End of the Tiger and Other Stories

The Straw Witch

Lately Williamson found himself remembering all those weeks he had spent in that Dutch cellar with the old man named Gulligan. He wondered why he should think of it now, after twenty years, why he should dream of it.

This mission was going smoothly. The one with Gulligan had gone wrong, all wrong. Their security had been compromised, and there wasn’t damn else they could do but hide in the cellar blackness and try to talk the timid girl who brought the food to them into taking a message to Ostlund, assuming he was still alive and hadn’t sought other cover.

Gulligan, like an old hound, had caught the whiff of death. In the darkness his mind wandered, and he talked on and on. Gulligan was a sour old hulk, an Irish murderer, a lifelong saboteur and conspirator, just the sort of malignant riffraff they sent on missions like that one. They never sent their clean young men to assassinate civilians.

Gulligan had muttered away in the darkness, talking of death. The wounds and the whisky and the women had not killed him, but they had readied him.

It seemed odd to Williamson that after all the years Gulligan’s voice should come so clearly into his mind. “I don’t know how they summon all the others, Billy boy, but for the ones like you and me, for us they send one of the straw witches. Now not that I mean to be telling you they’re made of straw, lad. It’s a habit they have, known to my father’s father and way back to before the Romans built their walls of stone. On the nights when the moon rises full and yellow they gather where there’s a black pool, and quaggy ground so no fool can approach them. You can hear them on a still night, making their little singsongs of laughter, sitting with their pale beautiful feet in the black water, all of them with silver needles knitting straw in the moonlight, fashioning it into wee gallows ropes and dainty shrouds.”

“For God’s sake shut up, Gulligan!”

“No, they’re not of straw. Not at all. They are the fairest you could find in a day’s journey, lad. Dark-haired lassies with skin satin fine, eyes of a tilt, full of dark secrets and half laughter. Colleens for the taking, lad, all heats and softness under a black dress, and pale arms bare in the moonlight.

“When yours comes for you, lad, you won’t be thinking she’s a straw witch. No, you’ll have your mind on but one thing, and she will take your hand in hers and be in such a sweet hurry to take you to a private place. But when you reach to her, her thighs will be as smoke, her breasts no more than the wind passing, and it is only her lips you will find, with a snow taste to them, cold as pebbled snow, and with a quick and clever suck she takes your wind away and your murderer’s soul.”

“Shut up, Gulligan.”

“Now don’t I know as certain as my name it was a straw witch came for McClure and for Donovan? Leech and Fitzroy and McGuire? And more beyond remembering. And one will come for me because that is the way it has always been for us and always will be.”

But no straw witch had come for the old man. Gulligan had taken sick in the dampness and burned with fever. When he began to rave and call out, Williamson had felt for the socket at the base of the skull and done it quickly. Still, he kept remembering the sound of those last words, “Darlin’, darlin’.”

He had left the cellar three nights later, holding that same knife against the back of the plump, terrified girl until he was out on the streets and clear. And then his luck had been good. Those days had been simpler. An official pardon and the occasional medal. In those days everyone was agreed on the identity of the enemy. Now it was all a confusion, and easiest to stop thinking about the right of it or the wrong of it, and do what was paid for, do it neatly and professionally.

Memories of Gulligan could not spoil this present mission. The fee was high. Two blunderers had made a try at the assignment and failed to kill. So now the man was hard to reach. This time they were in no hurry to have it done. They wanted to be certain. The target was an ambassador. As with so many others, this was assassination for political advantage.

Williamson had been moved into the area and provided with a job and false identity. The ambassador’s big country house was floodlighted at night. There was an electronic intercept system and guards around the clock. When the ambassador left the house, it was in a limousine with bulletproof glass, and the automatic garage doors did not open until he was in the car.

It took Williamson a month to find a way to do it. He found a safe night place from where he could watch with the powerful binoculars. He saw that the routine with the house dog was what made it all possible.

At first he thought it might be possible to do it with a rifle when the ambassador let the dog out. But the distance was too far. It was a night shot and too chancy, and the man had been scared into the habit of caution. He would open the front door at some time between ten and eleven each night, just wide enough to let the dog out. It was a big red setter. About fifteen minutes later he would open the door and whistle for the dog.

