The Bone Baby
Back in the olden days, when wishing still helped, there lived a kind and beautiful maiden named Patience Newlin, who lived on a little farm deep in a swamp known as the Neck, where her family raised pigs and grew cabbages and clover sod. When harvest time came and the pigs were fat and grown, it was Patience’s duty to drive them to market in Philadelphia. Were she walking by herself, she could have made the journey in only an hour or two, but because she was driving many heads of stubborn hogs, it was a tiresome, all-day excursion for the girl.
On one such trip to the market, Patience stopped for a moment’s rest on a fallen chestnut log which blocked the road before her. While she rested and wondered how she would be able to drive the pigs around the fallen tree, little did she realize that from the other side of the log she was being spied upon by the Ape Boy.
Now, the Ape Boy was a most pitiful creature. He was tall and gangly and covered in a thick pelt of drab orange fur, and he was called the Ape Boy because he had the snout and fangs of a baboon. So unspeakably hideous was he that none could bear to look at him. He ate beetles and worms with glee, but what he really liked to eat was raw meat from any animal he could catch with his bare hands. Knowing his ugliness, the Ape Boy always wore a waistcoat and breeches and a tricorne, which he thought made him appear very distinguished, but actually made him look much sillier.
The Ape Boy watched Patience while she rested and was captivated by her beauty- her skin as white as shell, her lips red as the rose, and her hair rich as chestnut. To his eyes, the grit and stains upon her arms and face were as a princess’s blush, and her ragged, patchwork dress seemed more lovely than the most elegant ballgown. The Ape Boy watched her and watched her until he could bear to look at her no longer, for he had fallen hopelessly in love with young Patience Newlin.
Smitten, the Ape Boy clambered discreetly up the log to try to get a better view of the maiden, but he slipped and fell with a loud crash that startled Patience. When she turned to see what had made such an awful racket behind her, she saw the Ape Boy rubbing the top of his furry orange head where he had hit the ground.
“Who are you?” asked Patience frightfully.
“I am the Ape Boy,” he declared proudly, recovering from his fall and leaping up onto the log to sit at Patience’s side. “And I rule these swamps! From Carcus Creek to Greenwich Point, every muddy hole and thorofare is my domain. And who, may I ask, are you?”
“I am Patience Newlin, and I rule nothing,” the girl replied. Then she gestured to the swine gathered around the tree trunk. “These are my pigs, which I mean to drive to market. But this log has blocked my path, and it will be much trouble to get the pigs around it and back onto the road.”
“That I can take care of,” said the Ape Boy, leaping from the log with a mighty roar. The pigs were terrified to have such an appalling beast in their midst, and ran hither and yon to escape, but the nimble Ape Boy headed them off at every turn, so that in but a short moment the pigs had formed into a single-file line, trotting around the log and back onto the road.
“There,” said the Ape Boy, “Now you may continue on your way.”
“Thank you very much,” Patience beamed, truly grateful to the strange and ugly Ape Boy for solving her problem. She curtsied to him before continuing on her way, and the Ape Boy was well and truly smitten.
Over the following weeks, the Ape Boy courted Patience, and tried wooing her with many gifts. When she was bringing cabbages to the market and her cart broke its axle, the Ape Boy whittled a new one out of a hemlock bough and soon had Patience on her way. And when Patience stopped in the road wanting for water, the Ape Boy appeared with a fresh jug from the Sipehon Spring for her to drink. He began to follow Patience’s every move, so he could always anticipate what she would need, and when, and he thought himself quite a romantic for all his effort.
The Ape Boy’s mother, who happened to be a witch, soon took notice of this, and suggested her own gifts to charm the girl.
“My dear son,” the witch would say, after plucking a citrus from a grove she kept by means of magic, “Take this orange and offer it to the girl, for ladies enjoy sweet fruits above all else.”
And the Ape Boy would find Patience walking up the road to market, and offer her the orange, which she would accept with gracious glee.
“My dear son,” the witch would say, after finishing an eiderdown duvet, “Take this eiderdown and offer it to the girl, for winter is coming and ladies enjoy warm blankets above all else.”
And the Ape Boy would find Patience coming back down the road from market, and offered her the eiderdown, which she would accept with a kind smile and a word of sincere thanks.
“My dear son,” the witch would say, after breaking a fresh pony with switches of oak and alder, “Take this pony and offer it to the girl, for there is nothing in the world ladies enjoy more than a strong pony to serve at their will.”
And the Ape Boy would find Patience pushing her cabbage-cart up the road, and hitched up the pony to pull it for her the rest of the way. And Patience thanked the Ape Boy for his kindness and continued on her journey.
Gradually, the Ape Boy’s gifts became less and less becoming of what a young lady might find desirable, and more and more befitting the expectations of an ape. He brought Patience faggots of bird feathers, and a necklace of mouse ears, and a cape of untanned doe’s hide. And all of these Patience also accepted, for she was too sweet and kind to refuse even such grotesqueries when they were gifted so sincerely.
Eventually, the Ape Boy came to truly believe that Patience was in love with him as well, and grew confident enough to offer her his clawed, warty hand in marriage. Now, Patience had been expecting this for some time, with growing dread in her heart, for though she considered the Ape Boy one of her fondest friends, she did not love him. So when he bent down upon one knee and offered her a ring cast of bog iron, she could only clasp her hands over her face and cry, and the Ape Boy knew he had been spurned once more.
So saddened was the Ape Boy’s heart by this turn of events, that he withdrew back into his swamps, and finding a tall oak tree with sturdy boughs, hung himself by the neck until he died.
When the Ape Boy’s mother found him, her cry sundered the heavens, and a great storm lashed down upon the county for three days and three nights.
When the storm broke and Patience again had occasion to travel to the market, the witch appeared on the road before her in a cloud of sulfur and brimstone-
“Ye hath brought death upon my son and ruin to me, Patience Newlin!” the witch cried. “My son did everything he could to seek thy affections, and was a perfect gentleman to thee. What doth he receiveth for his chivalry? He was spurned, rejected like a runt or a monster!”
