Lode Harkwick hadn't more than half believed that there really was a Hanging Witch. Folks who returned from seeking the Witch didn't talk about it, and no-returners never spoke again. Then how did anyone know that the Witch was even there? Such notions came natural to Lode; born on Old Christmas before the Evening Star rose, she saw what others didn't.

Doubt or no, a stone chimneyed cabin stood atop Painter Mountain, where the Witch was supposed to live. Outside the split-rail fence loomed an oak that maybe sprouted before white folks sighted Cumberland Gap. The cabin might look like any other in Defeated Creek, the settlement where Lode had spent the last fifty-two years: stripped poplar trunks supporting a porch roof; muskrat hides drying beside the door; tiny windows you could barely see through. The four corpses that dangled from the oak left no doubt -- the Hanging Witch surely was more than talk.

Lode cracked her knuckles. The October wind made her feel every hour of her sixty-six years, but it carried away some of the corpse-reek. How could the Witch bear it? Has she just gotten used to the stench? Lode, despite her birth-gift cleverness, couldn't imagine how.

Crows had scoured the highest three bodies of flesh. The birds had left enough face on the black and bloated fourth for Lode to recognize Dulce Joyman. Widow Joyman had gone missing a few days ago. In fact, she had vanished two days after Nelt, Lode's only child that the fever hadn't taken, got buried. The way Widow Joyman took to drinking skullsplit after her man Jabez hadn't come back from Chicamauga, Lode wasn't surprised to find her dangling.

Lode spat on the ground. Places like Gettysburg and Shiloh had made lots of widows. Why, Lode's own Hiram hadn't come back from the war either. And that low down scraggle-bearded Anse Viles from over on Viper Hollow had, not eight days past, shot her son Nelt over a faro game. But the war was three years ended this past spring, and Lode had expected Nelt to head for trouble since he was a shirt-tail boy. No, lonesomes weren't why Lode needed the Hanging Witch. Lode took another step. Pain shot through her, age making Painter Mountain a day's jaunt instead of a one hour climb. She rested her hand on the fence, its splintery brittle wood reminding her of the toll the years had taken. "No sense in more putting off," she muttered. She opened the gate.

A voice between a buzzard's croak and a serpent's hiss sounded from behind her. "About time you got here," it said.

The gate slammed shut. Lode turned. A gray-clad woman, apple doll wrinkled, held a twisted walking stick without putting weight on it. The woman's eyes shone like new-dug coal. Her fingers reminded Lode of a potato fork's long sharp tines. "You're the Hanging Witch," Lode said, more statement than question. Who but the Witch could have trod the fallen leaves in silence?

The Witch nodded. As if in response, a dark cloud hid the sun. From a nearby honey locust thicket, a katydid began its mournful evening call. The Witch fixed her black burning gaze on Lode.

Lode looked away. "Most folks what come here need help deciding paths. I'm pretty sure which calls me," Lode said. She filled her lungs with air heavy with decay's sickly sweet smell, and then slowly exhaled. "A long rest sounds better than keeping breathing."

The Witch snorted in disgust. "You think hurting joints alone earn you repose?" The dangling bodies swung as though the wind disturbed them but not the oak's red leaves. "Takes a mort of reasons beyond that."

Lode retreated a step. A crow, black as a carpetbagger's heart, flew down and perched on Dulce's shoulder. Lode shivered, then shook her head. She needed release, and self-killing was sinful; not if the Witch did it for you, though.

Lode turned back to the Witch. "It's more'n just bodily miseries." Lode looked down on Defeated Creek, spread out below. She picked out her own cabin, nestled in among the chestnut forest's autumn reds and yellows -- and that of her younger sisters Nerva and Edom and their families. "Time's coming fast," Lode explained, "when I won't have no choice but to saddle my kin with looking after me." Lode shook her head. "I won't burden them."

The Witch laughed a dry gourd rattling laugh. "Back in '33, when I first climbed this mountain, eighty years was staring me in the face. I wanted the Hanging Witch to spare my clan from looking after me, too," the Witch said.

Lode pursed her lips in confusion. The Witch talked about herself like another person. And, if the Witch had neared eighty in 1833, she would approach a hundred and fifteen now. Folks don't live that long ... except maybe Witches do.

