It almost distracted me, looking at those feet. The claws were long and curved, and pointed so sharp that the firelight glinted on their edges.
But I fired with the musket and then I pulled my pistol out of my belt and aimed that up too.
I didn’t have time to shoot it. She was gone as fast as she’d come, and I didn’t want to waste powder on shooting at her shadow, so I didn’t.
After she’d passed us that second time, and she was coming to the tip of her arc up there in the sky—before she descended again—we all were holding either an axe or a gun and every one of us was prepared to use it. We had no idea how much heat or lead she could take, but we intended to find out.
We fired in waves and it shocked her, but I don’t know how much it hurt her. She jerked in the air; we could see her bulky shadow topple and shake, then dip low to the ground. Then she swung back again, lifting herself up high. But she didn’t do it smooth. She didn’t glide or even do that funny lilting hop, like when she bounced from tree to tree.
“She’s hit,” I said, but it wasn’t a bragging thing—and I didn’t say it with anything like triumph. We’d got her, but that didn’t mean she was dead; and it didn’t mean she’d stay gone just because we hoped we’d hurt her.
Outside camp, back into the trees at the far side of the road, we heard a terrific crash.
All my men started to mumble, all of us wondering the same thing.
There came more crashing, more thrashing. She was kicking around and injured, at least, if she wasn’t dying.
We waited, holding our breath and praying. And finally, the thrashing stopped.
And everyone looked at me.
Well, that was okay. This was my job, wasn’t it? Someone had to go check and see. Or maybe nobody had to do it, and we should’ve left it alone. I guess, looking back, I should’ve just told them all to settle in for the night and stay close to the fire, because maybe she was dead, and maybe it was a trick.
But there was no way to know unless someone went and looked, and since this was my Road, that someone was me.
I took a minute and I reloaded everything I was carrying. While I worked the horn and the powder, and while I dug out the shot, I told all the men at the fire, “I’m going to go see about it. If she’s dead, then good. If she ain’t, then maybe I can fix that. I’ve killed bears bigger than her, and I’ll kill her too, if I get the chance.”
Little Heaster put up his hand.
“You going by yourself?”
“I’m going by myself,” I said. “That’s right. There’s no sense in everybody looking. You’ll all take my word for it, won’t you? If I tell you she’s dead?”
They all nodded, but that wasn’t what the boy meant. He said, “What if you get hurt, or get dead? What if you need some help? You shouldn’t do it alone. Let me come with you. I’ll hang back, if you want me to. And I won’t say nothing unless you need me to. I can look after myself. You won’t have to worry about me.”
“I know you can look after yourself. I’m not worried about that.” I tucked the powder horn back into my belt, all slow-like. I was taking my time because I wanted to put him off, but I didn’t know how to do it without making him look bad or feel bad in front of everybody.
And I couldn’t think of anything. He had a good point, I knew. I didn’t like putting anyone else in trouble’s way, that’s all. He was the biggest lad we had with us, and he was fast, too. If I wanted to take a helper, he was the obvious pick.
I told him, “You’re right. If something happens and I can’t get back, someone will need to come tell everybody. But it’s like you said, you’ll have to hang behind. It won’t do any good for anybody if we both get eaten. You only come along to watch, that’s all. You get it?”
“I get it,” he said. He nodded and didn’t smile. I figured he got it well enough.
“Let’s go, then.”
I reached into the edge of the fire and pulled out a branch big enough to work as a torch. The end of it was all lit up. I motioned for Heaster to do the same, and he did. He shook the loose embers off his stick and held it up.
Together me and the boy went walking away from the camp.
I looked back over my shoulder and saw the men who’d stayed; they were standing in a ring, all their eyes glittering bright in the shaky light of the fire. They were curious and scared. They were restless, shifting back and forth on their feet and trying to see through the dark and between the trees where the thing had crashed down.
***
It didn’t take long for us to lose the light of the camp. We were just a few trees deep into the woods and the light was cut in half, and then cut in half again as more trunks came between us and everybody else.
The woods closed in fast, tall above us and wide around us. They felt thicker than they do during the day, when we can see more than a few feet around us—or however far the improvised torches would cast an unsteady glow.
I held out my arm and made Heaster hang back. He didn’t like it, but he understood well enough to do as I asked him.
I wasn’t real sure where the creature had landed, so I swept my eyes back and forth and squinted, trying to see farther. The whole world was dead quiet, and I didn’t like it—because if she were dead, the forest would come back to life. Or that’s what I told myself, anyhow. If she were dead, the woods would’ve breathed a sigh of relief same as us.
But nothing sighed. Nothing quivered or twitched, and nothing moved—not even the wind.
Heaster dropped one of his big hands on my shoulder. I looked back at him and he was holding two fingers up to his mouth, making a face that said, “Hush.” Then he pointed at a spot just outside of where my torchlight reached.
I whispered, “You see something?” He was a whole stack taller than me, and for all I knew he could see farther because of it.
He bobbed his head and pulled his pistol out of his belt with his free hand. I almost did, and then I changed my mind.
