writing: The Curious Manuxet Medicine Man

The Curious Manuxet Medicine Man

17 September, 1720 – Deerfield, Massachusetts
The ink still wet on my diploma, I had first come to the New World hoping to practice Law. I had thought there to be much work to do with Indian treaties and in the forming of new laws for our Colonies in the Americas, an opinion formed from equal parts hearsay, promotional pamphlets, and groundless optimism. At the time I had little in the way of name or fortune, and in point of fact, still do not.

After my first twelve-month in the port of Boston I have still only secured a handful of contracts. Due a facility with languages, these mostly involved treating with local Indian tribes on behalf of the merchant guilds. These contracts are seasonal however, and with Winter approaching and no prospect of regular work, I was considering crewing my passage back to London when a letter arrived from an old school mentor, one John Susskind.

In previous years, Susskind had held the post of Proctor at Deerfield Township in the interior of Massachusetts. Having lately heard through mutual acquaintances in Britain of my difficulties in the Colonies, he had secured an invitation for me from the new Proctor of Deerfield, Richard Manley. Manley is a man of much influence whose name I myself have heard bruited about London whenever the Colonies were mentioned. Susskind opined that I was sure to find the work to my liking, providing, as he said, that I was not already set up as a merchant-lord in Boston. Since this was definitely not the case, I spent the last of my funds to buy passage with one of the infrequent goods trains into the interior.

Deerfield is a bustling little community of trappers, foresters and adventurers, with a single brick street instead of a thoroughfare and board walkways in place of a promenade. The settlement had grown in expanding rings around its original fort and palisade, still maintained by a small garrison. The possibility of attack is of little concern, as there has been peace with both the French and the Indians for many years. The township is rough at the corners and rather underrepresented in the fair sex, but not entirely without charm.

I found the Proctor a very genial host. After welcoming me with an avuncular hug, he, a bottle of French brandy, and I sat down to a long discussion of both my past and future, and the many opportunities this vast land offered. Finally, Proctor Manley broached a matter of grave importance.

Due to the mismanagement of their previous Quartermaster, now dismissed, Deerfield is facing a crisis in food stocks for the coming Winter. As at this late date no contracts have been signed, Manley is left with two choices: pay extortionate prices to have supplies trucked in from Boston, or pay extortionate prices to the settlements’ Indian trade allies. These latter claim themselves hard pressed to feed their own people in the coming season. Pursuing either of these options will drive the settlement to penury. Fortunately, Manley has received messengers over the summer from the Manuxet tribe, indicating an eagerness to establish regular trade.

The Manuxet, Manley explained, are a people shrouded in mystery, much respected and feared by their neighbours. Friendly Indians have on several occasions urged him to have no truck with them. However these same naysayers are reluctant to make plain their misgivings, suggesting perhaps it is competition, rather than double-dealing, that they fear. Whatever the case, it is Manley’s opinion, and I concur, that it would be foolish at this point to not give them a hearing.

At last we came to the point: Someone is needed to treat with the Manuxet, a tribe geographically not so distant, but otherwise alien to the white man. I agreed to the proposal at once, determining to make myself useful at the earliest opportunity.

24 September, 1720 – Deerfield, Massachusetts
I share a room in the garrison with one other, a veteran of the frontier named Turvey, just returned from a sojourn in England. He is friendly and has an easygoing manner, important qualities in such close quarters. The floor is packed earth and the walls unfinished pine, but the smell is sweet and I am charged no rent, so cannot complain.

After the first day, given to me to get my bearings and have a rest, I have spent the week in several meetings with the Proctor, Deerfield’s new Quartermaster Bradley, and Turvey. I will not include the tedious details, but the conclusion was that despite Turvey’s greater experience, I am to be given the final authority on Deerfield’s dealings with the Manuxet. A sensible decision, as Turvey is an old bird, mostly bone and sagging leathery hide, and my employer no doubt wants someone in charge who will last out the Winter. As Manley will be away to Providence Town for several weeks, I must trust to my wits and Our Lord God to guide me.

