Part 39 (1/2)

Evadare sat down on the root again, dead tired. I built up the fire to comfort us. I struck a chord on the guitar to sing to her, I don't recollect what. It might could as well have been a lullaby. She sank down asleep as I sang. I put my soogin sack under her head for a pillow and spread a blanket on her.

But I didn't sleep. I sat there, awaiting for whatever possibly happened, and nothing happened. Nothing at all, all night. The dawn grayed the sky and far off away I heard a rooster crow. I put the last of our coffee in the pot to brew for us, all we could count on for breakfast. While I watched by the fire, three men came toward us. Evadare rose up and yawned.

”John,” said Jake in his timid voice, ”I bless the high heavens to see you and your lady all safe here. This here is Preacher Frank Ricks, and here's Squire Hamp Dolby, come along with me to make your acquaintance.”

Preacher Ricks I'd met before. We shook hands together. He was thin and old, but still a-riding here and there to do what good was in his power. Squire Dolby was a chunk of a man with white hair and black brows. ”Proud to know you, John,” he said to me.

”I hurried in here just at sunrise,” said Preacher Ricks. ”I'd heard tell of poor Trill Coster's death, and I find she's already buried. And I heard tell, too, of the brave, kind thing your lady agreed to do to rest her soul.”

”I hoped it would be merciful,” said Evadare.

”How true you speak, ma'am,” said Squire Dolby. ”But the sins you said you'd take, they never came to you. They fastened somewhere else. Nollie Willoughby's gone out of her mind. Round her house it's all dark-shadowy, and she's in there, she laughs and cries at one and the same time. She hangs onto a little flint rock and says it's a ruby, richer than all dreams on this earth.”

”Isn't it a ruby?” I inquired him.

”Why,” he said, ”the gravelly path to my house is strewed with rocks like that, fit for naught but just to be trod on.”

”I fetched these folks here on your account, John,” said Jake. ”You done told me you and Evadare hoped to be married.”

”And we can do that for you,” allowed Preacher Ricks, with a smile to his old face. ”Squire Dolby here has the legal authority to give you a license here and now.”

”It's sure enough my pleasure,” said Squire Dolby.

He had a pad of printed blanks. He put down Evadare's name and mine, and he and Jake signed for the witnesses.

”Why not right now, under these trees and this sky?” said Preacher Ricks, and opened his book. ”Stand together here, you two. John, take Evadare's right hand in your right hand. Say these words after me when I tell you.”

The Spring

Manly Wade Wellman

Time had pa.s.sed, two years of it, when I got back to those mountains again and took a notion to visit the spring.

When I was first there, there'd been just a muddy, weedy hole amongst rocks. A young fellow named Zeb Gossett lay there, a-burning with fever, a-trying to drink at it. I pulled him onto some ferns and put my blanket over him. Then I knelt down and dragged out the mud with my hands, picked weeds away and bailed with a canteen cup. Third time I emptied the hole to the bottom, water came clear and sweet.

I let Zeb Gossett have some, and then I built us a fire and stirred up a hoecake. By the time it was brown on both sides, he was able to sit up and eat half of it.

Again and again that night, I fetched him water, and it did him good. When I picked my silver-strung guitar, he even joined in to sing. Next day he allowed he was well, and said he'd stay right where such a good thing happened to him. I went on, for I had something else to do. But I left Zeb a little sack of meal and a chunk of bacon and some salt in a tin can. Now, returned amongst mountains named Hark and Wolter and Dogged, not far from Yandro, I went up the trail I recollected to see how the spring came on.

The high slope caved in there, to make a hollow grown with walnut and pine and hickory, and the spring showed four feet across, with stones set in all the way round. Beside the s.h.i.+ning water hung a gourd ladle. Across the trail was a cabin, and from the cabin door came Zeb Gossett. ”John,” he called my name, ”how you come on?”

