As I sit down to write down these events, I am taken aback by the fear and the impending doom that permeates me to my very soul. I fear that it must be told, however, as injustice has become justice, and soon I fear that justice shall knock upon my door. Mary Wampman, Harvey’s meek and humble wife of 18 years, the barren womb of Eustice County, is the devil incarnate, and my soul is on her list, I can feel it. Headless John Witherby was the most recent confirmation. There have been many others, and there needs to be a record of what has happened, should I disappear from God’s green earth entirely. This is the testament for Henry Wamble and I attest that it is the truth as far as I know it.
Mary tried to blink the crust from her eye without much luck. The swelling and the bruising was just too much for her weakened state to contend with, but in the meek firelight of her lone candle that she dared to light for fear of awakening her husband, she could barely see. Tonight was a bad one. He had come home, without the trophies that he expected from a good hunt, and couldn’t contain the rage that came with his lack of success. Mary’s face had paid the toll that must be paid for her husband’s contentment.
He wasn’t always this way. The anger had blossomed fully over quite a few years, but the spark that ignited the flame of his insatiable punishment was surely lit by him realizing that she was barren and could bear him no child. At first he relegated it to coincidence, but the doctors had blamed him considering the age difference between them. He was twenty years her senior which her own father had taken for a sign of stability and maturity. It was of course unacceptable to place blame on himself, so surely their lack of children must fall on her shoulders. He displayed his authority and masculinity with his fist. At first only a few times a year, but now? It seemed to take very little to send him into a fit of wrath with her as the obvious target.
Tonight was the usual. His empty hands on the tail of a hunt were clearly reason enough for him to strike her down. It only took a few hits until he took to the bottle and drank himself into a slumber, so now she sat alone in the dark nursing her wounds by candlelight. She dabbed the myriad of cuts on her face, some days old and some an hour fresh with a wet cloth and grimaced against the pain. The myriad of wounds that she had collected were beginning to forge something inside of her, though she wasn’t quite sure what it was, only that it gave her a glimmer of hope for a way out.
The next day, she awakened, Harvey Wampman still snoring in the chair that he had fallen asleep on. The sight of the drool that dangled from his bottom lip like a spider upon its web made her turn her head away from him in disgust. She maintained her silence and her care in moving quietly, hoping to relish in the delight of her own company and thoughts without the uncertainty of the mood that he may find himself in upon awakening. She picked up the empty mason jar that once held the burning liquor that sent him into his self induced coma last night and took it outside, making sure that the back door didn’t creak as she exited it.
Wandering to the creek, she washed the jar which in turn helped wash her mind clean of the events that she had endured last night. Something about the sound of the babbling water behind their house always seemed to calm her. Admittedly having to walk by the skinning racks in the back yard to get here was sometimes more unnerving than she wanted it to be. Although Harvey was a fur trader and was able to fill their pantry because of it, something about seeing the lifeless pelts of the woodland creatures splayed unnaturally out on wooden posts in the yard made her head spin. She didn’t know if it was because of the fact that they were dead, or more likely she presumed that it was because she knew that they had found their deaths at the hands of such an ungrateful man. To hear him talk, they should be willing to give their lives to him more often than they already did, and worse yet, when they didn’t, he took it upon himself to loose his frustrations about it onto her. Everything was a reminder of the fear and the shame of that for Mary. She couldn’t help but draw a line between everything in her life and the hands of a callous husband.
She remembered the day that he had asked her father for her hand in marriage. She was just a child at the time at 18 years young, how could she have known who she was relinquishing her life to at the time? Her father was as dazzled by his shiny carriage and draft horses as she was when he came pulling up the dirt drive to their homestead. She saw images of a knight in shining armor when she saw his neatly starched white linen shirt and the silvery black top hat that he had worn that day. He was an alderman in the county seat, and it was an honor for him to come calling on her. He had steeled away a kiss or two courteously after church service, though she welcomed them in the trance that she had fallen under through his silky smooth vernacular and self sure actions.
