Peyton snorted. “So the preacher is a killer, is that what you’re sayin’?”
Isabel nodded. “He’s in league with the Devil. I saw him myself—the Devil, that is. He came to call on Boggs while I was tied up in there.”
“You saw the Devil, in the flesh?”
Isabel nodded.
“You really expect me to believe that?”
“It’s true. The Devil’s after Ephraim, he wants him as a servant, so he sent Boggs to corrupt Ephraim’s ma. She got Ephraim’s mind all turned around—told him she’d kill herself if he didn’t kill a Yankee.”
Peyton shook his head. “This is the biggest bunch of hogwash I’ve ever heard. I bet Ephraim told you all this. And now I knocked out Clabe before he told me where Ephraim’s goin’ to be tonight.”
With a sigh, he flicked the reins, and the horse started forward again.
Isabel’s heart clenched tight as she thought of Ephraim. She had to find him before he went to Butcher Holler tonight. If he didn’t know she was free, he might sell his soul to save her from Boggs. But where was he?
They rounded a bend in the road, and far up ahead, they could see Isabel’s father’s store. Several men were gathered outside: Ernest Williams, Lester Ewing wearing the hat she’d sold him, Hebe Washburne, and many more. All of them held the reins of their horses. Some also held torches.
“Peyton,” Isabel said, “get us off the road.”
“Isabel, what are you—”
“Just do it!”
Peyton guided the horse off the road into a thicket of trees.
Isabel leaned around Peyton, watching the men at the store. Ernest Williams climbed the stairs to the porch.
“You think they’re after you or somethin’?” Peyton asked. “Because your pa’s been lookin’ all over for you. Everyone reckoned Ephraim forced you to go with him and the witch-woman.”
“Shhh!”
Ernest turned around and addressed the group. “I think you all know what brings us here tonight,” he said, raising his voice above the hubbub. “My Francis still ain’t right after what that old woman done to us in the church. We was expectin’ another young’un, and she says she ain’t felt the baby move since she woke up from that curse. For several years now, many of us have suspected that there’s been a witch among us, and now we know. Well, it’s time to put a stop to the Devil’s work in Sixmile Creek. And I, for one, am ready to do away with Barefoot Nancy. How ’bout you’uns?”
A cheer went up from those gathered around.
“It’s about time somebody did somethin’ about that witch,” Peyton muttered.
Isabel wanted to slap him.
“Well then,” Ernest said, “let’s not waste any time gettin' it done. Who here knows the best way up to her place?”
A hand shot up.
“Hebe, I figured you did. Lead the way.”
The men mounted their horses and wheeled off down the road, heading for Flint Ridge.
Isabel’s throat clenched. The idea of the old granny woman single-handedly facing down a mob of armed men made her blood run cold. She knew she had to intervene, but how could she hope to warn Nancy and find Ephraim in time? She couldn’t get ahead of Ernest’s gang without a horse of her own, and even if she had one, she couldn’t beat them to the Laura and find Ephraim.
She glared at the back of Peyton’s head—then an idea came to her. If I have a horse and Peyton doesn’t…
She took a deep breath and shoved Peyton with all her might.
Peyton yelped in surprise as he fell from the saddle and landed on his back. Isabel leap-frogged into the middle of the saddle, dug her heels into the horse’s flanks, and slapped the reins, urging the horse into a gallop.
Behind her, she heard Peyton’s angry shout. “So this is how you thank me for savin’ your life?” he yelled.
35
The Bear Trap
Ephraim followed the shirt’s directions throughout the afternoon, and kept his eyes peeled for any sign of the hellhound. As the sun sank low, the wind kicked up, howling through the trees. Snow fell thick and fast. In the deepening gloom and the swirling snowflakes, he found it increasingly difficult to maintain his bearings.
He pulled the shirt out of his bag and held it out in front of him. He didn’t dare hang it from a branch in wind like this. “Am I goin’ the right way?” he yelled over the wind.
The shirt flapped one way then the other. In this wind, it was impossible to tell which of its movements were its own.
Ephraim stuffed it back in his bag and pressed on, trying to hold to the course he’d been taking.
