Hallowed Ground Read online

  **********

  First Ethan noticed the maggots. They seemed to have knocked loose from his sinuses and now wriggled aimlessly in the back of his throat. Grimacing, he spat out clots of larvae. Sooner or later he’d take a swig of tobacco, garlic, and whiskey, clean the critters out for a bit.

  He opened his eyes. Well, eye. His left eyelid seemed glued shut by some crusty substance. When he probed upward, a stabbing pain jolted him upright. The Swede had put some weight into that blow. Exploring the damage, Ethan found a long gash running down the side of his face. At least he wasn’t missing any teeth. Teeth were hard to replace. The rest would heal.

  Something about his last thought seemed odd. He repeated himself out loud. “The Swede sure put his weight into that…”

  A sudden awareness of surroundings flooded Ethan. Barred window, grated door, bucket in the corner… He’d seen the inside of a few jail cells, and this could have been any of them. Even the same carvings in the wall—“I buggered the sheriff” “This ain’t my bedroom…” “Buck Harkness wuz heer.” Buck Harkness must have toured every jail in the country and a few down Mexico way.

  So he was in lockup. What did that mean? Had the Swede recognized him? Ethan didn’t figure his fame had spread so far east. Sure, thirty-seven courts had warrants or bounties on him, but no Minnesota clodhopper would know that.

  Maybe Whitey had ratted. Maybe the gang found Whitey first. Maybe. Maybe, maybe, maybe. None of that mattered. No outlaw still cutting mustard sat around worrying ‘bout maybes. They did things.

  “What would Billy the Kid do?” He scratched his leg. “Besides get shot in the dark cuz he asked questions first and shot later.”

  Break out of jail. That’s what outlaws did. First he checked the obvious places. Flipping over the thin straw-tick mattress in hopes of discovering a file or skeleton key, he dislodged a yellowing scrap of paper. Curious, Ethan picked it up and puzzled over the cross-written note: “My dearest Emelia. I am imprisoned here for a crime of which I am totally innocent. The Sheriff, one lean-shanked fellow named Johnson, intends to hang me by the neck until death. This town, Emelia... This cursed town will take my life. I had hoped to see you for Easter, but instead we must meet again in the great beyond. Give my love to Rose, Emelia, and know that I will forever love you. George.”

  Well. A sad little story, there. But nothing to do with Ethan. So he stood up from the slat bunk and sauntered for his cell door to have a look around. The rest of the jail fit the mold as well—racks of rifles and shotguns on the wall, yellowing wanted posters, a snoozing sheriff tipped back in his chair.

  As if on cue, Sheriff Johnson stirred and faced Ethan. Like a cat stretching after a long fireside nap, Johnson stood and strolled over to Ethan’s cell. “I see you’re awake. So, what brings you to Walnut Creek, my friend?”

  This time, Ethan lied. No need to give the sheriff more reasons to lock him away. “I’m looking for an old pal. Whitey Grenig. Short little fella, can’t see good, talks about the war too much. You seen him?”

  Johnson nodded meditatively. “I know the man. He expecting you?”

  “Nah. Figured on surprising him. It’s been years since we rode together.” Ethan watched Johnson. The gaunt man’s eyes had a famished, unblinking look. Occasionally, Johnson gnawed his lower lip, which bore layers of scabbed, half-healed skin.

  A broad smile from Johnson. “Well, friend, you won’t be seeing Whitey Grenig. Not after you robbed Lars Bergstrom. Armed robbery is a hanging offense in these parts.”

  Panic blossomed in Ethan’s chest. Getting shot was common enough. He’d got shot forty or fifty times in the course of his career. A bullet hurt when it hit, and hurt long after, but nothing compared to hanging. Burning lungs, the rope tearing into your neck, your heart pounding faster and faster until SNAP it stopped and a veil of blackness dropped over your vision and you were dead. And then you woke up gasping for air and the first breath ripped raw through your throat and you screamed and that tore your throat up worse and you felt the dirt pressing down on you—

  He jolted back to reality with a long gasp. Sweat drenched his shirt and his hands shook like a rattlesnake’s tail.

  Johnson loomed above him. “Don’t take it so hard—I’ve gotten quite good at hanging over the years. A nice long drop, you won’t feel a thing. I’m not a mean man. An’ there’s worse ways to die.”

