The boys sat down in Granny’s living room and explained what they were doing and what had happened. She took it all in — Woodrow’s Wampus eyes, the encounter with the Not Deer, the alliance with the Cats, the hunt for the Whirling Whimpus — like it was something she’d heard a thousand times before. Woodrow almost felt compelled to start throwing in fibs to make it more exciting because he was worried she might fall asleep in her rocking chair. Once he was done with his tall tale, all she said in reply was “Oh, bless your heart.”

  He wasn’t sure how to take that.

  “That don’t seem anything that a youngin should be involved in,” she continued after a moment. “Even if he wants to be.”

  “I don’t disagree with you, ma’am, but we didn’t know what else to do with the boy. You should’ve seen that town. Shithole ain’t a strong enough word,” Woodrow said.

  “So y’all make him go and fight a Dwayyo?” she replied with one eyebrow raised.

  “If he can’t handle a Hexenwolf, she sure wouldn’t be able to handle a Whirling Whimpus,” Bill Jones replied flatly. “Better he learn now when we could’ve taken care of it for him than later when he would’ve been ripped apart in a nanosecond.”

  Irritation swelled in her voice. “Take care of it for him? The child had nine toes in the grave before I fixed him up! When did y’all plan on taking care of it for him, exactly?”

  “He would’ve been fine if Woody didn’t haul him out. Did you not think I packed a first aid kit?” Bill Jones turned to Woodrow.

  “Now, I’m no doctor, but I don’t think a first aid kit would’ve done a whole lot of good in that situation,” Woodrow said.

  “Come on, you know me better ‘n that. This ain’t no box of bandaids.” He went out the front door into the rainy afternoon and came back with a plain white box about the size of his head. He opened it up to reveal an assortment of smaller boxes with handwritten labels that contained various powders, a couple of syringes of god-knows-what, and several packages of tightly-bundled bandages.

  He was about to start explaining what the powders were, but Granny cut him off.

  “My word, are you a granny yourself?” she asked. “No, no, ‘course not, or you would know that none of what you got in there would be enough to stop all that bleedin’. You need The Good Book for that.”

  She picked up one of the boxes full of beige powder.

  “This’ll only stop minor bleedin’. Wouldn’t do a darn thing for that boy’s leg.”

  Bill Jones smiled. “I reckon it would’ve bought us enough time to get him to a hospital.”

  “Maybe, maybe,” she said while rubbing her chin thoughtfully. “But prolly not.” She put the powder back in the first aid kit.

  “Well I’ll be damned, Bill Jones. You been dabblin’ in granny magic?” Chuck asked with a huff. He turned to Granny. “And you can actually do it? My meemaw used to tell me all about the sorts of things her meemaw could do — bloodstoppin’, mend burns, all that good stuff — but she could never do it herself, as much as she tried. If I’m bein’ honest, I thought her mind was just goin’.” He grinned like he was trying to suggest that he thought something similar about Granny.

  “You haven’t gone to see the boy yet, have you?” Granny replied with a smile that only someone who’s about to prove a doubter wrong can produce. It was true — Chuck and Bill Jones had just got there and hadn’t checked on Goober yet, thought Bill Jones didn’t seem inclined to doubt Granny.

  “I’m sure you patched him up real good, ma’am. I reckon that’s magic, in its own type of way,” Chuck said.

  “I bet he ain’t patched up at all,” Bill Jones said and looked at Granny with a devious smile that only someone who knew that his friend was about to look like an idiot can produce.

  “Goober, baby, can you come on into the den?” Granny shouted down the hall. There was some sound of shuffling, a few things falling to the ground, and finally slow, heavy footsteps that lead the boy to the room they were all in. He was in a white t-shirt and boxer shorts, and the hole on his leg was clearly visible, with the fresh blood still undulating within the crater and never going any farther.

  He rubbed his eyes like he’d just been woken up. “Oh, hey,” he said to Chuck and Bill Jones.

  “What in the world…” Chuck moved closer to inspect the leg. Goober started to tremble from the strain of standing for so long and threw himself onto couch next to Woodrow. Chuck crouched in front of Goober and just about pressed his nose against the wound. He raised his hand for a moment like he was going to stick his finger in it, but fought down the intrusive thought and put his hand away.

  “How did you —”

  “I done told you already, boy. Granny magic,” Granny said. “That’s all I’m gonna say.”

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  Chuck looked at Woodrow, then Bill Jones, then back to Woodrow, searching for answers on their faces and coming up empty handed. Neither of them looked half as shocked as he was.

  “There are a lot of verifiable firsthand accounts of people witnessing granny magic,” Bill Jones said after reading Chuck’s expression. “Logically, there’s no reason it shouldn’t work, if you believe in more ‘n science. And as a founding member of the Bigfoot Boys, you of all people should know that scientists don’t know everything.”

  “Well, there’s a difference between findin’ creatures that scientists don’t believe in and seein’ a person do magic,” Chuck retorted. “There ain’t no explanation for this.”

  “Yet there it is, right in front of you,” Bill Jones said.

  “Yeah,”

  “The Lord works in mysterious ways,” Granny said.

  “Yeah.” Chuck didn’t stop looking at the wound.

  “Dang,” he said, “we should leave Bill Jones here and take her along. Got more use for someone who can patch us up than a man who can’t shoot straight.”

  “No, no,” Granny said gravely, like she thought Chuck was being serious. “Bill Jones will have to be your granny.”

