Manly Wade Wellman - John Thunstone 01 (6 page)

 
          
Softly
he sang a few words of a song Long Spear had taught him, a song that went back
to the Ghost Dance days of Long Spear's people:

 
          
Wahkondah dei
dou
,
wah-pah-din ah tonhie . . .

           
A song that prayed for help, that
asked Those Above for strength and courage.

 
          
Abruptly,
he lost all awareness of the tufted plain, the figures skulking upon it, the
far dark hills. His room was all around him again, and it was a chair he sat
on. He found the light above the bed, switched it on. The bed was there, with
comfortable plump pillows and a turned back coverlet.

 
          
Thunstone
went to the desk and, still smoking, wrote down all that he had seemed to
experience. By the time he had finished, the pipe had burned out. He laid it on
top of his writing, turned out the light again, and went back to the window.
That window
remained,
sill and sash.

 
          
He
gazed outward and saw the lights on
Trail Street
, the glow from the Moonraven across there.
He looked up at the sky, at the stars in their courses, their paths and
patterns that had been there since the beginning of the time that mankind knew.
Cancer, the Crab, soared high above. He remembered things he had heard
astrologers say about how the stars ruled life and history, and wondered for
the hundredth time if the astrologers truly believed the things they said.

 
          
At
last he sought the bed he had rented in this old house. It was a comfortable
bed, wide enough and long enough for his big frame. He lay with his hands
clasped under his head and mused as he lay and, musing, drifted into slumber.

 
          
CHAPTER 4

 
          
But
Thunstone dreamed. His dreams were confused at first, blurred glimpses of
places he had been, people he had talked to in the past. Once he thought he was
with a rosy, fair-haired woman known in her circle as the Countess of Monteseco
though she had been born Sharon Hill at home in Pennsylvania. She smiled on
him, the smile he knew well, and the voice in the dream was her voice. Then she
faded into a dark dreamlessness and, without waking, he missed her but was
happy to have seen her.

 
          
At
last
came
a clear vision. He walked on the sharp,
grassy slope of Sweepside, up toward the traced outline of Old Thunder. As he
approached, Old Thunder
rose
suddenly, a powerful,
clumsy surge of movement, and loomed over him. The crude outline of the face
lived. Its eyes stared down with a concentrated menace. At that Thunstone
awoke, to find the sun streaming in at his window.

 
          
His
watch told him that it was half-past seven. He smiled as he remembered his
boyhood, and what his grandmother had said once; that to wake from a dream is
always good, because if it was a good dream you were happy to have had it and
if it was a bad dream you were glad it was not true. Well, he had had a good
dream and a bad dream, and his grandmother had been right about their
respective impacts.

 
          
He
dressed quickly, went to the bathroom to shave and wash, then came back to his
own room. There he put his notebook into his pocket and took his cane. He went
downstairs and into Mrs. Fother- gilTs parlor.

 
          
“We
serve breakfast in here, Mr. Thunstone/' she said from the arched doorway to
the room behind. “And we have another guest today. But coffee's ready now;
would you take a cup?"

           
“With great pleasure," he said,
and went with her to where a dining room was furnished with a cloth-covered
table and silver and dishes upon it and chairs set around. Mrs. Fothergill wore
a green dress this morning, with white edging at neck and sleeves. They sat
down while she filled two cups from a china pot. “Cream in the jug," she
said, “and sugar in the bowl."

 
          
“I'll
just take it black, if you please."

 
          
Thunstone
drank. The coffee was strong and good. He remembered friends who insisted that
good coffee couldn't be had in
England
. That was like so many sweeping statements,
an example to you to avoid sweeping statements on your own part.

 
          
“I
dare hope," said Mrs. Fothergill, poising her own cup daintily, “that
you're finding what you hoped here in Claines."

 
          
“I
came here with no sure notion of what to find," Thunstone told her, “but
I've found out several interesting things." He looked across the table at
her. “I'm to see Mr. Ensley today, and maybe he'll be helpful."

