The Witch at Sparrow Creek: A Jim Falk Novel (19 page)

His flask was nearly empty. He had to get somewhere soon.
He knew he had to go to this little town, this little town called Sparrow. He
also knew that something was coming toward him through the woods. He picked up
his bag and he ran into the shadows and trees. He ran on through the night and
he never looked back.

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No one could see her face, but she was talking clearly
and quietly and they all leaned their faces and ears toward her. There were
just a few of them in the little room, but there were enough of them. She made
it clear, as she always did, that no one could know. No one could know about
the meeting; if it was your first time, you had to go off with one of the others
and take a special oath.

After she said these things, she lit a candle and her
pointed face appeared over it. The few that were there brought their faces into
the light, and one by one they each looked one another straight in the eye and
nodding heads.

Ruth Mosely set the candle down on the little round table
in the middle of the room, and the few that were with her took their seats.

She spoke softly but surely. “A few nights ago, Benjamin
Straddler came to our home and told us of the arrival of this James Falk. He
told me that James Falk had come here looking to ‘kill a spook’ and that this
man claimed to be what the River People call a ‘ghost-killer’ and that he had
powers. Those of you who are with me tonight, who were with me last night when
Bill Hill’s dead body came to life”—she swallowed—“those of you who saw the
face of the thing in the window, you are the ones who can make testimony.”

A man with a brown hat on, his face in the shadows, said,
“Bill Hill died. He was dead and there was an awful stink. Then the thing in
the night, it came and somehow made Bill’s body start to talk. We all heard it.
We couldn’t understand it. It was like a bunch of nonsense. But one thing we
could understand is the name it kept saying, it kept saying ‘Do not answer, Faaalk.’”

A woman’s voice said, “It was horrible.”

A man’s voice said, “It was awful.”

An old man said, “These things came to town when the
outlander came to town. It was calling for him. He must be the master of the things.
I knew we shoulda moved up to them Ridges. Them people was right and I knew
it.”

Ruth said, “We knew this town has been headed in a bad
direction for a while. It was God’s will that the blizzard came on us. Was it
not? It was to punish us for straying from the true path. Was it not? You could
go up to the Ridges, but I will tell you this. The folks that live up in the Ridges
have strayed from the path even farther than Sparrow. There’s no good up there
at all and this thing has come on us all. This James Falk is kind of a sign. He
is a kind of warning. He has brought this evil with him; of that there is no
question.”

Now she swallowed again and stretched her neck up and
down; her arms came in and rested on the table with their long fingers at the
end. She put one hand on top of the other and looked around at the people at
the table. “I spoke with my husband last night on such things as have been happening.
We are in agreement that this Falk is what is written about in the writings as
one of the killers of the Way. He has come to our town seeking to destroy us,
to destroy the true teachings, rid out what’s left of our good folk, send
demons for the rest of us—and that’s what he’s brought with him. Called by Bill
Hill’s wife, Violet Hill, by way of some spell, as an act of revenge against us
all and against this town. This is shown by the evil outcome of their acts.
Powers to control the dead, powers to control wolves, and drawing demons from
the dark places.”

There were intakes of breath and clearing of throats.

Ruth continued, “James Falk is practicing the craft,
Violet Hill is practicing the craft, the doctor has made a way for them, and John
Mosely and I have decided that we will deal with it as those in the North have
been dealing with such things. We will have to deal with this according to The
Old Law.”

The man in the brown hat with his face in the shadows
asked, “The Old Law? What? How?”

Ruth closed her eyes ever so slowly and said, “We cannot
allow them to live. They may have the craft and the Evil One on their side, but
we have God on ours and we have many. They are few.”

A woman said, “But . . .”

There was silence for a long while. Ruth looked around
at the people until she had caught the eyes of each of them and stared deeply
into them.

“The Law,” she said, “is The Law.”

“But we don’t know . . .” an old man said.

“We will take it up with my husband’s brother, seeing
that he is the preacher, but we will do what God says is to be done,” Ruth said
and looked at the woman next to her.

