The Lion of Farside tlof-1

by John Dalmas

  We both of us stood up then, her laughing, and off we went. I didn't get to sleep by nine that night, but I felt fine when she woke me up at four. I'd been dreaming up a storm, and none the worse for it. Part of the dream was being a hundred years old and still young. Strange dream, but not near as strange as it would have been if I wasn't married to Varia.

  The next evening we did something different. She laid a lighter spell on me that left me awake but relaxed. Then she taught me to do what she called meditate. I'd always thought "meditate" meant to think about something, but this was different. She told me afterward she hadn't thought it'd go that well, first time. The spell had helped, but she told me my breeding was showing itself. It turned out we'd sat like that, straight-backed in two kitchen chairs, for half an hour.

  When we were done, she began telling me things. I listened, but I didn't really believe. I mean, part of me said she wouldn't lie to me about things like that, but what she told me was flat-out unbelievable. My great-great-grampa had come from her world, she said, where her Sisterhood was breeding up strains of people for special purposes, like we breed up hogs and cattle and horses. This was because they were always in danger from "the ylver," who had a lot more power than the Sisterhood, and the only way her people could survive was to get stronger and smarter, and be better at magic.

  Anyway, Great-great-grampa had been an experiment, and it'd worked real well. Except for one thing: he hadn't wanted to do what they told him. He was to breed a lot of different sisters, but he'd fallen in love with one of them, and her with him, and he didn't want to keep on living as a stud horse. So the boss sister took her away, sent her off somewhere.

  To make a long story short, he ran off to the nearest gate and went through it into Kentucky, coming out in Muhlenberg County. Afraid of being followed and caught, he headed north and crossed the Ohio River into Indiana, where he got work deadening timber long enough to make a stake and get married. Then he went on north again to Washington County, where he homesteaded the land our family's worked ever since.

  They'd bred up other studs besides him, but back in Yuulith where'd he'd come from, his progeny proved out specially good, so they tracked him by following his trace in what Varia called the Web. That was something they'd just learned to do; only a few knew how. Then they sent her to bear children by Will.

  That's what she told me, and knowing what I know now, I know it's true.

  Only now, she told me, it had all gone to waste. Most of the Sisters had been killed and the rest scattered. She didn't know if any of her children were alive. The whole story seemed a little more real to me when she said that, from the way her eyes welled up. She'd never seen her children beyond a couple weeks old, except in the pictures I'd found, but they were hers, all she had.

  After that she spelled me often, and did drills with me, twenty or thirty minutes at a time. To open up my magical powers, she said. I told her that'd be a waste of time, that I didn't have any to open up, and anyway I didn't want magical powers. I had my brain and my two hands and my muscles, and everything else I needed. She was magical enough for both of us.

  She looked at me long and seriously. I'd never seen her more serious. "Darling," she told me, "you do have them. They showed up more when you were little. Do you remember once when you were seven or eight, and you looked up at the corner of the ceiling, where I'd looked? Before Idri, my Evansville contact was my favorite sister, Liiset, and now and then she'd look in on me. Something Idri couldn't do.

  "She wasn't there physically, but you sensed her spirit and translated it to her physical appearance-her face. You couldn't have done any of that if you didn't have the talent."

  I remembered, for the first time since that day. It'd been too spooky. "Seems like I've lost it since, though," I said.

  She shook her head. "How did you find the pictures? How did you even know enough to look?"

  "But what if I don't want magical powers?" I asked her.

  She didn't answer right away. Then she said, "If you were blind, and didn't entirely believe in sight, you might be uncomfortable if I said I wanted to open your eyes."

  I didn't have anything to answer, so I nodded and told her fine, let's do it. It would make her happy, and I figured she wouldn't do something bad for me. My problem, I told myself, was I was scared of what I didn't know. I'd been scared that night the transparent Varia took me home with her, too, and look how much I'd liked that after we got there! But I still felt uncomfortable about "opening my magical powers."

