The Witchery Way
by
Robert Ferrier
ISBN: 978-0-7443-0151-9
Copyright 2001 by Robert Ferrier
All Rights Reserved
DEDICATION
For Marsha, Kristin, and Rose: wife, daughter, and mother,
who encouraged me to keep trying against all odds.
CHAPTER 1
August
1960
Ish Maytubby leaned against a pine tree at the crest of a hill and sniffed the air. He caught the scent again, a faint acid smell that seemed to come and go. He wiped his brow with a red kerchief, then tied it around his forehead. He imagined it made him look like his ancestors. Some of them might be in the old burial grounds nearby, and he was going to have to walk past them, despite the rumors that it was bad luck to do so.
The sun sank low in the west, casting a yellow hue over the tips of the trees. Down below, he heard a squirrel scurrying through an oak. The draws and hollows were darker now. A quarter mile to the west, the rails of the Choctaw Railroad glinted in the fading light, steel ribbons stretching north toward the Ouachita Mountains of southeast Oklahoma.
He was rested now, but he waited, wondering why he was afraid. At thirty-five, he was still rock hard from working in these hills all his life. He had made his living as a hunting and fishing guide in Senoca, 20 miles southwest. His instincts were honed, but those instincts made him cautious. Perhaps he should have brought the rifle. But if someone surprised him, it would look better if he was unarmed, he reasoned.
He caught the scent again and started walking north, down into the draw. The undergrowth was thick—greenbrier and thorny stay-awhile—and he worked through it slowly. Tonight he would be covered with ticks and chiggers, but for what he was being paid, it would be worth the nuisance. His employer wanted someone who knew these hills, who was not afraid of risks, who ignored rumors and myths. When he was home safely in Senoca, he would open a bottle of Jim Beam and laugh about his fears. Witches didn’t exist. Not in Senoca, Oklahoma.
Living in the white man’s world had taught him that Native American spirits did not turn into wolves and night creatures. The only night creature he might meet here was Old Man Coyote who was everywhere in these parts. Damn trickster, sure, but harmless.
A sudden whoosh sounded. He jerked around, and watched an owl streak up the draw and disappear, its wings flashing in the last rays of sun. Not a good omen, he thought. His Choctaw grandparents had said owls were ghosts returned to earth to seek revenge, to fulfill needs not satisfied in life.
He encountered a small stream and walked 30 yards among the cattails and river cane until he found a fallen tree to use as a bridge. Pausing in the middle, he reached into his jeans and dumped some tobacco into the water. When his ancestors had come to Oklahoma from the east, they had offered tobacco to the water monster in the Mississippi. An offering must be made to him whenever water is crossed. Tonight, Ish would play it safe.
He reached the top of the second hill and looked down at the burial grounds. There were mounds spaced across a flat expanse as if Above Person had created this small flat spot among the hills for his ancestor’s resting place. He hurried down the draw and began walking through the sacred ground, feeling the ghosts. Their spirits were everywhere: a rabbit darting into brush, a strange cloud forming near the moon, a lizard scurrying nearby.
Perhaps they would protect him from the evil in these hills. He could hear their voices, chanting against his greed, his whiskey, his worthless life. He had never earned a guardian spirit. The men of his ancestors had gone on vision quests soon after puberty. They went alone and naked to a remote spot, taking only their pipes and tobacco pouch. There they had fasted and thirsted for four days, praying for mercy and blessing. At some point they would receive their vision: a bird, an animal, a cloud formation. When their vision appeared, they were free to go home. Then the vision would be their guardian spirit for life. Tonight, Ish longed for a guardian spirit. When he had passed the mounds, he breathed a sigh of relief.