People’s heads turned slightly as they peered at one
another out of the corners of their eyes. Each one was searching for the reaction
of the other, looking for doubt, or for a shaking head, but all the faces were
strong with fear and their faces were like carved stones in the flickering
candle light.

One of those faces was the face of the preacher’s wife.
Ruth was staring at her.

Aline looked into Ruth’s eyes in the candlelight. They
were gray and dark, even with the light reflected in them. Aline’s eyes were
squinting. Her right hand moved over toward Ruth, and she put her right hand
over Ruth’s hand and squeezed it.

At that moment, from above them, they heard a commotion.
A door was flung open and smacked heavily, and someone above them was crying
out: “John! Ruth! John! Ruth!”

It sounded like Hattie Jones.

“Now what?” Ruth barked.

The candle went out and the people in the darkness scuttled
about. There were harsh whispers: “The back way! The back way!”

Ruth flew up the lightless staircase and appeared outside
the shack in the back yard. She dashed around the side of the house toward the
noises.

Yes, it was Hattie Jones yelling, “Ruth! John! John!
Ruth!”

Where was John?
she thought as she came in her
own front door, behind Hattie Jones who had her brother-in-law, Vernon Mosely,
draped across the little chair—the same chair Benjamin Straddler had slumped
into only nights before.

There was Vernon and he looked crumpled.

“What’s happened?” Ruth said, running to Vernon’s side
and pushing Hattie away from her brother-in-law.

Then, up from the cellar and in through the front door
came Vernon’s wife with a wide mouth and watery eyes. “My dear! My dear!”

The rest of the people were coming around up from the
cellar, their bodies pushing into the little room, their faces peeking, mumbling
to one another.

“You stop shouting!” Ruth barked at her.

Aline Mosely tottered about trying to see her husband’s
face, h
e
r hands flying around in the air. “This evil! This evil! This
evil Falk!”

“You stop shouting, Aline Mosely!” Ruth snapped again,
and this time she smacked Aline’s face. The people who had rambled up from the
cellar looked at one another.

Ruth knelt down and looked at Vernon Mosely’s face. It
was puffed up and green-looking. His arm, his left arm, had turned a sickly black
and purple color as though it had been burned to a crisp. Ruth huffed and puffed
and looked at the open door to the cellar. How did they know to come back
around here to find her? Now she was sure. She was sure that someone in her
group was talking about it with the others.

“Ma’am,” Hattie said, “looks to me like he’s got himself
a snakebite somethin’ awful. I found him in the church, lyin’ by the pulpit
just like that.”

Vernon’s eyes twinkled and he suddenly drew in a ragged,
wheezing breath. He struggled for a moment trying to talk, pushing the air out of
his dry lips, trying to make a sound, but all that came out was invisible air
and white foam.

Ruth suddenly leapt to her feet and brought the back
of her hand so hard across Hattie’s old face that it knocked Hattie’s hat off and
he fell back. Ruth shouted at him, “Why did you bring him here? You stupid, stupid
man! Grab him! Grab him!”

With another strange burst of strength, Ruth lifted Vernon’s
legs and was motioning now with her pink face and pointy head for Hattie to
grab Vernon’s shoulders.

Hattie picked up his crumpled brown hat and put his hat
on his head.

Vernon wheezed again and they pulled him forward from
the chair.

They picked him up and Ruth shouted, “You’re a damned
fool, Hattie Jones! You take a man with venom right to the doctor, you don’t bring
him around for prayers and coffee, you don’t bring him home to die, you take
him right to the doctor!”

Hattie was hurt. His face was red and his eyes watered,
but he carried the preacher all the way to the doctor’s house with Ruth, not
looking at Ruth the whole time. He couldn’t get a word out of his mouth at her
because he knew what he said would be awful, and even after being hit in the
face he still refused to say anything awful about this woman.