This upset Patience’s soul greatly, for she knew not that the Ape Boy had ended his life for her rejection. The witch, however, gave her no chance to repent or apologize, and went on to cast three curses upon the girl-
“For this foul deed, I curse the ground ye tread upon, to bear naught but thistle and thorn for all the days of your life!” the witch cried. And, so saying, she threw ten liths of an orange upon the ground before Patience, whereupon they instantly shriveled and rotted, and even as they did the cabbages in Patience’s cart also shriveled and rotted before her eyes.
“I curse all the animals ye shall meet in all your years, to suffer distemper and lameness, and to perish one and all the instant ye set your heart upon them!” the witch cried. And, so saying, she jabbed her wand at Patience’s pony, whereupon the animal whinnied but once and fell over dead.
“And this above all- I curse thee and thy womb, Patience Newlin! This I vow by the sun and the stars, that ye shall not be with child until the day you are as wrinkled as the branch of the oak my son tied his noose upon, and when your babe finally is born, it shall be a devil!”
Then, her curses cast, the witch disappeared forever in a cackling bloom of flame, and was never heard from again. But Patience could not deny the evil that had been done, for as she left behind the dead pony and rotten cabbages, the grasses and flowers before her shriveled as she walked back home.
Eventually, though greatly saddened by the curses laid upon her, Patience fell in love with a woodsman, who cared not a bit about the fate which had befallen her-
“So much the better that the trees be already dead when my axe striketh against them!” said he. “And so much the better that we can keep no animals, for feed and fodder are expensive in these times. And as for your womb, well, I do not believe one so pretty as thee could be made barren by all the curses thrown by all the devils of Hell!”
But alas, Patience was indeed barren, though she and her husband never gave up trying to conceive the children they each so dearly desired. The witch’s curse seemed complete until, in her forty-fifth year, Patience finally found herself with child. Scarcely could the woman contain her joy at this unexpected turn of events, but her joy soon turned to despair, for the baby was not born, and she believed she had miscarried. But this, too, was part of the wicked witch’s curse, and for the next thirty-nine years Patience carried the seed of evil within her womb.
It was in Patience’s eighty-fourth year, on the sixty-sixth anniversary of the Ape Boy’s death, that her baby was finally born. While tending to supper late one summer’s night, Patience fell to the ground in the travails of labour. The child was not cradled within its mother’s womb as it ought to be, and so it tried with all its might to claw its way out of her belly, and Patience’s soul soon departed for pain.
Finally, covered in blood and with a wretched cry, the baby’s head arose from its mother’s belly. No one was there to welcome the child into the world, but had a single soul been present, most assuredly they would have fled in terror, and been right to do so. For the child of Patience Newlin was a devil indeed. The baby was made entirely of bone, having no flesh or muscle of any kind. Wheresoever upon the infant’s body there ought to have been flesh or sinew, there was naught but bone upon bone, such that it resembled a skeleton wearing the rags of a stiff cloak, or bands of armour.
The Bone Baby cried, for like all infants it was terribly hungry, but not for mother’s milk. It was hungry for bones, because, being made of bone itself, it could only ever grow by eating more bones. And so the Bone Baby slouched away from its mother’s burst belly and crawled out the door, and began traveling all over the countryside, peeking into all the cradles in all the cottages, looking for more baby bones to steal.
And wheresoever the Bone Baby found a tender babe in its cradle, when later that child’s mother came to rock or nurse her babe, a scream would escape her lips. For she would find that what once was her dear child was no longer, and every one of its bones had been taken away.
Soon the militia was called up to try to capture or destroy the terrible Bone Baby, but it was cunning in stratagem and outwitted the militias at every turn, dodging their patrols and sneaking through their picket lines, and stealing more and more baby bones all the while. And though a great bounty had been placed upon the Bone Baby’s head, none could collect it, and every mother and father was forced to remain on constant, frightful vigil to protect their children from the fiend.
One woman had recently given birth to a baby boy, whom she named Samuel. Fearing greatly that the Bone Baby would come to steal Samuel’s bones, the woman tasked her elder son Nathan with taking the child out of the city to their grand-aunt’s house far upriver. The journey would be long and dangerous, taking the boys through many miles of wild forest, so the woman packed a basket for Nathan with food for himself, and a pap-boat and two jars of pap for Samuel.
Nathan’s mother knelt to button his shirt and check the straps on Samuel’s papoose, and as she did this she smiled sadly, and spake thus-
“Now, my dear son, you must travel light as the hawk, and swift as the doe, and be cunning as the fox, for the Bone Baby will come after you if it learns of the precious cargo you carry. And so to help you, I have three gifts to give. The first of these is the Blue Bottle, which once belonged to a witch. If you uncork the Bottle and peer down its neck, you will be able to see any dangers that may be lurking near you. But, remember this- you may only use the Blue Bottle once, for its enchantment must be renewed each time it is used, and I am no witch.”
She then handed Nathan the enchanted Blue Bottle, which shone like sapphire, and was capped tightly with a cork to keep its magic contained within. Inside swirled a dark blue liquid, which Nathan thought to be a potion or brew. And he placed the Blue Bottle carefully in his haversack, nestling it upon a bed of straw.
“Next, to both you and Samuel, I give this blessed snakestone, which I purchased from a Lenape medicine man, who found it on the plains far, far to the west, well beyond the mountains and forests. Once it was one of the accursed brood of Eden, turned to stone by the Flood, and now it is a charm against all evil things. Wear it round Samuel’s papoose, that it might protect you both alike. It will not stop the Bone Baby, for its evil is stronger than the glimmer of good contained in the snakestone, but it will weaken the wretched fiend.”
