The creature hurtled forward but halted abruptly at the water’s edge. It lifted one foot, raw from running over rough terrain, tested the water, and pulled back.
Despite the panic surging through him, Ephraim recognized that, twice now, the water had saved his life. He splashed water at the dog. It recoiled from the spray.
Ephraim looked down at the rushing stream. If this creature feared water, his course of action was obvious: he needed to stay in it. But even as he thought this, he felt his feet growing numb in his sodden boots. How much farther was Barefoot Nancy’s place?
He turned and sloshed his way upstream.
From the bank, the hound watched him, but to Ephraim’s relief, it did not follow alongside. A few moments later, when Ephraim looked over his shoulder, the beast was gone.
The better part of an hour passed without a sign of the beast. The rain fell thinly now, but a steady breeze still gusted down the mountain, and Ephraim shivered. His head throbbed so hard it felt like a woodpecker was hammering on the inside of his skull.
He rounded a bend in the creek and saw that it curved away from Flint Ridge. To get around to the back side of the mountain and find Nancy, he’d have to leave the safety of the water.
Ephraim halted mid-creek and listened to the dark woods. It was difficult to hear over the pounding in his head and the chattering of his teeth. He peered into the shadows between the trees, searching for any sign of those red eyes watching from the gloom.
Something crashed through the brush on the bank behind him. Ephraim spun around, a fresh wave of panic surging through his veins. A startled deer bounded into the creek several yards upstream, propelling itself into the forest on the other side. Ephraim eyed the place where the deer had first appeared. Had he spooked the deer, or had it sensed the hound nearby?
It was strange how the hound had chased him with such intensity, then disappeared. He’d seen predatory intelligence in those red eyes. As a hunter himself, Ephraim suspected the beast had changed tactics.
He thought of Boggs’s warning that his crime had brought something demonic to Sixmile Creek. He should have listened to the reverend.
He rubbed his hands together; his fingers were ice cold. He’d freeze if he waited here in the water until dawn. He scanned the dark trees again, wishing he knew how far Nancy’s home was from here. This creature had the nose of a bloodhound; there was no way it’d lost his trail.
If I can’t run, I’ll have to fight it, he thought. It’s a gamble, but it’s my only chance.
He slogged over to the bank, casting about until his gaze landed on a fallen sapling lying near the water. He fetched it and returned to the water to examine the wood. It was about seven feet long. Ephraim placed his boot about a foot from the end and stomped down, breaking the wood. He ran his thumb over the jagged place where the sapling had broken. Sharp, but not sharp enough. He bent over and plunged his hand into the water, feeling around on the creek bottom. A large stone met his groping fingers, and he pulled it out of the creek bed. Gripping the end of the sapling in one hand, he filed its broken end with the stone, testing it with his thumb. When he had a good point, he threw the stone away and turned toward the dark forest. Now he just had to find the right place to take his stand.
Ephraim hit the trees at a run, the makeshift spear over his shoulder. His boots squelched, water spraying from them with every step. Too much noise. He slowed, kicked off the boots, and resumed running in his bare feet. The forest grew thicker. He passed through a deep swath of darkness untouched by the light of the moon.
That’s when he heard what he’d been expecting: the creature was behind him, its paws pounding the forest floor, panting.
Ephraim put on a burst of speed.
Up ahead, he spied a gully where rainwater washed down the mountainside into the stream. He sucked in a deep breath and sprinted for it. As he reached the lip of it, he slowed a bit, so he didn’t tumble down the embankment. At the bottom, he stood in the water and aimed the tip of the spear behind him, toward the top of the slope. He spread his feet wide, bracing the spear’s butt against the gully’s sandy soil. His thoughts formed themselves into a wordless prayer.
God, please. Deliver me.
He held the spear firm, muscles taut with anticipation.
A second later the monster appeared at the edge of the gully. Ephraim saw the flash of its eyes, red as the setting sun, as it leaped down at him.
The creature gave a yelp as the point of the spear penetrated its belly. The shaft of the spear splintered, and the beast tumbled to the ground, its emaciated body skewered by the stake like a worm on a hook.
Ephraim retreated a few steps, still clutching a short length of broken sapling. On the ground, the creature writhed. Ephraim watched, his chest heaving, as the creature’s movements slowed. Finally, it shivered and fell still.
