to poke into what ain’t none of his business, huh? And you want to ask me something.”
“Yes,” said Thunstone evenly. “I thought I’d ask you what you’d like to drink.”
“Eh?” The beady eyes quartered him, then gazed into an empty glass. “I’ll have what you’re having.”
The bartender brought the drinks. Ritson gulped at his. Thunstone lifted his own glass but did not sip.
“I’ve been told that you know past history here, Mr. Ritson,” he tried again. “About the case of a man named Marrowby, long ago hanged for murder and buried here.”
Skimpy gray brows drew above the unfriendly eyes. “Why in hell should I tell you a word of what I know?”
“If you don’t,” said Thunstone, “I’ll have to go to Mr. Packer, the clerk.”
“Packer?” Ritson squealed. “What does he know? Hell, Mister, he wasn’t even born here. He doesn’t know old-time town history, he just sort of mumbles about it.”
“But if you won’t talk to me, I must look for information wherever I can get it.”
“What information could Packer give you? Look here, my folks was here ever since the town was built, away back before the Revolution. Sure I know about the Marrowby thing. When I was a boy, my great-grandmother told me what she’d heard from her grandfather, who was young here at the time—better than two hundred and forty years back, I calculate.”
Ritson swigged down the rest of his drink.
“Bring this gentleman another, Thunstone told the bartender, putting down some money. “Now, Mr. Ritson, what did you hear from your great-grandmother?”
“It happened long lifetimes ago. They’d had Marrowby up for his magic doings—he could witch people’s dinners off their tables to his house, he’d made a girl leave her true love to come to him. All the law gave him for that was just a year in the jailhouse.”
“But he was hanged at last,” said Thunstone.
“That he was, higher than Haman,” Ritson nodded above his second drink. “The way it was told to me, he killed a preacher—can’t recollect the preacher’s name—who’d read him out of the church.”
“The preacher’s name was Walford,” supplied Thunstone.
“Whatever the name was, he died of a stab in the heart. And at Marrowby’s house, they found a wax dummy of the preacher, with a needle stuck in it.”
“Where was Marrowby’s house?” asked Thunstone.
“Why, out yonder where the Trumbull house is, where them young folks took over. Maybe the charge wouldn’t have stood, but Marrowby pleaded guilty in court. And they built a scaffold in the courthouse yard and strung him up.” Ritson drank. “I heard the whole tale. He stood up there and confessed to black magic, confessed to murder. He said he had to repent, or else he’d go to hell. He warned the folks who watched.”
“What was his confession?” Thunstone asked.
“Seemed like he warned all who were there, not to follow black magic. Said he must confess and repent. And he said a tiling I don’t know the meaning of.”
“Here,” said Thunstone, “I haven’t touched this drink.” He shoved the glass to Ritson’s hand. “What did he say?”
“It didn’t make sense. He warned them not to be familiar.”
“Familiar?” echoed Thunstone, interested.
“Said, ‘Let familiar alone.’ The like of that—strange words. Said, ‘Rouse him not.’ And swung off.”
“And that’s all?”
“Yes. They buried him outside the churchyard, and drove an ash stake into his heart to make sure he wouldn’t rise up. That’s the whole tale. But don’t you go writing it.”
“I won’t write it,” Thunstone promised him.
“Mind that you don’t. Now, I’ve told you what I heard, and I hope it’s enough.”
“I hope the same,” said Thunstone. “Will you excuse me? Good afternoon.”
“What’s good about it?” snorted Ritson, halfway through his third drink.
Thunstone went to his motel room and changed into tougher clothes, chino slacks and a tan shirt and a light brown jacket. He threw a flashlight into the jacket pocket. Around his neck he hung a tarnished copper crucifix. He found a lunch stand and bought a plastic bucket of barbecued ribs, a container of slaw, and bottles of beer. Then he drove to the Bracy house.
The Bracys welcomed him in and enthused hungrily over the barbecue. “It just so happens that I’m baking cornbread,” said Prue. “That will go well with it.”
As the sun sank toward the trees, they ate with good appetite. Prue asked about Thunstone’s crucifix, and he told her he had inherited it from his mother. When they had finished eating, Prue carried the dishes to the kitchen and came back with blankets over her arm.
“Will these be all right for tonight?” she asked.
“They’ll be splendid, many a night I’ve lain on harder beds than your sofa. But before I do that, there’s business to be done outside, as soon as it gets dark.”
“I’ll come along,” volunteered Bill, but Thunstone shook his massive head.
“No, two of us out there will be a complication,” he said quietly. “This business will require careful handling, and some luck and playing by ear.”
“Whatever you say,” granted Bill, and Prue looked relieved.
“I won’t promise to win ahead of things,” went on Thunstone, “but I’ll be specially equipped. Look here.”
He grasped the shank of his cane in his left hand and turned the crook with his right. The cane parted at the silver ring, and he drew out a lean, pale-shining blade.
“That’s a beautiful thing,” breathed Prue. “It must be old.”
“As I understand, it was forged by Saint Dunston, something like a thousand years ago. See what these words say at the edge.”
Both Bracys leaned to study. Bill moved his bearded lips soundlessly.
“It looks like Latin,” he said. “I can’t make it out.”
Bill was impressed. “That must be the only thing of its kind in the world,” he ventured.
“No, there’s another.” Thunstone smiled under his mustache. “It belongs to a friend of mine, Judge Keith Hilary Pursuivant. Once I defeated a vampire with this blade, and twice I’ve faced werewolves with it. As well as other things.”
“I don’t feel right, letting you go out while I stay here,” said Bill, almost pleadingly.
“Do me a favor and stay here with Prue,” Thunstone bade him. “Stay inside, even if you hear trouble out there.”
He got to his feet, the bared blade in his hand.
“It’s dark now,” he said. “Time for strange things to stir.”
“Stir?” Bill echoed him, his hand to his bearded chin. “Will that old sorcerer stir, the one they called Marrowby?”
“Not as I see it,” said Thunstone. “Not if they drove an ashen stake through him to keep him quiet in his grave. No, something else, as I judge. I expect to see you later, when things are quieter.”
He went to the front door and through it, and closed it behind him.
Night had crawled swiftly down around the house. Thunstone’s left hand rummaged out his flashlight and turned it on, while his right hand carried the silver blade low at his side. The light showed him the grass of the yard, the corner of the house. He went around to the open space at the back. He heard something, a noise like a half- strangled growl. It led him toward the circle, while the bright beam of the flash quested before him. He came to where the ring of hard brownness bordered the soft, damp greenness. Again the noise stole upward, the strangled snarl of it.
Thunstone stooped and directed the beam of the light, then thrust the mess with the keen point of his blade. Powerfully he stirred it around.
“All right,” he said, hoping his words would be understood. “All right. Come out and let’s settle things.”
