I thought of saying that Craye had given us to sundown the next day, which should ought to mean we'd last till then. As to the good in me, I hoped it was there. But it's not a right thing to claim aught for yourself, just be thankful if it helps.
Zeb gave us both a whet out of a jug of good blockade, and again I picked guitar. He joined in with me to sing "Lonesome River Shore" and "Call Me from the Valley," and wanted me to do the one that had minded him of Tilda. Things quietened outside while we sang. The devil's afraid of music, I'd heard tell from a preacher in a church house one time.
But when I put the guitar by, I heard another kind of singing. It was outside, it was a moanish tune and a woman's voice a-doing it. I tried to make out the words:
And I'd heard that same song before. It was sung, folks said, near about four hundred years back, at North Berwick, in Scotland, to witch a king on his throne and the princess he wanted to marry. I didn't reckon I'd tell Zeb that.
"Sounds like Craye Sawtelle's voice," he said as he listened. "What does cummer mean, John?"
"I think that's an old-timey word for a chum, a friend," I replied him.
"Then what cummers are out there with Craye?" His face was white so white I never mentioned the dog-thing that had come to the door.
"She'd better not fetch her cummers in here," I said to hearten him. "They might could hear what wouldn't please them."
"Hear what?"
I had to tell him something, so I took the guitar and sang:
He looked to feel better. Outside, the other singing died out.
"Would it help if we had crosses at the windows?" he asked, and I nodded him it wouldn't hurt. He tied splinters of firewood crosswise with twine string and put two at the windows and hung another to the latch of the door. Out yonder, somebody moaned like as if the somebody had felt a pain somewhere. Zeb actually grinned at that.
Time dragged by, and the wind sighed round the cabin, or anyway something with a voice like wind. I yawned and stretched, and told him I felt like sleep.
"Take the bed yonder," Zeb bade me. "I'll sit up. I won't be able to sleep."
"That's what you think," I said. "Get into your bed. I'll put down this blanket I fetched with me, just inside the door."
And I did, and wropped up in it. I didn't stay awake long, though once it sounded like as if something sniffed at where the door came down to the bottom. Shoo, gentlemen, you can sleep if you're tired enough.
What woke me up was the far-off crow of a rooster. I was glad to hear that, because a rooster's crow makes bad spirits leave. I rolled over and got up. Zeb was at the fireplace, with an iron fork to toast pieces of bread. A saucepan was a-boiling eggs.
"We're still here," he said. "It wonders me what Craye Sawtelle was up to last night."
"Just a try at scaring us," I said. "She gave us till sundown tonight, you recollect."
Somehow, that pestered him. He didn't talk much while we ate. I said I'd fetch a pail of water, and out I went with it to the spring. There, at the spring but not right close up beside it, stood Craye Sawtelle. This time she wore a long black dress, with black sandals on her bare feet, and her hair was tied up with a string of red beads.
"Good day, ma'am," I said. "How did you fare last night?"
"I was a trifle busy," she answered. "A-getting ready for sundown."
I dipped my bucket in the spring. The water looked sweet.
"I note by your tracks that you've been round and round here," I said, "but you nair once got close enough to dip in the spring."
"That will come," she promised me. "It will come when the spring's mine, when there's no bar against me. How does that sound to you, John?"
"Why, since you ask, it sounds like the same old song by the same old mockingbird. Like a try at scaring us out. Miss Craye, I've been a-figuring on you since we met up yesterday, and I'll give you my straight-out notion. There's nothing you can do to me or Zeb Gossett, no matter how you try."
"You'll be sorry you said that."
"I'm already sorry," I said. "I hate to talk thisaway to lady-folks, but some things purely have to be said."
"And yonder comes Zeb Gossett," she said, pointing. "He'll do like you, try to talk himself out of being afraid."
Zeb came along to where I stood with the bucket in my hand. He looked tight-mouthed and pale yonder his brown beard.
"Have you come to talk business?" Craye inquired him, and showed him her pointy teeth.
"I talk no business with you," he said.
"Wait until the sun slides down behind the mountain," she mocked at him. "Wait until dark. See what I make happen then."
"I don't have to wait," he said. "I've made my mind up."
"Then why should I wait, either?" she snarled out. "Why not do the thing now?"
She lifted up her hands, crooked like claws. She began to say a string of wild words, in whatever language I don't know. Zeb gave back from her.
"I hate things like this, folks," I said, and I upped with the bucket and flung that water from the spring all over her.
She screamed like an animal caught in a trap. I saw yellow foam come a-slathering out of her mouth. She whirled round and whirled round again and slammed down, and by then you couldn't see her on account of the thick dark steam that rose.
Zeb ran buck off a dozen steps, but I stood there to watch, the empty bucket in my hand.
The steam thinned, but you couldn't see Craye Sawtelle. She was gone.
Only that black dress, twisted and empty, and only those two black sandals on the soaked ground, with no feet in them. Naught else. Not a sigh of Craye Sawtelle. The last of the steam drifted off, and Zeb and I stared at each other.
"She's gone," Zeb gobbled in his throat. "Gone. How did you"
"Well" I steadied my voice "yesterday you said it washed away air bad thing whatever. So I thought I'd see if it would do that. No doubt about it, Craye Sawtelle was badness through and through."
He looked down at the empty dress and empty sandals.
"Blessed water," he said. "Holy water. You made it so."
"I can't claim that, Zeb. More likely it was your doing, when you started in to use it for help to sick and troubled folks."
"But you knew that if you threw it on her"
"No." I shook my head. "I just only hoped it would work, and it did. Wherever Craye Sawtelle's been washed to, I don't reckon she'll be back from there."
He looked up along the trail. Yonder came Tilda Fleming.
"Tilda," he said her name. "What shall I tell Tilda?"
"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.
THAT HELL-BOUND TRAIN
by Robert Bloch
Chosen by Rick Hautala
There are masters, and then there are Masters; and no one will disagree, I'm sure, when I say that Robert Bloch was a MASTER. In fact, I think it's safe to say that he pioneered a thoroughly modem approach to horror/fantasy literature that has led many other writers to successful careers. A lot of us are doing nothing more than exploring and filling in the details of territories he carved out of his vast and vivid imagination.