Wayne Patrick

pwbracken@cox.net

Chapter 60

Emily ignored Poulet as she crossed the street. What is wrong with her? What have I done to deserve...? To hell with her. I have more pressing concerns. His stomach growled with a hollow emptiness.

A painting of the Angel Reizal sat on the altar in front of him. His mojo bag lay empty, awaiting new contents. He lit some incense, opened the Sang du Dragon and reverently removed the vellum page with the ritual details. He laid it on the altar. While reading the ancient text, he methodically mixed powders, put them in his mojo bag, cinched the ties and put it in his pocket. He rolled up the page of sheepskin, recited a Hail Mary and made the sign of the cross. He opened the door, found the reverend and Jake Duncan waiting outside and picked up the bag of barley seed.

They mounted their horses and set out for the area around Half Breed Cemetery. The snaking trail led them past the graveyard to the limestone fire pit where they dismounted. Duncan collected the traps from his horse and followed a path into the woods. He returned twenty minutes later after setting the three he'd brought, hoping they would lure Itopa'hi. The reverend started a fire. They sat on rotting tree stumps and watched the popping and spiting flames. They sat speechless, listening to the sounds of the woods.

"You know, Nidawi's cabin is not far from here," Poulet said, breaking the silence.

"I know that all too well," the reverend retorted.

Poulet got up, hobbled over to his mount and pulled out the coffee pot from his saddlebag. He set it near the fire and considered the length of the night.

The sun slipped behind the bluff and with it, the optimistic warmth of light. The air turned cooler as the men sat and sipped hot coffee. 

Duncan turned to Poulet. "What makes you think this uh, thing, is gonna show up?"

"It's already made one unsuccessful attempt on your life. Perhaps it will make another."

"I don't know about the two of you, but I'm scared," Duncan said, "and I ain't afraid of admittin' it."

"Well, Jake," Poulet said, "courage is being frightened to death, but saddling up anyway." 

"If this thing looks as bad as it felt in my line cabin," Duncan said, "I hope we can kill it."

"'Kill' is not the word, Jake," Poulet replied. "The word is 'destroy'”.

They continued to listen for any signs of Itopa'hi. The reverend stretched out on the damp ground with a moss-covered rock as a pillow, his Bible in hand. He pulled his hat down over his face and appeared to be settling in for a nap. 

Poulet and an anxious Duncan made small talk while Duncan stirred the fire embers with a stick. The lengthening silhouettes of the skeletal trees covered them in shadows, reminding them of the brevity of time.

Poulet retrieved the vellum page from his bag and sat near the fire. He closed his eyes and prayed to the Supreme Being and Loa of the Dead. He hoped his prayers for protection would be answered. If the deity deemed it necessary, his body would become possessed by the Loa itself. With eyeballs rolling heavenward and eyelids flapping with earnest resolve, his praying began anew.

A frosty wind blew up; one much colder than the surrounding air. It droned through the tree branches and passed over their leafless boughs with a lonesome whistle. Leaves carpeting the ground rustled and with another gust of wind, disappeared high into the twilight sky. As the wind diminished, it blew a low and mournful growl, then slowed to a haunting whisper.

Duncan scanned the clearing. "Don't this wind seem kinda spooky?" 

"It is only the restless wind, Jake," the reverend said. "I'm sure you've heard it many times before."

"I'm afraid it is more than that, reverend," Poulet said. "It's the trumpeting call."

"I hear no trumpets, Monsieur Poulet," the reverend said. "What in the blue blazes are you talking . . ."

"Shhh . . . it is here." Poulet sat up straight. "Just listen."

The wailing from the ridge was distant at first: a mile away, but distinctive. It became more immediate as its reverberation echoed within the clearing. The eerie sound was one of wounded crying, but not one of human origin. Jake Duncan covered his ears.

"Observe the sky, gentlemen," Poulet said.

A bank of cottony gray clouds had drifted in from the north. They migrated silently closer, not threatening and without perceptible fanfare. A dampened hush fell over the area.

"What kind of clouds are those, reverend?" Poulet asked.

"I'm afraid to say they resemble, well, snow clouds." 

"This is not a good omen," Poulet muttered.

As they scrutinized the sky, a faint ball of light formed at the top of a naked cedar tree. Its radiance intensified and illuminated the surroundings. The luminescent sphere abandoned the treetop and glided effortlessly in their direction. It bounced playfully up and down and then moved to the stand of trees nearest the clearing and settled on an upper branch of a sycamore. 