He dropped the length of wood, wiped his forehead with a shaking hand, and turned to climb out of the gully.
Behind him, he heard a low growl.
He spun around. The beast still lay on its side, but its front leg moved, pawing at the ground. It raised its head and rolled onto its belly, pushing the end of the stake up through its back. It climbed to its feet and bared its teeth.
Panic flared in Ephraim’s gut like an ember in the wind. He turned and raced blindly up the gully. At its mouth, his foot caught a tree root, and he crashed to the ground, sprawling in the wet leaves.
A second later the beast was on him. Ephraim fought against a mass of matted black fur, quivering muscle, and snapping jaws. The creature’s breath was hot, and its body reeked with the scent of wet dog. Ephraim pushed his hands up under the creature’s neck, holding its fangs away from his face by a hair’s breadth. The hound’s saliva, thick and dark, like blood gone rancid, dripped onto his face.
The canine thrashed, and the two of them rolled across the forest floor. As they came around again, the dog’s snapping mouth plunged toward Ephraim. He blocked the attack with a bent right arm, but the dog’s fangs sank into his flesh below his elbow. Ephraim screamed and thrust his knee hard into the beast’s wounded belly. Its jaws loosened their grip, and Ephraim was somehow able to toss it aside. He sprang to his feet, clutching his arm. Black drool clung to the skin around his wound.
The hound darted in front of Ephraim, head held low.
Behind it, Ephraim caught a glimpse of light shining through the trees.
Nancy.
His body reacted to the thought, pouring its final reserves of energy into his cramping muscles. A primal yell erupted from deep within Ephraim, and he dashed past the red-eyed hound. Branches slapped his face as he plowed through the forest toward the light. To his surprise, it came from a hole in a giant tree.
Ephraim sucked air into his aching lungs. “Help!”
A door swung open in the tree trunk, and a woman appeared, holding a long-barreled gun, silhouetted against the light spilling out. “What in tarnation?”
“Nancy!” shouted Ephraim, putting on his last burst of speed.
A howl sounded behind him. The hellish animal was at his heels. He wasn’t going to make it.
Nancy raised the gun and took aim. A boom echoed through the forest, and fire flashed from the barrel.
The hound kept coming.
Nancy threw the gun aside, reached into her skirts, and threw a handful of powder in the air. “Banished be all evil! I drive ye before me, foulness!” she chanted. Then she pointed at Ephraim. The cloud of powder rushed toward him, passing him. It felt like a gust of warm air, leaving a pungent aroma in its wake. Behind him, the hound let out a startled yelp.
Ephraim kept running until he reached Nancy, who was standing resolutely with her hand outstretched. He turned and saw the dog prowling back and forth behind a cloud of powder, the stake still protruding from its back.
“You stopped it,” said Ephraim between great gulps of air. The forest began to tilt and spin around him.
Nancy walked toward the animal, hand still outstretched.
The dog’s ears pricked. It cocked its head at the old woman, blinking its red eyes.
“Begone, dark one.”
The dog tucked its tail and disappeared into the night.
A throbbing pulse filled Ephraim’s head. He looked down and saw blood leaking out of the puncture wounds on his arm, mingling with the darker saliva. His mind felt fuzzy.
Nancy’s fingers closed around his wounded arm. She held it up, examining the bite wound. Then her gaze fell on his thumb; she took it in her free hand. “Ready yourself,” she said. Her voice sounded strange, like Ephraim’s ears were full of water.
“For what?” Ephraim asked.
“For this,” Nancy said.
She yanked sharply on his thumb.
Ephraim screamed. His knees gave way, and the world around him faded.
16
Hunger
Sampson returned to the creek bank, lay down, and licked his belly. He felt no pain, but the instinct to lick his wounds was strong. He stretched his neck as far as he could and set to work removing the sharpened sapling from his body. When he’d finished with that, he stood and sniffed, following traces of the boy’s scent. He came upon a leather boot. He gripped the prize in his teeth and limped back to the graveyard.
The sun was cresting the mountaintops when he returned. Drool coated the boot, making it slick in his mouth. The taste of the leather tempted his empty belly.
William waited by the unearthed grave—Sampson’s old prison.
A whiff of the burning scent wafted out of the hole. Sampson turned his nose away from it and laid the boot at William’s feet. His stomach gurgled, and he whined. Since emerging from the ground, his hunger had grown at an alarming rate.
