Manly Wade Wellman - John Thunstone 02 (22 page)

 
          
“It
is just past
five o’clock
,”
he reported in English. “Oishi here has some suggestions for what to do.”

 
          
“Let’s
all go to my room,” invited Thunstone. “Maybe have a drink there. We’ll talk
for a while and then go to dinner together.”

 
          
“Dinner?”
repeated
Sharon
. “Do you think of dinner?”

 
          
“I’m
thinking of it now,” replied Thunstone. “I want to eat well before I speak,
before whatever happens when I speak.”

           
“Something will happen,” vowed
Manco, “Or will try to happen.”

 
          
“Something
we won’t let happen,” said Father Bundren stoutly. “We’ve defeated them again
and again, except in the case of poor Exum Layton. Whatever they try to do, we
won’t let it happen.”

 
          
“No,”
said Kyoki. “No.”

 
          
They
reached the
Inn
, went up to Thunstone’s room. Kyoki went
out to bring back a supply of ice. Thunstone brought another bottle of brandy
out of his suitcase and found glasses for all. They sat wherever they could.
Sharon
was in the armchair, Shimada on the
straight one. Thunstone and Father Bundren sat together on the bed. Both Manco
and Kyoki were on the floor, cross-legged. All sipped the brandy thoughtfully.

 
          
“Mr.
Thunstone,” said Shimada at last, “we are your guests here, and all of us, I
think, feel that you are the special target chosen by the enemy. Let us call
you the chairman of this committee. Speak first.”

 
          
“If
that’s the will of all of you, let me start by summing up what we’ve summed up
before,” said Thunstone. “These creatures—Rowley Thome and Grizel Fian and
their followers—have been defeated several times. They grew desperate, and they
killed Exum Layton. I agree with the thought that when I speak tonight they’ll
try to do something to strike me permanently silent. Some other
spell
, perhaps, to kill me as they killed
Layton
.”

 
          
“Wagh
,
”
boomed Manco. “I’ve said that
there are many ways to kill. The bad spirits of the Cherokee know those ways.
It is for a medicine man to defend against them.”

           
“Sir,” said Kyoki beside him.
“Chief, should I call you? You speak again and again like somebody who
instinctively understands Shinto. How did you learn?”

           
“I learned young,” said Manco. “When
I was a boy, I was taken to
raise
by an old medicine
man. Tsukala was his name. He taught me to get up early and sing the sunrise
song. He taught me to listen, as he told tales of the world’s early times, when
men and animals and plants all lived and talked together as friends and
neighbors.”

 
          
“That
is true Shinto teaching,” offered Shimada, and, “Yes,” said Kyoki.

 
          
“Tsukala
taught me the use of plants for medicine, for charms, for protection,” Manco
went on. “He taught me the secret songs and prayers. He built a sacred fire,
and told me to tend it for long days and long nights. He put sacred herbs into
the fire, and I breathed their vapors. When I dreamed, he told me how to read
what the dreams meant. Under his guidance, I performed many things.
Sometimes frightening things.
When Tsukala died, the people
called me their medicine man. I have been a medicine man ever since. I am one
now. This buckskin shirt I wear is a medicine man’s
shirt,
the beads on it make strong magic. My work is to find out dangers and drive
them back, to cure sickness, to gather wisdom where I can and use it to help
others.” “Shinto,” said Kyoki to him. “That is Shinto you describe.”

 
          
“Weigh,”
said Manco. “It is the belief
of my people.” He looked around at the others. “There are several beliefs here,
several roads. All roads are good if they bring us to good things.”

 
          
“Yes,
that is Shinto you speak,” declared Shimada. “You American Indians have been
here a long time, tens of thousands of years. Yet, before you came from
Asia
, Shinto was a developing fact in
Japan
. Perhaps your people brought some Shinto
teachings along, and keep them to this day.”
“Wagh
, ”
said Manco again. He was smoking
his elephant pipe. “There’s much in what you say, but we’re here to make a plan
for tonight, when Thunstone speaks.”

 
          
Kyoki
seemed to stare into space. “They plan, too.
Plan against us.
They are
careful,
they try to think behind a wall.

