Mystery Walk

They left the house through the kitchen door. The sky was filled with stars, the moon as orange as a bloated pumpkin. Billy followed his grandmother to the small smokehouse, and saw a column of white smoke curling up from the chimney. Suddenly Ramona stepped out of the darkness into the lantern's wash, and she placed a firm hand on his shoulder. His heart began beating harder, because he knew that whatever secret lessons he was supposed to learn were about to begin.

Ramona brushed off his shirt and straightened his collar, as if preparing him for church. She was smiling, but Billy had seen the worry in his mother's eyes. 'You're going to do just fine,' she said in a small, quiet voice.

'Yes ma'am.' He was trying to be brave, though he eyed the smokehouse nervously.

'Are you afraid?'

He nodded.

His grandmother stepped forward and stared down at him. 'Too afraid?' she asked, watching him carefully.

He paused, knowing they wouldn't teach him if he didn't want to learn; but he wanted to know why he'd seen Will Booker crawl up from the coal pile. 'No,' he said. 'Not too afraid.'

'Once it starts, it can't be stopped,' Rebekah said, as a last warning to both of them. Then she leaned down in front of Billy, her old back and knees cracking, and held up the lantern so the light splashed across his face. 'Are you strong, boy?'

'Sure. I've got muscles, and I can—'

'No. Strong in here.' She thumped his chest, over the heart. 'Strong enough to go into dark places and come back out again, stronger still. Are you?'

The old woman's gaze defied him. He glanced up at the white column of smoke and touched the outline of the piece of coal in his pocket; then his spine stiffened and he said firmly, 'Yes.'

'Good. Then we're ready.' Rebekah straightened up and threw back the latch of the smokehouse door. A wave of heat slowly rolled out, making the lantern's light shimmer. Ramona took Billy's hand and followed her mother inside, and then the door was shut again and bolted from within.

A pinewood fire, bordered by rough stones, burned on the earthen floor; directly above it, hanging down several feet from the ceiling, was a circular metal flue, through which the smoke ascended to the chimney. The fire, Billy saw, had been burning for some time, and the bed of coals on which it lay seethed red and orange. There were wooden racks and hooks for hanging meat; Rebekah hung the lantern up on one and motioned for Billy to sit down in front of the fire. When he'd situated himself, the hot glow of the flames like a tight mask across his cheeks, his grandmother unfolded a heavy quilt from where it had lain on a storage rack and draped it around Billy's shoulders, working it tightly so only his hands and face were free. Brightly colored blankets had been draped along the smokehouse walls to seal in the heat and smoke. A dark purple clay owl dangled from one of the hooks, its ceramic feathers gleaming; from another hook hung a strange red ceramic mask, from another what looked like a hand gripping a heart, and from a fourth hook a grinning white ceramic skull.

Ramona sat on his right. The old woman reached up to the flue, touched a small lever, and a baffle clanked shut. Smoke began to drift to all sides, slowly and sinuously. Then Rebekah reached into a bag in the corner and came up with a handful of wet leaves; she spread them over the fire, and the smoke instantly thickened, turning bluish gray and curling low to the floor She took three more objects from the storage rack—a blackened clay pipe, a leather tobacco pouch decorated with blue and yellow beads, and a battered old leather-bound Bible—and then eased herself down to the floor on Billy's left. 'My old bones can't take too much more of this,' she said quietly, arranging the items in front of her. Flames leapt, scrawling crooked shadows across the walls; burning leaves sparked and crackled. The smoke was getting dense now, and bringing tears to Billy's eyes; sweat dripped down his face and off the point of his chin.

'This is the beginning,' Rebekah said, looking at the boy. 'From this time on, everything is new and has to be relearned. You should first of all know who you are, and what you are. A purpose sings in you, Billy, but to understand it you have to learn the song.' The firelight glinted in her dark eyes as her face bent closer to his. Beads of sweat rolled down from her forehead into the sweatband. 'The Choctaw song, the song of life sent to us from the Giver of Breath. He's in this Book'—she touched the Bible—'but He's everywhere, too. Inside, outside, in your heart and soul, and in the world. . . .'

