Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer 02 (22 page)

 
          
A
whole beating storm of hands then, loud as the hail had been.

 
          
“Let's
stand them off,” said Mr. Ben under his breath.

 
          
“Stay
where you are,”
Warren
bade him, and raised his voice again.

 
          
“In
triumph we finish here,” he said. “In triumph we finish here. The teeth of the
snake are drawn.”

           
The heavy press of air fell off
round us. It was like as if people had been there in the room with us, and had
gone. But just then the front door swung itself open, and there stood Brooke
Altic.

 
          
He
wore the fancy clothes he'd worn last time
Fd
seen
him. But they were mussed up, muddy, like as if he'd been a-crawling round like
a snake. His shirt collar was all tom open at his throat, and his hair, so
combed out before, strung thisaway and that round his face. His eyes stuck out at
us, his mouth was open, and his sharp teeth gnashed themselves at us.

 
          
"You'll
pay for all this,” he gurgled out. "I'll say just one word, one strong
word—”

 
          
Hazel
Techeray had swung off from the table, had left her point of the star. She
grabbed up the rifle
Warren
had leaned to the chair. She shoved it almost into Altic's wide eye and
pulled trigger.

 
          
Bangl

 
          
I
saw the blood jump out all over his white face in the lamplight. And over he
slammed down on his back, like as if he'd been snatched there by a rope, right
down he went across the threshold of the open door.

 
          
Outside
then, there sounded a cry fit to pop your ears. It must have been all the
Shonokins a-yelling at once.

 
          
That
same moment, the churning
sound of feet on the dead run
,
on the run out of the yard, on the run away from where Brooke Altic had been
killed dead.

 
          
And after the running, no sound.
You heard the silence.

           
I can't say for certain today what
hour of the night Brooke Altic was shot down and his people run off to leave him
there. All I do know is that the five of us waited in that cabin, the five of
us with him flung out where he'd fallen across the sill of the door and the
door open so he was half in and half out. We waited there till the stars paled
out with the early, early dawn.

 
          
And,
gentlemen, it was a devil of a long time to wait. We didn't do much talking, I
recollect. I felt some surprised at Hazel Techeray, who, from when first she
came in the house, had trembled and shaken and shed tears. Now she was the
steadiest of us all, the way I look back on it. One thing she did was to heat
up what coffee we had left in the pot. It had gone as cold as well water, and
the second heating made it stout and bitter. But I was right glad to take a
cupful and work at it.

 
          
As
for Mr. Ben, after while he picked up that rifle Hazel Techeray had used on
Brooke Altic and carried it to a chair with his gun-cleaning gear. He worked
the bolt lever to shake the shells out of it, and put them in a little heap on
another chair. Then he cleaned the gun, and not in my life have I seen as many
guns cleaned so clean. Finally he loaded it up again and snapped the safety
catch on and took it to his cupboard and racked it up there.

 
          
Warren
and Callie sat together next to the hearth where no fire burned, and they
talked about what I reckon was their own business and nobody else’s.

 
          
But,
the way I say, dawn was a-coming at last. Mr. Ben finished the coffee he was
a-drinking and got up on his feet.

 
          
"John,"
he said, "and you, Jackson, come along, give me a hand with what’s got to
be done."

 
          
We
knew what he meant. The three of us went to where Brooke* Altic lay through the
door, and stooped down to pick him up. His eyes stared up at us, dull and
empty, with the pupil like just an up-and-down slit. His body was as limp as a
wet sock, not stiffed out like a man’s body. We wagged him down off the porch,
and out along the path to where that track was.

 
          
"Here,"
said Mr. Ben, and we laid him down, and Mr. Ben went to his shed and fetched
back a couple of spades and a grubbing hoe.

 
          
We
got at our work and digging. All of us had strong arms and backs. We hollowed
out that grave—six feet long and two feet wide and nearabout four deep—in about
an hour in the early sun. Nair one of us said a word while we dug. We didn’t
even look in one another’s faces. Finally we picked Altic up again and laid him
in the hole. He was so small he didn’t crowd it.

 
          
I
pulled his hands across his chest. His beautiful ring shone on one. They felt
cold, with the third finger the longest and those claws on them for nails, as I
laid them one on top of the other. Mr. Ben fished out a red handkerchief from
his pants pocket and spread it on the fishy-pale face. We stood up round the
grave.

