by John Dalmas
"Most merciful God," Koht went on, and the congregation read the response: "Have mercy on us. We confess to you that we have sinned…" Curtis found the place and joined them. Finally Koht intoned: "With joy, I proclaim to you that Almighty God, rich in mercy, abundant in love, forgives you all your sin, and grants you newness of life in Jesus Christ."
Curtis had detected no joy in the pastor. God's mercy and love, he thought, had a poor spokesman at Holy Redeemer. Then told himself wryly, You're not exactly a fountain of joy and love either, this morning.
Next they sang a hymn, the first in a series separated by prayers, pastoral readings, and congregational response. During the hymns, Curtis simply mouthed the words. He had a defeatist attitude toward singing. He couldn't read the music, didn't know the hymns, and couldn't manage the high and low parts.
At length, Koht announced the first Bible reading-Exodus 22, verses 18 through 20. His strong voice loudened as he began to read. " 'You shall not permit a witch to live. Whosoever lies with a beast shall be put to death. Whosoever sacrifices to any god, save to the LORD only, shall be utterly destroyed.' "
He paused and referred the congregation to Psalm 1 in the program. Accompanied by the organ, Koht read aloud verses 1, 3, and 5, the congregation interspersing 2, 4, and 6. Macurdy did not read. He told himself that this arrogant pastor would condemn Mary and himself just for being able to see auras.
"Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgement," Koht finished, "nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous." The congregation wrapped it up with: "For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall perish."
Koht paused for a long moment. "The next reading," he said, "is Deuteronomy 18, verses 10 through 12." He paused, then read: " There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter or a witch. Or a charmer, or a consultant with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.'
"This is the word of the LORD," Koht finished.
"Thanks be to God," the congregation responded.
Again Koht paused, then bowed his head and prayed, asking that God strengthen the congregation in their will to resist and reject evil. While Koht prayed, Curtis thought of Varia. By biblical criteria, she no doubt did qualify as a witch, though she certainly didn't think of herself as one. To his knowledge, her magicks were neutral at worst. Usually they helped, though he couldn't guarantee the same for the rest of the Sisterhood. Certainly not Sarkia. But as far as he knew, none of them dealt with, or even believed in demons. They sought to learn and master potentials in the Web of the World.
Not that he'd explain any of that to the reverend. It would be a waste of time.
When Koht had finished praying, he scanned his audience. "The homily for today," he said, "is 'Sorcery, the Neglected Sin.'
"In reading Exodus 22, it is interesting to note the order in which God gave his admonitions to Moses. God's warning against witchcraft came ahead of his pronouncement against lying with beasts and worshiping false gods."
He paused, his gaze intent. "But what, exactly, is a witch? Must it be an old woman in a peaked hat, flying around on a broom? Regarding the verse in Exodus, today's biblical scholars, with older manuscripts to work from, and more accurate understanding of ancient Hebrew, translate the Hebrew word in Exodus as 'female sorcerer.' While in the verses in Deuteronomy, both 'witch' and 'wizard' are from the Hebrew for 'sorcerer.'
"So a witch is a sorcerer, someone who practices sorcery. And what exactly is sorcery? The examples I read from Deuteronomy can serve as at least a partial definition. Meanwhile my dictionary defines sorcery as: 'The use of power gained from the assistance or control of evil spirits.' "
He paused, looking over the silent congregation. "But this is 1948. Is it possible there are sorcerers around today? And evil spirits? In a place like Nehtaka County? If there are, how may we recognize them? In Matthew 7, verse 20, Jesus tells us: 'By their fruits shall ye know them.' In other words, by their results. He was talking about false prophets, but the same principle applies to any person."
Macurdy began to feel uncomfortable. Where was Koht leading with this bullshit?
"Consider the morality tale, The Picture of Dorian Gray, in which the principal character lives a life of utter evil, yet does not age. Does not age! Does not deteriorate! In that case due to sorcery woven into a picture."
Macurdy stared dumbfounded, his stomach sinking. Mary's hand squeezed his. Koht preached on.