“I told you to bring the boy to me.” William pulled the whip out from behind his back. He snapped it through the air, burying the barbs in Sampson’s back.
Sampson cowered and yelped.
William jerked the whip, ripping the metal barbs free from Sampson’s hide. “Don’t like the taste of iron, do you?”
Sampson answered with a high-pitched bark. He flattened his ears, arched his back, and pulled his lips back to reveal his fangs.
William raised the whip again.
Sampson sprang, hitting William square in the chest. They tumbled to the ground together. Sampson leaped off the man and landed a body’s length behind him.
William rolled over and pushed himself up, grabbing the fallen whip.
“Fool hound!”
Sampson bounded away, returning to the woods. He felt blood running through the fur of his back. The whip’s barbs hurt worse than any bear’s claws ever had. He longed to return to Wes’s porch and eat a bowl of cornbread and gravy. His new master had yet to learn that the only difference between a hunting hound and a mountain wolf was a full belly.
17
Omen in the Suds
Ephraim awoke in a circular room, its walls tapering and disappearing as they ascended into darkness. It was like gazing up a chimney. The upper reaches of the walls were hung with bunches of drying herbs, braids of onions, and strings of dry beans.
Ephraim sat up. The room spun around him, and when he raised his arm to steady himself against the wall, he winced. Not that arm. He lowered it, noticing it was now swathed in bandages that gave off a pungent smell—like onions, garlic, maybe both. He shifted and placed his other hand against the wall. It felt rough and dry.
The room was large, about twenty paces across. Ephraim’s small bunk sat across from a table with two chairs and a tiny stove vented to the outside through a stovepipe. A ladder rested against the wall near his bunk. Light came through a door, cracked open. Ephraim realized with a start that it was daylight outside. How long have I been here?
He slid his feet off the bunk onto the packed earth floor, then stood, slowly and carefully, and walked to the doorway. The door frame was ornamented with relief carvings: birds, tulips, hearts, curly trees. Ephraim pushed the door open and stepped outside.
He found himself beneath the soaring branches of the biggest sycamore he’d ever seen. Ephraim glanced back at the door in disbelief that he’d just been inside this forest giant. The outside of the door held another surprise for him. It was painted with a garish geometric pattern that reminded Ephraim of a quilt. A horseshoe was pinned to the trunk above the door by an iron spike.
Ephraim took a few steps away from the tree and began walking around it.
On the other side, Nancy was hanging clothes on a line tied between two smaller trees. Earl was browsing nearby, and Nancy’s wagon was sheltered by a lean-to.
Ephraim walked over to Nancy, stopping by her washtub just as she finished hanging a tattered, cream-colored shirt on the line.
“Nancy, thank you. I—”
The old woman held a finger to her lips.
Ephraim quit talking, suddenly aware of the focused look of reverence on the old woman’s face.
Nancy knelt down in front of the dangling shirt.
Ephraim rubbed the back of his neck and stepped back. What was the granny woman doing?
“What do ye know of this?” Nancy asked, her eyes locked on the shirt.
Ephraim didn’t understand. What was she asking him?
A gentle breeze blew through the trees, sending dry leaves twirling through the air. The clothing on the line fluttered.
Nancy studied the shirt as it billowed. “Blood in the snow and death laid low? What in tarnation is that supposed to mean?”
Ephraim followed her gaze, watching the shirt. Its sleeves bounced and waved like all the other clothing, but its movements seemed exaggerated.
Nancy put her hands on her hips. “Well, it ain’t my fault ye decided to blow off the clothesline and get yourself tangled in the blackberry patch, now is it?”
The sleeves flapped and went limp.
Nancy nodded. “All right. I just wanted to be sure ye weren’t blamin’ me.”
A gust pushed through the forest, and the shirt flared out from the line, the sleeves weaving in complex patterns. Nancy’s eyes followed their movements. She muttered under her breath. “Evil comes forth from dark places… now is found in friendly faces.”
The wind died, and the shirt went slack. It looked as lifeless as all the other clothing.
Nancy sighed and got to her feet. “Dang shirt. It’s as hard to understand as it is scratchy.” She turned to Ephraim and smiled as if just now noticing him. “Do ye know how long it’s been since I had a good-lookin’ man a-runnin’ toward me and a-hollerin’ my name?”