It had been ten years since, and they hadn’t been kind ones. Her father had died, and her brother was at the whim of her husband as the former had been given a job by the latter shortly after they wed. At the time it seemed like just another example of her starstruck luck for having found a husband such as he. Now, however it was a curse, as she had no one to turn to when the times turned dire such as they were now. Even if she were to tell Henry of her husband’s abuse, he would simply shush her and tell her not to speak ill of a man who did so much for her and him the same.
So as she looked at the beavers and the lone coyote that were strung splayed across their drying racks this morning, she realized that she had forgotten that these creatures belonged to God and the trees. It all made sense why her stomach jerked into a knot when she walked by them, all light gone from their eyes. Now the trees and perhaps God, if there was one, were her only friends and confidantes. Every day she sent her worries and cares into their woody branches as she sat by the creek, and let her prayers fall on their silent limbs. Just as if They heard her, the wind rustled their verdant crowns high above her and sighed as if they were woeful to her. This made her smile and filled her with sadness all at the same time.
Later that day, Harvey came out of the house carrying his rifle over his shoulder. He walked to the back of the same wagon that had made such an impression on her so many years ago in her father’s front yard as it rounded the bend and put the rifle inside of it. Now the wagon was something that she loved to see missing from her vision as it meant that Harvey wasn’t around. Seeing her across the yard from a hundred yards away he amplified his voice accordingly.
“Hitch th’ damned horses! Somebody has to get some work done!”
And so she did. She brought the two reluctant Shires from out of their pasture where they lazed in the shade of a fig tree and gently placed their harness, bridles, and collars on and hitched them to the cart. From an onlooker who wasn’t familiar they would have seen an expert stable hand at work, but the appreciation was lost on Harvey as he grunted at her.
“About damned time. ‘Fore long it will be too dark to hunt!”
He snatched the reigns from her and climbed up onto the wagon, clapping the horses haunches with the reigns causing them to sidle down the driveway and out of sight. God willing he would bring home something to celebrate tonight. She cursed under her breath knowing that wishing the death of another creature to spare the rod to her was selfish, but as she still felt the swelling around her eye sockets from the night before and the stinging split in her lip, her selfishness faded a bit around the edges. She couldn’t take another night like that.
Mary spent the rest of the day doing the things that truly brought her a bit of solace in her solitude. She picked some weeds from the tilled pathways in the gardens so that the corn and the beans didn’t have to share their soil with them. Later she milked the cow and threw some stale grain to the chickens. She took in the laundry from the lines having painstakingly bleached and starched the white sheets and white shirts, just the way that he liked them. She lit a fire in the cook stove and brought a cauldron of water to a boil on its hot surface where she threw in a sack of beans and the leftover ham bone that she had saved from last week’s meal to let the beans start the slow process of turning into dinner. Once she was satisfied at the bubbling from the cast iron vessel. She choked the fire down and walked back outside to the creek.
Kneeling on her knees she saw the tiny minnows darting around under the surface of the water. And smiled at their delicate dance. Focusing her vision, she could see her reflection staring back at her in the water’s reflection. She could see the damage to her face and instinctively jerked her head away from the makeshift mirror. As she did so she heard a loud snap from across the creek on the other side. Jerking her head in the direction of the noise, there she saw her full of grace and bottled fury. A mountain lion.
Mary froze and began a staring contest with the elegant killer who watched her from across the water. Her fur was shiny in the afternoon sunlight, and its eyes held a wisdom that she couldn’t remember ever being privy to witnessing. They were deep and black and rimmed with gold. They didn’t exude anger, no, they looked as if they were full of…was that sorrow? A piece of her frozen heart melted as she stared at the face of the wild feline some thirty yards away from her. She knew at that moment that it meant her no harm. Without making another sound, the cat slinked off into the dark of the forest beyond as Mary sat on her knees and wept.
The soup was done and she ate her small helping, leaving the rest to stay hot on the stove. She retreated into her bedroom, lit her lone candle, and began to read with a chorus of cicadas and frogs forming the backdrop to her solace. She had been reading for a while when a ruckus could be heard in front of the house on the opposite end of where she was. She tensed and the goosebumps formed on her skin before she had time to think about them being there. She felt a pang of relief when she heard laughter. Not daring to leave the house without an invitation to do so, she strained her ears to try and pick up a hint of what the cause of the elation might be.
