Limekiller! by Avram Davidson

Author:Avram Davidson [Davidson, Avram]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: adventure
ISBN: 1882968263
Publisher: Old Earth Books
Published: 2003-10-31T21:00:00+00:00

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,

To save a wretch like me.

With a rough catch of his breath, Samuel muttered, “Yes. Yes. Dot ees good. Go on, b’y- No stop.”

I once was halt, but now can walk:

Was blind, but now I see.

He sang the beautiful old hymn to the end: and, by that time, if not overpowered by Grace, John Samuel — having evidently broached the second and the third chaparita — was certainly overpowered: and it did not look as though the dinner-guest was going to get any kind of guided tour back to the shore and the skiff. He sighed and he looked around him. A bed rack had roughly been fixed up, and its lashings were covered with a few deer hides and an old Indian blanket. Samuel not responding to any shakings or urgings, Limekiller, with a shrug and a “Well what the Hell,” covered him with the blanket as he lay upon the ground. Then, having rolled up the sacks the supplies had come in and propped them under his head, Limekiller disposed himself for slumber on the hides. Some lines were running through his head and he paused a moment to consider what they were. What they were, they were, From ghoulies and ghosties, long-leggedy feasties, and bugges that go boomp in the night, Good Lord, deliver us. With an almost absolute certainty that this was not the Authorized Version or Text, he heard himself give a grottle and a snore and knew he was fallen asleep.

He awoke to slap heartily at some flies, and the sound perhaps awoke the host, who was heard to mutter and mumble. Limekiller leaned over. “What did you say?”

The lines said, Limekiller learned that he had heard them before. “Eef you tie ah rottlesnake doewn fah me, I veel freeg eet.”

“I yield,” said Limekiller, “to any man so much homier than myself. Produce the snake, sir, and I will consider the rest of the matter.”

The red eye of the expiring fire winked at him. It was still winking at him when he awoke from a horrid nightmare of screams and thrashings-about in the course of which he had evidently fallen or had thrown himself from the bedrack to the far side. Furthermore, he must have knocked against one of the roof-poles in doing so, because a good deal of the thatch had landed on top of him. He threw it off, and, getting up, began to apologize.

“Sorry if I woke you, Mr. Samuel. I don’t know what —” There was no answer, and looking around in the faint light of the fire, he saw no one.

“Mr. Samuel? Mr. Samuel? John? Oh, hey,Johhhn?. ”

No answer. If the man had merely gone out to “ease himself,” as the Bayfolk delicately put it, he would have surely been near enough to answer. No one in the colony engaged in strolling in the bush at night for fun. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered. He felt for and found his matches, struck one, found the lamp, lit it, looked around.

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