Now each person who entered the village was suspect—for if the monster could fool the wife of one of their warriors, who else might she fool? The medicine man was busy day and night performing the magic to confirm all the villagers going about their daily tasks were not Spearfinger in disguise. Even then, men eyed their wives in suspicion and kept spears close at hand, and wives refused to leave children alone with their fathers.
The next morning, two men were sent to set fire to the underbrush in the local chestnut grove so the tribe would have easy access to the trees during the harvest. A short task that should have taken a single morning. Yet hour after hour passed, and there was no sign of the warriors’ return. Finally, a party of men was sent to look for them. The bodies of the men were found a few hundred yards into the grove with their hearts crushed and their livers removed. Word of the double murder spread like wildfire through the village. Panicking people raced to the lodge of their chief to demand protection from the monster.
Frightened and enraged by the monster who had killed his only child and terrorized his village, the chief called a council of his wisest men and demanded a solution. How could they rid themselves of Spearfinger? Many ideas were discussed and discarded before the medicine man proposed that they dig a pit and trap the creature inside. Perhaps then they might examine her close at hand and discover if there was a fatal weakness beneath her skin of stone. No one had a better solution, and so they decided to follow the medicine man’s plan.
Under cover of darkness, a large pit was dug on the path outside the village. The next morning, the warriors gathered on either side of the path, hidden among the brush, and a fire was set once again in the chestnut grove. Lured by the cover of the smoke and the promise of fresh liver, Spearfinger came down from the mountain at speed, hoping to surprise the warriors burning the brush as she had done the previous day. She slowed when she reached the path to the village and took on her usual disguise of an old woman, hoping to ease the fears of her victims.
As she came hobbling toward the village through the smoke, the warriors gazed at one another in bewilderment. Surely this harmless-looking old woman could not be the fiercesome monster they had come to trap. But the medicine man looked on implacably as she drew near. One of the young men suddenly leapt to his feet, crying: “Grandmother! It is my grandmother returned to me from the dead!” But the medicine man caught him by the arm and bade him wait and watch.
Quite suddenly, the old woman gave a sharp cry of surprise and plummeted into the pit dug by the warriors in the night. Immediately, the startled cry turned into an ear-shattering howl of rage as Spearfinger realized she had been tricked. The warriors sprang out from both sides of the path and surrounded the pit, arrows knocked. Below them, a stone-skinned monstrosity with foul locks and a withered brown face leapt about the pit, roaring in anger. Then she reached her sharp stone finger right into the dirt and flicked out a huge rock, which she tossed onto the floor of the pit, followed swiftly by another and then another. She was going to build her way out of the pit! The chief gave the order to fire, and the warriors shot their arrows again and again at the creature, only to see them bounce off her stone skin. Spearfinger ignored the humans at the top of the pit and brushed occasionally at the arrows as if they were no more than bothersome gnats. She kept pulling out stones and piling them up into a ramp.
“Poles, spears!” the chief cried when it became obvious that the creature would soon be high enough to climb out of the pit. Several tribesmen ran into the grove and hacked down long branches to use as poles, while others fetched their spears. They thrust at the monster this way and that, harrying her and pushing her off the ramp again and again. She gnashed her sharp brown teeth at them and parried their blows with her sharp stone finger, cutting off a few spear tips and nearly decapitating a warrior who leaned too close.
“Pray,” the chief ordered his medicine man. “Pray to all the gods for help. If this monster gets out of the pit, we are all dead!”
So the medicine man began chanting a prayer, begging the gods to save them from the monster with her spear finger and her lust for blood.
At that moment, a tiny titmouse, still radiant with the glow of heaven, came flying into the midst of the mighty battle, crying “Un un un,” the closest it could come to saying “u’na hu,” which means heart. The medicine man gasped: “The heart! Aim for the monster’s heart!” Immediately the warriors notched their arrows and shot the creature in the chest again and again, while others pummeled her with their spears. The monster just laughed at them and climbed further up the ramp, taking a swipe at a warrior with her spear finger and cutting off his foot.
The warrior fell to the ground and crawled away in an agony of pain. Seeing the glowing titmouse in the brush beside the path, he grabbed it, crying: “Lying creature! See what your lies have caused!” And he cut out part of its tongue. But the titmouse struggled and pecked until he let it go, whereupon it returned to the heavens with only half of its tongue.
“Peace, my brother,” said the medicine man as he tended to the terrible wound. “The titmouse was right. We must find the creature’s heart to kill it. It just didn’t know how to tell us where its heart is.”
SPEARFINGER
As he spoke, a lovely, glowing chickadee swept down from the heavens and perched for a moment on Spearfinger’s hand, beside the stone finger she used as a knife.
“There,” the medicine man cried, understanding the second bird’s message. “Aim for the hand! The heart is in the hand!”
