The Terrible Fate of Banjo Jones

8/9/2019 The Terrible Fate of Banjo Jones

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The Terrible Fate of Banjo Jones

By

Timothy C. Phillips

Little girl, little girl, what have I done

That makes you treat me so?

You caused me to weep, you caused me to mourn

You caused me to leave my home.

Calhoun County, Alabama: 1976

Something had disturbed the order of the universe on the blacktop road. Displaced

gravel crunched under the feet of Phillip Pip Trumble; A black spider ran in a wildly

swaying line, hopping madly as he skidded along the hot surface, seeking new shelter.

There was no sign of what had spewed the gravel up onto the fresh blacktop of the road,

or rooted the swiftly fleeing spider from his dark sanctuary.

This land sure has changed since I was a boy. Just twenty years and the place is

all changed to hell.

The old ways are all but gone now; the dog-run houses and the cotton fields, the

people who raised what they ate and cropped for an income, the home-made and the

home-spun, gone, all wiped away within one human lifetime, even within one young

mans memory. The hollow that housed the ghost of legend sits treeless and devoid of its

mystery, now, or it has become a back alley to some fools paved and polished notion of

inevitable progress.


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Corporations have raised their banner where once people gladly went penniless to

avoid the ills that such a life brought with it. And so the urban sprawl, the crime, the

government project housing, the hard drugs, the sundering of the family; all came first,

before any of the gifts of progress finally arrived, its curses had been visited upon the

South, as if it must first join the rest of the country in its deepest miseries, before sharing

in its most minor joys.

Pip Trumble had driven for over an hour down the old country road, stopping,

walking around, searching in vain for a cut-off road that had once served as a drive way

to a little dog-run house with a well in the back yard, where a sharecroppers small family

had lived. There was no sign of the little road in the summer heat.

Presently he came to a place on the empty road that opened to one side on a shady

meadow, low and green. He sighed heavily and moved over to a particularly favorable

spot beneath a giant old oak, where he saw a stump, just about the right height for sitting,

where he resolved to sit himself down and take a rest before trudging back to his car. He

had just sat down and adjusted himself to a comfortable position, when he heard a voice,

pleasant and neighborly from behind him, say, Sure his a lovely day today.

Pip rose and turned, hoping that he didn t appear too startled, and saw, now, that

an old black man sat back in the shade of the oak that shaded the tree trunk he had

selected, a very old man, black skin darker still from many days in the sun, with a face

wizened by more years than many ever know.

Whew. I didnt see you there, sir.

The old man chuckled, his mouth curving in a smile and his chest moving up and

down without a sound, an Indian laugh, his mother always called it, and the old mans


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hands twirled an oak walking stick, and the old hands were as knotted and strong-looking

as the stick they held.

My names Theo.

Pip stuck out his hand. Folks call me Pip. After a second the old man shook his

hand, and said, Go on sit down. Look like you a mite winded.

I am. Been looking out here for the old home place, and danged if I can find it.

He sat down, smiling.

I dont suspect you will, Pip. This here road, the county crews come out several

year ago and they cut through the woods here and changed the direction of this here road.

Now, it meets up with the highway over the mountain, and it didntuse to do that.

Pip slapped his hands together. I knew something had changed since I was here

last, heck, twenty years ago.

The old man Indian chuckled again, and leaned forward onto his cane. Oh, to be

sure, Pip. Everything in this here land has changed.

The old man fished in his overall bib pocket and brought out something. Pip saw

it was a ring, a simple golden band; a wedding ring. What you got there?

Curious thing. See this here ring? Now Im gone tell you something. This here is

shore a strange world, cause in my lifetime I done had possession of this here ring

before. And I know its the same one on account of the inscription. The old man held it

out to Pip and shook his head. I found this here ring every bit of forty-five years ago, on

this here same road, and I traded it to a man that same day for a jug a wine, I stand before

God and swear to it. I just found this again, on the same road, after all these here changes


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I was tellin you about, and it looks like somebody jus drop it again. He held out the

ring and Pip took it gingerly and read the inscription,

Do not fail to return unto me, and I will never forsake thee.

