The Witch's Grave

 

The Witch's Grave

A story from childhood in the Georgia Low Country

 

Marvin Daniel.Barfield

                                                                                                                   

 

     In the summer I was free from the prison of school and ran wild and half naked on the bluff. The tidal creeks and marsh were my playground. And when my cousins came to visit we swam and fished and crabbed. We carried belt knives, played mumble peg, camped on the island hammocks in the marsh, and sometimes fought each other with bloody noses and black eyes. We were boys and it was a wild and free time, and we were cousins only a year apart. Nothing was off limits to us except the deep woods. We were forbidden to even cross the berm of the railroad tracks that stood like the Great Wall of China between the civilized and the savage.     

 

      Now we were twelve and thirteen years old and growing up wild and free. Usually being told that we could not do something was a challenge, and nothing short of the wrath of God was going to stop us from doing it. 

 

     There were no roads penetrating the deep woods to tie it to the twentieth century. No paths pushed through the saw palmettos, moss curtained oaks, and tangled vines, except the one that went to Johnny Raintree’s.  Dark and still and silent, loud with small and secrete sounds, it belonged to the Rattlesnakes, to the huge black and yellow spiders that spun thick and sticky webs that caught lizards and small birds. To the alligators and wild boars that would rip a man apart.  It was as it had been when the last Yamacraw Indian fled to Florida and the Seminoles to escape the white men. It was as it had been for two hundred years. For two thousand years. It was as it had been since the beginning of time. It was the deep woods.

 

      We had heard stories of wild men and escaped criminals living there, beyond the reach of the law. We had seen enough alligators to respect but not fear them, and granddaddy had killed  Rattlesnakes and tacked the skins on the wall of the shed.  I had a terror of the huge black and yellow spiders and hated walking into their webs. I was usually real careful about that, but if I did, I’d feel them crawling on me for the rest of the day, and have nightmares that night.

 

      But those things were not what frightened us and kept us from crossing the railroad tracks. Those things we knew. Those things were natural. And it sure wasn’t the fact that we were forbidden to do so that stopped us.

 

       No, there was something else there, lost and hidden in the dark shadows and secrete silence. It was this that kept us out of the deep woods,

 

     It was the witch’s grave.

 

      On the day all this happened I was practicing throwing my knife after breakfast and my chores were done. Me and granddaddy had made it out of an old file and it’s a lots better than any store bought knife. I’d set up a board for a target and stood back, oh, about ten feet, I guess, and tried to get it to stick in the board. Once in a while it would, but most of the time it hit flat or butt first and just bounced off. I couldn’t figure out how they made them hit point first every time in the movies. But I was bound and determined I was gonna learn.

 

     My grand mama came out of the kitchen door and stood on the top step.

 

    “Buck, I need you to carry a mess of butter beans and peas to Auntie Lucas’s.”

 

      My real name isn’t Buck, but my granddaddy had called me Buckshot since the day I was born. He still called me that, but everybody else had shortened it to just ‘Buck.” That was alright with me. I liked it. I sure liked it better than Stephan, which was my real name.  If I was called Stephan the other kids would probably have started calling me Stevie, which is a sissy name, and I would get into a lot more fights than I already did. I got in enough fights as it was, I didn’t need some sissy name helping me out.

 

     “You go on and put on a shirt and shoes. I ain’t gonna have you going to Auntie Luca's half naked and bare footed as a yard dog.”

 

        Auntie Lucas was an old black lady who lived on what we called the little bluff. She was as old as time on the face of a mountain, and she had lived there, and been old, all my life, which was only thirteen years. She had half raised me when I was a child, and she was old even then. Age and arthritis had left her crippled up, and now she spent most of her time sitting on the porch in the sun and smoking her pipe. It was a white clay pipe, and when it got brown from the tobacco, she would put it in the fireplace and burn it out white again. Once a week my grand mama and her went grocery shopping at the Piggly-Wiggly, and sometimes on Sundays we went to church with her. Her church was “The Temple of Zion Holiness Church,” and I liked it better than the Baptist church one of my aunts was always trying to drag me to.  Auntie Lucas always sat between my grand mama and me, and if I started fidgeting she gave me a look that would chill the heart of the most audacious sinner.

