The Witchery Way

by Robert L. Ferrier

  "What is it?"

  "Eagle gall, bear gall and witchcraft plant. You carry with you all time—’specially tonight. You carry that whenever you in these woods, Railroad Boy." He grabbed his crooked stick and stood up, his bones popping. "I do one other thing for you.”

  "What?"

  "I say a hiding spell for you.”

  "Why should I need a hiding spell?”

  Isaac looked at him. "You stand up."

  Isaac placed his hand on Josh’s head and looked up into the sky. He chanted, his voice dry as fall leaves: "Now! Listen! This is the way it is: the Wind will take you away, and no one but you alone will know it. Trees! Trees! Trees! Trees! It will be swaying them, and they will be with you. Now you are a great Wizard!”

  Then Isaac looked into Josh’s eyes. "You wait here. Tom take you back." He turned and walked toward the cave.

  Josh watched him—bent and curved, like his "snake stick." Josh had read about how the old Indians made their snake sticks, first finding a very small tree, with a rattan vine snaking around the trunk, then cutting the trunk above and below the vine, then removing the vine—leaving a curved snake stick.

  Josh felt dizzy and sick, and he didn’t want to wait. He felt the witchcraft pouch in his pocket, and it gave him a sense of invulnerability—like the hiding spell. After all, he knew the way—head north, and he would walk into the park. For a moment, he wondered if the peyote might be clouding his judgment, but then he took one last look at the cave and started walking.

  He tried to retrace the route Tom had followed. Within minutes he was deep in the pines, the sound of the drum lost. He shook his head, trying to clear his brain from the effects of the peyote. He still felt dizzy, and he paused to get his bearings. This was not as easy as he had thought. The trees were very dense, blocking all but a few yards ahead. Clouds had increased, and there was less moonlight filtering through the pines.

  Josh got a queasy feeling, the first twinges of fear. He reached into his pocket and ran his fingers over the witchcraft pouch and wondered what eagle gall, bear gall and witchcraft plant looked like. When he got back to the cabin, he would look—but first he had to get back. He looked around. Ed Wade had told him never to kid himself. Yes, he was lost. He decided to suck up his pride, go back to the cave, and let Tom guide him.

  He turned around and headed south again—at least he thought it was south. Hard to tell in these trees, with the moon dead overhead and screened by clouds now, he thought. He sniffed the air, trying to catch a whiff of smoke from the cave. He hadn’t come that far, and they had to be close by. He thought he saw an area of pines that looked familiar, so he struck off in that direction for fifteen minutes. Then it seemed to change, and now nothing looked the same. He thought about yelling out for them, but some instinct warned him against that. He sniffed again.

  This time he caught a whiff of something—an acrid smell that made him even sicker. He wondered if Isaac had put something in the fire at the cave. But that didn’t make sense. The ritual at the cave had been a cleansing of the soul. That’s what the peyote, the fire, the drum and the chants and prayers had been for, he knew: to cleanse and purify. This smell was foreign to that, a sick smell, so powerful it would be intolerable in the cave. He kept moving.

  He leaned against a pine and sensed something different—the woods had gone quiet. No night birds. He considered his options, and they were few: circle around and try to find Isaac and Tom. Turn back north—assuming he could find north—and start walking, hoping he ran into the park. Or swallow his pride and his fears and yell a few times, giving Isaac and Tom a chance to find him.

  He decided on the last option. He sucked in enough air for a yell, and then he heard something—a movement in the undergrowth. He froze, letting the air out slowly, and listening. Perhaps it was Tom looking for him. Instinct told him no: Tom would be moving quickly, with purpose, trying to find him, and he would be yelling his name. This had been a single sound, like an animal brushing against a limb. He had felt more than heard it.

  Josh looked up at the moon as it peeked out from a cloud. It had moved a little further. That would be to the west. Okay, so north must be to his right—and north was Hickory Creek Park, and safety. He shoved off from the tree and started walking, as quietly as he could, through the trees and the undergrowth. He had gone twenty yards when he turned and caught a flash of movement. No sound, just a quick flash of... He felt a chill, and he started walking faster, trying to imagine he was Tom Sixkiller now, a graceful animal, blending in with the night. But Josh couldn’t change what he was: a heavy-footed guard, "too white," out of his element, making noise in the woods. He stuck his hand into his pocket and squeezed the witchcraft pouch, and as he did so, he heard the sound of pursuit.