But the weather only worsened, and he was soon surrounded by an incomprehensible blur of half-seen trees and billowing white. At this rate, he wasn’t sure he’d spot the hellhound if it walked right in front of him. The search was hopeless.
At last he slumped against a tree, defeated. This was it. Night had fallen, and in a few hours he’d be a haint. He felt his heart pounding, pumping the poison through his veins. He watched his breath ghost out of him and fade away on the winter wind.
And then, through the blizzard, Ephraim caught the faint gleam of a lantern. It blinked out, then reappeared a few moments later, closer. And this time it illuminated the outline of a figure bowed against the storm.
The sight of another human being brought Ephraim a feeling of warmth. He threw caution to the wind. “Hello there!”
The figure stopped and turned sharply to face Ephraim. “Ephraim? Is that you?”
The figure approached, and in the lantern light Ephraim made out the bearded face of Manson Owens.
“You got your gun with you, son?”
“I do. Manson, what’s—”
The blacksmith didn’t wait for Ephraim to finish. “I was out checkin’ some of the traps I set for that bear. And I’ve got a critter caught in one the likes of which I’ve never seen. I reckon it’s that devil-dog you’re after. I shot at it, emptied my rifle, but the crazy thing didn’t even flinch. It looked at me and—”
Now it was Ephraim’s turn to cut off the old man. “Manson, just take me to it.”
The trap was near the edge of Manson’s cornfield. As they drew near, both men slowed their pace and took care to muffle each step—caution born of habit and instinct.
Manson pointed across the open ground to a dark form hunched low. No sooner did Ephraim spot the hellhound than it emitted a low growl. It rose, accompanied by the clanking of an iron chain, and its red eyes fixed on Ephraim. Its lips curled back, baring fangs that dripped with black drool.
The hound tried to lurch toward the men, but one foot was weighed down by a massive trap. Manson and Ephraim approached until they were only a few feet from the snarling beast.
Ephraim raised Ruination to his shoulder and sighted down the barrel. The hound slunk away from him as if it could smell the iron ball inside waiting to pierce its heart. A cold wind blew across the field, a cloud shifted in the sky, and suddenly the hound was bathed in a halo of pale moonlight. Ephraim could see the creature clearer than he ever had before: it was the hidebound skeleton of a bear hound, its oversized eyes glowing with an inner fire.
“Good Lord protect us!” Manson said. “That thing looks like it’s got the hydrophoby!”
Ephraim shifted his face away from the gun. The hellhound’s back was crisscrossed with a network of scars and wounds. Some were open and oozing dark blood.
Something deep within Ephraim stirred. He lowered the musket.
“I know you used to just be a dog,” he said.
The hellhound snarled and shifted. The chain clanked.
“Boggs buried you, didn’t he? He turned you into a hellhound.”
The red eyes regarded Ephraim with a cold intelligence. The hound whined and lowered its head to lick its wounded leg.
“He whipped you.” Memories boiled in Ephraim’s mind. His mother handing him the pistol. A mug of foxglove tea. The flash of a pistol discharging.
He dropped
the musket to the ground and crouched down until he was level with the hound’s face. “I can’t kill you.” A tear trailed down his cheek. “I’m goin’ to turn you loose. If that means I’ll be a haint, so be it. I ain’t killin’ another thing that don’t deserve it just to make my miserable life longer.”
He took a step toward the beast.
“Ephraim, have you lost your ever-lovin’ mind?” Mason looked at him in utter bewilderment. “Why’d you have me make them iron balls for you? Shoot it!”
The hellhound growled. Its ears flattened.
“Manson, I’m not going to kill it. It doesn’t deserve to die any more than Silas did.” Ephraim took another step forward.
The hound didn’t move.
“Hold on now! You fixin’ to turn that thing loose?”
Ephraim nodded.
“Then you give me that gun, and I’ll shoot it when it tries to tear you to ribbons.”
Ephraim looked down at Ruination.
“For cryin’ out loud, boy! If you’re set on savin’ this crazy thing, at least give a gun to an old man so he can protect hisself!”
