by Sarah Dreher
It began to tug at the blanket, pulling Billy away from her.
That was going too far. Stoner gripped the boy tightly and got to her feet. The blankets fell to the ground.
“Leave him alone!”
Wolf snatched a blanket and trotted off into the storm.
“Fine. Good riddance. You’re nothing but a thief. THIEF!”
The animal trotted back to her and worked its eyebrows again. It began backing up, trailing the blanket in front of her.
“Go on, get out of here.”
It growled in an insistent kind of way and backed up a little more.
“I mean it. We have serious problems here.”
Wolf sat in the snow and wagged its tail and appeared to think. Suddenly it leapt to its feet and disappeared into the night, leaving the blanket behind.
The boy’s body was steaming with fever. She had to do something. She retrieved the blanket and shook him.
“Billy. Wake up.”
His eyelids fluttered open, then closed.
He lapsed back into unconsciousness.
Twisting her body, she managed to maneuver him onto her back again. His arms hung lifeless over her shoulders.
The wind screamed in her ears.
Walk. It doesn’t matter what direction. Just pick one at random and walk.
Her snow shoes felt like lead as she shuffled forward. Every step took all her strength.
Step.
You can do it.
Step.
You can do it.
Step.
I can’t do it.
Maybe fire the gun. Maybe someone would hear…
The wind screamed. No one could hear anything over that. And there was no one to hear it, even if they could. Miles of snow and shrieking wind between her and the nearest house.
Except Blue Mary’s.
Wherever it was.
A sharp, insistent bark behind her.
She turned.
Wolf was back, had dropped an object in the snow at her feet.
She wiped frozen tears from her eyes with an aching hand and peered at it. Snow blew into her face. Fatigue and wind blurred her vision. She shook her head.
The wolf picked up the object and moved closer.
Stoner bent down.
It was the pot of rosemary from Blue Mary’s back porch.
She began to laugh. “Good Wolf. Beautiful Wolf.”
The wolf went into a conniption fit of barking and wagging and eyebrow rolling.
“World’s Greatest Wolf.”
It jumped up, nearly knocking her over, and licked her face.
“I swear, I’ll never make fun of Lassie again.”
Wolf sat down and gave her a quizzical look.
“That was after your time. Well, let’s go home.” She started in the direction from which the wolf had come. “And don’t forget the flower pot. Blue Mary’d kill us.”
≈ ≈ ≈
He’d pushed Toby as hard as he could, fighting the blizzard, hoping to come to a town, or a farm, or even a band of friendly Indians. His eyebrows had filled with caked sleet. His two week beard was white. The bandanna he’d tied around his mouth and nose to try to block the cold was so hard he could have carved buffalo meat with the edge of it.
Toby’s strength was about gone. Cullum could hear the horse’s wheezing, gasping breath, like human sobs. Could almost hear the crackle of ice crystals forming on his lungs.
They had to stop.
He grunted a gentle “whoa”, and slid from Toby’s back.
Might as well die here as anywhere.
But he surely did hate to have it end this way, on the border between Kansas and Colorado, where nobody knew him. Where there’d be no one to grieve.
He supposed they’d just plant him where they found him, when they found him. Maybe say a few words over his bones. He’d done that often enough for other fellas, and felt as much sadness as he could for them, his unknown brothers in loneliness. But it wasn’t like having someone remember you a little—some funny way you had of standing while you were thinking hard, or a bawdy story you’d told once. Even something mean or shameful you’d done. At least it’d be personal.
Cullum looked around. Christ, he didn’t want to die out here.
Nearby he could just make out a slanting bit of ground. It might give them a little shelter. The way the snow was piling up against it, maybe they could find a drift, hollow out a tight cave, and keep each other warm.
He held on tight to Toby’s reins and struggled forward. They’d be separated in an instant in this blindness. And, live or die, he wanted to be close to his old friend.
It helped a little, the hole he dug in the snow. At least they were out of the wind, even though the entrance drifted shut almost before they were inside.