Another buoyant sphere joined it as more formed out of the ether and floated above them. Hundreds of plum-sized orbs danced throughout the clearing. They migrated to the trees and nestled on the bare limbs and branches, top to bottom, spreading their luminosity. 

Fireflies materialized, flitting aimlessly and blinking their phosphorescent bellies. Despite November's chill, clouds of them populated the clearing. Thousands of the insects flew about, their bodies leaving lazy fluorescent trails in their wake. They moved to the trees and joined the glowing orbs, their pulsating biological light alternating dim to bright. 

The men stood in awe of the brilliance of the sight before them, their mouths agape in wonder at the display of the otherworldly resplendence. Every surrounding growth of timber and sapling was trimmed with scintillating layers of sparkling incandescence. It was as if thousands of twinkling stars had fallen from the sky and settled in the barren tree limbs. 

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph," an amazed Duncan whispered. "Look at this! I've never seen anything like this in all my years of trapping. Those fireflies shouldn't be around this time of year, or those other things, for that matter. I don't even know what they are. I can't understand --"

"None of us can," Poulet whispered back. 

The wind slowed to a halt. No movement of air; only complete silence.

A foreboding scent of rotting flesh wafted to the men's nostrils and their noses crinkled with repulsion.

They turned anxiously to each other. It seemed the air was being drawn from their lungs. They fell on their knees gasping, struggling for life sustaining oxygen. Poulet was reminded of his nightmare of being buried alive. He clutched the handwritten chant in his hand even tighter.

Faint at first, but soon perceptible, was a low subterranean humming. It increased in volume until the earth beneath their feet shook with a thunderous resonance. Another gust of wind sliced through the clearing, inflating their lungs once again.

The reverend opened his Bible and read aloud from the Twenty-third Psalm, his shouting prayer lost in the drone of the tremendous humming. He fell to his knees, lolled his head back and looked to the immenseness of the heavens for a sign of guidance. He closed his eyes. The Bible dropped to the ground as he covered his ears.

"Get rid of it, Antoine!" Jake Duncan screamed over the clamor.

"Not until Itopa'hi appears," Poulet shouted back.

Despite the quaking earth and his loss of balance, Poulet staggered over to his skittish mount. He reached into his saddlebag and pulled out the ten pound sack of barley seed. "Get closer together!" he shouted.

They stood shoulder-to-shoulder as Poulet sprinkled the seed around them. He unfurled the vellum and took out his mojo and set it at his feet. 

He resumed his chanting.

The quaking earth stopped and the clearing again became deathly quiet. No woodland sounds met their ears.

A horrified Poulet caught the sight of a lone snowflake falling from the bloated sky. It landed on his ring on the open mouth of the lion. It vanished on contact. "Men, I'm afraid to say we may be too late," he said 

"What do you mean?" Duncan asked.

"It's beginning to snow."

"Maybe not, Antoine," Duncan replied. "Maybe it's just --"

A harsh "Hush up!" came from Poulet. "Look."

The bubbles of light were dislodging themselves from the leafless tree branches, spilling over each other in a frothing cascade to the ground. Unlike Poulet and the reverend's prior experience, the orbs fractured, hatching winged sprites.

"What the hell are those, Poulet?" the reverend asked.

"I'm not sure, reverend," Poulet said, surprised at the reverend's choice of words. "Despite their innocent appearance, I wouldn't trust their intentions." 

The fairies flitted around the clearing, their flapping wings a blur of sparking light. They chased each other, weaving through the trees at a breakneck speed in a puckish race. They came together and drew closer. 

The men looked to each other and grew smiles. They marveled at the hovering army of tiny affectionate faces. 

Like melting wax, the faces’ childlike demeanor faded, their convivial expressions twisting into antagonistic glares. Their mouths opened, exposing rows of bleeding teeth, their spiked tips dripping with necrotic rot. their convivial expressions twisting into antagonistic glares. Banshee-like wails spewed from their miniature lungs in a glass-shattering pitch and intensity.

The pixies spread their wings and flew twenty yards away to form a fifty foot tall grid of pulsating white light. The men took a quick glance, but with the glare burning their eyes, they turned away and huddled even closer together.