She then held the amulet out over Nathan, to tie it round the papoose, and Nathan saw it- a thin spiral coil glistening like no other rock he had ever seen, and it felt very special indeed just to look upon the snakestone.
“Finally, I have for you this stick of chalk. For if the Bone Baby catches up to you, you may use it to draw a circle of enchantment round you and Samuel, to keep you safe from all evil things until either nightfall, if you draw the circle while the sun is up, or until dawn, if the sun be down. But be warned- you mustn’t let the circle you draw be touched or smeared in any way, else the enchantment will be broken, and it will be of no help to you or anyone else.”
And Nathan’s mother handed him the chalk, which he placed in the haversack beside the Blue Bottle. Nathan thanked his mother for the precious gifts, and she again wished him well, and then the two brothers set out from the house as quietly as they could. It was well past nightfall, and Nathan carried with him a pewter candleholder to light their grim way through the dark streets.
The boys left the city and Nathan’s feet were soon sore from walking so terribly far, when luck ordained that a farmer should be passing by on his haycart, returning to his fields before the bustle of dawn. Thinking quickly, Nathan hid in the ditch and then stole aboard as quietly as he could. In this way, the boys soon reached the great Timber Swamp, where they hopped off the haycart. Nathan stopped to rest a moment, and to feed Samuel his pap and change him, for the baby had begun to cry soon after they departed from the haycart.
After feeding Samuel, Nathan put him snugly back in his papoose, and took special care to ensure the snakestone amulet was bound tightly round the baby’s bundle. Then he broke from the road and went on down the trail straight into the Timber Swamp, for it promised to be a shorter path to his grand-aunt’s house.
Now, the Timber Swamp was a vast stretch of wildwoods on which no man ever dared set foot, for it was dotted in mires and crisscrossed by creeks and known to be the dwelling place of witches and ghosts and many fierce beasts. Nathan had heard many tales of the perilous Timber Swamp, yet he decided to brave them anyway for Samuel’s sake, to get him as far away from the Bone Baby as possible before nightfall.
“And anyway,” the boy said to Samuel, “When night does overtake us, we shall be surrounded by so many creeping and bumping things that surely we won’t have time to worry much about the Bone Baby in particular.”
The boys wandered through the Timber Swamp for many hours of the morning, and were wandering still when Nathan spied an approaching woodsman, who was dragging along a freshly killed rattlesnake by its tail while toting a rifle over his shoulder. Fearing that the woodsman might indeed turn out to be a bandit, Nathan hid behind the nearest stump and clutched for the snakestone to protect himself and his brother. But of course at that very moment Samuel began to cry, for he was hungry and in want of changing.
Nathan glanced around the stump and spied the woodsman as he neared. He was tall and wiry, wearing buckskin breeches and snakeskin boots. He had a face drawn like jerky and scruffy whiskers that looked like they’d been coming in since the days of Abram, and his brow was furrowed beneath a coonskin cap. Nathan hid again behind the stump and tried in vain to shush Samuel, praying that the woodsman mightn’t discover them.
The hand that fell on his shoulder a moment later shattered the boy’s hopes. He whirled round like a startled animal and wanted dearly to run away, but there was nowhere to run, so he simply looked up at the woodsman and put on as brave a face as he could. He was scruffy alright, that woodsman, and his eyes were dire as river ice, yet there was a twinkle in them which seemed pleasant.
With a smile, the woodsman stooped down over Nathan and asked- “Please, lad, can you tell me the road to Philadelphia?”
“Oh, yes,” Nathan replied, and he was quite relieved that the woodsman meant no harm, “I can tell you. I’ve just come from there, myself. But you’re a long ways off.”
“I am?”
“You have to get to the Bustleton Turnpike,” said Nathan. He rose to his feet and spun round to see which way he had come, but the forest was thick and dark and the trail had forked many a time since he first entered the Timber Swamp, “You walk back down this trail about a quarter mile, then you follow the deer path on the left- or was it the right? Let me see-”
“To be sure, lad, see as far as Philadelphia, if you like,” said the woodsman.
“Well, you must take the right path to get to Philadelphia, and that’s precisely what I can’t see just now,” Nathan said. Then he paused and looked back at the woodsman. “Why should you wish to go to Philadelphia, anyhow?”
“I’m a’huntin’ for that awful Bone Baby that’s been giving folks trouble down in the city,” replied the woodsman.
“Why, the Bone Baby is the reason we’ve just left the city,” said Nathan.
“To be sure,” the woodsman nodded. “It would be a sad day indeed if the Bone Baby were to harm a hair on the head of such a fine young sprout as you’ve got yonder on your back there. Though I can’t figure why he’s bawlin’ so- the Bone Baby ain’t found him just yet!”
“He is hungry,” Nathan replied, sitting on the stump and opening his haversack to mix some pap for Samuel.
“Ain’t got any milk on me,” said the woodsman. Then, remembering his manners, he took a flask from his belt and offered it to Nathan. “Got whiskey though.”
“Babies can’t drink whiskey!” Nathan scoffed.
“They can’t?”
“‘Course not, woodsman. Babies need milk or pap.”
The woodsman shrugged. “Ah, more for me then,” and so saying he tipped his flask back and drained it in one gulp. “He’s your brother, I reckon?”
“Yes. His name is Samuel,” said Nathan. Once the pap was mixed he put it aside so it might settle, then he shrugged off the papoose and lifted little Samuel out of it and laid him on the stump to change him. As he did this, he pointed to the dead rattlesnake. “And is that your brother, woodsman?”
“Oh, him? Ho-ho! Fine spes-ee-men, ain’t he? Fifteen rattles, if you can believe it- he’ll make a right fine oil for the rheumatism once I get back home. Til then, I mean to skin him and sell it. I hunt rattlers for a livin’, see, so most everyone calls me Rattlesnake Joe.”
“Rattlesnake Joe?”
