“Fine,” he said. “I’ll go and get the money. I’ll give you half now, and half once I’ve got Cutler.”
Isabel’s heart fell. Peyton was leaving her.
She peered down through the broken glass. Clabe and Peyton were shaking hands. As she watched, Peyton glanced in her direction, and for an instant, their eyes met. Isabel shook her head in warning. Please, don’t let Clabe know you saw me. She willed Peyton to hear her thoughts. She feared Clabe would shoot Peyton if he got any more curious.
Peyton blinked and turned back to Clabe, his expression unchanged.
“Should I meet you back here?”
32
Ol’ Reelfoot
Hunger burned in Sampson’s belly. He’d scrounged a few mice and other rodents in the winter woods, morsels just large enough to whet his appetite. He’d even circled back to the graveyard on the off chance that his master had dropped anything edible there. He’d found nothing. Now Sampson padded through the snowy woodlands, a predator too large to be sustained by the available prey. The pain in his gut grew. Hunger overwhelmed him. He wandered aimlessly, crossing over paths he had already taken.
Fevered thoughts of cornbread, gravy, and raw meat danced through his mind. When he slept, he dreamed of the boy he’d failed to catch, the scorching odor of his trail. His world had become a jumble of instincts—domesticated, feral, and supernatural. He lay in the snow, conquered by the pangs in his shriveling stomach. He closed his eyes and wished for sleep.
The wind carried a scent to him—metallic, rich, and sharp in the cold air. Without opening his eyes, he lifted his nose. The scent was no dream. Blood. And judging by the strength of the smell, lots of it. Saliva pooled in Sampson’s mouth, and in his gut, digestive juices gurgled in anticipation.
The wind was blowing up from lower in the valley, close to the settlement where the people lived. He rose and trotted toward it, his nose leading him to the slaughter.
Sampson emerged from the woods at the edge of a cornfield where a few stray stalks still stood, dry, brittle and iced with snow. He skirted the field and found the source of the scent: a gut pile, left over from the butchering of a hog. He ran for it eagerly, raising his tail as high as it would go.
The moment he set foot in the gut pile, he felt and heard a bone-crunching snap. Excruciating pain lanced up his leg. He leaped back with a yelp, then yelped again as his movement was cut short by a vicious yank. An iron contraption was fastened firmly to his leg. Its sharp, triangular teeth pierced his flesh, and the pressure the trap exerted was unbearable. Sampson snapped at the trap, shook his leg, and howled in pain, but the trap showed no signs of loosening.
Exhaustion set in within minutes. Weakened by both hunger and pain, Sampson crouched miserably in the snow.
He sensed movement along the tree line. A massive bear lumbered out of the shelter of the trees. The brute shuffled past Sampson without a single glance. Warily, it investigated the gut pile, taking care to step over several other traps obscured along its periphery. The bear lowered its snout into the mound of entrails and began to feast, smacking noisily.
Sampson licked his chops and whined.
33
Cut Off Day
It took Ephraim most of the day to reach the place where he had last seen the hellhound. In the waning light he combed the area, sweeping away snow from the creek bank until he located faint tracks in the frozen mud. Finding them beneath the snow was quite a feat in itself, unlike anything Ephraim had ever accomplished in all his days of hunting—yet it did him little good. He now knew what the creature’s footprints looked like, but he could see that it hadn’t revisited this place since it had pursued him, which meant he was no closer to finding it. As he kindled a fire against the encroaching dark, the woods had never seemed vaster.
The wound in his forearm pulsed along with his heart. He could feel the poison tingling in his veins like needles of ice, growing stronger by the hour, inching toward his heart. One day left, he thought.
An odd resignation filled him. Maybe it won’t be so bad, he thought. Perhaps the slip into the spirit world would be peaceful.
He lay back and looked at the starry heavens above. He wondered if he would still appreciate their beauty as a haint.
The next thing Ephraim knew, the sun was rising. He sat up stiffly and poked at the coals in his fire. There was nothing strange about the day, but the knowledge that this was the Cut Off Day—the last day he had to either kill the hellhound or die—gave every passing second the weight of a dying breath. He rose and shouldered Ruination. He had nothing to begin his search with, but he decided to start working in circles out from this place where he’d last seen the hound.
