Red Rabbit

by Alex Grecian

Rumors about how Olivia’s bones had broken and reknit themselves in bizarre configurations, how her flesh had run in rivulets across her wasted muscles, then solidified again in peaks and troughs, scales and horns.

“Regardless of what this man claims,” Moses said in a low voice, “that child is not a boy.”

“What it’s about,” Tom said. “is a witch.”

“I call him Rabbit,” Old Tom said. “Cause he give me a hell of a chase when I found him.”

“Is that what you want me to call you?” Rose said to the child. “Rabbit?”

“This all started ’cause there’s a sizable reward for the killing of a witch up north of here. It was put up by some farmers after the witch poisoned their crops and murdered their kin. I’m an experienced witch-master,

By tomorrow, or possibly the next day, she’ll drop dead where she is.

Ned decided he had dreamed about the man with the droopy mustache and he didn’t mention him to the others; not even Moses.

His plan had been simple: curse the witch from afar, then travel up to Burden County and collect the bounty on Sadie Grace.

Every morning Sadie Grace found some new offering on her front stoop: seven fresh eggs wrapped in a clean cloth, a whole chicken, a cow liver on a slab of shagbark hickory that was still oozing sap.

It was possible she had once borne a child, but she did not remember having done so, and she did not care to remember. She had woken one morning on the south bank of the Arkansas River, naked, cold, and muddy, with a deep gash in her throat just above her left collarbone. She had walked three miles to the nearest settlement. The local doctor stitched her wound and examined her, determining that she was somewhere between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, and that she had at some point probably given birth. She recalled nothing of her life before waking up beside the river.

Three of the farmer’s chickens disappeared one night, and a neighbor claimed to have seen Sadie squatting in the field under a full moon, howling and smearing herself with the birds’ blood.

Her husband—Sadie assumed it was her husband—lay next to her, the top of his head missing, a sticky brown stain on the wall behind him.

“Don’t look to me like you’re grieving anything at all. Looks to me like you been rolling around in some poison oak and you’re anxious the rash is gonna get to your pecker.”

“That’s hellfire, boy. Your skin’s burning ’cause you got a demon in you, feeding on all the shame and anger you got bottled up inside.”

“You’re the criminal,” Charlie added. “Not me.” “Yeah,” George said, “but it ain’t no secret I’m a thief, and I’ll suffer plenty of hellfire when I’m hanged. But you got to suffer it now, while you’re alive, and then some more after you die, too. What did you do, Charlie, that’s got your flesh set on fire from the inside?”

“Jim!” George shouted. “Jim, wake up and get out here!” “Shut up, George.” Charlie pointed the pistol at George for emphasis. “I told you Jim’s sleeping.” “I know he’s sleeping,” George said. “Jim, there’s a demon inside Charlie! Wake up!” “I swear, George, you got to the count of three…” “Jim!” “One…” “Jim, Charlie’s fixing to shoot me! You better—” Charlie pulled the trigger and George stopped shouting. He blinked at Charlie in surprise. “You shot me,” he said. “Well, I said I was gonna shoot you.”

“I shot George,” Charlie said.

“Well, I don’t really think so,” Jim said. “But folks around here are feeling some disappointment in you these days, little brother. And you just keep on giving ’em reasons to be disappointed.”

Charlie had been unaware anyone was talking about him behind his back, much less Peggy Ann, who had no right to talk about anyone after what had happened with her husband.

the only one of them who looked back at the dark woods was Rabbit.

She could see the wrapped body bouncing on the back of Moses’s horse and she shuddered.

Joe Mullins stood under the sycamore tree for a long while, smoking his pipe and considering his options. Behind him was the farmhouse, but Rose was gone from there. It was nothing now, except an empty building without a wife or children to bring it to life.

The mule they called Brother had died out in front of the plow; what remained of him was visible from the crossroads.

he began to make plans to re-till it all, before he remembered he was dead.

He passed through the trunk of a mighty elm and entered a wide glade that wasn’t touched by the sun. Around him, sitting on logs and standing between trees, were dozens of people: men, women, and children, all of them staring expectantly at him. He removed his hat.

“My name is…” the man said. He stopped and looked around again as if embarrassed to have lost his place in an important speech. “Well, I guess I don’t remember my name.” “It’s James,” a girl whispered. “Your name is James.”

“When I was alive I crushed my son’s head with a heavy rock I found by the side of the river,” Mr James said. “Then I chucked him in the water.” Joe dropped his pipe in his lap and fumbled to grab it before it fell to the ground. “He was barely three years old, and he had a terrible earache. He screamed night and day, and his mama couldn’t stop the noise. I took to spending my time out of doors, but even when I was some distance away from the house, I could still hear his cries. He wouldn’t eat and he wouldn’t sleep, and my wife and I couldn’t sleep either.”

