The Bell Witch

by John F. D. Taff

  (Silence)

  You know what you’ve done.

  “I’ve done nothing!”

  Nothing? You call raping your own child nothing?

  (Silence) “I… How…?”

  You disgust me, father.

  (Silence)

  Compulsion or choice, you deserve your fate, Jack, as perhaps no one else. Surely, Bets didn’t merit what you did to her.

  “I never hurt her. Never meant to…”

  Pathetic! You’re pathetic, Jack Bell. Your hateful, black soul will have a special throne set up for it in Hell. A seat of honor.

  (Silence) “Kill me… just kill me.”

  You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Be released from it, from the guilt that gnaws at you? Damn you, Jack, it won’t be that easy. When I kill you—if I kill you—it will be when I say. It will be when you want to live.

  (Silence)

  It will be torture.

  (Silence)

  It will be vengeance.

  (Whimpering)

  It will be mine.

  (Silence)

  Jack Bell, do you know who I am?

  (Silence)

  Jack Bell!

  “Yes!”

  Tell me.

  (Silence)

  Say it!

  “YOU ARE MY DEATH!”

  Goodnight, sweet Jack.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Two weeks went by quietly, or what passed for quiet these days.

  August had played itself out in a succession of staggeringly hot and steamy days.

  September had begun, just a different page on the calendar. The transition between the two months passed seamlessly, drawing little attention.

  Lucy pushed the door open and went outside onto the low, wide porch that stretched around the house. It was a blisteringly hot day. The sun boiled the landscape, sending up swirls of heat and moisture so thick that it hurt her aching lungs to breathe it in.

  Today, the air was heavy with sound: the chittering of grasshoppers and other insects, the chatter of men in the fields, the men in the barn. Smells, too, collided with each other in a frenzy to be recognized: the mellow char of curing tobacco, the green, sweet sap of corn, and the hot musk of the animals.

  Beneath it all, like a jealously guarded secret, was a sweeter note: the promise of autumn locked even in the heart of summer.

  The secret, sharp tang of death.

  Lucy breathed it all in, happy to be able to breath at all. Though it was stifling outside, she drew the light lace wrap she wore tightly about her shoulders. She felt a chill most days, a chill she could not shake even in this heat.

  When Lucy felt good enough to sit outside, Naddy placed her favorite rocker on the porch. Lucy went there every morning to look across the land and think.

  She thought a lot.

  The corn in the Bell fields had grown nearly to its full height––a dense, green sea topped with a thin foam of golden cornsilk. The stalks swayed at night in the light wind, producing a dry, rasping sound as if whispering to each other.

  With the passing of the season nearing, the activity on the Bell farm shifted to the coming harvest. More slaves were sent to work in the shade between the tall corn fronds, removing the insects and larvae they found and squashing them beneath naked, calloused feet.

  Jack’s anger grew, too. It raged inside him, an emotional conflagration, reducing and purifying all within the closed crucible of his heart. It burned on its own, with little stoking or attention from him.

  For the last several days, he worked and slept and ate automatically. But all with a roving eye, searching for another, another he could use to fuel the fire within him.

  He found her on this day in September.

  Anky worked the fields that afternoon, plucking the fat, green caterpillars from their leafy meals, scraping eggs and other debris from the undersides of the sharp, rough corn leaves.

  Even in the cool, green shade of the field, it was hot, hard work, more so for a pregnant woman. Anky had pulled her hair back with a red bandana, knotted her blouse to expose her midriff, and had doubled her skirt over, tucking the bottom into her waistband, so that her legs could be uncovered. She was misted with a fine sheen of sweat; even her feet left moist prints on the dusty ground.

  Jack caught sight of her right after supper. He had followed her, from a distance, deep into the fields, until he was sure no other slaves were nearby. Nervously, he licked the dust and grit from his teeth and raked a sleeve across his forehead to mop away the sweat.

  He listened as she hummed a tune.

  She hadn’t yet seen or heard him approaching.