The bottom of the draw was covered with trees and brush. He smelled the acid, stronger now. It was darker in these low places, and he had to move carefully into a stand of shoulder-high plants. He stopped and looked closely at the leaves; his employer would get double information for the money. In Iraq, he had survived on knowledge, caution, and instinct—now he must survive again. He looked around. There was no way around this patch. He must go through to the top of the draw, so he could confirm his suspicion about the smell. He moved forward slowly, examining the ground. He wished now for the rifle, even a knife. After several minutes, when he was halfway through the patch, he felt a thin wire with his hand. He followed it with his fingers until he touched the metal cylinder, concealed in a clump of grass. A fragmentation grenade. Backing away, he worked to the right until he passed the trap.
Still, he moved cautiously, praying that the top of the draw would show another way back. Sweat soaked his kerchief, and mosquitoes buzzed and stung him while chiggers started on his ankles. He ignored the itching, and fought the urge to slap the mosquitoes. Sudden movements and noise might get him killed.
He felt his way along the ground with his hands and feet. Seeing the owl earlier had frightened him. His ancestors would have warned him to turn back then, but the money had driven him on. Now it was too late. He felt softness in the ground, and he poked with his fingers. Dirt gave way beneath a cover of grass. Then he heard the buzzing—rattlesnakes in a pit. He tried not to think of what would have happened if he had fallen in. His stomach heaved, but he calmed himself. It took him ten minutes to cover the last 15 yards, and when he reached the incline at the far side, he stopped and rested, staring up at the rising moon and thanking Above Person that he was alive.
Whatever happened next, he would not cross the death patch again. The smell reminded him of his task, and he rolled over and crawled through the undergrowth, working his way up toward the crest of the hill. Sweat rolled into his eyes despite the kerchief, and he itched. His muscles were cramping. Still, he was getting close.
The visions of night creatures described in stories by his grandparents came back to him. Every shadow looked ominous. He knew how to handle trip wires and grass-covered pits, but night myths were another matter. He inched up to the crest of the hill and looked down into the small valley below. As he did so, the acrid smell made his nose wrinkle. He memorized what he saw. After a few seconds he picked out a route to begin the trip back. He could already taste the Jim Beam, feel the sweat bath that would cleanse his body. And there was the money...
Then he saw movement.
Something rose from behind a bush, and Ish felt fear. The skin of a wolf was draped over a larger form, eyes shining in the darkness.
"I didn’t see it," Ish said.
Then he turned and ran back down the hill.
CHAPTER 2
Josh Wade looked at the derailed locomotive and knew he would have to change his summer. Number 907, a diesel painted burgundy with off-white lettering, canted at an angle beside the roadbed. The afternoon sun glinted off the Indian shield logo on the side of the cab, where his father had climbed to check for damage. Josh smelled fuel from the locomotive’s engine, and grain in the freight cars behind it. There were going to be some angry farmers in Arkansas tomorrow, he thought. Their freight deliveries would be delayed.
His father had bought the Choctaw Railroad in March. In the four months since, this railroad had been trouble. Josh felt compassion for his father as he watched him climb down from the cabin and look at the track. Ed Wade’s lean body sagged. He took off his cap and ran his hand over his head—bald and gleaming in the sun. His face showed crags and hollows, like a map. Josh knew his father n
eeded this railroad; it was his life, now that Josh’s mother had died. He had sunk all his savings—including Josh’s college money, after they had talked about it--into the railroad. The Choctaw was a gamble that had to work.
Josh walked toward his father and tried to read his face. "What caused this, Dad?" he asked.
“Bad track. Ninety-pound steel held by cross ties in need of repair. Or bad ballast, maybe. Take your pick," Ed replied as he fingered a loosened spike and pulled it out of the cross tie.
"Still..."he paused. "Joe Buck, the engineer, was only going 25. This shouldn’t have happened."
Josh nodded and walked a few yards up the track. He felt the June sun bearing down, making him sweat through his shirt and jeans. After all that had happened in the last four months, he wondered if there was something more going on here. He knelt and tugged at a spike; it moved. Two of the next five moved also. He pulled one out and put it in his pocket as he looked east across the tracks up into the hills. They were covered with pine, oak, and underbrush, a green blanket rolling up toward the Kiamichi Mountains.
