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."Tell me," he said, "about that business.The noise sounding higher when the train conies close,""It was explained out to me by a man I know, place in Tennessee called Oak Ridge," I said."It's aboutwhat they call sound waves, and some way it works with light, too.Don't rightly catch on how, but theycan measure how far it is to the stars thataway."He thought, frowning."Something like what's called radar?"74 Manly Wade WellmanI shook my head."No, no machinery to it.Just what they name a principle.Fellow namedDoppler Christian Doppler, a foreigner got it up.""His name was Christian," the mouth-harp man repeated me."Then I reckon it's no witch stuff.""Why you worrying it?" I asked him."I watched through the dog-trot while we were playing the black train song, changing pitch, making itsound like coming near," he said."Looky yonder, see for yourself."I looked.There was a streaky shine down the valley.Two streaky shines, though nary moon.I sawwhat he meant it looked like those pulled-up rails were still there, where they hadn't been before."That second verse Miss Donie sang," I said."Was it about ""Yes," he said before I'd finished."That was the verse about Cobb Richardson.How he prayed forGod's forgiveness, night before he died."Donie Carawan came and poked her hand under my arm.I could tell that good strong liquor wasfeeling its way around her insides.She laughed at almost nothing whatever."You're not leaving,any-way," she smiled at me."Don't have any place special to go," I said.She upped on her pointed toes."Stay here tonight," she said in my ear."The rest of them will be goneby midnight.""You invite men like that?" I said, looking into her blue eyes."When you don't know them?""I know men well enough," she said."Knowing men keeps a woman young." Her finger touched myguitar where it hung behind my shoulder, and the strings whispered a reply."Sing me something, John.""I still want to learn the black train song.""I've sung you both verses," she said."Then," I told her, "I'll sing a verse I've just made up inside my head." I looked at the mouth-harp man."Help me with this."Together we played, raising pitch gradually, and I sang the new verse I'd made, with my eyes on DonieCarawan.Go tell that laughing lady All filled with worldly pride, The littleblack train is coming,john the balladeer 75Get ready to take a ride.With a little black coach and engineAnd a little black baggage car,The words and deeds she has said and doneMust roll to the judgment bar.When I was through, I looked up at those who'd stayed.They weren't more than half a dozen now,bunched up together like cows in a storm; all but Big Jeth, standing to one side with eyes stabbing at me,and Donie Carawan, leaning tired-like against a tree with hanging branches."Jeth," she said, "stomp his guitar to pieces."I switched the carrying cord off my neck and held the guitar at my side."Don't try such a thing, Jeth," Iwarned him.His big square teeth grinned, with dark spaces between them.He looked twice as wide as me."I'll stomp you and your guitar both," he said.I put the guitar on the ground, glad I'd had but the one drink.Jeth ran and stooped for it, and I put myfist hard under his ear.He hopped two steps away to keep his feet.Shouldn't anybody name me what he did then, and I hit him twice more, harder yet.His nose flattedout under my knuckles and when he pulled back away, blood trickled.The mouth-harp man grabbed up my guitar."This here'll be a square fight!" he yelled, louder than he'dspoken so far."Ain't a fair one, seeing Jeth's so big, but it'll be square! Just them two in it, and no more!""I'll settle you later," Jeth promised him, mean."Settle me first," I said, and got betwixt them.Jeth ran at me.I stepped sidewise and got him under the ear again as he went shammocking past.Heturned, and I dug my fist right into his belly-middle, to stir up all that stump-hole whisky he'd beendrinking, then the other fist under the ear yet once more, then on the chin and the mouth, under the ear,on the broken nose ten licks like that, as fast and hard as I could fetch them in, and eighth or ninth hewent slack, and the tenth he just fell flat and loose, like a coat from a nail.I stood waiting, but he didn'tmove."Gentlemen," said the drunk man who'd fetched me, "looky yon-76 Manly Wade Wellmander at Jeth laying there! Never figured to see the day! Maybe that stranger-man calls himself John isSatan, after all!"Donie Carawan walked across, slow, and gouged Jeth's ribs with the pointy toe of her high-heeledshoe."Get up," she bade him.He grunted and mumbled and opened his eyes.Then he got up, joint by joint, careful and sore, like asick bull.He tried to stop the blood from his nose with the back of his big hand.Donie Carawan lookedat him and then she looked at me."Get out of here, Jeth," she ordered him."Off my place."He went, cripply-like, with his knees bent and his hands swinging and his back humped, the way you'dthink he carried something heavy.The drunk man hiccupped."I reckon to go, too," he said, maybe just to himself."Then go!" Donie Carawan yelled at him."Everybody can go, right now, this minute! I thought youwere my friends now I see I don't have a friend among the whole bunch! Hurry up, get going!Everybody!"Hands on hips, she blared it out.Folks moved off through the trees, a sight faster than Jeth had gone.But I stood where I was.The mouth-harp man gave me back my guitar, and I touched a chord of itsstrings.Donie Carawan spun around like on a swivel to set her blue eyes on me."You stayed," she said, the way she thought there was something funny about it."It's not midnight yet," I told her."But near to," added the mouth-harp man."Just a few minutes off.And it's at midnight the little blacktrain runs."She lifted her round bare shoulders.She made to laugh again, but didn't."That's all gone.If it ever was true, it's not true any more.The rails were taken up"Looky yonder through the dog-trot," the mouth-harp man broke in."See the two rails in place,streaking along the valley."Again she swung around and she looked, and seemed to me she swayed in the light of the dying fires.She could see those streaky rails, all right."And listen," said the mouth-harp man."Don't you all hear something?"john the balladeer 77I heard it, and so did Donie Carawan, for she flinched.It was a wild and lonely whistle, soft but plain,far down valley."Are you doing that, John?" she squealed at me, in a voice gone all of a sudden high and weak andold.Then she ran at the house and into the dog-trot, staring down along what looked like railroad track.I followed her, and the mouth-harp man followed me.Inside the dog-trot was a floor of dirt, stompedhard as brick.Donie Carawan looked back at us [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]