Ghost Cats of the South

by Randy Russell

  “I must know,” she said softly as she walked.

  In the darkened woods, she pulled the panther skin over her shoulders and purposely lagged far behind. She heard the drums. The council fire would be easy to find. She heard voices ahead of her greeting each other, as the path turned one way and then the next to avoid rocks and trees. The bride caught her toe on a root and turned off the path to wait in the darkness, the fire just ahead.

  She waited until the drumming and the dances were through, until the chants rose to summon the spirits for protection. Then came silence, and the men began to speak. Creeping closer, she heard an elder’s voice, then others speaking in turn. The men spoke urgently but in low voices. The words were hard to make out. She had to know what they were saying and so moved closer. Twigs snapped under her feet.

  “Aey-aey wah!”

  There was a sudden cry at her side. A sentinel rushed her and was upon her, pushing her powerfully forward. She was propelled against her will, pushed along too quickly to react. She lurched forward, stumbled, got up, and was pushed again. And again.

  The sacred tree rose behind her at the forest edge. She fell on all fours within the circle of men, bruising her hands and knees. Gasping, the bride clung to the panther skin that covered her, the tail falling between her legs. The men quickly stood, staring at the sudden and curious interruption of their council work. Only the elders stayed seated.

  Her face illuminated in the firelight, the bride was recognized in a moment. She was equally recognized as a woman who had broken her cultural duty and who spied upon her own people. The woman had transgressed the honor of every man in the council, of every man in the town, of every man in the Cherokee Nation. She had trespassed on the path occupied by spirits.

  She stood, still clutching the panther skin. She grabbed breaths as quickly as she could, her heart pounding like that of a captured animal. No one moved to help her. She stood alone within the circle of men.

  Her husband stared at her in awestruck fear. He was in love with all his heart, but this act was dire. It could not go unpunished. As her pleading eyes found him, he turned away. His bride would be ostracized. He was certain of it. The question he now considered was whether or not he would leave with her, whether or not he would keep with his wife and leave his family behind, his people.

  She looked for her father. She could not find him. He had turned his back in horror and shame, having recognizing his daughter before most of the others did.

  A voice rose in sudden anger and cursed the bride. It was one of the elders. The elder was a witch, but this was unknown to the others. It was unknown to his family. To be a witch among the Cherokee was to hold a secret known only to one.

  The spirit world was close that night. The witch cursed the woman in a manner he probably shouldn’t have. His angry prayer turned the woman into what she wore. The panther skin became her skin at the moment he spoke. The panther tail became her tail. The panther paws became her paws.

  A prayer drum began to sound, and another in unison. A second elder, one who recognized black magic when he saw it, called out for the woman panther to leave. She must leave at once. As the bride became as much cat as woman, she grew into a violent threat to men.

  “Leave us! Leave forever and live at night!”

  The bride didn’t know it yet, but she possessed the power to kill and consume men.

  “Leave us!” another of the elders cried. “Leave us forever.” He called the panther woman Long Tail instead of using her name. It was the bride’s father.

  “Leave us,” the young husband said. “Leave us forever.”

  Wampus Cat walked away from the burning fire and sounding drums, walked away into the night woods, walked away from her people, walked away from the men. Throughout the night, a panther scream was heard from the steep hills rising above the river cane, above the rushing mountain water in the rocky stream. An Appalachian panther scream, it is said, sounds like the scream of a woman. This one did.

  Wampus Cat wandered in a daze, coming to terms with her two selves, with woman and cat, one as feral as the other. She had been reborn into something wild.

  Bewitched by a magic she didn’t comprehend, Wampus Cat learned the life of a carnivore in the woods. She could not eat chestnuts. She could not eat blueberries. She killed small woodland creatures and devoured them. One morning before sunrise, she found a sleeping deer. She leapt upon it and subdued it quickly, drawing blood with her panther claws, inflicting fatal injury with her teeth and jaws on the animal’s writhing neck.