This woman Ruth had never done Hattie Jones a lick of
good. He knew it. Samuel knew it too. Samuel knew it too in the special way that
Samuel knew things. You can look into that boy’s eyes and you know he knows. He
might not tell you, but you know he knows. That woman Ruth came to town and
started right in on all the good people. Married up with that John Mosely, the
preacher’s brother, and then started in on all the good people. She didn’t
understand. It was like she didn’t know. How can she not know, a woman like
that? She was smart and old, too, but there was something in her that was mean,
something in her that was all pinched up. But she was God’s people and that’s
the twist about it because it was like she didn’t know. Or maybe it was that
she didn’t know for others and she only knew for herself. Somehow, though, she
had got it in her head that she was some kind of way more of one of God’s people
than the rest of them and she didn’t understand, plain as it was, that God’s
people is God’s people and that’s the end of it. How could she not understand
that? But anyway, she didn’t. She had this way about her and started in
something awful on all of us about how we was doin’ things that we shouldn’t,
praying and waiting on miracles and the like. Got so bad with her and her
judging everyone that Benjamin and Lane Straddler up and left out one time and
never did come back to church.

But right now, he was helping her but he couldn’t even
look at her.

For an old woman to hit an old man, an old man like Hattie
. . . Hattie realized that he had made a terrible mistake and that she was
right, of course; he guessed she was right, he should have dragged the preacher
straight to the doctor’s and then come and got his brother even though his
brother didn’t seem to be around.

John Mosely came running up alongside of them just as
he came up in Hattie’s mind.

He grabbed his brother right out of Hattie’s hands, and
Hattie was left standing in the morning sun on the hill. He watched the two of
them struggle with the preacher, taking him down over the low hill down to where
the doctor’s little house was.

Hattie stood there by himself on the hill. He thought
about the broken door and the things that he had seen at the church. He thought
about his son, Samuel, he thought about the chicken man, and he thought about
the horse bones. He started plodding back to his little house at the edge of
the creek. Samuel would be there waiting for him, feeding the chickens, maybe.

He turned again and saw John and Ruth Mosely pounding
on the doctor’s door and the door opening and them carrying the preacher inside
the door.

Hattie prayed a little prayer in his heart that the preacher
would be restored to health and that the Mosely woman would stop being mean.

Hattie Jones walked home with his hat on his head, mumbling
to himself, “I’m sorry, Ruth, sorry about the preacher.”

When Ruth and John came in the front of the doctor’s
place, they weren’t expecting to see Jim Falk sitting right there with the doctor.

Ruth’s eyes came wide open and she almost dropped her
husband’s brother straight onto the ground. If John hadn’t been holding him tightly
by the shoulders, she would have.

John hadn’t seen the outlander yet, and the doctor was
staring straight at Vernon’s withered arm.

Jim Falk watched them all come in together, but didn’t
budge from his chair. He looked at the preacher. The preacher’s face was contorted
and his right eye had gone squeezed shut. It looked as if the right side of his
face had been somehow burned and his left arm looked exactly like a burned-up
and twisted stick.

The doctor stood up and put down his pipe. “What is this
here?” he asked in a quiet voice. He walked quickly to the back of the room and
clicked open a door there. “Get him in here and lay him down on the bed.”

John Mosely and Ruth carried him in the door just as
the doctor told them to and put him down on a neat little bed in the little room.

As John Mosely set his brother down on the bed, he noticed
that Ruth was not looking at him or at his brother’s mangled arm. She was
looking out the door and into the main area where they came in. Her eyes were
wide. He could see she was kind of afraid.

“Ruth!” he shouted at her.

She turned and looked at him. “Did you see?” she whispered.
“Did you see in the front?”

He shook his head.

“The outlander,” she whispered, and just as she did,
she put her hand up and her long index finger over her lip to shush him from saying
anything.

John Mosely’s eyes got big and then bigger. He arranged
his brother quickly and was set to rush out the way he came when the doctor
came in through the door blocking his way. The two almost collided in the door
frame.

The doctor adjusted himself and asked, “What’s happened
here?”