Baron Neill blinked, as shocked to hear a reasoned exposition from Simp Bowsmith as the boy was to have offered it. After momentary consideration, he decided to treat the information as something he had known all the time. "Leave thet be!" he roared, whirling on the cl.u.s.ter of his offspring poring over the receipt.
Two of the men were gripping the doc.u.ment at the same time. Both of them released it and jumped back, b.u.mping their fellows and joggling the lantern dangerously. They collided again as they tried unsuccessfully to catch the paper before it fluttered to the board floor.
The Baron cuffed the nearer and swatted at the other as well, missing when the younger man dodged back behind the shelter of his kin. Deliberately, his agitation suggested only by the vehemence of the pull he took on his pipe, the old man bent and retrieved the doc.u.ment. He peered at it again, then fixed his eyes on Bowsmith. "You say you"re t" speak the words on this. Would thet be et some particular time?"
"No sir," said the boy, bobbing his head as if in an effort to roll ideas to the surface of his mind. "Not thet Mister Nathan told me."
As Baron Neill squinted at the receipt again, silently mouthing the syllables which formed no language of which he was cognizant, Bowsmith added, "Jist t" set down with the bullhide over my back, en t" speak out the words. En I"m ez strong ez a bull."
"Give him another pull on the jug," the Baron ordered abruptly.
"I don"t-" Bowsmith began as three Neills closed on him, one offering the jug with a gesture as imperious as that of a highwayman presenting his pistol.
"Boy," the Baron continued, "I"m going t" help ye, jist like you said. But hit"s a hard task, en ye"ll hev t"
bear with me till I"m ready. Ain"t like reg"lar readin", this parsin" out things ez ain"t words."
He fixed the boy with a fierce glare which was robbed of much of its effect because the lamp behind him threw his head into bald silhouette. "Understand?"
"Yessir."
"Drink my liquor, boy," suggested the man with the jug. "Hit"ll straighten yer quill for sure."
"Yessir."
"Now," Baron Neill went on, refolding the receipt and sliding it into the pocket of his own blue frock coat, "you set up with the young folks, hev a good time, en we"ll make ye up a bed with us fer the night.
Meanwhiles, I"m goin" down t" the barn t" study this over so"s I kin help ye in the mornin"."
"Oh," said Bowsmith in relief, then coughed as fumes of the whiskey he had just drunk shocked the back of his nostrils. "Lordy," he muttered, wheezing to get his breath. "Lordy!"
One of the Neills thumped him hard on the back and said, "Chase thet down with another, so"s they fight each other en leave you alone."
"Thet bullhide," said the Baron, calculation underlying the appearance of mild curiosity, "hit"s somethin"
special, now, ain"t it?"
"Reckon it might be," the boy agreed, glad to talk because it delayed by that much the next swig of the liquor that already spun his head and his stomach. "Hit was pegged up t" Mister Nathan"s wall like hit hed been thar a right long time."
"Figgered thet," Baron Neill said in satisfaction. "Hed t" be somethin" more thin ye"d said."
Bowsmith sighed and took another drink. For a moment there was no sound but the hiss of the lamp and a whippoorwill calling from the middle distance.
"Reckon I"ll take the hide with me t" the barn," said the Baron, reaching for the rolled strop, "so"s. .h.i.t won"t git trod upon."
The grandson holding the strip of hide turned so that his body blocked the Baron"s intent. "Reckon we kin keep it here en save ye the burden, ol" man," he said in a sullen tone raised an octave by fear of the consequences.
"What"s this, now?" the patriarch said, backing a half step and placing his hands on his hips.
"Like Len sez," interjected the man with the lamp, stepping between his father and his son, "we"ll keep the hide safe back here."
"Tarnation," Baron Neill said, throwing up his hands and feigning good-natured exasperation. "Ye didn"t think yer own pa "ud shut ye out wholesale, did ye?"
"Bar"n," said Eldon Bowsmith, emboldened by the liquor, "I don"t foller ye."
"Shet your mouth whin others er talkin" family matters, boy," snapped one of the clan from the fringes.