Spearfinger gave a horrible cry when she heard the medicine man’s words. She took a swipe at the chickadee, which flew gracefully away. For a moment her palm was exposed, and the men could plainly see the pulsing heart in its center. The chief took aim and sent an arrow right through the creature’s heart in memory of his doe-eyed daughter who was killed for her liver. Spearfinger gave a wail that froze the tribesmen’s spines and made their knees shake as she landed among the broken spears and arrows at the bottom of the pit. She twitched several times and then died, her spear finger still waving above her grotesque form. All at once, the monster’s dead body turned into a hazy, foul-smelling smoke that whirled around and around like a twister before exploding upward, high into the sky, where it disbursed in the late summer wind. And that was the end of Spearfinger.
24
Lost and Found
ABILENE
I spent the whole morning looking for Henry, my dead wife Cora’s little lapdog. He was such a tiny, yappy little furball that folks looked at me strange whenever they saw us together. I was a tall, bulky, craggy-faced, retired Texas Ranger with eyebrows so bushy and fierce that they met over my nose when I frowned. Add to that a taciturn nature and the no-nonsense reputation I’d earned over the years, and you’ve got an old man the kids didn’t dare cross and their parents treated with respect, if not downright awe. It helped that I also had a reputation for outriding and outwitting the Comanches and bringing in the most dangerous desperados in Texas. No one messed with me.
But that’s why folks in Abilene found it strange that such a tough guy owned a lapdog. Henry was a little spaniel that my late wife Cora had gotten from a friend of hers who was breeding spaniels. Henry was all long ears, square muzzle, and silky gold coat. He had a pleasing personality, and—truth to tell—he was a pretty good bird dog. But all my life I had preferred bloodhounds (great hulking dogs, good for hunting down desperados), and I found it a bit humiliating that the only dog I owned now was a little pipsqueak like Henry. But Cora had adored him, and anything my dead wife loved was sacrosanct as far as I was concerned.
It had not been a good week for me. I was baching it since Cora passed—which I didn’t mind too much, after spending so many years alone on the frontier trails of Texas. And Henry was company of a sort. But I minded terrible that I’d somehow lost Cora’s wedding ring. I always wore it on a chain around my neck, but the chain must have broken, because I noticed when I was washing up Tuesday morning that it
was gone. I looked through the whole house, but didn’t find so much as a trace. And since I didn’t know when the chain had broken, I had no idea where to search. If I’d lost it in the yard or the barn or on the way into town, it was probably gone for good. I really hated that. And now Henry was gone, too. I somehow felt as if I were losing Cora all over again, what with her two most beloved possessions going missing in one week.
Henry had rushed into the back field yesterday morning, as I went to feed the horses, and had quickly disappeared from view in the tall grass, although I heard him happily yapping to himself for several minutes. He often spent the morning outside, and I didn’t worry when I didn’t see him at lunchtime. By dinnertime, I was concerned and spent some time calling for him, but he didn’t come home. I quite expected to find a weary and apologetic spaniel on my doorstep this morning, but Henry wasn’t there. That’s when I grew really worried. I saddled up my horse and rode in concentric circles around my property and then further and further out, calling and whistling and searching the brush and mesquite and oak groves for a little gold body. Nothing.
Then I went home, hoping Henry would be lying on the porch waiting for me. No dog. Finally, I washed up and headed into town. There was some sort of big event happening in town this evening. A family named Shrum was passing through Abilene with their famous children—both of whom, it was said, could read or see things from the past and describe things many miles away. Everyone in town was turning out for the event. I thought it was a lot of nonsense myself, but I went anyway, because it beat sitting alone at home hoping against hope that a coyote or a panther hadn’t killed Cora’s little dog, and with him my last physical link to my wife.
The meeting house was jammed with people by the time I arrived. I hitched my horse, Old Blue, to the post and went inside. Standing room only. I leaned up against the back wall, and a couple of the fellows from town twitched uneasily and moved a step away. I wondered why the presence of a retired Texas Ranger made them nervous, but I didn’t ask. The schoolteacher was rapping a gavel on the desk for order, and the program began. First, he recited the history of the Shrum children.
James and Belle were two of ten children, the only two to be born with a veil over their faces—meaning that thin, filmy membrane that partly covers some newborns’ faces immediately after birth. In olden times, this was thought to be a sign that the child was born with the second sight, and so it proved in the case of the Shrums. When James was nine and Belle six, their father traveled with a party of men from Comanche County to Brown to buy some land. When he didn’t return by nightfall, Mrs. Shrum was worried that he might have been killed by hostile tribesmen. The children picked up on her tension and were cross and snappish all evening.
However, by breakfast the next morning, Jimmy was all smiles. He told his mother not to worry, that his father was fine and would be home soon. When she asked him how he knew this, he told her that he could see with his eyes closed. Thinking that he was boasting in the manner of young boys, Mrs. Shrum told him that was impossible. When he insisted it was true, she told him to prove it and asked him to tell her where his father was. Promptly, Jimmy described his father’s campsite under a tree along a creek and then gave a detailed explanation of his father’s actions—describing the way Mr. Shrum had handed the camp cook some kind of a pot and then tossed some hay on the ground for his horse to eat. Mrs. Shrum told Jimmy not to talk nonsense and sent him outside to do chores. But a little while afterward, Mr. Shrum came home safe and sound. After the pleased commotion died down, he told his wife all about his journey, and in the process confirmed that Jimmy’s vision had been correct in every detail.
