Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer SSC (4 page)

 
          
I
dug in my toes and smashed the guitar at it. Full-slam I struck its bulgy head
above the beak and across the eyes, and I heard the polished wood of my
music-maker crash to splinters.

 
          
And
down went the Ugly Bird!

 
          
Down
it went.

           
Quiet it lay.

 
          
Its
great big wings stretched out on either side, without a flutter. Its beak was
driven into the ground like a nail. It didn't kick or flop or stir once.

 
          
But
Mr. Onselm, standing where he stood holding Winnie, screamed out the way you
might scream if something had clawed out all your insides with a single tearing
grab.

 
          
He
didn't move, I don't even know if his mouth came open. Winnie gave a pull with
all her strength and tottered back, clear of him. And as if only his hold on
her had kept him standing, Mr. Onselm slapped over and down on his face, his
arms flung out like the Ugly Bird's wings, his face in the dirt like the Ugly
Bird's face.

 
          
Still
holding my broken guitar by the neck like a club, I ran to him and stooped.
"Get up," I said, and took hold of what hair he had and lifted his
face up.

 
          
One
look was enough. From the war, I know a dead man when I see one. I let go his
hair, and his face went back into the dirt as
if
it belonged there.

 
          
The
others moved at last, tottering a few steps closer. And they didn't act like
enemies now, for Mr. Onselm who had made them act so was down and dead.

 
          
Then
Kobe
gave a scared shout, and we looked that
way.

 
          
The
Ugly Bird all of a sudden looked rotten mushy, and was soaking into the ground.
To me, anyhow, it looked shadowy and misty, and I could see through it. I
wanted to move close, then I didn't want to. It was melting away like snow on
top of a stove; only no wetness left behind.

 
          
It
was gone, while we watched and wondered and felt bad all over.

 
          
Mr.
Bristow knelt and turned Mr. Onselm over. On the dead face ran sick lines
across, thin and purple, as though he'd been struck down by a blow of a toaster
or a gridiron.

 
          
"The
guitar strings," said Mr. Bristow. "The silver guitar strings. It
finished him, like any hoodoo man."

 
          
That
was it. Won't a silver bullet kill a witch, or a silver knife a witch's cat?
And a silver key locks out ghosts, doesn't it?

 
          
"What
was the word you said?" whispered Winnie to me.

 
          
"Ectoplasm,"
I told her. "Like his soul coming out—and getting struck dead outside his
body."

 
          
More
important was talk about what to do now. The men decided. They allowed to report
to the county seat that Mr. Onselm's heart had stopped on him, which it had.
They went over the tale three or four times to make sure they'd all tell it the
same. They cheered up as they talked. You never saw gladder people to get rid
of a neighbor.

 
          
"And,
John," said Mr. Bristow, "we'd sure enough be proud if you stayed
here. You took this curse off us."

 
          
Kobe
wanted me to come live on his farm and help
him work it on shares. Sam Heaver offered me all the money out of his old cash
register. I thanked him and said no, sir, to Hobe I said thank you kindly, I'd
better not. If they wanted their story to stick with the sheriff, they'd better
forget that I'd been around when Mr. Onselm's heart stopped. All I was sorry
for was my broken guitar.

 
          
But
while we'd talked, Mr. Bristow was gone. He came back, with a guitar from his
place, and he acted honored if I'd take it in place of mine. So I tightened my
silver strings on it and tried a chord or two.

 
          
Winnie
swore she'd pray for me by name each night of her life, and I told her that
would sure see me safe from any assaults of the devil.

 
          
"Assaults
of the devil, John!" she said, almost shrill in the voice, she was so
earnest. "It's you who drove the devil from this valley."

 
          
The
others all said they agreed on that.

 
          
"It
was foretold about you in the Bible," said Winnie, her voice soft again.
"There was a man sent from God, whose name was John."

 
          
But
that was far too much for her to say, and I was that abashed, I said goodbye
all around in a hurry. I strummed my new guitar as I walked away, until I got
an old song back in my mind. I've heard tell that the song's written in an
old-time book called
Percy's Frolics,
or
Relics,
or something:

 
          
Lady, I never loved witchcraft,

 
          
Never dealt in privy wile,

 
          
But evermore held the high way

 
          
Of love and honor, free from guile.
. .
.

 
          
And
though I couldn't bring myself to look back to the place I was leaving forever,
I knew that Winnie watched me, and that she listened, listened, till she had to
strain her ears to catch the last, faintest end of my song.

 
          
The
folks at the party clapped me such an encore, I sang that song.

 
          
The
lady had stopped her car at the roadside when she saw my thumb out and my
silver-strung guitar under my arm. Asked me my name, I told her John. Asked
where I was headed, I told her nowhere special. Asked could I play that
guitar, I played it as we rolled along. Then she invited me most kindly to her
country house, to sing to her friends, and they'd be obliged, she said. And I
went.