“That’s what I said,” Rattlesnake Joe replied. Once Samuel had been changed and Nathan took him into the crook of his arm to feed him, Rattle gestured to the stump. “May I sit, lad?”
“‘Course you may, Rattle. Be my guest.” Nathan replied, for it was a large stump with plenty of room for two or even three people to sit beside one another comfortably.
Rattlesnake Joe pulled up his belt, which had drooped low under the weight of many pouches and purses and a glistening tomahawk, then sat on the stump beside Nathan. “And you, lad? What is your name?”
“Nathan.”
“And why might you’uns be out all by your lonesome in this here Timber Swamp?”
“My mother has sent us away to our grand-aunt’s home in Bristol ‘til the Bone Baby is gone,” Nathan replied sadly, “But I fear that may be a long while yet.”
“Not so long at all, boy!” Rattle replied haughtily, hefting his rifle a bit to adjust its seating on his shoulder. “Not so long at all, now that I am here!”
“The Bone Baby has made mockery of all the huntsmen and militias in the county for weeks. What makes you think you can defeat it?”
“Cause I knows how to track down sly critters like that. That’s what rattlers are, you know- real sly. And I reckon that theys ain’t too different from the Bone Baby- from what the papers read, it makes a sound mighty like a rattler when it’s poisin’ to strike.”
“How do you mean to defeat it?” Nathan asked skeptically.
Rattlesnake Joe took the rifle from his shoulder and held it out for Nathan to inspect. It was a beautiful weapon, with a stock of polished tiger maple, a barrel of cold gray iron, and a trigger of hardy blister steel. On the patch box was an engraving of a knight slaying a dragon.
“This here rifle was blest by a powwower. He blest it so that if I ever load it up with a silver bullet, any evil thing I shoot will keel over dead as dirt. And I have me three silver bullets to shoot, and I mean to shoot ‘em.”
“Oh, my mother gave me some charms, too, before I left,” Nathan replied, and he told Rattle all about the Blue Bottle and the snakestone and the chalk. Rattle listened attentively and when Nathan finished he whistled long and low.
“Your mother must be a re-fined darlin’ to see after you’uns that way, lad,” said he. Then he tapped the barrel of his rifle. “Course, charms is nice, but I prefer mine to be a bit more directly effective.”
They were both quiet for awhile, and soon Rattlesnake Joe pulled a knife from his belt to set about skinning the rattlesnake he had captured. Said he- “I intended to do this in the city, but since we’ve stopped for a bit, I s’ppose now’s as good a time as any.”
When he finished skinning the snake, he pulled out a tin from his satchel and stuck the snake’s body into it, sealing the lid tightly so no stench would leak out and ruin the air. Then he put the tin back in his satchel and swapped it for a rod of chestnut, and taking a knife from his belt he began whittling the rod into a flute, which he blew into occasionally to check his progress.
Nathan watched Rattle work while he fed Samuel, carefully tipping the pap boat to the baby’s mouth while stealing glances at the woodsman. Evening was not long off, and as he did not fancy being left alone in the Timber Swamp, he began to think of how to convince Rattlesnake Joe to stay with them.
“Night is coming fast, Rattle,” said Nathan, once he finished feeding Samuel, “Might you prefer to remain with us for the night, before continuing to Philadelphia in the morning?”
“I can’t do that, lad,” said Rattle. “The Bone Baby will be lurkin’ tonight, and the longer I wait the more poor babies he’ll git. I shouldn’t even have stopped this long, but I was kinder curious about your snakestone there.”
“I’m afraid it’s not for sale,” said Nathan, trembling even worse at the thought of being alone and without the amulet’s protection during the night.
“I didn’t suspect that it was,” said Rattle. “But I would like to know where to find one, for myself. See, up where I come from in the Allegheny country, we’re plagued by witches and hoop-snakes and giwoggles, and I sure could use such a charm for my crops and cottage.”
Nathan thought about that, and about his mother’s story of the amulet, and how it had come from the plains far, far to the west. Finally, he asked- “Might we make a bet?”
“A bet?”
“If you win, I will tell you where to get such an amulet. If I win, you will remain the night with Samuel and I, and I shall give you the amulet anyway. Does that sound fair?”
Rattlesnake Joe rubbed his scruffy chin for a moment, then smiled broadly. “Alright. Yer’ on. What sorter bet did you have in mind?”
“Well, I…” Nathan stuttered and fumbled, and then looked down to his shoes as if they might render aid, for he really hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“How about,” Rattle supplied, “A shootin’ match?”
Nathan blanched, for he had never fired a gun before, but his fear of being left alone compelled him to nod dumbly, and when he spoke the words seemed scarcely his own. “Okay. A shooting match it is.”
“I’ve got some regular leadshot on my belt here- we’ll hang up a parchment on that ‘thar tulip tree and we’ll go with the best two shots out of three. Sound like a good deal?”
“Sure thing, Rattle,” Nathan replied. Then, finally, he said- “Just one thing- can you teach me how to shoot?”
“Ho-ho!” Rattle laughed, tipping his head back in a great guffaw, “Of course, laddie. Of course I’ll teach you. You’ll probably shoot smarter’n me before the day’s over, too.”
And so Rattle tacked a parchment onto the trunk of a nearby tulip tree, and showed the boy all the workings of the gun- how to measure the powder he needed to pour into the breech, and how to ram the ball down, and how to work the cock and frizzen. Then he gave Nathan permission to heft the rifle to his shoulder and showed him how to hold the weapon, and how to peer down the irons to line up his target.
“You want to try to hit the parchment as dead-near to center as you can, got it?” said Rattle, before taking the gun from the boy once more. “I’ll shoot first, so you can watch how I line ‘er up, okay?”
So Nathan stepped aside and watched Rattle line up his shot as expertly as one would expect for a man who had lived his whole life in the deep woods. He held the stock to his shoulder so naturally that the gun seemed a part of his own two arms, and then he squinted carefully down the irons til his shot was lined up on the center of the parchment. Then, he fired.
