The Beyonders, Page 2

  At Doc's, Crispin stood in the wide front room that was a good half of the house, staring at shelves of books that went all the way around, up to the ceiling. "You must have thousands of volumes here, Doctor," he said after a moment.

  "Four thousand, more or less," said Doc. "Maybe two thousand are worth rereading, once a year. Care to wash up? The bathroom's in yonder."

  Slowly set a big china dish, heaped with red-brown stew, on the stout square table. Knives and forks and paper napkins were there already. Crispin returned from washing his hands and Doc motioned him to a chair. They helped themselves from the dish and from a plate of hot corn bread cut into squares. Crispin poured wine from the bottle he had brought.

  "This Burgundy is good," said Doc, tasting his glassful.

  "So is our dinner," said Crispin. "I wonder how it's made."

  "Slowly knows that."

  "Chopped meat, " she said, "and a can of baked beans, and tomatoes and onions and green peppers and seasonings. Doc always likes it."

  "So do I like it, and always will when I'm lucky enough to have some." Crispin took another forkful. "I never had it before."

  "The formula is Slowly's," said Doc, buttering a morsel of bread. "I don't know in what order the elements go in. I only know she'll use one certain brand of beans, and when the Longcohrs don't have them, she cooks something else."

  "It's a banquet," vowed Crispin. "You see, I paint, and usually I don't stop work at noon. I take something to munch while I keep on painting. I'm already anxious to get at some studies hereabouts."

  "I liked your picture I saw," said Doc, "and 1 want to see more."

  Crispin smiled. "Let me say, I'm no great thundering master. I've had a few shows and have sold pictures now and then. Otherwise, I've some money to live on, and I'd rather paint than anything else. I saw photographs of this country up in New York and came down on impulse. That's more or less my life story, Doctor and Miss—is it Slowly?"

  "Celola," she said gently. "Folks call me Slowly. I reckon that comes easier."

  "My own life story isn't intricate, either," said Doc, sipping wine. "When I was young, I ran a dispensary and infirmary for lumberjacks. I went away to work out a career in medicine, and I had sense enough to come back here where I'd been happy." He sipped. "I'm still happy."

  "So shall I be." Crispin gazed at the clifflike shelves of books. "What particular interests do you have, here in your library?"

  "Well, I read history and literature that's been long enough around to prove it's good; medicine and general science, and quite a few works on folklore."

  "Doc lets me read in his books when I have time," said Slowly as she began to gather up the dishes.

  "Folklore." Crispin seemed interested. "There must be a treasure of that in a place like this."

  "Most of the folks have tried to outgrow it," said Doc, smiling above his glass. "They don't even talk about it much. Some of it might be staying with the Kimber settlement, up on Dogged Mountain from here."

  "Miss Slowly's folks," said Crispin, looking at her.

  "I was an adopted Kimber," Slowly informed him, turning at the kitchen door. "I came to Sky Notch when I was fourteen. I was going to school, and Miss Barnett—she was teaching—had me to live with her in the little teacherage. She's gone, but I still stay there."

  "Living with a teacher was good for Slowly," said Doc. "She got mathematical enough to be the Sky Notch town clerk. "

  Slowly went into the kitchen.

  "Folklore interests me," said Crispin, "and all the science it seems to fit into."

  "Like witchcraft," supplied Doc. "Like interpreting dreams. Maybe like unidentified flying objects."

  Crispin blinked. "You believe in those? Have you read about them?"

  "I have some books. About believing, let me just say I suspend judgment, on those and other things. I'm perfectly willing to be convinced, by a satisfactory firsthand experience. "

  "What if one flew down into your yard?"

  "Then it would be an identified flying object. I'd believe it, in spite of the skeptics."

  "The skeptics who laughed at beliefs in flying dragons," offered Crispin. "But they proved to be true when they dug up pterodactyls."

  "That was a big one they dug up in Texas, wasn't it?" asked Doc. "Pterosaur, though, they call it instead of a dragon. Big enough to carry off a sheep or a man even, if there'd been any in Texas sixty million years ago."

