Witch Hunt

NOTE FROM AUTHOR: I wrote this years ago for the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. It has never, until now, been published. I like to believe I'm a better writer today, but who knows. I hope all you all enjoy.

Val pumped the gas pedal as if that might somehow slurp up the last dregs from the tank. The vehicle shuddered like a walrus about to vomit. A shotgun blast emptied a cloud of soot from the tailpipe and a miasma vapor akin to burnt canola oil assaulted Val's nose.

The jalopy pickup rolled a few hundred strides down the pitted asphalt highway and stopped. Val turned the key. The engine whined, sputtered, backfired and died again.

Great. Val let her forehead fall against the steering wheel. Shitty corn. Ethanol is crap fuel.

She looked up and absently rubbed the sweat mark off the begrimed steering wheel. The next town was blurry smudge through the desert's shimmer haze. Her skin blistered just thinking about the trek under the sun. Her tresses were already plastered to her neck. Shit, she was already hotter than a v-eight with a radiator leak.

So it's hot, screw you, Val. She tugged her sun-blasted, dust soaked, barely recognizable K-State baseball cap low. This was as much to shield her eyes as to hide the witch's brand upon her forehead.

Vale climbed from the cab. The door groaned like Casper's haunted mansion when she opened it. She had to slam the damn thing to make it shut. She fished a couple of old milk jugs from the truck's bed and began to hike.

Reaching Crane took longer than she would've liked. Her feet hurt and the soles of her boots were a bit more broken before she arrived. Thank goodness the dilapidated gas station was on the close side of town. She prayed to God that it had gas, or some reasonable, water free substitute. Some of the small no-body towns this far west hadn't had gas even before the Great War. Now that everything was a desert, even fewer did.

She poked her head through the station door. After the sun, it was blinding black and marginally cooler inside.

"Hello?"

Heartbeats kept time with the silent seconds that followed.

"Hello?" she said, again.

"What do you want, girlie?"

Val spun. The man before her leaned so close against the door that her nose was practically in his chest. She shuffled a step backwards and caught her heel on the threshold. She caught the door frame to keep from falling.

He was even more sun-battered than her hat. He wore a John Deer cap that had lost its green. His coveralls, right down to the grimy Shell station emblem, looked little better. Even the grease stains looked to be permeated with dust.

"Can you help me? My truck's dead. I need gas, ethanol spirits or something."

"I know. Heard the blasted thing from here. Watched you walk in."

"Well?"

"Strangers aren't welcome here. 'Specially girlies without them's man." He squinted, trying to see her face better.

Fire burnt Val's breast. She ducked her head and tried to douse it. It would do her little good. "My Pa was killed in Utah. I wasn't planning on staying.

"All I need is gas, water and a little food."

"That's all, huh? What have you for gas?"

"You take Union dollars? Vegas coin?"

The mechanic harrumphed. "What's this look like, girlie? DC? Vegas?

"Gold. Gold, food and clean water's all that's got meaning out here."

Shit. She wormed her free hand into her jean pockets and pulled out a handful of coins. A few of them wore the tarnish of silver.

"Silver?" she asked, hopefully.

"Aye, silver'll do."

She separated the few that were actually silver from those made with baser metals with her thumb. "Will this do for my jugs, my truck and a ride back?"

"For you jugs and your truck when you get it here. No ride."

"No ride? It's cooking out here!"

"No car." He pocketed her silver. "Henry's died a year ago. Only Fred's tractor and strangers need gas now."

"How about a horse, a wagon, something. You can't all walk everywhere."

"We do now." Valerie thought she heard resignation in his voice. "The livestock have all been killed. The horses too. One or two a month. We find them a piece here a piece there. None left. Soon it'll be us."

"But what would do that?"

"A devil. Some witch's spawn I imagine."

Witch! Terror's grasping hands strangled any words Val might have had.

The mechanic mistook her fear, draped an all too familiar arm across Val's shoulders and led her to the solo pump. "You know, no lonely women folk left 'rounds here, if you catch my drift. Maybe I could put you up tonight for a little somethin' in return. Don't want to be caught alones in the desert after dark. Cold. And there's the beast."

Val peeled off the mechanic's arm. "Thanks, but no thanks." It was all she could do to keep her voice civil. "It's just now noon. Map says there's something bigger ahead. Burns. I'll stop there."