 The light then flickered and dimmed.  

The buzzing sound grew leisurely from the depth of the darkness beyond the trees. Within seconds, hundreds of horse flies appeared, their furiously beating wings growing louder and slapping the air with their chaffing rasp. The swarm descended on the three, nipping at their exposed flesh. Duncan pulled an old blanket over them for protection. The buzzing stopped. The flies disappeared. 

Silence again.

As their hearts beat ever louder, they pulled back the blanket and found the brilliant grid transforming. No longer a source of blinding light, it had taken on a subdued but sinister aura. A shimmering specter had formed with the outline of a headless man's torso, legs and arms. The towering transparent apparition stood silently above them, as tall as the treetops.

Duncan and Tutwiler turned to Poulet. 

"Is that whu...what I think it is?" Duncan asked.

"Tighten your sphincters, gentlemen," Poulet replied. "I think we're in for a fight."

Bony human-like phalanges shot from the ghost demon's wrists, forming deeply furrowed hands of wrinkled skin. Sparse tufts of glistening black hair sprouted, accompanied by a cacophonous cracking as they emerged strand-by-strand from the hide of its hands. Fingertips of keen talons gleamed with a polished ebony patina. The fingers stretched apart as if to be testing their strength. Above the glowing outline of forearms, two scythe-like spikes formed at the elbows; outlines with seemingly no substance, but the tips of the spikes glinted with a vicious intent. Below the legs, clawed feet formed covered with scabrous gray scales. The feet were those of a monstrous feathered animal.

A nebulous mist glided noiselessly through the trees. Coming from all sides, the ground-hugging fog rolled and swirled, changing shape and drifting in a cloud of listless motion. The mist shot to the top of the demon's torso. There, its form crystallized into two spherical objects that appeared to be transforming into heads. The profiles were not of a human nature, but distortions of something altogether different. Two oval shaped holes materialized in each of the grotesque visages. The fathomless black eyes stared down at them, pulling all the night's unknown darkness into their vacant cavities.The heads stretched and separated. Each mutated from a two-dimensional mask of benign simplicity into a malignant three-dimensional terrorizing facade of menace. Shafts of fine black hair shot up through its thick skin. Both skulls contorted into shallow foreheads with long and narrow snouts. The snouts grew jaws crowded with saliva-dripping needle-like canine teeth. Soaring spiked ears shot out from each head. The harmless void of its four eyes changed to blazing yellow and red chasms, as if one were peering through the gates of a burning hell. The spectral heads solidified into a pair of guardians of the underworld: snarling black jackals. They reared up, opened their gigantic jaws and let out a howl to the heavens that shook the earth and knocked the men over.

Behind the demon's cranium, another outline appeared. Two enormous wings stretched and arched high, scraping at the clouded sky. The tips of the wings tapered into sharply defined talons. The outline of radiant but transparent wings were those of a bat. 

Poulet, now overwhelmed with fear, dropped the vellum, grabbed the mojo bag with shaking hands and held it up to the demon.

"Be gone with the wuh . . . wind south north west and east," he shouted at the beast.

Itopa'hi's snouts pointed to the sky and let out wounded howls that rattled pine cones off their branches to the forest floor. It raised its left arm and brought it down in a swift and forceful swing that lashed at Poulet. The men instinctively jumped back, coming to within a whisker of being shredded. The reverend and the trapper dropped to their knees and huddled together. Poulet remained defiantly standing, but his weakened limbs shivered with apprehension.

"Tremble before he who doth sluh . . . slay the beast," Poulet shouted against its piercing screams. "Be gone to Hades and eternal fire, Ye minion no longer of the Great Liar."

Itopa'hi dropped its right arm, bent and turned its spiked elbow toward Poulet. The elbow streaked past Poulet in a blur. It caught his right arm, slashing open a wound that soon gushed a river of blood. He dropped the mojo bag as he grabbed his arm in pain and fell to his knees. 

A panicked Duncan shouted, "Your mojo, Antoine!" 

Poulet reached down with his bleeding arm and grasped the leather bag. "Angel Rezial, Captain of the Lord," he screamed out, "may this dragon be slain by your righteous sword!" He lifted the mojo above his head. The strings had unraveled. Before he was able to sling the contents at Itopa'hi, the magical powder scattered to the wind. The demon bent forward, opened both pair of jaws and let go a volley of deafening howls. The intensity of the sound waves was forceful enough to knock him to the ground. 