By midmorning, he was only halfheartedly searching for tracks. He hadn’t come across anything in his circling, and the farther he searched, the less hope he had. At a loss, he decided to revisit the Hurricane Timber, the place the hellhound had found him.
He set off for it, running through the woods, wading through snowdrifts with Ruination held high. The sun was overhead when he came to the clear-cut. The ground was treacherous beneath the snow. Gnarled roots and holes waited to snag a careless foot. Ephraim worked his way to the lone standing tree where he and the Fletchers had taken shelter during the storm. It seemed like a lifetime ago now. He didn’t venture too close to the base of the tree. A snow-covered mound beneath it looked suspiciously like Frank’s remains. He searched along the path he had taken when he’d run from the hound.
But there were no tracks in the snow.
Ephraim had hoped the hellhound might have returned here—the same way deer often traveled on familiar trails, or perhaps because some unearthly magic caused it to haunt this forsaken region. Those hopes, he could see now, had been unfounded.
His heart sank.
He didn’t even bother to scrape the snow from around the grave. Even if he found tracks in the dirt, it’d be impossible to follow a trail beneath the snow. He leaned Ruination against a fallen tree, sat down next to it, and sighed.
Ephraim reached into his leather bag and pulled out the almanack. He studied the section about hellhounds again, hoping he’d overlooked some useful information that might help him track the animal, but found nothing. With a sigh, he pushed the book back into the bag.
His fingers met the rough wool fabric of the shirt Nancy had given him. He pulled it out of the bag and held it up, remembering how Nancy had spoken to it, discerning messages in its answering movements. An idea struck him.
I wonder if this thing knows where the hellhound is.
A sapling stood nearby, a child of one of the storm-felled giants. Ephraim walked over to it, hooked the neck of the shirt over two twigs that projected from a forked limb, then stepped back.
The shirt dangled lifelessly.
Ephraim cleared his throat. “Where is the hellhound?”
He waited, studying the shirt.
Nothing happened.
Ephraim lifted his hat and scratched his head. This was a pointless endeavor; he wasn’t cunning-folk like Nancy. Maybe there was a spell or something that had to be cast to bring the shirt to life. Still, he had no other options. And why would Nancy have given him something he couldn’t use?
Ephraim thought for a moment. Nancy had knelt when she’d spoken with the shirt.
He lowered himself to his knees. The snowy ground was cold through his pants. He looked up at the shirt. It bobbed gently on the branches. Had a slight breeze disturbed it, or was it trying to encourage him?
Ephraim took a deep breath. “Where is the hellhound?”
The bobbing subsided, and the shirt hung still again.
Ephraim sighed. This wasn’t going anywhere. He stood up and turned his back on the shirt. As he looked over the snowy woodlands, he was struck by the thought that his last hours would be best served by forgetting this fruitless search. Yes, that was the best course of action. No more worry, no more struggle.
He turned to retrieve the shirt.
&nb
sp; Its arms were folded.
Ephraim’s breath stalled.
The arms of the shirt slid free of each other and dangled limply at its sides. But for a moment it had looked… well, cross, like a mother scolding her child. The message was clear: Ephraim was doing something wrong.
He racked his brain. Nancy had knelt in front of the shirt, but what had she said? He closed his eyes. He didn’t remember her exact words, but it had seemed like she was talking to another person. He swallowed, realizing his mistake.
“I’m sorry. Let me start over.” Ephraim knelt and removed his hat. “My name’s Ephraim; I’m a friend of Nancy’s. You may have seen me up at the Laura, that is, uh, if you can see.” He hoped the shirt wasn’t offended by that. How sensitive was this thing?
The shirt didn’t move.
Ephraim continued. “So here’s the thing. I’ve been bitten by a hellhound, and if I can’t find it by the time the moon sets tonight, I’m goin’ to turn into a haint. I don’t know if you care about any of that, but Nancy does. She turned herself into a witch just to save me. In fact, that’s why she gave me you. So if you could help me, I’d really appreciate it, and I’m sure she would too.”
The shirt stirred. Its movements were subtle at first, but grew slowly. It fluttered in intricate patterns for a few seconds, then fell still again.
Ephraim had no idea how to decipher the shirt’s language, but he was making progress. His heart hammered with excitement.
“I didn’t mean to sound all demandin’,” he said. “This is the first time I ever talked to a shirt.”
One arm of the shirt rose, moved in a circle, and dropped.
