The Witch at Sparrow Creek: A Jim Falk Novel (29 page)

The people fled the building, Ruth running, Clive Skiles
bounding along the pews, Hattie running with Samuel, the crowd screaming and
pushing and falling and kicking out the broken door.

A man’s voice from outside rang clear. “They’ve killed
John Mosely! They’ve killed the preacher’s brother!”

“John!” Vernon cried and fell to his knees and hot tears
formed in his eyes. “My own brother! No!”

Jim and the doctor looked at the witch. Her body lay
still and her right hand was in a tight fist over her chest and smoke curled from
beneath the white fist.

“Alive?” Jim asked the doctor.

The doctor grabbed at her hand to feel her wrist, and
as he did the hand fell open and inside was a bloody and smoking lump of black
lead. The witch’s face moved and beneath that thin, dark veil, the doctor and
Jim were sure they saw a smirk that revealed the white curving teeth behind red
lips. Then the witch, Wylene, cackled in high, sharp bursts, gleeful and wild,
and got all too quickly to her feet. She dropped the smoking shot to the floor
and cackled again, shrill and climbing ever higher into the rafters of the
little church, ringing like silver knives in the air.

“We must leave this place,” she said. “I’ve heard their
thoughts. They mean to shut us up in here and burn us all alive.”

The witch turned to Huck and May, “All of us.”

When they turned to the doorway it was dark and hammers
could be heard hammering in the nails. Then the windows went dark too.



The next dawn, the church still burned and burned, bright
against the gray light of the morning. There were still a few folks about
watching the blaze. The snow had stopped completely and when the church went on
burning into the afternoon, many thought that the whispers about the unholy
fire might be true.

“How come the church is on fire?” Hattie Jones asked
one of the men from up at the ridge who’d come down when the snow got bad. He
didn’t recognize the man for sure, but he looked, he thought, like Clive
Skiles.

“There was a witch inside,” said Clive Skiles.

Hattie nodded. “You saw that witch in the church?”

“Yessir, and that outlander, and a crew he’d formed I
guess with the doctor and all. You was there.”

“Yeah, but I got out quick. What’s the preacher say about
all this?”

“Preacher was inside too when they boarded them up. As
far as I hear tell, he’d gone over to their side! He was one of them,
in league,
as they say. And they shot and killed John Mosely, yessir. Ruth, his wife, put
a gun in his hand and whispered to him to kill the witch, told him that if he
killed the witch, the others might come out from under the spell that had come
over them or something as such. Yessir, I was on my way out the door, but then
I got involved! All I seen was people running this way and that and John shot
at the witch and the witch goes down! And then, bang! He comes falling down and
he’s got no more face at all, and he fell right down right there and he was
just dead.”

The burning church crackled.

“So that’s what they did, then? They closed it all up
and burned it down.”

“Yessir, they were all still inside, some said they could
hear ’em all screaming as the flames got to them,” Clive said.

“It sure has been burning a long time,” Hattie said.

“You know,” Clive whispered, “some say it’s a special
fire that God caused to happen so as to burn up all the evil inside the church.”

The snow flew against their faces and the outlander and the
witch led the way. Behind her, May thought she could still hear the hollering
and yelling of the men who’d set about to burning the church. Hadn’t they?

She held tight to her pa’s hand and he held tight to
hers as they rushed along behind Jim and the witch. Jim’s cool blue eyes glinted
at her as no Sparrow boy’s ever had when she’d handed him the doctor’s medicine.
But now, how could this be? Rushing along suddenly in the night. At one moment
they had been in the church and then . . . had she imagined all that?

Her right foot slipped and she almost went down, but
her pa’s arm tightened and he said, “Watch!” harsh under his breath.

She knew he couldn’t like the situation they were suddenly
in. But they didn’t seem to have a choice now. Somehow, Ruth Mosely got the
whole town up and against them. That made less sense to her than following a
witch through the dark woods in the snow. Up ahead, May saw the black shape of
the witch passing back and forth among the trees. Had she saved them all from
the flames of the burning church? Between the smoke and the snow, May couldn’t
remember.

There was heat and smoke, choking, running, and then
darkness. Darkness for a long time and then the cool wind and the stars and the
trees and the snow.

Ahead of her, they moved and she could hear Jim whispering
to the witch and the witch whispering back. She could make out the tall shape
of the Hill woman walking ahead of her. Around her, the other folk were moving
along with them through the snow and darkness. The poor preacher and the doctor
too struggling up the side of a rocky hill. The way was growing steeper and
steeper. She guessed they might be headed up into the Ridges, where she’d never
been. She’d heard of them, she’d seen the folk come down to the church at times
and knew that they built good houses, almost as good as the ones that Bill Hill
used to. She watched the back of Violet’s head for a moment against the sky and
then dip down with the effort of getting up through the rocks.