In desperation, Reverend Tutwiler and Duncan turned to him for guidance, but there was none. Poulet was face down in the dirt, blood running freely from his wound.

Poulet felt a tingling from his right ring finger. He glanced down at his bloody quivering hand. Marie Laveau's ring glowed with a queer orange radiance. He blinked his eyes in disbelief as the jaws of the tiny blood-covered lion stretched open. He blinked again, blaming his vision for the deception. The stupefied Frenchman witnessed the miniature feline on his finger shake its mane, its eyes aglow with a vivid ruby-red brilliance. The lion's Lilliputian jaws emitted a roar, but its features soon vanished under Poulet's thickening coat of golden-hued fur. His hand grew plump. His fingers faded into a meaty paw tipped with black claws. Awestruck, he watched as his new coat of fur advanced. It crept up his arm and spread across his chest, down his trunk in a march to his legs and toes. His boots split at the seams and fell apart. He wiggled his toes, but they too, were now gone and replaced with gigantic paws. Buttons snapped and popped and his clothes drifted to the ground in shredded remnants of pointless modesty. 

A dumbfounded Tutwiler and Duncan witnessed Poulet's face dissolve behind a pair of yellow eyes framed in an abundant thatch of mane. Lengthy whiskers bristled from a broad muzzle. Poulet had transformed into a breathing phantasm of an angry King of Beasts.

A confused Duncan shouted, "What the hell? I can't believe..." 

"Believe it, Jake. I don't think we have a choice," Reverend Tutwiler replied.

The lion expanded in girth and height until he towered as high as Itopa'hi. He flexed his massive muscles and stood up on his Herculean haunches, ivory fangs barred in a vicious snarl facing the demon. Itopa'hi bent forward again and lashed out at the lion with its sharp claws, but the motion failed to connect. The lion shook his mane, opened his jaws and let go an unearthly and ferocious bellow that shook the ground.

Itopa'hi's jackal heads retracted and with snouts to the sky, released a piercing high-pitched sorrowful scream. Its outstretched wings lifted in an effort to flap, but they quickly fell to its sides, now seemingly useless. The wings disintegrated into thousands of insignificant puffs of black smoke and burnt flakes that drifted to the ground like so much fire ash. 

The demon bent its arm and threw its spiked elbow in the lion's direction. The lion recoiled as the sharp spike sliced through his muscular shoulder. He fell to the ground in a defeated and helpless heap, groaning and making an effort to move, but unsuccessful. 

On all fours, the cautious reverend inched closer to the colossal wounded lion. The lion's blasts of warm labored breath blew against Tutwiler's face as he approached the giant. Over the howling din of Itopa'hi's screeches and the blustery wind, the reverend shouted at the fallen feline, "Oh ye of little faith! Rise from the torment of this messenger of Satan! God's grace is made perfect in weakness. In hardships and difficulties, the Lord will sustain thee!" He looked up at the snarling jackal heads and caught a glint from the spike on Itopa'hi's elbow. As the demon's swinging arm swooped down on him, he felt a commanding jerk to his shoulder as Duncan yanked him away from the elbow's fatal path, narrowly missing them.

The lion's weary yellow eyes met the prone reverend's. With a determined grunt and growl, the struggling lion pushed himself up from the ground with a deliberate but weakened effort, revealing the bloody matted tangle of fur on his shoulder. He gave a ferocious roar heavenward as he stood back up on wobbly haunches, again facing Itopa'hi. He lashed out at the demon ghost with his powerful paw, landing a crushing blow to the jackal heads. Itopa'hi's legs staggered back. The lion's gigantic maw again issued a guttural roar of unimaginable magnitude, assaulting the air with earth-pounding clarity. The force of the sound wave incited a rippling effect on the demon. The jackal heads reared up in repulsion and they let out another screeching cry of pain. 

Itopa'hi's tormented heads turned less distinct, dimmer and gradually more out of focus. A hazy fuzziness set in. Just before they paled into the black, the writhing heads burst into a flaming fireball, filling the area with noontime daylight. Flames licked the entity's body from the ground up and rose to meet the tortured thrashing heads. The last thing the men witnessed, was the soundless grimace of the flaming faces of Itopa'hi. They watched as the demonic ghost disintegrated into a corkscrew of spiting white sparks. The sparks rose to the tops of the trees in a blinding column and then at once plunged to the ground in a smoldering pile. No light emitted from the smoking and charred remnants. The noxious smell dissipated and then disappeared. The sounds of the night woods slowly returned to the deafened men's ears.

