Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer SSC (15 page)

 
          
"Oh!"
She half raised her arms to me again, then put them down.

 
          
"What
must I do?" she begged me.

 
          
"Stop
being a sinner."

 
          
Her
blue eyes got round in her pale face.

 
          
"You
want me to live," she said, hopeful.

 
          
"It's
better for you to live. You told me that folks owe you money, rent land from
you and such. How'd they get along if you got carried off?"

 
          
She
could see what I meant, maybe the first time in her life.

 
          
"You'd
be gone," I minded her, "but the folks would stay behind, needing
your help. Well, you're still here, Miss Donie. Try to help the folks. There's
a thousand ways to do it. I don't have to name them to you. And you act right,
you won't be so apt to hear that whistle at
midnight
."

 
          
I
started out of the dog-trot.

 
          
"John!"
My name sounded like a wail in her mouth.

 
          
"Stay
here tonight, John," she begged me. "Stay with me! I want you here,
John, I need you here!"

 
          
"No,
you don't need me, Miss Donie," I said. "You've got a right much of
thinking and planning to do. Around about the up of sun, you'll have done
enough, maybe, to start living different from this on."

           
She started to cry. As I walked away
I noticed how, farther I got, lower her voice-pitch sounded.

 
          
I
sort of stumbled on the trail. The mouth-harp man sat on a chopped-down old
log.

 
          
"I
listened, John," he said. "Think you done right?"

 
          
"Did
the closest I could to right. Maybe the black train was bound to roll, on
orders from whatever station it starts from; maybe it was you and me, raising
the pitch the way we did, brought it here tonight."

 
          
"I
left when I did, dreading that thought," he nodded.

 
          
"The
same thought made me back it out again," I said. "Anyway, I kind of
glimmer the idea you all can look for a new Donie Carawan hereabouts, from now
forward."

 
          
He
got up and turned to go up trail. "I never said who I was."

 
          
"No,
sir," I agreed him. "And I never asked."

 
          
"I'm
Cobb Richardson's brother. Wyatt Richardson. Dying, my mother swore me to even
things with Donie Carawan for what happened to Cobb. Doubt if she meant this
sort of turn-out, but I reckon it would suit her fine."

 
          
We
walked into the dark together.

 
          
"Come
stay at my house tonight, John," he made the offer. "Ain't much
there, but you're welcome to what there is."

 
          
"Thank
you kindly," I said. "I'd be proud to stay."

 
          
We
sat along the edge of Mr. Hoje Cowand's porch, up the high hills of the Rebel
Creek country. Mr. Hoje himself, and his neighbor Mr. Eddy Herron who was a
widowman like Mr. Hoje, and Mr. Eddy's son Clay who was a long tall fellow like
his daddy, and Mr. Hoje's pretty-cheeked daughter Sarah Ann, who was courting
with Clay. And me. I'd stopped
off
to
hand-help Mr. Hoje build him a new pole fence, and nothing would do him but I'd
stay two-three days. Supper had been pork and fried apples and pone and snap
beans. The sun made to set, and they all asked me to sing.

 
          
So
I picked the silver strings on my guitar and began the old tuneful one:

 
          
Choose your partner as you go, Choose your
partner as you go.

 
          
"Yippeehoo!"
hollered old Mr. Eddy. "You sure enough can play that, John! Come on,
choose partners and dance!"

 
          
Up
hopped Clay and Sarah Ann, on the level-stamped front yard, and I played it up
loud and sang, and Mr. Eddy called figures for them to step to:

 
          
"Honor
your partner! . . . Swing your partner! . . . Do-si-do! . . . Allemand
right!" Till I got to one last chorus and I sang out loudly:

 
          
Fare thee well, my charming gal, Fare thee
well, I'm gonel

           
Fare
thee well, my charming gal With golden slippers on!

 
          
"Kiss
your partner and turn her loose!" whooped out Mr. Eddy as I stopped. Clay
kissed Sarah Ann the way you'd think it was his whole business in life, and
Sarah Ann, up on her little toes, kissed him back.

 
          
"Won't
be no better singing and dancing the day these young ones marry up," said
Mr. Hoje. "And no fare thee wells then."

 
          
"And
I purely wish I could buy you golden slippers, Sarah Ann," said Clay as
the two sat down together again.

