Bones of a Witch (27 page)

“But I don’t think Putnam’s coming,” Dominic
insisted. He waved his hand in a broad sweep across the room. “This
is all a diversion.”

Tony stood up, crowding Dominic against the
bar. His voice had simmered, but his tone had come to a full boil.
“A diversion from what?”

“From Putnam’s real plans for Lilith and
Ursula, which is to—”

“To exchange them for the gate key, I know, but
look. You’re causing a scene here. If Putnam shows up now you’ll
scare him away.”

“Tony, no, that’s not it. I think—”

“Bullshit. You want me to leave so that I won’t
try to….” he dropped into a harsh whisper, “so that I won’t try to
sneak into Putnam’s van. You want the glory of saving the girls.
Isn’t that right?”

“No.”

“Of course it is. Listen, I know you have a
thing for Lilith. Maybe you don’t mean to show it, but you don’t
want to see me succeed at witchcraft.”

“Tony, that’s not it at all.”

“It is, admit it. You don’t want me to succeed
because you think Lilith won’t want me if I fail.”

“That’s ridiculous. I don’t want you to fail.
But look at you. Are you invisible now? Can he see you?” Dominic
pointed to the bartender and motioned for him to look my way. “Can
you see this man? Can you—”

“Stop it,” I said, and again heads turned.
“See, that’s what I mean. It’s all about you, Dominic. You pump
yourself up so that everyone has to notice you, just like with
Lilith.”

“That’s bull.”

“Is it? Then why did you name the Chihuahua,
after her?”

“Tony. You got me all wrong. I
don’t—”

“That’s right, you don’t. You don’t have a damn
clue what me and Lilith have going together. But one thing’s for
sure, I’m not going to let you screw it up by jeopardizing her
life, Ursula’s, mine, Carlos’ and for that matter, your own. Now
why don’t you be a good cop and go back to what you were told
to?”

“But….”

“Good bye, Spinelli.”

I think that when Dominic walked out, so went a
shred of his respect for me, an amount I can measure equally
against the loss of my own self-esteem. I don’t know why I didn’t
go out after him, perhaps because in my heart I thought Tony was
right. I’ve seen the way Dominic looks at Lilith. The boy is
definitely smitten with her. But that didn’t give Tony the right to
walk all over him like that. The sad part is that Dominic was
right, too. Sitting in Ingersoll’s Tavern all night was exactly
what Putnam wanted. If it wasn’t for the free beer and nuts (Tony
was buying), the evening would have been a total bust.

Lilith Adams:

Boy, I can’t tell you how pissed I was. I
didn’t mind so much that Putnam bitch-slapped Ursula and me, even
with our hands up behind our backs. But the pistol whipping was
totally uncalled for. He had beaten a confession out of Ursula
within the first ten minutes of torture, yet still continued to hit
her for the fun of it. I mean, the poor girl had already hanged
once for being a witch; what more did he want?

“Names,” he said, when asked that question. “I
want the names of all the witches she knows here in
Salem.”

“I know of none,” Ursula replied, her left eye
swelled shut from the beatings. “Haft not the centuries past but
thrice? Surely those I knew are all dead these many
years.”

“Surely not, for you are not dead.”

“Aye, but for a time I was.”

“How have you come back?”

“I brought her back,” I said. “You know I’m a
witch. I told you so at my trial. But Ursula is mortal now. She has
nothing to do with witchcraft. So why don’t you let her
go.”

“I think not,” Putnam said, and he laughed
sickly. “Not by the light of a witch’s moon shall you or she escape
the noose tonight.”

“Yes we will. Tony will stop you. He’s on his
way up here right now, you know.”

“Your fool hearted boyfriend?” Again that
sickly laugh dribbled from his lips in measured spats. He had taken
us up to Gallows Hill, dragged us really, by the ropes from the
nooses around our necks. “I hardly think so, Ms. Adams. Even as we
speak, your boyfriend and his hapless cohorts are sitting in
Ingersoll’s Tavern, drinking beer and waiting for me to come in and
make a swap: you and Ms. Bishop for Ms. Bishop’s gate
key.”