 

     Not that I’m an audacious sinner., or anything. I’m still too young to be audacious, but I guess I probably am a sinner. At least if you listen to that dried up old Baptist preacher I am.  I do cuss sometimes, and I’ve got a pack of cigarettes hidden in the boat house.  And I’ve even seen Elizabeth Ashford naked! (She played like she didn’t know I could see her, but she knew, alright) So I guess I probably do qualify as a sinner. But that’s alright because it just seems like the sinners have a whole lot more fun. I don’t think that Baptist preachers ever had a day of fun in his whole life

 

     I pulled on a shirt and put on my sneakers and whistled up my dog.

 

    There are two ways to get to Auntie Lucas’s from the bluff. You can go down the lane to the Greek’s Store, then down the road to the lane that runs to her house, or you can cut through the patch of woods between granddaddy’s land and hers. The path through the woods takes about twenty minutes, and is a whole lot shorter, but you got to be careful of snakes. I never worried about them though, because I had lady, that’s my dog, with me. She’s a Yellow dog, what we call a swamp dog, and she’ll bark if there’s a snake anywhere close by.

 

     I’d walked this path a thousand times but this time it felt different. I can’t tell you how, it just did. It felt wrong, somehow. Lady felt it. Too. The hair on her hackles was quivering, and the closer we got to Auntie Lucas’s the more they quivered.

 

      I called her to me and scratched her ears.  

 

      “What’s wrong, girl?” She looked at me and then looked back down the path. I could tell she didn’t want to go.

 

      I had learned a long time ago that if lady acted strange, I needed to be real careful, and she was acting real strange. I thought that maybe one of those wild men or escaped criminals had come out of the deep woods and was waiting on the path to knock me in the head and steal the sack of butter beans and peas. I’d never heard of any of them coming out of the deep woods before. In fact, I never even  really believed they were there. But something wasn’t right.

 

     I took my belt knife out and carried it in my hand like a sword. I was now a well-armed desperado. If they were smart they would forget all about stealing this sack of butter beans and peas. They’re not getting this sack of butter beans and peas.  I helped pick ‘um, and I helped shell ‘um, and they’re not getting them. And that’s just all there is to it.

 

     The closer we got to Auntie Lucas’s the stranger lady acted. She kind a hung back and didn’t want to go. Seemed like she was trying to block me. And just before we reached the end of the path, she began to growl real low and the hair on her back stood straight up.    

 

     I felt the hair on the back of my neck begin to pucker up, too.

 

     Auntie Lucas wasn’t on the porch, and her dogs, Missy and Prissy, didn’t come running out from under the house. They were swamp dogs, too, and Missy was lady’s mama. Her car was pulled up under a China berry tree, so I knew she was home.

 

     Lady was still growling and walking kind of stiff legged. Something wasn’t right.

 

     “Auntie Lucas!” I walked up on the porch and called through the door.. “Auntie Lucas!”

 

     “Buck? Oh. Lawd, is that you, child?”

 

     “Yes, ma’am. Are you alright?”

 

     “Come on in here, chil’.” She was sitting up on the bed holding her bible against her chest and rocking back and forth. Missy and Prissy were curled up on the bed against her, and that was real strange because they weren’t usually allowed in the house. Lady wouldn’t come in the house at all, and stood on the porch growling real low.  

 

     “I seen the signs, chil’. I been a’seeing ‘um for nelly bout a week now, but I didn’t know what they was.”

 

     “Are you sick?”

 

     “I seen a crack in th’ dirt a’pointing right at my front door. Right straight at my front door.  Buzzards been circling the house every evening, circling lower and lower every day.  Now these last three nights I been witch rode all night long. Somebody done put a spin on me, chil’. Somebody sho nuff done put a spin on me and conjured that ole witch woman up outta th grave t’ get at me.”

 

      She was talking strange and crazy about witches and signs, and I was starting to get worried and scared. I didn’t know what to do. And when you are thirteen and getting worried and scared and don’t know what to do, you run like hell to get your grand mama. And that’s what I did. It took about twenty minutes to walk that path, but I reckon I must have covered that twenty minute walk in about a minute and a half flat.

 

     I hit the yard at a dead run, yelling for grand mama. She came flying out the kitchen door.

 

     “ What’s wrong, Buck? Are you snake bit, boy? Where’d he hit you?”

 

     She was checking me out for a snake bite, or whatever.

 

     “No ma’am, but Auntie lucas’ is….”

 

     “Is Auntie Lukas dead?’