The gun cracked with such a thunderous bang that Samuel, who had fallen asleep while his brother was given his lessons, instantly awoke with a cry, while Nathan coughed away the rich gunsmoke that had erupted from the weapon and made hazy the whole clearing.
It seemed a perfect shot, but when the smoke cleared away, Nathan and Rattle both saw that the parchment was untouched!
Rattlesnake Joe grumbled unhappily and reloaded his rifle, and fired again at the parchment. Again the rifle cracked loudly. Again, Samuel cried. And again, when the smoke cleared the parchment was untouched.
“Now wait just a pie-pickin’ minute!” said Rattle. “I suspect something’s wrong with my gun here.”
And, so saying, Rattlesnake Joe sat down on a stump and set about inspecting his weapon. He tightened the screws of the cock and frizzen, he scrubbed clean the muzzle and pan, and he even replaced the flint. When he was finished, he squinted long and hard down the sights to make sure the barrel wasn’t bent in any way. Then he turned to Nathan.
“We’ll start over again, okay?”
But sure enough, each of Rattlesnake Joe’s shots again failed to so much as touch the parchment hanging upon the tree, leaving both him and Nathan baffled, and Rattle concerned about his weapon.
“I jes’ can’t wrap my mind around it,” Rattle said, looking at the gun as if it had betrayed him, “I sure can’t hunt the Bone Baby with a defective rifle.”
“Maybe you’ve just lost your knack for it,” Nathan suggested.
Rattle at first glared crossly at the boy, but then he laughed jovially. “P’rhaps I have, lad. P’rhaps I done have. You take the gun and let’s see how a younger pair of eyes manages.”
Nathan handed Samuel over to Rattle, so that the baby would not be struck deaf by the gunshots. Then he hefted the gun up to his shoulder as Rattle had shown him- “A little higher, lad,” said Rattle- and he squinted down the irons towards the distant parchment tacked to the tulip tree. He took a great nervous breath, then fired.
The gun bucked back into Nathan’s shoulder like a startled horse, so hard that Nathan was certain he’d missed, but when the smoke cleared away, both he and Rattle were surprised to see a big round hole drilled right through the center of the parchment.
“Ho-ho! A fine shot, lad! It was a fine shot!” said Rattle, jumping up and down mirthfully.
“Let’s just see if I can do it again,” Nathan replied. He tried to reload the weapon as Rattle had shown him, only he forgot to lower the frizzen over the flashpan and Rattle had to fix it for him. Then he raised the gun to his shoulder- “A little lower, lad!”- and fired.
Again the rifle kicked back, and again the boy waited for the smoke to clear, and when it did, again the parchment was pierced near to the center, just above where the first shot had struck home.
“Well, I’ll be jiggered,” Rattle said with a low whistle, as he bounced baby Samuel on his knobby knee, “I may or mayn’t’ve lost my knack, but you sure as shoot’s are a natural at this, lad.”
“That was two,” Nathan said, “But since you fired five times, counting the two before you cleaned the rifle, I shall shoot once more, and we may call it three out of five.”
So saying, Nathan reloaded the gun- properly, this time around- and took aim once more. Again the parchment was pierced clean through the middle, this third shot landing just below the first one.
“Well, you’ve got me fixed,” Rattle congratulated, arising from the stump to shake Nathan’s hand. “I’ll stay the night with you boys, and keep a watch out for that Bone Baby. Besides, I think I’ve taken a likin’ to this little feller anyhow.”
Nathan’s chest swelled with pride, and then he traded Rattlesnake Joe his rifle for Samuel, and secured the papooose once more after checking that the snakestone amulet was still attached tightly.
“Jes one more thing, before we fix about settling’ down,” said Rattle, reloading his rifle and aiming at the parchment. He fired, and when the smoke cleared there was a fourth hole drilled right through the center of the paper, only a little to the left of where Nathan’s first shot had hit. And Rattle scratched at his whiskers and wondered if perhaps the silvers weren’t the only enchanted bullets he carried.
The trio wandered the lonely Timber Swamp for a long while searching for a safe place to bed down for the night, for the woods teemed with rattlesnakes, and there were also still many panthers and bruins and wolves to be found in those days. Rattlesnake Joe told Nathan not to fear the snakes at all, for he knew how to charm them, and club them if necessary, but they looked warily about for any signs of the bigger beasts.
As the sun began to sink low in the sky they came across a stone cottage which was so old and ruinous that a mighty chestnut tree had grown up through where its chimney once stood. But the walls were still stout and the roof yet sturdy, so the trio decided to take shelter inside for the night. And it was well that they did, for by this time black clouds had begun rolling in over the dusk, and all the trees of the Timber Swamp quivered from the hissing winds of the approaching storm.
Rattle struck up a fire on the stone floor of what once had been the kitchen, and Nathan sat down to feed Samuel while Rattle fixed a little dinner of salt pork.
“Oh, Rattle,” Nathan said, reaching for the amulet round his neck, “I nearly forgot to give you my snakestone. Mother said it was from-”
“It’s not really a snakestone, y’know,” Rattle said suddenly, scarcely looking up from the sizzling salt pork that filled the old cottage with a rich and smoky haze.
“What?”
“That amulet of yer’s. Ain’t no snake. It’s a shell.”
“Mother said it was turned to stone by the Flood.”
“That it may well have been. But all the same it’s a shell. A shell with a whole bushel of secrets. Put it up to yer ear, you’ll hear ‘em.”
“Hear what?” Nathan asked skeptically, even as he raised the snakestone up to his ear. And before Rattle could reply, he heard them- the whispers, the echoes, the secrets, all murmuring right into his ear, swirling round and round. And though Nathan strained to hear just what they were saying, he could not quite make out the words; that they were saying something he was sure, but he knew not what. Only that it sounded magical, and somehow quite important, whether he could understand it or not.
