RawHead and BloodyBones
old winter mother, witch woman spied the birds fly up Heard the spring peepers hush Guessed warriors on the path Saw them in the powder dust Called them silently with puffball smoke breathing sweet magic
Two long-hunters knife and rifle fringed jacket over breech clout and leggings their bare butts sunburnt Caution flares they sense a watcher Tender scent a woman Stock still poised in separate shadows Peer close Look far Smell only green leaves and worms Listen into the hush Too late already trapped wrapped in her spell.
Potent urges cloud the huntersâ choices Turn them from the beaten track seeking a sudden need
Her springtime magic Wreathes her in phantom youth Wraps her in desire Hinted almost glimpsed
She taps the life pumping surging from the root flowing. The maple branch swells Plump with life Stands blooming color and cloaked in memory
Plump with life She blossoms buxom steeped in memory.
Primes them both with blood tonic Bathes them in the sap of Neverdie, the green mistletoe Solid spells leather muscled vitality
The best of friends beyond brothers Each battles the other claiming favor of the nymph who smiling Grinning stretching Exults in honeyed glimmer of youth.
The first, victor Reaching for her, ice mirror shimmering across the pond Sees himself Reaching for the dry old witch woman glittering eyes in a snarling face Pauses alarmed then
Thrown aside and the second Leaps and wrestles up his fingers tearing the rock spire climbing to her side As he gasps for breath, His eyes match his shadow broad and tall along hers A twisted wreck With a cry, he falls back in shock. Her mirage shivered shattered the long-hunters aware in sudden wakedness.
Retching up foul magic
Stumble away Stagger into longer strides Running
Her laughter Chases them blind reeling into evil death
There, rising from the mountain laurel, the one hunter steps onto the track. Hissing sudden an arrow strikes low into the leg
Twisting way from the pain and away from the path He runs like a deer, fleeing the pack of painted warriors leaping and falling his leg Cramps Locking him into a stiff legged hobble, Another arrow deep into his gut and Turns Up hill into the laurel
His hands drag him from branch to root And tomahawks smash Again and again until He cannot raise his arms to protect himself Up and Staggering downhill thru the laurel Falls and above him the knife waits a powerful Hand drags him to his feet and Scalped he sits sinks stains the bloody snow his breath steams as he screams And they are gone Blood pooling Chest heaving Pain claims him
The pack sweeps onto the track of the other, running ragged
And silence pools, The old witch woman kneels above him Wastes no words on ears numb In terror
Wraps his raw head in green deer hide Sews and chants a promise That the shrinking Leather will hold his face and head and The raw wound above bathed in blood potion
Wait her hands shaping the command Wait in the mountain laurel until I call you
T other, Leaping running caught On a bald dome wind swept of snow huckleberry clad His rifle. The single shot high and wide Knives and spears rend him Blood squelches in his moccasins.
Hard eyes Watch him lying bled of curses and threat Watch the circling birds above Fierce wild men trot down the icy ridges Warrior spirits homeward in triumph.
the ravens hop and squabble As they pluck eyes Pick away skin and flesh until arms linked only by sinew Ribs gleam beneath his jacket Teeth chatter in a jawbone shorn of chin and cheek
And she rolls him into the huckleberry Hides him neath a crumbled log Fixes the blood wet and red forever in the sap of mistletoe Bids him wait until she calls him Binds the promise into his naked bones.
Bitter witch woman
Haunts the tribe Hunts the warrior spirits Sails across the dawn like an owl
Hard eyes know the witch and Drops the owl into snow Melts the snow in fire Sends the ashes flashing in steam And the witch woman is no more.
Winters rage summers bake Yet still they wait RawHead his face wrapped in leather strength in the mountain laurel BloodyBones steeped in neverdie neath the huckleberry
Wait until she calls Until anyone calls
Years stacked on years and Long hunters huntin coon r mebbe possum what the hounds tree Round the fire Yarning the night away
Unseen Their fire scorches the mountain laurel Gnarled leaves green twisting away from the heat all laurel springs from one root Words touch one and are heard by all
Regale the tale of RawHead, who cannot die. Waiting in the laurel for a call
Crackling embers smolder trod down huckleberry And huckleberry spreads from one root Words touch one and are heard by all
Hear tell of BloodyBones, stalking the huckleberry without skin or meat. Until the witch woman calls.
And in the night The ancient horrors hear their calls And descend upon the fire and send the hunters wailing into the night