She’d already been hit with shot, more than a couple of times. Between me and Heaster, we’d have three more rounds of lead to sink into her; but I didn’t believe that’d be enough. And then what? Should we hit her with the torches?
No, I didn’t like that any. So I pulled out my axe instead. I switched the torch to my left hand and hoisted the axe with my right. It might not pack the same punch, but I could punch with it over and over again if I had to; and an axe don’t run out of sharpness so fast, like a gun goes empty of lead.
***
Little Heaster had been right. I could see her before I could hear her. She was rolling slowly in a clearing she’d made for herself with her own weight. She lolled around and it looked limp, almost. She looked like she was hurting.
It was real odd the way I could watch her and not hear her. Again I was thinking of owls, and the way they fly without making a sound.
I waved Heaster back, and this time he resisted me a little. He only took a half step away, and he didn’t stop coming after me. I stopped, and I held out a finger and pointed at him hard.
“Stay here,” I breathed. “And if you move without me telling you, I’ll shoot you myself rather than let her have you.”
I twisted my fingers around the axe’s handle. My hands were starting to sweat, so I adjusted my grip on the torch, too.
And then I went to meet her.
VIII
Six Strangers
Uncle John surprised me, not because I didn’t know he was coming, but because I was expecting something else. From the stories I heard, I thought he’d look a little more wicked or a little more wild; but the man who came to my dead mother’s porch looked more like a school teacher than anything else.
***
His hair was starting to creep back away from his forehead, and he was lean, like the rest of us. He wore clothes that fit him just right. They looked expensive, and they looked too nice to wear out here. He couldn’t possibly work in them.
Or, if he did, it wasn’t any work with
his hands.
***
We sat up and talked a little bit. I had some salted meat and dried corn left from the trip down, and I shared it with him while I listened.
He asked about me and what I’d done since leaving, but thatwas a real short story. So mostly, he was the one doing all the talking. I didn’t mind. I liked listening to him. I liked hearing someone from Leitchfield speak like an educated man, and the longer he talked the more sure I was that he wasn’t some lunatic like I’d heard. The more he talked the more ordinary he sounded, even when he got on about his church.
I’ll admit, the bits about the church made me uncomfortable. I haven’t been a praying sort of man in many years, but the idea of praying to dead people makes me feel itchy. It doesn’t sound right.
But to John’s credit, he gathered real quick that it made me feel strange so he changed the subject some. He told me about what it’s like living in New York, and how he works up there as a teacher and a counselor, helping folks understand his church. Sometimes he just teaches reading and spelling, but mostly it sounded like he enjoyed telling folks about the church.
I asked if he was something like a preacher in this church. He said it don’t work that way. Then he started telling me about circles and chants and spirits, and my face must’ve told him how I felt about it so he cut himself off.
“That’s all right,” he said. “I don’t mean to make you ill at ease. I just want you to know that it’s not something awful or devilish, like I’m sure they told you. Suffice it to say, the world is a big, strange, wonderful place—and there’s room for many mysteries. I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I do appreciate having the freedom of spirit to chase down my questions.”
“I understand,” I told him, even though I didn’t understand much of it. I understood that he didn’t mean me or anybody else any trouble, and he wasn’t worshipping Satan, and that pretty much, he was harmless.
I liked that about him. I didn’t get any sense of anger from him, like I did from everyone else in the valley. I just got that same sense of confusion and fear that me and Titus both shared, and it warmed me up a touch, seeing another Coy with that same uncertainty.
The situation being what it was, I couldn’t very well confide in Titus or share my worries with him. But John Coy was just as much an outsider as I was, and the name we both wore gave us an excuse to come together.
I wondered after Titus. I hoped he’d found a place for himself, and I hoped his own people weren’t too hard on him. But there wasn’t anything I could do for him, so I tried not to worry about it.
***
We passed the night on the creaking, half-rotted boards of the floor because there weren’t any beds and there wasn’t any furniture. My other aunts and uncles must’ve cleaned the place out after my mother died. I don’t guess there was any blaming them. They had no reason to think I’d ever be back.
Some deeply set sense of hospitality made me embarrassed that I couldn’t offer John anything better. It didn’t make sense for me to fret about it, and John didn’t hold the house’s meager state against me, but still.
All I could do was invite him out to Iowa, and offer him a much nicer place for visiting. He was very kind about it, and said that sometime he’d do his best to come out and see me.
I didn’t know if he would or not. There was no telling.
***
When morning came we were both aching. We’d have been better off sleeping outside on the ground, I bet. But outside it was cool and everything was shining wet with dew when we stepped off the porch, so I decided to be thankful for the roof after all.
Our horses were out back under an overhang that wasn’t enough to shelter the poor beasts hardly at all. At least it kept them dry, which was better than nothing. We fed them and mounted them, and took our own sweet time riding back out to Heaster Junior’s place, even though we knew we were running late.
***
We were the last to arrive. People looked at us all impatient-like, but I didn’t care too much about that. They were curious, that’s all. Whatever game Heaster was playing from beyond the grave…they could wait a little longer to hear the details.
