Read Online Manly Wade Wellman - John Thunstone 01 by What Dreams May Come (v1.1) - Free Book Online Page A

She’s Jean Stuart, at National Geographic in Washington ; she knows the Stone Age. Some of those smaller
points may have been arrowheads; those people may have had bows.”
                “Very likely,” nodded
Ensley.                            
•
                 “They
could kill game from far off with bows/’ said Thunstone. “They could kill men,
too, if they understood enemies and war.” Ensley chuckled, rather sardonically.
“Undoubtedly they understood enemies and war, and waged war on enemies,” he
said. “War had already been on earth, for many millennia. Do you read Pfeiffer?
There’s his book on the shelf there, The
Emergence of Man. Pfeiffer suggests that Neanderthal man invented war,
maybe sixty thousand years ago.”
                 “I’ve
read Pfeiffer,” said Thunstone. “In that same sentence, as I remember, Pfeiffer
says that Neanderthal man seems to have invented religion. He describes Neanderthal
burial sites, with traces of the flowers draped over the skeleton that once was
a body.” His voice grew sad, for the thought always roused his compassion for
those long-ago creatures that were striving to be man, to be Homo sapiens.
                 “War
and religion,” said Ensley. “They seem to go together; they seem to have gone
hand in hand all the way to the present.” “Whoever your flint-chippers were,
they were splendid workmen,” said Thunstone. “Where did you find these
specimens?”
                Ensley smiled at that, a strange,
tight smile made by clamping his lips wide across his face. “I dug up those
points myself, here on my own property.”
                 “Your
property in Claines,” said Thunstone.
                 “Specifically,
up yonder on Sweepside. That land, this house—all my property in and about
Claines—has been in the Ensley family for hundreds of years.”
                 “And
you say you want no explorations on it.”
                 “No
explorations that will complicate my own,” said Ensley. “I’ve posted Sweepside
against trespassers, but I don’t forbid everyone. Mr. Gates, our worthy curate
at St. Jude’s, may go up there if he wishes and if he promises to be
circumspect. But he seems to want to interfere with the figure of Old Thunder;
he’s outspoken against what he calls paganism.” Again he smiled tightly at Thunstone.
“Who’s the true god of the world, anyway? The god you probably worship has his
faults and admits them. In the Ten Commandments he calls himself a jealous
god—admits to meanness. Somewhere else he says he won't forgive unto the third
and fourth generation."
                 "You’ll
find that in the Third Commandment," said Thunstone. "The fifth
chapter of Deuteronomy, isn't it? Anyway, that was a long, long time ago."
                 "Not
so very long," shrugged Ensley. "I don't know just how long ago Moses
is supposed to have brought down his tables of stone from Mount Sinai, but I’d
hazard that Old Thunder's figure on Sweepside was first cut out before
that."
                 He
spoke as though he knew what he was talking about. Thunstone drew on his pipe.
                 "I
walked through your little town last evening after supper, as far as your fence
at the edge of Sweepside," he said. "When I came back, I saw that I'd
been followed by someone, who headed away among some trees behind your house
here. I wondered who it was."
                 "Ah,
who indeed?" said Ensley. "What did the person look like?"
                "He had a draped coat and a
low-pulled hat, so it would be hard to say what he looked like. He was
square-built and not very tall, something the figure of your man working
outside. The one you called Hob."
                 "Hob
Sayle?" said Ensley. "Hob has been with our family for years, with my
father before me.