Chapter Twenty-Five: How to Kill a Witch

Doctor Turner's beard was his salient feature; a hirsute manifestation of virility and laissez faire so impressive that the man himself increased in significance: It was massively black, streaked with occasional strands of white (though Turner himself could not have been over forty), specked with orts, and smeared with grease and gravy. The beard identified Doctor Turner as a man at sea, far from female diversions and undesirous of commitment when he went ashore. Such a man is to be envied, for he has no rivals, not because he is unconquerable but because he just doesn't give a shit, a helpful attitude when your job is to feed hungry sailors with food that is, shall we say, often less than satisfactory.

It was the sixth night aboard the Indrani and Doctor Turner's turn to tell a story. As per usual, steins were filled, tobacco smoke was drifting upward, and stomachs were satisfied by Turner's own comestibles. The Captain said, "Go on, Turner. Don't keep us waiting," so the cook began his tale:

My Grandpa Samson hailed from deep Appalachia in the Blue Ridge Mountains of West Virginia, and he lived in a world of wondrous supposals. Rummaging about in his mind were Gow-rows and witches; infant ghosts and Wood Boogers; river monsters and Wampus Cats. When I was a lad, he would set me on his knee and tell me stories about them all. I used to ask him, "Granpa, is there really such a thing as a Wood Booger [or a Gow-row or a Wampus Cat or take your pick]?" and he would always answer, "What you believe has just gotta be. You can't believe in something if it ain't there to believe in, can you?" Even as a boy I wasn't convinced his logic held; in fact, I suspected Grandpa possessed no logic at all. But I loved his stories, so I kept my mouth shut, and he told me how back in '58, the Wampus Cat ate all the babies in the Buckhannon Orphanage and how they hired the famous Wilburn Waters to hunt the beast. Wilburn never did kill the Cat, but he spied it once on a high bluff proximate to the burg of Elkins. The Cat leapt down fifty feet with its claws spread and its teeth bared and its hackles erect like rippling knives down the ridge of his arched spine. But Wilburn chanced to glance obliquely upward, and he saw the Cat in its descent, so Wilburn ducked into a small cave beneath the bluff. The Cat landed soft as a kitten on a cornhusk mattress, looked about, and then slunk off through the woods, miffed and unsatisfied. They say that when Wilburn Waters crept out of that cave, his hair was as white as the snows of January, and his face had aged like a puckered apple.

At least, that's what Grandpa told me.

So, the stories continued throughout my youth in varying degrees of gore and misapprehension until one day, my Grandma Clara's strawberries failed entirely. It was a mystery because the day before, she had seen burgeoning berries of pale red and green, and she anticipated a fruitful harvest. Then there was nothing. Grandma was flummoxed. She told Grandpa there was no reasonable explanation, except that later she saw a large black dog with its head hanging down and its tongue hanging out, and the dog was lurking beyond the periphery of the patch. She said it might've been a Graveyard Grim or even the dreaded Tailypo. Grandpa, however, said, "No, Clara, it was neither of those beasts but the transmogrification of Verna Potts."

Grandma shivered at the thought. "What do you mean?" she asked with a tremor in her voice.

"I mean what you and have I long suspected: Verna Potts is a witch, contracted with the Devil and hellbent on mischief! 'Twas she who magicked your strawberries, and the time has come for retribution. I will consult Frederico of the gypsies!"

Frederico the Gypsy lived outside the village in a wagon painted blue and yellow, and he knew more than any man thereabouts how to ward off spells and cast out demons and most important, how to vanquish witches. Grandpa rode up to Frederico's camp while the gypsy was eating his dinner by the fire. Grandpa said he caught an oblique glimpse of Mrs. Frederico climbing into the back of the wagon. She was reputed to be young and beautiful with raven hair and darting eyes, and Grandpa said that, from what he could tell, the reports were true. Grandpa called out, "Hail the camp! I've come on the business of witchery, Master Frederico!"

