The Witch at Sparrow Creek: A Jim Falk Novel (28 page)

“No,” Samuel answered, looking at Hattie with a sideways
glance.

“Where did you see this?”

“No.”

Hattie sighed and sat down on the floor. He looked at
the picture and showed it again to Samuel.

“Horse,” Samuel said.

“Right,” Hattie said, and pointed to the mound of meat
and bones. “Horse.”

“No,” Samuel said and shook his head and then extended
a finger and put it on the thing’s ugly face in the drawing. “Horse.”

Hattie stood and rolled up the drawing and started getting
things ready to go up to the church with the rest of them.

Tracks from every which way could be seen leading right
up to the church. Hattie walked up the steps holding Samuel’s hand.

They could hear the crowd that was gathered inside and
when they got in the door they saw it was full of folk, full of folk from the
whole of Sparrow. May and Huck were there, but many others were there too, many
folk who were hardly seen or heard from, the ones who lived up on the ridge had
even come in, the Osloes, Arnots, and the Dankirk brothers, Martha Mofat and
her blind sister Annabelle. Clive Skiles, who used to help Bill Hill make wagon
wheels, was holding a rifle. Marty Billowait was holding a rifle. John Bandy
was holding a rifle.

Hattie felt like taking Samuel right back out the way
he’d come in. But there was just enough room in the way back at the edge of the
pew for Hattie and Samuel to squeeze in and kind of hide. The murmurs and
whispers of the crowd grew clear and turned into understandable words like “up
north,” and “witch,” and “snow spell.”

Merla Mosely was talking loudly to Clive Skiles that
she’d seen the witch at the edge of the wood dancing around a bucket of water before
Jim Falk brought her into town. Immediately, heads turned with “whats” and
“wheres” and “whens” and “the outlander with her?”

Ruth Mosely stood up from the crowd and walked up to
beside the pulpit.

“Merla Mosely!” she shouted. “John!”

Her husband popped up and came to stand beside her, and
Merla Mosely walked away from Clive Skiles and came and stood up there with them.

“Quiet!” Ruth shouted, and everybody went quiet. “Merla
Mosely’s got something to tell you all. Go ahead, Merla.”

Merla looked around at all the faces. This must be what
her pa sees on the days when he gives a lesson. “Good morning,” she said.

“Good morning,” the crowd said together.

“Just tell them!” Ruth whispered harshly at her.

“I saw Jim Falk bringing a witch to town . . .” Merla
started to say, but before she could finish there were gasps and loud voices
and some people stood up.

“Quiet!” Ruth shouted.

“Quiet!” John Mosely shouted. Everyone quieted down.

“Now go on, Merla,” Ruth said again.

“Just at the edge of the wood they were. I couldn’t really
see what they were up to, but the witch seemed to be, well, dancing around a
bucket. You know that’s a spell they do to bring on the weather.”

Many people nodded their heads.

“Then he took the witch down to the doctor’s house and
that’s where they are right now!”

John spoke up now. “When Falk came to town, all these
things started up again. If the snow continues as it is, we may be in a blizzard,
but we’re more prepared. Huck Marbo and some of us others have stored up quite
a bit—enough to last a while for us all, a few weeks, maybe a month if we
ration it out and if everyone is able to follow the rules. Enough time for someone
to go up to Hopestill or over to Bowden and come back with more. But for the
witch and Jim Falk . . .”

Ruth burst out impatiently, “Falk’s to blame for all
this! All of what’s happened here, the chicken man getting killed, Bill Hill! The
Starkey house burned down. Falk and the witch! The snow’s coming! The snow is
coming! Falk’s brought the witch in here!”

Someone shouted, “Kill the witch! Kill Falk! Kill the
outlander!”

May’s eyes looked around at all the people of Sparrow
and from up on the ridge and everyone who’d packed themselves up into the
church.

The faces were pinched and eyebrows crooked, the mouths
were open and twisted or closed and twisted and people were up suddenly on
their feet with fists up in the air.

She looked up into her pa’s face, but his eyes were cast
down into his lap. They looked closed, but they weren’t; they were looking down
into his lap and his hands were there in his lap, clasped together.