"Burns ain't no more. All burnt." A sound like a snort erupted from the man's nose. "In the war. All that's left is some demon possessed bear. It's burnt like Burns. And smokes. Might be it that's chomping the livestock. I swear, witches will kill us all."

Val wrestled down the urge to tug on her ball-cap. With hands that shook more violently than her truck on a washboard road, the gas pump nozzle was difficult to navigate into the mouth of her first jug.

Fuel tricked. Eternity might've come and gone in the time it took her to fill both containers. The miasma of her own fear tickled her nose even over the bite of gasoline. That the mechanic didn't notice was one of God's carefully rationed mercies.

"You sure you don't want to stay where it's safe, girlie? I can keep you right warm tonight." He leaned against the pump. "It's an hour back to your truck. You can't make anywhere before dark. Mark my words, you outside after that an' you just might freeze to death before the devil can strike."

"I'll take my chances." Val capped her jugs. Twice her feet tried to break into a run.

Val's nerves were still jangled when she climbed into the sweltering cab of her truck. She rolled up the windows and locked the door. Her head sank to the steering wheel.

Those whom the church cursed were feared. For a witch, fear was often terminal. Especially if said witch was as magic free as the rest of the populace. If what the mechanic said was even half true, Crane was a death trap for anyone branded.

So was this sun cursed desert. Val could do without food. She had enough water for another few days. But she had to have gas. There was nowhere to get that but Crane.

She blinked back the sting behind her eyes, heaved an unsteady breath and scrubbed her face with back of her hand. She cranked up the engine. For a heartbeat the motor sputtered, made like it was about to die and fired off a cannon blast. After sufficient complaint, the engine shook itself awake.

When Val's truck rattled into the station she kept her head ducked. She bounced on her toes while the vehicle's tank filled. Relief and even greater fear warred when the mechanic didn't show up to ogle.

She'd nearly made her way out of Crane when a cowboy strode into the road. She swung wide. He stepped in the truck's path. She sounded her horn. He held up his hand.

For a heartbeat, Val's foot hovered over the accelerator. Mere paces from the crazy-man she anchored the break against the floorboard. He walked his hands around the edge of her hood to her window. Hesitantly, she cracked it.

"Good God, woman. I thought you were going t' run me over. I'm Tom Goddard. I'm the Pastor of this here town.

"I know you're a stranger in these parts an' we ain't too keen on strangers no more. But I saw you at Blake's station there an' he must've told you what was goin' on. I ain't embarrassed to say, we need help." He waved towards a two couples with kids upon the curb. "We need to get them young ones out of this cursed place. Can I hire your truck? God'll bless y' if you give them a ride."

"I--" Screw that! Charity killed Pa.

When we stop helping one another, we all lose. It was Pa's voice.

Damn it! "--I can take two up front. The others will have to ride in back." The words clawed their way from her throat. "I can take them to Bend, if it's still there, or maybe the mountains. But we'll need water and food. Got that?"

He waved at the pile of goods accompanying the passengers. "Yup, mam, all right there." He wrestled the recalcitrant door ajar for Val.

She slid from the cab. The bill of her cap caught on the door-jam. For a heartbeat it held and then, tangling in her ponytail, it popped off.

Val slapped a hand over her brand. Tom's sun-toned face blanched.

"Witch." His utterance was no louder than a snake-belly on sand.

Val dove for the safety for her truck's cab. A hand caught the wheel. The other wrapped about the long unused seatbelt. Hands, not her own, wrapped about her belt.

Tom Goddard hauled her feet out from under her. Val's jean's cut into her waist.

One by one, Val's fingers peeled free of their grip. She screamed. Her face hit her seat, the truck's running board and the pavement. The cowboy pastor slung Val towards the curb.

Asphalt kissed hip, arm, shoulder, thigh and face in a sequence of brutal passion. She pitched supine within the arid gutter. The hellfire pastor advanced.

Tom's boot caught Val in the midriff. The blow lifted her over the curb to the dust lawn before the town's chapel.

"Witch!" He hurled a projectile.

Val curled in a ball. The rock ricochet from her shoulder.

Papa! You're wrong. Helping others kills. Papa!

Another stone hit. A screen door banged somewhere nearby. A newcomer bellowed his ill will. Boots and tennis-shoes surrounded Val. A blow hit so hard bile blew from her nose.

A shotgun blast silenced the crowd. "Get back. Get back! Goddard, you have no right!"

"No right? No right? Look at her, she's a witch! A branded witch!"