  Her town moved during the next few weeks, leaving behind Judaculla Rock, the fertile valley, the river cane, the soapstone cliff ledges, and the rushing mountain stream. The people carried food and belongings, seeking refuge from the coming British troops. The town stood empty the day it was burned.

  Attracted by the only society she knew, Wampus Cat followed the Cherokee. She stayed nearby. She saw hunters in the woods from time to time and followed them.

  One day, she allowed a youthful hunter to come too close. When he saw her panther skin moving through the woods, she became his prey. She rushed away, but he followed her.

  Confounded by loneliness, by her misfortune to be shunned and unloved, Wampus Cat let him come near. She stood on two legs and watched his approach. The hunter was confused. He was yet a boy of only fourteen and not a member of the council of men. He drew his arrow and stared to where it would in an instant fly. He raised his aim to the animal’s chest and saw the bride’s twin woman’s breasts. And then he saw her face.

  Wampus Cat stood still and waited. Her belly moved with her breathing. Her tail twitched.

  The youth was horrified. He dropped his bow and his arrows and ran away.

  She wept.

  Then she screamed.

  Word spread quickly of the young hunter’s experience. He could say little about what he had seen, but the effect was obvious to everyone. He could not sleep. The fourteen-yearold wandered among the people during the day, eating from meals that were prepared for others. He refused to keep himself washed. Seeing a creature half woman and half cat had damaged his spirit. The young man could not bring himself to hunt again. He would no longer go into the woods alone.

  “She will not stay away from us,” an elder said.

  “She will steal the children next,” said another. “A married woman without children will long for them.”

  “She will not leave us.”

  “We could kill her,” a third joined in.

  “She can be killed only by halves. One half keeps the other half alive. The cat survives the woman and brings the woman back to life. The woman survives the cat and brings the panther back to life. You cannot kill an animal that is two separate things.”

  “Then we must make her leave.”

  The husband was chosen. He would go into the woods and call her name and frighten her away. The husband was instructed to fast in preparation.

  “I will go insane,” he told the elders. “I will let my people down. If I see her, I will go insane.”

  “We will protect you. We have found a way. She is in love with you, and that is the strongest power over her that we possess. It is the power of the spirit and of the earth both. Love is made of sky and of mud.”

  The husband nodded. The elders knew best. He would not argue. “How will you protect me?”

  “A mask is being made. It is carved of two woods and joined. One half is cat, and one half is devil. The mask will protect you, and it will also frighten her away. She will not see you through the mask. She will see herself instead. She will see how hideous she has become, and she will never desire to be seen by her people again.”

  Panther screams were heard every night until the mask was finished. One half was maple, with human eyes. It was interlocked with carved dovetails into the bottom half of walnut. The bottom half had an animal nose and a crooked, open mouth full of sharp teeth and tongue. The mouth was dyed the color of blood. Whiskers were carved from
the center outward and dyed black. The center of the mouth just above the tongue was open. Wearing the mask, the husband could call out to his bride.

  The husband walked the hills in darkness without a weapon. The mask would protect him from all things wild. It was a powerful magic, the most powerful yet created by his people.

  Soon, he heard the scream, and he followed the horrifying echo on narrow paths into the night woods. Wearing the mask, he seemed to see clearly at night. He found his way easily, quietly, until he was near enough. The husband called out his bride’s name. His voice sounded like a screeching owl, or worse. It was not a human sound when he spoke through the mask. The magic was strong.

  Wampus Cat came to him. She circled at a distance, moving from tree to tree until she was behind him. Mountain panthers hunt from behind.

  He called her name again. It was the scream of an animal.

  She answered him. She called softly, trying to speak.

  He turned slowly around, fearful of the half-beast that was now directly behind him. She expected to see the beloved face of her husband and saw the hideous mask instead. In the winter moonlight, through leafless trees to one side of a tall stand of pines, she saw herself instead of his face. Her tail lifted. The muscles in her legs tightened, ready to spring.

  This time when he spoke, he spoke in words.

  “This is you,” he said. “Look at my face. This is you.”