Josh saw Ed talking to Joe Buck, the big Choctaw Native American who was the engineer on this run. Was he as mean as his reputation? Josh wondered. When Ed finished the conversation, Josh walked with him as they inspected the freight cars. Decision time, Josh thought.
"Dad, I want to work on the railroad this summer."
Ed looked at him for a moment, surprised. "You do?"
"Yes.”
"Josh, we only moved back to Senoca four months ago. This is the summer before your senior year in high school. You need to get reacquainted with old friends. Meet some new ones."
“I’ve met Amy," Josh said.
"Amy’s great," Ed agreed. "But you’ve got two-a-day football practice starting in August, and you haven’t even gotten to know your teammates. Call up Sammy Jack Pricer. You knew him."
Josh reached out and touched his father’s arm. "Just hire me as an apprentice."
Ed stared off into the distance.
Josh waited. Over Ed’s shoulder, he could see his own reflection in the shiny paint of the locomotive, and he realized that he was almost as tall as Ed and outweighed him by ten pounds. At five-ten and one-sixty-five, Josh was growing into a man. He had turned seventeen in May. He had his mother’s dark hair and eyes along with her good features. Unfortunately, he had inherited her intrigue with mysteries. That’s why this trouble with the railroad was driving him crazy. Who, or what was causing it, he wondered?
Ed stuck his hands into his back pockets and looked at Josh with eyes that were filled with love and concern. "I’ll have to talk to Joe about it. You would be working directly for him."
"Fine."
"Joe Buck is a hard man. A good man, but hard. It’s his ancestry, I guess. He got nothing easy, and he’ll give no quarter. And I’ll tell him to forget you’re my son. Not that it would matter anyway. Joe treats everybody equal."
"Joe will get me ready for two-a-days.”
Ed smiled. "Okay, I’ll talk to him, but I make no promises yet." He looked at the locomotive. "We’ve got to get this diesel back on the track."
"How will we do it?"
"Bring equipment down from Burlington Northern in Oklahoma City." He slapped Josh on the shoulder and walked away. An hour later, after he had changed into his workout shorts, Josh drove the Chevy pickup down Broadway past the high school and parked in front of the stadium. Ed had told him to meet Joe Buck tomorrow morning at seven-thirty. Josh resolved to win the big Choctaw’s approval.
Josh walked through the stadium gate and smiled when he heard Amy’s stereo. She was in the east end zone practicing her soccer kicks and listening to rock music. He waved at her and she waved back. He kneeled and put on his cleats. He jogged past her on the track and smiled. She smiled back and slammed a kick out to the fifty. He kept jogging. They never started talking until they had practiced, because if they started talking, they didn’t practice.
He reached the other side of the track and looked over at her. Her blonde hair was the color of new corn. It caught the sun in pleasing ways, and never looked quite the same color twice. It was like God wanted to paint her from a different pallet, depending on his mood. Josh had once told Amy’s mother that when she and her husband and God made Amy, they were all having a very good day. Amy’s face was oval, with subtle curves and contours, and her eyes were amber. She had Cupid’s Bow lips and a smile that flashed like neon. She had freckles, which she hated and everyone else loved. She was wearing a Senoca Buffaloes black and gold T-shirt and cut-off blue jeans.
He was sweating now, and he still had three laps to go. Plus ten trips up the stadium steps. Plus the One-Hundred-Yard Pretend TD Sprint. He smiled as he wiped the sweat out of his eyes. That was how he had met her, six weeks ago, he remembered. He had finished the stadium steps and dragged himself down to the east goal line. He had gotten into a linebacker’s stance, imagined an option sweep coming his way, faked a stunt toward the quarterback, and cut for the pitch man. He intercepted the lateral in full stride and ran toward the setting sun. He imagined the crowd screaming, the announcer shouting his name as he crossed the goal with the winning touchdown. It was a linebacker’s dream, and it made the sprint bearable.