The old man shook his head. I tell you, son, it dont matter what you do in this

world, the earth gone swaller it up. Itll swaller up yore friends, and ye kin folks, all ye

pride and ye trials and tribulation. It all goes to the earth in good time, and you along with

it. Thats the way of things. The earth has everything in it, and it remembers everything

that ever happened. He leaned in closer, until Pip could see the tiny veins and the slight

yellow color of the old mans eyes. But I tell you something, son, sometimes, the earth

coughs things back up and lets folks see what lay hid. Just like it say in the good book, it

all comes to light.

Pip held out his hand and the old man took the ring back, and stared at it as

though he had never seen it before. Yes, sir, in this world some strange things do

happen.

Pip didnt know what to say to that, so he asked, Theo, since you been around a

while, tell me, you ever hear of a family named Trumble, lived out this a way?

The old man slapped his knee and laughed his Indian laugh.

Young fella, you wouldnt never know it now, but it aint been too long back

that nobody out here had nothing. I mean, not a thing. If you growed up outside o

Birmingham, or maybe Mobile, someplace like that, I don care if yous black or white,

you was a logger or a farmer, lessen yo daddy was a storekeeper or a preacher, or

somebody rich like a doctor or a lawyer. Fact is, most folks around here didnt have


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much, until such time as maybe you was a young man. Maybe you remember some of the

old ways, but mostly they gone now.

The old man took his time coming to his answer.

I remember the Trumbles. Old man Trumble, anyway. Sharecroppers, I think.

Dont recollect them moving away. Say, they had a little boy with a polio leg. That you?

Pip laughed. That was me. The doctors got me all fixed up, now, I hardly even

limp.

Well, that is a blessing, young Pip.

So, Theo, Im curious. Just how did you happen to possess this ring twice? I

mean, if you dont mind my asking?

The old man smiled. Young fellow, if you got time to set, Im gone tell you a

story. All of it came to me in time, but some of it I heard and saw for myself. Later on I

learned the rest, over the years. This here ring, you see, is a thing of fate. It came to me in

the summer of my life, and now it comes back to me at the end of my winter. It came to

me before on this same stretch of road, when I was met with someone I knew. Now, here

I am again, and I am met with you, young Pip. Folks think life is a thing stretched

between two points, being born and dying, but I tell you, life is a like a ballroom dance,

leading you around in circles, from no real place to no real place. Its a circle without no

beginning or end, just like this here ring.

Pip was silent, and let the old man talk.

Now let me tell you this, while I can remember it all, and still have time to tell it.

Let me tell you about this here ring, and what happened to a man named Mr. Banjo

Jones.


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Calhoun County, Alabama: 1930

Dandelions lined the long dirt roads, and warm currents of air made dust devils,

miniature tornadoes that played on the red stretches between the rusty barbed wire that

lined the roadways, miniscule disasters that displaced only the grasshopper from his

green milkweed perch; and even he was not sore beset to find another. It was lazy

morning, on an early summers day, Calhoun County, just below the ridgeline upon a hill,

where a man called Banjo Jones made his home.

Banjo Jones lived on Liberty Hill, on the outskirts of Piedmont. Liberty Hill was a

narrow ridge that was covered in loblolly pines, and Banjo could look out over the tips of

the adolescent trees that spread out and away and covered the lower land, a glowing

emerald carpet meant only for his eyes. Some mornings he was almost tempted to leap

off of his high porch, and try to run away on them, run forever on those treetops, away

into the infinity they offered, into some extended peace, a greater something than his

humble home, but not so strange or so different, after all.

When such feelings seized him, though, he would go into the house, and come

back out with a mason jar full of muscadine wine in one hand, and his beloved old 1909

Fairbanks banjo in the other, and then he would pull up his rocking chair, sip some wine,

and send forth into the lowlands ringing and happy music from that venerable instrument.