Our party is to consist of myself, Turvey, and our jack-of-all-trades Hanson as my bodyguard. Hanson is large and physically intimidating, but as he is also a deaf-mute he will be of no use during negotiations. It is a small enough group to send out into the wilds, but help is scarce with many men out on trap lines, trading missions of their own, or preparing camp for the season ahead.

30 September, 1720 –wilderness, three days from Deerfield
My appointment –or whatever you may call a meeting with people who observe no calendar but the naked moon– is to be with one named Misquamacus, a difficult mangle of syllables I take pains to memorize. The morning of our departure Turvey was laid low with a bowel complaint. There is no time to delay this important meeting, so I must make do with just Hanson and a pair of Manuxet braves for guides.

My escort is a strange and taciturn pair, one with terrible scarring down the left side of his visage, which I took for some sort of burn wound, until I marked similar markings on the right side of his companion’s face. The twin disfigurements brought a horrible image to mind: two heads joined jowl to jowl and forcefully torn apart. If the tribal scarring is meant to be frightful, it does its job admirably. They are lean but sinewy like their kind, and I was soon to be impressed by their great stamina. They were inexhaustible paddlers and late on our first day signaled Hanson not to spell them at all any more as he could not keep up the stroke.

The braves are as silent as my bodyguard and, if anything, worse company. The surly fellows force us to duplicate much work each night by making a camp of their own many yards distant, though in light of their queer habits it is perhaps for the best. At odd times of the night they rise and perform a ritual, kneeling, praying and mumbling in some guttural tongue I cannot associate with any Indian language I have heard. I at first supposed it to coincide with moon-rise, but on my second night of disturbed sleep was disabused of this notion. Was it the stars in the sky to which they prayed? There was certainly nothing else to see in that blackest night, with even our fires reduced to embers.

3 October, 1720 –Camp of the Manuxet
Thanks both to the favourable current and the vitality of my escort, the journey was a mere five days by canoe. Other than the mid-night prayers, it was uneventful. It was night when we finally arrived, and I was both exhausted and hungry, but our unflagging guides harried us on until we waited stoop-shouldered before the great man’s tent. I had never known Indians to conduct important business so late at night, but I wished to be a gracious guest and I was too tired to protest in any case.

The camp was utterly silent beneath the starry sky. I used the moments available to make a few observations.

The Manuxet favoured wigwams for their homes and these were scattered about like seed cast to the wind.

Unlike his kin, our host chose for his abode a seven-sided hide tent of prodigious height. It was located on the edge of the camp rather than the center, as would be customary with a chief. More odd was the cresset without, a bowl of black stone in which burned a bright and steady green flame, which despite its unusual colour gave off no smoke. It was a colourful bit of hocus-pocus that no doubt impressed his less sophisticated guests.

At last one of our guides appeared and waved me forward. Towards Hanson he held a flat palm in an obvious signal denying him entry. I nodded my head to him and he remained outside. My bodyguard was too stoic to show either displeasure or relief at this rejection.

I had supposed this Misquamacus fellow to be the chief, but he is in fact the medicine man, who I have come to understand is the administrator of day-to-day affairs of the tribe, while the chief is called upon only in matters of warfare.

Finding myself in the man’s presence, I was quick to understand why he inspired tall tales, and fear, and now I suspect most of all, jealousy. He stands a head taller than the tallest of his fellows. He seems about middle-age, but lean and hard as any warrior I have seen. His face was likely quite handsome before it was disfigured with the scarring common to his people. More unusual than his appearance is his speech. His English is almost without accent and his vocabulary quite as good as any lawyer of the King’s Bench. The voice itself is of remarkable timber, deep and pleasing to the ear. One wonders where he learned such refined speech with his tribe supposedly isolated from both white men and their fellow Indians.

The tent was spacious and comfortable. Misquamacus, four of his advisors, and I sat ranged ourselves on luxurious hide rugs and I started with the generally accepted practice of praising my host and his people and stating my confidence that the spirits would bless our future commerce. I spoke of the land from which the white people had come and their gratitude to the Indian for sharing his bounty, and a few like platitudes. But for one of the others smirking when I mentioned the spirits, all this met no reaction but stony silence. I cleared my throat. Plainly these Indians were not given to ceremony.