None of the women could be seen through the open door of the cabin, but their hush was like the breathing of a restive cow.
"You youngins hev fun," said the Baron, turning abruptly. "I"ve got some candles down t" the barn. I"ll jist study this"-he tapped with the pipestem on the pocket in which paper rustled-"en we"ll talk agin, mebbe "long about moonrise."
Midnight.
"Y"all hev fun," repeated the old man as he began to walk down the slippery path to the barn.
The Neill women, led by Mary Beth with her comb readjusted to let her hair fall to her shoulders, softly joined the men on the porch.
In such numbers, even the bare feet of his offspring were ample warning to Baron Neill before Zephaniah opened the barn door. The candle of molded tallow guttered and threatened to go out.
"Simp?" the old man asked. He sat on the bar of an empty stall with the candle set in the slot cut higher in the end post for another bar.
It had been years since the clan kept cows. The only animal now sharing the barn with the patriarch and the smell of sour hay was Bowsmith"s horse, her jaws knotted closed with a rag to keep her from neighing. Her stall was curtained with blankets against the vague possibility that the boy would glance into the building.
"Like we"d knocked him on the head," said the third man in the procession entering the barn. The horse wheezed through her nostrils and pawed the bars of her stall.
"Why ain"t we done jist thet?" demanded Mary Beth. "n.o.body round here"s got a sc.r.a.p uv use fer him, "ceptin" mebbe thet ol" b.a.s.t.a.r.d cunning man. En he"s not right in the head neither."
The whole clan was padding into the barn, but the building"s volume was a good match for their number.
There were several infants, one of them continuing to squall against its mother"s breast until a male took it from her. The mother cringed, but she relaxed when the man only pinched the baby"s lips shut with a thumb and forefinger. He increased the pressure every time the infant swelled itself for another squawl.
"Did I raise ye up t" be a fool, girl?" Baron Neill demanded angrily, jabbing with his pipestem. "Sure, they"ve a use fer him-t" laugh et. Effen we slit his throat en weight his belly with stones, the county"ll be here with rope and torches fer the whole lot uv us."
He took a breath and calmed as the last of the clan trooped in. "Besides, hain"t needful. Never do what hain"t needful."
One of the men swung the door to and rotated a peg to hold it closed. The candleflame thrashed in the breeze, then steadied to a dull, smoky light as before.
"Now . . ." said the Baron slowly, "I"ll tell ye what we"re going" t" do."
Alone of the Neill clan, he was seated. Some of those spread into the farther corners could see nothing of the patriarch save his legs crossed as he sat on the stall bar. There were over twenty people in the barn, including the infants, and the faint illumination accentuated the similarity of their features.
Len, the grandson who held the bullhide, crossed his arms to squeeze the bundle closer to his chest. He spread his legs slightly, and two of his bearded, rat-faced kin stepped closer as if to defend him from the Baron"s glare.
The patriarch smiled. "We"re all goin" t" be stronger thin strong," he said in a sinuous, enticing whisper.
"Ye heard Simp-he"d gain strength whether er no the strop wuz over his back. So . . . I"ll deacon the spell off, en you all speak the lines out after me, standin" about in the middle."
He paused in order to stand up and search the faces from one side of the room to the other. "Hev I ever played my kinfolk false?" he demanded. The receipt in his left hand rustled, and the stem of his pipe rotated with his gaze. Each of his offspring lowered his or her eyes as the pointer swept the clan.
Even Len scowled at the rolled strop instead of meeting the Baron"s eyes, but the young man said harshly, "Who"s t" hold the hide, thin? You?"
"The hide"ll lay over my back," Baron Neill agreed easily, "en the lot uv you"ll stand about close ez ye kin git and n.o.body closer thin the next. I reckon we all gain, en I gain the most."
The sound of breathing made the barn itself seem a living thing, but no one spoke and even the sputter of the candle was audible. At last Mary Beth, standing hipshot and only three-quarters facing the patriarch, broke the silence with, "You"re not ez young ez ye onct were, Pa. Seems ez if the one t" git the most hed ought t" be one t" be around t" use hit most."