 
          
“Oh,
ah," said Mrs. Fothergill, “I doubt not but that he will."

 
          
“I
hear that he owns most of the houses in Claines."

 
          
“A
good lot of them," she said, “but not this one. It so
happens
that it's been in my family for generations. Mr. Ensley likes to keep an
old-fashioned atmosphere in Claines, old-world as you might say. And I don't
mind that, I'm sure, though sometimes I miss dear
London
."

 
          
A
clatter of feet in the parlor, and a young man entered the room. His long, lank
hair and long, lank mustache were more or less the color of strong tea. His
jeans pants were tucked into shiny boots. At the open throat of his blue shirt
dangled a silver medallion on a chain, with an image Thunstone could not make
out. In one hand he carried a massive white helmet.

 
          
“Good
morning," Mrs. Fothergill greeted him. “Will you have coffee?"

 
          
“Yes'm,
I thank ye." He laced his cupful with cream and put in several spoonfuls
of sugar. He looked at Thunstone. “
You passing
through, too?”

           
“Staying for a few
days.”

 
          
“Me,
I'm headed down to the coast.
Biking there.”

 
          
Constance
Bailey came in from the kitchen. She wore a white apron and a white cap and
carried a broad tray. She put down plates for them, each with a lightly fried
egg on a slice of toast, two rashers of bacon, and half of a grilled tomato.
She set down a toast rack and a jar of marmalade and a butter dish, and went
back to the kitchen.

 
          
Thunstone
found the bacon streaky but somewhat limp, and the tomato rich, red, and
savory. After finishing his egg, he took another slice of toast and spread it
with butter and marmalade. Mrs. Fothergill poured him more coffee. He was
hungry enough to eat everything with relish.

 
          
The
motorcyclist, too, ate with good appetite, and finished first. He rose and
wiped his mouth with his napkin.

 
          
“Everything
here capital, ma’am,” he said to Mrs. Fothergill. “I’ll mention your B-and-B to
my friends.”

 
          
“Thank
you, that will be good of you,” she smiled.

 
          
“Not at all.”

 
          
He
went out. They heard the front door slam resoundingly, and a moment later came
the fierce rattle of his motor as it started. It went moaning away.

 
          
“Well,
now,” said Mrs. Fothergill, “that was a civil-spoken young man, at least. Some
who stop here are, well, matter-of-fact. We still have coffee in the pot, Mr.
Thunstone.”

 
          
“No
thank you, don’t bother. I’ll just finish what I have.”

 
          
“I’ve
noticed that stick you carry,” she said. “It’s a very handsome one.
Though you don’t appear to need it, no lameness if I may say so.”

 
          
“It
was given me by a good friend, and I carry it more or less because he gave it
to me,” said Thunstone. He pushed back his chair. “I’ll be going out now, and
of course I’ll stay tonight again. I’ve paid until then, as I remember. Maybe
I’ll stay on a few days beyond.”

 
          
“And
you’ll be welcome, I’m sure.”

 
          
He
went out into the pleasant morning sunshine. Trucks rumbled on
Trail Street
, and he had to wait for his chance to
cross. On the far side, he went into the post office to mail his letters. As he
came out, an elderly man passed and nodded in friendly fashion. A pair of girls
chattered as they walked along the way. They were dressed almost alike, in
slacks and blouses and sandals; but, he could not help noticing, one seemed
trim in her simple clothes, the other untidy.

 
          
“Good
morning, Mr. Thunstone,” said Constable Dymock, wheeling his bicycle with him,
smiling in the sweep of his mustache.

 
          
“Oh,
hello there,” said Thunstone, as to an old friend. “What a fine day this is,
and I’ve been exploring your little village.” He smiled. “Your hamlet, some
want to call it.”

 
          
“And
the people of Claines have been exploring you, the best they can manage,” said
Dymock. “This morning, I’ve had several come and ask of me, who’s that big Yank
staying at Mrs.
Fothergill’s,
and what does he want
here?”