I unrolled the document scribed by Proctor Manley outlining the proposed trade terms, and with no preamble proffered it to the medicine man. By the way in which his eyes slid smoothly over the paper I saw at once he had no understanding of written words. I record his comments verbatim:

You have many little symbols on your paper. They mean nothing, like the scratching of mice in the dust. I too have symbols, not so many as you perhaps, but my symbol Becomes! It has power. When I speak, all listen, not only Man but the bird and the rat and the stag. And others, unseen by the white men.

His voice boomed with conviction, and I was glad my work was not that of the Missionary, who would have to reply to this nonsensical boasting. It would be hard work for some fellow to bring this man to Christ.

He then gestured to one of his lackeys, who brought in food and wooden bowls of water. We enjoyed the usual seasonal fare of corn, squash, nuts, and a strangely chewy meat I could not identify but supposed to be that of some rodent. I made note that the Manuxet did not apparently partake of whiskey or fire-water.

I was grateful for the repast, which revived some of my strength and confidence. I spent an hour outlining the particulars of the trade agreement as plainly as I might. Not once did the shaman’s gaze shift from my eyes, nor did he make any sign or question. This impassivity quickly worked a great wrack on my nerves and I began to worry lest some insult had been inferred by my host. I have a conviction that insults are not easily forgiven by the Manuxet shaman. When I had finished my declaiming, my throat was as raw if I had been screaming from the fiercest torture. Silence reigned for a minute that seemed stretched to the point of breaking.

Then for the first time, the medicine man smiled, revealing teeth improbably white and straight, and simply acquiesced, asking only for a bit of tobacco to seal our trade. My hand shook as I un-stoppered my little inkpot –such good fortune!– and shewed him where to make his mark. Rare is the Indian who will not try his advantage against a trader in bad straits, as we of Deerfield most assuredly were.

There is one last curiosity I will mention: as I dug around in my pouch for my clay pipe, I felt something brush my queue and looked up to see one of the shaman’s fellows proffer a lock of mine own hair. Misquamacus took this bizarre tribute and tucked it in his belt. I was curious about this custom, but when I opened my mouth I found that nothing sensible would come forth.

The whole encounter was most fascinating and left me with a new, calm confidence in my decision to come to the Colonies. I must be careful. A man so clearly blessed by God must be wary of vanity.

8 October, 1720 – Deerfield, Massachusetts
Since Proctor Manley will be away for some time yet, I was keen to relate the details of my trade mission to Turvey. Finding him mostly recovered, I told of what I have written here. The old man nodded along half a-doze, until I offhandedly mentioned the incident of the hair clipping. At this, Turvey sat up so swiftly he upset our lamp, and cried out a single word: Witchcraft! I jumped at his exclamation and choked my startled laugh into a cough as he began to babble like a deranged child. He stated that I had given up considerable advantage to the Indian by letting him have that bit of hair. He rambled on then about legends he had heard, rumours about camp, and other codswallop that I would sooner have expected from no-account camp hangers-on and drunks.

Knowing not what else to do, I nodded my head as if in serious consideration of his words, and assured him we would speak more of the matter next day. He was placated, and eventually collapsed back onto his bunk and slept.

20 October, 1720 – Deerfield, Massachusetts
Last night Misquamacus and his retinue came to Deerfield for the first trade exchange writ in our agreement, arriving several hours past sundown. I had not expected them until the following noon. Evening was a strange time to conduct business but, I thought, strange custom was small enough price to pay for our survival in the season ahead. Turvey and I met with them in the empty mess hall and none but the posted guard witnessed their arrival.

At once I saw that Turvey’s mental upset runs deeper than mere superstition, for when he set eyes on the man, he blanched whiter than bone, and was most embarrassingly struck dumb. I made do with pleasantries and produced a small gift of beads to our host, which gift he cast aside as worthless. From my colleague’s deathly aspect, I saw that I must excuse him posthaste. I said he was taken with an ague and that the drafty log structure of the mess hall did not agree with him.