“I don’t believe you. Tony’s too smart to fall
for that. He’ll think of every contingent.”

“Will he?”

“Yes, I know he will.”

“Well then, he better hurry up now, hadn’t he?”
He glanced down at his watch and then up at the moon. “Look at
that. It’s almost midnight. What do you say we get
started?”

He had stepped right up to me,
nearly toe-to-toe; perhaps wanting to gauge my reaction up close
and personal. I could do little with my hands joined to Ursula’s
behind our backs and that confounded witch’s stone around his neck.
But I
could
express my opinion, and so I drew a narrow bead on him with
my most menacing leer, summonsed up a wad of deep-throat icky shit
and spat it in his face. “What do you say you go fuck yourself,” I
answered.

Man, did that piss him off. He fell back to
wipe his face clean, and began screaming at me—us, using language
that I’m sure Ursula never heard in her century. He came back to me
on a march and slapped me across the mouth, cutting my lip with his
ring.

“YOU FUCKER!” I yelled. “YOU DWEEB PUNK
BASTARD! YOU’RE FUCKED NOW!” Naturally, that earned me a backhand
across the other side of my mouth.

“We’ll see who’s fucked, Ms. Adams,” he said,
curling his upper lip, only now his words were hushed and filled
with a tone of finality. He picked up the rope ends on our
hangman’s nooses and tossed them over the thickest branch on the
tree. Then, he retrieved an old wooden chair from behind a bush,
one he apparently put there only hours earlier just for the
occasion.

“Up on the chair,” he ordered, to which Ursula
and I politely declined, calling him a maggot-faced grub. But old
Putnam was done having fun. He pulled the gun from his shoulder
holster and pointed it at my head. “I said get up on the
chair.”

I stared straight down the barrel and laughed.
“You’re funny, aren’t you?”

He crowded his thick brows into a matted knot.
“What are you talking about?”

“You think I would sooner hang than get shot?
Come on, a bullet to the head is a much quicker way to
go.”

He reeled back his gums to expose a row of
yellow teeth caked in plaque as thick as stucco. “Who said anything
about shooting you in the head?” And he lowered the gun to my left
breast.

“Oh, you didn’t,” I said, gritting my teeth,
“now you’re asking for it.”

He pushed the muzzle against me till it hurt.
“No, Ms. Adams, you’re asking for it. I won’t tell you again. Get
up on the chair, both of you.”

I had made up my mind to do what he said, and I
know Ursula did, too, but I guess we just didn’t move fast enough
to suit old Putnam. Before we could lift a foot, he snatched a
fistful of our hair and yanked us both up onto the chair. Tears
began spilling from Ursula’s swollen eyes, and her sobs robbed me
of feelings for any other soul on this earth but hers. All I wanted
to do was get her out of that noose and free her of the pain of
hanging twice for a crime she did not commit. But with the witch’s
stone around Putnam’s neck, things seemed altogether hopeless, and
though I don’t believe in miracles, I believed that nothing shy of
one could have saved us then. Fortunately, sometimes fate disguised
as miracles comes to us when we least expect, and in the cutest
packages.

Putnam finished tying off the rope ends around
the tree trunk and he pulled taunt the slack in our nooses. Now
Ursula and I were standing on tip-toes to keep from choking. As
best I could I said goodbye and apologized, promising her that Tony
would not rest until he killed Putnam or brought him to justice,
whichever he could get away with.

That’s when I saw him; Dominic, alone and
determined, silhouetted against the pale moonlight. He was moving
up the hill, keeping low but scurrying quickly, having no cover to
conceal his advance. I could see him trying to keep the tree
between his line of sight and Putnam’s, dropping occasionally onto
his belly when that was not possible. But time was running out and
I feared he would not make it. I called to Putnam, hoping to buy
his attention and possibly distract him from Dominic’s
advance.

“Yo, how badly you want those names?” I
said.

He came around the chair to face me, and in
doing so turned his back on Dominic. “Come again?”