  Over several weeks, I couldn't see we were making any progress. Varia said it was a little like putting a pot of water on the stove to boil: You wait and wait, and nothing seems to be happening, and suddenly there it is boiling. I couldn't help wondering, though, if maybe the wood in my firebox was piss elm, and wouldn't burn.

  One evening when we'd finished, her eyes didn't have their usual steadiness, and I asked her if anything was wrong.

  "Not with you," she said.

  "With what, then?"

  "I guess I'm just tired."

  "Looks like more than tired. Looks like worried."

  She smiled. "See? Your powers are coming back. I was thinking about my children; all forty-one of them."

  Yeah, I thought to myself, maybe my powers are coming back, 'cause I can tell you're lying to me. I really didn't believe they were; just a look at her face told me. But I wasn't going to badger her. "I'll have the plowing done tomorrow morning," I said. "Maybe you and I ought to take the rest of the day off. Go in to Decatur and walk through the stores. Buy some ice cream, and celebrate. Maybe Morath will even divide my cows up between his daughters to milk in the evening, and we can blow twenty cents on a movie."

  She came over and kissed me, tears in her eyes. "Curtis, you're so nice, I love you more than you know. If anything ever happens to me, I want you to remember that. Regardless of anything. And tomorrow-tomorrow I'd love to go to Decatur with you when you're done plowing."

  That's Varia for you, always thinking, always trying to do the right thing. I still didn't realize how well I'd married. A good good woman.

  Anyway, when tomorrow got there, and I'd milked and had breakfast, her tune had changed. "Before we blow any money on ice cream and a movie," she said, "there are things I need to do to this house. Let the plowing wait till this afternoon." She handed me a list. "I want you to get these things for me right now. I need to civilize this kitchen."

  I stared at her. She was standing there kind of like Ma did in front of Pa sometimes, when she didn't want any argument. I looked at the list: red and white checkered oil cloth, paint, and eight or ten other things she had every right to want, or even have. But none of it seemed very important, and I'd have to chase all over town to get it. "Okay," I grumped. I'd never been grumpy before with Varia; I didn't even give her a kiss, sad to say. How many times I felt bad about that.

  I went out to the truck, gave it a crank, and drove off to Decatur. It was almost noon when I got back. By that time I'd convinced myself she'd gotten pregnant; I'd heard how women can get notional when they're pregnant. When I walked into the house, she wasn't in the kitchen, and I felt a little pang. "Honey!" I called out, "I'm back! I got your stuff!"

  She didn't answer, and I got a sick feeling. Two weeks before, I'd have told myself I was scared she'd gone off and left me because I hadn't given her that kiss, but now I hardly glanced at the idea. It was something a lot worse. "Maybe she's out in the privy," I muttered, but didn't believe that either, not even enough to go out and call to her. Instead, somehow or other I went into the pantry, and there on the counter was some folded tablet paper held down by a stove-lid handle. I unfolded it and started reading, though somehow I knew what had happened-not the details, but the main thing. Sweet darling Curtis, the gate is going to open again soon, and they are coming to take me away, Idri and some men. The Sisterhood still exists. It's been butchered and forced to flee, but it still exists. Idri must have tracked me, and then gone back to Evansville fo
r help. I sensed them coming yesterday, and this morning I felt them again while I was cooking breakfast. They'll be here very soon. It wouldn't do any good for us to run away. They would only follow. That's why I sent you to town. I'm sure she's supposed to take us both, but she'd find an excuse to kill you. I know her too well. Don't forget to take the money out of the honey jar. It's yours. Darling, it hurts so much to leave you like this. But you'll get over it. It was beautiful to be your wife this short time. I'll remember you and love you forever.

  Reading it, it was like I'd been there watching her write it, tears running down her face like mine were, and for a minute, when I was done, I felt helpless, like a wooden man. But only for a minute.

  4: Conjure Woman

  " ^ "

  I stopped at Morath's long enough to tell Miz Morath I wouldn't be able to milk for them awhile. That my wife's relatives had come and stolen her away, and I was going after them. I left my team there; Morath could use them or rent them out, to pay for their keep. Then I headed south on Route 51, and before I got forty miles, the truck quit on me. I figured it was the carburetor-I'd had trouble with it before-but fooling with it didn't help, so I gave up and hiked on into Assumption, where I hired myself a tow. The fella at the garage there fussed with it awhile, and I ended up getting a new one put on. All in all, it cost me more than three hours. I didn't know whether to swear or cry.