Instead of retorting angrily, Baron Neill smiled and said, "Which one, girl? Who do you pick in my place?"
The woman glanced around her. Disconcerted, she squirmed backward, out of the focus into which she had thrown herself.
"He"s treated us right," murmured another woman, half-hidden in the shadow of the post which held the candle. "Hit"s best we git on with the business."
"All right, ol" man," said Len, stepping forward to hold out the strop. "What er ye waitin" on?"
"Mebbe fer my kin t" come t" their senses," retorted the patriarch with a smile of triumph.
Instead of s.n.a.t.c.hing the bullhide at once, Baron Neill slid his cold pipe into the breast pocket of his coat, then folded the receipt he had taken from Bowsmith and set it carefully on the endpost of the stall.
Len pursed his lips in anger, demoted from central figure in the clan"s resistance to the Baron back to the boy who had been ordered to hold the bullhide. The horns, hanging from the section of the bull"s coa.r.s.e poll which had been lifted, rattled together as the young man"s hands began to tremble with emotion.
Baron Neill took off his frock coat and hung it from the other post supporting the bar on which he had waited. Working deliberately, the Baron shrugged the straps of his galluses off his shoulders and lowered his trousers until he could step out of them. His boots already stood toes-out beside the stall part.i.tion.
None of the others of the clan were wearing footgear.
"Should we . . . ?" asked one of the men, pinching a pleat of his shirt to finish the question.
"No need," the Baron said, unb.u.t.toning the front of his own store-bought shirt. "Mebbe not fer me, even.
But best t" be sure."
One of the children started to whine a question. His mother hushed him almost instantly by clasping one hand over his mouth and the other behind the child"s head to hold him firmly.
The shirt was the last of Baron Neill"s clothing. When he had draped it over his trousers and coat, he looked even more like the white-furred rodent he resembled clothed. His body was pasty, its surface colored more by grime and the yellow candlelight than by blood vessels beneath it. The epaulettes on the Baron"s coat had camouflaged the extreme narrowness of his shoulders and chest, and the only place his skin was taut was where the pot belly sagged against it.
His eyes had a terrible power. They seemed to glint even before he took the candle to set it before him on the floor compacted of earth, dung, and ancient straw.
The Baron removed the receipt from the post on which it waited, opened it and smoothed the folds, and placed it beside the candle. Only then did he say to Len, "Now I"ll take the strop, boy."
His grandson nodded sharply and pa.s.sed the bundle over. The mood of the room was taut, like that of a stormy sky in the moments before the release of lightning. The anger and embarra.s.sment which had twisted Len"s face into a grimace earlier was now replaced by blank fear. Baron Neill smiled at him grimly.
The bull"s tail was stiff with the bones still in it, so the length of hide had been wound around the base of that tail like thread on a spindle. Baron Neill held the strop by the head end, one hand on the hairless muzzle and the other on the poll between the horns, each the length of a man"s arm along the curve. He shook out the roll with a quick jerk that left the brush of the tail scratching on the boards at the head of the stall.
The Baron cautiously held the strop against his back with the clattering horns dangling down to his knees. The old man gave a little shudder as the leather touched his bare skin, but he knelt and leaned forward, tugging the strop upward until the muzzle flopped loosely in front of his face.
The Baron muttered something that started as a curse and blurred into nondescript syllables when he recalled the task he was about. He rested the palm of one hand on the floor, holding the receipt flat and in the light of the candle. With his free hand, he folded the muzzle and forehead of the bull back over the poll so that he could see.
"Make a circle around me," ordered the patriarch in a voice husky with its preparations for declaiming the spell.
He should have been ridiculous, a naked old man on all fours like a dog, his head and back crossed by a strip of bullhide several times longer than the human torso. The tension in the barn kept even the children of the clan from seeing humor in the situation, and the muzzled plowhorse froze to silence in her curtained stall.
The Neills shuffled into motion, none of them speaking. The man who held the infant"s lips pinched shut handed the child back to its mother. It whimpered only minutely and showed no interest in the breast which she quickly offered it to suck.