She heard in a partially drunken voice that of her brother and her husband in fragmented sentences.
“…sure is a beauty, I haven’t see none around in years!”
“…it didn’t even try to run away, it was meant to be…”
“…help me get a hook in it so we can hang it and skin it!”
So they had been successful in their hunt this evening. Her heart felt sorrow at the loss of life like it always did when they came home successful. She also felt relief at the possibility of being forgotten as a target for the evening forming a conglomeration of conflicting emotions. She crept toward the window that peered out over the backyard to see what the excitement was about. As she peered through the window cautiously she was taken aback by the eyes that were staring back at her from the bed of the wooden wagon. Gazing lifelessly, its head dangling haphazardly backwards over the rear of the wagon’s edge, two golden eyes shone in the waning evening light. It was a mountain lion, sleek and beautiful and…dead.
Her husband had somehow killed one of the mysteries of the forest and brought its body home as a trophy. She knew without knowing for certain that it was the same visitor that had regaled her with her presence earlier in the evening. She watched with an overwhelming sense of sadness as Harvey and Henry spent a great effort pulling the feline from the back of the wagon and onto the ground where they had spread an old woven blanket onto the ground. She watched the once great muscled haunches of the great cat fall onto the blanket where they drug it toward the barn. It would no doubt fetch a hefty price one the market, and she became internally angered at the pride that her husband must be feeling right now. She sulked back to her bedroom and relegated herself to a night of fitful dreams, Harvey never coming to call on her.
The next morning was much the same as the last, her emerging cautiously from the back bedroom and creeping into the house to find Harvey passed out drunk on the chair. She slinked by him and out of the door into the sunshine and the mild temperatures in the haven of the outdoors. She didn’t want to look but couldn’t help it as she walked into the vicinity of the barn and caught a glimpse of the great cat’s pelt stretched across a wooden rack in the shade of the barn’s walls. It had been skinned down to nothing but a sheath of its former self, nothing but skin stretched wide as if it were grotesquely lounging.
Her heart was full of grief as she approached the cat with reluctance in every step. Finally she made it to its side, still smelling the iron of its blood lingering in the air. Where once were golden eyes were now skinned to hollow holes in what remained of its skull’s covering. The majesty was gone, and only a ghost of its former self remained in the golden fur stretched tight across the skinning rack. Before she realized that her emotions were coming to life on her face, she felt her tears welling at the corners of her eyes, and saw flickering flashbacks of the creature on the far bank of the creek watching her with its compassionate and sorrowful eyes. She didn’t know how it had come full circle to become a victim of her husband’s hunt, but it had and here it stood as a testament to what she could only call his cruelty. She was angry and sad and the plethora of emotions perhaps caused her to lose a part of her mind. She was on the verge of a decision that was foreign to her. She was on the verge of defiance.
Breaking her train of thought she heard a clumsily slamming door to the house. Before she had time to react, her husband Harvey was striding across the yard, still staggering off the remnants of the last night’s drunk. He was ambling listlessly across the green and leaf strewn lawn, closing the gap between them with intent. She tried from this distance to detect any hints of rage or anger on his face, and felt the rush of adrenaline send ice water and fear through her veins. From the anger and sadness, defiance and fear that she had experienced over such a short while, she felt her temples begin to throb and her vision go blurry. She steadied herself against the rough wooden pole of the drying rack, held her breath to calm her breathing, and cleared her mind to settle into herself. No matter the result of her husband’s words to come, something had changed in her. She could feel it.
“Hell you think yer doin’ out here woman? Admiring the trophy I see. Beauty ain’t it?” He said with pride and a bit of hatred and prejudice as he lustily eyed the pelt hanging beside her. “Get your hand off-it!” He said as he smacked her hand off of the post, Mary not realizing until now that it was touching the golden fur that was now collecting glints of sunlight on its surface. She held her wrist in meek subservience and hung her head in instinct. “This’n here will fetch a pretty penny, it will. Ain’t been one on the market that I’ve seen in many a year. Yes sir, she will fill the pockets!” He was brushing the fur with his grubby nailed and soiled hand lovingly, as if it were a deer fawn in need of care.