  Bending to examine the lower leaves of a corn stalk, her doubled skirt hiked up to reveal the smooth sweep of her buttocks, glistening with sweat.

  Biting his lip, he sprang at her, one hand darting around to cover her mouth, another snaking up between the backs of her legs, into the dense, moist shadows there.

  “Huh?” she asked, untangling herself from his hands and turning toward him.

  He hit her cheek with his open hand hard enough to stagger her backward over the uneven ground.

  Her own hand flew to her face, and tears squeezed out of her wide eyes.

  Jack licked his lips and groaned.

  * * *

  Sam took the dipper of cool water one of the girls gave him and poured it over the top of his head. The water wasn’t particularly cold, but it felt refreshing to him nonetheless as it spilled over his face, down his back and chest.

  He and a few of the other men had been working all morning repairing the fence on the eastern edge of the property, in an area with few trees. The sun had pounded down on them fiercely.

  Looking around, he tried to spot Anky’s smiling face among the crowd of slaves milling around the well, but she was not there.

  “You seen Anky?” he asked the young girl who had handed him the dipper.

  “I seen her headin’ toward the fields earlier with some others,” she answered, pointing her lanky arm in that direction.

  “Which way did she go?”

  She shifted her aim a little to the right.

  “Thanks,” he said, taking another quick drink from the ladle before walking off in that direction.

  The cornfield seemed an almost impenetrable wall of green until he got close. Then, he chose an entrance between two widely spaced stalks and entered the field. He welcomed the cooler, shaded air within almost as much as he had the water earlier. It curled around him, sweet smelling and familiar, and he breathed it in deeply.

  The lazy buzz of grasshoppers, the relatively cool air and the overpowering smell of the corn created a soporific atmosphere. It lulled Sam, soothed his aching muscles, made him want to lie down in the dirt and take a long, quiet nap.

  Where was she?

  He couldn’t hear much over his own thrashing through the corn and the incessant drone of the grasshoppers. Stopping to get his bearings, he heard a soft, muffled cry to his right.

  Sam saw her in his mind with startling clarity. She’d fallen, twisted an ankle or fainted from the combination of work, heat and pregnancy.

  “Anky?”

  In response, he heard that sharp little cry again, somewhere through the dense foliage.

  Crashing blindly through the corn, the sharp leaves nicking and rasping him, he followed that sound. He stopped short when he came upon them.

  The first thing he saw was Jack rising from Anky, though he blocked Sam’s view of her. Jack’s face was flushed and dripping, and his narrowed eyes seemed mildly surprised to see Sam.

  “How long you been standin’ there, boy?”

  “I heard a scream…,” Sam explained, trying to look past Jack and see Anky, who lay quietly on the ground behind him.

  “She fell, that’s all. I’ll help her. You just go on back to your business,” said Jack, glaring at him.

  And Sam might have turned and left just then, if Anky hadn’t muttered another low, plaintive whine.

  Sam saw
Jack’s pants were undone.

  Taking a quick step around Jack, he saw Anky.

  She lay sprawled on the dirt, her dress hiked to her waist. Her face was puffy and bruised, and she was covered in sweat and dust.

  But his eyes were drawn to the dark blood that spattered her groin, slicked her thighs, dripped to the dry earth. It was stunningly, viciously red in the dark green light.

  She looked up at Sam pitiably—and most disturbing to him, apologetically—tried to cover herself.

  Sam spun back on Jack, shaking.

  He imagined himself stepping across an imaginary line. With a roar like a wounded beast, he made a fist and swung it with all of his weight and anger and youthful strength. It caught a surprised Jack full in the center of his face.

  Sam felt a spongy crunch beneath his fist, and something essential in Jack’s face shifted under his knuckles. Blood burst over his hand just as its impact carried Jack away from him, sent him reeling through a row of corn stalks, tearing them down under him.

  But Sam stopped there, looked dumbly at his bloodied fist, to where Jack was pulling himself from the tangle of corn plants. “What have I done?” he asked. “Good Lord, what have I done?”