  Then Johnson grinned, displaying rows of sharp yellow teeth. Bile churned in Ethan’s stomach. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but you’ll get yours.”

  “No, I won’t. The town and I have an…understanding.” Johnson reached through the bars and patted Ethan’s shoulder. “I suggest you get some sleep tonight. Spring festival’s in two days, and we’ll have to get the gallows down by then.”

  Turning on his heel, the sheriff strode out. Where he had stood a small puddle of blood soaked into the split-wood floor. Ethan crouched to get a closer look. A hoodoo aura prickled his palms. Johnson wasn’t natural. Plain right-living folks didn’t leave bloody barefoot prints when they were boot-shod. Right-living folks didn’t hang men for crimes they didn’t commit, either. Not that Ethan didn’t deserve to die, he just didn’t deserve to die here in this particular jurisdiction. Yet.

  For a while, he sat in the cell. Plan—he needed a plan. But planning an escape turned out to be difficult when you were going to hang next morning. Funny how all the dime novels omitted that detail. The dime novels didn’t warn about your gang leaving you for dead in a shallow grave, either. Gold and glory, those were the rewards young Ethan dreamed of while he read. There’d been little enough of either, all told. Newspapers just glossed right over him and his gang, and bank-robbing and horse-thieving weren’t as lucrative anymore, now that the land was getting fenced in and divvied up. America wasn’t the same as she’d been twenty years ago. The War Between the States changed things.

  Too late to switch careers now, he figured. Horses and streams and all. So he’d better work on breaking out. The window’s bars resisted all his weight. Just in case, he tested the cell door—Johnson hadn’t forgotten to lock it. Whatever Johnson was, he wasn’t a fool.

  Johnson had left the keys on a chair near the outer door. They were far from Ethan’s reach and twinkled gold in the early evening glow.

  Barring help from the townsfolk, Ethan was trapped. Ethan looked down at his arm and back up at the keys. An idea—a painful idea—began to form. His mother’s mojo would let him pull it off. Her magic’d saved him before lots of times, and from stranger things.

  Twenty minutes of sawing and cursing went by. Ethan stared down at a severed and immobile left hand. “Well.”

  Experimentally, he shoved the two bloody stumps together. Nothing happened. No squelching noises as flesh knitted back together, no burst of dark magic knotting his limbs in place. He’d broken something his momma’s spells couldn’t fix. His whole life that web of magic protected him from harm. The old woman’d spun big plans for him. Plans he didn’t get a say in. So as far he figured, the magic was fair repayment for his childhood. It’d stitched up wounds that should have killed him a hundred times over. And now, the hoodoo seemed to be running out. Growling, he shoved his severed hand into his duster pocket. It’d keep until he got a chance to make repairs of his own. He’d got good at stitching over the years.

  Outside, dinner bells clanged and children laughed as they washed up. Ethan sat despondent in his cell. So much for being a big hero. Caught by a two-bit crooked sheriff in some two-bit crooked town. What a way to end a distinguished career of robbery, murder, and attempted folk-heroism.

  The street door screeched open. Ethan didn’t look up. Whatever Johnson was, Ethan didn’t figure on giving the critter any joy.

  “Vat are you doing down dere?” The Swede beamed down at Ethan. “Vell? Come on then!”

  Cursing, Ethan lunged at the Swede through his cell bars. “You bohunk sheeplover!”

  With a laugh, the Swede danced back,
nimble for his bulk. Ethan spotted several other men loitering near the door—all carried hunting rifles. “Is dot any vay to velcome us?” the Swede queried, unlocking Ethan’s cell. “The sheriff is lording over our town ten years, says ve hide him, he protect us. But he kill many travelers he says are criminals. No graves ever. Dot is bad enuf, but vy should I help him? I vant no blood on my hands. We are no fighters, but you look like someone who knows the business of killing folks. Now git on! Git! Is time to elect new sheriff, ya?”

  Ethan shoved past the Swede and retrieved his guns. Johnson had left Ethan’s guns loaded, for which Ethan gave thanks. It was enough of a struggle merely fastening the gunbelts with one hand. Reloading would not be a possibility. Bullets might not even work on the sheriff, whatever he—or it—was. Ethan’d tangled with uncanny things before. He’d rather a gunfight any day.