“Them’s years, boy,” said Rattle, “All the thousands an’ millions of ‘em, shut up in that thar shell like bees in a hive, jes buzzing to get loose again. All eternity’s trapped in there, from Genesis chapter one verse one til right this moment.”
Nathan listened. He listened for a long time, and he smiled, and Rattle smiled back.
“I don’t want yer amulet, whether it’s a snake or a shell,” said Rattle, “I want you to hold onto that, ‘cause that thar’s special. Real special. And yer momma was right- it is magic, sure as shootin’.”
“Well, all the same, I did promise-”
“Where’d yer momma get it from?”
“From an old Indian medicine man, who found it far, far to the west, over the mountains.”
Rattle nodded. “Thanks be to you, boy. I know jes where to go now. Now you keep what’s yours there, and don’t worry none about me. A thing like that’s better off found than given, anyhow.”
Nathan nodded and, having finished feeding Samuel, left Rattle to the fire so that he could go explore the cottage and sing hymns to his brother to lull him to sleep before the storm broke upon them. The stairway to the second floor had long since rotted and crumbled away, but the stout ladder down to the cellar remained sturdy.
One of the cottage’s windows still held a dusty pane of glass, and Nathan stopped there to look out at the flashes of lightning as rain began to fall upon the Timber Swamp. The lightning flared, the thunder cracked, and in one of those brief flashes the Bone Baby filled the window with its dread countenance, peering in at Nathan and Samuel. The black sockets of its eyes were empty and leering, and its too-many teeth sharp and hungry.
Terrified, Nathan staggered back from the window and braced himself for whatever was to come. He jabbed one hand to his breast and clutched for the snakestone, then called loudly to Rattlesnake Joe.
“What’s the matter, boy?” Rattle called back gruffly, for he was frustrated with the dampness of the wood he had gathered and the thick smoke it was effusing.
“The Bone Baby is upon us!” cried Nathan.
Faster than thought, Rattlesnake Joe was in the room with his rifle, loading it as quickly as he could with one of the blessed silver bullets. Hardly had Nathan finished speaking, scarcely had Rattle jammed the ramrod down the muzzle, when each and every window left in the cottage shattered at once. Into the ruin blew a frigid storm gale, swelling and swelling till the fire was smudged out to its very coals, and a thick cloak of darkness enveloped the trio while the earth swayed and shook beneath their feet.
“Are you afraid?” asked Rattle, over the sough of pouring powder as he continued to load his rifle in the dark.
“Not yet,” replied Nathan stoutly, though cold shivers ran down his back. “What must come will come.”
“Don’t be afraid,” said Rattle calmly, handing Nathan the tomahawk from his belt, “I will help you. Take this tommy’hawk and get to the cellar, and leave the Bone Baby to me.”
The words were hardly spoken, and Nathan had no time to take even a single step back, before the Bone Baby burst through the window with a wretched cry. It landed on all fours like an ape, and Nathan could scarcely bear to look, so horrible was the beast-
It had a huge white skull, yet with leering sockets black as snakeholes. There was not an ounce of flesh upon it, yet its body was draped with bone like a beetle’s carapace. It had the thick laddered ribs of a horse, a knobby ridge of a spine like a whale, and antlers and horns growing every which way from every part of its body. And that was the Bone Baby.
When the Bone Baby lifted its head it saw Nathan, and saw Samuel, and a hiss rattled forth from its bone-dry mouth. Nathan planted his feet firmly upon the floor and braced for whatever was to come. The beast gathered itself to spring upon the boys, and was just about to do so when the room lit up with a mighty flash as Rattlesnake Joe fired his rifle at the awful fiend.
The Bone Baby cowered before the gunfire, but when the harsh light faded Nathan and Rattle were both mortified to see the Bone Baby gone!
“Flash in the pan!” Rattle despaired, as he opened the frizzen and uncorked his powder horn for a second try.
Nathan looked around wildly for the Bone Baby. There he saw it crawling across the ceiling, clinging on like a spider by the tips of its bony fingers. When it was directly over top of him, it turned its head backward to face the boy and leapt upon him. Without a second’s thought, Rattlesnake Joe laid into the brute with the butt of his rifle.
The rifle struck the Bone Baby with a loud crack that left it hissing in pain and rage, and Nathan heard the blessed silver ball fall out of the gun’s barrel and roll like a marble across the floor. He meant to retrieve it when Rattle called out- “The cellar, boy! Get to the cellar!”
And so, as Rattle raised his weapon to menace the Bone Baby further, Nathan raced to the door of the cellar and fairly flew down the stout ladder, Samuel crying and crying all the way.
It was dark in the cellar, far darker than the night outside, for not even lightning could shine into that inky hole in the ground, and Nathan stumbled as he ran to the far corner of the room. He picked himself up and tread more carefully, for Samuel was on his back crying up a storm of his own, and he had to be careful not to fall and crush the infant by mistake. Nor could he afford to risk crushing the stick of chalk, or shattering the precious Blue Bottle. He picked his way slowly across the floor and when he finally felt the corner walls he took out the chalk, and round himself and Samuel he drew a great circle upon the stone floor.
There the boys waited for what was only a few minutes, but seemed like many hours. Upstairs Nathan could hear the sounds of struggle, as Rattle did his best to fend off the Bone Baby. What exactly happened up there, I cannot tell you. Nathan heard shouts, and grunts, and the scuffing of feet on the old creaking floorboards. Then, silence.
Nathan was very tempted to use the Blue Bottle to see how the fight had concluded, or, failing that, at least to learn where the Bone Baby was now, but as he was about to uncork it he thought better, and decided to preserve the Bottle for later. He tried to calm Samuel but it was little use, for the baby was frightened by the noise and the dark and hadn’t the slightest clue what was going on.
