Part 23 (1/2)

I'm cut down in my sin!

O death, will you not spare me?”

But the little black train rolled in.

When she'd sung that much, Donie Carawan laughed like before, deep and bantering. Jeth the dance-caller made a funny sound in his bull throat.

”What I don't figure,” he said, ”was how you all made the train sound like coming in, closer and closer.”

”Just by changing the music,” I said. ”Changing the pitch.”

”Fact,” said the mouth-harp man. ”I played the change with him.”

A woman laughed, nervous. ”Now I think, that's true. A train whistle sounds higher and higher while it comes up to you. Then it pa.s.ses and goes off, sounding lower and lower.”

”But I didn't hear the train go away in the song,” allowed a man beside her. ”It just kept coming.” He shrugged, maybe he s.h.i.+vered.

”Donie,” said the woman, ”reckon I'll go along.”

”Stay on, Lettie,” began Donie Carawan, telling her instead of asking.

”Got a right much walking to do, and no moon,” said the woman. ”Reuben, you come, too.”

She left. The man looked back just once at Donie Carawan, and followed. Another couple, and then another, went with them from the firelight. Maybe more would have gone, but Donie Carawan snorted, like a horse, to stop them.

”Let's drink,” she said. ”Plenty for all, now those folks I reckoned to be my friends are gone.”

Maybe two-three others faded away, between there and the barrel. Donie Carawan dipped herself a drink, watching me over the gourd's edge. Then she dipped more and held it out.

”You drink after a lady,” she whispered, ”and get a kiss.”

I drank. It was good stump-hole wlusky. ”Tasty,” I said.

”The kiss?” she laughed. But the dance-caller didn't laugh, or either the mouth-harp man, or either me.

”Let's dance,” said Donie Carawan, and I picked ”Sourwood Mountain” and the mouth-harp moaned.

The dancers had got to be few, just in a short while. But the trees they danced through looked bigger, and more of them. It minded me of how I'd heard, when I was a chap, about day-trees and night-trees, they weren't the same things at all; and the night-trees can crowd all round a house they don't like, pound the s.h.i.+ngles off the roof, bust in the window gla.s.s and the door panels; and that's the sort of night you'd better never set your foot outside . . ..

Not so much clapping at the end of ”Sourwood Mountain.” Not such a holler of ”More!” Folks went to take another drink at the barrel, but the mouth-harp man held me back.

”Tell me,” he said, ”about that business. The noise sounding higher when the train comes 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 they can measure how far it is to the stars thataway.”

He thought, frowning. ”Something like what's called radar?”

I shook my head. ”No, no machinery to it. Just what they name a principle. Fellow named Doppler-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 it sound like coming near,” he said. ”Looky yonder, see for yourself ”

I looked. There was a streaky s.h.i.+ne down the valley. Two streaky s.h.i.+nes, though nary moon. I saw what 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 for G.o.d's forgiveness, night before he died.”

Donie Carawan came and poked her hand under my arm. I could tell that good strong liquor was feeling its way around her insides. She laughed at almost nothing whatever. ”You're not leaving, anyway,” 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 gone by 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 my guitar 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 Donie Carawan.

Go tell that laughing lady All filled with worldly pride, The little black train is coming, Get ready to take a ride, With a little black coach and engine And a little black baggage car, The words and deeds she has said and done Must 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,” I warned him.

His big square teeth grinned, with dark s.p.a.ces 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 my fist hard under his ear. He hopped two steps away to keep his feet.