Both parents were amazed at their son’s ability. To test him, Mr. Shrum hid a purse and told Jimmy that he had lost it. The child immediately told his father that he knew the purse was hidden, not lost, and then he led his father right to the place where the purse had been placed. After that, the Shrums tested all their other children and discovered that six-year-old Belle could also “see with her eyes shut.” She had never spoken of the ability before because she thought that everyone could do it.
Before long, the children’s fame spread throughout Comanche County, and the Shrum parents became frightened that the children would be stolen from them. So they moved to another county where no one knew of them, and settled there. At first, all went well. They told no one about the children’s ability to see across distances and read the past. But it leaked out one day after Jimmy went missing during a playful game of hide and seek with some neighborhood children, and Belle led the family straight to the barn where he lay sleeping.
Frightened again by the stir this caused in town, the family moved to yet another county, where the parents finally allowed doctors to test the children. It quickly became obvious that they had considerable psychic abilities. The doctors were amazed because both children could always see where things had been lost or hidden, even those belonging to people they had never previously encountered.
After this lengthy introduction, the Shrum children were brought forward. Master James and little Miss Belle were bright-eyed, smiling children who seemed quite normal. Little Belle’s hair had been carefully curled into ringlets, and Master James had hair that was greased back so slick you could see your face in it. The schoolmaster started fielding questions from the eager audience, and I studied the kids as they answered question after question. One at a time, they calmly described scenes from peoples’ past, told others where to find missing money or objects of value, and answered as best they could questions about how they knew what they knew.
Studying the faces of the folks asking the questions, I could tell from their astonishment and awe that the kids were getting it right. I was impressed and was about to raise my own hand to ask about Cora’s ring and the missing Henry when the schoolmaster rapped his gavel and announced the end of the program. The children were hurried over to their parents, and the crowd was sent away while the family lingered up front. People kept crowding close, desperate to ask more questions, but Mr. and Mrs. Shrum were adamant in their refusal. Their children were tired and not to be troubled further.
I couldn’t blame the parents. It must have been tiring for small children to perform for a couple of hours in front of strangers. I reluctantly swallowed my own questions, clapped my hat on my head, and headed for the door. At that moment, I heard a small voice say: “Wait, Mister.” Turning, I saw little Belle trot away from her parents, her bright eyes fixed intently upon me.
I bowed a little to the pretty child, removing my hat respectfully and waiting to see what she had to say. The words “short and tall” flashed through my mind as I waited. I was such a rugged, massive old man, and she was such a dainty little girl. A smile flashed briefly across my lips at the thought, and little Belle smiled back, not in the least disconcerted by my gruff, lined face and bushy eyebrows.
“You’ve lost two things,” she said without preamble.
I blinked in surprise. “I have,” I agreed, and waited to see what else she would say.
“The first is a gold ring with writing on it, hanging from a silver chain,” the child said. “The chain is caught on a sliver of wood in back of a dresser with a fancy mirror in a room with a large bed covered by a blue and gold quilt in the pattern of a star.”
She was describing my bedroom. Cora had hand-stitched that quilt when we were married forty years ago.
“The second thing is a little gold dog,” Belle went on in her sweet soprano. “He’s caught down a rabbit hole. He slipped inside while chasing a squirrel, and the rocks and stones have blocked the entrance so he can’t get back out. The hole is under the roots of a big mesquite tree in a field with a stream flowing through one side and a broken-down silo in the other. It doesn’t feel as if it is too far from here. Do you know the place?”
LOST AND FOUND
I sure did know the place. It was only a field or two away from my barn. I told the little girl so, and she beamed. “Good!” Belle s
aid. “He’s hungry and thirsty and wants to go home. Will you get him now?”
“I will,” I promised her. “Right away. His name is Henry, and my dead wife, Cora, loved him very much.”
“You love him too,” said the little girl unexpectedly. She sounded very sure, and to my surprise, I knew she was right. The thought made unexpected tears prickle my eyes, and I swallowed a couple of times and thanked her gruffly. Then I thanked her father, who had come up and laid a proud hand on his daughter’s shoulder. For a moment, we gazed at one another over her head, and I saw that Mr. Shrum understood the roil of emotions under my taciturn expression. We nodded to one another, and then I clapped my hat on my head, nodded briskly to Mrs. Shrum, Master James, and the schoolteacher, and hurried home to rescue Henry.
It was already dark when I put the horse in the barn, grabbed a shovel and a lantern, and started across the fields to the ruined silo. As soon as I reached the field, I started calling, and after a few moments, I was answered by a small whimper from under the mesquite tree. I rushed over, repeating the dog’s name again and again until I located the partially buried rabbit hole. It didn’t take me long to dig out the poor little spaniel, who was so thirsty he could hardly whimper, let alone bark. I carried him to the stream to drink and then cuddled him against my shoulder all the way home.
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