  He started running, dodging through the trees. Only this time the pursuer was not wearing a football uniform. He was wearing the skin of a wolf.

  CHAPTER 8

  Josh started running faster toward thick undergrowth, the image spurring him on—a wolf standing up. That’s what it looked like, off in the shadows beneath the pines. He had seen the shape of the head, but it didn’t seem right. Then Isaac’s words had flashed in his mind. They put on the skin of a wolf. Then he realized there were shoulders under that skin. He was being chased by a man.

  Josh prayed and ran, but the chase was the nightwalker’s game. If Josh just kept running, he would be caught, and if caught, he would die. He saw a large tree felled two feet from its base. Lightning probably. There was a stand of brush around it. Josh ran to the tree and crawled under it. It was a tight fit, but he squeezed his body in, and he was thankful there was brush a few feet extending on each side.

  He took the witchcraft pouch from his pocket and squeezed it. The woods were very dark. He could only see a few feet to his left, and there was not enough room to even turn his head. The tree trunk covered his body, but only just. He listened and waited.

  There was total silence in the woods. No birds. No animals. Even the wind had died. His watch was under his nose, the luminous second hand creeping around the dial. He listened. He thought he heard something brush a limb, but it could have been his imagination. He squeezed the witchcraft pouch, pressing it against his cheek, smelling the leather and the contents. Earlier, he had scoffed at the thought of animal guts protecting him from a witch; now he prayed that it did, prayed that the hiding spell Isaac had used would help. He still hadn’t touched the core of it, that secret that Trace Gottschalk and his father were trying to hide. Find that, he knew, and he would find the answer to the mystery; but first he had to survive this night.

  Josh’s body screamed. Every muscle ached; when he moved again, the blood flow would shoot needles through him. He felt exhausted. The day’s work, the heat of the cave, the peyote, and the stress of pulling answers out of Isaac had taken their toll. The need to move was worse than anything he had ever felt before, worse than lying in the coffin with Sheriff Gottschalk right above him, worse than the pull of the woods when he thought his father and Wake McKenna had not believed him. He asked himself what Tom Sixkiller would do now: move or wait. He counted ten more sweeps of the second hand. He listened again.

  Nothing.

  He tried to see past the limbs of the sumac. Nothing but brush and darkness. After two more sweeps, he prepared to stick his head out from underneath the tree. At that moment, he saw the leg.

  It came into view, a moccasin stepping carefully. Then the other foot came down. Josh could see the bottom of the wolf skin, less than a yard away. He froze and slowed his breathing. The legs turned slowly; the nightwalker must be sweeping the woods with his eyes. Then Josh felt pressure on his back. The man had sat down on the tree. The bark dug into Josh’s back, and he had trouble breathing. He felt the panic coming, then he shut his eyes and prayed. In seconds his lungs would betray him, and he would have to make a sound—then he would die. He was going to be corpse powder for a witch.

  Josh heard a sound, something distant. It might h
ave been a human voice, but in his position Josh couldn’t know for sure. The pressure eased as the man stood up. The legs turned. Then they were gone. The nightwalker had heard the sound and left. Had he moved toward the sound? Away from it? Was the sound McKenna’s voice? Or Tom Sixkiller? Josh could only wonder. He said a silent prayer of thanks that he was still alive. He began counting second hand sweeps. He was hurting worse; the bark had cut his back, and the entire lower two-thirds of his body had gone numb. He felt weak, dizzy, and thirsty. Time to move.

  Then he reminded himself of what had happened before. If he had left the tree, his throat would be slit now. He needed to divert his mind. He picked his favorite OU-Texas game, replaying the game in his mind, quarter by quarter. He ignored the demands of his body, and he retreated into the instant replay of his mind. He became the star. He was always a halfback in his dreams, never a guard. Afterward, he conducted an imaginary post-game interview with a reporter. Then he looked out beneath the tree.

