"You who sung the song," he nodded me. "Come along,"
I put down my guitar. "Proud to come with you, Captain," I said.
His hand on my shoulder gripped like Moon-Eye"s, a bear-trap grip there. We walked out the door, and off the porch past the three waiting tall shadows, and on across the grounds in the night toward that brick sleeping building.
"You know where we"re going?" I inquired him.
"Seems to me I do. This seems like the way. What"s your name?"
"John, Captain."
"John, I left Moon-Eye back there because he called for me to come handle things. He felt it was my business, talking to that fellow. I can"t lay tongue to his name right off."
"Rixon Pengraft?"
"Rixon Pengraft," he repeated me. "Yes, I dreamed that name. Here we are. Open that door for us."
I"d never been in that building. Nor either had Devil Anse Hatfield, except maybe in what dreams he"d had to bring him there. But, if he"d found his way from the long ago, he found the way to where he was headed. We walked along the hallway inside between doors, until he stopped me at one. "Knock," he bade me, and I put my fist to the wood.
A laugh inside, mean and shaky. "That you, Moon-Eye Newlands?" said Rixon Pengraft"s voice. "You think you dare come in here? I"ve not locked myself in. Turn the k.n.o.b, if you"re man enough."
Devil Anse nudged my shoulder, and I opened the door and shoved it in, and we came across the threshold together.
Rixon sat on his bed, with a little old twenty-two rifle across his lap.
"Glad you had the nerve, Moon-Eye," he began to say, "because there"s only room for one of us to sit next to Anda Lee McCoy-"
Then his mouth stayed open, with the words ceasing to come out.
"Rixon," said Devil Anse, "you know who I am?"
Rixon"s eyes hung out of his head like two scuppernong grapes on a vine. They twitchy-climbed up Devil Anse, from his boots to his hat, and they got bigger and scareder all the time.
"I don"t believe it," said Rixon Pengraft, almost too sick and weak for an ear to hear him.
"You"d better have the man to believe it. You sang about me. Named me Devil Anse in the song, and knew it was about me. Thought it would be right funny if I did come where you were."
At last that big hand quitted my shoulder, and moved to bring that long eight-square rifle to the ready.
"Don"t!"
Rixon was on his knees, and his own little toy gun spilled on the floor between us. He was able to believe now.
"Listen," Rixon jibber-jabbered, "I didn"t mean anything. It was just a joke on Moon-Eye."
"A mighty sorry joke," said Devil Anse. "I never yet laughed at a gun going off." His boot-toe shoved the twenty-two. "Not even a baby-boy gun like that."
"I-" Rixon tried to say, and he had to stop to get strength. "I"ll-"
"You"ll break up that there gun," Devil Anse decreed him.
"Break my gun?" Rixon was still on his knees, but his scared eyes managed to get an argue-look.
"Break it," said Devil Anse. "I"m a-waiting, Rixon. Just like that time I waited by a lonesome river ford."
And his words were as cold and slow as chunks of ice floating down a half-choked stream in winter.
Rixon put out his hand for the twenty-two. His eyes kept hold on Devil Anse. Rixon lifted one knee from the floor, and laid the twenty-two across it. He tugged at barrel and stock.
"Harder than that," said Devil Anse. "Let"s see if you got any muscle to match your loud mouth."
Rixon tugged again, and then Devil Anse"s rifle stirred. Rixon saw, and really made out to work at it. The little rifle broke at the balance. I heard the wood crack and splinter.
"All right now," said Devil Anse, still deep and cold and slow. "You"re through with them jokes you think are so funny. Fling them chunks of gun out yonder."
He wagged his head at the open door, and Rixon flung the broken pieces into the hall.
"Stay on your knees," Devil Anse bade him. "You got praying to do. Pray the good Lord your thanks you got off so lucky. Because if there"s another time you see me, I"ll be the last thing you see this side of the h.e.l.l I"m six foot three of."
To me he said: "Come on, John. We"ve done with this no-excuse for a man who"s broke his own gun."
Back we went, and nary word between us. The other three Hatfields stood by Professor Deal"s porch, quiet as painted shadows of three gun-carrying men. In at the door we walked, and there was Professor Deal, and over against the other side of the room stood Moon-Eye and Dr. McCoy.
"Rixon named somebody McCoy here," said Devil Anse. "Who owns up to the name?"
"I do," said she, gentle but steady.
"You hold away from her, Great-grandsire," spoke up Moon-Eye.