  "About the Kimbers," said Crispin, looking at the table. "I had heard the name, and asked about them at the county seat. Nobody seemed to be able to tell me anything about them." He glanced up, his blue eyes half plaintive. "As if they didn't want to tell me."

  "The Kimbers have a grand gift of keeping to themselves," Doc told him. "They come here sometimes to buy things, and once in a while I give one of them some pills, or vaccinate their children. I'd say their most interesting contribution is refusal to join any church. They argue that churches teach false things and are full of hypocrites."

  "But then they must have a substitute religion," suggested Crispin. "Religion is more or less a universal impulse."

  "They do have their own worship. Do their own preaching and baptizing. They get married by the judge at the county seat. By all reports, their baptism is at night, by the full moon."

  "I'd like to see that," said Crispin eagerly.

  Doc studied him. "Might I ask, are you single?"

  "Yes. Yes, I am."

  "Then marry a Kimber girl—and some of them are highly attractive. Then you'd be baptized yourself, under the full moon."

  "You hurry me too fast," said Crispin, smiling again. "So far I haven't even bought things I need to be moved in."

  "If you're finished here, suppose I just walk you to Longcohr's and see what you can get there." Doc raised his voice. "Slowly, what are you laying out for supper?"

  "I thought I'd stuff some eggs," she called back from the kitchen.

  "Splendid." Doc shoved his chair back. "Will you come and share those, Mr. Crispin?"

  "You'll have me outwearing my welcome. Let's see if there's something at the store that can be my share."

  They walked out in the pleasant brightness of early afternoon. Crispin gazed in all directions at once. "It's a beautiful place," he said. "The houses are fine, the colors are fine."

  "I always thought so, but I envy you the artist's eye," said Doc.

  As they walked, Doc told about Sky Notch. A population of perhaps two hundred and fifty, much fallen away since lumbering times, but still happy. Some of the residents drove to jobs in Asheville or across the Tennessee line, thirty miles or so, and others worked land here and there within easier reach. Just then, shortly after noon, there was little stir. In the evenings, people visited back and forth, on good terms. No trouble anywhere in Sky Notch, said Doc, and he was glad. That made things easier for the town board, Mayor Ballinger and the three commissioners, Bo Fletcher and Bill Longcohr and Doc himself. Most town meeting nights at the store building people dropped in for company's sake. Sometimes Gander Eye Gentry came and picked his banjo.

  "We're not big nor terribly lively, but we're not new, either," Doc summed up. "Sky Notch was here a generation before the Civil War."

  Crispin gazed appreciatively down Main Street at the empty school building and at the water tower beyond. "When did those Kimber people come?" he inquired.

  "Nobody knows. Long before Sky Notch was founded. They must have been here from the beginning, about the time the Indians left, and that was at the close of the Revolution."

  "All you say about them interests me." Duffy Parr sat in front of his station, eating a big sandwich and drinking from a bottle that maybe had blockade in it. He lifted his bottle to them. Crispin waved back as Doc led him into Longcohr's store.

  It was a low, broad cave of a place, the floor crowded with counters, the walks lined with shelves. There were stacks of canned and packaged foods, plastic containers of cleaning materials, sheafs and strewings of jeans pants,
work shirts, house dresses and aprons, leather and canvas shoes. Displays included flashlights, cosmetics, cheap dishes, glass jars of pickles, hammers and saws and bags of nails. Goods of a hundred kinds heaped the shelves, leaned in corners, hung from hooks.

  "How you come on, Doc?" called William Longcohr from beside the frozen foods counter. He was softly plump, with a heavy, secret face and glasses fitted snug to his pouched eyes. His buxom, good-humored wife Martha smiled from behind the desk where the Sky Notch post office did business. Their blond daughter Peggy, eighteen years old and looking an abundant twenty-four, raised a hand as she sat against a rear shelf, studying an old motion picture magazine.

  "Folks, this is Mr. James Crispin, who's moving in here," said Doc. "Mr. Crispin, these are Mr. and Mrs. Longcohr and their daughter Peggy yonder. I told him he could probably buy what he wants right here, to start his housekeeping."

