Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer 05 (18 page)

 
          
“How
about you, John?" asked Harpe, a-tuming his eyes on me. “You needn't
bother to answer
that,
I know you're not happy."

 
          
“Can
you give me air good reason why I should be?" I said back to him.

 
          
“You
feel lonesome here," he said, a-spreading out that grin of his. “That
isn't complimentary, you know. Here you have me to learn from, you have Alka to
question, and you have

 
          
Tarrah.”
He beamed toward her. “And Tarrah truly likes you.
She’s such a pretty girl, 1 think. Isn’t she pretty enough for your
discriminating taste?”

 
          
Tarrah
turned her face away, a-blushing. Nobody could expect her to relish that teasy
sneering.

 
          
“That’s
because you have another girl on your mind,” Harpe went ahead. “Here, suppose I
show you.”

 
          
His
hand went to the T-thing on the chain. He muttered the words I’d learned, the
words Alka had tried to use for the window:

 
          
“Fetegan
. . . Gaghagan . . . Beigan . . . Deigan . . . Usagan ...”

           
And the pane in the window lighted
up and the foggy darkness cleared away from it. We saw Mr. Larrowby’s store,
with customers in the place, and behind the counter pretty Myrrh Larrowby,
a-making change for somebody.

 
          
“So
lovely, isn’t she?” said Harpe. “I think I see your eyes light up, John. Isn’t
she just the sort of companion you need in this lonesomeness of yours?”

 
          
He
made quick steps across the floor, and tugged at the rope in the comer.

 
          
I
heard a sort of little shriek.

 
          
And
there in the comer with Harpe stood Myrrh Larrowby.

 
          
Myrrh
Larrowby just stood and stared. Her blue eyes looked as big as Easter eggs. Her
yellow hair fluffed air whichaway. She wore a white cotton dress with red and
blue flowers on it, and on her feet blue-and-white tennis shoes. She drew
herself up. She had a fine-shaped body. And she stared.

 
          
“Here's
my present to you, John," said Harpe, a-smiling and a-smiling.

 
          
“Present?"
I repeated him. “What you a-talking about?"

 
          
Myrrh
found her voice. “What you a-talking about?" she said after me, she said
high and shaky with fear. “What is this place? How did I get here—what am I
doing here?"

 
          
“I
daresay you'll find much to do here, my dear child," Harpe smiled to her.
“I brought you here in an interesting way -—call it magical teleportation. 1
brought you because John wants you."

 
          
“John!"
she cried to me. She didn't understand, and how could she?

 
          
“Let
me tell you quick, Myrrh, I hadn’t air thing to do with it," I said.

 
          
Her
eyes bugged at me. Her shoulders and knees trembled and shook. Her red mouth
sort of chittered. She was bad scared, gentlemen, and that was a natural fact.
Her scare sort of filled the room.

 
          
“Please
let me explain, my dear young lady," Harpe was a-purring to her. “I
brought you here because John so admires you, and certainly you must admire
him. I’d judge that any normal woman would find him admirable.”

 
          
“YVhat
is this place?” she stammered out again.

 
          
“This place?”
Harpe said after her. “Why, it’s the top of
Cry
Mountain
.”

 
          
“I
won’t stay here!”

 
          
With
that, she fairly flew across the floor to where the tunnel was. She ran into
that. I saw her blue-and-white shoes twinkle as she ran.

 
          
“You’d
better follow her, John,” said Harpe, calm as calm. “Follow her and explain things.”

 
          
I
headed after her, and out into the open.

 
          
There
she was, amongst the trees, a-running here and yonder. She must have made out
where the gate was
,
she headed thataway. She ran fast,
but I ran faster and caught her up just as she started to fumble at the catch.
I grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back away.

 
          
She
looked at me, still bug-eyed. She panted for breath. “Let me go,” she managed
to say. “I want to get out of
here,
I want to go
home—”

 
          
“You
can’t go out that gate,” I warned her. “Look out there.”

 
          
For
outside the stockade, things had gathered. In amongst the trees loomed up
something tall and sooty-dark and shagged with hair, it had to be the Bigfoot.
The Flat squirmed along betwixt tree roots. Overhead flew the Toller, a-saying
its
gong- gong.
And the bees swarmed
there, a whole fluttering nation of them, a-buzzing and big and deadly.

 
          
“One
step outside that gate,” I said, “and you’d be a goner.”

 
          
She
stood and looked. “I’d rather be dead than shut up here.”

 
          
“You
don’t know the kind of death you’d have, Miss Myrrh. Come on, get back away
from the gate, and let me tell you things.”

           
She came along with me, quiet but
not yet a-trusting me. I took her to where we could stand out of sight of all
the things had come to the gate, and I narrated what I'd been through.

 
          
I
told of how I'd somehow got myself set on a-finding
Cry
Mountain
and a-going up it. She’d heard some talk
about that, for the preacher-man and the doctor had mentioned it. And I said
how Ruel Harpe had let me in at his gate, and had shut the gate on what waited
outside it, and how he could do all sorts and kinds of
magic,
and how he figured on a-doing things that would pure down change this world. I
named Alka and Tarrah to her, how they were Harpe’s helpers, and told her about
Scylla a-poisoning herself. How Harpe and the others got whatair they wished
for just by a-tugging on a rope, and how Harpe had tugged that rope to fetch
Myrrh to us.

 
          
“He
didn’t bring you with the rope?” she asked.

 
          
“No,”
1 said. “He somehow knew I was a-making the climb and let me do it. He let Zeb
Plattenburg come part way.”