"Boy," said Devil Anse, "you telling me what to do and not do?"
"I"m telling you, Great-grandsire."
I looked at those two tall big-nosed men from two times in the same family"s story, and, saving Devil Anse"s beard, and maybe thirty-some-odd years, you couldn"t have called for two folks who favored each other"s looks more.
"Boy," said Devil Anse, "you trying to scare me?"
"No, Great-grandsire. I"m not trying to scare you."
Devil Anse smiled. His smile made his face look the terriblest he"d looked so far.
"Now, that"s good. Because I never been scared in all my days on this earth."
"I"m just telling you, Great-grandsire," said Moon-Eye. "You hold away from her."
Dr. McCoy stood close to Moon-Eye, and all of a sudden Moon-Eye put his hickory-sleeved arm round her and drew her closer still.
Devil Anse put his eyes on them. That terrible smile crawled away out of his beard, like a deadly poison snake out of gra.s.s, and we saw it no more.
"Great-grandboy," he said, "it wasn"t needful for you to get me told. I made a mistake once with a McCoy girl. Jonce-my son standing out yonder-loved and courted her. Roseanna was her name."
"Roseanna," said the voice of Jonce Hatfield outside.
"I never gave them leave to marry," said Devil Anse. "Wish I had now. It would have saved a sight of trouble and grief and killing. And n.o.body yet ever heared me say that."
His eyes relished Dr. McCoy, and it was amazing to see that they could be quiet eyes, kind eyes.
"Now, girl," he said, "even if you might be close kin to Old Ran McCoy-"
"I"m not sure of the relationship," she said. "if it"s there, I"m not ashamed."
"Nor you needn"t be." His beard went down and up as he nodded her. "I"ve fit the McCoy set for years, and not once found ary scared soul among them. Ain"t no least drop of coward blood in their veins." He turned. "I"ll be going."
"Going?" asked Professor Deal.
"Yes, sir. Goodnight to the all of you."
He went through the door, hat, beard and rifle, and closed it behind him, and off far again we could hear that hound-dog bark.
We were quiet as a dead hog there in the room. Finally: "Well, G.o.d bless my soul!" said Professor Deal.
"It happened," I said.
"But it won"t be believed, John," he went on. "No sane person will ever believe who wasn"t here."
I turned to say something to Moon-Eye and Dr. McCoy. But they were looking at each other, and Moon-Eye"s both arms were around that doctor lady. And if I had said whatever I had in mind to say, they"d not have been hearing me.
Mrs. Deal said something from that room where she"d gone to do her sewing, and Professor Deal walked off to join her. I felt I might be one too many, too, just then. I picked up my silver-strung guitar and went outside after Devil Anse Hatfield.
He wasn"t there, nor yet those who"d come with him. But on the porch was the diagram in chalk, and I had enough light to see that the word-square read right side up again, the way it had been first set down by Dr. Anda Lee McCoy.
McCoy. Mackey. Devlins. Devil Anse. Names change in the old songs, but the power is still there.
Naturally, the way my habit is, I began to pick at my silver strings, another song I"d heared from time to time as I"d wandered the hills and hollows:
Up on the top of the mountain, Away from the sins of this world, Anse Hatfield"s son, he laid down his gun And dreamed about Ran McCoy"s girl. . . .
Nine Yards of Other Cloth
Manly Wade Wellman
High up that mighty steep rocky slope with the sun just sunk, I turned as I knelt by my little campfire.
Looking down slope and down to where the river crawled like a snake in the valley bottom, I saw her little black figure splash across the shallow place I"d found an hour back. At noontime I"d looked from the mountain yonder cross the valley and I"d seen her then, too, on another height I"d left behind. And I"d thought of a song with my name in it:
On yonder hill there stands a creature, Who she is I do not know . . .
Oh no, John, no, John, no! . . .
But I knew she was Evadare. I"d fled from before her pretty face as never I"d fled from any living thing, not even evil spell-throwers nor murder-doers, nor either from my country"s enemies when I"d soldiered in foreign parts and seen battle as the Bible prophet-book tells it, confused noises and garments rolled in blood. Since dawn I"d run from Evadare like a rabbit from a fox, and still she followed, climbing now along the trail I"d tried not to leave, toward the smoke of the fire I"d built before I knew she was still coming.
No getaway from her now, for night dropped on the world, and to climb higher would be to fall from some steep hidden place. I could wait where I was or I could head down and face her. Wondering which to do, I recollected how first we"d come on each other in Hosea"s Hollow.