  Outside the sun descended in a golden blaze, tinting the surrounding sky with shades of pink. A beautiful night for a jailbreak. Now he needed to find Whitey. So Ethan headed for the darkest, most run-down house he could find. Whitey had a penchant for drama. For a house no more than ten years old, it would have fit into any ghost town.

  Ethan kicked open the door and entered, rifle low. Cobwebs and dust drifted around him like snowflakes. He sneezed three times, dislodging a maggot. “Whitey? Whitey Grenig? It’s Walker! Where you at?”

  Faint scufflings echoed from upstairs. Moving slow, his back to the wall, Ethan climbed the staircase to a little attic garret. A corn husk doll sat in one corner, near a dry puddle of blood. In the shadows, on an old cot, lay Whitey Grenig, huddled under a thin Indian blanket. The old seer had shriveled up since Ethan met him last. In the old days, Whitey had jiggled with fat and good cheer; now he was just a bag of bones. Ethan scuffed the plank floor with his boot—Whitey snapped upright, blank eyes scanning the room in a panic.

  The cataracts had worsened. Way back when, Whitey’s eyes had only begun to show signs of clouding. Now they were two orbs of milk white in a face brown and tough as jerky. Ethan took a step toward the cot.

  “Ethan? I heard you was dead!” Whitey scrabbled himself back on the cot, away from Ethan.

  Another step closer. “Yeah, the gang killed me. Or tried, at least. And you’re gonna help me find them. They left me rotting in a shallow grave, alive and screaming. They’re gonna pay. So come on, Whitey. Use them cloudy eyes of yours for something worthwhile.”

  Whitey cussed. Whitey always had a penchant for cussing. Get him started and he’d string together phrases venomous enough to blister your ears. It was his second most-popular skill. Ethan let Whitey run down a list of imprecations for a few minutes before interrupting. “You done?”

  A deep breath in and out. Whitey sighed. “Fine. You want to know what your precious little gang of snakes been and done while you got ate by worms? Reg Driscoll you shot in Nevada. John Campbell and Lucy Marston struck off on their own. Botched a robbery down near Santa Fe. Campbell’s dead and Marston’s doing time. Wayne Lafayette went legit, got married. Him and his family run a little general store back east a piece, place called Wood’s Bluff. Angelina Shooting Horse went back to the Comanch reservation. Starved to death last winter.”

  A flurry of coughs halted Whitey for a moment. “Sean Cassidy got the syph. He’s in a mental ward now. The rest are the same. Dead or locked up or gone legit. You get the picture? You’re the only one, Ethan. The others moved on. Ain’t much room for outlaws anymore. Not our kind. Give it up. Go home.”

  “You idjits helped burn my home. We were supposed to be a family, not like them other gangs that backstabbed first chance they got.” Ethan raised his rifle one-handed. The rifle’s hammer sounded like cracking ice as Ethan cocked it. “I trusted you. Ya’ll were more family than my ma ever was. An’ you shot me for nothin’.”

  The rifle barrel wavered and sank. He’d shot Reg Driscoll in a white rage, fresh from three years of worm-eaten confinement. Instinct and anger had pulled the trigger. But this wouldn’t be the same. He’d be shooting a dried-up old man he used to call “Gramps.” Same went for Wayne Lafayette or any of the ones still living. Revenge sounded sweet in the gravedark, but not so much in the light of day.

  Still. What else was he going to do with his time left on this earth? He raised the gun once again.

  Whitey tensed up. “You hear that?”

  Shouting in the streets. It seemed Johnson had discovered the empty cell. Ethan spun, duster fanning out behind him with a rustle. “Whitey, your loco sheriff’s gonna hang me and eat me. Got any ideas?”

  “Yep. Shoot ‘im. He’s a real beast, but far’s I know he’s human, or ridin’ one.” Whitey coughed, spasming with pain. Fresh blood spattered over the dried puddle around the corn-husk doll. “One way or another, won’t be both of us alive come sundown.”

  They shook hands and parted.

  Outside, the sun had gone down. Only a few straggling shreds of light still illuminated the muddy road. In a detached way, Ethan wondered what it would take to clean his boots. Johnson waited, rifle held in a low ready carry. Walnut Creek’s citizens lined the boardwalks, watching, eyes hooded. The Swede nodded shortly to Ethan, gaze subdued. When it came down to it, maybe the man was regretting his decision. If Ethan failed, Johnson would want payback for the jailbreak.