Reflex kicked in as she watched him stroke the natural gilded husk of a pelt and felt that foreign rage turning the edges of her vision red. She grabbed his wrist to stop the affront to such majesty that she couldn’t bare to watch any longer. She didn’t say a word, but she watched Harvey’s expression change. The previously relaxed and open palm that he was using to stroke the pelt slowly tightened into the knot of a fist that he quickly used as a weapon to strike her unconscious.
When she awakened, still laying in the dirt at the foot of the drying rack, Henry, her brother loomed over her, gently patting her face as if he was afraid of shattering it and whispering “Mary. Wake up. Mary, can you hear me?” Her eyes focused and found him with a gentle and worried look on his face, darting his glance over his shoulder periodically as if he was prey keeping watch from a predator. “You have to get up. I know you don’t want to but you have to. I have the wagon hitched and we are going back to the woods this evening. Harvey has blood lust. After killing this cat last night, his eyes are wild and his heart is poisoned to wanting more of them. He’s sure there are others out there, and he won’t be hearing that there is no going back to the woods to find his trophies. If he sees you laying here at the foot of his prize, he’s going to remember why he put you on the ground to begin with, and you don’t deserve that!”
The wrinkle behind Henry’s eyebrows deepened with worry as he pleaded with Mary to leave. She sat up from the ground, her head spinning. Her eye was swollen shut again, she could feel the resistance when she tried to open it further. She didn’t say a word. She felt sorry for Henry the way that she felt sorry for herself up until this afternoon, but something had changed in her. She patted his cheek, watching the confusion in his eyes as she did so, stood up, steadied herself, and walked into the forest to hide. She knew that look on his face. It was the same fear that she had abided for so many years at the hands of a cruel man. He was cruel to Henry too, but in a different way. He held him with obligation and the promise of money in his wallet. The fur trade paid him well, and he was afraid to lose the income, and afraid of the man who wielded all of the power to give it to him over his head as an act of domination. He had turned a blind eye to his sister’s abuse for years, but she didn’t blame him. Fear was a powerful drug, and Harvey wielded it like an artist.
Hiding in the tree line, Harvey never said a word about Mary as they put their rifles into the wagon and rode off into the distance in search of more gold in the form of flesh and bone. When the sound of the hooves and the creak of the wagon wheel were gone, she came out of the wood line and found her eyes still drifting to the remnants of the cat that had once felt woe for her. She knew what she was going to do.
Everyone in town knew her, and worse, knew her husband. On the streets of the town he was the courteous and regal man that she had been tricked into marrying many years ago. They saw him as a cornerstone of commerce and a kind man who asked after the wellbeing of families and children. He gave peppermint candies to the children in town, and kissed the hands of their mothers in submissive kindness. He shook hands firmly with the men when they crossed their paths and lightened their wallets when he sold them the pelts at a “discount” to make profit off of when they traveled. He was respected and liked. She had also heard the whispers under breath when she was around them. Words like “barren” and “childless” echoed in their vernacular as if they were punctuated and pierced into her mind when she heard them. They were kind enough, but they judged her. To them she was the reason that Harvey had no children of his own, so her trips into town around the others that she used to love had withered into mere sporadic trips out of necessity or obligation to her husband’s demands when he couldn’t be bothered with it. All of this is said to speak to the great difficulty she had always had when she chanced the notion of leaving this place. Leaving her husband and the town that held reverence from him. She was frightened to even fathom such an act, but tonight something was different.
Seeing the drying pelt of the graceful huntress lifeless on the rack had changed something within her, and now when she prodded the thought of leaving, the timid nature of the act had faded, and now she had a sense of certainty and, dare she admit it, hope. She had decided that she was leaving. And she knew how it was to be done. She walked into the vacated house and gathered a few pawns of cornbread from the stove and wrapped them in a cloth dishrag. She gathered a box of matches and a bundle of candles. She wrapped all of her supplies in a pillow case and slung it over her shoulder. That would do. She changed into a pair of overalls that she had been hiding from Harvey. He wouldn’t have his woman not wearing a dress. They felt natural to her. As a child its all that she wore since they were practical and gave her many pockets to stash acorns or hickory nuts, flowers and berries. Whatever pretty thing the world had offered her she could carry hands-free in the denim pockets. This served to steel her will toward the act that she was about to do. Not taking another glance back, she left the confines of the house, her prison, and walked toward the barn.