  Wampus Cat stared. She waited. Blood rushed to her head, to her heart, and back again.

  “You are hideous,” he told her. “Look at my face. You are hideous and must leave my people be. You are not one of us. You must leave all Cherokee. This mask is you. This is what we see when we see you. Go! You shall never want us to see you again. You are hideous.”

  Wampus Cat rushed away into the night. She learned the look of the mask, which was now her own appearance. She lived in the woods alone. She moved away from the Cherokee, from all Cherokee, higher into the mountains, where fewer people lived.

  Over the years, she was drawn to farms and homes of settlers. They were not Cherokee. Occasionally, one of them came upon her in the woods. She let them when they did, when their paths crossed. One man with a gun saw her in a tree. He was with a hound. When the man looked up at Wampus Cat, he saw her face. It was hideous. He was frozen to that spot upon seeing her. He could not shoot. He could not flee.

  She hissed at the dog. It tucked tail and ran away.

  Fur flying through air, from lofty perch to forest floor, Wampus Cat was on the man in seconds. She pinned him on his back to the ground. He wanted to scream, urgent to push back up at her, to get her off somehow. It was useless. He was done before he could begin. She covered him and writhed, her claws opening his chest. Her hind legs held him flush against the involuntary thrusts of his hips and legs. Long white panther teeth sliced into his neck and found a warm bath of spurting blood. Wampus Cat devoured him. He was not Cherokee.

  She ate the soft parts first, the organs and appendages. She ate his face. She separated his arms and legs with tooth and razor claw. Wampus Cat ate all of him, leaving behind a small scattering of white slivers of human bone.

  As far as anyone at home knew, the man had walked into the woods one day and never returned.

  Over the decades, Wampus Cat has been seen as far south as the Georgia mountains, as far north as the wooded hills in West Virginia. She has been seen by hikers on the Appalachian Trail, always in the mountains along either side of the rugged border between North Carolina and Tennessee. According to all reports, she is seen from a distance, a walking panther in the mountain woods, a flash of disappearing fur among the trees. When Wampus Cat is seen up close, no one is left alive to report the occurrence.

  In recent years, sightings of Wampus Cat have been reported by the influx of tourists and campers visiting the Smoky Mountains by way of Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Others have reported seeing Wampus Cat close to centers of population. She has even been reported, on rare occasions, haunting the underground tunnels at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

  The college accounts are likely urban myth. The lithe Wampus Cat avoids people, especially in groups. When paths cross in the upland woods, among the mists that rise where streams change into waterfalls, she can’t help herself. It is her nature to eat, just as it is her nature to never die. The woman walks the woods; but when it comes to food, the panther decides.

  Campers, day bikers, and long-distance hikers in the remote reaches of the southern Appalachian Mountains should know that whenever a small scattering of bone is found on the forest floor, it is best not to linger. It is best to keep moving and to keep your head down. Wampus Cat will let you move on as long as you don’t see her face. It is hideous. And it is magic. It will freeze you where you stand.

  A temporary haunt of Wampus Cat is easily identified. The tourist brochures and hiking guides do not warn of this singular hazard. If you plan on camping in the Smoky Mountains overnight, it is best to stay away from any found, or yet unfound, scattering of bone. The next little pile of skeletal remains among the hemlocks in the mountain forest may be your own.

  WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA

  Garden Cat

  When Dr. Hooper Lear met his yellow cat, Cleo, he met a friend for life. And beyond.

  An avid gardener since his retirement from dentistry, Hooper devoted much of his free time to his large front and back gardens in his suburban Williamsburg home. In a few years, his gardens were the pride of the neighborhood. Small weddings from the local Episcopal church were occasionally held in his backyard. The garden arch was covered with fragrant climbing roses throughout the late spring and summer, perpetual bloomers carefully selected and perfectly groomed by Hooper himself.