  Nothing. Just the sumac, the dark, the breeze in the pines. Slowly, he inched his way out from beneath the tree; he felt the needle shots of pain as blood flowed into his legs. He rolled on his back and grimaced, his arms and legs refusing to move. He sat up and pounded on his thighs and calves, but he felt nothing. He pulled up the dead weight that was his left leg. A thousand porcupines stuck him. He pulled up his right leg. A million electric eels wrapped around him and turned on the juice. Still, he reveled in the pain—for pain meant he was alive.

  He got to his knees and leaned against the log. He raised the witchcraft pouch to his lips and kissed the rancid leather. The old Indian’s medicine was good. Now Josh had to get out of these woods and plan a way to use his new information against Trace Gottschalk. Knowledge was power, and Josh—exhausted, hurt and alone in the dark—felt more powerful than at any time in his life. I’ll beat you Trace Gottschalk, he swore to himself. I know you now, and I’ll beat you.

  It took him five more minutes to stand up. The clouds were white cotton puffs that dotted the sky, drifting in from the south. The moon had drifted further to the west. He had his bearings. He started walking north. He moved quieter now. Something was different in his gait. He had watched the animal grace of Trace Gottschalk and Tom Sixkiller, and he imagined he was an animal. He had lost his fear of the dark and the endless pines, post oak, and sumac. They were his friends now; he was one with them, and he swam through them like a fish. He felt sorry for the eagle and the bear who had died and given their gall for his witchcraft pouch. Never again would he scoff at witchcraft or protection against it. Tonight, he had met both good and evil, handed down from generations. Some things cannot be explained by science or logic, he thought. They just were.

  He paused and glanced at his watch. It was fifteen to five: the darkest part of the night before dawn. With each step he felt closer to safety. He would have so much to tell Wake McKenna. Wake would believe him now; so would his father. He reached the top of a ravine and looked north. The moon had sunk further to the west, but the clouds had thinned out and he saw the beginnings of dawn. He swept the horizon and thought he saw the top of the large oak that had been his reference point for finding Tom Sixkiller earlier. He wasn’t lost anymore.

  He moved down a ravine, keeping the oak fixed in his mind. At the bottom, it was darker. He scratched his face and hands again in the bushes, but he kept moving. With each step, he felt closer to safety. He wondered again if it might have been Wake that he had heard. Something about that made him edgy, and he hurried his pace. He started running, darting through the pines, slowing only when he hit brush. He crested a small rise and saw the oak, closer now. He felt his adrenaline surging again. He half-ran, half-slid down the rise and started up the other side. It was dark, and he moved by feel, but he moved fast.

  He tripped over something and fell on his face, and then he heard a moan. Josh reached out and felt a human body. His eyes adjusted to the darkness, and he touched the face of Wake McKenna. The ranger’s blond hair looked white in the dark. Josh’s hands felt sticky, and he leaned closer.

  Wake McKenna’s throat had been slit.

  CHAPTER 9

  The Senoca County Hospital is a one-story, red brick building located east of town. The hospital halls are beige, except for white patches over bullet holes—reminders of a shoot-out earlier in the summer, when two guys got drunk at a beer joint near the Red River and started fighting over a woman. The fight moved into the parking lot and picked up speed when the two drunks got reinforcements, piled into their pickups, and started shooting at each other along Highway 271. When the wounded were carted to the hospital, a second gun battle erupted there. Afterward, the medical staff patched people, and the maintenance staff patched walls.

  Josh waited in the hall outside Wake McKenna’s room and stared at one of the patches in the wall. Life was cheap, he thought, but after nearly losing his own life last night to the nightwalker in the woods, after struggling to stop the bleeding in Wake McKenna’s cut throat, and after dragging him back to the cabin, Josh held life dearer. He squeezed the witchcraft pouch in his pocket; he was alive now because the eagle and the bear had died, and because someone had harvested their gall for the pouch, and because Isaac had said the hiding spell for him.