"I am looking at her, Tom. Witch or not, she's just a girl."

"God's condemned her!"

There was a chorus of agreement.

"But I haven't! And I'm the law in this town!"

Boots shuffled at these words. People muttered.

"Oh, for Christ's sake. Cole, she's a witch!"

"Do you know that? What witchery has she done?"

"She's branded!"

"And whoever branded her didn't see fit to kill her! Maybe they weren't certain. Did you think of that, Tom?"

Someone parted the forest of pant-legs within Val's field of vision. A new pair of boots planted themselves before her face. The barrels of an over-under twenty gauge pointed at the ground uncomfortably close.

"What are you going to do with her?" It was Tom's voice.

"Tend the damage you did. Then lock her up until this is sorted." The voice came from immediately overhead. "Show's over, folks. Go home."

"You can't just lock her up. What if she esc--"

"Go home, Goddard."

The newcomer's boots shifted. A hand grasped Val's upper arm. "Can you get up?"

Val pushed off the ground. The hand under her arm relieved much of her weight which was fortunate. Her abs were too pained to straighten and her left thigh was so bruised she hopped like a one legged chicken in order to maintain balance.

Her benefactor was fit, tall and broad shouldered. He, like Tom Goddard wore a cowboy hat. His vest sported an old west sheriff's star. She figured him to be between two and three times her age.

The sheriff helped her hop across the old highway and some three hundred paces south to a station that must've been a converted house. The steps were rough. She couldn't hop them and her gimp leg didn't wish to bear her weight.

"You got a name, miss?"

"Val. Valarie."

"Nice to meet you, Val. Me, I'm Cole. I'm the sheriff hereabouts." He paused. "I'm betting you figured that. Stand a moment."

Val balanced. He opened the door for her, broke open his over-under and followed her slow limp in.

The lights didn't work but there was enough sunlight and windows to illuminate the discouraging accommodations. The lower floor had largely been gutted to make one room. A bit of kitchen, a staircase and an exit to what Val presumed was the bathroom still bore testament to the residence it had once been. A washer and dryer hid under the stairs. An iron barred cell occupied half the room.

The cell currently held a cot and chamber pot. There was no privacy. The remaining furnishings, outside the cell, include a rough dining table and two wooden chairs.

"No electric. But the water's on propane. Shower in there works. Sorry, 'bout the towel. It's the only one I got. While you wash up, I'll bring your truck around. Any clothes? You're goin' t' want to change."

"Green duffel. In back."

"I'll grab it." He turned for the door and then looked back. "You won't run, will y'? Not sure I can save you from the devil crier a second time."

There was a joke there somewhere but it would've hurt to laugh. Val shook her head at Cole and hobbled towards the bathroom.

Between sink, shower and toilet there was almost no room to stand in the lavatory. Enough light filtered through the one window to illuminate the omnipresent soap scud and rust stains. But if it hadn't been for the pain, the shower might have fooled Val into believing she'd bypassed purgatory and gone straight to heaven.

The room was obscured in mist and the water cold when Val climbed out of the shower. A tightness in her stomach that had nothing to do with her beating uncoiled and drained through her. Where it washed her, her pain eased. The ugly ink blotch bruises that marred Val's flesh faded a little.

Sheriff Cole's muffled voice sounded from the other side of the door and turned her attention from her still tender flesh.

"Bag's outside the door. I'll be on the porch. Holler when it's all clear."

She dressed and called him in. Cole doffed his hat, lay his shotgun aside and tossed Val's car key to her.

He sized up her still rather dusty attire and pointed to her duffle. "Anything need washin' in that?"

"Everything."

"Copy that. I'll take care of it." He opened the cell door. "I'm afraid if anyone come looking y'd better be in there."

Val closed her eyes for a heartbeat. A sigh collapsed her breast. "'K'" She hobbled towards her cage. The pain no longer disabled her. She ignored his offered hand.

The clang as the cell door closed on her rear had a note of certitude.

"Here," Cole said. He passed her the cell key. "In case you need out in a hurry."

Val stared at the key. "I - I don't understand."

"If the devil monger or the beast comes you might not want to be stuck there. I suppose your witchery might stop the beast though I gather it wasn't useful against Goddard. Too bad really."

A stinging, bitter cloud boiled within her breast. "I don't have magic!"

"Didn't think so. Branded ones never do."

"Then why?" Val wasn't sure what she was asking.