He left the saddle outside, coaxed the horse to lie down, pushed himself tight against Toby’s side, and covered the two of them with the saddle blanket.
Cullum felt warm sleep come close. He guessed he ought to pray, though he’d never been much of a praying man, and wasn’t sure how to go about it. Shucks, he wasn’t even sure who to pray to, or what to ask for. “Well, old fellow,” he said at last, “you’ve been one heck of a pal. I hope we wake up in the same place.”
He reckoned that’d have to do for praying.
≈ ≈ ≈
It didn’t take more than half an hour to reach the cabin, but she was nearly done in. Billy hadn’t regained consciousness. She could tell he was still alive by the way the heat percolated off of his body, but it looked serious. And, considering that they were without medical facilities—except for the legendary alcoholic Dr. Kreuger...
He should be in a hospital. Definitely a nine-one-one situation.
Come to think of it, she wasn’t feeling too great herself. Her eyes were dry. Her joints ached in a minor but anxiety-producing way. Time and space stretched oddly. She’d start a thought—nothing terribly profound, something like “I wonder what’s on TV tonight”—and by the time it had finished unwinding, it would seem as if hours had passed.
Sort of like being stoned, without the profundity.
She hoped she wasn’t catching whatever Billy had. Some kind of flu. That’s what it felt like. Last winter’s flu.
She wondered if immunity went backward through time.
She wondered if they had different viruses a hundred years ago.
She wondered about all those headstones she had seen in the Pioneer’s Graveyard in that town not far from Denver, where she’d stopped to stretch her legs. Young people, the dates of death clumped in years. Cholera, she had assumed. Or typhoid. Some relatively rare and nearly extinct disease.
But what if it had been flu?
What kinds of flu did they have back then? Back now. Back whatever.
Hong Kong?
Spanish?
Singapore?
Thinking made her head hurt. At least, she thought it was thinking that made her head hurt. She hoped it was thinking...
Wolf was still with her, trotting on ahead, looking over its shoulder from time to time in a worried kind of way.
Lights. Cabin lights.
The wolf shot forward, bounced against the front door.
The door opened. Light spilled like honey across the snow. The wolf threw itself against Blue Mary.
Mary laughed and pulled its ears. “Stop that, you silly thing. And give me my rosemary.”
She took the pot and inspected it for damage.
Wolf sat and wagged its tail.
Satisfied, she placed the pot in the snow. “Now, Miss, what have you done with our friends?”
“Mary!” Stoner called.
Blue Mary peered out into the storm. “Stoner? Thank the Goddess! I was afraid this old wolf had taken it into her head to make a meal of you.”
Wolf gave a disgusted snort and flounced off into the darkness.
“I think you insulted her,” Stoner said. She slipped out of her snowshoes and stepped throu
gh the door into warmth and light.
“She’ll forgive me,” said Blue Mary. “Animals seldom hold a grudge. Probably more highly evolved than we are. Did she annoy you in any way?”
“She was a perfect lady.” She let Billy slip from her shoulders.
Blue Mary caught him.
“He’s awfully sick,” Stoner said. “I thought we wouldn’t make it.”
“Oh, the poor child.” Blue Mary brushed the snow from Billy’s back and struggled to unwind the blankets.
Stoner helped her.
Together, they managed to get the boy to the bed, pulled off his shoes, and covered him with a deep quilt.
Blue Mary felt his forehead, examined his eyes and fingernails. She took a strand of his hair and rolled it thoughtfully between her fingers. She nodded, then bent down, forced his mouth open, and sniffed his breath. “Influenza,” she said authoritatively. “Could be a lot worse.”
“Really?” Stoner went to stand by the stove. She could feel the blood returning to her fingertips. It was painful. “He seemed nearly dead to me.”
“Influenza can be fatal, of course, if you don’t catch it in time. But not as bad as meningitis, or typhoid, or...”
“Thank you,” Stoner said wryly. “It’s always a treat to look on the bright side.”