  He looked down at Anky, and he realized that her fear was now more because of what he had done to Jack than because of what Jack had done to her.

  When Sam turned back to Jack, the man was standing, smiling fiercely. Blood trickled from his nose, which was twisted at an awkward angle from where it been before.

  But that didn’t seem to concern him.

  “You in a heap of trouble now, sirrah,” laughed Jack, his voice low and clotted. “You should’ve just left. She’d have been all right in a day or two. I didn’t tear her up that bad. But you… Oh, I’m gonna kill you.”

  He swiped a hand across the ruin of his nose, cleared a line of bloody snot from his mouth, spat a thick, pink wad of material onto the earth. Then he grimaced, raised his clenched fist and moved to Sam.

  With Jack’s first punch, Sam realized that Jack was serious about killing him.

  Sam was tall and thin and well-built in a ropey way. Jack was tall and solid, and his fist felt like it was going to go clean through Sam’s gut.

  He crumpled around it like a piece of paper, folded over Jack’s arm and dangled there for support. When Jack withdrew his fist, Sam doubled over and pitched headlong to the ground, wheezing for air like a clubbed fish.

  Sam rolled over on his back in time to see Jack’s heavily booted foot stomp toward his face. Throwing up his hands, he caught it, swung it away.

  Off balance, Jack tumbled to the ground.

  Sam leapt to his feet, the motes of his vision regathering. He waited for Jack to regain his feet, and charged him.

  Catching Jack in the gut with his head, Sam knocked him back through, one, two, three rows of corn.

  But Jack refused to fall.

  Instead, reaching down around Sam’s body, he tried to grab his neck.

  Instinctively, Sam whipped his head up and out of the way.

  The back of his head clipped Jack’s chin, causing Jack to bite his tongue. Instantly, he felt the pressure of Jack’s arms ease.

  Twisting free, he swung twice without waiting. The first blow caught Jack below the right eye, closing it. The second blow brought another spray of blood from Jack’s ragged mouth.

  Sam forgot that Jack had hands, too.

  One of them slammed into the side of his head, and for an instant, the lights went out. When they came back on, he found that he had staggered several steps away from Jack, who was bent with his head between his knees; a thick line of blood was drooling to the ground as he hacked up more.

  When he heard Sam behind him, he swung around, still bent, glowered at the young man. Blood covered his face, bubbled from his flaring nostrils. But his eyes shone from the glistening mess like twin warnings.

  Sam knew then that one of them would die here in the cool, green corn field. And that even if he killed Jack, he was likely to be hung for murder.

  With a detached calm, he accepted this.

  If he could kill Jack, even if he had to die, too, he could be assured that he would never hurt Anky or the baby again.

  Without a sound, Jack came to him. Sam clenched his fists, and they moved before him seemingly of their own volition. There was a blur, and Jack stopped moving. A blow, and Jack reeled drunkenly. Another, and he staggered against a corn stalk, which snapped under his weight. Another, and blood flew from him in bright streamers. Another, and he was on the ground.

  Sam stood over him panting, wanting him to get up again, hoping that he wouldn’t. He felt shaky and light-headed.

  What have you done, Sam? Oh, Lord, what have you done?

  Sam turned groggily to Anky, who sobbed where she lay on the ground, but she hadn’t said it.

  You damn fool! You nearly killed him! ranted the Witch, her voice tinged with concern.

  “He raped Anky,” answered Sam.

  I can see that! she snapped.

  “But the baby…”

  The baby’s all right, said the Witch after a minute. But Jack… you really did a number on him. What were you thinking, son?

  “I don’t know. I guess I wasn’t,” he answered, uncurling his fingers and feeling the pulse pound back into them and into his numerous bruises.

  I guess so, too, she answered. You don’t hit white folks in this day and age, Sam. They string niggers up for that. They’re going to do that to you. You know that, don’t you? Regardless of what he did.

