Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer SSC (20 page)

 
          
"More
than a puddle here," I said, looking at the clouds and then across the
pond. "See yonder, Rafe, where the water edge comes above that little
slanty slope. If it was open, enough water could run off to keep the Notch from
flooding."

 
          
"Could
be done," he nodded his big head, "if you had machinery to pull the
rocks out. But they're bigger than them fall rocks, they ain't half washed away
to begin with. And there ain't no machinery, so just forget it. The Notch
washes out, with most of the folks living in it—all of them, if the devil bids
high enough- Sing me a song."

           
I swept the strings with my thumb.
"Thinking about John Henry," I said, half to myself. "He
wouldn't need a machine to open up a drain-off place yonder."

 
          
"How'd
he do it?" asked Rafe.

 
          
"He
had a hammer twice the size ary other man swung," I said. "He drove
steel when they cut the Big Bend Tunnel through
Cruze
Mountain
. Out-drove the steam drill they brought to
compete him out of his job."

 
          
"Steam
drill," Rafe repeated me, the way you'd think he was faintly recollecting
the tale. "They'd do that—ordinary size folks, trying to work against a
giant. How big was John Henry?"

 
          
"Heard
tell he was the biggest man ever in
Virginia
."

 
          
"Big
as me?"

 
          
"Maybe
not quite. Maybe just stronger."

 
          
"Stronger!"

 
          
I
had my work cut out not to run from the anger in Rafe Enoch's face.

 
          
"Well,"
I said, "he beat the steam drill. . . ."

 
          
John Henry said to his captain, "A man
ain't nothing but a man, But before I let that steam drill

 
          
run me down, I'll die with this hammer in my

 
          
hand.
..."

 
          
"He'd
die trying," said Rafe, and his ears were sort of cocked forward, the way
you hear elephants do to listen. "He'd die winning," I said, and sang
the next verse:

 
          
John Henry drove steel that long

 
          
day through,

 
          
The steam drill failed by his side. The
mountain was high, the sun

 
          
was low, John he laid down his hammer

 
          
and he died. .

           
"Killed himself beating the
drill!" and Rafe's pumpkin fist banged into his other palm. "Reckon I
could have beat it and lived!"

 
          
I
was looking at the place where the pond could have a drain-off.

 
          
"No,"
said Rafe. "Even if I wanted to, I don't have no hammer twice the size of
other folks' hammers."

 
          
A
drop of rain fell on me. I started around the pond.

 
          
"Where
you going?" Rafe called, but I didn't look back. Stopped beside the
wigwam-house and put my guitar inside. It was gloomy in there, but I saw his
home-made stool as high as a table, his table almost chin high to a natural
man, a bed woven of hickory splits and spread with bear and deer skins to be
the right bed for Og, King of Bashan, in the Book of Joshua. Next to the door I
grabbed up a big pole of hickory, off some stacked firewood.

 
          
"Where
you going?" he called again.

 
          
I
went to where the slope started. I poked my hickory between two rocks and
started to pry. He laughed, and rain sprinkled down.

 
          
"Go
on, John," he granted me. "Grub out a sluiceway there. I like to watch
little scrabbly men work. Come in the house, Page, we'll watch him from in
there."

 
          
I
couldn't budge the rocks from each other. They were big—like trunks or grain
sacks, and must have weighed in the half-tons. They were set in there, one next
to the other, four-five of them holding the water back from pouring down that
slope. I heaved on my hickory till it bent like a bow.

 
          
"Come
on," said Rafe again, and I looked around in time to see him put out his
shovel hand and take her by the wrist. Gentlemen, the way she slapped him with
her other hand it made me jump with the crack.

 
          
I
watched, knee deep in water. He put his hand to his gold-bearded cheek and his
eye-whites glittered in the rain.

 
          
"If
you was a man," he boomed down at Page, "I'd slap you dead."

 
          
"Do
it!" she blazed him back. "I'm a woman, and I don't fear you or ary
overgrown, sorry-for-himself giant ever drew breath!"

 
          
With
me standing far enough off to forget how little I was by them, they didn't seem
too far apart in size. Page was like a small-made woman facing up to a sizable
man, that was all.

 
          
"If
you was a man—" he began again.

 
          
"I'm
no man, nor neither ain't you a man!" she cut off. "Don't know if
you're an ape or a bull-brute or what, but you're no man! John's the only man
here, and I'm helping him! Stop me if you dare!"

 
          
She
ran to where I was. Rain battered her hair into a brown tumble and soaked her
dress snug against her fine proud strong body. Into the water she splashed.

 
          
"Let
me pry," and she grabbed the hickory pole. "I'll pry up and you tug
up, and maybe—"

 
          
I
bent to grab the rock with my hands. Together we tried. Seemed to me the rock
stirred a little, like the drowsy sleeper in the old song. Dragging at it, I
felt the muscles strain and crackle in my shoulders and arms.