"'Cause if I leave you out there, Goddard will kill y'"

Val lowered herself on the cot. Cole dragged her bag to the washing machine. Many of her whites were splotched with pink.

"I take it you don't separate?"

"Time. Coin. Last time I did wash was Salt Lake. Before--" She and Pa had been stoned. She'd been left for dead. Pa'd been dead.

Cole separated the less contaminated whites from the rest of the load. He lit the propane pilot and the machine thumped her laundry about like a boulder in a gravel mill.

"So how'd you get it? The brand. What'd you do?"

The wash banged and bumped for a good minute before Val answered.

"It was the water sickness. Kyle, my brother, he had it bad. Don't know if he swam in an open pond or drank something he shouldn't've. Doctor couldn't save him. No one could." She stared at the ceiling for a few heartbeats.

"It was my turn to keep watch. He was just lying there. Breath rattling. It hurt to breathe. It hurt just watching. I - It hurt just watching.

"I gave him some ditch weed. You know, marijuana. It grows wild in Kansas. Not very potent but I thought it'd ease the pain." She fell silent.

"I take it, it cured him?"

"Yeah." A dozen heartbeats passed. "They said he'd been called by God. They said only the devil could've cured him. They said I must have made a deal with Satan himself. " More seconds thudded by in time with the washing machine clatter. "Pastor was goin' t' burn me after the branding. Pa got me away. Ma stayed with Kyle. We ran."

"Damn Church. Man's got enough problems with God without them mucking it up. Too bad though."

"Yeah." The cot and her unexpected cleanliness were lulling her to sleep.

"Might've done some good if you'd had magic. Might've put the idiot Pastor down at least."

"Yeah." Slumber's alternate universe swallowed her whole.

When Val woke it was dark. The washing machine was no longer beating her clothes. Perhaps it was the silence that had woken her.

Beyond the wall, voices whispered. "Remember, just keep going, as far as you can."

Someone agreed. A child's voice piped up for her Mommy. A woman hushed it. A car door slammed.

Val leapt from her cot. Outside the barred window Pastor Goddard was handing a child to a woman in the bed of Val's truck. A man was clambering up to join her in back. Another couple sat up front. There was a spark in the cab and the old jalopy sputtered. A dynamite blast exploded from the truck's tailpipe. A soot stench joined the smoky flavor of the evening air.

"Hey! Wait! That's mine! Thief!" Val shook the bars over the window. Only her bones rattled.

Val leapt to the cell door. She fumbled the key. It tumbled beyond the bars. Outside her truck's transmission ground and popped. She stretched on her belly for the key and hooked it with a finger. She wrested open the door, scooped up the over-under and a dozen shells still upon the table. She burst from the house.

Her truck was already turning into the road. Val sprinted into the street in its wake.

"Damn it! I knew Cole wouldn't kill you." Pastor Goddard stepped into her path.

She careened off him. He grabbed her arm. She wrested free but stumbled off stride. His revolver came free of its holster. Val knocked Tom's aim wide with the butt of her gun.

Terror borrowed a woman's voice. Tom's and Val's gaze leapt down the street in unison.

Something huge moved through the truck's headlights. The jalopy swerved. The scream of shredded steal tore the night. A black ball ripped the driver's door free of its hinges. Woman and man tumbled from the passenger side. The shadow leapt through the car at them.

The vehicle smacked the curb. Its bed bucked. Occupants flew out. The bear launched itself after the fleeing driver.

A shot sounded. Sparks, like those stirred from a campfire, spit from the monster's hide as though the beast were a bearskin stuffed with coals. Five more shots sounded. The beast turned on Goddard.

Val ripped her gaze from the charging horror. Shells scattered at Val's feet. She managed to get two of them in their chambers.

Six more shots sounded. Charcoal stuffing spit from the bear. The beast bowled over Goddard. It grabbed the Cowboy Pastor's shoulder and shook him like a dog killing a cat.

Val sighted the twenty gauge. The smoky bear was only two strides distant. Like a boiler building pressure, the tightness in her gut re-blossomed. It filled her body to near-rupture.

She fired.

An internal eruption within Val reached out through her gun and raced the shot. A forest-fire conflagration shredded the bear's flesh. Like a beat rug, soot exploded from its hair.

Tom Goddard crashed to the pavement some ten paces distant. A furnace blast roar curled Val's hair.

Val's gun bucked again. This time a geyser force sped with it.