  "If we ain't got it for you, maybe we can get it fetched in," said Longcohr, walking toward them.

  "I'll start in with a few supplies for the next day or so, to eat," said Crispin. He searched out a package of bacon, a box of crackers, a can of coffee, a carton with a dozen eggs. "Doctor, can't I contribute this to tonight's supper?"

  He held up a tall can of asparagus. "I can fix it with cream sauce," he said. "Or if you don't like it, we'll find something else."

  "Asparagus always agrees with me." said Doc.

  Crispin found a half-gallon jug of milk, a pound of butter, a loaf of rye bread. Longcohr slashed off a pound of cheese from a wheel and wrapped it for him. Crispin carefully chose a head of lettuce and bought salad oil and pasteboard shakers of salt and pepper. "I brought wine vinegar with me," he said.

  "You're an epicure," said Doc with relish.

  Longcohr put the purchases in two paper sacks. Crispin found a galvanized iron pail on a counter shelf.

  "I'm bound to need this, with more things with it," he said. "I'll leave it and be back later, to buy what I've forgotten now. Maybe a broom and detergents and so on."

  "Get them now and I'll help you," offered Doc.

  "No, I want to come back a second time," smiled Crispin. "To get acquainted with the way from my place, and with these people."

  "Where you located, Mr. Crispin?" asked Martha Longcohr.

  "The Hyson cabin, across the creek."

  "That's good built," said Longcohr. "Not many pole cabins get put up that good no more. I hope you're comfortable, Mr. Crispin."

  "I hope so." Crispin gathered up the sacks. "I'll be back again. Ladies," and he bowed. "Mr. Longcohr."

  He and Doc went out.

  "So he's the one Duffy Parr was mentioning," said Longcohr.

  "He's a nice sort of man," said Martha Longcohr.

  "He's so good-looking, it stinks," spoke up Peggy.

  "What kind of talk is that?" said her mother.

  "He's so good-looking, it stinks," repeated Peggy, savoring it. "He's the most out-of-this-world man to come to Sky Notch in I don't know when."

  "Don't go getting crazy about him, girl," warned Longcohr. "Good looks ain't everything. A man needs more than that."

  "Like Duffy Parr," said Peggy. "I like him. Always have."

  "Duffy?" Martha Longcohr almost squealed. "He's near about twice your age."

  "Not that much, Mamma."

  "And Duffy' sells that blockade whiskey he gets from the Kimbers," added Longcohr, acting as if he didn't know about it at first hand. "And drinks it."

  "Men have been known to stop drinking when a woman wants it," said Peggy.

  "Hush that talk, girl, and let's straighten up these counters."

  Crispin paused at Doc's door. "What time shall I come over? Six o'clock? I'll cream the asparagus on my hot plate and fetch it along. Now I'll stow these things and go back for the rest."

  In the cabin that was now his, he hoisted a portable electric refrigerator to a counter beside the sink. Into this he put the eggs, cheese, milk and bacon. Then he trudged back to the store.

  The Longcohrs greeted him in chorus. He roamed here and there, finding a broom, a package of soap powder, other things. "Ever since I came into town, I've liked everything I've seen," he said.

  Peggy tittered from where she spread handkerchiefs in a stack.

  "Gander Eye Gentry was by," said Mrs. Longcohr. "I recollect he said you're a picture-painter."

  "I've been trying to be one for years." Crispin took two pairs of white socks from the clothing counter.

  "There's money in that, I hear tell," ventured Longcohr.

  "Now and then," said Crispin. "Many a good painter has starved in his garret."

  "I declare to never," contributed Peggy.

  "I'm not really poor," and Crispin's white teeth shone in the neat beard. "Don't worry about me on that score."

  He paid for his purchases and went out. Duffy waved in greeting. Crispin went back to his cabin and opened the door and went in.

  Somebody sat in the one comfortable chair in his front room. It was a stocky man in a gray tweed jacket. His dark hair grew rankly down on his broad, low brow; his wide, shaven jaw showed slaty. In one hair-matted hand he held a morsel of cheese, in the other a cracker from the torn package on the table.

  "I've been waiting for you," he croaked.