Frederico set his bowl of stew on a stump and said, "Okay. So, here's what you gotta do: run so fast you catch the fleeing hare, and the bunny, she will be your friend. Think so quick you outsmart the cunning fox, and Reynard, he will be your friend. Grow so strong, you best the wrestling bear, and Bruin, he will be your friend. With such friends, the witch dies. Now, go, go, go! I'm eating my dinner, and my young, beautiful, raven-haired, darting-eyed wife is waiting for me in the wagon so's we can do the ooh-la-la!"

Grandpa was disheartened but not so much that he despaired: He was, after all, fit for a man his age, somewhere between forty and fifty years, and besides that, his abiding hatred of witches filled his sails with a furious wind.

So, this is what Grandpa did:

The next morning, he drank a quart of buttermilk and scouted about in the woods for a hare. He no sooner spied her, but off she ran, lickety-split, with Grandpa after her with his legs pounding and the buttermilk churning in his gut, but in less than a minute, the rabbit darted into the brush and disappeared, and Grandpa was leaning forward with his hands on his knees and trying to catch his breath. The next morning the same thing: scout, find, chase, and fail. Then the next morning and the next for three full months! Three months, mind you! By then, the hare had come to perceive Grandpa's pursuit as a game. She would dart away and lead Grandpa in and out of canebrakes, around trees, and even over little trickles of streams. Then, when Grandpa put his hands on his knees and tried to catch his breath, the hare would turn around and look at him with her ears straight up and her whiskers twitching. But Grandpa never lost heart. That's how much he hated witches.

Then one morning in the first week of the fourth month, Grandpa had an inspiration. He drank two quarts of buttermilk, took off his britches and shirt, hung 'em on a limb, and went into the woods stark naked to scout for the hare. She saw him coming, and off they went, racing through the woods, in and out of canebrakes, around trees, and even over little trickles of streams. This time, however, Grandpa didn't stop to put his hands on his knees, and when the hare chanced to glance obliquely back, she saw his hands reaching for her. She was about to redouble her speed, when Grandpa clenched his stomach muscles and squirted a stream of buttermilk from his ass, the force of which propelled him forward just enough to grab the hare and hold her panting in his arms. Oh, she trembled and panted, and her little heart was pounding, but Grandpa stroked her ears and said, "Good, sweet bunny! You'n'me are gonna be friends and kill that old witch!"

Next, Grandpa had to outsmart Reynard the Fox, the chicken killing varmint that always got away.

This is what Grandpa did:

He put a small chunk of bacon fat out on a log slab and tied a string to the fat and ran the string into his cabin where he watched through the window as Reynard, darting his eyes and licking his lips, came slinking up. Just as the fox was about to lunge for the bacon, Grandpa jerked the string and the bacon fat leapt toward the cabin, and Reynard ran into the woods. For three months, Grandpa and the fox went through a similar routine, but over time Grandpa introduced innovations. He let the fox get closer and closer to the chunk of fat before he pulled the string. Then Grandpa came outside and sat between the cabin and the log slab, so the fox could see him when he pulled the string. Next, Grandpa sat cross-legged right behind the log slab and snatched the chunk away with his hand. The fox had come to perceive Grandpa's teasing as a game, until one day, Reynard trotted up to see three tin cups set upside down on the log slab. He nosed the cups over, but nothing was beneath them. The fox looked at Grandpa, who held out the bacon fat, but just as the fox was about to take it from his hand, Grandpa closed his fist. The fox tilted his head. Grandpa showed the fox the bacon fat again, tipped up one of the cups, and put the fat beneath it. Then he scooted the cups around. Reynard put out his little paw to show where he thought the bacon was, and what do you know? He was right! For the first time, Grandpa let the fox eat the piece of bacon fat, which had grown rancid anyhow and was disgusting. For three more months, he and the fox played the game, until the time came the fox reached out his paw, Grandpa turned over the cup, and nothing was beneath it but an acorn. The fox looked at Grandpa, and Grandpa tipped up another cup beneath which was the fat. With that, the fox climbed into Grandpa's lap and curled up like a puppy dog. Grandpa said, "Good, sweet Reynard! You'n'me are gonna be friends and kill that old witch!"