“Does that mean you forgive me?”
The shirt repeated the gesture. It seemed to Ephraim like an affirmative.
“So, about that hellhound…”
A breeze pushed through the trees. Both arms of the shirt lifted upward and drifted to one side, fluttering like twin flags. The direction was unmistakable.
Ephraim needed to go southeast.
34
Horse Thief
As soon as Peyton had left, Clabe returned to the parsonage. He slammed the door behind him.
“I thought I done told you I’d knock you silly if you tried to get away!”
He strode across the floor and dealt Isabel a backhand to the face that flipped the chair onto its side. Isabel gasped as the air was forced from her lungs.
Clabe stood over her, glaring. “We’ll see if you try somethin’ like that again!” He hauled her roughly back into an upright position.
Fresh tears mixed with the blood from Isabel’s cut forehead, dampening her disheveled hair and the cloth of her gag.
Clabe leveled a finger at her. “I’m going back out to wait on my money. I don’t want to hear a peep from you while I’m out there. If I do, that slap I gave you will feel like a granny did it compared to what I’ll give you next.” He stormed out.
It wasn’t long before Isabel heard Peyton’s voice again. “I got your hundred, Clabe,” he said.
“Give it here then.”
“I brought somethin’ else for you too.”
Isabel heard the sound of a fist striking flesh, and Clabe bellowed in pain. A scuffle ensued, both men grunting. Peyton cried out. A series of sickening thuds followed—one man raining blows on the other.
Then silence.
Labored footsteps ascended the stairs to the front door. Isabel held her breath. A key scraped in the lock, the knob turned, and the door creaked open, letting in a gust of snowy air. A tangle of limbs, boots, and bloody faces stood in the doorway.
Isabel recoiled, then realized what she was looking at. Peyton stepped inside and tossed Clabe’s limp form from his shoulders onto the floor.
He pulled a knife from his belt and rushed to Isabel’s side. His hands shook as he untied her gag and cut the cords that bound her wrists and feet.
Isabel began to sob. She embraced Peyton in a hug.
He stiffened, then tentatively patted her on the back. “It’s all right,” he said. “You’re free now.”
She released him and stepped past him, moving around the table to where Clabe lay. She gripped the back of a chair in one hand and raised her foot, then brought it down on Clabe’s gut. She stomped again and again until she was out of breath, then turned. Peyton was standing dumbfounded by the chair she’d been tied to.
“Did you kill him?” she asked.
“I laid him out,” Peyton said, moving to stand beside her. “But you just might’ve finished him off.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at Isabel’s forehead.
“Don’t worry about that,” Isabel said. “You need it more than I do. Your face is all bloody. So are your knuckles.”
Peyton smiled. “Let me clean you up. Truth be told, I don’t care for the sight of other folk’s blood.”
Isabel snorted. “I don’t see you cleaning Clabe’s face, and it’s a bloody mess.” She closed her eyes and let Peyton finish wiping her forehead.
“Yeah, well I guess I didn’t look at him too hard then,” Peyton said. “He wasn’t too pretty to begin with, either. Why was he keepin’ you up here anyhow?”
Isabel opened her mouth, then paused, remembering Peyton’s quest for justice.
“And why’d you run off with Ephraim in the graveyard?”
Isabel swallowed. “Let’s get out of here,” she said, “and then I’ll tell you.”
They tied Clabe up and locked him in the cellar before leaving.
Peyton’s horse stood down the hill, head bowed against the snow. Peyton helped Isabel onto the saddle, then climbed up in front of her. She wrapped her arms around him as they rode toward her father’s store.
“You goin’ to tell me now?” Peyton asked over the wind.
“I was helping Ephraim,” Isabel said. “He doesn’t deserve to die.”
Peyton yanked back on the reins, bringing his horse to a stop. “You were helpin’ him?”
“Listen, Peyton, there’s a lot more going on here than you realize.”
“Maybe I should have left you with Clabe Fletcher!”
Isabel clamped her mouth shut and let go of Peyton. “Say that again, Peyton Henson, and I won’t speak another word to you!”
“Fine. What else is goin’ on then?” Peyton looked over his shoulder at her.
“Reverend Boggs is responsible for Ephraim killing your brother.”
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.
Some Dark Holler (The Redemption of Ephraim Cutler Book 1) Page 21