  "How did you get in here, Struve?" demanded Crispin, clutching the broom.

  "Your door was open. I just came in." Deep-set eyes, dark as old lead, quartered over Crispin. "This is good cheese."

  "They didn't need to send you to spy on me," said Crispin sharply. "I know what I'm to do here."

  "So do they, and so do I," said the man called Struve. "That's why I came down, checked in at an auto court at the county seat. To see that you do what you're sent to do, and report back on how you do it."

  Crispin put down the broom and his other purchases. "Why didn't they send you directly on this assignment, and not me."

  "I don't suppose I've got the show window you have. Can't make strangers trust me, like you." The croaked words were precise. "But they don't know if you take your duty seriously, if you comprehend the cosmic science and your duty to it."

  "Maybe they sent somebody to make sure of you."

  "Maybe. But let's stay with you and this place. The Gate's going to open, and you're going to see that it does."

  "I know. "

  The deep eyes sank in the swarthy face. "Why don't you fry eggs for our supper, and stir in some of this cheese?"

  "I'm invited out to supper," said Crispin.

  "You always get yourself a welcome," said Struve. "Anywhere."

  "You can't stay here," said Crispin. "These people I've met come dropping in."

  "If they come to your front door, I'll be out the back one. And I'll keep in touch with you, when nobody else is apt to drop in and wonder what we're talking about."

  Crispin drew a deep breath. "Very well."

  "But before I go, pay attention to me," said Struve. "For about the tenth or twentieth time, let's go over the matter of these Kimber people."'

  III

  Gander Eye did not visit the slope beyond Crispin's cabin until next morning. But he rose early to do it, before anyone else might stir out and see him. He took one of his rifles, an old Springfield of the sort the army gave up for the Garand, slid through his back yard, crossed the creek on a jumble of rocks, and plunged into laurel thickets beyond.

  He stayed under cover until his hunter's sense told him he was opposite the place. Then he came back at a crouch to the brushy trees he remembered. Carefully he studied the ground for tracks.

  He found nothing that he understood as tracks, not even when he felt sure he stood where that soft-shining thing had stood. Then it hadn't been a bear. Not a man, either, for a man's tracks would be easier to see. He peered in all directions before he knelt for a closer look.

  Moss at the roots of a locust looked dingy brown. He dropped almost prone to study it. That moss might have been touched with a hot iron. He let his eyes travel to the locu
st trunk. The bark showed a dull, scorched area, as long as a man's hand. He explored the woods upslope. Laurel leaves seemed shrivelled, and a serviceberry twig was broken and parched brown, too. Then came a clearing, no track in its soft earth. Farther up were rocks, where snakes might haunt. Nothing showed on them except one crumbly scrape.

  Gander Eye would be damned if he knew what to do. If he talked to anybody, it would sound like a joke. And whatever had been there yesterday might not be funny. He'd say nothing for the time, but he'd keep his eyes open.

  Back at his house, he ate boiled eggs and drank coffee. Through his window he saw Crispin coming along from his cabin, across the bridge, carrying a folded easel, a canvas stool, a shoulder bag of other things. Crispin stopped beside Main Street well away from the church. Fixing a square of canvas to his easel, he sat on the stool and gazed fixedly at the church.

  He still sat and gazed late in the morning when Gander Eye drove back from the county seat where he'd been to talk about his taxes. Doc Hannum, in a white linen suit, had paused to see what Crispin was doing. Peggy Longcohr walked over from the store, plump legs twinkling out of her yellow miniskirt. She asked something, and Crispin smiled.

  He was on Main Street every day after that, painting a picture of the church. He would stare for an hour or so, then work furiously with his brush, now in his right hand, now in his left. Sky Notch people stopped and told him it was mighty pretty, even when they wondered if they knew what they were talking about. Crispin usually painted all day, stopping at noon to sit in the shade and eat his lunch out of a paper bag. Usually it was a slice of cheese, chunks of rye bread, a few olives, big pulls at a wine bottle. Doc and Gander Eye and Duffy and Slowly all called him Jim, but the Longcohrs still mistered him because he traded there and got mail there, a lot of mail.