Ephraim handed the musket to Manson, then took a deep breath and turned back to the hellhound.
Gingerly, Ephraim reached forward and took hold of the entrapped leg. The muscles beneath the dark fur were taut and quivering. Ephraim placed his foot on the spring and leaned his weight onto it. The spring depressed, and the jaws of the trap loosened. Ephraim pulled the jaws open, removing the teeth from the hellhound’s flesh.
With a snarl, the hound lunged at Ephraim, jaws open wide.
Manson yelled, and the roar of Ruination’s barrel shook the night.
Ephraim heard the iron ball whistle overhead, flying into the trees. In his panic, the old blacksmith had missed by at least five feet.
The hellhound lowered its head to the ground, cowering. It looked from Ephraim to Manson. Slowly it straightened up, its wounded paw held close to its body.
Ephraim held stock still, barely breathing. The red-eyed beast gazed at him as if deciding its next course of action. And suddenly, a feeling of calm washed over Ephraim. He felt peace, relief at having finally made his decision. He had not killed this poor animal. The poison in his veins was finishing its work, and he would pass into the spirit world, but not with more blood on his hands.
The hellhound took a limping step forward. Its nose was level with Ephraim’s face, and it took a tentative sniff. The hound’s hot breath washed over Ephraim, thick with the scent of decay. The hound sniffed again, moving to Ephraim’s left shoulder. Inch by inch it explored the length of his arm, snuffling in short, powerful bursts. The dog honed in on Ephraim’s forearm, the place it had bitten him. It nuzzled the area and began to lick it.
“You want to see what you did to me?” Ephraim shrugged off his jacket and rolled up his sleeve. In the moonlight he could see the dark wounds where the teeth had punctured his skin. They weren’t red or swollen, but cold and sunken—not infection, but creeping death.
The hound licked the wounds, leaving traces of black saliva on Ephraim’s skin.
“I can’t watch this!” Manson said. Ephraim heard the scrape of the ramrod as the old man seated another load.
The hound raised its wounded foot and pawed at Ephraim’s arm. Ephraim lowered it.
The hound licked the gashes on its own leg, then nuzzled Ephraim’s arm. It repeated the process again, then yet again. Curious, Ephraim looked closer. He saw that the hound was leaving bloody nose prints around the wounds on his arm—and that the areas where the blood touched were growing pink and warm, losing the gray, lifeless tone. Warmth blossomed beneath his skin.
Ephraim was amazed. Hope surged through him. He reached down and rubbed his hand on the hound’s trap-wound. His hand came away sticky and wet. He rubbed the blood all over his forearm.
The wounds healed instantaneously.
Ephraim looked deep into the red eyes of the hellhound. His cheeks were wet. “Thank you,” he whispered.
The hound licked its chops and stood, favoring the wounded limb. It turned and limped off into the woods.
“What was that all about?” Manson removed his hands from his eyes and watched the hound go, slack-jawed.
“I wish I had time to tell you,” Ephraim said, getting to his feet. “But I need to get to Butcher Holler before midnight.” He took Ruination from the old man’s trembling hands.
36
A Thing So Old
Riding a horse over Flint Ridge was no easy task. The trail that left the main road was narrow, and hard to follow in the blizzard. Its only regular travelers had been Nancy and Earl.
Isabel gritted her teeth. She wanted to goad Peyton’s horse into an all-out gallop, but she knew that to do so was folly. Her only consolation was the knowledge that the men ahead of her couldn’t be moving much faster.
She lost the trail in the snowstorm several times, but knew she was close when she heard whoops echoing down the slope.
Oh no. I’m too late.
She sank her heels into her horse’s flanks, but it was still a few minutes before she arrived at Nancy’s home. Or what had once been her home.
The Laura was burning, sending tongues of fire up into the night sky. The snow, melted by the heat of the blaze, fell from the Laura in a halo of steaming rain. Men rode around the burning sycamore, whooping. A board had been nailed across the door, barring it shut—and no doubt trapping Nancy inside. Earl lay dead near the tree’s base.