The trees shuddered as the lion fell on his side, shaking the earth with his weight. He stretched his jaws open and gave another loud roar then stood and commenced a shaking of his coat that started at the tip of his nose and ended at the tassel of his tail. He glanced down at Duncan and Tutwiler. His facial image took on the appearance of a benevolent wavering mirage that soon fractured and receded into the night.

Poulet opened his eyes and found himself naked on the cold ground. The reverend and the trapper rushed over and helped him to his feet. Dazed and confused, Poulet shook his head as Reverend Tutwiler placed a blanket over his shoulders. Poulet's shivering body relaxed with warmth as he pulled the blanket closer around himself. He glanced down at his hand. The ring still encircled his finger, solid as ever, no worse for the wear. The bloody gash on his arm was gone, as if no wound had ever existed.

Poulet scratched his head. "What happened? Why am I naked?" 

"You wouldn't believe it if I told you, and I'm still not convinced that I wasn't having a nightmare," Reverend Tutwiler said.

Poulet looked around the dark clearing. "I don't see or hear Itopa'hi."

"You whipped the sonuvabitch’s ass, Antoine," Duncan said, clapping Poulet on the back. "I think Reverend Tutwiler had something to do with it, too."

"How's that, Charles?" Poulet asked.

"I'll tell you another time and in a different place," the reverend replied.

Along with Poulet, the reverend and the trapper inspected the remains of Itopa'hi. From what they were able to see in the darkened clearing, they found nothing but a scorched imprint on the ground.

The reverend kicked at the smoldering earth. "I think we have succeeded in sending this demon back to hell." 

An exhausted Poulet replied, "I'll put my trust in your word, Charles."

As they kicked the earth for any more remains, Reverend Tutwiler took in a long breath. "The Lord works in mysterious ways," he said. "His timing is always perfect. Just look to the heavens, my dragon-slaying friends."

Poulet and Duncan scanned the slate sky. Fat snowflakes tumbled down and landed on their faces. Poulet opened his mouth and let them fall on his tongue. The flakes fell in profusion and quickly covered the ground with a blanket of silent serenity. 

"I will concur with your assessment, reverend, as I have no way of knowing," Poulet said. "When one does a rain dance, timing has much to do with the outcome, does it not?"

Jake Duncan cracked a smile.  

"Let us pray we are never cursed again with this evil scourge," the reverend said. He bowed his head and Duncan followed suit. To Poulet's own surprise, he did the same. Reverend Tutwiler recited the Twenty-third Psalm again, this time without interruption.

When the reverend had finished, wide grins creased the men's lips. Poulet turned to them and said, "Have either of you a spare pair of boots?" 

A slow chuckle bubbled up from Duncan and the other two, finding it contagious, joined in. The sound of their laughter reached the tops of the trees and beyond.

Chapter 61

The reverend arrived home at one in the morning and put the two horses in their stalls. He walked into the house and stomped his snow-covered boots on the doormat. The parlor's fireplace had only a few glowing embers. A chill hung in the air. He found his wife sitting on the floor with her head buried in a pillow, sobbing uncontrollably.

Surprised that she was still awake at that hour, he asked, "What's wrong, Victoria?"

She glanced up at him. "Frank Foster is duh...dead, Charles." She renewed her wailing and sobbing.

"I know. Antoine Poulet told me." He put his hands on his hips. "I also know the reason for this exhibition of irrational mourning." 

Mrs. Tutwiler stopped in mid-sob. "Whu...whatever are you talking about, Charles?"

"You know very well what I'm talking about." he replied, his voice rising. "Do not deny it. Your infidelity has destroyed our marriage, or what was left of it." The reverend fell back into a chair. "And cease this disgusting display. It will gain you no sympathy." 

"Why, who would tell you such unfounded gossip?" she cried. She blew her nose again. Like a coiled Copperhead ready to strike, her eyes narrowed into snake-like slits. "It was that Emily Meriwether, wasn't it?" she said, venom oozing from every pore. "That whore...she's a...a harlot and a liar, Charles and--"

"It doesn't matter who it was and I know now it's not just idle gossip, is it? You've forgotten how small this town is."