Leaving Turvey sitting blank-faced in our room, I returned to find the Indian braves unloading their wagon outside the mess hall. I quickly glanced over the sacks and crates and found grain, salted meat, skins, leather and other sundries to be in order.

Without waiting any comment or signal from me, Misquamacus was already making with his men to the storehouse to claim his goods. He strode about the camp with an air not only of superiority but of outright possession, as if he visited his own demesne, and found his serfs’ efforts wanting. But rather than feel irritated at his presumption I found myself admitting that in the wilds beyond the white man’s ken, Misquamacus is a King. I made a feeble effort to ask about their voyage to Deerfield and their own preparations for Winter, but stopped myself before offering any actual hospitality. It could hardly matter –to the medicine man I was of no more consequence than a shadow. With their usual swift and implacable efficiency, his people loaded the six heavy crates I had set aside into their wagon and made to leave.

At last he turned. His eyes met mine and held them as surely as if they rested snug in his fist. There were black depths to them which could drown a weaker man. When I finally broke from that bottomless gaze I realized he had seized my hand with his own as hard as horn, and secured my forearm with his other hand, as if to prevent me from pulling away. When he released his iron grip, my limb was returned to me in as good a condition as ever and I thought no more of it, as just then came a cry:

Halt there, Indian! Halt I say! The Manuxet did not stay their course nor even look about, but the musketeers at the palisade gate stood with their weapons to block the way.

It was Bradley the Quartermaster, still tying the cord for his trousers as he hobbled from the bunkhouse, his hair all awry and his wool tunic back to front. He had been awoken by one of his minions, who just then minced along behind with two fellows.

Bradley pointed and said, What goes on here in the dark? We admit no one to the fort after night-fall.

From his obvious agitation I feared he might be drunk and asked him to recall that the Manuxet were our trade partners. He gritted his teeth as if annoyed and said it was past mid-night and a wicked time to be doing business. I retorted that Misquamacus had received a message that he was urgently needed by his tribe and could not dally about waiting for dawn. I do not know now why I told this lie, but once it was out it sounded perfectly reasonable, at least to me. I did not see why I should make any explanation at all.

Bradley strode straight to the wagon, pulled back the rawhide covering, and studied the heavy pine crates within. Two of them were branded with the unmistakable double-X warning of black powder. One of his henchman pried open the first, a case of twelve new muskets. They were lately arrived from the forge at Kingsport and had never yet been fired. Beside this, there was another like case of muskets, four sacks of black powder and two cases of lead shot.

He pointed at his find and said –fairly shouted, really- what any man could see with his own eyes: that the wagon held a load of twenty-four muskets, and no mean quantity of powder, shot and a few other accoutrements for the maintenance of firearms. There was a crowd watching now, including more than a few of our own soldiers, those not too drunk to be roused.

Among the medicine man’s party, hands moved to bows, knives and hatchets, and the rising tension seemed to audibly tick in the night like the surface of a hot stove.

Then, with an almost theatrical flourish, one of Misquamacus’s men unfurled their copy of the trade agreement and thrust it in Bradley’s face.

The clerk hastily scanned the document. I could see his eyes look from the words to the settlement’s seal, –accompanied by my own and Proctor Manley’s signatures– and back again three times. Finally, he turned to me with a comical look of incredulity, which I took to indicate he would not even utter the question aloud.

I told him, trying to summon some of the same bluster with which he went about his duties, that I had indeed authorized the withdrawal from the Armoury, and reminded him of Proctor Manley’s great trust in me. With that, our disagreement was finished, but rather than show contrition in any measure, the man turned from me in a huff and stalked back towards the barracks. Just before disappearing within, he –he– turned and gestured the guards to make way, clinging to his last scrap of authority unto the end. The musketeers parted and the incident was thankfully past.
----

Today I must deal with another fool. Turvey did not recover his speech until early morning, when he shook me from my sleep as if the bed were afire. He started at once on his addle-brained claptrap, saying he recognized the Manuxet shaman, that he was sent by the Devil himself! Now he waved his hands about him like a blind man searching for a doorway and muttered, more to himself than me I think, that he, Turvey, had met this same Misquamacus, forty years before. And the man had not aged a single day!