 
          
The
people there were fired up with what they'd drunk, lots of ladies and men in
costly clothes, and I had my bothers not getting drunk, too. But, shoo, they
Uked what I played and sang. Staying off wornout songs, I smote out what they'd
never heard before—
Witch in the
Wilderness
and
Rebel Soldier
and
Vandy, Vandy, I've Come to Court You.
When
they clapped and hollered for more, I sang the Yandro song, like this:

 
          
777
build me a desrick on Yandro's high hill,
Where the wild beasts can't reach me or hear my sad cry, For he's gone, he's
gone away, to stay a little while, But he'll come back if he comes ten thousand
miles.

 
          
Then
they strung around and made me more welcome than any stranger could call for,
and the hostess lady said I must stay to supper, and sleep there that night.
But at that second, everybody sort of pulled away, and one man came up and sat
down by me.

 
          
I'd
been aware that, when first he came in, things stilled down, like with little
boys when a big bully shows himself. He was built short and broad, his clothes
were sporty, cut handsome and costly. His buckskin hair was combed across his
head to baffle folks he wasn't getting bald. His round, pink face wasn't soft,
and his big, smiling teeth reminded you there was a bony skull under that meat.
His pale eyes, like two gravel bits, prodded me and made me remember I needed a
haircut and a shine.

 
          
"You
said Yandro, young man," said this fellow. He said it almost like a charge
in court, with me the prisoner.

 
          
"Yes,
sir. The song's mountainy, not too far from the Smokies. I heard it in a
valley, and the highest peak over that valley's called Yandro. Now," I
said, "I've had scholar-men argue me it really means yonder—yonder high
hill. But the peak's called Yandro. Not a usual name."

 
          
"No,
John." He smiled toothy and fierce. "Not a usual name. I'm like the
peak. I'm called Yandro, too."

 
          
"How
you, Mr. Yandro?" I said.

 
          
"I
never heard of that peak or valley, nor, I imagine did my father before me. But
my grandfather—Joris Yandro—came from the Southern mountains. He was young,
with small education, but lots of energy and ambition." Mr. Yandro swelled
up inside his fancy clothes. "He went to
New York
, then
Chicago
. His fortunes prospered. His son—my
father—and then I, we contrived to make them prosper still more."

 
          
"You're
to be honored," I said, my politest; but I judged, with no reason to be
sure, that he might not be too honorable about how he made his money, or used
it. The way the others drew from him made me reckon he scared them, and that
kind of folks scares worst where their money pocket's located.

 
          
"I've
done all right," he said, not caring who heard the brag. "I don't
think anybody for a hundred miles around here can turn a deal or make a promise
without clearing it with me. John, I own this part of the world."

 
          
Again
he showed his teeth. "You're the first one ever to tell me about where my
grandfather might have come from. Yandro's high hill, eh? How do we get there,
John?"

 
          
I
tried to think of the way from highway to side way, side way to trail, and so
in and around and over. "I fear," I said, "I could show you
better than I could tell you."

 
          
"All
right, you'll show me," he said, with no notion I might want something
different. "I can afford to make up my mind on a moment's notice like
that. I'll call the airport and charter a plane. We leave now."

 
          
"I
asked John to stay tonight," said my hostess lady.

 
          
"We
leave now," said Mr. Yandro, and she shut right up, and I saw how it was.
Everybody was scared of him. Maybe they'd be pleasured
if 1
took him out of there for a while.

 
          
"Get
your plane," I said. "We leave now."

 
          
He
meant that thing. Not many hours had died before the hired plane set us down at
the airport between
Asheville
and Henderson-ville. A taxi rode us into
Hendersonville
. Mr. Yandro woke up a used car man and
bought a fair car from him. Then, on my guiding, Mr. Yandro took out in the
dark for that part of the mountains I pointed out to him.

 
          
The
sky stretched over us with no moon at all, only a many stars, like little
stitches of blazing thread in a black quilt. For real light, only our
headlamps—first on a paved road twining around one slope and over another and
behind a third, then a gravel road and pretty good, then a dirt road and pretty
bad.

 
          
"What
a stinking country!" said Mr. Yandro as we chugged along a ridge as lean
as a butcher knife.

 
          
I
didn't say how I resented that word about a country that stoops to none for
prettiness. "Maybe we ought to have waited till day," I said.

 
          
"I
never wait," he sniffed. "Where's the town?"

 
          
"No
town. Just the valley. Three-four hours away. We'll be there by
midnight
."

 
          
"Oh,
God. Let's have some of that whiskey I brought." He reached for the glove
compartment, but I shoved his hand away.

 
          
"Not
if you're going to drive these mountain roads, Mr. Yandro."

 
          
"Then
you drive a while, and I'll take a drink."