 
          
"Gold's
where you find it," quoted Mr. Eddy from the Book. "Clay, you might
ransack round them old lost mines the Ancients dug, that nobody knows about.
John, you remember the song about them?"

 
          
I
remembered, for Mr. Eddy and Mr. Hoje talked a right much about the Ancients
and their mines. I sang it:

 
          
Where were they, where were they, On that
gone and vanished day When they shoveled for their treasure

 
          
of gold?

 
          
In the pines,in the pines, Where the sun
never shines, And I shiver when the wind blows
cold. . . .

 
          
As
I stopped, a throat rasped, loud. "Odd," said somebody, walking into
the yard, "to hear that song just now."

 
          
We
didn't know the somebody. He was blocky-made, not young nor either old, with a
store suit and a black hat, like a man running for district judge. His square
face looked flat and white, like a face drawn on paper.

 
          
"Might
I sit for a minute?" he asked, mannerly. "I've come a long, long
way."

 
          
"Take
the door-log, and welcome," Mr. Hoje bade him. "My name's Hoje
Cowand, and this is my daughter Sarah Ann, and these are the Herrons, and this
here's John, who's a-visiting me. Come a long way, you said? Where from,
sir?"

           
"From going to and fro in the
world," said the stranger, lifting the hat from his smoke-gray hair,
"and from walking up and down in it."

 
          
Another
quotation from the Book; and if you've read Job's first chapter, you know who's
supposed to have said it. The man saw how we gopped, for he smiled as he sat
down and stuck out his dusty shoes.

 
          
"My
name's Reed Barnitt," he said. "Odd, to hear talk of the Ancients and
their mines. For I've roved around after talk of them."

 
          
"Why,"
said Mr. Hoje, "folks say the Ancients came into these mountains before
the settlers. Close to four hundred years back."

 
          
"That
long, Mr. Hoje?" asked young Clay.

 
          
"Well,
a tree was cut that growed in the mouth of an Ancients' mine, near Horse
Stomp," Mr. Hoje allowed. "Schooled folks counted the rings in the
wood, and there was full three hundred. It was before the Yankee war they done
that, so the tree seeded itself in the mine-hole four hundred years back, or
near about."

 
          
"The
time of the Spaniards," nodded Reed Barnitt. "Maybe about when
de Soto
and his Spanish soldiers crossed these
mountains."

 
          
"I've
heard tell the Ancients was here around that time," put in Mr. Eddy,
"but I've likewise heard tell they wasn't Spanish folks, nor either
Indians."

 
          
"Did
they get what they sought?" wondered Reed Barnitt.

 
          
"My
daddy went into that Horse Stomp heading once," said Mr. Eddy. "He
said it run back about seven hundred foot as he stepped it, and a deep shaft
went down at the end. Well, he figured no mortal soul would dig so far, saving
he found what he was after." He had hold of Mr. Hoje's jug, and now he
pushed it toward Mr. Barnitt. "Have a drink?"

 
          
"Thank
you kindly, I don't use it. What did the Ancients want?"

 
          
"I've
seen only one of then- mines, over the ridge yonder," and Mr. Hoje nodded
through the dusk. "Where they call it Black Pine Hollow—"

 
          
"Where
the sun never shines," put in Mr. Barnitt, "and I shiver when the
wind blows cold." His smile at me was tight.

 
          
"I
was there three-four tunes when I was a chap, but not lately, for folks allows
there's haunts there. I saw a right much quartz laying around, and I hear tell
gold comes from quartz rock."

 
          
"Gold,"
nodded Reed Barnitt. He put bis hand inside his coat.

           
"You folks are treating me
clever," he said, "and I hope you let me make a gift. Miss Sarah Ann,
I myself don't have use for these, so if you'd accept—"

 
          
What
he held out was golden slippers, that shone in the down-going sun's last suspicions.

 
          
Gentlemen,
you should have heard Sarah Ann cry out her pleasure, you should have seen the
gold shine in her eyes. But she drew back the hand she put out.

 
          
"I
couldn't," she said. "Wouldn't be fitting to."

 
          
"Then
I'll give them to this young man." Reed Barnitt set the slippers in Clay's
lap. "Young sir, I misdoubt if Miss Sarah Ann would refuse a gift at your
hands."

