Free Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer 05 by The Voice of the Mountain (v1.1)

of a design. “What’s
it made of?” I inquired him.
                 “I
think of ivory. Elephant ivory, carved by Indians. It
was here when first I came, years ago. Of course, you’re going to say that
there were no elephants here in old times.”
                 “No,
I won’t say that.” I might could have mentioned the
Bammat, now and then reported in the mountains, but I didn’t. “The Indians knew
about elephants before Columbus , they left images and pictures.”
                 “Anyway,
this makes the cry.”
                 He
set the horn to his mouth and blew a long, trembly note.
                 Next
moment the voice of the mountain rose round us, Awooooooo , sad and drawn out, and so loud right there that the
rocks under my boots seemed to shake and dance like a ship’s deck in a storm. I
was glad for that moaning call to die out of the air. I looked on Harpe, and
likely my face was sort of blank, for he laughed. A musical laugh it was. He
put the horn back into its hollow tree.
                “Yes,” he said, “I can do that. It’s
all right for you to know, because here you are and here you’ll stay. I was
able to watch you as you came up here I let you do it because I’ve heard about
you—what you’ve been able to do in your time, really mysterious things. And I
decided that it was high time for you to start doing them sensibly,
profitably.” He kept his eyes on me. “Doing them helpfully,” he added on.
                 “I
see,” I said, for I did begin to see. “You want me to join in with you on
something. What if I say no?”
                 “If
you said no, you’d be sorry,” he sort of drawled out. “Up here, nothing is done
or left undone except as I say the word, and never will be.”
                 “What
if you died?”
                 “I
won’t just die. I’d have to be killed, and what can kill me?”
                 Plain
as print, he believed what he said.
                 “And
with me gone,” he went ahead, “you wouldn’t last an hour inside these
stockades.” Another look stare up and down me. “Maybe
the bees would come in and find you. Maybe something else.”
                 “What
kind of something else?”
                 “Are
you a praying man?” he questioned me back, right serious about it. “Then pray
that you never find out. But for your own good, John, don’t pray out loud.
                 “I’ve
promised you hospitality,” he said. “You can be at ease here, happy here.
But—well, I’ll put it this way. You’ve read in the Bible, I suppose.”
                 “I’ve
read the Bible through, a good few times. I asked you, what you a-driving at,
and I wait for an answer.”
                 So
friendly was his smile. “If you’re a Bible reader, John, you’re familiar with
what the Bible calls holy names. I must ask you not to say any of those holy
names out loud here. There might be something violent happen, to you and to me
and to others."
                 His
smile went, and he shrugged. “Enough of that. Let's go
where we can be more comfortable."
                 He
led me back away from that dark, ugly rip in Cry Mountain , led me amongst tall, thick-grown trees to
where there grew a right big clump of laurel. Carefully he pulled aside
branches to left and right, till I could see a hole amongst some rocks, not a
great big raw one like the one that gave Cry Mountain its name. This was more or less the size of
a door, and its shadows were soft. I could see that a slanting path went into
it, and that the rock there was as smooth as a sidewalk.
                 “Come
along," he bade me, and we two went down into that hole.
                 “Wouldn't
a big rain flood you out here?" I asked.
                 “I
can control