I"d not rightly known how I"d wandered there-Hosea"s Hollow. I hadn"t meant to, that was certain sure. No good-sensed man or woman would mean to. Folks wished Hosea"s Hollow was a lost hollow, tried to stay out of it and not think about it.
Not even the old Indians relished to go there. When the white folks ran the Indians off, the Indians grinned over their shoulders as they went, calling out how Kalu would give white men the same hard times he"d given Indians.
Kalu. The Indian word means a bone. Why Kalu was named that n.o.body could rightly say, for n.o.body who saw him lived to tell what he looked to be. He came from his place when he was mad or just hungry. Who he met he s.n.a.t.c.hed away, to eat or worse than eat. The folks who"d stolen the Indians"
country near about loaded their wagons to go the way they"d come. Then-and this was before the time of the oldest man I"d heard tell of it-young Hosea Palmer said he"d take Kalu"s curse away.
Folks hadn"t wanted Hosea to try such. Hosea"s father was a preacher-he begged him. So did Hosea"s mother and so did a girl who"d dreamed to marry Hosea. They said if Hosea went where Kalu denned, he"d not come back, but Hosea allowed Kalu was the downright evil and couldn"t prevail against a pure heart. He went in the hollow, and true he didn"t come out, but no more did Kalu, from that day on. Both vanished from folks" sight and knowledge, and folks named the place Hosea"s Hollow, and nary path led there.
How I myself had come to the hollow, the first soul in long years as I reckoned, it wondered me. What outside had been the broad open light of the day was cloudy gray light here among funny-growing trees.
Somewhere I heard an owl hoot, not waiting for night. Likewise I half-heard music, and it came to me that was why I"d walked there without meaning to.
Later, while I watched Evadare climb up trail to me, I recollected how, in Hosea"s Hollow, I"d recollected hearing the sure enough music, two days before and forty-fifty miles off.
At Haynie"s Fork, hunters had shot a hog that belonged to n.o.body, and butchered it up while the lady-folks baked pones of corn bread and sliced up coleslaw, and from here and yonder came folks carrying jugs of beady white liquor and music instruments. I was there, too, I enjoy to aid at such doings.
We ate and drank and had dancing, and the most skilled men gave us music. Obray Ramsey picked his banjo and sangO where is pretty Polly, O yonder she stands, with rings on the fingers of her lily-white hands , on to the last line that"s near about the frighteningest last line ary song had. Then they devilled me to play my silver-strung guitar and give themVandy, Vandy andThe Little Black Train .
That led to tale-tellings, and one tale was of Hosea"s Hollow and fifty different notions of what might could have gone with Hosea and whatever bore the name of Kalu. Then more music, with Byard Ray fiddling his possible best, the way we never thought to hear better.
But a tall thin stranger was there, with a chin like a skinny fist and sooty-colored hair. When Byard Ray had done, the stranger took from a bag a shiny black fiddle. I offered to pick guitar to harmony with him, but he said sharp, "No, I thank you." Alone he fiddled, and, gentlemen, he purely fiddled better than Byard Ray. When he"d done, I inquired him his name.
"Shull Cobart," he replied me. "You"re John, is that right? We"ll meet again, it"s possible, John."
His smile was no way likeable as he walked off, while folks swore no living soul could fiddle Byard Ray down without some special fiddle-secret. That had been two days before, and here I was in Hosea"s Hollow, seeming to hear music that was some way like the music of Shull Cobart"s black fiddle.
The gray air shimmered, but not the least hot or bright, there where owls hooted by day. I looked at a funny-growing tree, and such flowers as it had I"d not seen before. Might be they grew from the tree, might be from a vine scrabbled up. They were cup-shape, shiny black like new shoes-or like Shull Cobart"s shiny-black fiddle, and I felt I could hear him still play, could see him still grin.
Was that why I half-heard the ghost of his music, why I"d come to these black-flowered trees in the shimmery gray air? Anyway, there was a trail, showing that something moved in Hosea"s Hollow, between the trees so close-grown on each side you wondered could you put a knife blade among them. I headed along the trail, and the gray dancing shimmer seemed to slow me as I walked.
That tune in my head; I swung my guitar around from where it hung with my soogin sack and blanket roll, and tweaked the music from the silver strings. The shimmer dulled off, or at least I moved faster, picking up my feet to my own playing, around a curve bunched with more black flowers. And there, under the trees to one side, was a grave.