The Witch of the Westmoreland

When he woke up, Nick Barkley had no idea how he had ended up where he was, flat on his back in the middle of the road in the middle of nowhere. He tried to sit up, but a fire in his upper right chest sent him back down in the dirt. It also cleared his mind, somewhat. He felt for the pain, and his hand came away bloody. He quickly figured it out. Somehow, he'd been shot and left here for dead.

He heard a horse whinny. Rolling onto his left side, he saw his horse standing patiently on the side of the road, about ten feet away. He laughed a little. "Thank you, Coco, old friend. Now you just stay there."

He tried to get up again, and after falling back twice more, he finally got on his knees and was able to crawl toward his horse. Coco saw him move and came closer, meeting him halfway. Laughing, at least until it hurt too much to laugh, Nick pulled himself up by the stirrup and slowly mounted. Unable to sit up straight, he pulled the reins up and started Coco moving back along the road.

He remembered where he was – on the way home from Stockton after selling a couple of brood mares to a ranch about forty miles south. He stopped for a moment and reached for his wallet. He wasn't really surprised to find it gone.

But oh, God, his chest hurt again. He felt the blood again. Every step Coco took made the wound bleed more. I'm in big trouble, Nick said to himself. I've been robbed and shot and I'm in big trouble.

He prodded Coco on again, telling the horse to take it easy and slow. Nick's head began to spin after less than a mile, and he was afraid he was going to fall right out of the saddle. He pulled Coco to a stop.

A voice said, "You've been wounded."

Blinking, rubbing his eyes, Nick looked around, but there was no one there. Was it another thief lying in wait? "Who's there?" he asked as loudly as he could. "I've already been robbed once, so you may as well forget about stealing from me. There's nothing left to steal."

Talking took a lot of strength out of him, but the voice said again, "You've been wounded. You're bleeding badly. Only the witch can help you."

Nick squinted and looked, but all he saw was a hawk on a tree limb, not ten feet away. The hawk eyed him. "It sure isn't you talking to me," Nick said out loud.

The hawk turned its head a bit and kept eying Nick.

Suddenly, Nick heard something coming, something on four legs, but not a horse. It came from in front of him. He waited – and saw a dog, a very large dog, come running toward him and stopping only a few feet in front of Coco. The dog looked up at him.

"You need the witch," the voice said again.

Nick knew it couldn't be the dog or the hawk talking to him, but he the voice actually sounded like it came from the tree where the hawk sat. He looked over that way. "How do I find this witch?" he decided to ask.

"Through the pass, along the black water, to the lake," the voice said, and now Nick was thinking he was hallucinating, because the voice definitely came from the hawk.

"What – what are you?" Nick asked.

The dog barked, once, an order, aimed at Coco. The dog turned and Coco started to follow it, onto a trail off the road. Nick was losing strength too quickly to argue with his horse, so he let Coco follow the dog. Moving ahead of them, he heard rustling in the trees, and he saw the hawk again more than once. The four of them – the hawk, the dog, Coco and Nick – kept moving uphill along the trail. Nick felt like he would pass out at any moment, but he didn't. As they climbed up toward the pass, he felt a little bit more light-headed, and his chest wound was still freely bleeding, but he was powerless to stop Coco. Coco seemed to sense his master's frustration and fear, and whinnied once as they kept climbing.

Somewhere along the way, Nick finally passed out or somehow lost track of what was going on until suddenly Coco stopped. With a deep sigh, Nick sat up as straight as he could again and realized they were all there at a lake – the hawk, the dog, Coco and him. Coco had bent to take some water. Water sounded good to Nick, too. He fell more than let himself down out of the saddle. He landed on his butt beside the water. He could reach it, and he scooped a handful and drank.

And then suddenly flowers were dropped into his lap. He looked up and saw the hawk circling. Nick held onto the flowers and wondered what the heck was going on. It was goldenrod, and goldenrod wasn't even in season.

The dog barked. It came over to him and took the goldenrod away from him. The dog carried the goldenrod to the water and dropped it in.

What the heck is going on? Nick asked himself, and then answered that he had to be dreaming all this. He was really back down in the middle of that road, bleeding to death, and there was nothing he could do about it.

The hawk circled down lower and called. The dog barked.

And something came up out of the lake.

Nick spotted a rock only a few feet away. He crawled to it and sat up in time to see what looked like a horse, rising up out of the water – but not just a horse. There was a women riding it – no, not riding. She was part of the horse, her torso and head were the horse's neck and head. Nick wiped his eyes, looked again, and saw the woman-horse climb out of the water and begin to run.

