Bound by Blood and Brimstone (9 page)

scanning the trees on either side of us, her expression wary. I knew we were being watched. I felt

it on the back of my neck, like the brush of fingertips against my nape. An involuntary shiver

gripped me for a moment, but I kept pace with Wonnie and attempted to focus on her words.

She told me about her mother, the young girl who’d barely escaped with her life on the

Trail of Tears, forced to live as a fugitive in the wilds of North Carolina with her father.

She told me of the rebirth of her Wolf Clan, begun by a handful of stragglers who banded

together and fought for their right to remain part of a sovereign nation. Her mother had grown

into a leader among her people, a fierce warrior in many battles against encroaching whites.

She’d earned her Cherokee name of “Bleeding Fist” over the spilled blood of white soldiers and

died a warrior’s death, honored among the people.

Wonnie had been a twin, but only she’d survived to be celebrated as a “gifted one.” Her

skills as a medicine woman and seer had earned her the pinnacle of power among the Cherokee,

but she’d given it all up for the love of a stranger who’d wandered into the village when she was

“past the age of forty winters.”

Samuel Dean had been raised by white missionaries and knew nothing of the ways of the

people. Wonnie had hated him at first sight. She’d thought of him as weak and a traitor to his

people, taking the white man’s God and his ways. Samuel had been twenty when he first came to

Wonnie’s tiny village and had fought hard to win over the striking medicine woman.

I could only imagine how people in Silver Rock Creek would wag their tongues if they

knew of any woman marrying a man half her age. It gave me a quick thrill to know my Wonnie

would’ve scoffed at their gossip.

Wonnie had insisted on a traditional Cherokee ceremony, wearing the same dress she’d

given me. She told me her union with Samuel Dean had been one of “heart, spirit, and body.”

Two cultures were mingled with their marriage as Wonnie accepted Samuel’s Christian savior,

and he in turn, learned the old ways from her.

When their daughter was only ten, Samuel had died of small pox. A broken-hearted

Wonnie had taken her little girl and left her people for the hills of West Virginia. It stunned me,

imagining her and a child, alone in a strange place.

“How could you leave everybody like that, Grandma? Weren’t you lonely?” She

hesitated in her tracks and turned to look at me, breathing hard from the brisk pace she kept.

“Yes,” she said, “but not alone. I had my Jesus and my Samuel’s spirit.” That was an

unsettling notion, to say the least, but I didn’t ask her to elaborate, nor did I ask about her

daughter and grandson, who would become my Daddy.

I’d figured Wonnie’s chatter was more camouflage than reality. She was simply offering

me a distraction to keep me from thinking about the fact that we were being followed into the

depth of the woods.

Noting a slight change in her demeanor during our walk, I realized she had her eyes and

ears trained on every nuance of the forest. Her features and carriage betrayed a wariness she was

trying to conceal. Suddenly, she halted our progress with a raised finger and stood statue-still,

listening.

The forest seemed to hold its breath and the flutter of wild creatures ceased. All was utter

silence as we strained our ears toward the trees. A guttural rumbling vibrated low in Wovoka’s

chest, his hackles ruffling. Wonnie held the rifle at the ready, her body, taut. Then we heard it,

the solid snap of dry twigs, as dry twigs sound when tromped on by shoes.

My muscles quivered with the strain of remaining motionless, my lungs burning for new

air. My thoughts were a tumble of loose threads.
Someone’s been out there behind us the whole

time, making every step we take, but who? Why?

Out of the blue, the sullen face of Caleb Jacobs rose in my mind’s eye. I’d recently

learned he was much older than I’d thought. Miss Hacker had promoted him to fifth grade

because he couldn’t be held back anymore, and at fifteen, he had to move on. Fifteen was fully

grown and plenty strong enough to do serious damage to an old woman and a young girl. God

knew he was mean enough.

An icy chill rattled me where I stood, and I tensed, preparing to run. But Wonnie

shouldered her rifle, shook her head, and motioned for me to fall in step behind her.

Before long, we were standing near a strand of spruce trees at the edge of the clearing

where Wonnie had her “secret place.” Here, the afternoon sun had room to reach its warm

fingers to our faces and nurture the profusion of herbs and roots around us.

I tried hard to shake off the image of Caleb Jacob’s big head and concentrate on what

Wonnie was saying about willow bark being better than white man’s aspirin.

“You strip the bark and dry it to make tea. It will ease aches and pains of the head and

body.” She used her knife to carve out several slivers of bark from the tree we stood under. The

wind picked up tendrils of her hair damp with sweat and stirred the long, feathery leaves that

fluttered over us like an umbrella.

I took a deep breath of mint and pine and tried to calm myself, clearing my mind to make

room for Wonnie’s wealth of knowledge. If I was going to be a healer, I’d have to take better

control of my fears. I threw myself into Wonnie’s instructions for the next couple of hours as our

lesson progressed.

She showed me where to find yarrow and explained how its cut leaves could be used on

wounds to clot blood. Its fresh juice could even be diluted with spring water and sipped to help

internal bleeding.

I learned how the fruit of the wild rose could keep away colds, and a tea made from

ginseng root would ease colic. One of Wonnie’s favorites was the blackberry plant because of its

multitude of uses. One of the best over all stomach ailments ever, its leaves, if chewed, could

soothe bleeding gums, and a strong tea from its roots could soften the pain of swollen joints.

“You will use this many times to help your sister,” she said as she gathered several of the

sturdy plants to add to her pouch.

I tired long before Wonnie. It was getting close to suppertime, and I knew fried chicken

and fresh peas awaited me. At the precise moment my delicious daydream floated before me,

Wonnie slung her rifle over her shoulder and called to Wovoka. “We will go now,” she said.