Finally, came the hardest challenge of them all: Grandpa had to find, wrestle, and whip a bear. Now, Grandpa wasn't a particularly big fellow. He stood about five foot eight and weighed maybe a hundred and sixty pounds. He was about the quantity of a railroad tie.

This is what Grandpa did:

First of all, he wrestled his cousin Carl, who shared Grandpa's size and demeanor. Then he wrestled his own brother Abel, who was taller and stouter and could skip a one pound rock all the way over the Shenandoah River. Then came Caliber (he went by Cal) and Johnny the Giant and Hugh the Huge and Cliff the Cliff (which was redundant, certainly, but Cliff the Bluff sounded silly). For three months, Grandpa wrestled fellows taller and stouter than the ones before, until he finally faced "Stone" Baker the Bone Breaker, who was not kin and less than kind and bragged that he could whip any man in Randolph County; indeed, in all of West Virginia; in fact, the entire Appalachian range; and maybe the whole damned world. I could try to impress you with a description of Stone's size and unpleasant disposition, but you've heard such descriptions before and would only consider my efforts as hyperbolic falderal in service to dramatic effect. Suffice it to say that Stone was as huge as Gibraltar, as nasty as a shark, and as stupid as a, well, stone, whence his sobriquet.

I was there when Stone and Grandpa faced off against one another. Stone had his hands out, not in fists but with his fingers extended, as if he were going to snatch Grandpa off the ground and throw him in the trees. Grandpa, on the other hand, had his dukes up, and he kept circling Stone and looking for an opportunity. Round and round they went, with Stone looking like he wanted to cast a spell and Grandpa looking like a mongoose harassing a cobra. Suddenly, Grandpa rushes in, seizes Stone by the knees, lifts him off the ground, and flips him backward over his head. Ka-thump! Stone hit the ground, which knocked the breath out of him and left him momentarily stunned. Grandpa turned to straddle Stone's chest, and he grabbed his head by the ears. Stone was still gasping, and Grandpa hollered, "I could if I so desired snap your neck but would prefer not to, given the fact that doing so would kill you dead and make me a murderer. Will you yield instead?"

Stone grunted, "Okay."

Grandpa now felt he was ready to wrestle a bear.

This is what Grandpa did:

He went out on the river in a canoe with Caliber and Abel, but they kept close to the bank because they were looking for a suitable bear. (Grandpa had told the boys what Frederico the Gypsy said, and they said they, too, would wrestle a bear to defeat a witch. That's how much they hated witches. They also had their rifles in case the bear appeared to be getting the upper hand on Grandpa.) From daybreak to mid-morning to high noon, the three men paddled and drank whiskey and talked about various witches who had plagued Norton and Belington and Parsons and Philippi. West Virginia has never lacked for witches. Then they rounded a bend and saw her: On a tree leaning horizontally over the water stretched a bear sunning herself and sleeping. Never was there a bruin more peaceful, more contented than that bear. She had just eaten a calf she pilfered from Farmer Smock's feedlot, and though she had heard the sounds of muskets booming behind her, she escaped unscathed with the calf hanging from her mouth. Now, she was digesting her repast with neither guilt nor worry. That is, until she heard the canoe bump gently against the log. She lifted her drowsy head and looked at Grandpa with dull perplexity: He was trying to climb out of the canoe and on to the tree without tipping over one or falling off the other. He grabbed an upthrust limb and used it to steady himself while the canoe wobbled away. Abel and Cal readied their rifles.

First, Grandpa worked his way down the tree to where the she-bear lay. She glanced obliquely back and then lowered her head onto her paws and closed her eyes again. Grandpa nudged her rump with his foot. Nothing. He tugged her tail. Nothing. Finally, he just flung himself full length onto her back. The bear looked back and lowered her head again.

