Read Online Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer 05 by The Voice of the Mountain (v1.1) - Free Book Online

some
time later, maybe I’d work it into something better. But what I did hope was
that this mountain had heard me, that it knew it was John against the mountain.
If I’d truly been a country fool to climb so high on it, I’d at least made it
farther up than poor Zeb Plattenburg. And Td climb higher yet. I turned my eyes upward to see how I could do it.
                 Right
off, I saw how I’d nearly made it. The lip of the precipice was just above
there, with trees grown close on it and a-bending down, big bushy-topped pines
and old oaks, some more black walnut, maple, gum, and mountain ash and others.
And next thing I saw, on the face of the rock ran a sort of cut- in ladder.
                 It
was no little bunch of shallow hand-and footholds this time, like those I’d
used below. These were deep and roomy, near about like a staircase, only the
rock was too steep for a staircase. Like a ladder, as I’ve told you all. And
there was no point in my a-waiting down there on that lump of rock. I swung my
guitar back behind me, and I set myself to those steps and went up them.
                 I
climbed and I climbed with both my hands and both my feet, and in time I got to
the top. I dragged myself up on a flat place, level and broad, with tufty grass
under the trees. I got hold of the stem of a sapling and hauled myself up to
where I could stand.
                 The
top of Cry Mountain was as flat as a table, but a table grown
over with trees. I moved a little in amongst them. Through the leafy branches
ahead I saw something else. A stockade, I made it out to be. Big stout poles of
different kinds of wood, driven in so close together you could barely see
betwixt them. Somebody had made that fence of poles, had driven them in. I
walked toward them, right delicate as I moved, ready for what might could happen.
                Close in, I saw there was a gate. It
was made of stout rails laid across. There was a foot log at the bottom and a
cross-log at the top, and the gate fitted in there like as if a master builder
had done it. Centermost of that log above the gate was fastened a skull, with
eyes of dark shadow and a grin of its teeth. I looked up at it, and I could
swear it looked down at me.
                 That
selfsame moment, something made itself heard.
                 Not
the voice of Cry Mountain this time, not that lonesome sound. It was
a deep hum, like bees, but louder. I turned to see, and sure enough it was bees.
                 A
swarm of them drifted amongst the trees toward me. There must have been a
nation of them, bright and brown, and they were big—bigger than bees, than
bumblebees—more like a world of flying mice or sparrows for size, and all of
them a-humming as they came at me.
                 I
ran hard against the rails of the gate, so hard I almost bounced off. I grabbed
hold, a-fixing to climb over.
                 “I’ve
been waiting for you to get here,” said a deep voice the other side of the
gate. “I’ve watched you all the way up. You’d better come in, quickly.”
                 The
heavy gate swung inward, with a screech of wood on wood. And you all can bet I
flew through and inside it.

5
     
                The gate swished in the air as it
swung shut behind me. I heard the heavy snap it made as some kind of catch or
lock caught itself. That swarm of great big bees came up and fluttered itself
right against the rails of the gate. The bees hung there in the air like a
lumpy brown blanket, feet tall and feet wide, and all the humming was like the
rush of falling water.
                 “Don’t
be afraid of them now,” the deep voice said to me. “A sting from one of them
would kill you like the bite of a poisonous snake. But they never come past
this fence.”
                 I
turned round and had my first sight of who was a-talking.