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  After Dark

  Manly Wade Wellman

  By Manly Wade Wellman

  AFTER DARK

  THE OLD GODS WAKEN

  After Dark

  MANLY WADE WELLMAN

  DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC.

  GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK

  1980

  All of the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resem-

  blance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ISBN: 0-385-15604-9

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 80-650

  Copyright © 1980 by Manly Wade Wellman

  All Rights Reserved

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Edition

  for

  my Southern mountains

  and the seers, poets, and friends I have found among them

  When you have a memory out of darkness, tell to a seer, to a poet, and to a friend, that which you remember: And if the seer say, I see it—and if the poet say, I hear it—and if the friend say, I believe it: Then know of a surety that your remembrance is a true remembrance.

  Leabhran Mhor Gheasadiareachd (The Little Book of the Great Enchantment)

  Let no one scorn the friendly tale,

  Or doubt, unkind, its shadowed truth. . . .

  —Frank Shay, Here's Audacity

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  1

  You can feel right small and alone amongst those foresty mountains, even by the light of the day; and the sun was a-sagging down toward a toothy sawback of heights there at the west. I slogged my way along the track Fd been told was a shortcut to where the singing would be. I traveled light, as usual. I toted a blanket with an extra shirt and socks rolled into it, a soogin sack with a couple of tins of rations and a poke of cornmeal, and of course my silver- strung guitar. My wide black hat had summer sweat inside the band. And I was glad for roominess inside my old boots, resoled I can't recollect how many times.

  That track was a sort of narrow, rutted road. It must have been run there when wolves and buffaloes walked it, and Indians hunted after them before the first white man was even dreamt of in those parts. Off to right and left, pointy peaks and ridges shagged over with trees. They looked to hold memories of witchmen and bottomless pools; of Old Devlins, who watches by a certain lonesome river ford, though folks declare he died long years back; such things, and the Behinder that nobody's air seen yet and lived to tell of, because it jumps you down from behind; and a lot more, scary to think about.

  Now, a cleared-off space to the left there. I minded myself of how I'd heard once what had fallen out there a hundred years or so back. How Confederate soldiers had scooped up a bunch they allowed were Union bushwhackers—maybe rightly called that, maybe not. An unlucky thirteen of those, a couple of them just boys a-starting their teens. They'd sat the thirteen down, side by side on a long log, and then tore down with their guns and killed them. Afterward, they dug a ditch right there and buried them. No log there now, naturally, after all that long time. But folks vow up and down that after dark the log comes back again to where once it lay. And that those unlucky thirteen dead ones come out of their ditch and sit down on it, maybe speak to you if you walk past in the night.

  It wasn't full night yet, as I've said; but I thought to myself, something sort of snaky showed there, like the shadow of the log. And I made my long legs stretch themselves longer to get away from the place, quick as I could.

  Whatever was I there to do? Well, gentlemen, I'd been a-going through the county seat, and there were signs nailed up to tell folks about a big sing of country music, along about sundown, the sort of thing I've always loved. It would be into the hills near to where a settlement name of Immer had once lived and died. I’d seen more signs about it, in Asheville and over the mountains in Gatlinburg and so on. Since that was my kind of music, I'd reckoned I'd just go and hark at it and maybe even join in with it.

  “Along about sundown'—that was all the posters had said about the time, and it would be along about sundown right soon now. But when I rounded a bend of the track past a bluff, I could see where I'd been headed. There was a hollow amongst the heights, with a paved road looped into it from the far side. There stood a ruined old building of different kinds of mountain stone, big as a courthouse, with torn-down walls round about it. That had been an old, old hospital folks told about; built for Immer and the other houses in the neighborhood by a doctor—Dr. Sam Ollebeare he’d been named—who wanted to give care to the people in those wild places. When he’d died after long years of his good work, the hospital had gone to ruin, for no other doctor had taken over. Ruin had likewise come, they said, to the houses where folks had lived in Immer and round there. The folks had gone off some place else or maybe just died or just uglied away.

  Rows of cars were parked in a big level space, and people milled round. I saw that amongst the ruined w'alls was a big hole they used for an entrance. The folks out of the cars walked thataway and paid their money to a man who waited for it to be paid. A vine grew up the tumbledown wall, with white evening flowers on it. To me, it seemed like as if the flowers watched wiiile the man took in the money. I waited for the way to clear out before I walked up to him.

  "Admission two dollars,” he said, in a sort of fadeaway voice.

  I took me a long look at him. He wasn’t big, wouldn’t have come air much higher than my shoulder. He had a sort of tea-colored face, with a right big mane of hair darker than mine, combed back from it His black coat came to his knees, like a preacher’s, but it was buttoned right up to the neck. His black pants fitted him snug and his black shoes looked to be home-cobbled. Something about the coat and pants looked like homemade stuff too. There were big saddle stitches at all the seams.