           
But I know this much, they plan
murderously.” He looked at Thunstone.
“Plan murderously against
you.
I see their thoughts, your image in their thoughts. And there is
blood on your image.”

 
          
“What
will you do?” Father Bundren asked Thunstone.

 
          
“Do?
I’ll get up there and tell them to their faces. Dare them.”

 
          
“We’d
all better be up on stage with you,” said Father Bundren.
“Out
of sight of the audience, but up there.
Ready to make
a stand in force, so to speak.”

 
          
“What
do you expect to happen, Father?” asked
Sharon
.

 
          
“My
child, I don’t know what to expect.
Maybe to expect
everything.”

 
          
“Suspect
everything,” said Manco, puffing smoke. “Be ready to fight it.”

 
          
“Let
me be there,” said
Sharon
.

 
          
“Of
course,” said Thunstone. “You must be with us at all times. And you must carry
protection, all the time.”

 
          
“This.”
She touched the cross at her neck.
“And this.”
She
held out the silver bell. It whispered its music.

 
          
“I’ll
be protected, too,” declared Thunstone.
“My cane and its
silver blade.
And
wait,
something else.”

 
          
He
reached to the bureau for the book that lay there. “The
Long Lost Friend
,
”
he said. “
John George Hohman’s talisman against spiritual
dangers.
Father Bundren, you questioned this once,
then
you seemed to endorse it.”

 
          
“It
worked well for us,” said the priest. He took the book and opened to its
preface.

 
          
“ ‘Whoever
carries this book with him is safe from all his
enemies, visible or invisible,’ ” he read aloud. “I pray that this will be true
for you.”

 
          
“I
pray the same,” said
Sharon
.

 
          
“It
says that you can’t die without the ‘holy corpse’ of Jesus Christ,” said Father
Bundren, still studying the preface. “Let me say that, when all things are
settled, I’ll administer the sacrament to you. Not until then.”

           
Shimada took the book in turn and
leafed through it. “Many good things are in here,” he said, and passed it back
to Thunstone, who slid it into the side pocket of his jacket.

 
          
“It
is well for you to have that strong protection,” said Shimada. “For Oishi and
me, there is Shinto. We are grateful for Shinto.”

 
          
“I
have my strong medicine shirt, and I have this,” said Manco, displaying his
elephant pipe. “With it goes the special tobacco.”

 
          
“And
I’m never without help and protection,” said Father Bundren.

 
          
Thunstone
rose from where he sat and picked up his sword cane.

 
          
“I’d
say that we’re all as ready as possible,” he said. “Let’s go and have some
dinner.”

 
          
They
went out together. It seemed to Thunstone that they walked purposefully along
the corridor to the elevator. They were, he thought again, like a fighting
force, ready to meet any threat. Even
Sharon
was ready.

 
          
Entering
the dining room, they found a table where ail six of them could sit. A waiter
came quickly to hand menus around. Thunstone had not noticed this waiter
before. He was a slim young man, with dark hair carefully combed to his head,
and his white jacket seemed to have been tailored to him.

 
          
Sharon
ordered a lamb chop and some green
vegetables. Shimada and Kyoki asked for servings of something made with shrimps
and rice, Thunstone brooded over the menu.

 
          
“I
see I can get a small sirloin steak,” he said. “Let me have it rare, and a
baked potato and a salad,” He smiled around at his companions. “That’s more or
less the pregame meal we used to have back when I played football.”

 
          
“You
make a wise choice,” said Father Bundren. “I think I’ll have the same.”

 
          
“And
so shall I,” said Manco. “And black coffee.”

 
          
They
all ordered coffee and the young waiter went away to the kitchen, Thunstone
narrowed his eyes and thought. He was to speak. He must speak. He wouldn’t use
the speech he had prepared. Shimada had begun for him, He would finish.

 
          
“A
pregame meal,” Father Bundren was saying. “When I was younger, I played
football, too. X had those pregame meals. Those were balanced. The steak was
protein, and the baked potato was for carbohydrate.”

 
          
“We’d
eat well before game time, about
ten o’clock
in the morning,” said Thunstone. “And no
butter on the potato in those far-off days, but I’m going to have some now.”