  Mud squelched beneath Ethan’s boots as he reached the center of the street. While he walked, Johnson had stood stock-still, unblinking, unbreathing. The sheriff gnawed his lip until it bled freely, changing his face into a ghoulish mask. Fear roiled in Ethan’s stomach. Or maybe it was maggots.

  “You got to die, boy. I fancy this town too much to leave. One must change with the times, see. It was easier to hide in the old days, and a man must eat. So I changed. Unlike you, it seems.” Johnson licked at his bleeding lip. His tongue was long.

  Ethan wished for two working hands or a saddled horse. In the long run, he should have stayed dead. At least underground it was peaceful. Well, he could leave some legend behind. The last gunfight in Minnesota. Maybe the last gunfight in the states. A formerly-deceased outlaw and some supernatural critter. It wasn’t hunting down the Walker Gang, but there wasn’t a Walker Gang left, just scattered shades. Instead, he’d take what he could get, like he always had. Better make it look good. He tossed his coat back with a dramatic swish.

  There was a thump behind him. Nervous chuckles ran along the spectators.

  Johnson grinned wide. Fresh blood stained his snaggled yellow teeth. “Making my job easier, eh?”

  “Shut up.” The first bullet took Johnson square in the mouth, smashing teeth and jaw. Blood sprayed. With only one hand, Ethan had to swing cock the rifle, twirling it back against his elbow and returning. The second shot hit Johnson’s stomach—Ethan had fired too soon.

  Somehow Johnson was still standing, snarling through a pulped jaw that would have taken John Henry down. Ethan cursed. “What are you? You’re a bleeding-foot, deal-making, lip-gnawing fiend, but what are you?”

  Johnson shot now, three times in quick succession, targeting Ethan’s left side. Ethan yelled—two ribs shattered, one puncturing his lung—and Johnson howled with him. A wolf’s wail. A hungry desperate keen.

  And then Ethan knew it. The ravenous note in Johnson’s voice, the disappeared travelers, the bloody footprints, the gnawed lips, the bloodstained doll. “Wendigo!”

  The people of Walnut Creek had bargained with a wendigo. One sacrifice a year. Maybe more. Who knew? But the creature wouldn’t prey on them. No more children disappearing from garret rooms, leaving behind blood and corn-husk dolls. Just strangers no one would miss. He’d have made the same deal to save his gang. Lots of folks did ugly things in desperation. The Donners, the native tribes making their last stands or just plain giving up… Life was a Mardi Gras of desperate acts.

  Ethan could feel blood in his lungs. It would be pink and frothy, full of air and life. The maggots squirmed. Given time, he could heal. But why? Why bother? The frontier had touched
the sea. Gunslingers were a dying breed.

  All the dime novels had heroic last stands. Maybe it was his turn. He could be the hero. Just once. None of his other boyhood dreams had turned out right. Maybe God or the Devil or the universe at large would let him have this one little thing.

  Five more rounds in the rifle. He used them all, cracked the Johnson-thing’s skull open with percussive lead blows. The Johnson-thing fired for body-mass, bullets tearing Ethan’s flesh apart. For a famine spirit riding a dead man’s body, it did a better job killing than the gang had managed. Behind the cacophony of gunshots and ringing ears, Ethan heard his rifle click empty and he dropped it to the mud. The wendigo still howled. Drawing a pistol, Ethan kept firing. He wasn’t sure how much punishment a wendigo’s host could take. Nor was he certain how much damage his own body could withstand. Mother’s hoodoo was fading fast. He could feel it seeping from his pores like smoke.

  A dusky gunpowder haze spread over the street. Wendigo-Johnson and Ethan were mere steps apart now. Ethan had drawn his second pistol, as had the wendigo. By now the wendigo’s howl had tapered off to a choking racking sob; Ethan heard himself chanting dimly.

  “Marwolaeth fod nid yn filch, er bod rhai wedi galw chi nerthol ac ofnadwy, am nad ydych yn. Ar gyfer y rhai yr ydych yn meddwl eich bod ddymchwel, yn marw nid, marwolaeth gawel, nac yn y gallwch chi fy lladd.” Welsh. His mother’s tongue. He’d never learned to speak the language; he sang his death song with it. The last bit of magic burning out bright.