"C'mon, you goddam bear!" Grandpa yelled. "I've gotta wrestle you if I'm a-gonna kill the witch!" But the she-bear cared nothing for witches or the eccentricities of men. She was full and sleepy. Grandpa started flailing her sides with his fists, but the thickness of her fur absorbed the punches. She felt as if she were receiving a pleasant massage, and she rolled on to her side, which was somewhat perilous for the bear but downright dangerous for Grandpa, because he found himself clinging to her back lest he fall into the river. He tried reaching up and climbing onto her side when she decided to roll on her back with the inevitable consequence of Grandpa's plunge into the water. "Help!" he cried. "Boys, save me! I cain't swim!"

Abel said, "Iffen you cain't swim, why'd you want to go lookin' for a bear in a canoe?"

"I dunno. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Help!"

So, Cal and Abel plowed their paddles with great urgency, but before they could round the tree to rescue Grandpa, the bear let her foreleg droop beside Grandpa's head. He seized her paw, and she began to pull him up. When at last he was straddling the log and trying to catch his breath, he took the bear's paw and said, "Good bear, sweet Bruin! You'n'me are gonna be friends, and kill that old witch!" The she-bear licked the top of his head.

Of course, the hardest part was getting the bear in the canoe, what with three grown men already in it, but they pulled and coaxed and swore and pushed, and finally, she sloughed off the tree and into the canoe like an avalanche of fur. The gunwales of the canoe settled to an inch above the water, but the men kept steady and paddled gently and by nightfall, they were home with the bear safely in tow.

Grandma Clara was astounded when the bear waddled into the cabin. It was vexing enough to tend a fox and a hare, neither of whom would consent to being caged, but a bear! Her husband's hatred of Verna Potts clearly exceeded all rational bounds, and she wondered if he might not be ready for the looney bin. She exclaimed, "Harley Jemson! What in the Lord's name are you doing with a bear?"

"You know what the gypsy said, Clara: If I have a hare, a fox, and a bear as my friends, the witch will die. Well, now I got 'em, and we can call down retribution on that infernal witch Vera Potts who magicked your strawberries!"

"How in the name of all that's holy are them critters going to help you is what I want to know? Huh?"

Grandpa and Grandma were just about to settle into a full-on and embittered tit-for-tat when there came a knocking at the door. Grandma opened the door and said, "What?"

Turns out the girl at the door was little Peevy Potts, granddaughter of Verna, and she was crying. She sniffled and said, "Pa sent me to tell y'all Grandma passed away this morning. She wanted y'all to have this," and she held out a basket. Grandma peeled back the towel and beneath were at least two quarts of bright red strawberries, enough for pie and jam. Peevy said, "Grandma's last words were about how good you all had been, never troubled her, and let her live life in peace. She said she always took comfort in having you so close to hand."

Grandma took the basket from Peevy and said, "Why, thank you, sugar. Your grandma was a fine woman, she sure was. Please tell your pa how sorry we are about his ma's passing."

Peevy peeked around Grandma Clara, and her eyes widened. "Is that a bear?" she asked. "How'd you get a bear in your cabin? And a fox! And, look, a cute little bunny! Can I pet them!"

Grandma paused, and then she opened the door wider and said, "Sure you can, honey. Come on in."

Peevey came in and knelt before the hare and the fox and rubbed their ears and cuddled them and stroked their fur. The fox licked her cheek. Then she went to the she-bear and buried her face in her fur and wept and said, "I wish Grandma Verna was here! She loved animals. We used to have a dog named Blackie, but last year she run off."

Grandma was feeling lousy by this time, so she patted Peevey on the head and said, "Now, that's a good girl. You just cry it out." So, Peevey hugged the bear and wept until she ran out of tears. Then she went back to the hare and the fox and sat cross-legged on the floor. The rabbit hopped in her lap and the fox laid his head on her leg.

Peevey said, "The animals act like they know what happened to Grandma. Maybe she sent them. What do you think?"

And Grandpa said, "Maybe she did at that. I believe animals know a lot more than we credit them for." He glanced obliquely at Grandma and said, "A lot more. Clara, what do you believe?"