[continued from previous message]

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.

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