The Healer (11 page)

Billy called and showed his piece of meat. Dracula, after one glance, completely ignored him. Billy made a hole in the meat, put his belt through it, and tied the loose end to a root so if the owl did come down to it he could not fly off with the lure. Then he went off and hid. He waited and waited but Dracula seemed to have gone asleep.

After a long time, he heard Abe Zook calling for him, and he shouted back. Dracula heard the hail and turned his head to look. Then Billy saw the braucher coming toward them. As Zook stamped through a bramble patch, a rabbit darted out, a brown shadow over the white snow. Dracula saw the rabbit too. His head began to bob as he focused on the scudding shape. He was not hungry, but he could not resist the live lure. Suddenly he slipped out of the tree and, quiet as a giant moth, drifted through the trees. He was hardly using his wings at all, dodging between the trunks by steering with his tail, letting the momentum of his fall carry him. Then the wing beat increased and the owl shot forward. Quiet as a shadow but swift as an arrow he swept, over the rabbit, but instead of going straight in to his quarry, at the last second he rose, brought his wings up over his body so the tips almost touched, and plummeted straight down. Billy heard the agonizing death scream of the rabbit as the talons locked home, and then the kill was made.

"Slow! Slow and on your belly!" shouted Abe Zook as Billy rushed forward. The boy stopped himself just in time. If frightened, Dracula could easily fly off with the rabbit and be lost for good. Talking quietly, the boy came in. Dracula had been concentrating on his kill. Now he looked up, his wings spread to shield his capture and his beak going angrily. Billy showed him the meat. "Here, Dracula, here, boy. Meat!" he said softly. There was not a chance of the owl's being interested in cold mutton when he had a freshly killed rabbit in his foot, but it was important for the owl to feel that Billy was only trying to feed him. Dracula partly closed his wings and his beak stopped chattering. Lying down on the snow, Billy wormed himself in. Again the wings opened, then Dracula turned his head. He bent his legs preparatory to taking off.

Billy could see one of the leg straps lying on the snow. It was a terrible decision. If he made a grab for it and missed, the frightened bird would be gone for good. If he waited, the owl might take off anyhow. Dracula was weaving up and down, his yellow eyes searching for a good spot to fly to. Billy could no longer stand the strain. He made a grab. As he did so, the owl rose in the air.

Billy felt the strap in his half-frozen hand and hung on. Dracula, carrying the rabbit in one foot, was pulled back. He landed in the snow, hissing and clicking. Then Abe Zook was there. He seized both straps and lifted the owl and the rabbit to his gloved fist.

"When he is quiet, we will let him feed a little," said the old man. "Tonight we will have stewed rabbit. You are lucky, boy. Perhaps with such luck I will not write your parents but let you stay awhile. But remember this. From now on as long as the werewolffen are abroad, never stay out after dark and always watch your back trail. Do not think this is only an old man's talk. They have marked you and will come again."

The next week, Abe Zook took Billy with him to the Farmers' Market in Lancaster. Christmas was coming soon, and the old man wanted to sell his painted pine cones and holly wreaths. It would have been a short trip by car but in the buggy with the lone horse the journey was a major expedition. Even though they left long before dawn, they did not arrive until mid-morning. Abe Zook left the boy alone while he went to look for a friend of his who had a stall.

While Billy was standing outside the market, a gang of young boys about his own age went past. They saw Billy and began to drift toward him, spreading out as they came. In spite of their carefully averted faces and casual air, Billy had no intention of letting them cut him off from the market. He edged away from them, whereupon two boys went for him. Billy ran for the market and fell across Abe Zook who had unexpectedly returned. At the sight of the man, the boys veered off and went to a deserted house across the street, where they started climbing on a rusting iron fence.

"Maybe it's better you come with me," said Zook.

Billy saw the boys were still watching him, and he did not want to seem a coward. "I'll stay here," he decided. "You'll need somebody to watch the buggy."

"Be taking care, then." Abe Zook took a load of wreaths from the buggy and returned to the market. Billy stood watching the boys.

The house was so decayed that the only reason it did not fall down was because it was too tired to take the trouble. The iron fence, surmounted by a line of sharp spikes, ran around an areaway. The boys had climbed the steps that led to the front door of the house, crawled along a window ledge, and were jumping over the areaway and across the fence to land on the sidewalk. It was a dangerous game. The areaway was ten feet deep and even if the jumper cleared that, there was a good chance of being impaled on the spikes.