The boy waited for a good long time before his curiosity and worry for his new friend finally got the better of him. He relieved himself of Samuel’s papoose and left the baby lying in the center of the chalk circle. Then he stepped over the border of the circle, taking care not to smudge it, and ascended the cellar ladder.
He lifted the hatch slowly and peered just over the edge of the floor, like a turtle peeking from its shell. Rattlesnake Joe lay slumped against the wall in a daze, but the Bone Baby was nowhere to be seen. Nathan summoned his courage to poke his head up further, to look round for the dread creature, when suddenly the Bone Baby’s knobby, clawed fingers took a swipe at him from where it was perched atop the cellar hatch.
Nathan fell back down the ladder with a cry and hit his head, and that was all he remembered for a good while. When he came around, he groaned and rubbed at the egg which had grown upon the back of his head. Then he gasped at the sight of the Bone Baby just ahead of him.
The dread creature was pacing back and forth in front of Samuel, hissing in frustration, for it could not reach him through the circle of chalk. Nathan watched in fearful silence as the Bone Baby stalked on its knuckles from one side of the circle to the other, and with nary a swish the boy withdrew the tomahawk from his belt. He waited until the Bone Baby was close enough to him, yet far enough away from Samuel, that he felt sure he couldn’t miss. Then, quiet as an owl, he threw the blade.
A fine throw it was! The axehead lodged in between two plates of bone girdling the Bone Baby’s back, and the fiend shrieked in pain, bounding off into the darkness.
Nathan approached the circle and stepped gingerly inside, taking special care now not to smudge it with the Bone Baby so terribly near. Samuel was silent and this worried Nathan, until he put his ear to his brother’s mouth and heard him breathing softly, sound asleep despite the terror and danger lurking all about him. And Nathan wanted nothing more than to stay in the circle with him all night until morning broke and the Bone Baby was forced to slink away to whatever dark places it hid in during the day. But Rattle was upstairs, injured or worse, and Nathan’s compassion for his new friend triumphed over concern for his own safety. And so the brave lad, not trusting Samuel to not somehow accidentally roll out of the protective circle, scooped up the babe into his arms and strapped on his papoose. Then he picked up his haversack and, unsure if the Bone Baby was still in the cellar, made a quick dash for the ladder.
Nathan climbed the ladder as if a pack of hounds were nipping after his heels, and when he made it to the top he shut the hatch after him to lock away whatever might be down there. Then, quickly, he stepped away from the cellar door, and with the chalk he drew another circle on the floor round himself and Samuel. After that, he looked across the dark kitchen for Rattlesnake Joe.
Rattle lay on the ground near where the fire had been doused by the cyclone winds. He didn’t move at all, and Nathan feared the worst, only then the woodsman groaned and rolled upon his side. Nathan left Samuel in the circle again and stepped carefully outside of it, taking care not to even touch the chalk with the tip of his shoe. Then he tiptoed over to Rattle, trying to remain as quiet as possible so as not to alert the Bone Baby.
When he reached Rattle, Nathan tried to shake him awake, but nothing the boy said or did had any effect on the woodsman. No soothing words, nor gentle shakes, nor even a slap to the face stirred him the slightest from his groggy mumblings. Then Nathan looked down and saw a flask on Rattlesnake Joe’s belt. When he picked it off the belt, Nathan saw it was labeled-
RATTLER OIL
~~~
FOR MEDICINAL USE ONLY
With no other options at hand, Nathan uncorked the bottle, put it to Rattle’s lips, and tipped it back. No sooner had he done this, Rattlesnake Joe coughed and sprang back to his feet, as sprightly as if he’d just awoken from a pleasant dream.
“Where is that wretched thing?” asked Rattle. He looked around the cottage but it was darker than a pot of ink with no fire and no moon and no stars to light the way.
“I don’t know. It came into the cellar with us. I threw the tomahawk at it, and then it disappeared.”
Rattle hunched down and rubbed his head. “We are in quite a fix, then. Where is Samuel?”
“In the circle of chalk. The Bone Baby cannot get inside.”
“Good. Good.”
They sat for a moment, deliberating about what to do next, when Nathan had an idea. Said he- “I think it is time to use the Blue Bottle.”
“A right fine idea, boy,” said Rattle, “You go back inside the circle and look into the Bottle, while I load my rifle. Then tell me where the Bone Baby is.”
Nathan nodded and stepped carefully back inside the chalk circle. He strapped Samuel’s papoose to his back once more, then reached into his pack for the Blue Bottle. It still shone bright as sapphire even in the dark, and when Nathan popped the cork off the Bottle filled the room with an ethereal blue glow, as if from devil lightning or witchfire. And when he held the lip of the bottle up to his eye and peered in, he could see the terrible form of the Bone Baby, wreathed in blue fog. He saw it in perfect detail, as if he were looking at it himself- there were its leering black eye sockets, and its pale knobby bones, and even the silver tomahawk still stuck in its back. As he stared the fog began to clear, and the Bone Baby was revealed to be hiding up in the ceiling corner, near where the crumbled stairs fell away from the cottage’s second story. Nathan told this to Rattle, and the woodsman nodded and stalked away to renew his hunt for the Bone Baby.
As soon as he took his eye away from the Blue Bottle, the magical light was abruptly sucked all back into the bottle, and the bottle itself lost its sapphire sheen, and became as any other apothecary glass. And Nathan wished sorely for the comfort of its light, but when he held it up to his eye again it was exactly as his mother had foretold- the magic was all gone, and the bottle would never be enchanted again.
Rattle stalked first into the parlor, then back into the kitchen, pretending not to know where the Bone Baby was. Then, with the cunning of a wildcat, he raised the rifle right to the corner where Nathan said the creature was and fired in the same moment. The ball missed by a hairsbreadth, drilling a hole in the ceiling. The Bone Baby hissed and leapt upon Rattle in the same motion, and Rattle was knocked back with a grunt, stumbling into the chalk circle.