  Both pistols clicked empty. The wendigo fell. Ethan fell beside it. Mud sopped up his blood.

  Citizens of Walnut Creek surrounded them in a murmuring huddle. The Swede looked down on Ethan once again. There was just enough air left in Ethan’s lungs to gasp out, “Bury him deep—and me deeper.”

  Ethan Walker died again.

  WINTER IN PINE COUNTY

  During the winter of 1994, I lived in the Pine County region, a small unincorporated township in northern Minnesota. With me were my wife, Casey, and our dog, Finn. During our visit, we encountered what I have dubbed the “deer men,” strange entities which seemed neither openly hostile nor particularly friendly. I have not found references to these creatures in any textbook or collection of regional lore, which lead me to write this essay, in hopes of enlightening any future seekers of knowledge. At the time, I also scribbled down some poetry in response to the deer-men’s presence. This collection forms the only written record of the mysterious animals.

  It is important to begin with a background into Pine County. Though it is called a county, Pine County has never held such a status within government records. My own research has led me to believe that Pine County was originally “pine country,” referencing the numerous thick pine forests in the region. Time and careless speech eventually rendered “country” into “county,” and an unofficial county was born. This has caused some people to claim that Pine County does not exist, much like Lake Wobegon, and such is not the case. Pine County is real, and it is a beautiful region.

  Pine County itself represents a mish-mash of several early Minnesota industries. Though little remains of them now, two separate logging camps operated in the nearby evergreen woods, shipping lumber down the Cheechuk River until it joined with the Mississippi above St. Anthony Falls. Oftentimes, those rafts of logs would be accompanied by barge shipments of iron from the Pine County mine. Both the mine and the logging camps have been defunct for generations, but in their heyday supplied Pine County with a steady flow of fresh bodies and ready cash. Now, all that remains are deserted clearings filled with discarded logging equipment and stripped-bare mineshafts which are half collapsed, half flooded. In the wake of the logging boom came settlers, families who scraped together subsistence farms in the lumberjacked clearings. Some of those farms are still run by descendants, but most have been long abandoned and lie overgrown with feral crops and underbrush.

  Though it is not far from the Boundary Waters, Pine County has never entered the tourism industry. This is perhaps due to a reluctance on the part of the locals to share “their woods” with outsiders, an understandable quirk, in hindsight. My money seemed almost tainted and was often accepted with great hesitancy. An additional cause for such dislike of outsiders may stem from a large population of Ojibwe Indians present in the area. If forced to guess, I would say somewhere around eighty-five percent of the locals possessed at least some Ojibwe blood.

  And this branch of the Ojibwe seems strangely altered from a majority of the tribe I have interacted with. Due to my work as a poet and folklorist, I’ve turned to Ojibwe legends many times for research and inspiration. On every occasion, the people I spoke to were willing—if not always enthusiastic—to give me insight into their myths and religion. This was not the case in Pine County, where few Ojibwe even spoke to me, and kept their beliefs secret. However, I did pick up scraps of lore here and there, and what I gathered painted an offshoot tribe with practices and traditions drastically divergent from the main branch of the tribe. Some elements of their faith even involved the nature and attitude of the deer-men, though I could not obtain more information regarding those creatures.

  Now I come to the deer-men themselves. As their name implies, the deer-men blend aspects of humans and deer into a grotesque amalgam. Their heads are that of an adult male deer, bearing large, many-tined antlers. However, the jaw lolls loose, much like the jaw of a dead deer, as seen in post-hunt photos from my more bloodsport-inclined relatives. In some cases, the deer-men seem to have vines or barbed wire wrapped around their antler tines, giving an impression of some unnatural laurel wreath or crown of thorns. It is their posture which caused the most distress in my wife, as the deer-men primarily stand upright upon their rear legs, with their front legs dangling before them limply. They seem to favor this upright stance when engaging in their more human behavior, returning to all fours when engaging in animalistic tasks such as eating, drinking, or long-distance travel.