 
          
"Look
out!" squealed Page. "Here he comes!"

 
          
Up
on the bank she jumped again, with the hickory ready to club at him. He paid
her no mind, she stooped down toward where I was.

 
          
"Get
on out of there!" he bellowed, the way I've always reckoned a buffalo bull
might do. "Get out!"

 
          
"But—but—"
I was wheezing. "Somebody's got to move this rock—"

 
          
"You
ain't budging it ary mite!" he almost deafened me in the ear. "Get
out and let somebody there can do something!"

 
          
He
grabbed my arm and snatched me out of the water, so sudden I almost sprained my
fingers letting go the rock. Next second he jumped in, with a splash like a
jolt-wagon going off a bridge. His big shovelly hands clamped the sides of the
rock, and through the falling rain I saw him heave.

 
          
He
swole up like a mad toad-frog. His patchy fur shirt split down the middle of
his back while those muscles humped under his skin. His teeth flashed out in
his beard, set hard together.

 
          
Then,
just when I thought he'd bust open, that rock came out of its bed, came up in
the air, landing on the bank away from where it'd been.

 
          
"I
swear, Rafe—" I began to say.

 
          
"Help
him," Page put in. "Let's both help."

 
          
We
scrabbled for a hold on the rock, but Rafe hollered us away, so loud and sharp
we jumped back like scared dogs. I saw that rock quiver, and cracks ran through
the rain-soaked dirt around it. Then it came up on end, the way you'd think it
had hinges, and Rafe got both arms around it and heaved it clear. He laughed,
with the rain wet in his beard.

 
          
Standing
clear where he'd told her to stand, Page pointed to the falls' end.

 
          
Looked
as if the rain hadn't had to put down but just a little bit. Those loose rocks
trembled and shifted in their places. They were ready to go. Then Rafe saw what
we saw.

 
          
"Run,
you two!" he howled above that racketty storm. "Run, run
-quick!"

 
          
I
didn't tarry to ask the reason. I grabbed Page's arm and we ran toward the
falls. Running, I looked back past my elbow.

 
          
Rafe
had straightened up, straddling among the rocks by the slope. He looked into
the clouds, that were almost resting on his shaggy head, and both his big arms
lifted and his hands spread and then their fingers snapped. I could hear the
snaps—
Whop! Whop/
like two pistol
shots.

 
          
He
got what he called for, a forked stroke of lightning, straight and hard down on
him like a fish-gig in the hands of the Lord's top angel. It slammed down on
Rafe and over and around him, and it shook itself all the way from rock to
clouds. Rafe Enoch in its grip lit up and glowed, the way you'd think he'd been
forge-hammered out of iron and heated red in a furnace to temper him.

 
          
I
heard the almightiest tearing noise I ever could call for. I felt the rock
shelf quiver all the way to where we'd stopped dead to watch. My thought was,
the falls had torn open and the Notch was drowning.

 
          
But
the lightning yanked back to where it had come from. It had opened the
sluiceway, and water flooded through and down slope, and Rafe had fallen down
while it poured and puddled over him.

 
          
"He's
struck dead!" I heard Page say over the rain.

 
          
"No,"
I said back.

 
          
For
Rafe Enoch was on his knees, on his feet, and out of that drain-off rush,
somehow staggering up from the flat sprawl where the lightning had flung him.
His knees wobbled and bucked, but he drew them up straight and mopped a big
muddy hand across his big muddy face.

 
          
He
came walking toward us, slow and dreamy-moving, and by now the rain rushed down
instead of fell down. It was like what my old folks used to call raining
tomcats and hoe handles. I bowed my head to it, and made to pull Page toward
Rafe's wigwam; but she wouldn't pull, she held where she was, till Rafe came up
with us. Then, all three, we went together and got into the tight, dark shelter
of the wigwam-house, with the rain and wind battering the outside of it.

 
          
Rafe
and I sat on the big bed, and Page on a stool, looking small there. She wrung
the water out of her hair.

 
          
"You
all right?" she inquired Rafe.

 
          
I
looked at him. Between the drain-off and the wigwam, rain had washed off that
mud that gaumed all over him. He was wet and clean, with his patch-pelt shirt
hanging away from his big chest and shoulders in soggy rags.

 
          
The
lightning had singed off part of his beard. He lifted big fingers to wipe off
the wet, fluffy ash, and I saw the stripe on his naked arm, on the broad back
of his hand, and I made out another stripe just like it on the other. Lightning
had slammed down both hands and arms, and clear down his flanks and legs—I saw
the burnt lines on his fringed leggings. It was like a double lash of God's
whip.

 
          
Page
got off the stool and came close to him. Just then he didn't look so
out-and-out much bigger than she was. She put a long gentle finger on that
lightning lash where it ran along his shoulder.