Part 15 (2/2)

Miss Tully said that Joris Yandro coaxed Polly Wiltse to bring down gold to him, and he carried it away and never came back. And Polly Wiltse pined and mourned like a sick bird, and on Yandro's top she built her desrick. She sang the song, the one I'd sung, it was part of a long spell and charm. Three quarters of a century would pa.s.s, seventy-five years, and her lover would come back.

”But he didn't,” said Mr. Yandro. ”My grandfather died up north.”

”He sent his grandson, who favors him,” said Miss Tully. ”The song you heard brought you back at the right time.” She thumbed tobacco into her pipe. ”All the Yandro kin moved away, pure down scared of Polly Wiltse's singing.”

”In her desrick, where the wild beasts can't reach her,” quoted Mr. Yandro, and chuckled. ”John says they have bears and wildcats up here.” He expected her to say I was stretching it.

”Oh, there's other creatures, too. Scarce animals, like the Toiler.”

”The Toiler?” he said.

”It's the hugest flying thing there is, I guess,” said Miss Tully. ”Its voice tolls like a bell, to tell other creatures their feed's near. And there's the Flat. It lies level with the ground, and not much higher. It can wrap you like a blanket.” She lighted the pipe. ”And the Bammat. Big, the Bammat is.”

”The Behemoth, you mean,” he suggested.

”No, the Behemoth's in the Bible. The Bammat's something hairy-like, with big ears and a long wiggly nose and twisty white teeth sticking out of its mouth-'

Oh!” And Mr. Yandro trumpeted his laughter. ”You've got some story about the Mammoth. Why, they've been extinct-dead and forgotten-for thousands of years.”

”Not for so long, I've heard tell,” she said, puffing.

”Anyway,” he went on arguing, ”the Mammoth-the Bammat, as you call it-is of the elephant family.

How would anything like that get up in the mountains?”

”Maybe folks hunted it there,” said Miss Tully, ”and maybe it stays there so folks will think it's dead and gone a thousand years. And there's the Behinder.”

”And what,” said Mr. Yandro, ”might the Behinder look like?”

”Can't rightly say, Mr. Yandro. For it's always behind the man or woman it wants to grab. And there's the Skim-it kites through the air-and the Culverin, that can shoot pebbles with its mouth.”

”And you believe all that?” sneered Mr. Yandro, the way he always sneered at everything, everywhere.

”Why else should I tell it?” she replied. ”Well, Sir, you're back where your kin used to live, in the valley where they named the mountain for them. I can let you two sleep on my front stoop tonight.”

”I came to climb the mountain and see the desrick,” said Mr. Yandro with that anxious hurry to him that I kept wondering about.

”You can't climb up there until it's light,” she told him, and she made us two quilt pallets on the split-slab stoop.

I was tired and glad to stretch out, but Mr. Yandro grumbled, as if we were wasting time. At sunup next morning, Miss Tully fried us some side meat and slices of hominy grit porridge, and she fixed us a snack to carry, and a gourd to put water in. Mr. Yandro held out a ten dollar bill.

”No, I thank you ” said Miss Tully. ”I bade you stay, and I won't take money for that.”

”Oh, everybody takes money from me ” he snickered, and threw it on the door-sill at her feet. ”Go on, it's yours.

Quick as a weasel, Miss Tully's hand grabbed a stick of stove wood.

”Lean down and take back that money-bill, Mister,” she said.

He did as she told him. With the stick she pointed out across the stream that ran through the thickets below us, and up the height beyond. She acted as if there wasn't any trouble a second before.

”That's the Yandro Mountain,” she said. ”There, on the highest point, where it looks like the crown of a hat, thick with trees all the way up, stands the desrick built by Polly Wiltse. You look close, with the sun rising, and you can maybe make it out.”

I looked hard. There for sure it was, far off and high up, and tiny, but I could see it. It looked a lean sort of a building.

”How about trails going up?” I asked her.

”There's trails up there John, but n.o.body walks them.”

”Now, now,” said Mr. Yandro, ”if there's a trail, somebody must walk it.”

”May be a lot in what you say, but I know n.o.body in this valley would set foot to such a trail. Not with what they say's up there.”

He laughed at her, as I wouldn't have dared. ”You mean the Bammat,” he said. ”And the Flat, and the Skim, and the Culverin.”

”And the Toller,” she added for him. ”And the Behinder. Only a gone gump would go up there.”

We headed away down to the waterside, and crossed on logs laid on top of rocks. On the far side a trail led along, and when the sun was an hour higher we were at the foot of Yandro's high hill and a trail went up there, too.

We rested. Mr. Yandro needed rest worse than I did. Moving most of the night before, unused to walking and climbing, he had a gaunted look to his heavy face, and his clothes were sweated, and dust dulled out his shoes. But he grinned at, me.

”So she's waited seventy-five years, he said, ”and so I look like the man she's waiting for. And so there's gold up there. More gold than my grandfather could have carried off.”

”You believe what you've been hearing,” I said, and it was a mystery.

”John, a wise man knows when to believe the unusual, and how it will profit him. She's up there, waiting, and so is the gold.”

”What when you find it?” I asked.

”My grandfather was able to go off and leave her. It sounds like a good example to me.” He grinned wider and toothier. ”I'll give you part of the gold.

”No thanks, Mr. Yandro.”

”You don't want your pay? Why did you come here with me?”

”Just made up my mind on a moment's notice, like you.”

He scowled then, but he looked up at the height. ”How long will it take to climb, John?”

”Depends on how fast we climb, how well we keep up the pace.”

”Then let's go,” and he started UP the trail.

It wasn't folks' feet had worn that trail. I saw a hoofmark.

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