Blue Mary glanced toward her. She came forward and peered into Stoner’s eyes. “You don’t look well, yourself. Your eyes are glassy.”
“To tell you the truth, I don’t feel great.”
The older woman took her hands. Stoner winced. Her ear lobes and nose began to burn.
“Frostbite, too.” She shook her head. “You young people are so impulsive.”
“It’s a good thing we are,” Stoner said testily. “Or he’d be dead.”
Blue Mary smiled. “Of course, dear. But I can’t help wishing you’d gone over there a little better prepared. At the very least, that knapsack of yours could have carried something hot to drink.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Well, now,” Blue Mary said, and patted her cheek gently. “Let’s get you out of those wet things and I’ll concoct something for your frostbite.”
She stripped out of her shirt and jeans, wrapped herself in a blanket, and stood shivering in front of the fire. Blue Mary brought her a flowered night gown of soft flannel. She slipped it on, too grateful for the warmth and dryness to be self-conscious. Her head felt like a chunk of cement. Her vision was fuzzy, as if there were something in her eyes. She brushed at them, but it didn’t help.
Billy lay across the room on the bed, unmoving. As soon as she could get up the energy, she thought, she’d go see how he was. As soon as she got up the energy.
Blue Mary stirred boiling water into a baked earthenware pot containing dried herbs. She wrinkled her nose. “A vile concoction, but it’s the best we can do.”
Stoner brushed her hair out with her fingers, letting the hot, dry air from the stove eat up the dampness. “I guess you don’t have stuff like penicillin and antibiotics, huh?”
“No,” said Blue Mary. “And, to be perfectly honest, I’m not looking forward to that time. We’ve managed to accomplish quite a lot, you know, with Nature, intuition, and old-fashioned kindness.” She tasted the contents of the pot, frowned, and added a pinch of something from a corked clay jar. “Not that I’m against progress— though I suppose I am, a little. But it seems so easy to lose our sense of values.”
“Yeah,” Stoner said. It took a lot of effort to say that much. It took a lot of effort even to listen, and made her dizzy.
Blue Mary checked the pot again and judged it satisfactory. She poured the brew into two large mugs and passed one to Stoner. “Drink all of this if you can. It’ll help.” She took the other mug and went to where Billy lay.
“Do you need help?” Stoner asked.
“We all need help,” Blue Mary said with a little laugh. “But in the sense you mean it, no, I think I can manage.”
Stoner took a sip of the hot liquid and grimaced. It was bitter, and smelled of small, damp places that haven’t been opened in years.
“That’s the valerian,” Blue Mary explained, reading her thoughts. “It’ll relax you. And it masks odors that are even worse. Frightful, isn’t it?”
Stoner drank again. “Anything this bad must be good for you.”
“A useful plant, valerian.” She slipped her arm under Billy’s head, propping him against her chest. “Very helpful against insomnia and menstrual cramps. And it will absolutely rid a house of fleas.” She tilted the mug against Billy’s lips. Stoner couldn’t tell if he was drinking. “Of course, rodents are obsessively attracted to it. There are those who believe the Pied Piper of Hamlin actually carried valerian in his pockets.”
She forced down another swallow and tried not to imagine the stuff coming out through her pores and drawing every rat, mouse, squirrel, woodchuck, and muskrat in a twenty-mile radius to lick her skin.
At least opossums didn’t qualify as rodents.
God is Good.
She managed to shuffle over to the armchair and sit down. The mug felt as heavy as a bucket of sand. She thought her neck would break from trying to support her head.
I’m sick, she thought.
It felt as if the force of gravity had increased ten-fold. Every movement, even blinking her eyes, took as much strength as she could muster.
This really isn’t good. I could get stuck here. What if the chance comes to get back home and I miss it? What if I’m too sick to take it? What if...?
“Dear,” said Blue Mary gently, “you’re spilling your drink.”
Stoner opened her eyes.
“Finish up, now.”
She felt the mug taken from her and pressed to her lips. She was too weak to resist. She let the warm liquid flow into her mouth.