 

     “No, no ma’am.” I told her as quick as I could what I had seen and heard. Her face got kind of pale and her hands trembled.

 

     “Oh, sweet Jesus! You go on in the house and call the ‘Temple of Zion’ Tell brother Levi to come on here right quick. I’m gonna go fetch Auntie Lucas. Just tell him she’s took bad and needs him. Don’t tell him nothing else.”

 

     “The temple of Zion” was Auntie Lucas’s church. I had been there with her enough times so that Brother Levi knew me, and everybody up and down the creek knew my grandparents. I didn’t have to explain anything to him except that Auntie Lucas was took bad and for him to come on the run. He pulled into the yard just as me and grand mama were helping Auntie Lucas out of grand mama’s car. He was a big man and he picked Auntie Lucas up like she was a child and carried her into the house.

 

     “Where you want her, Mz. Green?”

 

     “Buck, you show Brother levi to the spare room.”

 

     “I seen the signs,” she kept saying. “I didn’t know what they was, but I been a’seeing ‘um.”

 

     “You rest easy, Sister Lucas. We here now. You safe, now.” He turned to us. “Will ya’ll pray with me?”

 

     “Buck, you pray standing up, or on your knees?”

 

     I wasn’t about to admit that the only time I ever prayed is when I’m in trouble, and I never got on my knees. But Brother Levi got down on his knees, and I figured if a man as big and strong as him could do it, I could too. So I did. Brother levi held one of Auntie Lucas’s hands and my grand mama held her other one, and he prayed and prayed and prayed for Jesus to protect her and drive out the devil.

 

     I couldn’t see it did any good. She was still holding her bible against her chest and rocking back and forth and saying she had been seeing the signs.

 

     “ Mz Green, you and Buck go on out of here now, and let me talk to Sister Lucas alone.”

 

     He came out of the room after a while shaking his head and looking worried.

 

     “Set to the table, brother Levi. I’ll get you a cup of coffee.”

 

     “Is Auntie Lucas gonna die?” I was remembering that grandmama had asked me if she was dead when I had come running into the yard. I knew that she was real old, but I didn’t know anybody that had ever died before. Anyway, she had helped raise me, and I loved her like she was my own blood kin.

 

     “I don’t know, Buck,” he said. “I just don’t know. I seen this a time or two before in these old peoples. They believes in spins and all like that. Sometimes it seems like,’ he paused and shook his head.….”.I just don’t know.”

 

     “Well, you can’t just let her die!”

 

     “It ain’t up to me, son.”

 

     “But you….”

 

     “Buck, you stop vexing Brother Levi.”

 

     “It’s alright, Mz Green. You see, Buck, the mind is a powerful, powerful, thing. Lots of these old folks believes in magic and spins, and all like that. And if you believe in something hard enough it gets to be real, some way. Sister Lucas believes she’s cursed and she’s gonna die. Less we can do something to make her believe the curse is broke, she might just die.”

 

     “Then that’s what we gotta do.”  It just seemed simple to me. All we have to do is break the curse.

 

     “It ain’t all that easy, son. I don’t know how to make her believe the curse is broke. And she has to believe it.  All I know to do is pray with her.” He turned to my grand mama. “Mz. Green, is it alright if I bring the Sisters of Mercy here to pray with me.”

 

     “Why shore it’s alright.”

 

     The Sisters of Mercy’s the choir at the Temple of Zion Holiness Church, and one of the reasons I didn’t hate going there. They sang and clapped, and seemed to be making a joyful noise, not like all that funeral music and sad singing at the Baptist church. And anyway, Brother Levi preached more about love and salvation than about being a sinner and going to hell. I just figured God probably likes it better that way.

 

     I went outside and sat on the dock and watched the tide beginning to fill the creek. Lady came up and put her head on my leg to get her ears scratched. Sometimes you can think better when you’re scratching a dog’s ears, and anyway, it made me feel better. I was trying to figure out how you break a curse.  But I didn’t know much about curses. I knew that a spin was a curse, and I knew that the witch Auntie Lucas was so scared of was the one in the witch’s grave in the deep woods. But that’s about all I knew.

 

     Brother Levi didn’t seem to know much about them either.  All he knew to do was pray. And I got to tell you, that didn’t seem to be doing any good at all.

