A Hard Witching (10 page)

“Isn’t that just the way,” she said to herself rather good-naturedly, “and Mr. Crosie gone not eight months.”

But when she checked the rest of the faucets in the house—first remembering to remove the tarts from the oven—and then the outside taps, only to find they all rasped dryly, she realized she might have a bigger problem on her hands. She frowned and propped her fists on her hips, surveying the farmyard through narrowed eyes, as if she might spot new misfortunes lurking among the neat red and white granaries.

“It doesn’t rain,” she said aloud, “but it pours.”

Much to Edna’s dismay, Heddy Kretsch said a similar thing that afternoon in the church basement as she watched Edna arrange butter tarts on a large paper doily the unseasonal shape of a snowflake. Edna was embarrassed about the doily and annoyed that Heddy, of all people, had seen it. But Heddy paid it no attention, interested as she was in the knowledge that Edna’s well had gone dry.

“There’s one thing you can count on sure,” Heddy said. “Trouble comes in threes.” And then, as if to confirm the fact, she lifted two spidery fingers in the shape of a V. “That’s two.”

Edna bit her lip. It would take Heddy to say something like that. Likely as not, she was drunk. No wonder most people wouldn’t give her the time of day. Just goes to show, Edna
thought, just goes to show. She pointedly edged the Tupperware container of tarts away from Heddy, who, fingering them as she spoke, turned them slowly, like dials. It was a well-known fact that Heddy’s hands were never what you’d call clean.

“You better watch out,” Heddy said. “You got one more coming.”

“Oh, baloney,” Edna said. “Silliness. And superstition. I’ve got no truck with that nonsense.” Nor for you either, she wanted to add, but instead said, “No good Christian should.” This was a direct jab at the Kretsches, always the first to arrive and the last to leave, be it church or bar. She snapped the lid back on the Tupperware container and waved tightly to Leona Hilling two tables down, hoping she might take the hint and step over for a chat. She did not.

“I don’t know,” Heddy said. “Your well gone dry”—she shook her head slowly, sorrowfully—“and the grass not even grown over Alf’s grave.”

Edna flinched at the sound of Mr. Crosie’s name on those lips. She set her jaw and fixed her eyes firmly on a jumble of canvas banners rolled up and leaning against each other in the far corner. One had unravelled a bit and Edna could read, in faded purple lettering,
hine is the kingdo.

“Edna,” Heddy said sharply, rapping her knuckles three times against the table, “what you got is no ordinary well run dry. What you got,” she said, “is a haint.”

Edna, who at first thought Heddy’d said
hate,
stood there slightly surprised and disturbed at the word.

“I don’t
hate,”
she began distinctly.

“Haint,”
Heddy stressed, taking pains to enunciate each letter, “you got a
haint.
And he drunk up all your water. Ghosts are thirsty—”

“Ghosts!” Edna could not think of anything to add. She was certain now: Heddy was drunk.

“Water’s the first thing they look for,” Heddy went on reasonably. “You get you some buckets of water and set them all around your bed in a kind of horseshoe shape.”

Edna shivered. Mr. Crosie standing silent in his funeral clothes each night by the cold blue light of the moon. Stupid, she thought then, don’t be stupid, Edna, you were dreaming. In a dream, she thought, anything is possible.

“Rod’s sister in Val Marie,” Heddy was saying. “She give her husband a real nice funeral and didn’t wear nothing but black and went to the cemetery every day to sit by his grave and cry like there was no tomorrow—more fool her because I known him all my life just about and he was worth maybe three tears at best. But she done everything she could so Marv, that’s her husband, didn’t have nothing to complain about, so to speak. But then she started finding her geese dead, necks broke, just laid out in the yard every morning. There wasn’t no blood, so she knew it wasn’t dogs or coyotes or skunks or nothing. It was a haint for sure. So she up and put out buckets of water like I said and goose feathers around her bed and sprinkled pepper around all the doors and windows—”

“Stop it,” Edna said.

“Your haint found its own water,” Heddy went on.

“Speak like a Christian, for heaven’s sake,” Edna snapped. “You’re in a church.”

They stared at each other across the table. Then Heddy pursed her lips, as if considering something.

“If you believe in God,” she said flatly, “you believe in ghosts.”

