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

a stupid war across the sea, how I'd
been in places I wondered myself if I'd ever get out of. How I'd been called
the best scout, the best rifle shot in my whole division. How, afterward, I'd
come back to my mountains and had gone here and yonder amongst them, and had
seen me some strange things in them.
                 He
harked at all I said, now and then having a sip of his blockade. Then: “What
strange things?” he asked.
                 So
I went on to tell him about how I killed the Ugly Bird, and won the thanks of
folks and the prayers of Winnie. And how, on top of a mountain named Hark, I
met One Other and drove him back into his pool. More
things you’ve likely heard about—the deaths of witch-people like Aram Hamam and
Mr. Loden and Fomey Meechum and Shull Cobart—all of them mightily evil and evilly
mighty, and all of them gone now to the place where they were a sure thing to
go. Harpe heard me out, and he snickered.
                 “I
must honestly say, John, it’s a great pleasure to listen to you,” he said. “To
hear the language you speak.”
                 “Language
I speak?” I repeated him. “Why, it's just only the language of folks.”
                 “Exactly,”
he nodded. “Your mountain language is expressive—I might even call it poetical.
I hear you with admiration.” That would have been flattering, I reckon, if he
didn't act so lofty about it, like as if he patted me on the head. He snickered
again.
                “But what's been your profit in all
these things?”
                 I
shook my head to him. “I've nair studied profit. I've just gone my way along,
in the hope that I was a-doing right.” “And you've gone along into desperate
perils and great toils,” he judged. “Wouldn’t you like to go easier and find
some profit, some reward for your manifest talents?”
                “Oh,” I said, “time and time again
I've been offered money, but I don't take that, don’t much need it.”
                 “Well,”
he said, “have you had the love of beautiful women?”
                 “None
to speak of it,” I replied him, for it wouldn't have been the right thing to
speak up of beautiful women I'd known.
                 “Very
well, let the thought sink in. Turn it over in your mind. But just now, it's
more or less lunchtime. Join me in eating a little something, and I'll
guarantee it will be savory.” He slapped his big hands together, and I saw
shiny rings on the both of them. He slapped them again, and a third time. Those
slaps were as loud as pistol shots.
                The green curtain stirred out of one
of the doorways, and in came a woman.
                 She
was old. Her long straight hair was snowy white and her face was all chopped up
with wrinkles, with a hooked nose and a hooked chin like the jaws of a pair of
pliers, but she stood as straight as a pine sapling. Her dress was a dark blue,
with silvery symbols on it, and round her scrawny neck she wore three jewel
necklaces, white diamonds and green emeralds and red rubies.
                 They
must have been worth a right big fortune apiece. She carried a big silver tray,
with dishes all covered with napkins, and a bunch of knives and forks.
                 "Thank
you, Scylla,” said Harpe, grand as a king. "Sit down and eat with us. This
is our guest, John.”
                 She
put the tray on the table and glared me with slitty eyes. "John,” she
said, harsh and shrill. "What do you think of what you’ve seen on the way
up here, John?”
                 I’d
got on my feet to reply her. "I’ve seen a right much strangeness, Miss
Scylla, things that folks will wonder themselves about when I get down again to
tell of them.”
                 "What
makes you think you’ll be getting down again?” she shrilled at me.