Owl Dreams

by John T. Biggs

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Even witches need their sleep. Hashilli usually had no trouble collecting his eight empty hours at the end of the day. But lately his dreams were filled with the sounds of owls flying and images of Marie Ferarro wearing nothing but a pair of red high heel shoes designed by Salvatore Ferragamo. He knew this fashion detail because voices told him. Robert Collins’s voice and Sarah Bible’s and the voice of an estranged female cousin, Sissy McCurtain.

  Hashilli hadn’t heard Sissy’s voice since she chased him off Maytubby land with a shotgun nearly thirty years ago.

  Did Grandfather send those dreams? Or Marie? Or her meddling daughter? Or the crazy one, Robert Collins? Too many distractions. Not enough sleep. It was almost like having a conscience.

  “You act like you have no family.” Sissy McCurtain’s voice again, not so loud while he was awake, but insistent. All the living Maytubbys were against him—every aunt and uncle, all the cousins, even the family dogs.

  But I still have the ancestors.

  Mostly true. But Maytubby ghosts spoke in signs and visions that were easily misunderstood. They demanded much, criticized quickly and were slow to offer praise. Had he read the cosmic Maytubby plan correctly, or gotten it completely wrong?

  The young bull vanquishes the old one and rules the herd. But when Hashilli vanquished Grandfather, the herd scattered to the winds. No blood tied him to the Maytubbys.

  “You act like you have no family.” No mother linked Hashilli with a clan. No wife. No sister. Hashilli had no women in his life until Marie.

  The owl shadow drew circles around her and took a blood offering from her hand. He’d seen it. Marie’s image condensed in his mind like beads of moisture on a cocktail glass. The Ferragamos were crocodile hide. The buckles were fourteen carat gold. Their color matched her

  toenails, her fingernails, and her lips. Marie’s areola were perfectly round and pink. Her backside struck the perfect balance between esthetic and erotic. Her mouth invited his kiss. Her skin called for his touch. She was perfect except for her lack of Choctaw blood.

  Grandfather had warned him about women like Marie. “Once they get inside your head, you can never make them leave.”

  Quiet, Grandfather. I don’t need you anymore.

  Hashilli stood before the Maytubby bonehouse and spoke loud enough to catch the attention of the most distracted ancestors. “Do you finally understand? Have you finally forgiven me?” Hashilli hadn’t sent Grandfather off with a knife between his ribs or a pillow over his face. The old man’s inner shadow had been carried to the afterlife on the wings of power.

  “Owl’s wings, Grandfather!” His emotions added too much volume to his words. Would the ancestors consider it an act of bravery to raise his voice where the African God might hear, or would they think him foolish?

  Were ghosts open to persuasion? For two decades they denied Hashilli an heir. He had offered them a hundred babies and they rejected every one. Now he’d take matters into his own hands. His successor would be born in the traditional way.

  Marie Ferraro had given birth to one child of power. Soon she’d bear another. Everything of value comes through the mother. Women are life givers, and men are life takers. That is a basic lesson of the ancestors. Every Choctaw knows it.

  When the new boy-witch of the Maytubby family reached his prime, he would send Hashilli’s spirit flying just as Hashilli had done for Grandfather, with a tea made from moonflowers and spirit mushrooms. Perhaps the boy would find another way; methodology was trivial as long as it was done with honor.

  Hashilli closed his eyes. He stood quietly, waiting for a sign. Ghosts were not generous with accolades so he was surprised to hear the dull rhythmic thud that grew louder with each passing second.

  Spirit sounds? A mother’s heart must sound like that just before the rhythm is lost in the trauma of birth. But this heart sound was not quite right.

  “What the hell are you doing in that old boneyard?” Baron Saturday’s booming voice startled the witch from his prayers. The large black god lurched toward the gate on his padded stumps.

  Hashilli was only a little worried. The spirits of the ancestors could keep the Voodoo deity at bay. They wouldn’t tolerate an African interloper on sacred ground.