  "Two dollars,” he said again, like a judge in court a-telling you a fine.

  "Hark at me, sir,” I said, and smiled. "My name’s John. I pick on this guitar, and I sort of reckoned I might could pick on it here tonight, a little bit.”

  He looked me up and down, with midnight eyes that didn't seem like regular eyes. Maybe he didn't much value the way I was dressed, with my old jeans pants and a faded hickory shirt and that wide old country hat.

  “John,” he repeated me my name. “I don't believe that you've been sent for to sing here, John.”

  Just inside that broken-down gateway hole, I saw a couple more men, a-waiting and a-watching me. They were dressed like the gatekeeper, long black coats, with swept- back hair. They might could have been brothers to him, all brothers in a not very friendly family.

  “Hold on,” said another voice, soft but plain.

  Somebody came at us. He was middling tall, dark-haired like those others, but his hair was cut and combed like as if it had been styled for him. He wore good store clothes, a black and white check jacket that fitted him like a special- made sheath for a knife, and his gray pants belled out stylish at the bottoms. On his sharp-nosed face he had smoked glasses, though the sun was as good as down over the heights at the west.

  “Hold on,” he said again as he came near. “What does this man want?”

  “He says he wants to sing,” mumbled the money-taking one, and he didn't sound in favor of my a-doing that.

  The stylish fellow set his glasses on me. “Can you play that guitar with those pretty, shiny strings?” he inquired me.

  “There
's been those who've been nice enough to say I could.”

  “The old, old songs?” was his next question. “Traditional?”

  "Them, and now and then I make me one.”

  "Very well,” and he grinned white teeth at me. "Make one for us to decide on. About who you are and what you do.”

  Another bunch of folks was there to go in at the gate. They stood and watched while I tuned my guitar here and there, and thought quick of some sort of tune for what Fd been bid to make up out of my head. I tried some chords; something a-sounding like maybe "Rebel Soldier,” though not much:

  "You ask me what my name is,

  And what I’m a-doing here—

  They call me John the Wanderer

  Or John the Balladeer.

  "I’ve sung at shows and parties,

  I’ve sung at them near and far,

  All up and down and to and fro,

  With my silver-strung guitar.”

  The listening folks clapped me for that much, but the one with the glasses just cocked his head, didn't nod it. "Go on,” he said, and I went on:

  "Sometimes I travel on buses,

  Sometimes I travel on planes,

  Sometimes I travel a-walking

  On the country roads and lanes.

  "In the homes of the rich and mighty

  Sometimes I’ve laid me down,

  Sometimes on the side of a mountain

  On the cold and lonesome ground.”

  By then, they all were a-listening so you could purely feel it. I stuck together a last verse:

  “I’ve made up my songs and ballads

  And sung them both far and near,

  But the best of them all I’ve whispered

  With only myself to hear.”

  More handclapping when I finished. The man with the glasses smiled again.

  "Not bad, John,” he said. "Not bad at all. Very well, come in and sing that one for us tonight. You seem to have a ready gift.”

  He sort of stabbed his smooth-gloved hand at me, and I took it. It was nowhere the size of my big one, but it was strong when he gripped for just a second and then let go. "Come along,” he said, and led me inside. I made out that his boot heels were built up to make him look taller.

  They'd set up all right for their singing. The ruins of the old stone hospital and its outside wall closed a big space in. Logs had been strung in rows, and folks sat on them, maybe the way those bushwhackers had sat to be shot down. They all faced toward a stage made of poles and split puncheons, with canvas hiked up at the back.

  "My name's Brooke Altic,” said the man, with his whitetoothed smile. "I'm running this program. We’ll play it by ear, more or less—impromptu. Out behind there are the other performers. Go and get acquainted, John. I'll call you to sing your songs when it seems to be the right time.”

  He walked away, on his built-up boots.

  I went behind the stage. Some lanterns hung from the trees there, and musicians sort of milled round. I saw instrument cases scattered here and yonder, like shoes flung off by giants. To one side, four fellows in black shirts and pants were softly playing together—guitar, banjo, fiddle, and bass. Nearer in, I saw a man I knew—turkey-faced Jed Seagram with his big rodeo hat and green rodeo shirt and the banjo he knew maybe about three honest breaks on. He was a-talking to a girl in dark red slacks, with a fine tumble of bright yellow hair and a guitar.

  "All I was a-saying, Miss Callie, is that you hold that guitar funny,” Jed was a-lecturing at her.

  "Well then, listen to what I say,” she told him back. "This happens to be my guitar, and I’ll happen to hold it whichever way I choose.”

  Fire in her words, I tell you. Jed squinched his turkey face and walked off away from her. I walked toward her.

  "The way you got Jed told was the right way,” I felt like a-saying to her. "Wherever he is, Jed always wants to run things.”