  Sam straightened his back. “I suppose they will. But I did what was right. I had to do it.”

  You’re a damned fool, Sam. Get Anky out of here—quietly—and get her seen to. Adam’ll know what to do.

  “What about Jack?” he said, nodding toward the man sprawled in the dirt, breathing shallowly.

  I’ll deal with him, don’t worry. Just get cleaned up and don’t let anyone see you. Oh, God, why didn’t I see this? It was not supposed to be this way!

  Sam bent to Anky, helped her with her clothes as she clung to him.

  Sam…?

  “Yes, Ma’am?” he asked, cradling Anky in his arms.

  If anyone asks, I did this to Jack.

  “What about him?” he asked.

  He won’t say anything. Just keep your own damned mouth shut.

  “Yes, Ma’am. Thank you,” he said, turning and lurching away with Anky.

  He’d gone no more than a dozen feet when the Witch whispered in his ear.

  Sam, I wish Betsy had someone like you; someone to protect her. I might not have to be here if there were such a person.

  He felt a soft kiss brush his cheek, then she was gone.

  As he stumbled from the field with Anky, the heat of the day fell on him like a blow from another fist. The heat and light blew open a million doors within him.

  And he wept.

  TWENTY-NINE

  John Bell was checking the new section of fence the slaves had put in that morning along the northeast section of the Bell property when the Witch found him.

  John! she yelled, and he turned quickly from the fence to see who it was. It’s me!

  “Spirit!” he snapped in genuine annoyance. “Bother someone else. I’m busy just now.” And he turned back to the fence, determined to ignore her.

  John, it’s your father…

  He resisted the impulse to turn and ask, concentrated on making sure the posts were set deep enough.

  He’s dying.

  His resistance melted in the heat of those two words.

  “Dying?” he asked, turning slowly. “Is this another joke?”

  No joke. He’s in the cornfield aways. You need to go to him, get him into the house and have old Doc Hopson take a look at his sorry bones, explained the Witch.

  John wiped his hands briskly on his pants, dashed to his horse. “What’s happened?” he asked, jumping on.

  You’ll see. But hurry! Ride!

  * *
*

  John spurred the horse down a narrow trail that led to the rear of the farmyard. Here, the cornfield was much too densely grown to ride a horse through, so he dismounted before the great green wall.

  “Where?” he shouted, and several of the nearby slaves turned to him questioningly.

  In the field, to your right. Hurry!

  He did, pushing through the leaves, feeling them whip past his face, tug urgently at his clothes.

  A little farther and to your left a bit! the Witch encouraged.

  “Damn you,” he cursed under his ragged breath.

  As John pushed through another row of corn, he almost stumbled over the body that sprawled in the dirt before him. “Good God,” he breathed, bending to his father and rolling him over.

  Dried blood and dirt covered his face, and fresh blood trickled from his nose and mouth. His face was misshapen. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and bruises darkened his cheek and temples.

  “Pa!” John cried, falling to his knees beside the semiconscious man. John’s hands hovered over his father, afraid to touch him or lift him. “Jesus! What happened?”

  Jack stirred, coughed up some bloody spittle. “John?” he asked.

  “Yes, Pa. Who did this to you?”

  Jack’s eyes rolled in his head, and his mouth moved without producing a sound.

  “It was that goddamned…” Before he could finish, his words were strangled, and his eyes bugged.

  John watched in horrid fascination as his father’s tongue swelled, darkened, filling his mouth and jutting from between his lips as if he were swallowing a toad. Hugely engorged, it bobbed there, turning a peculiar blue-black.

  “Gahh,” Jack choked, his eyes filling with tears.

  What are you waiting for? admonished the Witch. Get him inside!

  “Who did this to him?” John asked, lifting his father’s limp body.

  I did! shrieked the Witch, gleeful, bitter. What does it matter? He’s going to die. That’s all that matters. All that ever mattered.

  John staggered from the field bearing the weight of his father.