"That is a novel, of course, a work of fiction. But it carries a powerful truth and lesson. If you believe that Evil cannot wear a pleasant visage, that Satan cannot give good fortune on Earth to those who worship him, you have not read, or have not heeded, your Bible. So. Is there a sorcerer in our community? I tell you that there is-and that you know him."
Curtis did not get up and walk out. To leave would draw attention, suggest a guilty conscience. How, he wondered, could this be happening in America in 1948?
The sermon was not long. Koht's faults did not include infatuation with his own voice. He ended with, "So then, if we find a sorcerer in our midst, or other evildoer as defined in the Bible, shall we run into the fields and pick up stones, and stone him to death? Or her? In the Book of John, chapter 8, verse 7, Jesus said, 'Him that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone.' And of course, no one was. Or is. While in Deuteronomy 18:12 it is written, 'God doth drive them out from before thee.' And how did God drive them out? By the hand of the children of Israel! It comes down to people, God-fearing people, like you and me!
"Yet Christ said we are to obey Caesar, that is, obey the government. And the government does not allow us to forcibly evict someone from our community except by law. Which in fact does remove many evildoers from among us. Removes them and sends them to the penitentiary. But unfortunately, the laws do not recognize sorcery as real, as genuine sin.
"So again, what can we do? While the sorcerer may be free to move among us physically, we can shut him out of our lives, have nothing to do with him. Shun him."
He stopped abruptly, leaving people hanging, causing their minds to reach. After a long moment he said simply, "Let us pray," and bowed his head.
***
The rest of the service was a fog to Macurdy. When it was over, the congregation filed slowly from the sanctuary. Again Axel and Sara Severtson stood at its door, greeters in reverse, making friendly remarks, Axel shaking hands. When Curtis reached him, the old Swede not only shook his hand, but gripped his shoulder, saying something that didn't register. Instead of following the crowd to the basement for coffee and cake, Curtis and Mary left the building.
It was, he told himself, time to leave Nehtaka. But he said nothing, because the place that came to his mind wasn't a place he could take Mary. The transit might kill her.
6 Fall-Out
Koht's allusion was not lost on his congregation, and he received considerable flack from members. A meeting of male parishioners was called to discuss the issue. Koht admitted that the sorcerer he had in mind was Undersheriff Curtis Macurdy. When questioned further, he said that Macurdy's failure to age was only part of the information he had against him, but he refused to elaborate, or name his source.
A vote was taken to remove him from the pulpit, but it fell short of a majority of the total male membership. At that, one of the members stated that he was resigning his membership, and walked out, followed by several otbers. On the following Sunday, attendance at Holy Redeemer was the lowest of memory. Some of the missing showed up at the Swedish Covenant Church, where Sunday morning services were already held in English, and the Finnish Lutheran Church, where English services were held in the evenings.
Three weeks later, Koht was rebuked by the synod, and resigned. Most of Holy Redeemer's m
issing members returned when he left, but the congregation had been factionalized. Now several Koht loyalists withdrew.
Meanwhile the story of his sermon circulated widely through Nehtaka County. Charges were made that Harvey Chellgren was behind it, and though most people didn't take them seriously, Harvey felt compelled to deny them. When questioned, Curtis said he'd known Harvey too long and too well to believe he'd do such a thing. Mary and he had Harvey and his family over to supper one evening, making sure the Sentinel learned of it, and a couple of weeks later, Chellgren returned the courtesy. The rumor died.
***
Fritzi had not walked out of the parishioners' meeting, but neither did he attend Koht's service the following Sunday. Instead he stayed home and listened to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. At his firm insistence, Margaret stayed home too. He'd asked her point-blank if she had talked to Koht about Curtis's healings, and she admitted defiantly that she had.
He thought of telling Mary-his strong sense of honesty was pressing him-but when Koht resigned, he decided to leave well enough alone. The damage was done, and seemed less severe than he'd feared at first.
Two weeks later he had his first heart attack.
***
Three weeks before the election, a sawmill worker beat up his wife and threw her out of the house naked. The man had a history of arrests for violence, and had served time. Macurdy and a deputy went to arrest him. The man shot at them through a window, the bullet striking the police car, and yelled curses at Macurdy, whom he called "a creature of Satan."