I reminded him that neither he nor anyone else in Deerfield had treated with the Manuxet before. Turvey replied that this other shaman had been of the Narragansett tribe. I reasoned that if this other fellow was a Narragansett, then it must be a coincidence. Perhaps Misquamacus was after some kind of title rather than a name. But the old man would not be assuaged and began to shake worse than before. He continued with his absurd tale.

At that time, two withered elders of the Narragansett, detractors who somehow resisted the medicine man’s powerful personality, had related this tale to Turvey: Misquamacus had not been born a Narragansett, but had been taken in after his considerable healing skills had recovered two wounded warriors from the brink of death. Further, the elders claimed to have traded with the same man fifty Winters before, when he had been with the Pocumtuc to the south.

And so nonsense begets nonsense.

At the time young Turvey had dismissed it all for the drivel I still believe it to be, but now the whole deal has him unmanned. His voice no more than a croaking whisper, Turvey said, I dreamed… I have dreamed of Him. Of course he had dreamed! He had been bedridden with fever. I think he is still feverish. I shook him by the shoulders, perhaps more roughly than I ought, and tried to shout some reason into him, but my efforts were in vain. He lays totally senseless now, despite his eyes starting from his head, staring at nothing.

Turvey’s mind is unmistakably just as raddled as his frame.

Yet does not a small part of me feel relief? With Turvey unable to fulfill his duties, my position as Chief Factor for Deerfield is all but certain.

23 October, 1720 – Deerfield, Massachusetts
A merchant traveler informed us that Proctor Manley will return to Deerfield shortly. I am glad of that.

Rumour flies faster than Mercury on the most urgent errand, and I am sorry to say that the laboring class of man to be found in this settlement is as subject to superstition and phantasy as their red brethren, and grant Misquamacus such strange powers as talking to beasts and reading minds. I find now at mess times that when I desire company the tables are full, and when I desire privacy I get all that I might wish for.

The cook’s assistant, something of a simpleton, was the only man to speak to me today. He asked how I had come by the mark on the palm of my right hand. I told him I had cut it splitting wood. I am not accustomed to dishonesty in any of my dealings, but this lie flowed from my tongue as easily as a hymn to God, may He preserve me.

I returned hurriedly to my room –a place as private as one could want, since Turvey now sleeps almost round the clock– to study the mark. From a certain angle it looked like an old, but perfectly smooth, scar, rather like the wine stain which marks some at birth. But if one were given to fancy, it might also seem like a sort of sigil with an eye in the center. I do not know how it got to be there.

25 October, 1720 – Deerfield, Massachusetts
Manley has returned. How happy I was when I was called in to his private office, and how wrongheaded!

No pleasantries were exchanged. Manley was studying the trade agreement I had made with the Manuxet. He said to me, Whatever else he may be, this medicine man is a sound trader. He was evidently displeased.

I replied that I had got all the terms Manley had asked.

The Proctor dropped the lamb’s-hide parchment on the table as if it carried smallpox. What I had remembered as a series of expertly drafted lines was now scratched up everywhere, amended in the margins and between the lines themselves, in a small but neat script, my own. On the right hand every change was followed by a column of my two initials. At the bottom was scrawled the sole change I did recall, the extent, so I had thought at the time, of the shaman’s literacy: a jagged letter M. The mark on my palm began to itch furiously, as if salt had been rubbed in a wound.

Manley continued: Hardly, my friend. In my opinion, you were soundly taken by that blackguard. Normally, I would never honour so wretched a contract as this, but with the heavy snows starting I have no choice. I shall have to write to our Chamberlain for more funds. No matter. We will find someone else next time.

I opened my mouth to defend myself, to explain, to deny, but nothing came forth –and so it remained, my lips opening and closing like those of a land-bound fish. Manley fixed me with a flat stare which, had any rebuttal been forthcoming, would have denied it. I gathered what remained of my wits and exited.