The dog chased the horse and brought it down with a bite to a fetlock, and the hawk nabbed the woman by her dress and pulled her free from the falling horse. That was when Nick passed out again, expecting that this was the end of him. This hallucination was going to be his last thought in life. But then suddenly – he didn't know when, he was awake again.

And the woman was there. She was seated on the ground and was holding him in her arms. He felt her dress – blue velvet, so comforting to the touch. "Shhh – " she whispered.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Sleep more," she said.

He felt her put something against his wound, and he saw it was the goldenrod the dog had taken from him. He looked and saw Coco and the dog standing nearby, the hawk circling overhead again. Then he was too tired to look.

He felt the woman stroking his body, kissing his neck, pressing the flowers against his wound, touching him in places he liked very much despite the fact that his chest hurt and he was certain he was dying. But then, gradually, the pain went away, and resting against her, he smiled, and he fell asleep.

XXXXXXXX

When he woke up, the sun was beginning to rise. Nick knew it was morning, but he had no idea how long he'd been here on the ground. He felt the woman still holding him, but as he stirred, she slipped away from him and leaned him back against the rock. He opened his eyes and saw her standing beside him, beside the dog, beside Coco, the hawk now nearby in a tree.

Nick took a deep breath and realized he had no more pain. He reached for the wound – and felt nothing. No flowers. No blood. No wound.

"What – ?" he blurted and sat up straighter, and he could sit up straighter with little effort. He suddenly realized he felt stronger. He slowly got his legs under him – and had no trouble at all standing up!

The woman smiled at the confused look on his face. "You're healed," she said.

Nick looked at his chest. He wasn't only healed – it was like he'd never been shot at all. There was no blood. His jacket and shirt were undamaged. "What - ?" he said again.

She laughed a soft, musical laugh. The hawk suddenly flew away, and the dog turned and took off into the trees. The woman turned to go.

"No!" Nick called. "Who are you? Tell me, please, who are you? What did you do to me?"

She stopped, smiled, and quietly said, "I'm the witch of the Westmoreland. Nothing can harm the man who's laid with me."

Then she walked into the trees, following the dog. Nick started for her, but as soon as he reached the trees, he realized he had lost them completely – the woman, the dog, and the hawk.

Coco stood nearby and whinnied. Nick turned and checked himself, and he was absolutely fine. He climbed up into the saddle without a hint of pain or weakness. He sighed. "Coco, I hope you know where to go, because I have no idea where we are or what just happened."

Coco whinnied again, turned and began to carry his master back down away from the lake. Totally baffled, Nick just let the horse take the lead, and it wasn't long before they were back on the road where Nick had been robbed and wounded.

Except now there was no evidence that he had ever been robbed and wounded, not on his body, not in the road. Feeling fine, Nick kicked Coco into a faster canter and headed home, perfectly all right.

XXXXXX

None of his family members said a word after Nick told the story, until Jarrod, leaning back against the desk in the library with his arms folded said a dubious, "Uh-huh."

"It's true!" Nick blurted. "My wallet is gone, isn't it? I swear, I was shot and I was robbed and that woman – " He stopped. Now it was beginning to sound insane to him, too.

But it had happened. He was certain it had happened.

But Jarrod was a man of evidence. "Nick, I think you just had a bit too much to drink and lost the money in a card game and your wallet with it, or something like that."

Nick glared. "I didn't play cards and I didn't do any drinking. I headed right home after I made the sale. Somebody robbed me and shot me and – " He stopped again. Everyone was half smirking.

"If you were wounded that bad, Nick," Heath said, "there would have been blood on your saddle or on Coco and there wasn't any. Now, I can believe you got robbed, but you haven't been shot or conked on the head or anything. You must have been drinking and some pretty girl slipped you something, or – "

Nick just shook his head. "It wasn't anything like that."

"Well, whatever it was, you're out a lot of money," Victoria said. "I am sorry for that, but not sorry enough to believe you were healed overnight by some witch in the woods."

Nick sighed. "If Coco could talk…."

Jarrod came over to his brother by the mantle and gave him a slap on the back. "Whatever it was, Nick, we're all glad you're home safe and sound. Money can be replaced. You can't."

Nick felt better for those words. All right, so they all thought he was crazy and maybe he was. Maybe Heath was right and some pretty saloon girl just slipped him something, but Nick was certain that wasn't what happened. He wondered if he could find his was back up to that lake. He had found his way down and remembered it – at least he thought he remembered it. But then he wondered if only Coco really knew the way up and back, or what had happened and whether it was real.

"Well, you know what?" Nick said and broke into a big smile. "Maybe it wasn't real, but I hope it was. Because it was worth a couple hundred dollars, and it sure was nice."

The End