  It was cold in the hallway. He looked at his watch: eight p.m., Friday—Wake McKenna had been in the hospital for about 15 hours. Josh shut his eyes and prayed for Wake, wondering how he had survived. Probably because of his own great strength, Josh thought. Even wounded, Wake would have had strength to fight the witch. It had taken all of Josh’s strength to get Wake back to the cabin and help. He had stayed with him in the ambulance and in the hospital, despite his father’s plea to come home. Josh felt guilty, knowing that if he hadn’t been in the woods, Wake wouldn’t have been hurt.

  Now Ed Wade was in Wake’s room with the doctor. They had been in there for twenty minutes.

  "Hello, Josh."

  He looked up and saw Amy. She rushed into his arms, and he held her tight, smelling the freshness of her hair. She was wearing Levis and a blue T-shirt.

  "I’m glad you’re here," he said.

  "How is he?"

  "He’ll make it. The doctor said the knife missed the carotid artery by a quarter-inch, but he lost a lot of blood."

  "I heard you gave some blood for him."

  "I gave some last night. I just hope peyote doesn’t taint blood."

  "Peyote! My God, Josh. What happened out in those woods? You’re cut all over. You look half-dead."

  “I feel half-dead. But I won’t quit."

  She hugged him. A strand of hair curled over her brow. "Why did you go out there?"

  "I had to know the enemy."

  "And you got to know the Indians by sitting around a fire smoking peyote with them?"

  "We didn’t smoke it. We ate it. And they aren’t the enemy." He paused while a nurse went into McKenna’s room.

  Amy said, "Who is the enemy, then? Trace?"

  "Yes.”

  She thought about it. "That makes sense, I guess. After what we heard in the funeral home from Sheriff Gottschalk."

  He nodded. "The Gottschalks are hiding something out there. Whatever’s making them rich is out there." He lowered his voice. His tongue was still a little sore, and he was hoarse from the peyote, so it was hard to whisper. "And I found out from Isaac that Trace learned witchcraft."

  "Witchcraft!" Fear showed in her eyes.

  The chemical smells of the hospital reminded him of the smell in the woods, and he started feeling sick. "Isaac said he saw a room with skulls in it."

  "Josh, you’re getting pale. Are you sick?"

  "Listen to me! Trace Gottschalk is a witch. The Cherokees call them night walkers. Trace is using that power to frighten people and keep them off Gottschalk land. Anybody that wanders far enough in there doesn’t come out again. Trace knew somehow that I was going to be out in those woods last night; he was waiting for me—like he probably waited for Ish Maytubby. I don
’t know how he knew I was going to be there, unless Tom or one of the others told him. I don’t know if Tom is enemy or friend."

  She stared at him.

  "Don’t you see, Amy? It’s a thousand times worse than we thought. He uses people. He uses the Indians who work for him. He uses the myth of the Indian burial ground out there. He uses the power of the witchcraft, something that’s centuries old and beyond our understanding. And he kills. The Choctaw Railroad is an enemy, and that tour to Hickory Creek is a target."

  "A target? Why?"

  "Because it will bring the one thing he can’t afford-exposure. Exposure can bring him down."

  Amy buried her head in his shoulders and started crying. She looked up at him, her makeup streaming. "I just know one thing, Josh—I love you and I want to grow up and marry you and grow old with you. I don’t know about night walkers. I just know I asked you to stay out of those woods. So did your father. So did Joe and Wake. Josh, when will you listen?"

  Josh felt confused. Somebody had to stand up to Gottschalk. Which was worse: taking a chance, or going through your life wondering what you could have done if you had tried? He had the rest of his life ahead of him, but what did his father have if the Choctaw went down? He forced himself to consider her question.

  "I do listen. But I feel, too. Sometimes you have to do what you feel is right, even if it’s dangerous."

  She looked at him, her expression a mix of exasperation and love. "Josh, you’re terminally stubborn."

  "Keep me anyway?"

  "What choice do I have? Nobody else gives back rubs like you do."

  "Then you’ll listen to my plan?"

  "What plan?"

  That was not Amy’s voice, but his father’s. Ed was standing in the doorway to Wake McKenna’s room, and he was watching them. "I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, Josh. I just came out to tell you about Wake."