AMayhar - The Conjure

by The Conjure (v1. 0) [lit]

He gasped for breath, clenched his hands, willed himself to wake or at least to look away, but he could not. A log came to the surface, its butt at least ten feet in diameter. It had been generations since such a log was cut down here. This great tree must have fallen before his ancestors came to the swamp country.

  A thin vane thrust itself into the air, dripping slime. The thing was connected to a rod, other vanes, the shape of a helicopter, and all rose together, turning as the swamp turned, only to sink again.

  A face stared out of the muck for a moment, and despite the work of mortal decay, it was recognizable. Nate Farmer, missing no longer, paid a last visit to the open air and sank again. His narrow jaw, crooked teeth, long forehead had been unmistakable. Carlos tried to scream, tried to groan, but he could do neither.

  * * * *

  Now Carlos shrieked at last, this time with a voice rising from his own throat, and he woke to find himself tangled in the sheets, dripping with sweat. He staggered into the bathroom, washed his face, drank bottled water, and took one of his rare sleeping doses. Usually he slept like the dead ... he shook away the thought.

  He turned on the bedside lamp and looked at the clock. Two in the morning. What had caused that dream? Had Nate actually gone down into the sinkhole? And why should he have gone there in the first place?

  Unless ... unless he had learned, somehow, that the chest was there, along with its vital contents. Carlos went into the kitchen and got his notebook from his briefcase.

  Check on Farmer's brother. Has chopper. What were they doing?

  Then he took a sleeping pill and returned to bed. Tomorrow he would learn just what Farmer had been doing there, and that would show him where the merchandise must be.

  * * * *

  This time he sank even more deeply into dream. He was struggling with a tangle of vines that had trapped his feet. As he thrashed, grasping at overhead branches, he found himself at the verge of the quagmire, and before he could accept that as fact, he had toppled into the black mire.

  Head-first, he sank, turned desperately upright, and tried to remember how to survive quicksand. Lie flat—that was it. He stretched his arms wide, raised his feet, and found himself floating on top of the muck.

  He grinned at the patch of stars between the overhanging boughs. The grin froze on his face, as he felt something squirm against his side, slither past his head, touch the side of his face. The place was alive with snakes!

  If he moved, the moccasins would bite him, and he would die. If he didn't move, he would sink into the hole, down there with Nate Farmer and that slimy helicopter.

  A coil wrapped about his ankle and tugged it downward. Another looped about his neck, forcing his head beneath the slick of water. He held his breath as he sank, pulled down by invisible snakes, and as he went he seemed to see faint glimmers of phosphorescence surrounding terrible shapes.

  Snakes were his tremendous phobia. But Carlos was also claustrophobic. The combination of terrors was beyond endurance, and he lost himself in a maelstrom of blackness and fear.

  CHAPTER XXVII. A Job Well Done

  Lena McCarver woke with a grunt. At her feet, Lone raised his head, stretched, and yawned. She sat, easing her aching bones as she moved, and nodded to the cat.

  "Good job, Cat,” she said. “Sending a vision is a lot easier than making a sticky spell, I can tell you.” She groaned upright and washed her face in her cracked china bowl.

  Spluttering, she dried herself, dressed, and went into the kitchen to make strong coffee. “Takes it out of me,” she said. “Cat, I'm just not the woman I was, and that's the plain truth. Now I've got to raise the signal on the tree so King can come get the word. Can't leave that young idiot to die there in his own bed. Drat!"

  She limped to the porch, moved around the house, out her back gate, and climbed the knoll to the great pine tree. The yellow signal flag tried to hang up a couple of times on its way up, but a good glare from Lena loosed it and shot it to the top.

  Then she made her way back to the kitchen, where she fixed a huge breakfast to re-charge her drained energies. She fed Lone two cans of tuna fish, for he was no spring chicken, either.

  Once both had eaten, they sat on the porch, Lone melting into the top step, Lena lying back in the swing, which moved just enough to soothe her mind and settle her temper. They dozed half the morning, until a distant hail woke them.

  Possum Choa was coming down the hill behind the house, walking faster than usual. “You done it? You actually done it?” Behind him Lena could see a small boy, half running to keep up with Choa's longer legs.

  "Glad you brought the boy,” she said. “Set and eat a cookie before you start back. You, boy, you want some water to cool you off?"

