had learned that much from the books he’d read: The Celts had ordered the year in certain ways, and certain days and times of day had power—including dusk and dawn. So what better way to make himself a part of that ancient tradition than by watching the sun rise?

But still…it was warm in the sleeping bag, and he had sat up very late waiting—or hoping—or simply
being
—he was not certain which. He yawned. Five minutes more.

The sun had already broken the horizon when he woke again. He sat up in the shadowed tent and cursed himself. For his eyes were burning like fire, and far away he thought he could make out the last fading call of trumpets. He rushed from the tent, gazed out into mist-filled space…and saw nothing. The burning faded abruptly, and he suddenly felt very foolish. David yawned and stretched, yawned again, and crawled back into the tent. When he awoke once more, it was to Alec kicking him none too gently in the ribs and reminding him that Big Billy had a busy day planned for him, and if he wanted anything to eat, he’d better get up right then, or there wouldn’t be anything left.

David sighed resignedly. That was always the way of it. Big Billy always had something for him to do—especially when there was something else he wanted to do more: to think over the disquieting events of the last day, for instance. Maybe tonight he’d take another look at Bloody Bald.

Small chance
, he told himself bitterly; Big Billy would keep him busy right until dark—he always did. Well, David decided, he’d best get up and eat something, see if he could con Alec into a morning swim. It would be the last fun he’d have that day, that was for sure.

Chapter III: Music in the Night

(Saturday; August 1)

Uncle Dale Sullivan, whose dead youngest brother had been Big Billy’s father, owned the next farm up the hollow and often “just thought he’d drop by” his nephew’s house around suppertime. Full of pork chops and mashed potatoes, he and Big Billy were sitting on the side porch that overlooked the highway, discussing their day’s work and watching evening creep into the valley. The soft clicking of dishes being washed in the kitchen made an almost musical counterpoint to the rhythmic squeaking of their rockers.

Bone tired from his day’s begrudged labor, David slumped out of the kitchen and flopped down on the concrete steps, where he sat staring vacantly down the hill. The long, neat rows of glossy corn at the foot stirred in the soft evening breeze, their froth of tassels pale against the blue-green leaves like foam on a dirty sea. He could hear the occasional
whoosh
of a car as it came around the last curve off the high mountains to the right and accelerated on the straightaway that split the riverbottom. But he found himself straining his hearing for other sounds as well—sounds he was no longer certain he had heard. And his eyes tingled almost all the time now. He was still not sure exactly what he had seen, or if he had actually seen anything at all. It was beginning to worry him, though.

Big Billy gestured broadly with a stubby right hand. “I swear, Uncle Dale, I never could see why in the
hell
Grandpaw let them put that there highway through the middle of his riverbottom like that.” He took a healthy swig from the can of Miller that sat atop a copy of
The Progressive Farmer
on the floor beside him. “No-siree,” he continued, “if I had any idea why he done that, I’d sure say, but I don’t. He was a strange old feller, so Daddy said.”

“He was a strange ’un, all right.” Uncle Dale nodded. “But he told me he let them put that road through there ’cause they wasn’t nothin’ would grow on it that was worth anything to anybody. He’d plant corn or cane, and it’d grow up fine and straight—except in that one place he’d get mornin’ glories and sweet peas that’d strangle the life outta the corn—either that, or briars.”

“Always did have trouble with briars down there,” Big Billy agreed.

“So when the railroad folks come along, he let ’em follow that route, and the highway folks come after. It was the straightest way, anyhow.”

“Yeah, Pa said that there was an Old Indian trail down there one time; I know I’ve found a good many arrowheads ’round there.”

Uncle Dale leaned forward in his rocker; his voice took on a darker coloring. “Yep, Pa told me about that when I was a boy…but he told me something else, too, Bill—he told me that the Indians that was here before his folks settled said the trail was made by the Moon-eyed People. You know, them spooky folks the Cherokees say was here afore them—that built them ruins down on Fort Mountain, some say.”

“I heard those forts were built by Prince Madoc in the year 1170,” David interjected from the steps.

“That boy’s a lot like his great-grandpaw was.” Uncle Dale chuckled as if David were not there, but his eyes showed a gleam when they sought his grand-nephew. “Not as interested in this world as in the next—or at least in some other part of this ’un than the north Georgia mountains.”

“I like the mountains just fine,” David retorted. “I just don’t like all the tourists we get nowadays.”

“Them tourist folks brings trade, and trade brings money, boy,” Big Billy said brusquely. “Speaking of which, Dale, did I tell you I was thinking of switching to sorghum in this bottom too? The tourists love it, and old Webster Bryant over in Blairsville says he’ll buy all I can work. Too late this year, but I may just take him up on it next time around.”