  I first encountered one of these deer-men in the fall, shortly after moving into the cabin my wife had rented. We had agreed that a winter away from home would be a creative boon to us (a belief which was borne out, as our recent output has been both prodigious and popular). On our first night at the cabin, it snowed lightly. Our dog Finn spent the night growling, and in the morning we found a circle of hoofprints and a dismembered grouse, which Finn refused to touch. But that was only the implied presence of deer-men. I can distinctly recall the day I saw the first deer-man—October 25th—as it was a day of great sorrow for my older brother, whose daughter was stillborn. While consoling him, I glanced out a window and saw a lone deer picking through a nearby cornfield. As I watched, the deer reared onto its hind legs and remained there for almost a minute, scanning the area in the manner of a meerkat. At the time, I thought little of the incident, being more concerned for my brother.

  Several times, I observed the deer-men engaging in a ritualistic behavior wherein they would walk in complex paths around each other, heads tilted back toward the sky. At first, I would wander through the complex trails they left behind in the snow, but soon stopped when I began to feel uneasy. (The experience was similar to walking a Buddhist mandala. The sensation of uneasiness, however, reminded me of my research into Irish faeries in college, where I spent a semester abroad hearing faery-stories under the shade of faery forts. Such a thing can unnerve even a sceptic like me.) While marking these labyrinth trails, the deer-men often seemed to chant or sing, forming vaguely lingual sounds. They also laughed frequently, a harsh noise like a horse’s scream.

  It is interesting to note my dog Finn’s reaction to the deer-men, which was consistently one of intense hatred and aggression. Such a response is surprising, given the deer-men’s relative indifference to our presence in their territory. On at least five separate occasions, I was alone outside and very close to deer-men, and they never made any indication of malign intent towards me. While my wife fears the creatures, pointing out both the dead grouse on
our first night and Finn’s disappearance in late winter, I do not find either of those facts proof of any sort of malevolence on the deer-men’s part. The grouse might have been entirely unrelated to our presence, or even meant as a welcoming gift, while Finn’s disappearance, though upsetting, cannot be traced to any action of the deer-men. I do admit that the deer-men’s appearance is rather uncanny, particularly when they are on their hind legs, but I don’t believe that the creatures themselves are a threat. All the same, maybe it’s a blessing that tourism to Pine County is so rare. An increase in people who might not be so respectful of the deer-men’s territory, or so tolerant of their appearance and presence, might result in an unfortunate incident. I myself think of the deer-men like cougars, beautiful from afar, but best given a wide berth, lest they feel threatened and retaliate.

  There is much mystery surrounding the deer-men of Pine County, and perhaps I have only added to the muddle. But the folklorist in me couldn’t leave well enough alone and compelled me to document something about these strange beings. Whether or not you believe my story, I hope you will enjoy these poems.

  --H. Pope

  **********

  After a night of snowfall,

  In the powder ‘round my house,

  I find the hoof prints of a deer,

  And a frozen, mangled grouse.

  My wife thinks these woods are cursed—

  She will not go outside.

  She closes blinds in every room;

  I laugh and throw them wide.

  A lone deer wanders in the field,

  Searching for last harvest’s corn.

  My brother calls me, crying.

  His first child was stillborn.

  At night they trample mazes

  In the swiftly-mounting snow.

  I walk the paths at daybreak

  Under stars I do not know.

  Five of them walk upright

  Along the riverside.

  I would have followed close behind

  But my dog snarled when I tried.

  The snow whips up like bats at dusk;

  By evening, temps are low.

  I see shapes moving in the storm.

  Is it deer-men? I don’t know.

  The moon lights up the snowfall

  And I can see for miles,

  To watch deer-men laughing horrors

  Through their slack-jaw smiles.

  Our dog barks at the tree line

  Where winter shadows loom.

  It’s the deer-men standing still as ice

  To whisper mankind’s doom.

  I got home from grocery shopping

  Quite late on Sunday night.

  As I unloaded bags they watched

  Far back from the porch light.

  Our dog went missing yesterday—

  She never wanders far.

  I wonder if she was killed by deer-men

  Or by a speeding car.

  The ice crawls up the window,

  I crawl into bed,

  The deer-men sing their praises

  To the cold stars overhead.

  Sometimes at night the coyotes yip

  And wake me from my dreams,

  And in response the deer-men laugh

  Like dying horses’ screams.