Fear Weaver

The man had tears in his eyes and spittle on his chin. He ran through the woods in a wild panic, every now and then letting out a piercing shriek. He collided with a tree, but it barely slowed him. He kept glancing over his shoulder. Twice he slashed at the air with a Green River knife.

“Stay away!” he screeched. “Stay away!’

Bursting from the undergrowth into a clearing, he fell to his hands and knees, exhausted. More spittle dribbled from his lower lip into his matted beard. He mewed in fright and looked back again, and his pale face became paler.

“God no, God no, God no, God no.”

Pushing to his feet, the man thrust his knife at the forest.

“Don’t you dare! I won’t be easy!”

The wind had died. Not so much as a leaf or pine needle stirred in the dark woods.

“I know you are there! Show yourselves!”

The man’s eyes blazed with fire. His haggard features hardened. He held the knife above his head, ready to stab. “I’m waiting!”

Something moved at the edge of the clearing to his
right and the man whirled, the knife in front of him. “You won’t get me! I will kill you, do you hear me?”

A horse came out of the woods and regarded the man, its ears pricked. Whinnying, it stamped a hoof.

“They are after you too?”

The man took a step, then stopped and swatted the air. He swatted it again and again, as if trying to drive off a swarm of bees. He swung and swung, only stopping when he was too weak to continue.

The horse just stood there.

“Of course,” the man said. “It’s not just people. They go after everything. Deer, rabbits, elk, birds, everything. Why didn’t I see it sooner? How could I have been so stupid?”

The horse bobbed its head.

“It’s all right.” The man smiled a crooked smile. “I won’t hurt you.” He moved slowly toward it, the corners of his mouth twitching. “We’ll get away from here. I promise to take care of you.”

The horse stamped again.

“Stay calm. That’s it. I’ll get on you and we’ll leave this terrible place. I never should have come. But how was I to know? How was anyone to know?” The man gazed at a patch of blue far above, then at the towering cliffs that reared thousands of feet on three sides of the valley. “I thought I found heaven on earth. But I unleashed demons, didn’t I? From my own seed I spawned them. From my ignorance.”

The man shook. His mouth still twitching, he took another step. “You and me, boy. You and me. Let’s light a shuck.” He chuckled, but the sound that came from his throat was like the rattle of a dry gourd.

The next instant the horse wheeled and trotted off, its brown body dappled by shadows.

“Noooooo!” The man ran after it, but only as far as the trees.

“Come back! Please come back! I can’t make it afoot. Not with them everywhere. I need you!”

The thud of hooves faded. The forest was still again.

“Lord, preserve me. I’m doomed.” The man raised his left hand to his brow. “I can’t take this anymore. I just can’t.” Uttering a low sob, he turned.

Nearly invisible in the gloom, a cabin stood at the other side of the clearing. Small and sturdily built, it had a stone chimney from which curled writhing tendrils of smoke. Red curtains hung over the window like splashes of fresh blood.

The man gasped. He shuffled toward the cabin with reluctance, as if he didn’t quite believe it was there, or as if the cabin nursed a new fear that made his legs weak.

“I am not, I can not, I will not,” he said.

A dozen feet out the man stopped. From within came humming, low and soft and peaceful. He stood and listened for a good long while. Only when a brisk gust from off the heights fanned the nape of his neck and sent goose bumps rippling down his skin did he stir and step to the door. He didn’t knock. He didn’t call out and ask permission to enter. He simply worked the wooden latch and strode in.

The cabin was warm and cozy and filled with the scent of burning logs. A bearskin rug covered the middle of the floor. To the left was a log table with log benches. To the right, the doorway to a pantry. Straight ahead was the hearth. In a rocking chair beside it, calmly knitting, was a woman in an ankle-length dress and a bonnet. She hummed as her long needles
clacked and clicked. When a log popped, she stared serenely at the flames.

“Jack Sprat, Jack Sprat, why do you keep doing that?”

The man coughed.

Glancing up, the woman placed her knitting in her lap. “I do declare. How long have you been there?”

“Where?” the man asked.

“Have you heard?”

“Heard what?”

“Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean. And so between the two of them, they licked the platter clean.”

“I am not Jack Sprat,” the man said.

The woman smiled. “Of course we are. We have always been. That was our heaven, that was our sin. But what to do now? Where to begin? I’m happy you are here. Come on in.”

“I already am. Do you know where you are?”

“Don’t you?” The woman heaved her bulk out of the rocking chair, grunting with the effort. “Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye. Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie.”

