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Andrew was not able to speak, and Duff pulled his hat down over his face, so it fell to Cullen to perform some sort of ritual. He had never learned to read, but he had attended many funerals and he had heard women speak from their good book. He did his best to remember their words. “Earth to earth,” he said, “and dust to dust. Lord, we commend this little girl to you and ask that you take her into your bosom and soothe her innocent spirit, set her to dancing in the fields of your bounteous afterlife, and reunite her with her sainted mother, Mary. And we also ask you to keep her there,
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It was bad luck to mention Sadie’s name.
He stuck a hand in his pocket and touched the seven copper coins he kept there. Seven was a magic number and a good ward against witches.
It was bad luck to mention Sadie’s name.
He stuck a hand in his pocket and touched the seven copper coins he kept there. Seven was a magic number and a good ward against witches.
“Well, I’m gonna get her for this,” Duff said. “I’m gonna kill her, Andy. I’ll do it for Olivia, and for your Mary, too.”
Cullen angled back away from the porch and walked farther out into the yard, putting some distance between himself and Duff, just in case. In town, they claimed Sadie Grace could hear her name spoken, even from a hundred miles away. It was also said that she’d lived in the same cabin outside Riddle for as long as there had been white people in Kansas. That she wouldn’t ever die and she couldn’t be killed.
Cullen Stull wasn’t a stupid man and he didn’t court trouble.
and an old man limped into the makeshift saloon. He had a shock of white hair that stuck out in all directions from under his hat, and he was carrying a child’s body over his shoulder.
He dumped the child on a table, then stepped back and addressed the room. By that time, everyone in the place had set down their drinks and their cards to gawk at the new arrival. The women stood up and moved toward the staircase in case the old man meant to stir up trouble.
“She got my boy,” the man said. “The witch got my boy.”
“My name’s Hemingway, friend,” Ned said. He let the old man go and rested a hand on his holster. “My partner here is Moses Burke. He learned some medicine in the war.” “Not on my side, he didn’t,” the man said. He glanced down at Ned’s hand on the butt of his gun and up at Ned’s eyes under the brim of his yellow cattleman, trying to size up his odds.
the following months, Moses had learned enough medicine that Ned sometimes thought his friend should have stuck with it, if there were a hospital that would take him on.
“Regardless of what this man claims,” Moses said in a low voice, “that child is not a boy.” “You sure?” “As sure as I can be.” “You think this fella’s lying to us,” Ned said.
“I can think of a few reasons for that,” Moses said. “Not all of ’em sinister.” “Or it could be he’s not lying.” Ned liked...
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“In which case he doesn’t know that’s a little girl he’s slinging around...
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“Might be worthwhile to ask him some questi...
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“What it’s about,” Tom said. “is a witch.”
“Might be worthwhile to ask him some questions,” Ned said.
Rose Nettles found her husband, Joe Mullins, through a classified advertisement in the Philadelphia Evening Telegraph
“Next round’s on me,” Ned said. “What’s your name, old-timer?” “Tom Goggins,” the old man said. “Of the Omaha Gogginses, if you’re familiar.”
“What it’s about,” Tom said. “is a witch.”
There were several points—leaving aside the influence of Giles Bradshaw—that Rose felt she might object to if given the chance. In the first place, she wasn’t certain she needed a husband. Her quiet life suited her: her books, her knitting, her work at the schoolhouse. Charles Thurmond was twenty years older than Rose, and smelled like spoiled milk. Rose had no desire to read Charles’s letters, much less respond to them. And yet her perfectly comfortable life caused her mother distress. There was no arguing with that.
She had heard of Kansas, and she had the impression it was all dusty plains and howling winds.
she locked the door and pulled the curtain before finally surrendering to despair. She set her watch on the seat beside her and cried for exactly fifteen minutes, then wiped her eyes, blew her nose, and unlocked the door.
The day passed uneventfully, and she dozed often enough that she lost track of time.
As the wagon rolled away from the station, Rose felt a dizzying sensation of separation from her past. Her life as she had known it was now far behind her, and her future was an alien thing, plain and unwanted, squatting somewhere on the path ahead. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, determined to make the best of whatever was to come.
When they arrived that evening, she saw that her new house was a tidy thing of splintery planks that were slotted together without any sign of a nail or wood screw.
Joe Mullins was a small man with thinning hair and a droopy mustache. His arms and legs were thin, but roped with lean muscle, and he had a small potbelly that he seemed self-conscious about. He spoke rarely—in fact he had been alone on the farm so long that he seemed to have forgotten the art of polite conversation and sometimes went days without saying a word to her—but he was kind.
For seven years they lived as man and wife, Joe and Rose Mullins, though there was no formal wedding ceremony.