She stood at the head of the stretched hide of the once graceful feline and said a silent prayer to herself. It was a prayer of thanks and sorrow, shame and honor, and the words were only for her, though she hoped that the animal that she traded glances with a few days ago could somehow hear her. After she was finished she grabbed a small knife from the waist of her overalls and began cutting at the lashings that held the pelt taut at the corners. She then pulled the nails from the perimeter of the pelt that held it to the drying board one at a time until the skin was a bundle in her hand. The hide smelled of earth and of iron. It smelled like a memory that wasn’t hers, and she was glad to partake in its mysteries. She pulled the skin over her shoulders into a makeshift cape, the skin of the head over her own, and she slinked off into the wood line.
She would follow the creek. It meandered around town without actually penetrating its interior, and in her disguise she hoped to leave every thought of her behind as she made her way toward an unknown destination somewhere far beyond the edges of the life that she had led for thirty plus years. She was making her great escape, finally. She knew that the courage wasn’t hers. It was gifted to her by this creature that she now wore on her back. It was nearly 3 miles to the town’s borders, so she took her time, plenty of daylight left to trek. She was careful as she walked, but gained confidence in the noise of the rushing water that ran to her left through the creek bed. Occasionally she could hear hoof steps or talking coming from the direction of the road, so she would slow down and steady her breath until they passed and she could resume her forward momentum. She felt as if she was shedding weight with every step that she took away from the house that had been her prison. This felt right, this felt just and true. Occasionally she would stroke the fur of the pelt that she wore in admiration of the elegant beauty that it held. It’s colors changed with the light that found it and it was sometimes golden, sometimes flat as dried hay, but always beautiful. She felt regal wearing it, but more importantly she felt safe. The mountain lion as her protector gave her confidence and surety.
As her steps drew her closer to town and further from the house, she felt a tug of fear at the corners of her soul. There was a dread inside of her, and she tried to tamp it down and discard it as mere paranoia but it nagged at her. It tugged at the corners of her mind letting her know to be cautious, so she was. She took each step with purpose, and that purpose was stealth and cunning. The leaves on the ground barely made a sound as she picked her way along the banks of the creek, somewhere deep in the forest. She had started regaining her confidence until it was shattered with one sound that sliced through the bowels of the forest. The voice of her husband.
She could hear Harvey and Henry talking, and she could hear the general direction that it was coming from, but Mary felt suddenly naked and exposed, like all of the eyes in the trees were watching her, knowing that she was an imposter trying to intrude on their world. She found a clump of scrub brush, and crouched down into it, the pelt of the mountain lion covering everything that was her true form from the light of day. She was peering out of the holes that used to be the golden eyes of the beast, using them as windows into the foreign world around her. She could see the leaves of the small trees and plants around her shuddering in the breeze, quaking as if they were in fear for her more than themselves. The sounds of the voices was getting closer. She could tell that they were in front of her, and before much time at all had passed, the steps in the leaves accented the chorus of conversation. They were walking in her direction.
Making a decision in fear and uncertainty, Mary decided that the cover provided to her by the pelt of the mountain lion would have to be enough to shield her from discovery. It was too late to move, they were too close, and any bit of movement from where she was crouched would serve no purpose other than to reveal her location. Her stomach turned at the thought of her husband finding her so far from home, alone, and in possession of his prized trophy. She started praying silently to herself, and before she realized that she was doing it, she was whispering the repeating prayer.
“Dear lord, and forest and trees, shield me from the eyes of the man who seeks to harm me. If I am found give me the courage to face him and not cower. Give me the strength to face what must be faced. I have listened and you have brought me to where I am, so see through that which is to be. Grant me peace, and if I can’t have peace, grant me vengeance.”
She whispered this over and over, clutching the wooden handle of the well worn kitchen knife that she wore in the waist of her overalls. Over and over she whispered, sometimes eyes closed, sometimes with the courage to look through the eye holes of the mountain lion pelt, hungry for a vision of the thing that threatened her escape. The thing that had tormented her for nearly a decade. The thing that was her husband. When she clearly heard their voices, as if they were in an adjacent room, and the leaf crunching footsteps had stopped, she held her breath. the prayer still rattling around in her mind like a marble in a coffee can. It was her mantra.