“No!” Nathan shouted, for Rattle had stepped upon the chalk, smudging it with his boot. And in that same instant the enchantment was broken, and the Bone Baby was within the circle. It knew Samuel was there, and wanted very badly to steal his tender baby bones, and so with a vicious swipe it knocked Rattle into the wall and leapt for Nathan. Nathan caught the Bone Baby in his arms and held it there, even as it tried to clamber over his head to get at Samuel, nestled in his papoose on Nathan’s back. Then its terrible bony fingers brushed against the snakestone amulet, and the hissing fiend withdrew its hand as if it had been burnt. But its agony lasted only a moment before it redoubled its efforts to push Nathan aside so it might steal Samuel’s bones.
Nathan felt for a moment as if he were wrapped in a garment of fear, and he thought he would surely die. But Samuel’s innocent cries made iron his resolve, and the boy took heart, and stood his ground and fought as he had never fought before. Luck ordained that Nathan had caught the Bone Baby within reach of the tomahawk still lodged in its back, and with a quick lunge he drew it from its scabbard of bone and slashed fury back at the fiend.
As the fight wore on Nathan’s strength began to fail, yet while the Bone Baby’s remained ever waxing. Its claws were sharp, and its teeth gnashing, and its powers immense. And then true disaster struck, for in one last lash the tomahawk struck upon the Bone Baby’s shoulder, and the blade ground and shattered, leaving Nathan holding only the useless hilt.
The Bone Baby’s mouth opened in a wide, contemptuous sneer as it realized its triumph was at hand. But Nathan didn’t waste a second. He loosened his grip on the Bone Baby for one perilous moment and grabbed for the snakestone amulet, and pressed it into the Bone Baby’s skull.
White flame erupted from the fiend’s head as if it were hot metal, and the enfant pealed a cry so loud that Nathan thought he would be struck deaf. The Bone Baby leapt away from Nathan and collapsed in a clattering heap onto the floor, clawing at its face and hissing in agony. And Nathan fell to the ground as well, causing Samuel to wail in fear and shock. The boy reached into his haversack for the chalk, only to find it had been ground to dust under the weight of his fall, and there was now no way to stop the Bone Baby from reaching Samuel.
Then, in that moment of despair, a glash of lightning illuminated the room, and Nathan saw where Rattle’s rifle lay on the floor. The boy wiped the sweat from his brow and with a desperate effort rose to his feet. And while the Bone Baby thrashed and writhed and banged its head against the stony ground trying to make the pain go away, Nathan made a dash for the rifle. He picked it up. The ball- where was it? He looked to fallen Rattle. Silver glinted in his hand. Nathan ran over to him and pried the blessed ball from his knobby fingers, and, with his own hands shaking, placed it as gingerly as he could into the muzzle. Then he used the ramrod to shove it and its charge down the barrel’s gullet, and picked up the powder horn from Rattle’s belt. Hands shaking, he spilt some powder upon the cold stone floor, but soon the flash pan was filled and Nathan closed the frizzen and leveled the gun on the writhing form of the Bone Baby.
The wounded Bone Baby looked up just in time to see the boy aiming the gun, and then, though it too was nearly spent, threw itself upon Nathan in one final lunge. But Nathan was on the watch, and squeezed the trigger as the Bone Baby’s terrible head filled the irons. The gun roared like thunder. It kicked back like a stallion. Its barrel belched smoke like a volcano. And when the smoke cleared, before Nathan lay a heap of sizzling, disjointed bones. The Bone Baby was no more.
Nathan fell to his knees, panting for breath. Samuel cried and cried and cried, and needed a changing quite badly, but Nathan had no strength left but to sit and breathe. He sat for a long while, and then when he’d caught his breath he began to laugh, and laughed and laughed until his joyous guffaws roused Rattlesnake Joe.
“What? What happened?” asked Rattle, at whom Nathan just continued to laugh.
Rattle looked to where Nathan was kneeling with the gun in his lap and the crying baby on his back. Then he looked just ahead and saw the heap of bones that the Bone Baby had become, and he too began to laugh.
“Good show, lad! Good show!” Rattle said. He would have leapt up to pat the boy on the back, but he had no strength left either and as soon as the words were out of his mouth he fell down again and laughed while staring at the ceiling.
When morning came, Nathan and Rattle were surprised to see that where the Bone Baby’s skeleton had lain was naught but a pile of dust, with only the fiend’s awful skull remaining. Nathan picked this up and put it in his pack, and since they had no more reason for continuing to Bristol, Nathan and Samuel and Rattlesnake Joe all returned to Philadelphia to spread the joyous news that the Bone Baby had been defeated.
The grateful Mayor hosted a banquet attended by all the gentry of the city, and there Nathan and Rattle were received with all the revelry of kings, and Samuel received his pap from a silver spoon. Rattle had never been surrounded by such splendor and magnificence before, and at first felt sadly out of place, but when he was asked to tell of how he and Nathan had come to meet and how they had jointly defeated the Bone Baby, he fell into spinning a fine mountain yarn and was soon right at home even midst the fancy people of the city. When he told of how his famous snake oil had revived him in the heat of the fight, he sold so much of it that he ran out and made still more sales on promise of future delivery.
And Nathan was received not as a mere boy but as a hero, much to the delight of his dear mother, and a toast was held for him after he presented the Bone Baby’s skull to the Mayor. He asked the Mayor if he could give the skull to the University so it could be studied, and the Mayor said that would be alright. Then Nathan was asked to tell his version of the fight, which was mostly in accord with Rattle’s yarn, and at the end Nathan blushed mightily when the Mayor’s pretty daughter planted a kiss on his cheek for his bravery.
True to his word, the Mayor allowed Nathan to bestow the Bone Baby’s skull to a craniologist at the University, where it supposedly remains to this day. And plenty of babies were soon born to parents who had no more to fear from the terrible Bone Baby, and they all lived happily ever after.
The End.