Ephraim opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He felt his face redden.
“What do ye think of the Laura?” Nancy asked.
“The what?”
“The Laura.” Nancy pointed to the sycamore.
Ephraim shaded his eyes with his hand and looked up to where the hoary branches speared the blue sky like giant antlers. In the presence of something so ancient he felt humbled. “I’ve never seen anythin’ like it,” he said quietly.
“It’s been quite some time since she’s seen anyone besides me and Earl,” Nancy said. “We’re pleased to have ye, but I ’spect you ain’t stoppin’ by just to be sociable.” She squinted at Ephraim. “What with that critter chasin’ ye up here last night and all.”
Last night. Ephraim breathed a sigh. “I’m glad to hear that I ain’t been out long. We got to get back to Sixmile Creek quick, Nancy. My ma needs your help.”
Nancy nodded. “I can do that.”
Earl had wandered over during their conversation. The goat now nosed the bandage on Ephraim’s arm.
“Careful, he’ll eat anythin’,” Nancy said. “But he just reminded me to take a look at that arm of yours.”
Ephraim held out his arm. “What was that thing that chased me up here?”
“Near as I can figure, it was a hellhound.” Nancy nodded her head toward a battered, ancient-looking musket propped against a tree. “Ol’ Ruination sure didn’t do no good against it.”
Ephraim looked past Nancy to the last place he’d seen the creature. “What’s a hellhound?”
“Truth be told, I don’t know much ’bout ’em. I never crossed paths with one.” Nancy pulled apart the knotted ends of the bandage and began to unwind it. “I used to handle witches in my younger days, but never a hellhound. I did hear an old-timer tell of one once though, and it sure sounded like that critter I seen last night. It gave ye quite a nasty bite!”
Under the dressing, Ephraim’s forearm was covered in a foul-smelling concoction of mashed leaves and onion-like roots. Bits of the poultice fell off as Nancy unwound the bandage. Earl rushed over and gobbled them up.
Ephraim swallowed. “Ain’t that bad for him?”
Nancy balled up the bandage and wiped Ephraim’s arm clean. “I used to worry ’bout him, but I’ve learned over the years that a goat’s belly must be made of cast iron.”
Ephraim examined his arm. The hellhound’s fangs had left ragged holes in his flesh, and each puncture wound was ringed by blackened skin. There wasn’t any scab or clotted blood; the flesh around the wound looked dead. Ephraim felt dizzy at the sight.
Nancy clucked her tongue. “’Tain’t a shade better than it looked last night. A poultice of ramps usually heals ye right up.” She grabbed the musket and walked toward the Laura. “Come on, let’s try somethin’ else on it.”
Ephraim followed the old woman back into the tree. He stood by the door and watched as she rummaged around in some baskets by the stove.
“What was that powder you used to drive the hellhound off?” he asked.
“That’s somethin’ I come up with myself. I calls it phidity. I always keep some on hand.”
“What is it?”
Nancy pulled a handful of dry leaves from one basket, shook her head, put the leaves back in, and moved to another basket. “Powdered yarbs and a few other things,” she said. “It’s about as reliable as anythin’ when it comes to runnin’ off evil. Things tainted with witchery cain’t stand the stink of it.”
“Where do you reckon that hellhound came from?” Ephraim asked.
“That’s what’s got me a-scratchin’ my head,” Nancy said. “Used to be that most wicked folk knew how to make a hellhound. There was old almanacks and physick books that told ye how to do such things.” She pulled a handful of tiny dry leaves and flowers from a basket and moved to the table, where she unstoppered a jug of molasses. “Way I understand it, ye got to kill a black dog, then bury it in the grave of a murderer.” She crushed the leaves in her hand and dropped the powder into a bowl, then tipped the molasses jug over it. “There’s more to it than that, I’m sure. Witchery always calls for locust wood, the fat of a stillborn lamb, moonlight, and suchlike. The old almanacks would’ve told the particulars, but they all were burned in the Old Country, well before my time. The ones that made it here eventually fell into the hands of men who destroyed ’em, on account of the powerful evil witches could do if’n they learned to reckon by the stars and the signs.”
Some Dark Holler (The Redemption of Ephraim Cutler Book 1) Page 12