For a moment, Edna could not think of a reply, and so she just stood there, feeling the slow, hot beat of her pulse in her temples until Heddy shrugged and plucked a pastry crumb from the edge of the table, rolling it between her fingertips. “All I’m saying is it’s better to be prepared. Call it what you
want.” Then she leaned in so close, Edna could feel sour breath against her face. “Acts of God,” she whispered. And popping the crumb in her mouth, she walked away, her thin legs moving sharp and precise as the blades of scissors.

Edna fumed. Heddy—how dare she. Her and that whole pack of dirty, drunken Kretsches and their scrawny, ragged, thieving kids and never a penny to their names—yes, they should be the ones to talk about God. Shouldn’t they just. Then, watching Heddy poke her way alone and ignored from table to table, hands jammed deep in the pockets of her dirty brown coat, not buying anything (of course not, how could she?), Edna relented a little. Judge not, lest ye be judged, she thought. There was a lot of truth in that. It was something Mr. Crosie had always said, and she’d almost always given her wholehearted assent. Y
es, indeed, you said it, Mr. Crosie, that’s for sure. Judge not.
It was a good motto to live by. Also, There but for the grace of God go I. That was a good one, too.

Edna watched Heddy slip something from the crafts table into the pocket of her coat, something glittery and round, a Christmas ornament perhaps. For a moment, Edna was delighted with the grace of the motion, with the way the silvery object had flashed briefly, then disappeared into that dark pocket like a falling star. But as soon as she’d thought it, the beauty was gone. Isn’t that just the way, she thought then. The minute you’re inclined to think charitably of someone, they go and do a thing like that. There but for the grace of God, indeed. How about, You reap what you sow? You reap what you sow (even Mr. Crosie would have agreed with her there), be it in this life or the next. And where would they be—people like the Kretsches—on that final day? Not burned up in hell-fire, Edna didn’t believe in that holy roller business—she was a Catholic, after all—but maybe just waiting, hands raised to the heavens for a mercy that would never come. Not even realizing
they’d been missed. No, not missed, she corrected herself, passed over. That was the sad thing. Well, she sighed, it would all come out in the wash. She didn’t know why Heddy irritated her so much. Ghosts. No, what had she called them? Haints. What nonsense, and then she laughed a little. If Heddy Kretsch can get my goat, she thought, I’m a sorry case indeed.

The following morning, Edna phoned around about bringing someone out to the farm to drill a new well. The estimates they gave her were nothing short of shocking. And there was no guarantee, they said, they couldn’t make any promises. What did they mean by that? she asked them. They said, Chances are you got water out there somewhere, but how much drilling we do to find it, that’s another story. We’ll drill as many holes as it takes, they said, but we charge by the foot. I’ll have to think about it, she told them. You do that, the last fellow agreed, but don’t think too long. Once that ground’s froze, you won’t get anyone out there. Buggers up the drill bits.

So Edna thought about it. She thought about it as she loaded the half-ton with clean five-gallon pails, she thought about it as she drove the few miles over to Thaubergs’ to stock up on water, she thought about it as she filled the buckets from the hose by the barn and then, as he loaded them back into the truck for her, she asked Eulan Thauberg what he thought.

“Oh,” he said, heaving a pail up on the bed and sliding it back against the cab in one motion, “I don’t know, Edna. Seems like a shame, all this at once.”

“If you’re going to tell me trouble comes in threes …” Edna said, rather sharply. She needed no one’s pity, certainly not Eulan Thauberg’s. Truth be known, Mr. Crosie might have had many more good winters in him if he hadn’t run himself
ragged after Eulan Thauberg.
Eulan needs another hand with the seeding
(or the harvesting or the butchering or Lord knows what all else), Mr. Crosie would say and off he’d go, never mind Thaubergs had two sons nearly grown. Never mind his own work at home, always a dollar short and a day late.

Eulan Thauberg frowned. “No,” he said, “I wasn’t thinking that.” He scratched his chin, heaved up another pail. “Just that,” he said, leaning over the side of the truck, “it’s a long winter out here, you know?”

Edna did know. Of course she did, she’d lived around these parts her entire life. Eulan knew that. What was he getting at?

“It’s just,” Eulan went on, hoisting up the last pail with a puff, “maybe you might think about moving to town now.”