“Swallow, dear.”
It hurt. Like burning claws drawn down her throat.
She swallowed again, and the burning spread up into the back of her nose and ears. She wondered vaguely if Mary had given her acid to drink. Or maybe something in the herbs had a funny reaction to something in the clay mug, like orange juice and that Mexican pottery some years back. Or maybe...
“That’s good,” said Blue Mary, and took away the mug. “Now your hands.”
She tried to hold them out, but couldn’t move. She felt Blue Mary take them, one at a time, smoothing something onto her fingertips and ears, touching her nose. The burning in her skin faded to a distant echo.
“I’m sorry, Mary,” she said weakly. “I didn’t mean to...”
She fell into unconsciousness.
≈ ≈ ≈
It was nearly dawn. The Sanctified Man watched as the eastern sky shaded to gray, then steely blue. The snow had stopped. The day would be clear.
He cracked his knuckles nervously. He should accomplish great things today. There was much to do. The storm would keep the Stranger inside the Witch’s house, no doubt. But that was all right. He needed time to prepare. He must purify himself of the scum of his worldly incarnation. A bath. The suit of clothes he had stolen in San Francisco lay untouched in a trunk in the attic. He considered ordering his mousey wife to wash and press them, but if she were unclean...
No, he couldn’t take chances. He had to do it himself. And sharpen the Jesus knife, and pray.
So much to do.
Something troubled him. Held him back.
The Word spoke of a Gathering of Witches. If he destroyed the Beast now, the Gathering would never happen.
That might be good.
On the other hand…
If he waited until the Beast had called them all together…
He could kill them ALL.
He frowned, wondering how many there’d be, and if they’d be too much for him. But with God’s help…
He leafed quickly through the rough ledger in which he’d copied down the words God dictated to him. Searching for instructions, a suggestion.
Nothing.
God, Who had brought him to this particular place at this particular time to do His work?
Nonsense.
He grinned. There’d be a way. GOD would show him how. When the time came, he only had to be where they were, and GOD would step in and destroy them. He only had to open the door.
The Sanctified Man thought about the carnage, the spilled blood and broken bones, the torn flesh. Thought about it and licked his lips.
He wanted to look at the Beast’s picture again. To imagine how It would look, to see what the townspeople would see when the bastard was unmasked.
He went to the fireplace and pried the loose stone from its bed. The Witch’s Book, still wrapped in silk, lay deep in the darkness. He drew it out and leafed through the unbound pages that the witch called her Tarot.
There It was. The horned, taloned, bearded, winged Beast. Red-eyed and terrible. And beneath the true image, Its human disguise. The naked man/woman, the sexes portrayed separately but linked by chains that showed they were one, and one with the Beast...
Just the way the Bastard had appeared to him that day. The day he hid by the creek and watched the Bastard wash itself...
And above them all, the reversed sign of the Witch.
And the Devil’s number, XV. Fifteen, the Bastard’s age.
Glorious, glorious, glorious.
≈ ≈ ≈
Dreams.
Fever dreams.
She ran through a field of wildflowers, the sun warm and yellow on her body. Queen Anne’s lace, purple cone flower, blue gentian, wild geranium and columbine danced and swayed beneath a high blue sky. There was a smell of peaches and wild raspberry in the air.
A cloud passed over, and suddenly it changed. The flowers transformed to thorny brush that tore at her legs and ankles. The breeze brought the reek of rotting vegetation. It stung her nose and made the bile rise in her throat.
She looked around, realized she was lost.
The tangled brush was growing. Twisting itself into a fence of thorns. Blocking her way. Spiny tendrils worked their way between and around one another. They grew higher, and shut out the light.
Now she was in a tunnel of thorns, the sky far away and gray with storm clouds. The wind rose. The rotten smell grew stronger, more than vegetation, overlaid with the sickly sweet odor of decaying flesh. She tried to climb. Razor-sharp spines tore her hands to ribbons.