Two of the grandsons joined hands. The notion caught like gunpowder burning, hands leaping into hands. In the physical union, the psychic pressure that weighted the barn seemed more bearable though also more intense.
"Remember," said the Baron as he felt his offspring merge behind him, two of them linking hands over the trailing strop, "Ye"ll not hev another chance. En ye"ll git no pity from me effen ye cain"t foller my deaconin" en you"re no better off thin ye are now."
"Go on, ol man," Mary Beth demanded in a savage whisper as she looked down on Baron Neill and the candle on the floor between her and the patriarch.
Baron Neill c.o.c.ked his head up to look at the woman. She met his eyes with a glare as fierce as his own. Turning back to the paper on the ground, the old man read, "Ek neckroo say uxwmettapempomie."
The candle guttered at his words. The whole clan responded together, "Ek neckroo say mettapempomie," their merged voices hesitant but gaining strength and unity toward the last of the Greek syllables like the wind in advance of a rainstorm.
"Soy sowma moo didomie," read the Baron. His normal voice was high-pitched and unsteady, always on the verge of cracking. Now it had dropped an octave and had power enough to drive straw into motion on the floor a yard away.
"Soy sowma moo didomie," thundered the Neill clan. Sparrows, nested on the roof trusses, fluttered and peeped as they tried furiously to escape from the barn. In the darkness, they could not see the vents under the roof peaks by which they flew in and out during daylight.
Baron Neill read the remainder of the formula, line by line. The process was becoming easier, because the smoky candle had begun to burn with a flame as white as the noonday sun. The syllables which had been written on age-yellowed paper and a background of earlier words now stood out and shaped themselves to the patriarch"s tongue.
At another time, the Baron would have recognized the power which his tongue released but could not control. This night the situation had already been driven over a precipice. Caution was lost in exhilaration at the approaching climax, and the last impulse to stop was stilled by the fear that stopping might already be impossible.
The shingles above shuddered as the clan repeated the lines, and the candleflame climbed with the icy purpose of a stalagmite reaching for completion with a cave roof. Jen kicked at her stall in blind panic, cracking through the old crossbar, but none of the humans heard the sound.
"h.e.l.lon moy," shouted Baron Neill in triumph. "h.e.l.lon moy! h.e.l.lon moy!"
Mary Beth suddenly broke the circle and twisted. "Hit"s hot!" she cried as she tore the front of her dress from neckline to waist in a single hysterical effort.
The woman"s b.r.e.a.s.t.s swung free, their nipples erect and longer than they would have seemed a moment before. She tried to scream, but the sound fluted off into silence as her body ran like wax in obedience to the formula she and her kin had intoned.
The circle of the Neill clan flowed toward its center, flesh and bone alike taking on the consistency of magma. Clothing dropped and quivered as the bodies it had covered runneled out of sleeves and through the weave of the fabrics.
The bullhide strop sagged also as Baron Neill"s body melted beneath it. As the pink, roiling plasm surged toward the center of the circle, the horns lifted and bristles that had lain over the bull"s spine in life sprang erect.
The human voices were stilled, but the sparrows piped a mad chorus and Jen"s hooves crashed again onto the splintering crossbar.
There was a slurping, gurgling sound. The bull"s tail stood upright, its brush waving like a flag, and from the seething ma.s.s that had been the Neill clan rose the mighty, ma.s.sive form of a black bull.
Eldon Bowsmith lurched awake on the porch of the Neill house. He had dreamed of a bull"s bellow so loud that it shook the world.
Fuddled but with eyes adapted to the light of the crescent moon, he looked around him. The house was still and dark.
Then, as he tried to stand with the help of the porch rail, the barn door flew apart with a shower of splinters. Spanish King, bellowing again with the fury of which only a bull is capable, burst from the enclosure and galloped off into the night.
Behind him whinnied a horse which, in the brief glance vouchsafed by motion and the light, looked a lot like Jen.
When Eldon Bowsmith reached the cabin, Old Nathan was currying his bull by the light of a burning pine knot thrust into the ground beside the porch. A horse was tethered to the rail with a makeshift neck halter of twine.