"Oh, Charles, I . . ." She buried her face in the cushion again. Another round of sniffling and bawling commenced. She raised her head back up and blew her nose with a honk. "I muh . . . muh . . . must have been tempted by Lucifer, Charles. He dragged me into his den of sin and I suh . . . succumbed." She sat up straight, stopped crying and gave her husband an indignant frown. "It’s just human frailty. I am human, you know." She let out another cry before an earnest pleading came to her voice. "Please forgive me, Charles. I . . . I never meant to hurt you."

The reverend stood up and shouted, "If you never meant to hurt me, then why did you stray? And don't blame it on the devil. God's gift of free will guided you to your sinful state. You are the one that made this ruinous immoral decision and no one else. You've broken the covenant of our marriage and our marriage is now over."

She let out a loud wail. "But, Charles --"

"I want you out of this house, Victoria." He came to within an inch of his wife's face. "Not tomorrow, but this very second."

"What on earth...?" she said, still wiping her tears.

Reverend Tutwiler picked up a candle from the mantle and moved to his study. At his desk, he opened a secret compartment that held Victoria's jewelry. He ran his fingertips over the rough facets of the precious stones. How loving and kind Victoria was. As he rummaged through the collection of valuable earrings, pins, necklaces and rings, the memories of the years of his marriage flooded back. He recalled Victoria's unwavering support and encouragement when he faltered in his efforts to build a congregation.

  

The diamond brooch sat prominently on top of the pile of gems and he picked it up. He slammed the jewelry box back into its hiding place in the desk and carried the brooch into the parlor. 

 

He stood over his wife and held the jeweled badge in front of her face. The allure of its glitter and luster was lost in the dim candlelight. "This is all I am ever going to give you, now and forever."

Mrs. Tutwiler's jaw dropped. She pushed herself up from the floor, still clutching the handkerchief. She twisted the hankie in her wringing hands. "What do you mean, Charles?"

He walked to the front door, opened it and with a flourish, flung the brooch out onto the snowy grounds. "Consider this alimony."

"Oh, Charles! What are you doing? My jewelry!" she cried.

She ran to the front door. She gathered her skirt and rushed out onto the lawn. Despite the continuing snow shower and darkness of the wintry night, she got on her knees and clawed her fingers through the dying snow-covered grass, blindly searching for any sign of her precious diamonds.

  

The reverend collected Victoria's clothes, returned to the front door and chucked them on the lawn. "You are no longer welcome here, Victoria. I haven't been in love with you for years. Besides your deceitfulness, you are self-centered and grating. I'll be seeking legal counsel."

"But what about my other jewelry?" she said, still sobbing and on her knees.

"Victoria, your misguided priorities even now continue to repulse me. For future reference, I will be selling the lot of it and paying back the church as restitution. I hope they'll still have me."

Mrs. Tutwiler stood up and shoved her freezing purple hands under her arms. "As soon as our congregation is informed of your past and present actions, you will no longer be welcome in Big Cloud. They'll carry you out of town on a rail. I'm warning you. You’ll forever be—“

"Victoria, it is my congregation now and it is up to them to decide whether I leave or remain. Go home to your mother. Goodbye."

"But, Charles! The Lord forgives me. He forgives us all. Why can't you?"

"Oh, I do, Victoria, but the Lord is divine. I, however, am not."

The exhausted reverend slammed the door on his wife and locked it. In the bedroom, he fell back on the bed, pulled the covers up over his head and entered an uneventful dreamland. 

The cock crowed at six in the morning. The sleepy reverend stumbled to the parlor window and surveyed the front lawn. Under the sharp light of the new dawn, the layer of snow sparkled with a virginal purity, like tiny glittering rhinestones adorning a wedding gown.

 

He found no evidence of his wife, her tracks or her clothes. Whether she had retrieved the brooch was still a mystery. He judged the matter closed, stoked the fire in the kitchen stove and put on a pot of tea.

Chapter 62

"I'm now certain, sheriff, that you will find your murder investigations solved and closed," Poulet said, stomping the snow loose from his boots as he walked into the jail. 

"Why's that, Mr. Poulet?" The sheriff heaved another chunk of seasoned cedar in the jail's stove. "Goddamn cold and snow," he muttered. "Too damn early for this." 