“Town! Eulan, how can you even think it!” But she knew exactly how Eulan could think it; he had his eye on her land. That was like him. She was surprised he’d waited this long. “No,” Edna said firmly, “I won’t leave the place. I just need the well fixed up and I’ll be all set.” She considered. “How many holes will they have to drill, do you think?”

Eulan slammed the tailgate shut and leaned against it.

“Oh, they’re pretty good usually,” he said. “They hit the low spots first. You got a good one west of the barn there. Around here, they have to go down fifteen, twenty-five feet or so.”

Edna calculated the estimate they’d given her per foot. “If they have to drill more than once, that could get pretty costly,” she said, mostly to herself. And then, for some reason, a memory came upon her, of that hole she and Mr. Crosie had found beside the road allowance, out past the Sand Hills—when was it? Years ago.
Pull over,
he’d said suddenly as they bumped along.
What for?
she’d wanted to know.
Just pull over,
he said. So she did, and he unfolded his body from the cab of the truck and walked back along the road. She waited a while. Then, when she saw he was making no move to return, she followed him.
He was standing at the side of the road, holding an old cream can lid, rusted and dented almost beyond recognition. There was a hole cut in the middle, roughly the size of a quart sealer or a little bigger. Mr. Crosie turned the lid slowly in his large hands.
What in the world,
Edna said,
have you got that for?
Mr. Crosie nudged the ground with the toe of his boot.
It was over this hole here.
Edna looked down. There was a hole in the ground, about the size of the hole in the lid. Mr. Crosie picked up a stone and dropped it down. Edna counted to herself. It was fifteen, no, almost twenty seconds before they heard it hit bottom. They blinked at each other. Mr. Crosie shook his head in disbelief, dropped another stone, and they waited again until it hit. Dry.
By the size of it, looks like an old test hole. For a well,
Mr. Crosie said, amazement in his voice. Then he shook his head again.
What’s so strange about that?
Edna asked. Mr. Crosie lifted his hands, looked around.
There’s not a farm around here for three, four miles at least,
he said,
never has been that I know of. This is community pasture.
Edna took the cream can lid.
This has been here a while,
she said. She ran her thumb around the rim, rusted to a thin, lacy edge. Mr. Crosie nodded.
Rusted right into the ground there. Had to pry it up.
He took his lighter from his pants pocket—the good silver-plated lighter she’d given him for Christmas a few years back, engraved with his initials—and bent over the hole, trying, quite foolishly Edna thought, to see by that small blue light.
If you drop that,
Edna warned,
I can tell you you’ll be coming back here tonight with a shovel.
After a moment, Mr. Crosie straightened and pocketed the lighter. He looked around again, removed his cap.
I can’t figure it out,
he said. Edna tossed the lid down; it landed partway over the hole with a soft
plunk. Oh well,
she said,
we aren’t going to solve this mystery.
And she started back for the truck.
Come on,
she hollered over her shoulder,
I’ve got supper on.
She stopped and looked back in time to see Mr. Crosie straighten the lid so it fit neatly over the hole, then step it gently into place.

He’d talked about that hole for weeks after, months. He’d pipe up suddenly, while thumbing through
The Producer
or in the middle of
M*A*S*H, Who could have drilled it? Someone from around here? What for? When?
It always took her a few seconds to clue in.
Who cares?
she’d say then.
Forget about it already.
But he couldn’t. In fact, she’d bet dollars to doughnuts he’d been back there with a flashlight more than once. Mr. Crosie was like that, couldn’t leave things alone. Silly things. Useless things. It annoyed her.

Edna blinked up into sunlight. Eulan stared at her.

“I said, have you had someone down there even? Might be you just need to dump a load of water in, get someone down to prime the pump. You should get someone down there once before you go and bring the drillers out.”

Edna took a long breath. “I hadn’t thought of that,” she said, exhaling. “You’d think they might’ve said something about that on the phone.”

“What have you got there anyway,” Eulan asked, “jet pump or submersible?”

“Submersible?” Edna asked.

“A down-hole submersible,” he said, then added, “Is your pump by the house or down the well?”

“Oh,” Edna said, “I really don’t know.” I should know that, she thought angrily. Why don’t I know that?

Eulan shrugged. “Either way, it’s worth a try, I guess,” he said. “Hell of a lot cheaper than drilling a new well. Betty’s brother had to go down sixty-five feet and she was dry as toast. Hell of a lot cheaper than that.”