Asimov's Magical World's 11 - Curses by Isaac Asimov (ed.)

Author:Isaac Asimov (ed.) [Asimov, Isaac]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sci Fi & Fantasy
Publisher: Signet / New American Library
Published: 1989-08-31T23:00:00+00:00

I heard a voice of warning,

A message from on high,

“Go put your house in order

For thou shalt surely die.

Tell all your friends a long farewell

And get your business right—

The little black train is rolling in

To call for you tonight.”

“Miss Donie, that’s a tuneful thing,” I said. “Sounds right like a train rolling.”

“My voice isn’t high enough to sound the whistle part,” she smiled at me, red-mouthed.

“I might could do that,” said the mouth-harp man, coming close and speaking soft. And folks were craning at us, looking sick, embarrassed, purely distasted. I began to wonder why I shouldn’t have given a name to that black train song.

But then rose up a big holler near the house, where a barrel was set. The drunk man that’d fetched me was yelling mad at another man near-about as drunk, and they were trying to grab a drinking gourd from each other. Two-three other men on each side hoorawed them on to squabble more.

“Jeth!” called Donie Carawan to the big dance-caller. “Let’s stop that before they spill the whisky, Jeth.”

Jeth and she headed for the bunch by the barrel, and everybody else was crowding to watch.

“John,” said a quiet somebody—the mouth-harp man, with firelight showing lines in his thin face, salty gray in his hair. “What you really doing here?”

“Watching,” I said, while big Jeth hauled those two drunk men off from each other, and Donie Carawan scolded them. “And listening,” I said. “Wanting to know what way the black train song fits in with this party and the tale about the curse. You know about it?”

“I know,” he said.

We carried our food out of the firelight. Folks were crowding to the barrel, laughing and yelling.

“Donie Carawan was to marry Trevis Jones,” the mouth-harp man told me. “He owned the High Fork Railroad to freight the timber from this valley. He’d a lavish of money, is how he got to marry her. But,” and he swallowed hard, “another young fellow loved her. Cobb Richardson, who ran Trevis Jones’s train on the High Fork Railroad. And he killed Trevis Jones.”

“For love?” I asked.

“Folks reckoned that Donie Carawan decided against Trevis and love-talked Cobb into the killing; for Trevis had made a will and heired her all his money and property—the railroad and all. But Cobb made confession. Said Donie had no part in it. The law let her go, and killed Cobb in the electric chair, down at the state capital.”

“I declare to never,” I said.

“Fact. And Cobb’s mother—Mrs. Amanda Richardson—spoke the curse.”

“She was no witch,” he broke me off, “but she cursed Donie Carawan, that the train that Cobb had engine-drove, and Trevis had heired to her, would be her death and destruction. Donie laughed. You’ve heard her laugh. And folks started the song, the black train song.”

“Who made it?” I asked him.

“Reckon I did,” he said, looking long at me. He waited to let me feel that news. Then he said, “Maybe it was the song decided Donie Carawan to deal with the Hickory River Railroad, agreeing for an income of money not to run the High Fork train no more.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.