 

     He said it was all in her head, and it wasn’t real. Well, except that she believed it. But I know how I had felt on the path, and I know the way lady had acted. I wasn’t so sure.

 

      I wanted to ask somebody, but I couldn’t think of a soul who would know about this sort of thing.

 

     After a while I went back into the house. Grand mama said she had drank a little coffee, and that maybe she ought to give her some of Johnny Raintree’s whisky that granddaddy kept up under the sink.

 

     I didn’t know. But I didn’t see how coffee or whiskey was gonna break the spin.

 

     “Buck, you come on in here a minute, son,” Auntie Lucas called from the spare room.

 “I got to ask you to promise me something.” 

 

     She was sitting up in the bed and still holding her bible against her chest, but she had stopped rocking back and forth. She took my hand in both of hers.

 

      “You got t’ promise me t’ look after Missy and Prissy.”

 

     “Yes, ma’am. I’ll go check on them twice a day until you get back home. I promise.”

 

     “Oh, chil, I ain’t never going back home. I’m gonna die right up here in this bed.”

 

     I felt my throat kinda swelling up when she said that.

 

     “An’ dat ol’ witch woman just a’waiting to carry me off, an’ I ain’t gonna never be with Jesus in th glory.”

 

     The swelling in my throat got bigger and I felt my eyes starting to water. I swallowed hard and willed myself not to cry. I sure didn’t want her to die and never be with Jesus in the glory, even if I didn’t know what that was.

 

     “Brother Levi said we got to break the curse, and I’ve been trying to figure out how to do it,” I said.

 

     She took a deep breath and patted my hand. “Onliest person in the worl’ knows that is Daddy Bones.”. 

 

     I felt my skin crawl when she said that. All us kids knew about Daddy Bones. He was a conger man, and we were nearly about as afraid of him as we were of the witche’s grave. We never even said his name above a whisper.  We heard that he could strike you blind you just by looking at you, and that sometimes he would turn into a poison spider or the Will-o-The-Wisp drifting out of the deep woods. I had never seen him, but I heard that he carried a pet Water Moccasin wrapped around his neck like a bandana, and walked with a stick that had a human skull on it. Sometimes at night folks would see him in the graveyard talking to dead people.

 

     I knew I was gonna have to go see Daddy Bones, and that was the last thing in this whole world I wanted to do.

 

      Daddy Bones lived in the little settlement on Burntpot island in the Skidaway river on the old Wimberly plantation. The only way to get there was by boat,

 

       I whistled for Lady and we took the old green bateau through the maze of marsh creeks to the Skidaway river and down it to Burntpot island .

 

 

     It’s not much of an island. Mostly marsh, only a foot or two above water level. Not much of a settlement, either. Only about a dozen houses, and half of them are empty and falling down.

 

     I don’t know why in this world anybody would live there, unless they just like mosquitoes!

 

     I pulled the bateau up on the mud and told lady to stay. I didn’t know these people and I knew she wouldn’t let anybody touch the boat. I wasn’t worried about anybody stealing the boat. It was old and hardly worth it. But the outboard motor was a different matter. Now, lady weighs about thirty five pounds and it would take a pure fool to cross her, so I wasn’t worried.

 

     There was no street, not even a path, and the houses were scattered all over the place, if you could call them houses. I didn’t know which shack was Daddy Bones, and I didn’t see anybody to ask. Fact is, I didn’t see anybody at all. But you know how sometimes you can feel you're being watched?  Just kinda feel the eyes on your back? I could feel them watching me. It made me nervous and I really wanted to turn around and run back to the boat.

 

     “White boy, what you want’n yere?”

 

     The voice was mean and sharp. It startled me so bad I nearly about jumped out of my skin.

 

      A man in faded overalls and no shirt came around the side of one of the houses. 

 

     “I have to see Daddy Bones.”

 

     “Daddy Bones?” The same mean voice. “Ain’t no Daddy Bones yere. What you wantn him fer, anyhow?”

 

     “There’s a spin on my Auntie Lucas. I need him to break it.”

 

     He was walking towards me, and I didn’t like the look in his eyes. “You gots any money, white boy?”

 

     I started backing up.  He laughed and picked up a long, thick, piece of wood.

 

     “I gonna bus’ yo’ haid wide open, white boy.”

 

     Suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks, and I swear for a black man he turned white. He started backing away, then he turned around and ran.