Many a farmer, miles away and miles apart, down in Piedmont Valley, would pause in

his plowing, wipe his brow and smile when he heard the jangling strains ofCharming


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Betsy orBig-Eared Mule flowing down though the trees. Banjo was a democrat, and this

free entertainment was his offering to other democrats and fellow travelers.

Those men in the lowlands grew corn, so, if they drank, and many did not, they

drank corn liquor; maybe their cousins in Birmingham and Anniston drank store-bought

whiskey, but those farmers, red-armed and lean, drank the stuff of their forefathers,

home-made whiskey, clear as spring water that smelled like a snake and tasted like water,

but burned in your guts when you drank it down. Banjo Jones, like other men who

haunted the low hills, like a cooler, more idle drink; they drank home-made wine. There

were many varieties of wine throughout the hills; elderberry, scuffadine, blueberry, apple

and peach; all kin, but none the same; but Banjo had his muscadines, plentyfold; and so

that is what he turned to wine.

Most days, Banjo Jones dined solely on muscadine wine until noon, until such

time as the pangs of hunger began to growl, and he would rise and go into his shack, unlit

by electric light, illuminated instead by the golden honest glow of the sun, and the homey

clatter of pans would replace the merry sound of the banjo while he cooked his potatoes,

his cornbread and side meat.

Banjo Jones was a simple man, and had simple ways about him. He ate simple

food, which he raised or grew himself, if he did not barter his neighbors for it. He

thought simple thoughts. He awoke at dawn, and sought his bed when the house grew

dark. He read the bible, and the occasional newspaper. He was a neighborly man, but

troubled no one. His enjoyment came from his muscadine wine, which every summer he

made himself, and of which he put up quite a store; and, of course, there was his music.

The one dimension of Banjo Jones that could be said to have a complexity about


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it was his banjo picking. Never mind that he had been christened Benjamin Levi Jones.

His chosen instrument had long ago supplanted his birth name. Banjo Jones was all that

anyone called him, and that was the name to which he had long answered.

Now, Banjo liked his solitude, but sometimes when he got a jar of homemade

wine in him, he got himself an urge to go roaming. So it was today, a sunny and

favorable day, that he decided to sling his banjo in its case over his back, wrap up some

cornbread and fried side meat in a red bandana and stick it in his pocket, and light out

down the valley road. He also took along two jars of muscadine wine; after inspecting his

stores and noting with satisfaction that he had put up a sufficient stock, that two whole

jars would not force unwanted sobriety upon him any time soon. These he wrapped in an

old tow sack, and slung it from his belt, where they clinked happily together as he strode

along.

So it happened that this one particular late morning, as Banjo Jones passed down

the ridgeline through the pine thickets towards the relative civilization of Piedmont, he

spied a fellow traveler.

Here comes that colored boy, that lives out near Vigo . Theo Funk. Hes a good

un, thought Banjo to himself.

He recalled how young Funk had happened by during planting two years before,

when the blade of Banjos plow had gotten stuck fast beneath a strong tree root. Banjo

had been unable to dislodge it himself, try as he might. The young man had stayed and

worked hard for an hour and a half helping banjo saw through the dense root to unsnag

the plow, and then had refused any sort of payment for his trouble.


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Just bein neighborly, MisterBanjo. The young man had told him, before taking

his leave. Banjo fixed his face in a polite smile as he and the young black men drew

close.

Mornin, there, Theo. He nodded to the young man, who had kept his eyes

averted up to that time.

Why, MisterBanjo, where you headed with yourbanjo this fine mornin? The

young man stopped and hooked his thumbs though his overall gallusses with a broad

smile.

Well, Im a headed over to Piedmont to hear the gossip at the mill and hang

around. He looked at the young man for a second, speculatively. Sa y, Theo, how old you

getting tobe?

Im growed up. The young man stuck his chest out a little. In six months Ill

be nineteen.

Well, listen, Theo, I remember you holpen me with my plow last year. Since you

old enough to join the army, I reckon you old enough to drank a little wine, then. I mean,

you ever been drunk before?

Wine, why shorely, I loves wine.