  I'd never before felt the way I did then: dangerous. Never knew I could. I didn't feel at all like the Curtis Macurdy folks knew back in Washington County.

  Then I drove on. North of Vandalia it threw a rod, and there wasn't a thing in hell I could do about that. Not in the time I had. I wondered if Idri'd cast a spell to keep me from following them, and told myself if she had, it wasn't going to work. Leaving the truck by the road, I started walking. Each time a car came along, I stuck a thumb out, and after a while a moving van went on by me a little way and pulled over. I took off running and climbed in.

  "Where yew a-headin'?" the driver asked me. A southerner by the way he talked.

  "Kentucky," I told him. "Muhlenberg County."

  He laughed and slapped his leg. "Talk 'bout bein' in luck! I'm deliverin' this load to Central City; that's in Muhlenberg County." He reached under the truck seat, took out a clear glass bottle three-quarters full, and handed it to me. "Have a swig," he told me.

  I handed it back. "Thanks," I said, "but my family's all teetotalers. Been that way as far back as anyone remembers."

  He didn't take offense like some might. Just pulled the wooden stopper with his teeth, raised the bottle, took a big swig, and about strangled. "Good stuff," he said with his eyes watering. "Not like most of the rotgut folks sell these days. My uncle makes it hisself."

  He started the truck then and drove on, talking about how he wished he was headed for home instead of Kentucky. After a while I started dozing, off and on. Woke up when he stopped the truck for gas. It was beginning to get dark out.

  "Yew gonna git a crick in yore neck, yew sleep like that," he told me. "I'm figurin' to drive all night, if I can, but I'm apt to git sleepy. Can yew drive a truck?"

  I told him I could.

  "I put a sofa crosst the back of the load, so's I can go back there and sleep if I need to. Why don't yew go back there? Then if I git too sleepy to drive, yew'll be all rested, and we can change places. Git there quicker."

  Anything to speed things up. I went around back, opened the doors and climbed in, latching them behind me. After a minute the truck started again. The sofa felt good enough, but laying there, I didn't feel sleepy any longer. I kept wondering how in the world I'd find the gate, once I got to Muhlenberg County. Finally I told myself, same way you found the pictures. However that was. Anyway it settled my mind enough that I got to sleep.

  When I woke up, it seemed like I'd slept a long time. A long time full of dreams. Dreams with Varia in them. Laying there, I felt them slipping away, and they were gone, just like she was. The truck wasn't moving, so I got up, felt for the latch, and opened the doors. It was night out, moonlight, and a little spooky feeling, but nothing bad. I hopped down.

  We were on a country road, stuck in a mudhole. I went to the cab; the driver was inside, laying against the steering wheel asleep. The door was locked, which surprised me, and so was the one on the other side, but moonlight on the seat showed the whiskey bottle laying on its side without the stopper. I decided he'd finished it off after he got stuck.

  There was a little field across the road, but otherwise it seemed to be all woods around there, and a big big hill on the other side. Didn't look like any place I'd seen in Illinois or Indiana, the hill was too big, so I decided I was in Kentucky.

  The moon was full and low in the sky, which meant it was near daybreak. I set off down the road with the moon at my back, not liking to leave the driver like that, but I needed to find that gate. I felt pretty optimistic. I'd made it to Kentucky in under a day, even though I'd lost my truck.

  Right away I left the field behind, woods crowding the road on both sides. The night was mild, and in a little bit I started enjoying the hike. The leaves were coming out, and it smelled like spring. I must have walked a mile or more before I came to another cleared field, not more'n six or eight acres, with a little shack at the far end, just back from the road. By that time, morning had started lightening the sky a bit.

  The whole shack turned out to be made of shakes, walls and all. I heard a dog woof inside; a minute later the front door opened and an old woman looked out.