  Hooper’s back garden was almost an entire acre, with two in-ground water treatments, including a favored koi pond, and winding paths through a wide variety of decorative and blooming plants and shrubs. He was drawn to the koi pond, where he often plotted his day of a morning. The sound of the circulating water from two strategically placed pumps was soothing and tranquil, as was the constantly changing surface of watercress. The colorful koi, spotted black and red and orange and white, balanced like birds in nearly motionless flight within the current.

  Because Hooper had come to gardening late in life, he laid out the design beforehand, careful to leave strolling areas and open spaces large enough for casual use. His wide stone path to the large rose arch provided perfect protection from soil and grass for the swishing hems of bridal gowns. A few of the fuller wedding gowns seemed not to move at all as the brides walked down the aisle, reminding Hooper of the seemingly motionless koi swimming in place against the current of the circulating water.

  Although he hadn’t designed the garden for weddings in particular, Hooper was always delighted when ceremonies were held there. He began to experiment with different bulb plants to provide more dramatic and lasting color throughout the summer. Nearsighted since childhood, the retired dentist always wore glasses. He needed a magnifying glass in addition when studying the catalogs of bulb plants.

  He sat on the stone bench by the koi pond among the irises and laid out his garden in his head. Hooper wanted all the paths lined with bulbs. But his first few plantings were dismal failures. He learned quickly that bulbs, tulip bulbs in particular, had a natural enemy in Williamsburg. Squirrels dug them up when he wasn’t looking, carried them off, and replanted them, burying them as food to be retrieved in winter.

  The replanting was as annoying as the outright theft. Hyacinths and daffodils popped up in spring everywhere but where Hooper had planted them. He learned that squirrels also cut blooming tulips and carried off the flowers. He had no idea why. They didn’t seem to eat them. They just liked taking them, was all.

  He decided on screen. He planted his first several bulbs and laid down heavy screen on the soil to keep the squirrels from digging. Of course, the screen would need to be lifted in spring, and it looked pretty awful there on top of the soil
in winter. It also had to be cut around the perennials, then held in place with stones. It was ugly, but nothing else seemed to work. He’d tried a squirrel feeder or two. Supposedly, feeding the squirrels would distract them from stealing garden plantings. Nope. He just had more squirrels showing up.

  Somehow, when no one was watching, the squirrels got under the screen and dug up his plantings. Sometimes, the bulbs were left strewn about. Perhaps the squirrels just wanted to make sure he wasn’t planting something they actually wanted. He planted the bulbs again, and the squirrels dug them up again.

  Still, Hooper was intent on a major planting of bulbs that autumn. Lilies and daffodils, narcissi and tulips. Especially blue scilla, and the dramatic fritillaria varieties from Turkey. How could he grow a proper garden without fritillaria bells? A garden needed its surprises or it wasn’t really a garden to begin with. He added two allium sparkler varieties to his list in early summer before the tall Asiatic lilies came into monthlong bloom in July.

  Williamsburg was in the perfect climate zone for bulb plants, and he had dreamed these lush additions to his garden for far too long to stay his imagination. It was his garden after all, Hooper decided. It did not belong to the squirrels. He decided he would definitely not have his desires thwarted by marauders. Hooper would just spend more time in the garden and run them off with thrown pebbles and shouts. His wife, Mae, said she would help when she could find the time.

  Dr. Lear drove his SUV to the garden center in Williamsburg to begin his first major planting of bulbs. He was filled with excitement and anticipation. He did not, however, anticipate that this was the day he would meet someone new to his life as a gardener. And new to the life of his garden.

  After careful study, Hooper had concluded that Van Engelen, in Bantam, Connecticut, was the finest source of bulbs in the world. Other local gardeners, including Hooper’s friends who worked at the garden center, agreed.

  Van Engelen sold only in bulk, and the prices were best when fifty or a hundred bulbs of a single variety were ordered. In some instances, such as with the beautiful blue scilla known as Siberian squill, a hundred bulbs was the minimum order allowed. To assure they were receiving the highest quality and largest variety of bulbs available, a few local gardeners had loosely organized a sizable order and would divide the varieties among themselves. Some would trade the bulbs further among gardeners in their neighborhoods and families.