Part 41 (1/2)

”Why not tell her what's in your heart for her?” I asked. ”I reckon she's plumb ready to hark at you.”

He started to walk toward her and I headed back to the cabin.

Owls Hoot in the Daytime

Manly Wade Wellman

That time back yonder, I found the place myself, the way folks in those mountains allowed I had to.

I was rough hours on the way, high up and then down, over ridges and across bottoms, where once there'd been a road. I found a bridge across a creek, but it was busted down in the middle, like a warning not to use it. I splashed across there. It got late when I reached a cove pushed in amongst close-grown trees on a climbing slope.

An owl hooted toward where the sun sank, so maybe I was on the right track, a path faint through the woods. I found where a gate had been, a rotted post with rusty hinges on it. The trees beyond looked dark as the way to h.e.l.l, but I headed along that snaky-winding path till I saw the housefront. The owl hooted again, off where the gloom grayed off for the last of daylight.

That house was half logs, half ancient whipsawed planks, weathered to dust color. Trees crowded the sides, branches crossed above the shake roof. The front-sill timber squatted on pate rocks. The door had come down off its old leather hinges. Darkness inside. Two windows stared, with flowered bushes beneath them. The gra.s.sy yard s.p.a.ce wasn't a great much bigger than a parlor floor.

”What ye wish, young sir?” a sc.r.a.py voice inquired me, and I saw somebody a-sitting on a slaty rock at the house's left corner.

”I didn't know anybody was here,” I said, and looked at him and he looked at me.

I saw a gnarly old man, his ruined face half-hid in a blizzardy white beard, his body wrapped in a brown robe. Beside him hunkered down what looked like a dark-haired dog. Both of them looked with bright, squinty eyes, a-making me recollect that my s.h.i.+rt was rumpled, that I sweated under my pack straps, that I had mud on my boots and my dungaree pant cuffs.

”If ye nair knowed n.o.body was here, why'd ye come?” sc.r.a.ped his voice.

”It might could be hard to explain.”

”I got a lavish of time to hark at yore explanation.”

I grinned at him. ”I go up and down, a-viewing the country over. I've heard time and again about a place so far off of the beaten way that owls hoot in the daytime and they have possums for yard dogs.”

An owl hooted somewhere.

”That's a saying amongst folks here and yonder,” said the old man, his broad brown hand a-stroking his beard.

”Yes, sir,” I agreed him, ”but I heard tell it was in this part of the country, so I thought I'd find out.”

The beard stirred as he clamped his mouth. ”Is that all ye got to do with yore young life?”

”Mostly so,” I told him the truth. ”I find out things.”

The animal alongside him hiked up its long snout.

It was the almightiest big possum I'd ever seen, big as a middling-sized dog. Likely it weighed more than fifty pounds. Its eyes dug at me.

”Folks at the county seat just gave me general directions,” I went on. ”I found an old road in the woods.

Then I heard the owl hoot and it was still daytime, so I followed the sound here.”

I felt funny, a-standing with my pack straps galled into me, to say all that.

”I've heard tell an owl hoot by daytime is bad luck,” sc.r.a.ped the voice in the beard. ”Heap of that a-going, if it's so.”

”Over in Wales, they say an owl hooting means that a girl's a-losing her virginity,” I tried to make a joke.

”Hum.” Not exactly a laugh. ”Owls must be kept busy a-hooting for that, too.” He and the possum looked me up and down. ”Well, since ye come from so far off, why don't me bid ye set and rest?”

”Thank you, sir.” I unslung my pack and put it down and laid my guitar on it. Then I stepped toward the dark door hole.

”Stay out of yonder,” came quick warning words. ”What's inside is one reason why n.o.body comes here but me. Set down on that stump acrost from me. What might I call ye?”

I dropped down on the stump. ”My name's John. And I wish you'd tell me more about how is it folks don't come here.”

”I'm Maltby Sanger, and this here good friend I got with me is named Ung. The rest of the saying's fact, too. I keep him for a yard dog.”

Ung kept his black eyes on me. His coa.r.s.e fur was grizzled gray. His forepaws clasped like hands under his shallow chin.

”Maybe I'd ought to fix us some supper while we talk,” said Maltby Sanger.

”Don't bother,” I said. ”I'll be a-heading back directly.”

”Hark at me,” he said, sc.r.a.pier than ever. ”There ain't no luck a-walking these here woods by night.”

”There'll be a good moon.”

”That there's the worst part. The moon shows ye to what's afoot in the woods. Eat here tonight and then sleep here.”

”Well, all right.” I leaned down and unbuckled my pack. ”But let me fix the supper, since I came without bidding.” I fetched out a little poke of meal, a big old can of sardines in tomatoes. ”If I could have some water, Mr. Sanger.”

”'Round here, there's water where I stay at.”

He got off his rock, and I saw that he was dwarfed. His legs under that robe couldn't be much more than knees and feet. He wouldn't stand higher than my elbow.

”Come on, John,” he said, and I picked up a tin pan and followed him round the house corner.

Betwixt two trees was built a little shackly hut, poles up and down and clay-daubed for walls, other poles laid up top and covered with twigs and gra.s.s for a roof. In front of it, in what light was left, flowed a spring. I filled my pan and started back.

”Is that all the water ye want?” he asked after me.

”Just to make us some pone. I've got two bottles of beer to drink.”

”Beer,” he said, like as if he loved the word.

He waddled back, a-picking up wood as he came. We piled twigs for me to light with a match, then put bigger pieces on top. I poured meal into the water in the pan and worked up a batter. Then I found a flat rock and rubbed it with ham rind and propped it close to the fire to pour the batter on. Afterward I opened the sardines and got my fork for Maltby Sanger and took my spoon for myself. When the top of the pone looked brown enough, I turned it over with my spoon and knife, and I dug out those bottles of beer and twisted off the caps.