These people from the Ridges came down once in every
so often, mostly when something big was happening. That’s why they’d been down to
Sparrow when everyone was at the church. May wondered if anyone from up on the
Ridges had seen a spook, or knew about the witch. She’d heard that long ago the
people of Sparrow, before it was called Sparrow, had it out over something religious
and that those who lost out had moved on up to the Ridges. Whatever it was that
had driven them apart, the power of it had faded over the years to the point
where someone might come down once in a while. Some of the older people in
Sparrow still gave the folk at the Ridges a sidelong glance when they showed
up.

Her pa was pulling her up now, and she was climbing then
along with the rest of them, using her hands and grasping cold rocks and slippery
weeds and brambles in snow, dulled and crisped by the wetting of winter. At
last she smelled the crispness of open air, and a strong wind blew across her
face and whipped her hair and snow all about.

The sky opened up over her head and dark shadows of crooked
rocks stood up in the starlight. Then the clouds closed the hole. But she saw
clearly now the figures around her in the darkness and could see their faces in
gray and blue shades.

It was dusk and they had come up along the crest of the
western side of the hill. In a little line, they stood for a while and watched
as the sun, just at the very edge of another row of darkening hills, burned a
pink circle behind the veil of the white sky. It was going down.

Jim and the witch had led them the whole way here, but
now, as the sun began to set, Jim’s face bowed down and up again. His left hand
went to his hip and then up to his head. He took off his hat. He put it back
on. He crouched and turned and picked up snow and dirt and turned again.

Watching all this from a little distance away, the doctor
turned and looked at Violet, who was standing high up on a rock as if to try
and keep off the same spot where the witch was. The witch stood straight and
motionless beside a straight and motionless tree.

The doctor looked back at Violet’s face. She looked better.
She was better. Different already from the blue-looking woman he had seen, her
trembling lips talking about her Bill, her hands steadily firing shots into
that thing that picked him up and tried to eat him alive. The sun, disappearing
behind the hills, cast a pink light across her face, filling in all the shadows
of her angles—her face was full and her cheeks soft and her eyes shone green.
But she was thinking of some memory that pained her, and her gaze drifted
toward the witch and her feet moved in her brown shoes to keep their footing on
the snowy rock where she stood.

The doctor wanted to comfort her, but he couldn’t.

They were all looking down at Sparrow from the big hill
in the dark. Down in Sparrow, they could see the flames shooting up to the sky.
The church was still burning. Still.

“We should be dead,” Violet said and looked at the doctor’s
face looking up at her. “What will we do?” She glanced at the witch, who stood
stiff and still as the tree she stood by.

“What is it that happened?” Violet said. “We’re going
to need food. Where will we go?”

“The sun is going down,” Jim Falk said. “We need to find
shelter and find it quick.”

As if it had heard the thing that Jim said and
wanted to make the point, a wolf howled. It wasn’t from far away. It was close.
The group shrunk together. May, Huck, Doc Pritham, the preacher, Violet, Jim,
and the witch, all of them made a little circle.

There was another howl and a yip. May sniffled a bit
and reached out for her pa’s hand and found his arm. She squeezed close to him.

“I won’t let them get you, May,” he said. “No matter
what.”

“There is a cave near here,” Violet said. “I remember
it being near here. I’ve been up here before. If we can just make it along up
that way.” She pointed and waved her hand so that they could all see where she
was pointing to.

Jim Falk said, “She’s right. It’s up over that crest.
If we can move.”

There were little snarls from in the woods near them.

“It’s too late,” Vernon Mosely said. “They are upon us!”

When Mosely said that, a group of wolves sauntered into
the open, blocking the way to the hill beyond where the cave was, just as if
they knew that was where the group was headed.

May whimpered. She had never seen a wolf and she had
never smelled one before, but now here they were, right from a nightmare, and they
smelled bad.

“Stay in a circle,” the witch said. She looked at Jim.
“I am weak from making the tunnel. I don’t know what I can do, but I will do
what I can.”

They all wondered, the
tunnel?

But Jim was quick and angry. He grabbed the doctor and
pulled him forward. “We’ll take them!” he shouted. “Run! Follow Violet! Run!”

Violet ran fast up toward the trees, and the rest followed
her as Jim’s gun cracked and the doctor’s gun cracked and flashed and lit up
the night. They heard the barking and the yowling of the wolves, they heard Jim
shouting and the doctor shouting.

“This way!” Violet called.

May and Huck followed close behind, but May could see
out the corner of her eyes that there were dark forms rushing along beside of
them. She glimpsed the shadowy shapes of their pointed noses and their sharp ears
and heard them panting. She could hear the guns of the doctor and the outlander
banging and the flashes from their guns lighting up the woods with green and
yellow lightning.

Her pa fired his rifle into the bushes and May shrieked
and three wolves scurried. “Stay close, May, stay as close as you can. Don’t
look anywhere but straight ahead!”