From cover behind the police car's heavy engine block, Macurdy tried to talk the man into surrendering. The man replied that Mary's barrenness was God's punishment. Then he fired another round and disappeared from sight. That bullet smashed through two patrol car windows.
Macurdy fired his. 38-caliber revolver once, then rushed the house, covered by the deputy with a rifle. There was no return fire. He found the man dead in his living room. Macurdy's bullet had struck him in the throat.
The required hearing found Macurdy not at fault for the death. A minority opinion, though not recommending a reprimand, held that Macurdy should have continued talking with the culprit. The community in general rejected the criticism as bullshit, saying the man had gotten what he had coming.
Curtis, however, brooded over it. It seemed to him the minority opinion was correct.
Two weeks later, with Mary's blessing, he appointed Harvey Chellgren acting sheriff, then resigned, and withdrew from the sheriff's race. He and Mary would have left Nehtaka then, except for Fritzi's ill health.
***
The same day he resigned, Curtis went to Berglund's Logging Supplies and Equipment, and bought one of the new chainsaws-a 115-pound Disston. From Saari Ford he bought a pickup. Tnen he hired Paul Klaplanahoo, Roy's youngest brother, as a partner, and went logging for Lars Severtson. He told Mary it felt good to work in the woods again. He lost weight (he'd been getting fat), felt better physically, and insisted it was good to get away from law enforcement.
7 Fritzi's Cabin
In May '49, Fritzi had a coronary, and died. In his will he left the house to Margaret, along with his investments; he held mortgages on several properties. To Mary he left $10,000 cash-a lot of money!-and an abandoned homestead, one hundred sixty acres grown up to young Douglas-fir and hemlock. Rascal Creek ran through it. It was twenty-six miles from town, had a four-room log house with loft, a frame barn, a couple of log sheds and a privy. Fritzi had given the house a new roof and other essential repairs, and used it as a hunting cabin.
Curtis suggested they sell the land and leave. The word was, there were lots of logging jobs in Montana and northern Idaho. If they went there, he could call himself thirty; Mary could still pass for thirty. But she was pregnant. "I want to stay, to be near Dr. Wesley," she said, remembering her several miscarriages. And Curtis agreed.
With serious money in the bank, they decided he'd quit work for a while and fix up the cabin, make it suitable to live in. Drill a well so it wouldn't be necessary to haul water from the creek, put on a front porch, add a bathroom and laundry on the rear, install an electric generator… Using his saw, a hired 'dozer, and a rented truck, he could widen and gravel the one hundred fifty yards of dirt lane between the state road and the house. They could advertise the place in the Portland Oregonian. Well-to-do city people were paying good money for summer homes.
He worked on the cabin all summer and into the fall. Mostly he commuted from Nehtaka, over the hilly, winding state road, graveled but washboardy. But when he was pushing on some project, he sometimes batched in the cabin for two or three days, working by lamplight. His intention was to finish before the rainy season arrived.
Occasionally Mary went with him when he commuted, to do light tasks, being careful not to strain or tire herself. But mostly she stayed home. There she sewed curtains, and being handy with tools, built shelves, birdhouses, bird feeders…
By mid-September, they were in love with the house, and decided to live there themselves, after the baby came. The Severtsons would begin logging soon on a tract twenty miles beyond the cabin. Curtis would work there, commuting.
By mid-October the place was done. It had a hybrid wood-and-propane stove in the kitchen, a refrigerator, a small diesel generator and pump house, a shower in the bathroom… and for possible instances when the generator might break down, a new privy behind a screen of rhododendrons. At Mary's insistence, Curtis had converted a small shed into a sauna; everyone in her Finnish mother's clan had one in the backyard. The larger shed he'd rehabilitated for storage, to make up for the lack of a basement.
Fritzi's hunting cabin had become their dream home. It seemed to them they might not leave Oregon after all, certainly not for years. People in Nehtaka were used to the idea that Curtis didn't age, and while there were those who felt as Pastor Koht had, and Margaret, the couple could live with that.