 
          
"One
of youins
want
to say a word for him?" Mr. Ben
asked. "Might could you do it, John?"

 
          
I
wondered what could be said. I recollected something of the old burial service
I’d heard again and again, and tried with that:

           
“In the midst of life, we are in
death. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

 
          
No
more than that. I thought some about a prayer, but what prayer of mine would
Brooke Altic welcome to be said for him?

 
          
We
picked up the spades and covered him in. We patted the dirt down solid all over
the top.

 
          
“That’ll
grow up with grass right away,” allowed Mr. Ben. “And he guarantees us that no
more Shonokins will come a-using round from this on.”

 
          
He
carried the tools back to their shed. When we came to the porch again, Hazel
Techeray was a-scrubbing out some blood stains with handfuls of gritty soil. We
all went in and washed up. I don’t think we felt hungry, but we had more of
that hot, stout coffee and some cold corn bread and butter.

 
          
“I’m
a-going to go to the Shonokin settlement,” I said then.

 
          
“Me,
I’ll come with you,” said Mr. Ben. “And I’ll take me along a gun, and you’d
best do the same.”

 
          
“This
time I sure will,” I agreed him.

 
          
Out
on the way, I felt no jangle, no hum in me. That Shonokin power had gone from
their track. The thing they’d started to do, it was all finished. All that spell
of
Warren
’s, and the death of Altic, it had plumb
silenced and ended their work.

 
          
We
passed along to where the balanced rock was. It was balanced no more. The top
piece was fallen off from where it had teetered. I walked up to it and all
round. Its power was gone off. Gone to what place it had come from, and I
couldn’t guess that place.

 
          
At
last the settlement.
But different now.

 
          
It
was tumbledown. That gardinel at its edge looked all fallen in, like a rotten
pumpkin in a field. The roofs of the shelters
sagged,
the windows were as blank as the eyes of dead Brooke Altic. In those
circle-shaped lots, the finger- bushes and other plants looked all limped over
and withered away.

 
          
"I
swear,” said Mr. Ben, a-leaning on his gun, "this here place looks to have
been left out of, fifty years ago.”

 
          
It
was true. It was deserted. The Shonokins were gone, after their power was
driven out of them. Where? Some other place was all I could say. Wherever it
was, whatever they’d do now, it wouldn’t be round here.

 
          
Mr.
Ben turned heavy on his heel and we started back down the way that had lost its
jangle and buzz forever. I recollect how I looked at the trees that yesterday
had seemed to bunch up and stare at me. Now they were just common trees. I
heard a grasshopper make its chirp. It sounded as pretty to me as the sweetest
song of air bird I could call for.

 
          
Still
we didn’t talk much. It was better than halfway back that we saw two folks
a-coming along toward us—little Callie and Jackson Warren, a-walking hand in
hand. We came up to them, and I told them how the Shonokins had left out of
their settlement.

 
          
"Where’s
Miss Hazel?” Mr. Ben wanted to know.

 
          
"She
went back home,” said Callie.
"She said, her kind
regards.”

 
          
"Hmmm,”
said Mr. Ben. "Maybe I’ll go over there some time, go over and see her. Be
neighbors to her.”

 
          
"Callie
and I have something to tell you,” said
Warren
. He
smiled,
the
first smile air one of us had tried on for who could say how long. "Mr.
Ben, I want to marry Callie.”

 
          
"Hmmm,”
droned Mr. Ben again. "I can’t rightly say you surprise me none. I’d be a
gone gump if I hadn’t seen that thing a-coming. But what I want to hear tell is
,
what does Callie want?”

           
“Daddy,” she said, a-hanging tight
to
Warren
's hand, “I say I want to marry
Jackson
.”

           
All four of us walked back together
toward the cabin.

           
“Well, it ain’t for me to say no,”
said Mr. Ben. “Callie’s wish is always my wish.”

           
“And, John,” said
Warren
to me, “will you stand up with us at the
wedding?”

           
“I’d be proud to,
Jackson
,” I said.

           
All the trouble and danger seemed to
flow off from us like so much running water.