'I thought He lived in church,' Billy said.

'In the church of the body, yes. But what's brick and wood?' Rebekah opened the pouch and began to fill the pipe with a dark, oily-looking mixture of bark and herbs, plus green shreds from a fernlike plant that grew on the banks of the distant stream. 'Hundreds of years ago, all this was Choctaw land,' and she motioned with a broad sweep of her hand that stirred the layers of smoke. 'Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia . . . our people lived here in peace, as farmers near to the earth. When the whites came, they wanted this land because they saw how good it was; the Giver of Breath decreed to us that we should accept them, and learn to live in the white world while other tribes fought and perished. The Choctaw survived, without fighting, but now we're the people no one remembers. Still, our blood runs strong and proud, and what we've learned in our minds and hearts goes on. The Giver of Breath is God of the Choctaw, but no different from the white man's God—the same God, without favorites, with love for all men and women. He speaks in the breeze, in the rain, and in the smoke. He speaks to the heart, and can move a mountain by using the hand of a man.' She finished with the pipe, touched a smoldering twig to the tobacco, and puffed on it to get it going. Then she took it from her mouth, her eyes watering, and gave it to Billy, who looked at her with bewilderment. 'Take it,' Rebekah said. 'It's for you. Ramona, we need more leaves, please.'

Billy took the pipe while his mother fed more wet leaves to the fire. He took a tentative puff that almost knocked his head off, and he was convulsed with coughing for a moment. The smoke and heat seemed to be closing in, and he could hardly breathe. Panic streaked through him, but suddenly his grandmother's hand was on his arm and she said, 'It's all right. Relax; now try it again.'

He did, as acrid gray smoke bellowed from the fire. The pipe smoke seared the back of his throat as he drew it in, and black dots spun before his eyes.

'You'll get used to it,' Rebekah said. 'Now where was I? Oh, yes. The Giver of Breath. God of the Choctaws. God of the white man. He also gives gifts of talent, Billy, to use for His good. Inhale the smoke, all the way. Yes, that's right. Some people can paint beautiful pictures, some can make sweet music, others work with their hands, and some with their wits; but in all people is the seed of talent, to do something of value in this world. And doing that—perfecting that talent, making the seed grow to good fruit— should be the aim of this life.'

Billy inhaled again and coughed violently. The quilt was damp with his sweating, and still the heat continued to mount. 'Even me, Gram? Is that seed in me?'

'Yes. Especially in you.' She took off the kerchief, wiped her eyes with it, and handed it across the boy to Ramona, who mopped at the freely running sweat on her face and neck.

Billy stared into the fire. His head was full of a burning-rope odor, and now the smoke even tasted sweet. The flames seemed to he flaring brighter; they held beautiful glints of rainbow colors, entrancing him. He heard himself speak as if from a distance: 'What kind of seed is it?'

'Billy, all three of us share something very special, something that's been passed down to us through the generations. We don't how how it began, or where it will end, but . . . we can see the dead, Billy, and we can speak to them.'

He trembled, watching the flames shoot out brilliant green-and-orange lights. Through the thick haze of smoke shadows capered on the walls. 'No,' he whispered. 'That's . . . evil, like . . . like Daddy says!'

'Your father's wrong,' Ramona said, 'and he's afraid. There's dignity in death. But sometimes . . . there are those who need help in passing over from this world to the next, like Will Booker did. Will couldn't rest until he was lying next to his folks, but his spirit—his soul—will go on. Call them haunts, or ghosts, or revenants—but some of them cling to this world after death, out of confusion, pain, or fear; some of them are stunned and wander looking for help. But all of them have to find peace—they have to give up their emotions, and the feelings they had at the instant of death if those feelings are keeping them here in this world—before they can pass over. I'm not saying I understand death, and I'm not saying I know what Heaven and Hell are going to be like, but death itself isn't evil, Billy; it's the call to rest after a long day's work.'

Billy opened his eyes and put a trembling hand to his forehead. You're in the darrrrrk place, a voice in his head hissed. It became Jimmy Jed Falconer's thunderous roar: YOU'RE A GUEST OF