 

      I knew Daddy Bones was standing right behind me. I don’t know how I knew, but I did. I guess I just felt it. He didn’t have a snake around his neck, or anything.  And he wasn’t walking with a staff with a human skull on it, but I knew it was him, alright. I felt my mouth go dry and a shiver run up my back.

 

     “What you want Daddy Bones fer, boy?”

 

     For a few seconds that seemed to last forever I couldn’t say anything. My mind just wasn’t working, and no words would come.

 

     “Come on, boy. Say yo’ piece.”

 

     Then the dam in my mind broke and the words just came pouring out. I don’t think I took a single breath as I told him the whole story.

 

     “My Auntie Lucas said somebody put a curse on her and she’s gonna die and shes been seeing the signs but she didn’t know what they were and shes been witch rode every night and Brother Levi says it’s all in her mind but I don’t think so because I know how I felt walking down that path and she’s gonna die and never be with Jesus in the glory and I don’t know what that is but I don’t want her to die And she says only you know how to break the spin!”  

 

     

     “Gimme yo’ han’, boy.”

 

     “Oh, lord,’ I thought. ‘He’s gonna turn into a poison spider and bite me and I’m gonna die’

 

     His hand was rough and calloused like he had worked hard all of his life. And I swear there was a power in it.  I felt it go right through me. It was kind of like the time my uncle Rodger had asked me if I wanted to feel a snake go through my arm. He had held my hand and touched an electric fence with a stick, and I felt the electricity go up my arm.

 

     It was kind of like that, but different. But he didn’t turn into a poison spider and bite me.

 

     “Tell me the signs.”  His eyes were kind and his voice was soft, so I began to feel alright with him.

 

     “She said there was a crack in the earth pointing at her front door, and buzzards have been circling the house every day, getting lower. Then the last three nights she’s been witch rode all night long.”

 

     He looked hard into my eyes, like he was reading my soul, and let go of my hand.

 

     “She don’t know who done it?”

 

     “No sir.”

 

     He didn’t say anything for a few seconds. It was like he was looking inside of himself at some secret and hidden place.

 

     “It ain’t good. Cracks in the dirt pointing to her do’ is the grave opening up. Buzzards circling an’ dropping lower an lower ever’ day is counting her time. They ain’t landed on the roof or in the yard?”

 

     “No sir.”

 

     “Den she still gots time.”

 

     “Can you break the curse?”

 

     “Ain’ me’s gotta do it. I kin tell you how, but I don’ know as you up to it, seeings you ain’ much mo’n a lap baby.”

 

       Lap baby! I wasn’t a lap baby! I was thirteen years old!

 

     “You got t’ cross my palm wi’ silver. Can’t be no paper, now. It don’t matter how much. A dime er a dollar, longs it’s silver.”

 

     I had a quarter and a dime. I started just to give him the dime, but then I gave him both of them.

 

     “Awrite. Boy, here’s what you gots t’ do. You got t’ tae’ a page out th’ bible. Can’t be cut out. Gotta be toe out. Den writes her name on it. You gots t’ take that an some ‘bacca an whiskey to th witches grave under moon light. Puts th tow out page on th grave, po’ the whisky on th dirt, an sprinkle th bacca ‘round. Den you gots t’ say “go back t’ sleep and leave Auntie Lucas be.” You gots t’ say it three times, den th spin be broke.”

 

     Talk about feeling your skin crawl, goose bumps, and cold shivers! Oh lord! It was like a hundred of those black and yellow spiders were running all over me!

 

       “How can I find the witch’s grave?” My voice sounded weak and squeeky.

 

     “Boy, you sho you up t’ this?”

 

     I nodded my head. I didn’t trust my voice not to crack if I tried to speak.

 

     “You looks careful behin’ th’ ole bunt down holly roller church. They’s a goat’s head bone nailed to a tree. Dat marks th’ path.  Now you get on ‘way from here. Soon’s them buzzards lan’s in her yard, times up.”

 

     I knew that I couldn’t tell grandmama what I was going to do. She would hit the roof. There was no way she would let me go. And I knew I had to tell Auntie Lucas because she had to know the curse was broken. I figured I could use the tobacco from the cigarettes I had hidden in the boat house. I’d have to pour a little of Johnny Raintree’s homemade whiskey in a jar, and that would be easy enough, but I didn’t know where in this world I was gonna get a bible to tear a page out of.