“Pa,” she whispered into his neck, “this isn’t right.”

Hattie Jones felt that this was all going in the wrong
direction, so he shouted, “Where’s the preacher? Why are we listening to you
all anyway?”

Then Ruth snapped, “Silence!”

It was then that the preacher rose up. He had come in
during the commotion. Vernon had woken up in his house to find that he was completely
alone. Aline was gone, Merla was gone. He immediately ran to his fireplace and
made sure his papers were safe in the spot. They were. He figured he should
move them soon again, even though Falk was the only other person who knew where
they were. He walked outside and noticed the snow coming down, but he noticed
something else, too. He noticed that his arm was completely healed. He saw some
people heading toward the church.

Now he stood and raised both his arms in the air to still
the folks in the church, but now that he’d drawn attention to his arms and
hand, many in the crowd took notice that his right hand was inside of a black
glove, but his left hand was pink and exposed.

“Now,” Vernon said again, and not being a man who was
used to shouting, it was a little cracked in the middle. “Now! There’s no use
in this while the blizzard’s coming! If there is any time we need to all stick
together and not go accusing one another and judging one another, now is that
time!”

He walked forward and stood down in front with Ruth and
John and Merla Mosely all standing behind him.

Vernon looked over at his wife again and saw that not
only was she not looking at him, but she was looking away and over at the wall
of the little church. He looked over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of his
brother’s eyes, to see if there was any help there, but his brother was eagerly
leaning his head up against Ruth’s mouth as she, with a cupped hand, whispered
and whispered into John’s ear.

He looked at his wife again and now her eyes were open
and on him burning and her brows were together. The conversation of the previous
evening had shut her heart closed to him and her eyes said loud that he’d
betrayed her. He shouldn’t have told her. He was realizing this now. He shouldn’t
have said anything. Or at least, he should have said that he didn’t know and that
it was a snake probably that bit him was all and that all he remembered was
waking up in the doctor’s house and that the outlander had tried to help him
but couldn’t or some damned lie. He shouldn’t have told her the truth, but he
had.

At the sight of these eyes, Vernon’s own heart burned
with a sick and lonely fire. There came over and upon him a dizzying feeling
that he’d never had; in his mind he saw a boat on a dim lake of silent, dark
water. He looked at his wife and wondered about the truth that he told her the
evening before and the truth about the stranger, about the witch, about his healing.
Was it only overnight that all this had somehow twisted her against him? He
looked at Ruth again. She was looking at him the same way, her white lips pressed
together.

“Magic!” the word spit from Aline’s pressed lips, and
her right arm extended and at the end of it her hand curled, shaking and a finger
pointed at her husband. “Witchcraft!”

Gasps came from the crowd.

“That’s what’s under the glove! Tell them, Vernon! You
man of God! Tell them the truth!” Aline stood now and she was shaking with rage.

The people of Sparrow grew very still now and all who
were standing took their seats.

“Yes,” Ruth said. “Preacher, is there some truth that
you need to tell us?”

May grabbed her father’s hand.

John Mosely looked at his brother and said, “Brother?”

May whispered to her pa, “Pa,” she said, “we know . .
.”

“We don’t know nothing, May. Quiet,” he whispered quick
back into her ear.

Ruth said, “Take off the glove and show us, Preacher!
Show us the evil hand!”

Vernon stuttered, “Now, I . . . this is . . .”

“Yes,” his wife muttered, “show them!”

Vernon cleared his throat and removed the glove. Beneath
the glove, there was a hand, white and skinny as bones with purple fingernails,
but a living hand nonetheless. The fingers wiggled. He rolled the rest of his
sleeve and showed the church the rest of his arm, which was just as white and
dead-looking as his hand, and yet it was shot through with blue veins and the
muscles inside bulged a little as he turned it for the crowd.

“Yes, the outlander healed my arm, but not with magic
or witchcraft, but with a kind of medicine and faith . . .”