More and more of late when I mean to speak I am silent, and when it is more prudent to be silent I find myself speaking as if with another’s tongue. With a nervous energy of their own the nails of my left hand gouged at the palm of my right, and I wondered. ~~Had not He grasped that hand in the European manner, a gesture which I have seen many Indians adopt, but never the medicine man excepting that one instance?~~ [/s]

This setback with Manley has been a blow, I admit. My thoughts even wander into idiocy, like Turvey’s.

14 November, 1720 – Deerfield, Massachusetts
Manley has re-assigned me –to the storehouse of all places! I’m damned if I’ll play apprentice to that lickspittle Bradley. I would sooner starve. Unfortunately, that may be just the choice I must make. There is no travel out of Deefield without a sledge now, and if I do not earn my keep Manley is within his rights to turn me out, though I do not think even he could undertake an action so un-Christian.

I suffer from a sleeping illness, and wander unknowing from my rest. On three different nights I have awoken, once without even a pair of boots, to find myself at the edge of the settlement, my neck stiff, gazing at the stars. The constellation Piscis Austrinus, where shines bright Fomalhaut, holds a peculiar fascination for me. Those nights when clouds obscure the heavens I sleep more deeply than ever before, perhaps to make up the energy I am compelled to spend when it is clear.

As a consequence of these weird excursions, during the day I walk like a man with a belly full of lead shot. I stray farther and farther from my new duties, and with no confidant but this journal my thoughts hang as heavy as my limbs. Still I receive the sidelong glances and muttered comments of the labourers. Buffoons. Know they not I serve [furious scribbling] the King of England as righteously as any man?

24 November, 1720 – Deerfield, Massachusetts
I dreamt of a great gibbous moon which seemed to fill the night sky, and I saw that earth’s gray companion was not a satellite at all, but a gigantic looking-glass, and what it reflected was a world devoid of forest, ocean or any sort of life. Our Creator’s fair gift from was dead a thousand thousand years, a vast uncoloured desert.

And I thought, our Lord God does not hang such a mirror before the world, but if not God then who? What?

December – Deerfield
Whether it is madness or no, I must relate the occurrences of last night as well as I may, if only to purge them from my mind.

I woke slowly, as if from a desperate illness, my consciousness returning to me in increments. What came first to my addled senses were the droning voices, calling out a mantra in some foreign tongue. The sound was deep and sonorous, like a choir of monks, but had an unnatural undertone like the buzzing of insects.

It was night, and but a few yards distant were a score or more figures, arranged in a circle. At regular intervals their chant rose from its discomfiting murmur in a series of bizarre syllables. The words were all nonsensical to me and I cannot recall them, except for the final intonation, something like NY-HAR-LA-TO-TEP. Then the ritual was punctuated by a guttural shout and they would throw out their arms or make other arcane gestures.

The worshippers wore deep-cowled green robes, such as I have never known Indians to favour, which dragged the ground at their feet. Though I had only starlight by which to see, I would swear that they were silk.

In the spot closest to me stood the master of the ceremony, identically garbed yet different from the others, broader of shoulder and bare-headed. I knew without seeing his face that this was Misquamacus. None of his tribe came near to matching him in stature, yet his fellows tonight were all his equal in height, but thinner, even sickeningly so from the hang of their robes.

Against all sense fascinated, I turned my eyes to the space before them. They stood within a depressed circle several yards across, scorched black at the edges as if by a single massive stroke of lightning. Within, the earth had been scoured away to the depth of about a foot, revealing the yellow clay which underlies the topsoil in these parts. At the center was a perfectly round stone platform, inscribed at the perimeter with a sequence of rough-carved sigils the meaning of which I know not. At the center was an image only slightly less mysterious: an eye perhaps two feet across with an hourglass-shaped pupil, like that of a goat. A few inches above this eye, without apparent source, danced a wavering green flame.

Then it was that I saw I was not the lone unwilling guest. There was another, until that moment unnoticed between two of the green-garbed acolytes. The figure’s form was swaddled in a common brown camp blanket. But for the cloth sack over her head, she might have been unexpectedly roused from bed and planning to retire there again very shortly. By virtue of her build, narrow-shouldered and small, I assumed it to be a woman. She was shivering in terror and was kept upright only by the grip of her two towering captors.