At this, Banjo held up one finger for Theo to wait, while he set his banjo down

and unwound the towsack from his belt. He brought forth from it one of the Mason jars,

wherein sloshed the wine, a glittering ocean jewel, purple-blue, a sweet and mysterious

color, one that is only made by the careful craftsman.


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Though his eyes said different, Theo shook his head slowly. Why, I couldnt

cept that on account of me doing you a kindness, Mister Banjo. That wouldnt be

neighborly. Let me trade you somethin I found fo r it.

Banjo was determined to give the young man the wine, so he feigned interest;

Found? What did you find?

Theo Funk reached in his own pocket and produced a golden ring. He smiled

broadly.

Banjos eyes widened. Why Theodore, where did you get that? Thats probably a

powerful expensive ring there. A wedding ring, he figured; but he held it close to his eye

to make sure. It had a fine inscription, he noted:


I knows it must be, Mr. Banjo, but I seen it a layin in the dust on the road, and I

couldnt help but pick it up, though I dont know what to do withit.

Banjo bit his lip and figured. More than likely, it was the property of someone in

Piedmont, and it had jarred loose from some farm wifes fingeras she rode beside her

husband on a wagon into town. Theo would just get in trouble if he got caught with it,

especially what with the folks around Piedmont. Theyd probably allege Theo had stolen

it. That would be bad. Whereas, he, Banjo Jones, was heading right into Piedmont. He

could return it at the Post Office or Sheriffs Office. There might even be a reward, say, a

couple bushel of taters or some such, for its return.

Well, all right, Theo. Banjonodded slowly. Give me that ring, and Ill take it

into Piedmont and see if I kin find out who it belongs to. But you take this here wine for

your trouble with my plow, now, and you and your buddies have a drank on old Banjo.


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After waving goodbye, Banjo felt his heart swell, for in this trade he felt he had

done two good deeds, one done and one impending, and surely the Lord would see him

rewarded for his kindness.

Now it happened that Banjos path would normally take him straight down and

east along the broad ridge down into Piedmont, but he now turned and began to walk

northeast, out towards Blakes Mill, a saw mill that sat at the confluence ofNances

Creek and Babbling Brook. Some of the old timers out there would for sure know whose

wife had lost her wedding band, he reasoned. Banjo would just tell them that he, himself

had found it, so as not to put Theos name in the matter. No reason to cau se trouble for

that young fellow.

If there is a reward, well, Ill just halve it with him.

So in the late morning, down a dusty Calhoun County road strode Benjamin Levi

Jones, banjo cornbread side meat muscadine wine and a strangers wedding band,

thinking his altruistic thoughts, head still slightly abuzz from the mason jar of wine that

he had already consumed that morning, unaware that he was being watched from the

trees; for, had he known, he would have left all his plans and wandering for another day,

and with a sharp turn and a mended pace would have sought again the safe harbor of his

little farm on the piney ridge, because the eyes that watched him belonged to Michael

Danger Thorpe, grandson of the hated and feared Sun Thorpe.

Sun Thorpe was a legend and bugbear throughout Piedmont Valley. Sun himself

had been the grandson of Col. Withers Amos Wat Thorpe, that famous Confederate


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war hero and Thorpe patriarch, who had returned missing his right arm after the Civil

War. He had gone quite mad when he had found the once mighty Thorpe Plantation

burned, his slaves and servants gone, and his family living in abject poverty in the

remains of what had before been the slaves quarters.

Of the Thorpes of Banjos era, little was known, but much was speculated. What

was known was remarkable and strange, and it was thought best by all to steer far clear of

Thorpe Plantation, as it was still called. Though no one was sure of its genesis, the

Thorpe Family, it had been reported by a government census man who had visited the

Thorpes, when he had stopped into Piedmont for supper just after the Turn of the

Century, spoke their own language. A university man, he had been unable to make sense

of this strange tongue; but the Thorpes seemed to understand each other just fine. One

would translate to him what the others had said. This same census taker had also told how

the Thorpe men were all misshapen, sullen and violent-looking, but the women were all

lovely, spritely beings, though apparently, like the males, not possessed of much

intelligence.