Watching the boys, Billy knew why they did it. He remembered the delicious surge of delight he had known following the tracks of Wolf and Blackie through the dark, silent woods. It was the exaltation of danger.

Billy half closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He thought that he would pass into the boys and feel their excitement, but instead he was Wolf, racing over the frozen snow so swiftly that he seemed to fly rather than run, and ahead was a buck deer, his white tail bobbing as he ran. Then the buck turned at bay and his antlers were the sharp points of the fence. Billy felt himself leave the ground in a long leap for the throat, saw the prongs of the iron antlers swing up to meet him, felt himself falling and heard a scream. Instead of the cool forest breeze, the dusty air of the street sucked into his lungs, and he heard several screams shrill as blue jays' cries. The vision faded; he was dragged back to reality, and one of the boys was lying deep in the areaway screaming in pain while the others screamed with excitement. Then people came running from all directions.

Abe Zook was standing beside him. The old braucher looked at him strangely.

"Did you do that?"

"Me? I was standing here the whole time. I never moved."

"Your mind did not move? You were not willing the boy to fall?"

Billy hesitated a moment, and Zook nodded.

"I saw you. Your mind had left your body. You were calling on the werewolffen to strike one of those boys for you. That is hexerei."

Billy felt a wonderful surge of power. "Is it bad?"

"Unless you are a very great braucher, indeed, someday the werewolf comes for his payment. His payment is always your soul, and you will run with him for eternity. That is why I never practice hexerei."

"Perhaps someday I will be a very great braucher."

"Many have thought that, which is why there are werewolffen. Now we will see how badly the boy is hurt."

They joined the crowd around the areaway. The boy seemed more frightened than hurt for he limped off with his friends.

On the long ride back to the farm, Billy dreamed of being a great braucher who could strike down his enemies by black magic and who lived alone in the woods with Dracula and Wolf.

Billy would have liked to have had his weekends to himself—to go hunting with Dracula, play with Grip, or wander through the woods looking for Wolf and Blackie, but Abe Zook would have none of it. "Even on Saturdays, you work still," said the old man, so Billy only had Sundays off. In the early mornings as soon as it was light, he and Wasser had to run the trap line. This was a task that Billy hated. He was afraid of the traps— there was always the chance that one would go off unexpectedly and catch his fingers—but worst of all was killing the trapped animals. They flung themselves the length of the chain, turning a somersault when they came to the end, and lay panting with desperation, waiting for the blow that would put them out of their misery. Then in the evenings was the delicate and laborious work of skinning and preparing the pelts.

For a long time, Zook refused to allow Billy to go to the woods alone. The boy knew that Wolf and Blackie were still about, since on several occasions the animals had learned the location of the trap line and visited the traps during the night, killing and eating any animal they found there. In addition, Wolf was an expert at digging up the traps and stealing the bait. Billy said nothing of this to Abe Zook as he was afraid the old man might use poison. But when he found that in some places not only the trapped animals but also the traps were disappearing, he reported it to Abe Zook.

The old man started out at once and returned an hour later in a mood of cold fury. "It is that Swamenburg. He has been stealing my traps and my catches. I went to him but he is lying about it. He is one who does not believe in powwow and thinks he can do this to a braucher. I will show him otherwise. Do you feel to go to the woods again?"

Billy knew Swamenburg, a fat, disagreeable man who had a large dairy herd. "I don't mind going to the woods, but there's no herbs yet."

"You think I am not knowing that? Get me some droppings of the wolf. The wolf, I say, not the dog. Can you be doing that?"

"I guess so. You want them for a charm?"

"For one kind of a charm, yes. Try down by the swamp once. There is an old stake in the field where the wolf puts his mark. Also, he comes there to steal muskrats from the traps. Yes, yes, do not be looking so surprised-like. I know that and I know many other things, as Swamenburg will see."

When Billy returned from school he went to the swamp. Although it was still cruelly cold, the days were growing longer and there was still light enough to see when he reached the marsh. The setting red sun shone pink on the ice-covered swamp and the dead cattails threw long shadows. In the shallows the ice was white; in the deep water, dark blue. A month before he had walked over the ice to the lodges of the muskrats, for then everything had been frozen steel-tight, but now he hesitated to trust himself far from the bank. The swamp was a lonely, desolate place and if he fell through the ice, he would drown long before help could come.