The answer was, of course, the dog itself. His best place was a little over two hundred yards from the house, on a wooded ridge. Fifty yards behind him, just off a small suburban highway, was a good place for the car.

The dog ranged well in the night, but even so, Williamson had to wait many nights before it came close enough for him to risk whistling to it. It barked, came closer, whined softly as it smelled the liver. He had cut it into small chunks. The dog was wary. He talked to it steadily in a low tone.

After a week it was in the habit of coming to that spot, with woof of greeting, to eat the fresh meat, have its ears scratched, listen to the friendly voice in the night. Williamson brought along a pencil flash and, shielding it with his body, got a good look at the collar the dog wore, heavy and half buried in the silky red hair. Two days later he had found a collar sufficiently like the one the dog wore

Fortunately the animal was obedient. When he heard the whistle, he would lift his head, then turn and lope back toward the house. He would go directly to the door and be admitted, and it would close. Williamson began bringing a stopwatch. The best time from his accustomed spot was thirty-three seconds. The slowest time was forty seconds. The median time seemed to be about thirty-six seconds. When he was certain that it could be done that way, he made his contact and told what was needed. He stressed the fact that the timer had to be extremely accurate, and that the entire pack — timer and explosive — could not weigh over twelve ounces.

When it was delivered, he found that the total weight was almost fifteen ounces, but he decided that would do.

Sweating slightly, he disengaged the timing device and tested it for accuracy. Between forty and fifty seconds it was accurate to within two seconds. He finally decided that he would set it at forty-four seconds. The additional weight might bother the dog. Once inside the door, it would very probably give its master extravagant greetings and expect to be petted. It would not really matter whether or not the man was bending over it. If he was within six feet of the dog, he would die. If he was within ten feet of the dog, he would probably die.

He reassembled the packet, set it for forty-four seconds, and affixed it to the collar he had purchased. A small thumb switch would activate it, and it made no sound to bother the dog.

They wanted to know when it would happen so that they could take maximum advantage of the incident. He gave them a date that would provide three more nights of test. On those three nights he removed the dog’s collar and replaced it. And, being thorough, he waited until the dog heard the whistle, pressed the imaginary switch, and watched it hurry off toward the white brilliance of the house.

On the target night he was in position at nine o’clock, with the lethal collar and the bits of meat on waxed paper laid out. He waited with all the endless patience he had learned.

At twenty of eleven the dog was let out of the house. He saw it come prancing through the brightness. He knew it would stop briefly among the trees and then head out to the familiar place. As the dog gulped the liver, he removed its collar and put the other one on.

The dog twisted and whined at the unfamiliar weight. He had to keep it close by. He took out the second packet of liver and fed it a bit at a time. The dog pranced and woofed. This was a new game.

Williamson was ready for the whistle. When it came, he reached quickly, found the switch, and activated it. The dog started toward the house. Williamson had decided that the roads might be blocked very quickly, and it would be better to deny himself the satisfaction of seeing the white front door blown outward.

So before the red dog had gone twenty feet, he jumped up and began to go swiftly down the slope. He turned and looked back and saw the dog standing in the moonlight, looking back at him, its head cocked quizzically.

“Go home!” he said. “Go home, dog!”

He started down the slope and saw it come after him. This, too, was a new game with the new friend. Now he knew the dog could not make the house in time, so he began to run. He tripped on the slope, fell and rolled, and scrambled up. He ran down to the road and began to race along the shoulder toward his car. He suddenly heard, to his horror, an excited woof close at his heels, and then the sleek hard shoulder of the dog nudged against his leg as he ran, almost tripping him. He looked down and saw the delighted dog running easily along with him, grinning up at him in the moonlight.

And when he looked ahead to see how far it was to the car, wondering if he could make it, knowing he could not, he saw beyond where he left it, a girl standing under the cone of the streetlight. All he had time for in this world was to see the shine of her dark hair, and see that her arms were bare and white, her dress was black, and that she stood indolently, looking toward him as though she were waiting for him.