“I don’t like to eat blackbird,” the man said. “Too stringy and dry.”

“Isn’t Tommy Thumb’s song pretty? That Tommy Thumb sure was witty.” The woman set her knitting on the rocking chair. From a bag next to it she took another long needle and made a circle in the air. “Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Three bags full.”

“I haven’t any wool,” the man said. “Only this.” He wagged his knife.

“Bow, wow, wow, whose dog art thou?” the woman quoted.

“I think I am yours. Can you help me? I saw a horse, but it ran away. You can never trust horses.”

The woman walked to the table and placed her hands on her stout hips. “Twinkle, twinkle, little star. How I wonder what you are.” She motioned. “Come, won’t you play with me?”

“It is hard,” the man said.

“Try.”

“Very well.” The man’s brow knit. “Will you take a walk with me, my little wife, today?”

The woman uttered a sharp bark of a laugh. “You can do better than that, surely. If you want my help, that is.”

“I want it more than anything,” the man admitted. Again his brow furrowed. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”

“Oh, come now. That is hardly in the spirit of things.” The woman untied her bonnet and then tied it again. “I’m waiting. If you insist on this intrusion, you must at least be gallant.”

“I never could,” the man said. But his brow puckered a third time. “One, two, buckle my shoe. Three, four, knock at the door. Five, six…” The man stopped. “I can’t remember the rest.”

“You must. What do you want me to take you for? If that is your best, no wonder we are where we are.”

“It always comes back to that, doesn’t it?” The man paused. “Five, six, pick up sticks. Seven, eight, set them straight. Nine, ten, a big fat hen. Eleven, twelve, dig and delve.”

The woman squealed in delight. “You did it! You actually and truly did it! I am very proud of you.”

“Don’t expect more. They made me say it day after day so I would learn my numbers. Why it has stuck
with me all these years is beyond me. Our minds are a strange place.”

“Birds of a feather flock together, and so do pigs and swine.” The woman moved to the counter. She picked up a pan, hefted it, and set it back down. “What help can I be? I can cook and bake, I can sweep and rake.”

“We must leave. Together. Now.”

The woman laughed. “You jest, sir. Leave my humble home? Leave my rocking chair and my knitting? What kind of woman do you take me for? What would my husband think?”

“Don’t remind me. The fog has cleared. I wish I couldn’t remember, but I do.”

“If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. If turnips were watches, I’d wear one at my side.”

“You can stop that now.”

“As I went to Bonner, I met a pig with a wig, upon my word and honor,” the woman recited.

“Please stop.”

“You started it,” she retorted. “Then to bring them into this. To think you thought you knew it all, only to find out you knew nothing.”

“Please.”

“I have my moments, too, you know. I will help if you will tell me what kind of help I can be.”

The man wearily stepped to the table and sat on a bench. “It’s been so long. I’m no longer sure of what is and what isn’t. I have to pinch myself sometimes.” So saying, he pinched his cheek as hard as he could. “I think I am real.”

Chuckling merrily, so that her whole body quivered like a great dish of pudding, the woman pointed a thick finger at him. “I bet I know what you would like more than anything. How empty is your belly?”

“So empty it is scraping my backbone.” The man folded his arms on the table and lowered his face onto them. His next words were muffled. “They were after me a while ago. Right before I saw the horse. They might be after the horse now.”

“The man in the wilderness asked me how many strawberries grew in the sea but I didn’t tell him.”

“God in heaven. Is this what we have come to? Is this to be our end?” The man slowly straightened. Tears were in his eyes. “Will you fill my belly or not?”

“Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man. Make me a cake as fast as you can. Prick it, and pat it, and mark it with a T. And put it in the oven for my Sully and me.”

“Is that yes or no?”

“Little Jack Horner sat in the corner, eating his Christmas pie.”

“I asked you not to do that.”

The woman opened a cupboard. “What would you like? Waffles and eggs? Elk meat? Corn dodgers? How about apple dumplings? I think of all the food in the world, apple dumplings are my favorite.”

The man stared at the empty shelves in the cupboard. His throat bobbed and he wiped an arm across his eyes. “How long have you been without?”

“My dears, my dears, calm your fears.”

“I never would have guessed. You don’t look as if you have lost weight.” The man’s eyes narrowed. “Wait. You
haven’t
lost any. How can that be? How have you lasted?”

The woman beamed jovially and twined her fingers together. “Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard to get her poor doggie a bone. But when she got there the cupboard was bare, so the poor doggie got none.”

“One more and I will scream. I swear to God I will.”