 

     I couldn’t tear it out of the family bible. That was old and big and had burn marks on the cover from when the yankees had burned the little South Carolina town in eighteen sixty-four. The pages were big and thick, and edged in gold, and every birth and death in the family since seventeen forty three was recorded there.

 

     Auntie Lucas wouldn’t be about to let me tear a page out of her bible. So I just didn’t know.

 

     When I got back home grand mama was putting lunch on the table.

 

     Lunch? We called it dinner, and it was never just a sandwich. She was used to feeding field hands, shrimpers, and railroad workers. Lunch was something people who worked in offices ate in cafes, or at their desks. Dinner was a full meal in the middle of the day

 

     “Auntie Lucas wont get out the bed,” she said. “Just sits propped up and holding her bible. Least she ain’t rocking back and forth no more. You take this plate to her and see can you get her to eat a little something.”

 

     That was my chance to tell Auntie Lucas what I was gonna do.

 

     “I got something to tell you, Auntie Lucas. But you’ve gotta promise me you won’t tell nobody.”

 

     “Now, boy, you know I caint give that promise less’n I knows what it is.”

 

     I had not thought of that.

 

     “I went to Burntpot and saw Daddy Bones,” I whispered.  When I said that I saw her give a little shiver

 

      “Boy,” she said just above a whisper. “What you talkin’ bout?” 

 

      “I gave him thirty-five cents and he told me how to break the spin.”

 

       “ Don’ you go messing aroun’ with no magic. You hear me good, now boy. Don’ you do it. Jus’ don’ you do it.  Ain’t no good can come of it.”

 

     “Yes, ma’am, but,….but I got to so you won’t die, and you can be with Jesus in the glory.” I wondered again what the glory was. Then I thought maybe it was where Jesus lived. I knew there was a little town called “Glory” over in Berrien county, but it’s nothing much more than a dirt road and a filling station.

 

      If I was Jesus I sure wouldn’t wanna live there. I know that.

 

     I told her what Daddy Bones said I had to do.

 

     “I’ve got to do it tonight, because when the buzzards land on your roof, or in the yard, time’s up.”

 

     “Oh, lawd. An’ they been a’getting lower and lower every evening, an’ dat ole witch woman just a’waiting.”

 

     “I’ve got the tobacco, and I can get some of Johnny Raintree’s whiskey out of that bottle under the sink, but I don’t know where in this world I’m gonna get a page out of the Bible.”

 

     Auntie Lucas didn’t say anything at first. She started rocking back and forth again, holding her Bible close. Then she said that the buzzards were getting ready to land on her roof and she was never gonna be with Jesus in the glory. Then she looked at me.

 

     “Ain’t you still got that little chil’s bible that Baptist preacher give you long time ago?”

 

     I had forgotten all about that!

 

      Even when I was only six years old and my aunt Nona had drug me to the Baptist church and the preacher had given it to me, I thought it was silly.  It was full of pictures of some guy with hair like a movie actress all dressed in a white bath robe with a bunch of sheep all around him. I didn’t think anybody with a lick of sense would wear a white bath robe with a bunch of sheep all around him.

 

     But it WAS a bible! And a Bible was just what I needed.

 

     I wasn’t sure where it was, but it was still in my bookshelf. That was luck! I didn’t know if a page with writing on it, or a page with a picture would be better. I found a page with a picture of him sitting on a rock with a bunch of kids sitting on the ground and staring at him. I thought probably they were  wondering why he was sitting on a rock wearing a white bathrobe.

 

     I know I would have been.

 

      But it did have a picture and writing on it, so that’s the page I tore out and wrote ‘Auntie Lucas’ name on. Then when grandmama went to hang out the washing I got the whiskey out from under the sink and poured about an inch in an old Bitters jar. Daddy Bones had not said how much whiskey, but I thought that was probably enough.

 

     Getting out at night wouldn’t be a problem. It was summer and school was out and a bunch of us kids would meet up at the Greek’s store and hang around drinking cokes, talking and laughing every night. Granddaddy laughed about it and called it cutting the fool, and said he did it, too, when he was a young’un. We would sneak off around the side of the store and pass around a cigarette, and sometimes Elizabeth Ashford and some of her friends would come, too. 

 

     After supper and after watching television for a little while I said I was going down to the Greeks. Granddaddy smiled and gave me fifty cents. He told me to have myself a time but stay out of the bushes. Then he laughed.