***
Their daughter was born on November 2. She was flawless, beautiful. They named her Hilmi, after Mary's favorite aunt. On a late-November day, beneath seasonal clouds with intervals of sunshine, Curtis moved their household goods to their new home. He'd agreed to start cutting for Lars Severtson on December 5. And Mary had the Chevy. She could drive to town whenever she wanted.
Paul Klaplanahoo had gone to work on an uncle's fishing trawler, so Curtis traded in his 115-pound Disston on a new, 65-pound McCullough, figuring to single-hand it. Lars Severtson was skeptical. "I doubt even you can do it by yourself," he said. "You're strong enough the bucking will go okay, but some of those firs are six, seven feet through. With those handlebars, cutting the slant on the undercut will be a bear and a half."
Curtis said if he had to, he'd cut the slant with the ax.
Single-handing proved beastly hard, wearing a heavy, waterproofed canvas jacket and pants against the rain and the devil's-club. And while his spiked boots, for the most part, kept him from slipping on fallen trees, they didn't help a lot on steep slopes. The first couple of days he seriously considered taking a day or two off, and finding a partner after all. But that would complicate life, and besides, single-handing was a challenge he'd come to enjoy. By Christmas the work was going smoothly, and he felt stronger than ever before in his life. The rain, the cold, the slippery footing, the incredibly heavy work-none of it bothered him. Between the job and his little family, he was enjoying life immensely.
He was 45 years old.
***
The rains had been frequent, sometimes persistent, and occasionally heavy. On February 17, a major storm blew in. The rain poured, and the wind made woods-work dangerous. At noon, Lars pulled everyone out of the woods who hadn't come out on their own. Macurdy loaded his gear in the back of his pickup and started home. Where the road crossed draws, the creeks were bankful, and in one place an overtaxed culvert threatened to wash out.
When he got home, the Chevy was gone, with Mary and the baby. Why they might go to town on that particular day, he couldn't i
magine, short of injury or illness. Tight with apprehension, he stowed his gear in the shed, then got back in the pickup and started after them.
Three miles down the road, he found the Chevy. Another culvert had begun to wash out. The car had hit it, gone out of control, and smashed into a tree. Mary was dead, her chest crushed by the steering column. Little Hilmi was gone, her basket thrown out an open door.
Macurdy howled, grasped the tree with his big hands and beat his head on its trunk. Abruptly he stopped, and began thrashing around in the brush and devil's-club, looking for Hilmi. Not there. In the creek then. He broke into a trot, bulling through the brush along the stream bank, watching for the basket. Within a hundred yards he found it, bobbing upside-down, lodged against the limbs of a fir that had fallen across the stream. He plunged into the turbid rushing water, normally not knee-deep, now above his waist. Dropping to his knees in it, he groped among submerged branches, searching by feel.
After several minutes, blue with cold, he clambered dripping from the water, bellied over the fallen fir, and charged stumbling downstream again. He was too distraught to draw warmth from the Web of the World; it didn't occur to him.
An hour later, other loggers, who'd found his pickup and the wrecked car, found Macurdy. Like some huge beaver, he was groping beneath another blowdown, submerged. They saw him when he came up for air. He did not resist when they dragged him from the icy water.
They took him to town with them. He sat dumbly, shivering violently despite the heater blowing on him, whether from shock or cold they didn't know.
***
Wiiri and Ruth Saari took him in that night. They were as close to kin as he had in Nehtaka. They did almost all the talking, they and Pastor Ilvessalo from the Finnish church, whom they'd called in. Their guest sat slumped in a wingbacked chair, wearing flannel pajamas and a bathrobe belonging to their large son, off on a football scholarship at Oregon State. The wind whooshed around the house corners and porch posts, and the rain pelting the windows sounded almost as harsh as sleet. Macurdy's responses were mostly monosyllables. At length the pastor put his raincoat on to leave. Only then did Macurdy speak at any length. "Thank you, Pastor," he said. "Thank you, Wiiri. And Rudi. You've helped. You've all helped." Then he relapsed.