They never spoke about it, but Rose knew that Joe wanted children—preferably sons to carry on both his blood and his name, and to help with the farm when they grew older—but the idea of bearing a child terrified Rose. What if she produced daughters, instead of the boys she was sure Joe wanted? Or—and this was an idea nearly as frightening to her as the prospect of raising a daughter on the prairie—what if she died while giving birth?
It had happened to an acquaintance of hers in Philadelphia, a girl named Marnie, sweet and energetic, with a spray of freckles across her nose that she refused to conceal with makeup. She and her baby had both died in childbirth, and her husband had remarried six months to the day after burying Marnie and her baby.
It had all happened so quickly that Marnie seemed almost disposable, a broken ornament that had been tossed aside and forgotten.
The headline read “Wanted: Homes for Orphan Children,” and beneath that, in smaller type: “A company of homeless boys and girls from the East will arrive in Monmouth, KS, next Saturday. Ages six months to sixteen years. Come and meet your child.
“The orphan train,” she said. “This could be a good home for a child,” Joe said. “It’s awful quiet here with just us two, and it’d be useful to have an extra hand on the farm when he comes of age.” “A boy?” “Doesn’t have to be. I’m open to your wishes, Rose. It’s only an idea.”
The headline read “Wanted: Homes for Orphan Children,” and beneath that, in smaller type: “A company of homeless boys and girls from the East will arrive in Monmouth, KS, next Saturday. Ages six months to sixteen years. Come and meet your child.
She had brought a book with her, a lurid gothic novel with a plain black cover, written by Ubel H. H. F. Crane. Joe had bought it because they’d enjoyed Mary Shelley’s novel. Rose turned to the page where she had left off the previous evening.
“I guess this one’s sometimes a wolf, and sometimes he’s a man, but you can tell him by his yellow eyes. Traveling Horse says he’s been around as long as there’s been white men in this country. Them Indians are a superstitious folk, that’s for sure.” “Joe? What happened with the train?”
three men and a child standing by Joe’s grave under the sycamore tree.
Ned Hemingway leaned in close to the tree where a crude straw doll was fastened to the trunk at eye level. A tenpenny nail had been driven through the middle of the doll’s chest. Ned stepped back and tapped the head of the nail.
Ned looked up the grassy slope behind the tree and saw a woman marching toward them from a tiny house he’d assumed was abandoned. There were no lights in the windows, no smoke wafting from the chimney. It reminded Ned of the homesteads he had seen where people had given up or been driven out, their houses left to crumble
As the woman drew near, Ned walked out to meet her. “I apologize if we’re trespassing here,” he said. “You were standing on Joe’s grave,” she said, her voice low and guttural. She had a pipe clamped between her teeth and she held a Winchester rifle high across her chest. “I assure you, ma’am,” Ned said. “We meant no disrespect to you or to Joe. We was just admiring the little dolly stuck to your tree over there, and we had not the slightest idea Joe was underfoot.” “Dolly?”
“I was a schoolteacher. I had a great many books in my house. In my mother’s house, I should say. And I had access to a library four streets over from my house. I have always loved to read.”
Tom Goggins was not pleased with the recent turn of events. His plan had been simple: curse the witch from afar, then travel up to Burden County and collect the bounty on Sadie Grace. It had seemed foolproof to him. He knew the farmers might balk when it came time
to pay up, but Tom’s knowledge of curses wasn’t limited to witches.
He didn’t understand why Ned treated the negro like his equal, but they looked like capable gunmen and they could help ensure the bounty was paid as promised. As soon as the money was in hand, Tom and Rabbit would give them the slip. It was only fair; Tom had done the actual work of killing the witch. It wasn’t his fault if other people wanted to horn in on his success.
But now the woman had fastened onto him, too, and he felt like circumstances were spinning out of his control. There were suddenly five of them headed north across the state, and Tom couldn’t quite get a handle on Rose Nettles. He didn’t understand why she wanted to come along or what use he could put her to, and he had a vague feeling he might not be able to outsmart her, though he hadn’t fully shaped that feeling into a solid thought.
and Tom was beginning to wonder if he was the leader of their expedition, after all.
It bothered Tom that he couldn’t recall where he had learned the particular hex he had fixed above Joe Mullins’s grave. He couldn’t remember whether Rose was right about the doll needing specific ingredients to work. The truth about a thing sometimes got muddied over time by storytelling and embroidery. Still, he was certain he knew more about witchery than Rose Nettles could ever hope to learn.
She was a cold woman, he thought, and rough in ways he found displeasing. He didn’t understand why Ned seemed to respect her right away, and he didn’t like the way Rabbit had taken to the woman.