 
          
“Part way?”

 
          
“Then
he had him killed. If you’d looked up above the gate, you’d have seen Zeb
Plattenburg’s skull.”

 
          
She
shivered. I went ahead about Harpe’s window that showed far places of far
lands, and about how Harpe had learned from magic books how to travel to what
land he wished. He was a master of magic. She harked at me all through.

 
          
“Zeb
Plattenburg,” she said then. “I knew him, back when I was a little girl.” She
said it like as if somehow that would fetch Zeb back to life.

 
          
“He’s
gone now,” I said.

 
          
“But
I want to get out of here, John.”

 
          
“So
do
I
,” I said. “I'm a-studying on how to manage that.
It'll take a right considerable of study."

 
          
She
stared off at the stockade. “That man—Harpe, you name him. He thinks that you
and I are to love one another." Her voice sort of choked.
“But—do you know who it is I love?"

 
          
“I
can make a guess," I said, a-trying to help her get calm. “I’d say, Tombs
McDonald."

 
          
Her
cheeks that had been pale, they reddened in a blush. I waited a second. Then:
“I do know for sure that Tombs loves you."

 
          
“Tombs?
But he's nair said a word of such a thing, not one
word."

 
          
“He
said it right plain and honest to me," I said. “Said it out loud, said it
strong. Maybe he's scared to speak up to you, but he's not scared to know he
loves you and tell it to somebody he counts on to be his friend."

 
          
“Tombs!"
she cried out again. “I wish I was with him right now."

 
          
“You’ll
be with him later," I promised. “I'll swear to that, my kiss-the-Bible
oath. Look, Myrrh, whatair place you get into, you can some way get out again.
We’ll do it. But right now, let's go back to where the others are."

 
          
She
didn't like those others, nair a one of them, said she didn't trust them. But
she did come along back with me, and through the tunnel and into that main
room.

 
          
They
all of them sat there, Harpe and Alka and Tarrah. Myrrh stopped in the middle
of the floor to look at them. Tarrah got up from her chair and came to us.

 
          
“Your
name's Myrrh," said Tarrah, a-taking her by the hand. “That's such a
pretty name, I think. If you're going to be with us—"

 
          
“I
won't," Myrrh said at that.

 
          
“If
you're going to be with us," said Tarrah again, “start counting on me as your
friend. We’ll have some good times together.”

           
“Count me a friend, too,” said Alka
from where she sat, and Harpe grinned all across his face.

 
          
“Come
sit down, Myrrh,” he invited, and she came to the table and so did I, and we
both took seats. “John, I hope that you were able to convince her of the
sensible viewpoint.”

 
          
“I
won’t stay here,” said Myrrh again.

 
          
“My
dear Myrrh, I venture to assure you of the contrary,” said Harpe in his
silkiest way. “You are going to stay here, and, what’s more, you are going to
like it here. John will help you to like it. You see that he’s a tall, fine
man, not bad-looking, and he can play the guitar and sing fit for royalty to
hear. And he loves you—”

 
          
“Just
hold on there a damned second,” I cut in. “I nair said I loved Myrrh.”

 
          
She
looked on me like as if she thanked me for that. And Harpe, for once, had a
puzzled face on him.

 
          
“Why,”
he crooned, like as if he was disappointed in me, “you said, and said again,
that Myrrh was a beauty to delight the world.”

 
          
“I
said it, that she was beautiful,” I came back at him, “and I’ll keep a-saying
it. But Myrrh is in love with another. He’s a choice friend of
mine,
he more or less saved my life a few days back. Even if
I thought 1 wanted Myrrh, I’d nair get betwixt her and the man she loves and
wants with all her heart.”

 
          
Again
she gave me a grateful look for my
words,
she even
smiled just a least trifle. “Harpe,” I said, “you made a mistake.”

 
          
He
hiked up his brows and muttered a laugh.

 
          
“I’m
not a man who makes mistakes,” he said.

 
          
“You’ve
made one this time,” I said.

 
          
“That’s
what you say now, John, but love will come to you,” he promised me, and he
talked like as if things always came when he said they would.
“Myrrh—yes, what a beautiful name, as beautiful as the girl who
bears it.
John will come to realize that he prefers Myrrh to either gold
or frankincense. As for you, Myrrh, you'll find that a change of mind is almost
always a change for the better."

 
          
A-hearing
that, I wondered
myself
if he'd air changed his mind
about aught. He got up from his chair, and smoothed his white bush jacket.

 
          
“This
has been a most entertaining discussion," he said, “but I'm driven back to
my work. It may be the most important work of my whole career. All of you will
come to share in what I do—profit by it. Now, please excuse me."

 
          
He
was off to the red curtain, past it and behind it. We watched him go,
then
we looked back on one another.

 
          
“What
important work did he mean?" inquired Myrrh.

 
          
“He’s
translating the Gospel According to Judas," said Alka.

 
          
“Judas?"
Myrrh repeated her. “Did Judas write a
book?"

 
          
It
was my turn to talk. I told Myrrh about what Judas was thought to think he
could do for power all over this earth, and how he’d written it down before he
went out and hung himself. I told her how Harpe had tricked me into a-helping
thieve the book from poor old trustful Yakouba far off away in the African
desert. And how Harpe reckoned that the Judas book, along with other writings
he already had, would turn the world round into something he figured he wanted
and could command.

 
          
“Terrible,"
said Myrrh. “Terrible. Can’t somebody stop him?"

 
          
“Nobody
that I know of," said Tarrah. “But let's change the subject. We want to be
your friends, Myrrh."