This report had led to a generation of murmured suppositions, of miscegenation,

and of darker notions, too; for who the Thorpe Family married into, or where beaux for

these pixiesh young women might come from, none could say. Some young men who

heard the story and became interested in courting these ethereal maidens and took

buggies out to Thorpe Plantation. The would-be suitors were turned back at the split-rail

fence that surrounded the densely wooded place, by muscular, long-armed men, sullen

miscreants with wizened faces and sparkling eyes, men who carried bullwhips and

shotguns, men who looked almost like men, and like each other as spring peas, but for


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markedly different shades of bushy hair, some with hair as white as snow, some flaming

red, some so black it shone blue in the failing light that filtered down into their strange

domain through the wild, starless tangle of the trees above.

Another reason that Thorpe was a name that struck fear into the hearts of many

was that a Yankee detective had come to Calhoun County asking questions about the

whereabouts of two drummers who had failed to return to their northern homes several

months before. The drummers in question were salesmen for companies that sold farm

implements and medicinal preparations, who mailed their sales slips north on a weekly

basis. Questioning of customers on their routes indicated that both had stopped peddling

somewhere on the dusty roads ringing Thorpe Plantation.

Investigation had went exactly nowhere, because, though it was rumored that

many Thorpes lived on the old home site in ramshackle buildings of rough planks, the

Sheriff and Yankee detective had found only a handful of people, apparently dirt poor,

who claimed, in a strange, broken English, that they had never been visited by any

peddlers, and knew nothing of the fate of the two men. The Yankee had gone back to

New York, filed his report, and the fate of the two men had been forgotten, except by

grieving relations several parallels north, and certain locals who believed that those two

salesmen, and probably others, had met with some dark fate beneath those brooding trees.

So it now happened that Banjos journey took him now past the southernmost

corner of Thorpe land, one several miles from Thorpe Plantation proper, but still an

appurtenant parcel of land, this day patrolled in stealth by Michael Danger Thorpe, a

young man with arms of slightly different lengths, girls hands, shoulders set at different


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heights that evened up the mismatched arms, a wild shock of short red hair that looked as

if it had never known the comb, and glittering, old, speculative eyes.

The Thorpe legends were far from Banjos thoughts, however, as he trooped

along. Why, if there was a cash reward, he decided, he might even take his half and buy

some of that store-bought whiskey, to augment his wine supplies. Whiskey and branch

water, he reasoned, would last an abstemious man like himself a power of time.

Presently he was startled from his thoughts by the strange apparition of a wizened

face grinning at him from the trees beside the road. Banjo stopped and rubbed his eyes,

and when he reopened them the face was gone. He took a step but then nearly jumped out

of his union suit when he heard a voice behind him say,

Never seen you around here fore.

Banjo whirled and was face to face with Michael Danger Thorpe, and it took a

second for his senses to uptake this strange apparition, which to him looked more like a

scarecrow than a man, or some strange and misshapen elf.

Who the devil are you? Banjo managed, trying to hide his growing

apprehension, for in truth he doubted that the man before him was an inhabitant of this

material world.

Mine gang night all handler torque. The apparition seemed to chant, but then

slowed down, and repeated, so that Banjo thought the man might be tongue-tied,

My names Michael Danger Thorpe.

Thorpe, Banjo immediately then recollected the stories attached to that ominous

name, and felt his hackles rise, and swallowed, noting uneasily they were met on an

empty road in unfamiliar country.


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What do you mean sneaking up on a body out here? Banjo managed to hide his

fear with a tone of indignation.

Motives she manger.

Noticed yer banjer.

Wha--? Oh, Yes, I play the banjo some. Yes, thats what they call me, Banjo

Jones. Im from over nearLiberty Ridge.. Banjo was nervous and offered this

information, he knew not why, perhaps merely to push back the strangeness from this

uncomfortable encounter.

You oughta come out and play fer us some, Said Mike Thorpe slowly, the old

mans eyes in the young face twinkling, Mama would cook you dinner, and you could

meet my sisters. I got pretty sisters. Been a powerful long time since they heard banjer

music.