“Liar!” his wife screeched. “You’ve gone to see the witch
of the woods! He’d gone up to ask her for power over the spook! At least that’s
what he says! A spell of protection on Sparrow! But that’s not what he got!
Coming back from the witch’s place he thought better of the whole deal and went
to the church to ask forgiveness and it was walking in here that his arm was
burned up with holy fire! The arm that he swore an oath to the witch with, God
burned it up! Whatever it was that he asked that witch for, God saw fit to burn
him up, but then he called on the outlander to heal him up! Now we know this Jim
Falk is with the witch. They’re all in league! You’re in league too!” She
turned to the crowd with tears in her eyes, her right hand still pointing at
her husband. “My husband! Your preacher! Is in league with the Evil One!”

“God did not . . . I’m not . . .” Vernon started in,
but it was too late.

Gasps and shouts rose from everywhere in the pews now
and someone said, “Tie him up!”

“It was a demon that come in the church that twisted
up my arm!” Vernon cried.

“Quiet! Servant of the Darkness!” Ruth Mosely’s voice
broke clear and hard over the din of the crowd.

Then several men from the front pews jumped up and rushed
Vernon and they overcame him, their hands grabbing hard against him and fingernails
digging into his neck as they grappled and dragged him away from the pulpit and
against the back wall under the wood cross.

“Brother! Brother!” John was shouting and watching everything
happen to his older brother, but there was nothing he could do. How could he
come to his aid?

Then another sound was heard. Martha and Annabelle Mofat
were screaming and then a cold wind blew up through the center aisle and there
was the loud clap of the repaired doors of the church swinging open.

There, in the church door, stood James Falk, the outlander,
and beside him under her dark veil, the witch.

“Let the preacher go!” Jim yelled at the men.

The men did not and the crowd got quiet and all exchanged
glances.

“Let the preacher go,” Jim said and took a step forward.

“Or else what?” someone in the crowd snarled.

“Preacher!” Falk yelled. “The whole town is against you!”

Violet came in with her pistol out. Her wide eyes met
Vernon’s and flickered. The doctor walked in with his pistol out.

Huck grabbed his daughter’s hand and Huck and May Marbo
rose up and May’s face beamed out when she saw the outlander place his hand on
the witch’s shoulder, but whether in fear or in hope, May could not tell, as
both were mixed inside her and both felt equally appealing. “Not the whole
town.”

The witch raised her hands to speak.

At this, a shot was fired, shattering the glass and causing
the group to all jump but the witch.

Another shot came and splintered the ceiling somewhere
in the corner. It came out of Clive Skiles’s rifle. “I didn’t have to miss,” he
said.

“Well, this is just fine,” Violet said.

“It’s me they want,” Jim said.

“And me,” the witch said.

“And me,” the preacher said.

Huck Marbo produced his pistol and said to the crowd,
“Do you know, before my family came into Sparrow, there was trouble? There’s
been trouble and tales of trouble for so many years going back, as I hear,
before even us Joneses came to Sparrow, ain’t that right, Hattie?”

Httie said, “That’s right!”

Huck continued, “Why, I heard tell that even one of the
first families here in the area, the Ingerfells, bore three sons and that the
third was a devil with wings and horns, but with a horse’s head and hooves. That
it lurked here in these woods and made offspring so as all the horses around
here were once feared to be the offspring of this devil. So that sometimes, in
the night, you might hear a whinny or a neighing and you’d freeze up wondering
if the thing was coming to catch you up. See, this ain’t no kind of news to me
about demons and spooks crawling around in the woods around here. These people
brought nothing. Well, I don’t know about that exactly,” Huck said, indicating
the witch.

Benjamin Straddler stood up and was about to speak when
everyone noticed that John Mosely was muttering to himself. He had a pistol of
his own and it was pointing at the witch. Tears were dripping from him, and he
was muttering, “Evil. Evil. Evil. Evil.”

John Mosely fired and his blast hit the witch and she
fell straight back against the floor as if she’d been a sack of rocks.

But John Mosely never saw what happened after that because
his own head was whipped back with a burning force and a crack of light. He tumbled
down from beside the pew and everyone was running in every direction suddenly.

John flailed, clutching at the empty space where his
nose and eyes once were. White smoke filtered from Falk’s Dracon pistol. May was
holding her ears and Jim and the doctor rushed to the fallen witch.