“Not a damn thing. We hafta keep looking. Where there’s one there’s another’un, they have mates. I told you it was closer to the house than where we started. Teach me to listen to a damned fool like you Henry”
Her husband said with anger under his breath. She caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye. His rifle was at his shoulder, but relaxed, waiting to be drawn to target at a moment’s notice.
“I won’t settle for another deer for today. I want that other cat!”
There was that anger. That natural state of existence that she had learned, the hard way, over time that encompassed her husband. She could tell that there was frustration in his voice.
“I figure within the next mile we should be seein’ a sign. We aren’t far from where I killed the last ‘un. In fact, I think we are right on the spot. It was right around…”
Mary noticed that on the ground under her guise of fur and skin, right where she was kneeling…there was dried blood. She cursed under her breath and felt uncontrolled tears welling up in her eyes blurring her vision. She had crouched right where this creature had lost her life. She brought it back to its death bed. She was a monster for doing that. Of course this would be where she found herself. Curse her damned luck! She realized that the footsteps…and the voices had stopped. Her blood turned to ice water and she squinted away her tears, looking through the small holes of the used-to-be-eyes, trying to determine her danger.
Harvey put a hand on Henry to hold him back and to keep from moving. The look that he glanced to him was full of vitriol and excitement. He looked back toward the direction of Mary, crouched under a cat’s hide, and smiled. His pupils focused and he raised his rifle after pointing directly at her. Pushing the wooden butt of the rifle into his cheek, he went rigid, pulled the trigger until a click and a sizzle of gunpowder preceded a mighty boom that broke the serenity of the forest. Mary saw the smoke trailing up from the barrel of the rifle. She felt warm. And wet. She looked down at her chest and saw the well of blood blossoming from her blouse through the bib of the overalls. She didn’t feel pain, but a new beam of sunlight was penetrating the cover of the hide through a newly formed hole right through where its rib cage would have been. The tear finally fell from its perch on her eyelashes and she smiled. She felt a sense of relief, even, knowing that it was all over. Her disguise had been her death sentence, but death was a release. She couldn’t be imprisoned if she were dead. She found peace in that. But then…
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Mary felt the hide tightening around her. It didn’t hurt, and she wasn’t scared, but what was once flaccid skin and hair was starting to form around her, conforming to her shape and her features. The eye holes to the pelt cinched up tightly to her face an her eyes were pressed against them, opening up the periphery of her vision. She felt as if the makeshift cloak had swapped roles with her. Where she was once wearing the bolt of skin and hair, it was now…wearing her. She still didn’t feel pain, but she felt a strength welling up inside of her. She felt courage and she felt clarity. She felt, not rage, but dominance. She was beginning to feel power and blood and courage all welling up inside of her veins, pushing her toward the brink of transformation within what was once a timid and fearful woman. She felt sure.
Harvey smiled and let out an exhilarated “Yoooooooop!!!” as he relished in another kill of a mountain lion. He turned to Henry and punched him jovially on the shoulder.
“I told ya! I told ya there was another’un out here! There’s always more’n one of them! I told ya!”
He did a little dance of excitement and turned back toward what used to be his wife. He could see the creature breathing slowly behind the squatty privet hedge that it had fallen behind. Sensing that it was still alive, he went to pack another piece of wadding, powder, and a ball into his rifle. His hands were shaking feeling the anticipation of claiming its prize.
Mary could see clearly. More than clearly. She could see with a vision stronger than anything that she had ever known before. The world was in black and white now, all color had passed, but it was in high definition. She sensed movement as small as an ant crawling up the bark exterior of a loblolly pine. She could sense the leaf that fell onto the surface of the babbling creek as if she were mere inches from it. And the smells. She could smell the sour sweat of her husband and her brother, even from 50 yards away. She could smell the sweet acrid breath of a man who had been drinking liquor within the last hour. She could hear as well. She could hear the blood coursing through their veins. She could hear the flutter of wings in the distance as a bird took flight. She could hear the gentle hum of insect wings somewhere in the distance. And she felt.