  Wim nodded, eyes wide, but he was too intimidated at being in the presence of the old witch to say a word. Lena handed him a bunch of cookies and turned to Choa.

  "He's at his house, out of it, probably for good. I hit him where he hurt most, and his conscience did the rest. Carlos Monteverde isn't likely to do any more mischief for a long time, if ever. You get the word to somebody who can go get him and take him to town before he starves to death."

  Now Wim came to life. “Chief Shipp! I kin cut through the woods west of the swamp and get to Miz Libby's. She'll go to the store and call her nephew. I kin have him out there before the sun goes down."

  She grinned at him. “Good work, boy.” She squinted her eyes. “You ever have any time to work outside the family? I'm getting old, and sometimes I have things I can't do, any more. You come over, in the summertime, and I can keep you busy. Pay you a bit, too."

  Wim began to smile. “You mean it? The other kids could help Mama, if I could make a little bit of cash money. I think I could get her to say yes. You've got a good name with the folks in the Brakes. Miz Libby says you taught her all she knows about medicine plants."

  Choa rose, dusting cookie crumbs from his lap. “Got to go, young Wim. We'll get word to Chief Shipp, Miz Lena. You can rest easy about that."

  They trudged off together, and Lena laughed to see how closely the boy tried to imitate Choa's loose, ground-eating gait. That was a boy to watch ... one to teach. If he'd work for her a bit, she could give him some guidance that might come in handy along the way.

  She sighed. Old Possum wouldn't last forever, nor would King nor would she. It would be a pure pity to leave the swamp country without someone who knew the old ways and could keep an eye on what went on down here. With all the devilment in the world outside, some was bound to spill over into the bottomlands. Needed to be somebody to put spokes in their wheels, once the old crew was gone.

  * * * *

  Wash got a call just before he left his office. His Aunt Libby sounded excited, and he pricked up his ears.

  "Got word from somebody you know, Wash. Says you need to go out to the old Monteverde place, out past Polywash Creek, and check on Carlos. He has a ... problem ... and may need to go to the hospital. You got that clear?” she asked.

  Shipp felt as if he might glow with satisfaction. “She did it, Aunt Libby. The old lady did it! I never quite thought it would work, but by golly she managed it somehow."

  "Don't tell me what, Nephew, ‘cause I don't want to know. But if you mean Miz Lena, she kin do anything she sets her mind to, and don't you never forget that. Now scat!"

  Shipp set down the phone and sat back in the deep chair. He stared at the phone for a moment. Then he punched in the sheriff's office number. “Myra? Is Cole there?"

  There was a click, and Ranse's voice asked, “What kin I do for you, Chief?"

  "You want to take a little jaunt out in the country with me? That project you asked me about the other day—I think it may have come off. You want to find out?"

  There was a grunt at the other end of the line. Then the sheriff said, his tone carefully unexcited, “Might as well. Want to go in my car? I still got a ping in the county one."

  "Pick me up in fifteen minutes,” Shipp told him and stood to put on his j
acket. The day was turning cool, and even in the low country it would be uncomfortable.

  The leaves were brown, now, and the grass had been tanned by the first big frost, last week. Cole drove fast, sometimes using his detachable flasher to get around slow traffic. When they turned off on the farm to market road, then onto the county road, he slowed, and Wash began to look for the obscure track leading to the Monteverde place.

  Fresh tire tracks marked the damp soil. He looked up at Cole, who nodded and turned in, following the drive around the thick growth and onto the gravel patch amid the mown grass. The track they followed led straight into a shed, whose dark interior showed the shape of a car.

  "He's here, all right,” Cole said, drawing his pistol.

  "He's here, but he's not here,” Wash replied. “If my Aunt Libby is right, which she always is, he hasproblems. That means he isn't going to know or care much about what we do. I gave pretty specific suggestions, when I sent word to Miz McCarver, and I understand she's mighty good at doing what's needed."

  He stepped onto the back stoop to find the door unlocked. Even after so many years of living in cities, Carlos evidently still had the country instinct to leave his house open. Out here in the boonies, nobody would dream of bothering a neighbor, and this house was so hidden that fishermen going to the river or the creek would never know it was here.

  Shipp opened the door and went in, to find the house warm, with the smell of food still hanging in the kitchen. He moved up the hall to find the bedroom door open, as well. There he stopped and gestured for Cole to come up beside him.

  "Look!” he murmured.