A spring bubbled up at one spot and here no ice ever formed. Billy went to the spot and checked for muskrat signs. The muskrats had been out to feed on what was left of the marsh grasses; he could see their dung on stones and the chewed reeds where they had fed. His traps were set on a floating log. There were two advantages to this type of set. When a muskrat was caught, it dove into the water, where the weight of the trap quickly drowned it, so Billy was spared the hateful task of killing the captive. Also, the muskrats were then safe from Wolf and Blackie who, for all their cunning, were not capable of pulling up the trap chain to get the catch.

The two traps had disappeared. Billy could see where the staples fastening the trap chains to the log had been torn away. Swamenburg must have found this trapping spot. Billy knew that Abe Zook would be furious, and he did not look forward to telling the old man such bad news. He would have to find some of Wolf's dung for the charm, if possible. He cut across the field toward the stake.

Like a dog, Wolf was in the habit of urinating on certain trees, bushes, and even large stones, especially if they were isolated and stood out from the rest of the surrounding area. Abe Zook had told the boy that Wolf did this to mark the boundaries of his range, like a man putting up "No Trespassing" signs. Any other canine smelling one of these scent posts would know that this area was already taken up and would keep away unless he was prepared to fight Wolf. Zook had assured Billy that a dog could tell a large number of things from the scent: how big Wolf was, whether or not he was in good health, whether he was well fed, and how often he checked the boundaries of his range. As with many of Zook's stories, Billy was not sure how much to believe of the old man's tales but he liked to think that animals had amazing powers.

He was in luck. Wolf had been to the stake that day and had left some dung there as well as his usual squirt of urine. At least, Billy thought the dung had come from Wolf. Blackie had been there too, for her tracks showed plainly in the melting snow that was soft as porridge, although it would freeze solid during the night. However, Blackie never paid much attention to the scent posts, so he felt safe in poking the droppings into a glass jar that Zook had given him and screwing on the lid.

As he straightened up, he saw two forms moving down the ridge toward the swamp. He knew instantly that they were Wolf and Blackie.

The animals were trailing him. Not only that, they were stepping deliberately in his footprints as though careful to leave no trail of their own. Billy wondered if they were doing this simply to avoid slushing through the soft snow. Then with a little spasm of fear, he wondered why they were trailing him at all. This time he had no axe.

The delicious thrill he always felt when he saw the two animals tingled through him. Suddenly he felt he was entering into the minds of the animals and becoming one with them, while still keeping his human identity. He felt as if his soul had gone into Wolf's body and he seemed to smell the faint, moist, half-frozen odor of his own scent as the coyote picked it out from the tracks. The scent was growing stronger now, and he saw the coyote raise his head to look for him, and at the same time Billy was astonished to realize how low Wolf was to the ground and how this limited the coyote's vision. No wonder that whenever possible Wolf and Blackie kept to the ridges, often jumping on fallen trees or even on post-and-rail fences so they could see farther. Billy had never realized before why they did this. Even more surprising, the world had suddenly gone into black and white, with a large gradation of grays. Billy remembered having heard that canines cannot see colors, but even so, he turned— shifting back into his own mind for an instant—to look at the remains of the sunset. Yes, the sky was still red, but when he seemed to re-enter the body of Wolf, it turned black.

Billy tried to organize his sudden power. He somehow knew that it would last only a short time. He was sure that he could enter into Wolf's mind or, by concentrating on Blackie, he could enter hers. Yet all the while he was still himself, mad with excitement at the strange gift that had descended on him. Which animal should he concentrate upon ? He could not concentrate on both at the same time. Should he let himself become entirely identified with the coyote? If so, he could not retain his human faculty of reason. Already the power was slipping from him. As he struggled to hold it, the faculty began to shred away. In the few seconds it still remained with him, he felt that he had entered Wolf's mind. Instantly he was aware of a world of odors, as bewildering an experience as a blind man suddenly granted sight. The scents rushed into his head, all mingled and yet he could identify each one. He could select one scent—in this case the odor from his own footsteps—and magnify it above the others. It was somewhat like seeing trees, fences, sky, and the road and yet being able to concentrate on footprints. But there was an important difference. The odors sang to him, as though they could talk. His body odor was not merely a means of identifying him; it conjured up an image of himself—much taller than he would appear to human eyes, a potential menace yet not really frightening—and above all an intense curiosity about himself. The curiosity surprised him, for it was a very powerful, compelling emotion that he never suspected in an animal. It made him thrill with excitement and drove him on to take risks that were foolhardy.