           
“The meat is for strength,” intoned
Manco. “Man is himself a creature of meat. I believe in meat. I don’t hold with
the vegetarians.”

 
          
“Leave
the vegetarians alone,” said
Sharon
. “They may not know what they’re doing, but
they think they do. To eat meat is to be guilty of the death of a fellow
creature. Didn’t Shelley say something like that?”

 
          
“And
Byron liked Shelley, but he didn’t agree with him there,” said Father Bundren.
“Neither do
I
.”

 
          
“Thoreau,”
said Sharon, and Thunstone laughed. “Thoreau was an Orientalist, he talked
about being a vegetarian,” he said. “But he’d catch fish and eat them—fish suffer
when they’re caught—and when he visited Emerson or Hawthorne, he seems to have
done pretty well at eating beef or pork or whatever was on the table.”

 
          
“We
will face enemies who eat the flesh of killed animals,” offered Shimada.
“Enemies who come out of underground dens, with underground
motives.
From their caves, their fast places.
Coming
into the sun and the air, to do their enchantments.
From
far below.”

 
          
“ ‘Caverns
measureless to sun,’ ” quoted Thunstone. “Now
we’re back to Coleridge,” said Father Bundren.
“ ‘Caverns
measureless to man, down to a sunless sea.’ But it’s my notion that dark
underground life isn’t healthy. The sun and the air, you said, Professor
Shimada. I don’t believe that life is very good without sun and air. I’ve never
tried it myself.”

 
          
“Should
we have wine with our dinner?” asked Shimada.

           
“Not for me,” said Thunstone. “I’ll
stick to coffee with my training meal.
Maybe later.”

           
“Later,” said
Sharon
dismally, and Thunstone shook his head at
her.

 
          
“You
have better faith in me than that,” he chided her.

           
“You’ve seen me deep into whatever
dangers anyone dreamed up for me, and you’ve seen me out again.”

           
“As you got out of your caverns,’’
she said, not comforted. “I know that story about you over in
England
, and it was a miracle that you escaped
there.’’

 
          
“It
is a miracle that we have all escaped here,” said Shimada. “To escape, to live,
it is all a miracle.”

 
          
They
mused on that. The waiter brought them their coffee, and they sipped. Then he
was back with a huge tray and set down their various dinners.

 
          
“Let
me just say a grace,” requested Father Bundren, and bowed his head. He spoke
softly in Latin,
then
he looked up.

 
          
“I
prayed for other things when I said thanks for what we’re about to eat.”

 
          
“About
to eat,” Thunstone said after him, looking at his plate.

 
          
Upon
it was a steak, brown with red juices upon it, and a potato gashed open, with a
big pat of butter beside it. But also on the plate lay a small heap of what
looked like rosy- dark preserved fruits.

 
          
“What
are those?” he asked. “You people heard me order. I didn’t order those.”

 
          
Shimada
craned his neck to see. He studied carefully. At last he drew back and stroked
his mustache.

 
          
“In
Japan
, they tell of certain fruits which, if you
eat them with a protein, will kill you,” he said. “Myself, I have never seen
such
things,
I have never known why they do believe in
them. Yet they may be in this world. They may be here as well as in
Japan
.”

 
          
Manco
struck a brown fist on the table. “Where’s that waiter?” he growled. “Call him
over to take them away.”

 
          
“No,”
said Thunstone. “Leave him out of it just now.”

 
          
He
took a spoon and carefully scooped the fruits away into an ash tray. With a
fork he pulled his steak and potato across the plate to where no fruit juice
had reached.

           
“Maybe that was to do something to
me,” he said.
“Maybe.
If it was, the rest of my dinner
should be all right.”
“Deo volente
,
”
said Father
Bundren,

           
Thunstone cut the potato open more
widely and put butter on its mealy interior and sprinkled salt and pepper. All
watched as he trickled Worcestershire sauce on the steak and cut off a morsel
and put it in his mouth. “Excellent,” he announced, and took a forkful of
potato to follow.

 
          
“Wait,”
said Father Bundren abruptly. “Don’t eat any more until we share something
here.”