 
          
The
slippers had high heels and pointy toes, and they shone like glory. Clay smiled
at Sarah Ann and gave them to her. To see her smile back, you'd think it was
Clay, and not Reed Barnitt, had taken them from nowhere for her.

 
          
"I
do thank you kindly," said Sarah Ann. She shucked off her scuffy old
shoes, and the golden slippers fitted her like slippers made to the measure of
her feet. "John," she said, "was just singing about things like
this."

 
          
"Heard
him as I came up trail from Rebel Creek," said Reed Barnitt. "And
likewise heard him sing of the Ancients in Black Pine Hollow." His square
face looked at us around. "Gentlemen," he said, "I wonder if
there's heart ha you all to go there with me."

 
          
We
gopped again. Finally Clay said, "For gold?"

 
          
"For
what else?" said Reed Barnitt. "Nobody's found it there, because
nobody had the special way to look for it."

 
          
Nary
one of us was really surprised to hear what the man said. There'd been such a
story as long as anybody had lived around Rebel Creek. Mr. Hoje drank from the
jug. Finally he said, "In what respect a special way, Mr. Barnitt?"

 
          
"I
said I'd roved a far piece. I went to fetch a spell that would show the
treasure. But I can't do it alone." Again the white face traveled its look
over us. "It takes five folks—men, because a woman mustn't go into a
mine."

 
          
We
knew about that. If lady-folks go down a mine, there'll be something bad
befall, maybe a miner killed.

 
          
"You've
been kindly to me," said Reed Barnitt. "I feel like asking you, will
you all come help me? Mr. Cowand, and Mr. Herron, and you his son, and you,
John. Five we'd seek the treasure of the Ancients and five ways we'd divide
it."

 
          
Sarah
Ann had her manners with her. "I'll just go do the dishes," she said
to us. "No, Clay, don't come help. Stay and talk here."

 
          
Reed
Barnitt watched her go into the house. She left the door open, and the shine
from the hearth gave us red light after sundown.

 
          
"You're
a lucky young rooster," Reed Barnitt said to Clay. "A fifth chunk of
the Ancients' treasure would sure enough pleasure that girl."

 
          
"Mr.
Barnitt, I'm with you," Clay told
him
quick.

 
          
"So
am I," said Mr. Eddy, because his son had spoken.

 
          
"I
don't lag back when others go forward," I added on.

 
          
"Count
on me," finished Mr. Hoje for us. "That makes five, like you want it,
sir. But you studied the thing out and got the spell. You should have more than
a fifth of whatever we find."

 
          
But
the white square face shook sideways. "No. Part of the business is that
each of the five takes his equal part, of the doing and of the sharing. That's
how it must be. Now—we begin."

 
          
"Right
this instant?" asked Clay.

 
          
"Yes,"
said Reed Barnitt. "Stand round, you all."

 
          
He
got up from the door-log and stepped into the yard, and the rest of us with
him. "The first part of the spell," he said. "To learn if the
Ancients truly left a treasure."

 
          
Where
the hearth's red glimmer showed on the ground in front of the door, he knelt
down. He picked up a stick. He marked in the dirt.

 
          
"Five-pointed
star," he said. It was maybe four feet across. "Stand at the points,
gentlemen. Yes, like that."

 
          
Rising,
he took his place at the fifth point. He flung away the stick, and put a white
hand into the side pocket of his coat. "Silence," he warned us,
though he didn't need to.

 
          
He
stooped and flung something down at the star's center. Maybe it was powder,
though I'm not sure, for it broke out into fire quick, and shone like pure
white heat yanked in a chunk from the heart of a furnace. I saw it shine sickly
on the hairy faces of Mr. Hoje and Mr. Eddy, and Clay's young jaws and cheeks
seemed dull and drawn. Reed Barnitt needed no special light to be pale.

 
          
He
began to speak. "Moloch, Lucifer," he said in a voice like praying.
"Anector, Somiator, sleep ye not, awake. The strong hero Holoba, the
powerful Ischiros, the mighty Manus Erohye—show us the truth! Amen."

 
          
Again
his hand in his pocket, and he brought out a slip of paper the size of a
postcard, whiter than white in the glow. He handed it to Clay, who was nearest
him. "Breathe on it," said Reed Barnitt, "and the others do
likewise."