She felt powerful. She stood to her feet, feeling 6 feet on the ground solidly. No that couldn’t be right. Peering down she had taken the form of a mountain lion. It’s muscles tight as sinew beneath her skin. The skin that once belonged to the woodland sentinel on the river bank was now somehow hers. And she saw her haunches, behind a second set of legs. She counted 6 legs in total, muscles tightened, ready to pounce. It felt normal, as if she had gained legs but not lost her own. So she pounced.
Henry saw the beast rear up from behind the shrubbery. At first he wiped his eyes, Harvey still fidgeting with and cursing at the wadding in the end of his rifle. His eyes were deceiving him. This couldn’t be real. In front of him on its front legs, standing at least 8 feet tall to its head was something that he couldn’t comprehend. It held the form of a mountain lion but it was greater. It was bigger and something wasn’t quite right with its shape. It’s teeth glinted in the sunlight, two rows of them standing longer than a carrot. Teeth meant to destroy whatever touched them. The beast took one step, then two, then six. It was advancing on them. Henry stood in fear, unable to coerce his legs to move. How could they when they were frozen with the glimpse of a six-legged killer who was intolerant of their presence. He felt his pants warm as the blood stilled in his veins. He had pissed himself at the mere sight of this…could it even be called a cat? It was a killer, he knew that to his core. It was as plain to him as it was that a cow birthed calves and that birds built nests. This creature was destruction and death itself, and its ominous size was the punctuation on that fact.
Harvey still hadn’t gotten his rifle loaded. He was yelling at Henry asking for his when he cut off his own sentence in catching a glance of the monster that stalked them. Harvey could do nothing but freeze and fall to his knees. It was the last action he would ever perform. Henry watched as the mongrel took two paces and then leapt into the air, finding a landing on top of Harvey with a sickening wet thud. Henry ran, and Harvey didn’t have time to scream.
Mary didn’t even think about killing him. She just did the act with satisfaction. She felt Harvey’s bones break under the weight of her front paws as she took one bite and then spit his head over her shoulder and into the creek. Harvey Wampman was no more. He crumbled like ash at her will, and his life was stricken from the page of the living and cast into oblivion. She watched as her brother ran away into the horizon of the trees and disappeared.
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“All of this is true, I swear it on my condemned soul. I am Henry Wamble, and the beast is my sister. She has taken to the grave more souls than I can remember over the last year, and my fitful dreams of what she has done haunt my sleepless addled mind. She will kill again. It will be a man. The more that the widows and the daughters come forward, the more fervor she finds in which to kill with. There are a myriad of stories that have been told, and part of the farce of them is on my shoulders. Every ear that hears them changes them into legend and Eustice County finds itself with few men and even less women to occupy it. The woods are cursed with the presence of Mary Wampman, and I fear that all of my years of turning a blind eye to her plight has granted me this curse in which I deserved. Watching Harvey fall like a house of cards in a few mere breaths has taught me that the man needn’t be feared, but the will of my sister should prevail in the end. I have heard her called many things, but the one that stuck is a euphemism of her last name. She is being called the Wampus cat now in a twisting of the vernacular I suppose, but nonetheless her legend is spreading with each life she takes, never a woman’s. She even killed Pastor Cleburne, on the very night that I confessed these sins to him. I saw his daughter smile as she let me out of the church, as if she knew what fate was holding for her father. She has gone on to tell of his beatings and inappropriateness from the day he adopted her. Whether it is true or not, when I see her on the streets she narrows her eyes and smiles at me, like she knows my fate as well. I leave you with this story, not as a man outside of his mine, but as a testament to what we have borne upon this land. No longer are you safe from the judgement of her eyes and the vengeance of her teeth. God help our souls.”
Henry put down his quill pen and stretched his fingers from the cramps of writing. He folded the parchment, and sealed it with his fathers wax signet. That’s when he felt his hair stand on end. He turned around just in time to see the golden eyes discerning him from the window. All that was heard was the glass as it crashed to the wooden floor, Henry closed his eyes and didn’t make a sound.