 

     I don’t know how he knows everything I’m gonna do before I even know I’m gonna do it, but he most always does.

 

     I got the things I needed and a flashlight. I stopped in and told Auntie Lucas I was on my way, but not to tell grand mama or granddaddy. I told her I’d tell her as soon as I got it done.

 

     I whistled for Lady and started down the lane. It was only about seven o’clock and wouldn’t be dark for another two hours. I thought that if I stopped at the Greek’s for an hour or so I wouldn’t really be lying about where I was going. That would still give me time to find the path and get to the witche’s grave before full dark. And Daddy Bones said it had to be done under moonlight.

 

     Billy Johnson and Ralph Hale were at the Greek’s and I hung around with them for a while. Ralph’s daddy had just bought a brand new 1958 Ford Edsel and was at the Greek’s getting gas. I got to tell you, that was one beautiful automobile. It was baby blue and white, with that big shield right in the middle of the front with EDSIL on it, and the wrap around parking lights, and whitewall tires. I promised myself that one day I was gonna get rich enough to buy a brand new car and drive to the Greek’s to show it off. But it wouldn’t be a ford. My uncle Rodger said you spell Ford was r-a-t-t-l-e. He liked Chevrolets, so I did, too. 

 

     The closer it got to time to go, the more nervous I got. I wanted it to hurry and get late enough so I could get it over with before I lost my nerve. Billy and Ralph asked me what I was so jumpy about, and I guess lady felt it, too, because she didn’t play with Billy’s dog like she usually did. She just stayed close around my feet. Then Elizabeth Ashford and another girl came up and started talking real sweet to me. You know, talking that baby talk like they do?

 

      Then I really didn’t want to go.

 

     I thought that maybe that old witch knew what I was gonna do and was putting temptation in my way. And I got to tell you, Elizabeth Ashford was powerful temptation, all right. But it wasn’t gonna work. I didn’t want my Auntie to die and not be with Jesus in the glory, and even Elizabeth Ashford wasn’t gonna stop me. I wasn’t a lap baby, no matter what Daddy Bones had said. I was thirteen years old! I knew what I had to do, and nothing short of the wrath of God was gonna stop me. Elizabeth Ashford could talk baby talk and look all sweet and soft at me all she wanted to.  It wasn’t gonna make any difference.

 

     I said I wished the time would hurry up and get here, but when it did, I wished it hadn’t.  I found the goat skull nailed to the tree and a little narrow, overgrown path leading back into the shadows of the deep woods

 

     I stood a while looking down that path, trying to tell myself I was gonna do it.

 

     That’s what I told myself, but I wasn’t sure I believed it,

 

     Then I thought it was kinda of like when you have to go to the dentist. You know, how you don’t wanna go, but you know you’re gonna have to. Like when you tell grand mama that the tooth don’t really hurt all that bad, and anyway maybe it’ll heal itself. But you know it won’t.

 

     So you go and you sit in that big old chair and have to open your mouth bigger than God ever intended a mouth to open. That crazy old dentist bangs on your teeth with a little silver hammer until  he’s hit the one that hurts. Then you try to scream, but how you gonna scream with your mouth held open like that? Then he starts to working and you got to smell that awful smell and hear that sound of the drill boring into your tooth and when it hits a nerve you’re mind goes all black and red the pain is so bad you think you’r gonna die. You nearly about tear the arm off of the chair and tears are running down your cheeks and that big old nurse has got your head in a hammer lock holding you still.  And you gotta keep your mouth open till your jaw hurts all the way up to your ear and your mouth fills all up with spit until you feel like you’re gonna drown and you think it’s never gonna end.

      

     It was kinda like that, but worse.

 

     I started down that path and it was still daylight and lady wasn’t acting strange, so I felt alright. Except I was sweating like a hot collard mule and could feel the hair puckering up on the back of my neck. Once I was a dozen or so yards in, the deep woods closed up all around me. Those huge hundred year old oak trees bearded with Spanish moss made a tunnel out of the path. The moss hung down brushing against my face and head and I had to push it away, just hoping there weren’t any of those big old black and yellow spiders in it. I tried to tell myself that the little sounds from the undergrowth were just birds and little animals scratching around, but I knew it was dupies and gregres watching me.