  They stood together, watching the man on the bed, who was flailing his arms desperately, as if drowning. When Cole stepped up to touch his shoulder, the dark eyes opened and stared up at him.

  "The snakes! Get them away from me! And the quicksand—oh, it's covering my face! Help! Help me!” Those eyes plainly did not see them or the room. Carlos Monteverde was lost in some terrible context that was now his reality.

  Together, the two men got him into his clothing and half carried him, still struggling against his private nightmares, to the car.

  "You think he'll come out of this?” Cole asked.

  "If my auntie is right, he won't—or if he does he'll be too old to make any waves,” the Chief replied.

  "Good,” Cole grunted and started the car.

  CHAPTER XXVIII. Epilogue

  The crickets had gone silent with the passing of autumn. Many birds had migrated south, though the cardinals and jays still showed glints of crimson and blue amid the leafless branches of the forest, as they searched for food. Crows filled the chill air with their raucous calls, and buzzards circled overhead on their constant search for the dead and dying.

  Possum Choa liked every season there was, cold or hot, wet or dry. He particularly liked it when the bottomlands settled into their winter state, quieter than the rest of the year and yet with enough activity to keep him interested.

  Like the squirrels, now buried in their untidy nests and tree-hollows, he had stored up food for the cold months, though he could always wade out and dredge up cattail roots or mussels, if he wanted to. His ground corn, dried fruit and tomatoes, and the wheat flour traded for with some of the farmers along the river, would last him until spring.

  When he wanted meat, he could go possum or coon hunting, or he could find a bunch of pineywoods rooters and add pork to his menu. But he needn't do that if he didn't want to. Flapjacks, honey from the bee tree he had robbed last summer, and nuts gathered beneath the hickories and chinquapin trees would keep an old man fed and healthy for a long time.

  He was sitting on his porch, staring out over the muted shades of the winter swamp. The water was pewter-gray, reflecting the incoming clouds that promised rain soon. The wood beyond combined shades of gray, as well, lit by an occasional bright leaf left over from fall.

  He was thinking about the bump and the cry he had heard, back last summer, and all the strange happenings that had followed them. It was a weird world, after all, and because he had been listening, a bad thing had been stopped in its tracks.

  A soft step brought him to his feet, and he peered along the track beside the water. A small shape waved, and Choa began to chuckle. “So you found me, young Wim. Thought you might,” he said.

  "Oh, I found you a long time ago, Possum Choa,” the boy said. “Just didn't think you could feel you could trust me much, then. Now I think maybe it won't bother you. Anyway, I got some news for you."

  Choa gestured for Wim to sit beside him. He pitched a chip toward the dock, and it clattered on the ancient wood.

  "Got word about that message we taken to Miz Lena? I been wonderin’ about that, how it come out.” Choa looked down at the tow-head close to his shoulder. If his own boy had lived ... but he pushed that thought out of his mind.

  Wim pitched a chip of his own, imitating Choa's movements faithfully. “Yep, Chief Shipp come out yesterday to tell us. Nice of him, I thought. Said Miz Lena fetched some dreams for that man that sent him right over the edge. He's in the crazy-house at Rusk, now. Can't do a thing for hisself.

  "Chief Shipp waited till the doctors had a look at him and said their say before he brought us word. They think he'll be there, wrastlin’ snakes and tryin’ not to drown, as long as he lives. That's a right nasty thought, ain't it?"

  Choa stared at the gray water amid the cat-tail stalks, thinking how it would be to spend eternity trying to push away water moccasins. “Druther be dead,” he said.

  "Me, too,” said Wim Dooley.

  They sat in silence while night came down over the swamp country, and darkness blotted out the dimples as rain began to fall on the water. “Spend the night?” Choa asked. “I kind of thought you might like to do some tale-tellin’ with me, this winter. You seem likely to be a swamp runner like me, and there's things I can teach."

  Wim nodded. “Mama said it was all right. And Chief Shipp said tell you he's mighty glad you did what you did.” He rose to follow Choa into the rickety cabin. “Me, too,” he said. “I hope, time I'm your age, there won't be such mean critters comin’ into the swamp. I'd ruther have snakes and gators, any day of the week."

  Possum closed the door and poked up the smoulder of fire on the hearth. They dropped to sit before the blaze, and Choa thought back to his own father and grandfather.

  "We got a lot of ground to cover,” he began, “so let's get started..."

  THE END

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