Isabel leaped from the saddle and ran forward. The heat hit her face like something solid. But before she could reach the door, it exploded outward, throwing burning splinters. Nancy emerged from the blaze, a being made of smoke and ash. Her face and hair were black with soot.
Ernest Williams and several of the other men drew pistols and rifles. The air filled with gunshots.
Nancy stumbled back, step after step, her body taking the force of each bullet, puffs of ash dusting off her. She stopped and doubled over. The men quit firing. With horror and disgust, Isabel recognized the eagerness on Ernest’s face. He wanted to see the damage they had done to the old woman.
“Ye all have been callin’ me a witch ever since that preacher come ’round.” Nancy’s voice carried across the hollow even though she was bent over, her hair obscuring her face. “And yet every one of ye knows that I have delivered your babes, I’ve tended to ye all in sickness, and I’ve done it all for a ham hock here, a string of beans there, sometimes nothin’ at all. But that weren’t enough for ye. This town wants a witch.”
Nancy straightened. Isabel hardly recognized her face. Her left eye blazed sulfur yellow and blood red. She raised her hands over her head, mirroring the pose of the sycamore burning behind her. The flames in the tree whooshed higher into the night in a towering column of flame.
“Well, ye done got yourselves a witch!” She brought her hands down toward the men, and the column of fire roared forward, engulfing them.
Shrieks and the scent of burning hair and flesh filled the air. Isabel was farther away than any of the men, yet still had to throw herself to the ground as the wave of broiling heat washed over her. Ernest Williams rode out of the flames frantically beating at his shirt and his horse’s tail, both of which smoldered.
Nancy launched herself into the air and collided with him, knocking him out of the saddle. She landed on his chest. Cackling, she plunged her hand through his ribs and tore out his heart.
Isabel averted her eyes as Nancy dispatched the other men who’d survived the flames. She was terrified, and at the same time it seemed wrong to abandon Nancy in this, the darkest hour of the old woman’s life.
Only when the clearing grew silent, except for the crackle of flames, did Isabel turn back to face the scene. Nancy was standing still, watching her. Isabel held her breath, not daring to speak.
The granny woman took a few steps forward. Her shoulders sagged, and the light blazing in her left eye dimmed. Patches of the old woman’s skin and hair
had been burned away. Ash and blood—her own, and that of her victims—covered her hands and arms.
A tear fell from Nancy’s normal eye, cutting a furrow in the soot that coated her face. “I came to Sixmile Creek to help folks, not hurt ’em,” she said, her voice a dry rasp.
A lump rose in Isabel’s throat. “But that doesn’t mean you have to let them kill you,” she said.
“I know that.” Nancy turned around and spread her arms, encompassing the carnage and ruin strewn about the clearing. “But this ain’t just me protecting myself. It’s more’n that. Much more.”
Isabel didn’t know what to say. The old woman’s honest admission was undeniable. At least seven families in Sixmile Creek were now fatherless, maybe more. She didn’t know if any of the men had escaped Nancy’s wrath.
“I wasn’t made for witchery, Miss Isabel. But I’m afraid that’s all I’m good for now,” Nancy said. “I cain’t stay here no more. I ain’t fit to be near folks.”
Tears welled up in Isabel’s eyes and flowed onto her cheeks. She ran to Nancy and wrapped the old woman in a hug. “Where will you go?”
Nancy closed her eyes and almost smiled. She looked like she was soaking up the kindness, filling a canteen before a journey through a desolate land. “There’s a place I know, way up in the mountains. I seen it once when I was younger. I don’t reckon folks have made it out that far.” Her gaze traveled down the Laura from crown to base. The snow around the old tree had receded, leaving behind a steaming ring of damp earth. “It’s a shame, ain’t it? Seein’ a thing so old go up in flames.”
They stood in silence for a moment.
“Go on now,” Nancy said, not taking her eyes off the burning tree. “Ephraim will have need of ye.”
Fortunately, Peyton’s horse hadn’t strayed far. Isabel climbed back in the saddle and pulled on the reins, wheeling it around. She had lost one friend this night, but there still might be time to save another.
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