  “Wouldn’t mind doin’ some granny magic if I could,” Bill Jones said. “I bet I could get the hang of it if someone taught me.”

  “You think so?” Granny said. She got up and got a little black leather book from off of her dining room table and handed it to Bill Jones.

  “My knee’s been bothering me all day,” she said. “Find the passage you need to use to heal it.”

  Bill Jones immediately started to flip furiously through the pages of the book. He’d stop for a second, scan a few lines, then shake his head and get back to flipping. After he did this for a fifth time, Granny snatched the book out of his hands.

  “It ain’t gonna work. You ain’t touched,” she said.

  For the first time since Woodrow had known him, he saw Bill Jones fail at something, and for the first time, he saw him look ashamed.

  “If you just help me learn, give me a shot, I—”

  “It ain’t up to me,” Granny cut him off. “If the Lord don’t choose you, then it ain’t gonna work. Just gotta leave it at that.”

  Bill Jones sighed. Woodrow wasn’t sure why Bill Jones wanted to learn granny magic so bad, aside from the fact that he couldn’t, but he pressed on.

  “Let me read that book a little longer,” he insisted. Granny shoved the book into Bill Jone’s chest.

  “Go ahead. Keep it if you want. It’s just a Bible,” she said.

  Woodrow looked over Bill Jones’s shoulder as he opened the book again. The pages were filled with big, uneven letters, like it was written by hand in a hurry, and the words were completely incomprehensible. He thought it might be Latin, or maybe Hebrew, but didn’t have any real way of knowing.

  Bill Jones put the book in his pocket and said “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Sure,” she said back. “Now, I think y’all should be on your way. The boy’s got a lot of healin’ left to do.”

  “What? You’re leaving me here?” Goober perked up. “But I did it! I killed the wolf!”

  “And just about died in the process,” Chuck said. “We can’t be responsible for that.”

  “That’s not fair!” Goober shouted. He stood up and wobbled precariously, but eventually steadied himself out of sheer indignation. “I doubt any one of y’all could do what I did out there — y’all have to rely on guns to do your huntin’. I killed a Dwayyo with a bow and arrow. When you need someone who can get things done without causing a commotion, what are y’all gonna do if I’m not there?”

  “We’ll figure it out,” Woodrow said. Truthfully, he thought that Goober made a good point. He could add another dimension to the Bigfoot Boys, one that could help them quite a bit when the element of surprise could be the difference between life and death. But he couldn’t get the image of the boy’s face — pale and lifeless as he carried him down the road — out of his head. He’d already caused one of his only friends to die in his pursuit of these creatures, and he couldn’t stand the thought of a kid dying over it too.

  “No you won’t. Not without me,” Goober said. “Can any of y’all even shoot a bow?”

  “You see how many shots it took to take that wolf down?” Chuck asked. “Guns work a hell of a lot better. We’ve been doin’ this for years, boy. I think we can get by without the help of Robinhood.”

  “Robinhood… I kinda liked that. Y’all should call me that when we’re out there huntin’,” Goober said.

  “No!” Woodrow said.

  “Fine. Robin’d work too. I just hate my own name to tell you the truth. Pa really went ahead and named me after the dumbest man Andy knew just because he was named after the second dumbest man Andy knew.” Goober shook his head.

  “I meant no you ain’t comin’!” Woodrow said. “That’s that.”

  “I say he should come,” Bill Jones said. “He’s right, that bow arm of his could help us.”

  “What? The boy can barely stand upright!” Woodrow countered. But Goober had been standing for several minutes, clearly in pain, but refusing to let his legs buckle. He looked at Bill Jones and nodded.

  “See? Glad you got someone smart in the group,” Goober said.

  “He’s a smart ass, too,” Woodrow said. “And we don’t need two of those.” He looked at Granny. “Didn’t you want to keep him here?”

  She put her hands up. “He’s got a lot more healin’ to do, that’s for sure. And y’all are liable to get yourselves killed, doin’ what you’re doin’. But I’m not his mama. If he wants to leave, I can’t keep him here.”

  “We could drive him back to Mount Airy, give him back to his Pa,” Chuck said.

  “Might be difficult to do since y’all ran him over,” Goober replied. An awkward silence followed.

  “Uhhh… sorry ‘bout that,” Bill Jones rubbed his neck and was suddenly very interested in a painting of a sunflower that hung on the wall nearby.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Goober said. “That man was evil. So were the rest of ‘em. You’re lucky you got out when you did.” He shifted his gaze to Bill Jones. “They were gonna burn you alive, you know.”

  “What?” Chuck exclaimed.

  “They thought you were Andy’s kin. You might be, with your last name, but I don’t really give a damn either way. But they were gonna sacrifice you, thinkin’ it would give Andy the strength to return.”

  “Well I —”

  “That’s the place you wanna bring me back to?” Goober continued.

  “…‘spose not.” Chuck conceded.

  “Alright, well here are y’all’s choices: send me back to that loony bin, send me to the Emperor’s group home, or take me along with you. Cause I ain’t stayin’ here.”

  Chuck turned red, Woodrow turned white, and Bill Jones smiled.

  “Looks like we got a new member of the Bigfoot Boys,” Bill Jones said.

  With that, they thanked Granny for her help and loaded into the truck — Bill Jones in the driver’s seat, Woodrow and Chuck crammed into the passenger side, and the newly-crowned Robinhood in the back.