Here beside the sea-green light that filtered through the great old trees that were

young saplings when there were still Indians in the land, on this dusty road alone with

this strange figure of a man, it seemed to Banjo Jones that evening had suddenly fallen,

and the light from the sun was much dimmer than it should have been, this time of day.

Well, much as Id like to, friend, I better get on over to the mill. I got business

over that a way. Here, he was stretching the truth, but he just wanted desperately to be

away from this place, and this strange apparition.

You always carry yourbanjer on business? Thorpe asked with an intrusive

directness that made banjo frown. I plan to stay the night at a friends. He explained,

knitting his brow at how easily the weird man with his strange smile had made him lie

twice already.


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You should come over and spend the night with us. I got me some pretty sisters,

and they would like to meet a banjer man.

Like I said, friend, I got to get on. Maybe Ill stop in on yall on my way back

out.

Ill be a lookin fer you, then, Banjo.

That Thorpe used his name so easily made Banjo feel queasy, and vaguely

threatened.Now why did you go and tell that goblin your name for?

Still, in any event, he reasoned, he had detached himself from Thorpe, so it had

been worthwhile. He looked behind him to make sure Thorpe was going the other way; to

his astonishment, though, the man was nowhere to be seen. Banjo shuddered, and,

straightening himself, set once again upon his course for Blakes Mill. He suddenly

wished to be very far away from this part of the country altogether, with the business of

the ring and the reward long settled. He now felt some trepidation at traveling back

through this country in the dark of night.

Banjo made it into town about thirty minutes later, and went directly to the Post

Office to see if anyone had reported anything missing. The man behind the desk told him

that no one had, so Banjo made his way over to the police station. Banjo related to the

woman how he had chanced to find it in the dust of the road.

The sun just glinted off of it, and I picked it up, and remarked to myself,

someone will be lookin for this.

The woman thanked Banjo and put the ring in an envelope, and then she wrote

down his name and address in case there was a reward.


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Banjo decided to walk over to the Five and Dime and have a look around. He

walked in and the bells on the door jangled and a woman with blue-tinged hair looked up

at him from behind the counter and smiled. Well, well, a banjo man! Have you come to

town to do a little picking?

Well, I thought that I might, maam. Im headed over to the mill.

Well, good day to you.

Banjo felt normalcy returning, Here were good country folks, who would tap their

toes and listen to his picking, and who knew? Maybe there was a few dollars reward

headed his way for returning the ring, and even if not, he a theo ahd done the Christian

thing by returning it, and

Mister are you all right?

Is he alive?

Yall git back and give the poor feller some air. He s got to get his wind back.

Banjo was lying on his back in the dime store. He was looking at the ceiling.

There was a big ceiling fan turning slow circles up there, It was painted white, like the

ceiling. There was a crowd of people gathered in a circle. They were looking down at

him.

What happened? Banjo asked.

You just fell out. The woman from behind the counter said.

Heat must of got to you. Said a man in a straw hat and overalls. Last June I

was plowing and fell out the same way. Heat stroke, they called it, when I was in the

army. Not enough water in your body.


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Several others offered their opinions, but Banjo struggled to rise, and was assisted

by several sets of hands.

Heres your banjo, mister.

Banjo thanked everyone and rubbed his head. He felt all right, he decided. Maybe

the man had been right, and it was the heat that had gotten to him, after all.

He stepped outside and paused. How long had he been out? He wondered.

Because now it was black night. Where had the day gone? He recounted in his head his

journey, his meeting with Theo Funk, and the strange figure of Thorpe. His arrival here

seemed rather recent. But the day was gone, that was for sure; he turned to perhaps ask

someone from the Five and Dime how long he had been unconscious; but the crowd had

disappeared, and he only saw the counter womans hand in the window as she turned the

sign in the window to Closed.

Well, that does it; Banjo decided;I done missed the whole show here in Piedmont.

Guess I might as well get on back to the house, before too late.