"Been lots of Hanging Witches," the Witch continued, as if in explanation. "The one here then told me that the Hanging Witch gets shed of aching joints, of all age's affliction save wrinkles and gray." The Witch paused and scratched her button nose. She looked very serious, then shook her head. "She lied. Some woes accumulate."

Lode rested her weight on her heels. She wasn't sure what she expected from the Hanging Witch, but this wasn't it.

The Witch shifted her walking stick from one hand to the other. "Free somebody from sorrow," the Witch continued, "and you shoulder a dram of their pain. Not much each time, but it builds to a fearsome load." She shook her head. "I studied long and hard, and realized that a way to shed that burden had to come someday. Might take powerful waiting, but it would come." The Witch pointed at something behind Lode's back. "Look back there."

Lode turned, but saw nothing. The leaves behind Lode rattled. Lode turned. The Witch's stick lay abandoned. Where had the Witch gone? Lode's eyes darted from the honey locusts to the chestnut trees that threatened to choke the path up Painter Mountain.

"You ain't searching right," the Witch's voice called from somewhere above. Lode looked up. The Witch stood on a branch of the oak. Lode frowned. Had she gotten there so fast through witchcraft?

"It's time someone else carried the burden a spell," the Witch said. Lode noticed a rope around the Witch's neck. The branch above the Witch anchored the other end. Lode opened her mouth to ask the Witch what she was doing. Before Lode could speak, the Witch continued. "Ain't a mort of folks what can do the job -- just them special few born on Old Christmas before the Evening Star rose." With those words, the sun reappeared from behind the cloud. "Even then, few got wisdom to handle the job." The Witch took one look at her mountain, and then stepped into space. The rope went tight. The Witch kicked once and then stopped moving, except for the rope's back and forth swing.

Lode felt sick. She wanted to go back down to Defeated Creek but, for some reason, couldn't bring herself to leave the mountain. Lode picked up the walking stick. Its rough polished feel, like a sand rock tumbled in a mountain stream, somehow made Lode's arthritic fingers feel better -- a little, anyway. Lode narrowed her eyes, trying to think through what had happened.

Footsteps rattled up Painter Mountain. She turned. Anse Viles, shapeless hat covering his head and his uncombed black beard resembling a blackberry bramble, stood before her.

Anse looked directly at Lode. "Folks say I'm the devil his self. Tain't so. I might have robbed a little, got rowdy after too much skullsplit." The words rushed out as though Anse had never before dared unburden himself. "But I ain't never killed, not even in war -- until a few days ago."

"Nelt Harkwick" Lode answered, spitting out her murdered son's name.

Anse cast down his eyes. "I caught Nelt dealing cheatsome, and put a bullet in his gut." He shook his head. His voice dropped until it was barely audible. "It was more the skullsplit's doing than mine. But skullsplit don't carry no guilt -- I do. That there weight's getting too much to bear."

Lode's eyes narrowed. Hadn't Anse not recognized the mother of the man he had shot? "Don't you know who I am?" she demanded.

Anse looked back up at her and nodded. "You're the Hanging Witch, the only rightful way out of my misery and blame."

"You could turn yourself in to the law."

Anse scowled. "Nelt weren't no rich Yankee. Carpetbagger law don't care."

Lode glanced at the newest body swinging from the great oak. Those dead lips' words echoed in her mind: There ain't a mort of folks what can do the job-- just them special few born on Old Christmas before the Evening Star rose. Lode licked her dry lips. She had come so she could spare her family a burden. Lode fingered the walking stick. Suppose she could lift not just her family's burdens, but those of lots of folks? Take the world's weight from people's shoulders? The Witch had all but said that she, too, could someday set down the burden she took.

At that thought, the wind changed, carrying the corpse scent directly toward Lode. Now, it didn't seem so bad ... barnyard-earthy, maybe, but not worth worry. Lode's anger drained away, as though the walking stick had absorbed it; she now only thought of Anse as someone needing release, maybe not.

Lode gestured toward the cabin's porch. "Come and sit." As she spoke, a feeling of belonging where she was swept over her. Her aches and pains melted. "I'm the Hanging Witch," Lode continued. "Seeing whether folks truly long for life or death is my purpose."