 
          
"I
don't know how to drive a car, Mr. Yandro."

 
          
"Oh,
God," he said again, and couldn't have scorned me more
if
I'd said I didn't know how to wash my
face. "What is a desrick, exactly?"

 
          
"Only
old-aged folks use the word any more. It's the kind of cabin they used to make,
strong logs and a door you can bar, and loophole windows. So you could stand
off Indians, maybe."

 
          
"Or
the wild beasts can't reach you," he quoted, and snickered.

           
"What wild beasts do they have
up here in the Forgotten Latitudes?"

 
          
"Can't
rightly say. A few bears, a wildcat or two. Used to be wolves, and a bounty for
killing them. I'm not sure what else."

 
          
True
enough, I wasn't sure about the tales I'd heard. Not anyway when Mr. Yandro was
ready to sneer at them for foolishment.

 
          
Our
narrow road climbed a great slant of rock one way, then doubled back to climb
opposite, and became a double rut, with an empty, hell-scary drop of thousands
of feet beside the car. Finally Mr. Yandro edged us into a sort of nick beside
the road and shut off the power. He shook. Fear must have been a new feel in
his bones.

 
          
"Want
some of the whiskey, John?" he asked, and drank.

 
          
"Thank
you, no. We walk from here, anyway. Beyond's the valley."

 
          
He
grumped and mad-whispered, but out he got. I took a flashlight and my
silver-strung guitar and led out. It was a downways walk, on a narrow trail
where even mules would be nervous. And not quiet enough to be easy.

 
          
There
were mountain night noises, like you never get used to, not even
if
you're born and raised there, and
live and die there. Noises too soft and sneaky to be real murmuring voices.
Noises like big flapping wings far off and then near. And, above and below the
trail, noises like heavy soft paws keeping pace with you, sometimes two paws,
sometimes four, sometimes many. They stay with you, noises like that, all the
hours you grope along the night trail, all the way down to the valley so low,
till you bless God for the little crumb of light that means a human home, and
you ache and pray to get to that home, be it ever so humble, so you'll be safe
in the light.

 
          
I've
wondered since if Mr. Yandro's constant blubber and chatter was a string of
curses or a string of prayers.

 
          
The
light we saw was a pine-knot fire inside a little coop above the stream that
giggled in the valley bottom. The door was open, and someone sat on the
threshold.

 
          
"Is
that a desrick?" panted and puffed Mr. Yandro.

 
          
"No,
it's newer made. There's Miss Tully at the door, sitting up to think."

 
          
Miss
Tully remembered me and welcomed us. She was eighty or ninety, without a tooth
in her mouth to clamp her stone-bowl pipe, but she stood straight as a pine on
the split-slab floor, and the fire-light showed no gray in her tight-combed
black hah-. "Rest your hats," said Miss Tully. "So this stranger
man's name is Mr. Yandro. Funny, you coming just now. You're looking for the
desrick on Yandro, it's still right where it's been," and she pointed
with her pipe stem off into the empty dark across the valley and up.

 
          
Inside,
she gave us two chairs bottomed with juniper bark and sat on a stool next to
the shelf with herbs in pots, and one or two old paper books,
The Long Lost Friend
and
Egyptian Secrets,
and
Big Albert
the one they say can't be
thrown away or given away, only got rid of by burying with a funeral prayer,
like a human corpse. "Funny," she said again, "you coming along
as the seventy-five years are up."

 
          
We
questioned, and she told us what we'd come to hear. "I was just a little
pigtail girl back then," she said, "when Joris Yandro courted Polly
Wiltse, the witch girl. Mr. Yandro, you favor your grandsire a right much. He
wasn't as stout-built as you, and younger by years, when he left."

 
          
Even
the second time hearing it, I listened hard. It was like a many such tale at
the start. Polly Wiltse was sure enough a witch, not just a study-witch like
Miss Tully, and Polly Wiltse's beauty would melt the heart of nature and make a
dumb man cry out, "Praise God Who made her!" But none dared court her
save only Joris Yandro, who was handsome for a man like she was lovely for a
girl. For it was his wish to get her to show him the gold on top of the
mountain named for his folks, that only Polly Wiltse and her witching could
find.

 
          
"Certain
sure there's gold in these mountains," I answered Mr. Yandro's
interrupting question. "Before ever the
California
rush started, folks mined and minted gold
in these parts, the history-men say."

 
          
"Gold,"
he repeated, both respectful and greedy. "I was right to come."

 
          
Miss
Tully said that Joris Yandro coaxed Polly Wiltse to bring down gold to him, and
he carried it away and never came back. And Polly Wiltse pined and mourned like
a sick bird, and on Yandro's top she built her desrick. She sang the song, the
one I'd sung, it was part of a long spell and charm. Three quarters of a
century would pass, seventy-five years, and her lover would come back.