 
          
He
had produced from a pocket a sort of cup. It was perhaps an inch high, and
about four inches in diameter. Thunstone thought it was made of some sort of
cream- tinted ivory. Its sides bore curved lines, as of a spiral. Father
Bundren poured coffee from his cup into it.

 
          
“Let’s
all have a sip or so of this,” he said, handing it to
Sharon
. “I’ve been told that to drink from that
cup will ward off poisons and other assaults.”

 
          
Sharon
took a small mouthful. “It has a hint of
perfume,” she said, handing it to Shimada.

 
          
“It’s
supposed to be made from the horn of a unicorn,” said Father Bundren.

 
          
“Really?”
said Manco, taking the cup in turn. “Not of a narwhal?”

 
          
“It
was given to me by an Italian priest,” Father Bundren said. “It came to him
from a lady who said her family had owned it for hundreds of years. She said it
was from a unicorn’s horn, and had great powers of protection. I can’t speak
positively of that, I’ve never brought it out to drink from until this moment,
but I like to carry it with me.” The cup came to Thunstone. The coffee did have
a slight taste of perfume, as
Sharon
had said.

 
          
“I
can’t speak with assurance about unicorns, either,” he said, returning the cup
to Father Bundren. “Aristotle and Pliny the Elder believed in them. So did
Julius Caesar, who said they existed in
Germany
.”

 
          
Father
Bundren drank the last drops in the cup and stowed it away again. “Unicorns are
mentioned in the Bible. And they were reported by early explorers in
America
, including missionary priests. Now then, I
won’t admit to beliefs about them. But in a case like ours, we shouldn’t
overlook a bet, anywhere along the way.”

 
          
“Amen,”
said Manco, cutting into his steak.

 
          
The
others began to eat, too. Shimada and Kyoki exclaimed over their shrimps and
rice. Father Bundren and Manco ate their steaks and potatoes.
Sharon
toyed with her lamb chop for a while,
then
ate as though with a growing appetite. Thunstone
carefully mixed his lettuce salad with oil and vinegar and salt and pepper. For
a while, nobody talked except about the food. The
Inn
was a good place to eat, they agreed.

 
          
When
Thunstone had finished with his steak, he beckoned the waiter. “Bring me
a cup
custard,” he ordered. “Let me have lime ice cream,”
said
Sharon
.

           
“Cup custard for me, too,” said
Father Bundren. “That goes with the training meal, doesn’t it?”

 
          
Manco, too, ordered custard.
Shimada and Kyoki did not ask
for dessert. At last all had finished. Thunstone and Manco and Father Bundren
produced pipes and Manco passed his pouch of mixed tobacco and herbs. Shimada
kindled a cigarette. Sharon and Kyoki did not smoke.

 
          
“Whatever
we make ready for, we’re as ready as can be,” said Manco, from within a gray
cloud.

 
          
“
Saint Paul
spoke of being armed against evil,” said
Father Bundren. “He mentioned the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of
salvation, the sword of the spirit. I do my best to feel righteous whenever I
quote that.”

           
“Armed against evil,” repeated
Shimada, He brought out an envelope.

           
“I intended some presents to you, my
friends,” he said, “and it seems a good time to give them now.”

           
He opened the envelope and spilled a
red glitter of objects out on the table cloth. He picked up one. It was a
bright, rubylike jewel on a length of white cord. He bowed as he handed it to
Thunstone.

 
          
“Ancient
Japanese charm,” he said. “The red light makes the dark threat of hidden evil
retire before its brightness.” He passed out other jewels on cords to
Sharon
, to Manco, to Father Bundren.
Sharon
hung hers around her neck, along with the
gold cross. Manco studied his with deep- creased eyes before he tucked it away
somewhere inside his beaded shirt. Father Bundren put his jewel into a pocket
of his coat, and Thunstone slid his into the side pocket that held the
Long Lost Friend.
“Thank you,” he said
to Shimada. “I believe like you, in the power of the jewel.” “Oishi and I have
them also and wear them,” said Shimada. “Belief, you say. We must believe in
our defenses. If we do not believe, they are not defenses.”

 
          
“Without
defenses, I’ll be dead,” said Thunstone.