“You want to know who the witches are, don’t
you? I’ll tell you.”

He seemed suspicious, but curious.
“Okay.”

“You want to write it down?”

“No.” He stepped closer. “I’ll
remember.”

“You sure, `cause there’s a lot of
names.”

“Look, if you’re just trying to buy some
time—”

“No, I’m good. I’ve got plans for the
afterlife. I’m ready to go.” I could see over the top of Putnam’s
head that Dominic was almost there. He had started into a full run
up the hill and was closing fast. “Unlike some of us, I’m not
afraid to die.”

“What’s that suppose to mean?”

“Nothing, it’s just that you seem preoccupied
with death.”

“Me? How do you figure?”

“You’re always in the middle of it.”

“It’s my job.”

“Yeah, right.” I looked up over his head again.
Dominic was now only forty feet out and slowing down, reaching for
his weapon. I brought my eyes back to Putnam, but immediately
sensed something wrong. He was not looking at me. His eyes were off
to the side. He had heard Dominic, or seen that I was looking at
something beyond. Either way I knew he knew. I saw him reach slowly
for his gun. Dominic had picked up his pace again, advancing on us
with his weapon leveled at Putnam’s back.

“Dominic, no!” I cried. “He knows you’re
there!”

Putnam pulled his gun and spun around sharply.
Dominic crouched into a shooter’s stance, but fearing he might hit
me or Ursula, did not take the shot. A lick of fire from Putnam’s
.45 lit up the hilltop in a brilliant flash of orange and white.
Dominic fell to the ground. The thrust of the bullet like a mule
kick knocking the weapon from his hand and sending it tumbling into
the night.

“Dominic!”

Putnam turned back on his heels, the .45 still
smoking and smelling of burnt gunpowder. “That’s your last trick,”
he said to me. “The undertaker will collect your remains at
sunrise.”

Naturally I responded the only way I knew how.
“Putnam?” I said. “Go fuck yourself.”

He smiled as if pleased with that,
and after removing the witch’s stone from around his neck he draped
it over mine. “No, Miss Adams,” he said. “
You
go fuck yourself.” And he gave
the chair a good hard kick, collapsing it out from under me and
Ursula.

Our bodies fell with immeasurable sufferance,
so much so that I thought Putnam had grabbed on to our legs and was
swinging along with us. He wasn’t, of course. Within seconds, my
world faded to black, but I had not passed out. That much I was
sure of, for the pain would not have been so great had I been
rendered unconscious.

Overhead, late autumn leaves shook loose and
rained down upon us, as the branch we hung from complained only
mildly about its chore, groaning some; creaking less. Who knew how
many had burdened its majesty before? I forced my eyes open, and in
a squint could see the rut of a hundred ropes grooved into its
bark. Where does it end, I wondered. Here? I swallowed, or tried
to, but found it impossible with the rope burning into my neck, its
every fiber like tiny teeth cutting deeper into my skin as my body
swung with Ursula’s in a phantom breeze. Off in the distance I
heard Putnam’s sickly laugh. He was walking away, and I found
solace in knowing he would not see me die.

For the first half-minute or so I felt Ursula
kicking her feet, perhaps involuntary. When she stopped, I thought
she had given up. I’ve often thought about that moment since. It’s
the only time in my life when I also thought of giving up. But in
that brief instant, when the rope around my neck conspired with
gravity to deprive me of another breath, fate intervened. Spinelli,
whom I thought had died for certain, positioned himself below
Ursula and me and began to thrust us upon his shoulders, relieving
the worst of the weight from our ropes.

At last, I could swallow. I coughed and
rejoiced at my ability to reclaim air into my lungs. Soon Ursula
gasped, too, her breathing more labored than mine, but
constant.

“Dominic, you’re all right!”

He staggered wildly to catch his balance, and
in his struggle I heard grunts of pain and distress. “For now,” he
said. “I don’t know how long I can hold you.”

“Where are you hit?”

“Don’t worry `bout me. Are you all
right?”