We shook hands. He was fine-looking, young, about as tall as I am. His face was tanned and he'd grown a short brown beard. He wore jeans and a home-sewn blue s.h.i.+rt. ”Who'd expect I'd find Zeb Gossett here?” I said.

”I live here, John. Built that cabin myself, and I've got t.i.tle to two acres of land. A corn patch, potatoes and cabbages and beans and tomatoes. It's home. When you knelt down to make that spring give the water that healed me, I knew this was where I'd live. But come on in. I see you still tote that guitar.”

His cabin was small but rightly made, of straight poles with neat-notched corner joints, whitewash on the clay c.h.i.n.king. There was gla.s.s in the windows to each side of the split-slab door. He led me into a square room with a stone fireplace and two chairs and a table. Three-four books on a shelf. The bed had a blazing-star quilt. Over the fire bubbled an iron pot with what smelled like stewing deer meat.

”Yes, I live here, and the neighborhood folks make me welcome,” he said when we sat down. ”I knew that spring had holy power. I watch over it and let others heal their ills with it.”

”It was just a place I scooped out,” I reminded him. ”we had to have water for you, so I did it.”

”It's cured hundreds of sick folks,” he said. ”I carried some to the Fleming family when they had flu, then others heard tell of it and came here. They come all the time. I don't take pay. I tell them, 'Kneel down before you drink, the way John did while he was a-digging. And pray before you drink, and give thanks afterwards.'”

”You shouldn't ought to give me such credit, Zeb.”

”John,” he said, ”that's healing water. It washes away air bad thing whatsoever. It helps mend up broken bones even. Why, I've known folks drink it and settle family quarrels and lawsuits. It's a miracle, and you did it.”

I wouldn't have that. I said, ”Likely the power was in the water before you and I came here. I just cleaned the mud out.”

”I know better, and so do you,” Zeb grinned at me.

Outside, a sweet voice: ”h.e.l.lo, the house,” it spoke. ”h.e.l.lo, Zeb, might could I take some water?”

He jumped up and went out like as if he expected to see angels. I followed him out, and I reckon it was an angel he figured he saw.

She was a slim girl, but not right small. In her straight blue dress and canvas shoes, with her yellow curls waterfalled down her back, she was pretty to see. In one hand she toted a two-gallon bucket. She smiled, and that smile made Zeb's knees buck.

”Tilda”-he said her name like a song-”you don't have to ask for water, just dip it. Somebody in your family ailing?”

”No, not exactly.” Then her blue eyes saw me and she waited.

”This is my friend John, Tilda,” said Zeb. ”He dug the spring. John, this is Tilda Fleming. Her folks neighbor with me just round the trail bend.”

”Proud to be known to you, ma'am,” I made my manners, but she was a-looking at Zeb, half nervous, half happy.

”Who's the water for, then?” he inquired her.

”Why,” she said, shy with every word, ”that's why I wondered if you'd let me have it. You see, our chickens-” and she stopped again, like as if she felt shamed to tell it.

”Ailing chickens should ought to have whatever will help them, Zeb.” I put in a word.

”That's a fact,” said Zeb, ”and a many a fresh egg your folks have given me, Tilda. So take water for them, please.”

She dropped down on her knees and bowed her head above the spring. She was a pretty sight, a-doing that. I could tell that Zeb thought so.

But somebody else watched. I saw a stir beyond some laurel, and looked hard thataway.

It was another girl, older than Tilda, taller. Her hair was blacker than storm, and her pointy-chinned, pale face was lovely. She looked at Tilda a-kneeling by the spring and she sneered, and it showed her teeth as bright as gla.s.s beads.

Zeb didn't see her. He bent over Tilda where she knelt, was near about ready to kneel with her. I walked through the yard toward the laurel. That tall, black-haired girl moved into the open and waited for me.

She wore a long dress of tawny, silky stuff, hardly what you'd look for in the mountains. It hung down to her feet, but it held to her figure, and the figure was fine. She looked at me, impudent-faced. ”I declare,”