Free Sci Fiction Classics Volume 4 by Tristram Rolph

replied him.
    They all stared. "How you name yourself?" asked the one who had spoken.
    "Just call me John."
    "What do you follow, John?" asked another man.
    I smiled my friendliest. "Well, mostly I study things. This morning, back
     yonder at that settlement, I heard tell about a big skeleton that had been
     turned up on a Chaw Hollow farm."
    "You a government man?" the grizzled one inquired me.
    "You mean, look for blockade stills?" I shook my head. "Not me. Call me a
     truth seeker, somebody who wonders himself about riddles in this life."
    "A conjure man?" put in another of the bunch.
    "Not me," I said again. "I've met up with that sort in my time, helped put
     two-three of them out of mischief. Call that part of what I follow."
    "My name's Embro Hallcott," said the grizzled one. "If you came to poke
     'round them bones, you're too late."
    I waited for him to go on, and he went on:
    "I dug them bones up on my place, a-scooping out for a fish pond. Some of
     us reckoned that, whoair he was, he should ought to be buried in holy
     ground, yonder at Stumber Creek church house. So we made him a box, and
     that's where we're a-going with him now."
    "Let me give you a hand," I said, and slung my guitar and other things to
     my shoulders.
    "He's a stranger man, Mr. Embro," said the scrawny man.
    "Sure, but he looks powerful for strength." Hallcott raked me with his
     eye. "And you feel puny today, Oat. All right, John, grab a hold there
     where Oat's been a-heaving on this here thing."
    I shoved my hand through the loop and we hoisted the coffin. It was right
     heavy, at that. I heard the others grunt as we took the trail through the
     ravine. On the trees, autumn leaves showed yellow, different reds, and so
     on, like flowers. Half a mile, maybe, we bore our load along.
    "Yonder we are, boys," said Hallcott.
    We came out into a hollow amongst shaggy heights that showed rocky knobs.
     One, I thought, looked like a head and shoulders. Another jabbed up like a
     finger, another curved like a hawk bill. The lower ground into which we
     tramped was tufted with trees, with a trickle of water through it. Beside
     this stood a grubby white house with a steeple. Stumber Creek Church, I
     figured it to be.
    Hallcott, at a front loop, steered us into a weedy tract with gravestones
     here and yonder. "Set her down," he wheezed, and we did so. "Yonder comes
     Preacher Travis Melick. I done sent him the word to meet up with us here."
    From the church house ambled a gaunt man in a jimswinger coat, a-carrying
     a book covered with black leather. Hallcott walked toward him. "Evening,
     Preacher," he said. "Proud to have you here."
    "The grave's been made ready," said the other in a deep-down voice, and
     nodded to where a long, dark hole gaped amongst the weeds. Then he faced
     me. "Don't believe I know this gentleman."
    "Allows he's named John," grated the scrawny one called Oat.
    "I've heard of John," said Preacher Melick, and held out his skinny hand.
     "Heard of good things you've done, sir. Welcome amongst us."
    Hallcott's crinkly face got easy. "If you say he's all right, Preacher,
     that makes him all right," he said. "I'll tell you true, he made better
     than a good hand, a-wagging this coffin the last part of the way."
    We hiked the coffin to the side of the grave. On the bank of fresh dirt
     lay three shovels. Oat touched the hook on the lid.
    "Ain't we supposed to view the body?" he wondered us. "Ain't that the true
     old way?"
    "I've done seen the thing," snapped out Hallcott.
    "Open it for a moment if you feel that's proper," said the preacher man.
    Oat worked the hook out of the staple and hoisted the lid. The hinges
     creaked. "Wonder who he was," he said.
    The bones inside were loose from one another and half-wrapped in a Turkey
     Track quilt, but I saw they were laid out in order. They were big, the way
     Hallcott had said, big enough for an almighty big bear. I had a notion
     that the arms were right long; maybe all the bones