Poulet pulled up a chair. He told the sheriff of the confrontation and destruction of the demon ghost the night before. He didn't mention the details. "The demon of the woods has been destroyed - for good, I hope." 

The front door of the jail flew open and Jessica DuChamp rushed in, out of breath. "Sheriff, my father...just left my house on his way to...that old medicine woman, Nidawi's."

"Yes, Mrs. DuChamp?"

"I think...he's going to kill her. He was so very angry and he had his...shotgun with him."

 "Shit!" The sheriff shoved himself away from his desk and jumped up. "Let's go, Barada."

They got one arm in their coat sleeves as they rushed for the back door.

Poulet followed them to the door. "May I go with you, sheriff?" 

"Hop on behind Barada," the sheriff shouted, "but make it quick." 

The sheriff and deputy barreled out the backdoor of the jail. Poulet tossed his cane aside and followed in his hurried limp. They unhitched their horses and mounted. Deputy Barada lent Poulet a firm hand and helped swing him up onto the back of his saddle. Poulet grabbed Barada's waist and steadied himself. They trotted up the snow covered trail to Nidawi's cabin.

The blanket of fresh snow hushed their arrival at the old medicine woman's cabin. A saddled horse was tied to a post. 

As they dismounted, they saw two figures at Nidawi's well. Abraham Emerson held a shotgun with the barrel pointed at Nidawi. Nidawi was standing, shivering and perched on the lip of her well, hands and feet tied.

 

Emerson turned the shotgun on the three men. "Stay away, sheriff, and get the hell out of here!" he shouted.  

Stiles and Barada drew their Colts. Poulet placed his hand on his right ring finger and detected the warming of the gold lion's head. They advanced. 

"Now, Abe," the sheriff said. "Why don't you just simmer down here? What's this all about?"

"What's this about? What's this about? It's none of your goddamn business, sheriff, that's what it's about! This is between me and her. She's a worthless piece of excrement. It's time she learned how to swim. Now, get the hell away!"

The three stopped. "I'm afraid I can't do that, Mr. Emerson," the sheriff said.

With one hand on the shotgun and one hand on her leg, Emerson looked up at her. "Hop in the water, whore! It ain't that deep."

"Abe," the sheriff said, "what are you going to accomplish by killing an old woman?"

"She ruined my plans, sheriff. Those are all gone, now. Gone because of her failures," he said.

The sheriff remained calm. "How's that, Abe?"

"You could ask Frank Foster the same thing, but since she killed him, he can't speak for himself."

"Why don't you just put the gun down?" the sheriff asked.

Nidawi's legs shook visibly as she teetered on the lip of the well. She began to swoon.

"She ruined everything me and Frank planned and worked so hard for," Emerson said. Tears welled up in his eyes. "If she'd have just...done what she was supposed to." 

 

"Abe, why don't we all just relax?" the sheriff said. "Why don't you put the gun down and we'll have a long talk."

Emerson looked away. His eyes roamed in all directions as if he were speaking to a gathered multitude. "I don't understand how our plans went so awry. I just don't..." He dropped the gun, fell on his knees, and fell face down into the snow, sobbing, sniffling and muttering incoherently. With his lips turning deep purple, he cried into the blanket of snow, oblivious to the cold.

Sheriff Stiles approached Emerson. He knelt down next to the bawling Emerson and cuffed his wrists.

Poulet rushed to the well and lifted Nidawi off the edge. He set her gently on the ground and cut the binding from her legs and wrists.

Her deep gaze pierced Poulet's eyes. "I have misjudged you."

 

Poulet returned the intensity of her earnestness. "And what is your judgment, ma'am?"

Nidawi smiled and a sparkle came to her eyes. "You have much magic in you."

Stiles helped Emerson to his feet. Barada unhitched the horse tied near the cabin. 

They hoisted their prisoner up on his saddle. Emerson still sobbed, talking to himself, shaking his head and whispering to the trees.

Barada helped Poulet up onto the back of his saddle. Stiles mounted his horse and as they were about to leave, turned their ears to the loud squawking caw of a raven. The black bird was standing on the edge of the well. It flapped its wings three times, let out another caw, and then flew off into the backwoods.

Stiles grabbed the reins of Emerson's horse and turned to the other two. "Let's go home."