  But the black god didn’t seem to understand. He lurched over the threshold of the Indian Baptist Cemetery. He paused only long enough to steady his broad brimmed gardener’s hat. He crossed himself in the Catholic fashion and then closed the distance between himself and Hashilli. Fearlessly.

  Hashilli called out to the ancestors, but the only sign of ghostly activity was the raucous arrival of a flock of crows. They flew over the gravestones and around the bonehouses like an untidy formation of artillery spotter planes looking for an enemy target. He knew the birds were not coming to his aid. He had seen them mob hawks and even owls when the birds of prey ventured into the crows’ territory. There was no stopping these black, winged creatures when they were on the move.

  Baron Saturday took another step toward the Maytubby bonehouse. He leveled an accusing finger at Hashilli. The digit was as thick and black as the barrel of a pistol.

  Would the ancestors allow the Voodoo god to kill one of their own? How did this African spirit mean to dispatch a Choctaw witch? With a bolt of lightning? Would a crevice open in the fabric of the world and swallow Hashilli into an afterlife of zombies and winged serpents?

  The Voodoo god shouted something, but his words were drowned out by the noise of the growing swarm of crows.

  Baron Saturday lurched forward, following a broken path around the deadwood littering the little graveyard. The African carefully avoided brushing against the yellow mushrooms clustered on the rotting cottonwood branches.

  Spirit mushrooms. Could Indian magic turn aside a deity from the Dark Continent? The mushroom spores would send the inner shadows of ordinary humans into the half world between life and death. Only shape-shifters could touch the spirit powder and remain standing. An image of Robert Collins flashed in Hashilli’s mind. The yellow dust had no effect on the wind talker. What would it do to the Guardian of the Dead?

  Baron Saturday pointed his finger at Hashilli again. He raised his voice loud enough so the Choctaw witch could hear some of the words above the noise of the mobbing crows.

  “Where have you taken Sarah’s mother?”

  Hashilli knew at that moment he had chosen the right woman to bear his child. Even Baron Saturday wanted her.

  The African god lurched closer, almost close enough to touch Hashilli with that black accusing finger. The noise and activity of the crows increased with every clumsy step. The birds flew through the Indian Baptist Cemetery in tight circles, swooping past trees and headstones, missing Hashilli and the African by inches. Neither man flinched.

  Hashilli did not raise his voice when he told Baron Saturday, “I will deal with you in the usual way.” Perhaps the African would hear him over the sounds of wings and crow-calls and perhaps he would not.

  “The way I deal with all meddlers.” In all his years as a sorcerer, Hashilli’s spirit powder had failed him only once. That was something he would have to think about later, after his magic rendered the African harmless.

  Hashilli reached into the secret pocket sewn into the tail of his shirt. Ordinarily, he would employ some simple but effective distraction. The powder would appear in the palm of his open hand as if by magic. But the Baron would not be impressed by sleight of hand, so Hashilli didn’t bother.

  The Africa stumbled back when he saw the mound of yellow powder.

  So far, so good. Hashilli moved forward. On the offensive for the first time. The expression on the Baron’s face was proof his tried and true tactic would succeed.

  Would the crows go away when the African fell to the ground? Time would tell.

  Hashilli drew a deep breath and blew hard enough to cover Baron Saturday with the toxic mushroom spores. If the spirit powder didn’t kill the African, he would be unconscious for
hours, maybe days.

  That is exactly how things would have gone if the crows had not spoiled the plan.

  A mob of birds flew between the Choctaw witch and the Voodoo God. The flock absorbed the powder into their feathers like a great black sponge. The birds fell to the ground like feathered hailstones. Dead or sleeping, Hashilli couldn’t tell. He didn’t wait around to see what Baron Saturday made of this. He was off and running from the African God. He hurdled over the sandstone wall that no longer protected the Indian Baptist Cemetery.

  When a Choctaw witch comes face to face with a Voodoo Loa, sometimes it is best to run away.