A choking, sulphurous smell rose around us, and I felt a suffocating pressure, as if an iron band squeezed my chest. The chant was reaching its apex again and I knew more horrors were to come. A terrific boom followed the end of their chant and a wave of invisible force, like one feels when standing near a firing cannon, washed out from the center of that unholy ring.

The Heavens rushed down upon us, there is no other way to say it. Though the blasted ring, its bizarre celebrants, and we two witnesses remained in our places, the world around us vanished and we seemed to race upwards, past cloud and wind, and yet beyond into the vault of night. I clutched my silver crucifix in my burning palm, but struck dumb with terror could mutter no prayer.

The stars grew and grew, as the ether betwixt them rushed in my ears hot and thick as blood, and their true nature was revealed to me: they are great gems, some spherical or conoid, others in shapes too fantastical to name, with countless shining facets. And they are not scattered on a velvet carpet of night, but upon a black void so complete that to gaze upon it is to feel all hope and faith, and even sanity itself, leach away.

Whilst the bizarre panorama of outer space whirled about our piece of Earth, the green fire at the focus of that dread circle vanished, and was replaced by a dark, ever-shifting Otherness.

At first it seemed a perfect cylinder of storm cloud streaming up from nothing and after reaching the height of about two men, returning thence. Then it was the reflection of a starry night sky on a restless sea. Then it was simply an unceasingly motive column of perfect blackness, of a piece with the horrible, endless void beyond. A scream tried to rise is my throat, but refused release it banked in my chest like the fiery heart of a forge, building and building until the pain should drive me from my skin.

All was silent, and every observer still.

One smoky part of it –somewhat like an arm, but also like a tail– uncoiled towards the blanketed figure, who seemed suddenly the only other human being in that unholy tableau. There was a sound like a sharp gust whistling beneath a door, and she slumped like a bundle of rags between her implacable guards, dead. A horrid conviction gripped me that what I had witnessed was not merely murder, for though the soul was fled and the husk left behind, I knew that her essence had been transferred from her corpse to some unknowable elsewhere, to the black gulf between the stars.

This realization was the final blow to my tortured brain and that unnamed place beyond the world of men was mercifully hidden from my streaming eyes.

I woke at seemingly the same instant, scrabbling about the dirt floor of my room like a crazed rat. Only when I struck my head a hard knock on my own bedpost did I recover enough to grasp Turvey by the arm. Because of his interminable malady, the fire in our room is always stoked high, but he was icy cold and quite dead. He had not gone peacefully at the end, for the covers were twisted about his body as if meaning to strangle him. I untangled his stick-thin limbs and straightened him on his cot. The poor fellow had succumbed at last to his sickness, but there was one detail of his demise which I wish with all my soul had escaped me: the soles of his small and shriveled feet were caked yellow with clay.

----
I write this last in the small hours of morning that in a right world belong to highwaymen and grave robbers. My sleep is troubled by an image my brain tries, but fails, to refuse: of the shadowy thing in the medicine man’s stone circle. Though its shape is no clearer, I know it beckons to me, and soon I will go.

I am dressed for travel, but I know I cannot escape its summons. Beneath my traveling cloak I have secured a certain parcel which may yet deliver me, not from death which is the best fate I may hope for this night, but from the fate apportioned to me by that medicine man whose name I will not speak nor write again. The thing from beyond I know I cannot touch, but a full horn of black powder, liberally seasoned with slivers of scrap iron from the blacksmith’s slag pile, might still prove inconvenient for my nemesis. I think that if I can extinguish that Devil who masquerades as a man, its master will be forced back to the void. A thin hope, but--

I seal this document now in a bone case. To whomever happens upon it, I do not ask that you trust in my sanity. I only pray that you who discover this tale never have occasion to test the facts laid out herein.

My trunk sports a false bottom, a deception I learned from a Jesuit who worked amongst a tribe of most shameless thieves. I must trust that it will be safe there from prying eyes, that He is not all-seeing. I must trust that such omnipotence is still exclusive to our Lord God,

May He Keep Me,
Ewan Gregory MacHale