When I had that thought, I remembered what John was saying the night before, about talking to ghosts. And for a second or two, I almost wished maybe we’d tried talking to some ghosts that last night. Wouldn’t that have been easier than all this rigmarole?
Well, maybe not.
Heaster was an ornery old fool when he was alive, and I didn’t see any good reason why he’d be different as a ghost. Probably, he’d be even worse. Maybe he’d even take to haunting people he didn’t like, just out of a mean spirit.
No. Better to leave all that alone.
If it occurred to John to ask the dead for any assistance, he didn’t do it while I was listening—and he didn’t tell me anything about it.
***
Granny Gail was waiting on that porch, still standing up straight and holding real still with that cane in her hand. She made me think of Moses, standing in front of the Red Sea, holding his hands out and parting the water. Only Abigail was so tough she didn’t have to lift a finger to hold the Coys and Manders apart; and I swear to you this much, if Moses had to contend with these two families, he couldn’t have held them back any better.
“Ma’am,” I greeted her, and John said the same.
“Fellas,” she greeted us back.
She leaned forward on that cane and placed herself in the center of the porch, between the two groups. She balanced herself there so careful, like a tightrope walker I saw at a circus once. Not too far on this side, not too far on that one. Everything falls down if it leans.
She said, “Now we got everybody here.”
John and I found ourselves in the center of a widening circle.
Not all the family members would fit on the porch, so they were spilling out and down the stairs, and into the front yard where we’d brought the horses. Titus was saddled up too, and he gave me a nod that said ‘hello’ without committing to anything more than that.
Two men were also mounted on horses beside Titus, and there was another man—somebody I didn’t recognize right away—who stood beside a horse, and a bit apart from the Manders.
“This is how it’s gonna go,” Granny Gail announced, and there wasn’t a soul alive who’d have argued with her. “John Coy, you’re the oldest man going, but that don’t put you in charge of nothing. You’re going to the Pit on behalf of your daddy and your brother, ‘cause neither one of them’s living no more. Meshack Coy, you’re riding for your mother who ain’t here no more. Carlson Coy, you ride for yourself, and for nobody else.”
Carlson Coy, yes. He was a cousin, and not one too close, I didn’t think. He pulled himself up into the saddle and nudged his foot against the flank of his spotted white pony. He was older than me, not by much; but sometimes it was hard to tell. I’ve heard that hard work will age a man, and maybe that’s true. Living in the valley, though—that’ll age a man like nothing else. His clothes were clean but old, and he was wearing shoes that hung a little loose on his feet.
He adjusted his hat, tipping it our way and moving the pony over to join me and John.
“Titus Mander,” she continued, “You ride for your parents, since neither one of them’s with us no more. Jacob Mander, you ride as Heaster asked; and your son Nicodemus rides for your father, who ain’t well enough to go.
“All six of you, now—you’re doing this for your families and for yourselves, and if you want to do it right you’ve got to set your old gripes down. Put them aside, or God damn the lot of you.”
The way she said it, it sounded like she was finished. But Jacob Mander stopped her from walking away by asking, “Granny Gail, where do we go once we get inside? Ain’t nobody been in there for years, or not nobody who’d admit it.”
“And I ain’t either,” she snapped back at him. “I’ve done told you all there is I know. I don’t know where he put it
, and I don’t know why he wanted you all to go down there together. I think the whole thing’s as stupid as a shit-pie, but if it don’t happen, then that’ll just mean more fighting, and that’s even stupider. I’m sick of it. And if any one of you had a lick of sense, you’d admit you’re sick of it too.”
“Ma’am,” Uncle John tried to interrupt her.
She ignored him, and didn’t let him talk any. “Maybe you folks deserve each other, and that’s all it is. If you can’t get your act together and behave like grown men, then you deserve to bicker like babies until the day you die. Now go on out, the six of you. Go find my daddy’s will, and whatever it says, you’re all going to abide by it ‘cause you ain’t got no choice.”
***
She stomped back inside and slammed the door.
***
Nobody went after her. Those of us on our horses just sat there, because not one of us wanted to go out to the Witch’s Pit even a little bit, but we didn’t have a choice in the matter, not anymore.
The crowd of relations around us thinned, or the folks milling around down by our horses backed off even farther. It was a lot of pressure, all of a sudden, and it was making us all tense. The horses even got wind of it, and they started fussing in their reins.
I couldn’t stand it, all the standing around. So I led my horse over to Titus’s mount, closing the gap between the two sides. And I said, “Cousin, it’s been a whole lot of years since I went out to that Pit. I ain’t been there since Winnter went missing, and everybody here knows how long ago that was. Does any one of you want to take the lead?”
“What are you doing?” Carlson asked, cross with me already, but I didn’t care. We might’ve been closer kin, and that was a fact; but I wouldn’t have known the man on sight and I knew enough of Titus to like him all right.
Titus wasn’t dumb, though. He said, “Hey there, Carlson. It’s fine, if you want to lead us on out.”
“Who says it’s fine?” And now Jacob was in on it—this crazy little stand-off of who gets to be in charge.