He was struggling with his leg. She wasn’t sure how long
he would be able to keep up with Violet, but she also knew that he was strong.
He squeezed her hand hard.

The wind and the darkness moved against them. The gunshots
rang in their ears. The wolves that ran to the right and left of them only
scattered momentarily. They came right back. One of them rushed across the path
in front of them. As Huck ran, which was not very fast with his leg, he let go
her hand and struggled to reload his weapon.

“Stay close, May, stay close,” he said again.

The witch and Violet were getting farther and farther
away so that May could barely see them against the trees. May shut her eyes
tight and opened them at any movement expecting those slavering teeth to clamp
down on her leg or her neck. Another wolf rushed out into the path in front of
them, and this time it stopped cold and another appeared behind it.

They snarled and lowered their heads and bristled their
backs in the snow and wind and blackness. May could see their teeth and the
little wisps of their breath like smoke puffing out.

Huck was fidgeting and trying to get his cold fingers
to get the bullets in the chamber.

Then a black shadow fell on the wolves and their bodies
twirled and spun and yipped. The black shadow spun with them and one of the wolves
flew off into the brush. Another went suddenly limping and running wildly in
the other direction.

The witch’s voice called to them, “Come on! The cave
is just ahead.”

Huck managed to get his gun loaded.

They came into a place where she thought she could hear
water, and she saw the shape of Violet move into a blackness and then return
and wave them onward.

Jim and the doctor were able to clear away the wolves
with gunfire quickly and head up toward the cave, but as the doctor turned and
looked back at the clearing where they had been, he saw something that sent a
freezing fear into his heart.

There was a huge wolf, at least twice the size of a normal
one. It had come into the clearing with many, many other wolves. It was standing
there nearly as if it was talking to them, giving orders of some kind.

“Falk! Look!” he said.

The clearing was filled with wolves now. Jim counted
twenty before he stopped counting. They were not moving up the hill toward Jim
and the group, though. They all started heading in the other direction, to
Sparrow!

“They’re heading to Sparrow! Falk!”

“I can see that,” Jim said as the two men headed up the
hill and into the cave. “Who knows how many more of them there are?”

The cave had a small entrance but a large den. Huck and
May and the preacher got to work right away on making a fire.

“How did you do it, witch?” the preacher asked. “How
did we escape the fire? Where were we? How did we get here?”

Wylene leaned against the wall of the cave and heaved
a heavy sigh. “I saved us,” she groaned. “What does it matter?”

Jim said, “The people of Sparrow may be in grave danger.
Those wolves are some way not natural and are heading back into the town.”

Violet was grumbling at Huck as they tended a small fire
in the back of the cave. The doctor had come in and told them to move the fire,
to put it out, and if they had to start it again to move it to the back of the
cave. Then there was a lot of fussing around for a while between Huck and
Violet. The preacher had started into talking about his daughter—his daughter
and his wife. He was worried. He was worried about what would happen to his
daughter if his wife had turned against him. There was no telling what was
happening down in his town now. He told the group how much he loved everyone in
the town—that they were all like children to him.

Violet said, “Bring those rocks back here, Preacher,
and put them around the fire.”

The preacher stood. He looked at Huck Marbo and saw in
Huck Marbo’s eyes a dead seriousness, but he saw too that Marbo’s eyes flickered
back and forth from Wylene to May and then to Violet. He saw that when Marbo’s
glance happened on Violet she could feel his glance, but Violet never took her
eyes off the witch, who was crouched at the cave entrance. The preacher started
getting some rocks to put around the fire.

May looked up when the witch groaned. This witch had
saved her life. Witches were supposed to eat children. Just then the fire cracked
and a big flame came up. She could see the witch leaning on the wall holding
her side. She had been injured in the fight with the wolves.

The witch looked small. The witch looked skinny and helpless
and her clothes looked like a black sack on her. May thought of a sudden that
there was nothing scary at all about the witch. If she even was a witch. She
was not like any witch that May had ever heard of. She did have weird fingers
with sharp hooks on the end, like a bird’s claws, and those black, black eyes
and sharp teeth, but the witch was more like some pretty animal than an old
evil witch from a story.

“We’re needing to decide what to do here,” Jim said.

They all started talking around the fire, making plans
and ideas about what had happened and what should be done about the wolves, but
May wasn’t really listening to all that going on. She had wandered away, taking
steps closer to the cave’s entrance where the figure of the witch leaned
against the wall in the cave. Wylene wasn’t talking to the others either. She
was fixed on something else and holding her stomach.

When she was just a girl in Sparrow, May heard that there
was a witch in the woods. The witch was out there, the stories went, and once,
long ago, she had come into Sparrow and taken children or a family, which, May
supposed, is what most witches do. They take away children and innocents and do
awful things in the name of the Evil One. That’s what witches do.

One night, when her ma was still alive, the men were
drinking and talking and May heard about it. She heard about a lot of things that
way.

The men were all sitting around at the bar and they were
talking about the old days.