Still puzzled by this strange fugue in time, and more than a little dizzy from his

episode in the store, Banjo Jones started back the way he had come earlier that day, back

up the dusty and lonesome country ways to his home, now seemingly quite distant, on

faraway Liberty Ridge.

He was met in the street by a young man, little more than a boy. Your name

Jones, mister?

It is. Banjo said, feeling as though he was still lying in the store, perhaps, and

this was some sort of dream. That feeling only became more pronounced when the boy


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held out an envelope to Banjo, saying, Miss Nance over at the Police Station said to find

you and give you this. She said its better if this doesnt stay around here.

Banjo took the envelope, knowing already that the ring was inside it, and now he

felt that the ring that Theo had found was some sort of a bad thing, and maybe folks

around here knew that, because ever since he had picked it up, weird and unaccountable

things had happened.

Banjo sighed and started walking down the road. He prayed to God Almighty that

he would not meet anyone on the road. He hated to be getting back so late, but the

unforeseen events in the Five and Dime had made him miss his visit to the mill, and put

him on the road home far later than he had planned.

As he moved off down the road from Piedmont. The last lights fell away behind

him, and Banjo felt like the last man on the earth, or at least the last on that lonely stretch

of country road. He walked down the dusty way, slowly at first, and then with a more

determined gait, as the urgency to past Thorpe country weighed down upon him.

Within the hour, Banjo realized that was walking through the area where he had

happened upon Michael Danger Thorpe earlier that day and felt panic rising inside him,

so that he felt himself walking faster with every step, until he found himself running, his

heart pounding in his chest and his mind racing, all the time telling himselfslow down

slow down you are going to take a fall

But even then he was falling, because something a branch a limb or some damn

thing was lying in the road in the dark, and Banjo Jones, for the second time that day,

passed into the darkness.


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Eskay lav oraintee?A brutish voice was speaking strange words.

Hes alive. Banjo opened his eyes and started with terror, for not five inches

from his own, was the face of Michael Danger Thorpe, lit by torchlight, it seemed, that

came from all around them. He sensed he was in a clearing, a front yard, perhaps, but

everything beyond the flickering orange light was shrouded in Stygian darkness.

Looks like you had yourself a little accident. Michael Danger smiled at him.

You come out pretty lucky, on the whole. You dropped yore banjer when you fell down.

It aint broke, you might need to tune it.

Where am I? Banjo asked in a miserable voice, miserable because he already

knew. They had brought him to their weird home, the place in the trees where it was

always twilight and no normal folk ever visited and returned alive from.

We carried you to the house, on account of you being knocked out or fainted.

We couldnt leave you out there in the dark woods, now could we?

I thank you kindly, but Ive got to get on home-- Banjo started to rise and

grimaced in pain.

You sprained your ankle, mister. You might ought to just rest here tonight. It

was a sweet voice that said these words, and he turned to see the owner of the voice. It

was a beautiful girl in her early twenties, with long, dark hair and dark doe eyes, and

smooth, milky white skin. She wore and old fashioned dress that showed her shoulders.

Banjo found that he had difficulty taking his eyes off her, and she moved toward him,

speaking again, her voice low and melodic, soothing him and calming him as she drew

near to him so that the scent she wore filled his senses and made him drunk as a morning

jar of muscadine wine, Youre hurt. Let us take care of you.


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She put a soft hand on his shoulder and he found himself agreeing to stay the

night, even though there was no place on Gods green earth he would less like to be.

Your things are over here. Michael Danger indicated a chair upon which sat

Banjos tow sack, which still contained a jar of wine, the envelope with the accursed ring

inside it, and his banjo leaning against it.

The brutish voice grunted something again and Michael looked off to one side

and spoke to someone, though Banjo saw only darkness. Banjo could not make out there

words, but they made him feel strange and nervous, as though he was in the presence of

something very old, and very dangerous, like a great serpent or some mad thing.

These country roads get awful dark at night. The angelic girl was saying in her

low song of a voice. You might could have hurt yourself seriously. A tiny line of

concern appeared in the porcelain skin, between the two perfect dark eyes.