Uncle Dale didn’t answer; he was looking at David. He rocked back in his wooden rocker and crossed his ankles on the porch railing; David glanced up to see three inches of thin, white, hairless leg between the old man’s socks and khaki work pants. He peered curiously down at his own bare, tanned legs, took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes absently.

“Prince Madoc,” Uncle Dale mused at length, ignoring Big Billy. “I’ve heard Paw talk about him once or twice, but he didn’t put much stock in that story. One thing he did tell me about that old Indian trail, though, is that it’s bordered by briars as far as he ever followed it—and that’s a right smart ways. He’s right, too; they may be little and scraggly and close in or far out, but they’re there. And another thing he told me is that it goes on straight as a stick, right on over wood and water, says he got on it a huntin’ one night and it like to scared him to death.”

David was suddenly alert. “Did he say why?”

“Shore didn’t, though I do know his dogs never come back with him that night. He made us boys and girls swear on the Bible not to go on it ourselves, ’specially not at night, and we never did. He got most of us so scared we never even mentioned it to our younguns—’course we was nearly all married and gone by then anyway…yore pa ever told you about it, Bill?”

“Hell no,” Big Billy said sourly. He took another swig of beer and wiped his mouth on his hand. “Damn it, Uncle Dale. I ain’t got time for such fairy-tale nonsense. You’re as bad as the boys. Now, about that sorghum…I been meanin’ to ask you…”

Little Billy came around the back corner of the house with an enormous piece of fried apple pie in his hand—which he rapidly stuffed into his mouth as soon as he saw David. “David says that fairies are as big as people and twice as beautiful,” he announced loudly.

David rolled his eyes skyward.

“Damn it, and double damn it!” Big Billy exploded, slamming his fist down hard on the arm of his rocker. “I don’t know what’s worse: havin’ boys that won’t keep their mouths shut and that won’t mind their own business when grown folks is talkin’, or boys that won’t work and just sets around all day with their noses in books. I don’t give a tinker’s damn about fairies and how big they are. They ain’t no such things, and you both know it. If you’d read yore Bible ’stead of them funny books, you’d find that out.” Big Billy picked up the copy of
The Progressive Farmer
from beside his chair, rolled it into a tube, and tossed it at David. “Here, if you want to read somethin’ that’ll be worth somethin’ to you, read that.”

The magazine unrolled itself in flight and landed in an untidy heap at David’s feet.

David picked it up and shook it somewhat distastefully. Very pointedly he turned it upside-down and proceeded to peruse it with exaggerated attentiveness.

“You’re readin’ it upside down,” observed Little Billy from the yard beside him.

David lowered the magazine, fixed his eyes on his younger brother, drew his lips back slowly, clicked his teeth precisely together one time, and looked back down at the upside-down print. His eyes tingled, ever so slightly, but—he realized for the first time—it felt good.

*

“Davy, could you turn the radio off? I can’t sleep,” Little Billy mumbled groggily into the darkness of David’s bedroom.

David grunted and dragged his eyes open to see his little brother silhouetted in the doorway. A glance at his bedside clock showed it was nearly midnight.

“I don’t have it on,” he muttered, turning over and pulling a pillow over his head.

“You do so! I can hear it!”

“I do not! Now get back to bed.”

“Da-a-a-a-vy!”

“It’s
David
,”
said David. “It must be the TV. Ma must be up watching the late show again. I guess she’s having another one of her restless spells.”

“It ain’t the TV, it’s comin’ from your side of the house.” David levered himself up on his elbow and glared at the silhouette. “I-do-not-have-the-radio-on, darn it!”

“Maybe it’s outside, then,” Little Billy suggested hesitantly, shifting from foot to foot.

David paused, listening. “Now you mention it, I
do
hear something like music outside. Must be some couple parking down by the turn-off with the radio on loud. Pa’ll have a fit if he hears it.”

Little Billy’s nose wrinkled thoughtfully. “Don’t sound like radio no more.”

David strained his own hearing. “That’s true,” he observed. He sat up in bed, drew the curtains aside, and looked out. A warm breeze floated over him—as warm that night as it had been cool the night before. He could see the solitary security light in the yard casting its circle of blue-white radiance onto the grass that sloped down to the cornfield. Away to the left he could make out the dirt road that came in from the hollow where Uncle David lived. He could hear the music more clearly, too, and it was strange music: not rock, nor yet country, nor what his pa called “that long-hair stuff.” No, it was different: soft and sweet and low, with a hint of flutes and maybe something like guitars and a gentle jingling like bells. More than anything else, it reminded him of what little bagpipe music he had heard, only without the pipes, and a thousand times more strange. Strange, yet somehow familiar.

“Something’s going on,” David announced abruptly. “I’m going out to take a look.”

“Not without me,” Little Billy whispered loudly as his brother slipped out of bed.