She continued her nonstop chatter during our walk back. Truth be told, she was probably

trying to cover any sounds of our unseen follower. Knowing I was scared and trying hard not to

show it, she thought to distract me, and I loved her for it. Before I realized it, I was hanging on

every word of her stories of witches and ghosts and Little People.

The Raven Mocker, she told me, was the most feared of all Cherokee witches. Raven

Mockers obtained old age by eating the hearts of their victims and adding additional lives to

what they had before.
Very nice,
I thought glumly.
A life-sucking, heart-eating witch is just what

I wanted to hear about. That should make me feel so much better about being followed by some

lunatic.

A small wave of annoyance rippled through me, and I reached for her arm to stop her a

moment. “Grandma, I have to ask you something. Do you really believe all the stuff you’ve told

me about witches and spirits, or are you just a good storyteller?” She stood for a long moment,

her eyes on Wovoka as though composing her words before speaking.

One thing was certain. Whatever she told me could be trusted, for Wonnie didn’t have it

in her to lie. She turned to face me again, taking my hands in hers, holding my gaze.

“Listen to me, Running Deer,” she finally said. “I believe we are all from our Creator,

and I do not think it pleases Him when we hate another people enough to destroy them because

they are not like us. That is what happened to the Cherokee. There are many things in this world

we were not meant to understand, but that does not mean they are not real. The spirit world is

real, as is the natural world. Do not forget that.”

She gripped my hands tighter and cleared her throat. “I want you to remember this also.

Being Cherokee is more than blood. It is in here,” she said, taking one of my hands and placing it

over my heart.

I let her words wash over me, not sure I understood any of it. Just her tone had the power

to calm my fears and lighten my step as we continued our walk home. As we got close enough to

the cabin to see the path’s end, Wovoka suddenly shot from her side, growling and snarling like

some beast gone mad.

I knew it was out of character for him to leave Wonnie’s side unless permission had been

granted, and that fact alone quickened my pulse. Wonnie put out her arm to stop me, freezing me

in my tracks. Wovoka couldn’t be seen for the trees, but we heard the ferocious noise of his

wrath, as though he were pursuing a mortal enemy.

Her body rigid as stone, her rifle at the ready, Wonnie waited, her dark eyes locked with

mine. Then, Wovoka’s growls changed to excited barks, and he barreled through the woods

toward us. I knew what that bark meant. He wanted us to follow him. I looked to Wonnie for

guidance. “It is safe now.” She said. “No one is there.”

With great effort, I shook off the chill settling over me, and we stepped through the cover

of the trees to the hard-packed dirt yard in front of the cabin. I froze. My heart flipped. There,

scratched into the dirt near the porch, were the words
DIE WITCH
. Foremost in my mind’s eye,

was the face of Caleb Jacobs.

The summer of 1957, above all others, etched itself into my brain as sharply as one of

Daddy’s carvings. Every moment - from that day spent with Wonnie to the September morning

we headed out for school - was intense and swollen, throbbing with life.

The honeysuckle behind the smokehouse had never smelled sweeter. The May breezes

drifting down from Holt Mountain had never felt fresher. Some alien fire burned within me,

making me giddy and antsy, and I barreled through my days at breakneck speed, unable to sit or

stand in one place. Even my dreams pulsated with energy and savage color.

I believe God painted that summer brighter than all the rest so I could revisit it in my

mind and find some spot of joy, some connection to home that would sustain me. He knew that

summer would be my last hoorah before the maelstrom would suck us all under. He knew that,

soon, those deadly and rapidly unfolding events would march us straight into the mouth of

doomsday, so He allowed me one last glorious summer.

As long as we got our chores done, Lorrie Beth and I were left on our own to amuse

ourselves on those long, hot days. With our restless bodies and active imaginations, possibilities

for fun were endless and, many times, neighboring kids from the hollow and across the hill

would join us.

There were softball games in the meadow by the cemetery and ghost stories in front of

bonfires. There was swinging on grapevines, catching fireflies, skipping stones, and swimming

in Crystal Creek. We’d drag pallets on the back porch at night so we could count the stars before

nodding off.

If we were feeling particularly brave, we’d play hide-and-seek in the barn loft, risking a

sure beating if we got caught. Usually, I was the one who got switched. And, of course, there

was always my training sessions in the woods with Wonnie.

Upon seeing those dire words scratched into her yard that day, she’d merely shrugged

and said, “Why should I fear dying? I am ready for a rest.” She claimed she wasn’t about to let a

little thing like “stupid dirt scratching” stand in the way of our time together.

That summer will always be tied in my mind to those carefree joys and to the freedom

Lorrie Beth and I were given to be kids in the truest sense. Even more than those things,

however, that summer will forever be tied to Janine Westerfield. Without question, Janine was

both the source of our greatest joys and the catalyst for our deepest heartbreak.

I first met Janine during one of our softball games. She showed up one afternoon in early

June, out of the blue, and asked if anyone minded if she took a swing with the bat. A couple of

boys, who smirked when she stepped up to the mark, dropped their jaws when she slammed the

ball like a shot. That ball flew out of field, over the cemetery, and was never seen again.

“Guess ya’ll better get another ball,” she drawled and dropped the bat with a thud.

Janine was visiting her great aunt, Sarah Jane Walker, who happened to be one of our

nearest neighbors. Janine must’ve looked upon that connection as an open invitation to our

house, because in no time flat, she was one of the family.

The first time I laid eyes on Janine, I had a vision of a giant sunburst of color through my

“window.” As a matter of fact, that’s a fairly accurate assessment of what Janine was about.