  "Who's out there?" she yelled.

  "Name's Curtis Macurdy," I told her. "I'm lost. I'd appreciate if you could tell me where I am."

  She cackled like a hen. Her old hound came out past her and down the steps, to sniff my legs without making a sound. "Yew ain't from nowheres 'round yere," she said.

  "No ma'am. I just left Illinois, headed for Kentucky."

  "Kentucky?!" She cackled again. "Yewr in Missoura!"

  Now I realized who she sounded like. Her accent was like the truck driver's, only thicker. He must have drank enough, he decided to go home, and these hills must be the Ozarks. From what I'd heard and read of the Ozarks, it could be a month before the van company found out where their truck was, if they ever did.

  "How far to Kentucky?" I asked.

  "Don't rightly know. But yew ain't goin' to walk there today. Tell ya what. I got to go fetch water. If'n yew'll tote it fer me, I'll feed ya breakfast."

  She didn't have a well, but across the road just three, four chains, was a spring in the hillside, with a wooden trough for the water to run out of. She had two buckets hung on a shoulder yoke, and I carried them for her. If it'd been me living there, I'd have built a house on the other side of the road, and run the trough on down to it. Or better, put a pipe under the road.

  While she fixed breakfast, she chattered on like someone who didn't have anyone to talk to very often. "I'm a-goin' up on the knob, when the sun comes up," she said. "I staked out a young cockerel up there last evenin'."

  "Staked out a chicken?"

  "Oh, that's right, yewr from up Illinois way. Yew don't know 'bout Injun Knob. It's a spirit mountain, and every full moon, the spirit comes a-hootin'."

  "A-hootin'?"

  "Yep. At midnight. Most folks cain't yere it, but I can, 'cause I'm a conjure woman."

  "Really!"

  "Yep. And it's good to give it a little somethin' now and then. I'll go up there, and the chicken'll be gone. It always is."

  "Mightn't a fox have taken it?" I asked. "Or some other animal?" I'd read they still had wolves in the Ozarks.

  "Not up there. Ain't no critters go up there on the night of the full moon. Fact is, up on top they ain't no critters anytime, not even birds. They know better. A couple times been young fellas went up there on a dare, the evenin' of a full moon, and they ain't none of 'em ever come back down. Then, eight, ten years ago, a perfessor come yere from the university with another feller, both of 'em wearing big ol' pistols on their
side, and they never come back, neither." She cackled again. "The sheriff come with a posse, a day or two later, and combed the woods, but couldn't find hide nor hair of 'em."

  The hairs on my neck started to bristle, and the old woman grinned at me. "Yew wanna go up there with me?"

  I nodded. Varia had said there was more than one gate.

  After breakfast, we started up the mountain on a little footpath. Most of the birds were back for the summer, and the woods was full of their singing. I saw gray squirrel and chipmunks and rabbit turds, and lots and lots of oaks and clumps of pine. It was a long steep path, with lots of stops for the old woman to rest a minute, till finally I could see the top close ahead. There was lots of bedrock showing by that time, and the trees were sparse and small. And there weren't any more birds or squirrels or chipmunks. I'm not sure what they felt that kept them away, but I was feeling something that had my neck hairs bristling again. Either that or I was imagining.

  We took one last rest, the old woman breathing hard, and frowning.

  "Anything the matter?" I asked her.

  She didn't answer, and after a minute we went on. At the top, she knelt down by a knee-high pine seedling with a leather thong tied to it: the tether she'd tied the chicken with. But there wasn't any chicken now, nor feathers nor blood, like a possum or bobcat would have left. Just the leather thong, which was either awful short to start with, or something had shortened it.

  She still wasn't talking, and the frown was still there. She stood up and closed her eyes so tight her whole face skrinched together, and she began mumbling something I couldn't make out. Cold chills ran down me from the top of my head to my feet. After a minute she started to talk.

  "Some folks were up yere last night, in the dark. Two men and two women, folks o' power. And the mountain took three of 'em-not et 'em; received 'em-two witchy women, young and perty, and one of the men. I'm a-goin' back down, right now."