Anah had enough for purchase of a good quantity of powder and canistered grape shot as well, which would devastate any attackers should anyone be foolish enough to fight him.
In a wild stupor from the liquor that night, he had lurched over to the wolverine boy and saw that he was starting to wake up from the drugs that Klixuatan had administered. He was regaining his strength.
Anah hollered over to Klixuatan to give the boy another dose, and after the old shaman did so, Anah slipped on the skinned-face mask of Jacob’s father.
When the drug achieved its hallucinatory effect, Anah would dance and control him again, countering the curse from Isaac’s father.
But the whiskey and fatigue of the day swept over Anah, and he passed out drunk, still wearing the grisly face of Isaac.
That night he dreamed of his elusive friend, Death. It saw him wearing the powerful mask and stopped. It stopped for him and was turning for him finally, waiting. They would be allies after all.
Anah was the first to waken that morning, and as he stood unsteadily to urinate by the stream, he looked over to where the little wolverine was tethered.
He had escaped!
And then he heard sounds from the west and saw four long boats of red-coated soldiers moving upriver. The boy had escaped and had taken his power with him.
Hollering an alarm over to Klixuatan, Anah looked to the ground to see where the little wolverine had gone. Despite the rain-soaked ground, he could make out deep, small footprints moving away from the tethers and down toward the beach.
He followed. He would need the boy.
Behind him, Anah heard Klixuatan groggily waking the other men and the hollering of the soldiers in the oncoming boats. They had seen the encampment.
Anah moved down to the river and followed the tracks upstream until he came to a long stretch of beach. He saw Jacob draped over the shoulder of what looked like a small man carefully wending his way over the wide, rock-covered beach.
Was it Death, carrying away his power?
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Emmy had moved as quickly as she could along the low riverbank, avoiding catching herself on exposed tree roots or twisting her ankles on the large rocks polished round by the river. She had traversed a half mile when she heard hollering from downriver, several rounds of rifle shots, and then more hollering.
When she turned, in the distance she saw red-coated soldiers coming ashore, firing into the woods. And then in the foreground, only fifty yards away, she saw someone walking unsteadily over the smooth stones, following her.
He had a knife drawn.
She lay Jacob down and stepped in front of him to protect him. She would fight the man.
But the man moved directly to Jacob and swung at her with his knife.
Emmy ducked, but the blade sliced through her parka, cutting into her left shoulder, and she lost her balance and fell.
Pushing herself back up, she heard herself scream, “Get away from him!”
But the man ignored her and stooped down toward her son. As the figure pulled Jacob up and onto his shoulder, he turned and faced her.
It was Isaac!
But then Emmy realized it wasn’t her husband. The facial mask of Isaac on the man had been pulled tightly back, and she recognized the blond beard and the smooth, straight, silky hair . . . but peering through the eye slits were two evil, hard, obsidian black coals burning straight from hell. This was the specter, the one that had followed her in nightmares for months, the monster that had destroyed her family and changed her life forever.
The man raised his knife to Jacob’s throat as a warning to Emmy. Then he turned and started to walk away.
Following them, she shouted, “Put him down!”
The man kept walking, ignoring her.
As he increased his pace, she shouted again, “Put him down, you bastard!”
He stopped and turned. He stared at her defiantly, and as the lower part of the mask flapped away in the morning wind, Emmy could see him grinning triumphantly.
It was a grisly sneer that sent a furious chill deep down into her core and immediately reawakened the encompassing wretched and miserable despair she had suffered at this man’s hands.
A cold, calm clarity settled onto her that was right and just and perfect for this moment. From less than ten feet away, Emmy drew out the pepperbox. She pulled the trigger and put a bullet squarely through the smiling haunt-mask of Isaac and into the forehead of the savage.
Chapter Forty-One
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Sarah
Jojo had found Jacob’s keepsakes, recovered from Klixuatan’s purse, which the savage had used to hex her brother and had given them to Sarah.
Presciently, Sarah had carried several things on the trip that both she and Jacob had shared, like the arrow head they had pried from the remains of a fossilized skull bone of some large animal, found in the plowed ground of their parents’ farm; and several items that only he would know, little treasures she took out of his trouser pockets and his bureau from home after the attack: a polished burr, a brass button, a blue-brown steely marble, a spent ticket from their trip to Victoria, several pieces of rounded sand-buffed colored glass.
To the items recovered by Jojo, she added the ones she had brought from home, put all the keepsakes into his hands, and let him finger them one by one. Then she put them all into his pocket and kissed him.
When Jacob was returned to her, she cradled him in her arms and told him she would never let him go again. She would take care of him. She would take care of him, her little brother. Could he hear her? Was it too late? Would he ever snuggle with her as he had just a few months before? It would take time to see whether he had been broken; she would work