She put her hand on his, and there was warmth there, that he found he rather

liked. You know something, you remind me of someone. Whats your name?

They call me Banjo Jones. He managed.

Im Wendy-Elisha. They was one I liked, a handsome feller like you; now they

say hes dead. She said in a hushed voice that was close to weeping.

The brutish voice called out again from the darkness.

The girl smiled at Banjo and went over and picked up his banjo, and brought it

back to him. Christian Charity loves to hear music.

Who?


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Christian Charity Thorpe. Thats my cousin, over yonder. She nodded into the

darkness. Play us a tune. She said brightly, making Banjo smile,. and then, leaning

close to him, added in a whisper, For your own sake, dont make him mad.

Banjo felt stark terror at this remark, because he could not see the man the girl

spoke of, could only hear his snarling, grunting voice, and so far had not even been able

to decipher those sounds, though Michael Danger and Wendy-Elisha seemed to have no

trouble.

As Banjo tuned his instrument and played a few notes to get warmed up, he heard

Michael Danger somewhere close by in the darkness. We call this here Yankee Holler.

Michael Dange said, and they all laughed at that, like folks that laugh at the thought of

Hell. Banjo realized from the sound of that laughter that there were many Thorpes, many

indeed, standing silently in the gloom all around him, and they had all stood there in

absolute silence watching and listening to everything that had transpired since he arrived,

and that thought filled him with more cold dread than the thought of the big, mad man

sitting out there grunting in an alien tongue.

Suddenly from the darkness came another voice, the loud voice of a woman, and

it was a frightening voice, filled with anger and spite and something more besides,

Wendy Elisha, come here tell me about that man!

Banjo tried his best to ascertain the origin of the voice, but he couldnt even be

sure which direction it came from; in the dark twilight that surrounded him, it seemed to

come from all around him. Banjo stopped playing for a moment, to try to understand

what was transpiring.


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The unseen beast man grunted, louder now, almost a bellow, but the bellow was

cut off abruptly by the interruption of the matriarchal voice:

You like him? Came the womans voice from everywhere.

The girl stepped into the light again now, in her translucent white dress, and

nodded, her big doe eyes boring through Banjo. I like him, mama. I like him justfine.

Now there were people coming into the light, and Banjo could see their glittering

eyes, men like Michael Danger and women like Wendy-Elisha, they were everywhere,

and he wondered how in the wide world so many people could live out here and nobody

know it, but then he realized they were all walking slowly towards him, and that they

held knives, knives of all things in their hands, and Michael Danger Thorpe was there in

front of him and he was grinning at banjo.

What are you people doing?

Were fixing to eat. Was all that Michael Danger had to say.

Pip sat and looked at Theo. The sun, he saw, was sinking low in the sky, now.

This country road, once so familiar to him, did not seem like such a friendly place, any

more.

I think I better get going, Theo. Do you need a ride anywhere?

The old man shook his head. No, thank you, young Pip. I know this old country

and she knows me. Im just going down the road there, a piece. The old man rose,

groaned, and stretched, and leaned on his stick.

Mighty fine talking with you today, young man. You take care, now.


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Pip watched the old man walk away, then called out to him.

Hey, Theo.

The old man turned and smiled. Yes?

That story. Is it really true?

One thing you got to learn in this life, Pip, everything got at least a little truth to

it.

Pip laughed and watched the old man go, then he turned and started to his car.

He sat in the drivers seat and fished in his pocket for his keys. The old fellow

really had you going there, for a minutethen he froze.

He brought his keys out of his pocket, but nestled in among the keys was a

shining golden band. He picked it out carefully and read the inscription:


Pip started. He knew that he had returned the ring to the old man, knew it for

certain. He opened the door and got out of the car, and looked up and down the road for

the old man. Theo! He called, over and over again. But the old man was nowhere to be

seen, and other than his cries, no sound troubled that lonely stretch of road.

The Terrible Fate of Banjo Jones

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Transcript of The Terrible Fate of Banjo Jones