 

     Still, lady was acting alright, so I told myself that I was alright, too. Anyway, everybody knows  dupies and gregres can’t do anything while it’s still day time.

 

     I tried not to think about having to walk back down this path in the dark.

 

     I swear, it seemed like that path must have gone all the way to China, and I was already half way there. I started to wonder if I was on the wrong path. But I told myself that I couldn’t be, because I had found the goat skull, and anyway, this was the only path going back into the deep woods.

 

     The deeper I got into the deep woods the more I told myself it was the wrong path. I really wanted to turn around and get out of there before dark. I tried telling myself that it was the wrong path and I would just come back tomorrow. Maybe the buzzards weren’t ready to land on Auntie Lucas’ roof  yet. .

 

     But I knew I couldn’t do that.

 

     Then the path ended and I saw it, but I got to tell you, it wasn’t nothing like I thought it would be. There was a little black wrought iron fence about a foot high in a rectangle all tangled with vines and weeds, and some moss and twigs were caught up in it. It was all eaten up with rust, and in places the cross bars were rusted clean through. A tree limb had fallen on it and knocked part of it down, and I figured that was how the witch got out, ‘cause everybody knows a witch can’t cross cold iron.  A thick, heavy iron chain hung down from a tree limb over the grave, and it was all eaten up with rust, too. But it was real thick and had not rusted through    

 

      I knew that was the chain she had been hung with.

 

    But when I looked closer there was something strange. Every hair on my head stood up and I felt like I had to pee real bad. Inside of the fence the earth was bare dirt. There wasn’t a blade of gress, a weed, or a bit of trash on it.

 

      It was unholy ground and nothing would grow there.

 

      It wasn”t dark yet, but it was coming fast. I wanted to find a place to hide, then I thought that was stupid. You can’t hide from witches and dupies and gregres.

 

      But I did anyway.

 

     I kinda tucked in under some bushes and waited. Lady put her head on my leg, and that made me feel better, but I was still scared half to death.

 

     I knew what would be coming out in the dark.

 

     The longer I had to wait the scared I got. I could hear the dupies and greegrees moving all around me in the gathering darkness. I hugged lady close, and she was warm and alive, and that helped. I told myself over and over again that I was thirteen years old and I wasn’t any lap baby, and I could get this done.

 

      By the time it was full dark and I figured the moon was out I was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. 

 

     I wasn’t fixing to set foot inside that little fence, so I had to get on my knees and reach across to put the page of the bible on it. My hand was trembling and my mouth was dry and I felt cold all over. I reached across real fast, scared a dead hand was gonna come up out of that dirt and grab my hand. Then I poured the whiskey on it and sprinkled the tobacco just as fast as I could.

 

     Now all I got to do is say “Go back to sleep and leave my Auntie Lucas alone” three times.

    

      I had just finished saying “go back to sleep and leave Auntie lucas alone,” the third time when lady started growling real low.

 

     I looked up and I saw the devil himself step from behind a tree!

 

      I screamed like a little girl! Every hair on my head stood straight up and I jumped about five feet in the air and was a half mile down the path before I knew I was running.  And I MEAN I was moving! I was putting Man O’ War to shame and that old devil was right behind me and reaching for me with his long bony fingers and I could feel his hot breath on my neck and my heart was going like a race horse and I didn’t slow down until I was out of the deep woods and past the burned down holly roller church and could see the big light in  the Greek’s parking lot.

 

     I dropped down on the ground sucking wind and trying to get my heart out of my throat and back in my chest where it belonged. After a few minutes I stopped shacking and could breathe normal. I hugged lady real tight and she licked my cheek and I started to feel alright.

 

     I went on home and told Auntie Lucas what I had done and the spin was broken. The next morning she was up and around and her spry old self again.

 

       That same morning Johnny Raintree sat at the breakfast table having a second of coffee with his wife. He started laughing.

 

     “What’s funny, darling?”

 

     “I was just thinking about that kid last night. When I stepped from behind that tree, I swear he jumped straight up and took off down that path like the devil himself was after him.”

 

     “You reckon he saw you burying the money?’

 

     “Naw. Way he was running! He was half way to Mississippi when I buried it. And even if he did, I misdoubt he’ll ever come back to that old grave.”

 

     His wife smiled. The witches grave was a good place to hide the money they made from making and selling whiskey. Nobody ever came there except Daddy Bones, and he wasn’t going to tell anyone.