Joe got up from the log and looked above him. A few bones dressed in the tatters of a brown suit swayed gently in the whisper of a breeze. Mr James’s leg bones had come loose at some point and fallen off. So had his old top hat.

But my brother loved me very much and I loved him, and I wanted him to have food to eat and water to drink. So one morning I gathered up the poison my papa put out for the rats in the barn. Then I walked out here and ate it all and fell asleep under one of these trees. I have lost track of which one it was.”

“I will say that you were a good person when you were alive,” he said. “A much better person than Mr James. I apologize for bringing it up in your presence, Mr James.”

“Matter of fact, you look familiar to me, kid,” Rigby said. “Damn familiar.”

“What are you, anyway, kid? With them duds you got on, I can’t tell if you’re a boy or a girl.” “He’s a boy,” Tom said quickly. “Is that so?” McDaniel said. “I can’t tell,” Rigby said. “Take off them britches and let’s have a look,” McDaniel said. “That oughta solve it,” Rigby said. Rose stepped forward, positioning herself between Rabbit and the two men. Old Tom put a hand on Rabbit’s shoulder and pulled her back a step, farther away from the house.

He opened the door and set the body on one of the two long benches, sitting him upright as if he were a living passenger on the stagecoach. Moses was uncertain whether this looked dignified or silly, but it was better than being eaten by pigs in the night.

Even in the semidark of dusk they could read the words: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY.

Come along boys and listen to my tale, I’ll tell you of my troubles on the old Chisholm trail. Come a ti yi yippee, come a ti yi yea, Come a ti yi yippee, come a ti yi yea. Oh, a ten-dollar hoss and a forty-dollar saddle, And I’m goin’ to punchin’ Texas cattle. Come a ti yi yippee, come a ti yi yea, Come a ti yi yippee, come a ti yi yea. I wake in the mornin’ afore daylight, And afore I sleep the moon shines bright. Come a ti yi yippee, come a ti yi yea, Come a ti yi yippee, come a ti yi yea. It’s cloudy in the north, a-lookin’ like rain, And my durned old slicker’s in the wagon again.

“I won’t,” the driver said. But his body shook and his bones cracked, and he drew his revolver and pointed it at the messenger anyway. “I ain’t doing this, Frank. I swear I’m not the one doing this.”

“You squished my frog.”

“She keeps a nice clean house,” Peter said. “You won’t want to leave.”

“And, Duff, don’t you come back here until that bitch is dead and in the ground.”

Moses saw an enormous figure hurry around the corner away from them. He got only a brief glimpse, but the man was at least a head taller than Moses, and outweighed him by fifty pounds or more. He was wearing a stained leather apron, and his features, before he turned away, were disturbing. His neck was as thick as his head, and his eyes were too close together. One of his ears seemed to sit higher on his skull than the other, and Moses wondered if that was a trick of the light. “I think we almost met John Junior,” he said.

As they passed by, people stepped out of their homes and businesses to watch the three men. Benito waved at the children, as if he were leading a parade, but Ned noticed that everyone they saw seemed to be missing a limb, or an eye. Moses noticed it, too, and caught Ned’s attention. Ned shook his head. It was strange, but the war had left its mark on many people.

“I wished I knew for sure if I was going crazy,” he said. “That might be a comfort.”

He had heard of such places, where sadness had leeched into the soil and evil had sprouted from it.

“No, I mean I seen it before I went into that shop. And all those bibles … Moses, every bit of that stuff was took off of dead children.”

If in the wood and by surprise you meet a creature in disguise, Man or beast or otherwise, you’ll know him by his yellow eyes. Hush! Make not a sound when the Huntsman’s around. He tracks his quarry anywhere: the deepest cave, the village square … Listen, do you hear him there? His footstep on the darkened stair? Hush! Children, watch out when the Huntsman’s about.

“I’m after two white men, a colored man, a lady, and a Mexican who joined them when they passed through here. Also another thing or two that’s traveling with ’em, but I’m not after you.”

“There’s a fat old man traveling with your wife,” the girl said. “And the yellow-hat man, plus a black man, and a very handsome Mexican boy. There’s a little girl, too. If you wait here with us, I imagine they’ll be along soon.”

“Of course they’ll die,” Katie said. “John Junior’s been getting things ready to butcher them all day. They’ll be along pretty soon now.”

Three things happened then, all at once. Ned turned his head to look at Moses, taking his eyes off John Junior, while Elvira Bender fired her pistol, and Joe Mullins entered the shed through the north wall.