And then he had seen her, leaning hipshot against the goal post. She was holding her stereo and smiling at him. "What was that?" she had asked.
He blushed all the way to his toes. He felt like his hair was blushing. "That? Oh that was, uh, just the way I finish."
"But why did you reach out at nothing, back at the start?"
"That wasn’t ‘nothing.’ That was a lateral; I intercepted it...in my mind. Here...” He had smiled and flipped the imaginary ball toward her.
She pretended to catch the ball. At that instant, he knew he had found a friend. He was standing there, sweating like a hog and feeling dumb. But she must have seen something she liked. She flashedthat smile. He finished the laps and stopped to wave at her. She waved back while she bounced the soccer ball on one foot.
"You want to go ahead and talk?" she yelled. "Skip the stadium steps?"
He felt the sweat running down, stinging his eyes. Thirty rows of stadium steps waited for him. Then he thought about those fourth quarters waiting, later in the season.
"I’ve got to run the steps,” he said. “Then we can talk.”
Fifteen minutes later he returned and collapsed at her feet. She knelt over him. He saw the sun rimming her hair, making it a deep gold, and her eyes were smiling at him. Yet, he read something else. A tinge of worry? She opened a thermos, poured a cup of ice water, and held it over him. "You want me to hand it to you? Or, just pour it over your face?"
"Either way. No, just kidding." He sat up and took the cup, drank. She stood up.
"You want to talk here or go over to the bench?”
"Never say ‘bench’ to a rookie."
She tried to tousle his hair, but it was too wet with sweat. "Yech!"
"I know," he said, "and I’ll bet I don’t smell any better than I feel." He managed to stand up.
She smiled. They were standing close. She came up to his chin.
She said, "Just rinse your hands before you rub my back, okay?"
"Okay."
He rinsed his hands under a faucet, and then they went over to the first row of concrete steps. The late afternoon sun cast the stadium in pale light. It was still stifling hot. She offered him a second cup of water.
He smiled gratefully, then drank it. He leaned against the concrete wall and listened to the locusts, feeling good about being next to her. There was a sheen of sweat on her face and arms. The sun caught the fine hairs on the nape of her neck, making them look white. He wondered if Amy noticed little details about him. He hoped she liked what she saw. Because in the last few weeks, he was starting to think of Amy as more than just a friend.
She cleared her throat. He felt alert. That was Amy’s signal for serious talk. She said, "You seem different today, Josh.
"
"Different?"
"You know, different. You didn’t swagger in with your chest out and trying to hold in your gut."
"Thanks."
She said, "I heard about the derailment." She looked out across the field and back at Josh. “What did your Dad say about it?"
Josh shook his head. "He stood there, looking at it. I could tell he was hurting inside. His voice gets a different tone to it." He sighed. "It’s going to cost him. He can’t afford this, with everything that’s happened already."
She sighed and poured herself some water. "That railroad has had bad luck: the accident on the loading dock at Valliant, the cocked switch at Swink, the bridge trestle fire near Wilburton, and now this ... Nothing but bad luck."
"I’m not sure it’s just bad luck, Amy."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean someone may not want the Choctaw Railroad to make it."
She looked at him for a moment, and then was silent.
"It will all work out,” he said.
"I hope so. For you and your dad’s sake."
“I’m going to help it work out, Amy."
"That’s why you look different today."
“I guess so."
"How are you going to help, Josh?"
“I’m going to find out who’s trying to sabotage the Choctaw Railroad."
"Josh, you don’t evenknow if anyone is trying to sabotage the railroad!"
“I can feel it. I felt it today, when I looked at the tie spikes. They had marks on them."
"Well, how are you going to find out what’s happening?"
"By going to work on the railroad this summer."
"What can you do?"
He shrugged. "Nose around. Maybe I’ll spot something."
"Have you told your dad about your vibes?"
"Not yet."
“Why?"
The Witchery Way Page 1