 
          
“Yank,”
repeated Thunstone. “I can’t truly claim that. A Yank lives in the Northern
states, and my family is Southern. I was bom and
raised
in the South, and I’ve lived in the North, so I know the average all around.”

 
          
“You
more or less quote Mark Twain,” observed Dymock. “Colonel Sherbum says
something like that in
Huckleberry Finn.
Surprised, are you, Mr. Thunstone? But I have been to school, and I always
liked American literature.”

 
          
“I
like it, too. And I also like Claines, so far.
Interesting,
but quiet.
The people seem quiet, mostly.”

 
          
“Here,
as elsewhere, the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” said Dymock.

 
          
Thunstone
laughed, because he felt he must.
“Quoting American
literature again.
That’s Thoreau, the very first chapter of
Walden.
Is there really that much quiet
desperation in Claines?”

 
          
Dymock
frowned over that. “About the desperation I can’t be too sure, but the
quietness is here. There’s a quiet about it that sometimes seems interesting.
Even baleful.”

 
          
“Why?”
asked Thunstone. “It may be the time of year.
Close to the
annual turning of the Dream Rock.”

           
“One of the reasons I came here was
to watch that annual turning,'' Thunstone said.

 
          
“I’ll
be watching it, too.
Police duty.”

 
          
Dymock’s
voice was stem to say that. Thunstone tried to ease his mood.

 
          
“It’s
natural for you to speak like that,” he said. “It's characteristic. I find the
Englishman to be him of all men who stands firmest in his shoes.”

 
          
Dymock
looked up at that, and a smile relaxed his face. “This time you’re quoting Ralph
Waldo Emerson. We seem to stick to the American authors this morning, don’t we?
But I meant to say, Mr. Gram Ensley was out on his front lawn just now, and
remarked that he hoped to have you call on him this morning.”

 
          
“I
mean to call, pretty soon. But, Constable, I wonder how I ought to feel about
people asking about me here.”

 
          
“Why,
as to that,” said Dymock, “part of it may be that you’re so big, if I may
notice that.
An upstanding figure of a man.
Maybe the
biggest man here just now, except for Albert Porrask.”

 
          
“Porrask,”
Thunstone said the name after him. “What should I expect of Porrask? I talked
to him last night, at the Moonraven. I didn’t know if he was being friendly or
not.”

 
          
“If
you had any doubt of that,” said Dymock, “you’d better keep that doubt. Maybe
he takes notice of how big you are, too. For a long time here, he’s been used
to people being more or less afraid of him.” “I’m not afraid of him,” said
Thunstone.

           
“Good. Well said. But now I must be
getting along.”

 
          
Dymock
got on his bicycle and pedaled it away. Watching him, Thunstone saw that he
stopped and dismounted again. He was talking to Constance Bailey, who wore
brown slacks and a brown blouse, and tossed her dark hair back as she smiled
and said something. Dymock smiled, too, not so officially. Thunstone said to
himself that they made a nice-looking couple as they stood there together. He
walked along toward the
church
of
St. Jude
’s.

 
          
Jude,
he pondered. He remembered the General Epistle of Jude. That was one of the
shortest books in either Testament, and by no means the most comforting. It was
particularly emphatic in its preachment against “murderers, complainers,
walking after their own lusts.” As for Jude, the author of that Gospel, was he
clearly recognized as a saint? He seemed as obscure as the Jude of whom Thomas
Hardy had written; he seemed not quite identifiable. Yet the church, and now
Thunstone approached it, had been called St. Jude’s.
For what
reason, and for how good a reason?

 
          
He
came to the edge of the churchyard, to where the Dream Rock lay. He studied it
carefully, more carefully than when he had seen it before, with the curate
David Gates beside him and talking. Plainly the stone pillar had been meant to
suggest a human figure, and upon its head were faint, worn lines that might
once have been a face with eyes and a mouth. He touched it with the ferrule of
his cane, and as before he felt a humming sensation in his hand and arm.