  She looked at me with a sweet, round face, big blue eyes in it, and a mouth as red as a cherry. "Oh,” she said, and smiled. "I know who you are; I’ve heard you with your guitar at Flornoy College. You’re John.”

  "Yes, ma’am.”

  Somebody else was there, a-scowling. "Are you having trouble, Callie?”

  "I was, but I took care of it,” she replied him. "John, this is a friend of mine, Mr. Jackson Warren.”

  He was a man my age or nearly, maybe five feet ten, with two-three silver streaks in his black hair. His tan jacket and pants weren’t as fancy as Brooke Aide’s, but they looked good on his square shoulders and straight legs. We shook hands together.

  "Did she call you John?” he asked. "Then I’ve heard of you, I think.”

  "I’m right proud for so many folks to know me by name.”

  “And,” he said, “you seem to have met Miss Callie Gray here. I’m visiting her father, Mr. Ben Gray. He lives over toward where Immer used to be.”

  “And there's no chance now of my hoping for the guitarpicking prize, now that John's here,” said Callie, though she didn't make herself mourn over it.

  It was the first I'd heard about prizes. “There's no such a thing as no chance, ma'am,” I said, and she smiled at me. I saw Jackson Warren smile, too. He kept his eyes on Callie.

  A loudspeaker made itself heard. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” said Brooke Altic's voice over it. “Welcome to our little festival of folk music. You were kind to join us. Let's start by listening to the band that calls itself the Four Seekers.”

  That dark-dressed bunch carried its instruments up the steps at a trot. Lanterns hung overhead to light them up there. I thought they looked like the men in the black coats who had met me at the gateway. They bunched together and went right into a song, pretty handy at it, all their strings at once. It was the kind of tune you'd call lonesome, with a wail to it and a long moan in the harmony underneath. They sang with it, but the words were hard to understand. “Way, way,” it sounded like as if they sang. “Way, way—” What kind of words were those, if they were words?

  But from where I stood a little clear off from the steps, I could see the audience a-sitting up with tight faces to hark at it, the way you'd think that was its main business in life. When the Four Seekers finished, the whole crowd clapped and clapped. The Four Seekers picked and sang again, another sneaky, minory thing. When they finished and bowed, they got a right much handclapping again.

  Brooke Altic came back center stage, mike in hand, to introduce a father and son named Hunter. They played fiddles, duets of ‘Tire in the Mountains” and “Laurel Lonesome” and “The Devil's Dream.” Sometimes they played just a rolling harmony, sometimes one would take the tune and the other would pick his strings like a banjo. They were good, and the audience let them know it.

  After them: “Miss Callie Gray and her guitar,” announced Altic.

  She got up there, little and pretty and a-smiling. She picked in what sounded like a modal scale, minor-sounding and yet not minor. Sweetly she sang:

  “Come over the bourn, Bessy,

  Come over the bourn, Bessy,

  Sweet Bessy, come over to me;

  And I shall thee take

  And my dear lady make,

  Before all other that ever I did see. . . .”

  On she went, with a verse to answer that, and it turned out it was meant to be the old-timey English people a-talking to Queen Elizabeth, the great Queen Elizabeth back then. I harked, and wondered myself at how good a song it was. When she was done and made a curtsey at the end, she got her round of applause.

  “That was beautiful,” said Jackson Warren beside me, and it was.

  Other performers followed; it's hard to recollect all of them. I liked one set of clog dancers in special.

  Finally Brooke Altic announced: “Now for a stranger in our midst, who says his name's John. I want him to play the song he made up about himself.”

  I went up there with my guitar. Right off, folks began to holler things:

  “I vow, that's no stranger whatever!”
<
br />   "That's John—how you come on, John?"

  And yells and handclappings before I even started in. It was good to know I had friends or, anyway, well-wishers out there.

  As I'd been bid, I sang the song Altic had mentioned, and they purely tore up the logs with their hollering and whooping. Altic came close to me with his grin. “Listen, John," he said, “might you know a scary song—a ghost song? I particularly like that sort."

  “I’ll try one," I said to him, and when the racket died down he stuck the mike in my face.

  “Friends," I said, “let me try a song they call ‘Murder Bull.’ I learnt it from a Texas man, who said the thing truly happened in his part of the world."

  I struck a chord, then another chord, to make sure I was sure of the tune, and started out:

  "When the night is dark and stormy

  And the ghost wind moans and chills,

  They tell about the Murder Bull

  That roams the Texas hills.

  “It was at that big roundup

  In eighteen eighty-four,

  Two riders claimed a stray bull calf

  On the old Red River shore.

  "He wasn't much to fight for,

  But Jillson's hate was black;

  He fired a shot through Graham's chest

  And it came out the back.

  "Graham drew his bowie knife

  And struck in Jillson's side,

  And both fell down, and no one knew

  Which was the first that died."

  "Ohh,” I heard a pretty-dressed lady say from the front log as I went on: