Rue Thadday - hobo princess

Now, Eastwest Wood is contrary every way that a stretch of land can be contrary. It is not in the East or the West; instead, it ambles on through to the South, running along inside the warehouse district of the city, and then stretching out beyond city limits, keeping neck and neck with the railroad tracks as they run off Far and Away. And, while we are being honest, it is not much of a wood at all, a fact Rue was reminded of all too clearly as she stomped on through. Sure enough, once you started in, there were trees and trees as far as the eye could see... But you passed a certain point, just on the edge of the city, and things started changing. The trees started dying. There they would stand, thick as ever, but dead as a street fair goldfish.

On top of that, not a one had the decency to rot away and make room for the young. They seemed just stake their claim, live thier lives, and clutter the earth with their skeletons. Bark and leaf made way to mud and treebone. Rue found a funny kind of beauty to it, and soundly appreciated the stubbornness.

So along she stomped, the mud building up quite a bit: it caked up so around her soles that it began to add to her height. At first, she just thought the world was shrinking—an experience she had been privy to more than once before—but it was just the mud, giving a few good feet to her build. Overall, the effect left here feeling more than a little bit uncomfortable. Some things Should Not Be: bulls should not play fiddles; hats should not recite poems; Rue Thadday should not measure a centimeter over four feet. So when she discovered she had, in fact, reached a full six, she felt distinctly uncertain of things. Regardless, the fact remains that, if she did not have the extra height, she might have missed the bear a few trees over.

Since she caught it, and since critters were mighty rare in the deader, swampier part of Eastwest, she decided to pass a query or two by. So over she stomped.

"Heya, bear?" She tipped her hat to expose her forehead for a thoughtful scratching. "You know of a voodoo witchman 'round these parts?"

The bear—one of the polar variety—gave her a look of absolute unease. "Don't go lookin' for the witchman," it moaned. "It'll turn you into a bear! Just like he did me! I'm not a bear, I'm a man, and my name's Bubba."

Rue clutched her knees and hunkered down best she could to eyeball the bear. "You was a man?" she asked, doubtful.

"Yes," he sniffed. "I was. And I resent the tone."

"Well then," and Rue hunkered down lower, "if I know my logics right, that would mean you know where the witchman is."

The bear panicked, his fur standing on ends, his teeth chattering. "Aw, cripes, giant, I sure as heck ain't goin' back there, not for nothing in the whold world."

"That's what you think," said Rue, and grabbed that bear by the ear.

Now, bears are famously thick-skinned creatires, all wrapped up in fur and fat and fangy, fangy bone. You cannot poke them into submission, not by any approxamation of modern science. But boy howdy, do they hate being grabbed by the ear. Once you have them there, you have got them but good. They will give you all their lunch money, plus bus fare, if you get them by the ear.

So once she got a hold of that ear, Bubba the polar bear moaned and groaned. "All right, all right; darn ya, giant, you and your ear-grabbin'."

And he led her deeper into the wood.

Soon enough, he had lost his way—seemed he was not very good at being a bear—and Rue had gained another three feet'a mud. Good thing, too, because that let her see the second bear, just along the way.

"Heya, bear?" She tipped her hat, just like a princess should. "You know of a voodoo witchman 'round these parts?"

The bear—one of the grizzly variety—gave her a look of deep concern. "Don't go lookin' for the witchman," he warned, tutting at her vaugely as she towered right over him. "Why, I merely crossed his path, and look what he did to me!" He pawed at his chest sadly. "A man of my stature does not need this sort of sassery, no ma'am."

Rue clutched her knees and leaned over the bear, looking him right in the muzzle. "I reckon you're a man, too?"

"I most certainly am," said the grizzley with a sniff. "Benji Kavadere, at your service." And he kissed her hand with a bow.

Now, Rue was in favor of folks bowing at her, by and large, but not when there was voodoo afoot. "Well then, Mr. Bear, I reckon I shall call on your services to hunt me up that witchman."

The bear grimaced. "I'd never do such a thing, not in a thousand years!"

"That's what you think," said Rue, and grabbed that bear by the ear with her other hand.

And so it went, those two bears hemming and hawwing as they half-heartedly led her through the wood. Now, Rue was getting mighty tired of this nonsense. She found herself all of twelve feet tall—a miserable height to be, especially when one has to haul two bears by the ear. And sure enough, Benji the grizzly had lost track of the trail right where the dead trees began to get so thick, she would never have been able to walk through them. But as it was, she just walked right over them, swinging a bear in each hand.

And that was how she saw the third bear, a dinky little honey bear, sitting off in the distance where the trees began to thin again.

"Enough is enough," said Rue to herself as she stomped over to the third bear.

"Now, listen," she began, "I know yer not a bear, you're a man; and I know that voodoo witchman musta fixed you but good; and I know you gotta know where he is 'cos he gotta been 'round here to'a done it to ya. So you better show me where, so I can thump this fella, or else you're gonna face my wrath."

"No," said the honey bear quite calmly. "You gots no power over me, giant. Ain't nobody got no power over me but the princess, and you ain't no princess."

"Oh?" Rue's vision began to go red. "I ain't?"

"Nah," said the bear, diggin' his own grave as fast as he might. "The princess is a sissy lil' halfpint—"

The honey bear could not get any farther, on account of Rue had shucked herself free of her boots, jumped right down on that honey bear, and grabbed its ears with her toes. And let me tell you what, if there is anything a bear hates more than getting one ear grabbed, it is having two ears grabbed by unwashed feet.

So away the four went—the polar bear in Rue's left hand, the grizzly in her right, and the honey bear in her toes. Those three fellows felt in their beary bones that they were getting closer to that witchman as the trees thinned out and the fog got thicker, and so they moved in a jittery mass of deliberate slowness, like a Slinky made of jello. Rue would have none of that, so she swore and yelled and hollered, and told those bears that if they did not take her to that witchman they would a wish they had never woke from hibernation. Benji took some offence at the slur, but decided to keep it to himself until he was a man again and could make complaints through the proper channels.

So it was that the trees thinned out until there were just mud all around, as far as the eye could see—which was not far, to be honest, the fog was so thick—except for right there, right up ahead. There the trees had fallen—finally—but in a very specified manner, so they went all together and made a treebone teepee. And out up the top of the teepee, dark through the fog, came a smoke from within, all black and thick and heavy.

Those bears might have been mighty creatures, but they were men at heart, and they were much afraid at the sight of such a thing. They had been shaking before, but now it was clear to Rue those were just practice tremors, and this was the main event. "What a lot of right finks," she thought stompily, but still she hauled them right in through the door with her. If nothing else, she would have finks between her and this witchman.

Who, it turned out, was not much of a man at all. He was not really much of an anything. Just like Di had hinted, he was old; but Rue had trouble imagining that someone could even begin to look so antique. His head was heavy and bald, all covered with kidney spots and wrinkles, and his body was bent and stooped over a cauldron, a perfect half-curve from head to toe held up in the air by a worn little bamboo walking stick. Rue had trouble believing that this fellow could do much damage to anyone—but still the bears shrunk back and away.

She let them go so she might stomp up right to his fire, her arms akimbo at her sides. "You're the voodoo witchman?"

It seemed he could not hear her: he just kept stirring at his pot and humming to himself.

Rue could not abide being ignored. She wish she had kept her boots, so she could stomp right in his stew.

"HEY," she shouted—and Rue was known for her shouting—"YOU'RE THE VOODOO WITCHMAN?"

At last he looked up at her, all clouded eyes, and he smacked his lips, all reddy gums. "Ah, ah," he answered, after much thought, "Yeessss."

"Good, because—"

"Though... I prefer..." he continued, stirring at his pot, "....to be called...... voodoo sorcerer."

"Well," and Rue shot him A Look, "I don't know about—"

"Do you..." he wheezed, "fear....becoming... a bear?"

"About that—"

"Alla... caBEAR!" and he tossed the the stew right at her.

But hobos are quick in the art of avoiding hot liquids. With a duck and roll, Rue was more than clear. The stew splished all over the trio, but they honestly could not get much bearier, though they complained about the damp for a whiles.

Rue headbutted the caludron so that it rocketed out the doorway and landed in the distant mire with a plop.

She turned on the old man with more than a little anger. "So let me get this straight. If I got your story right, you was cursed with never dyin' by a gypsy?"

The witchman nodded saddly.

"An' so you're seekin' out these darkly arts for revengery?"

Again, the witchman nodded.

"And the best you can do is bears?"

Let it be known that Rue never held a grudge when there was such potential being wasted.

"You gots yourself this big scary tee-pee inna big scary wood—which, by the way, you should ask me about campin' out in, because that ain't right, I's'a princess and all, an' ya got show respects—an' all you can do to folks is bear 'em?"

The man scratched at his chin thoughtfully.

Rue laid a hand on his wrinkley shoulder and swept her other arm out wide before him. "There's a whole haminal kingdom out there," she cooed, "all full of critters that gypsy can be turned in to!"

"....oooh," said the witchman.

"Or!!!" Rue doffed her cap and pulled out her notebook, "Why limit yourself to real critters! What you gots here is a noppertunity!"

And they both dropped to the ground as crayons spilled out of her top hat. She made a circle with a broad, thick line.

"This here," she said, gnawing on her tongue, "is a steam-powered crab." She scrawled a few flourishing blue spots to signify the steam. "See, steam. An' if you pin him just so with a stick," and she jabbed at the paper, "he cooks hisself and it's ready eatin'! And that's revenge served pipin' tasty."

The witchman licked his chops.

"OR," cried Rue, drawing with growing excitement, "you could turn him into a rocket-powered moose..."

And so they drew, and drew, and drew.

The bears peered over their shoulders.

"I have an idea," said Benji.

"....oh?" asked the witchman.

"You could turn us... I mean, you could turn them..."

"Yes?" said Rue, all excited. "Yes?"

"Into a man."

Rue and the witchman exchanged A Look.

"No, yassee," and Benji gestured broadly, hopefully, with clacking claws, "it'd be ironic, because you'd be implyin' that man is the most horrible creature of all. You see?"

And they locked the bears outside.

"I tried," said Benji to the other two bearmen sadly.

Away they toiled within until, at last, they hit upon a design they decided that gypsy would thoroughly detest. They shook on it, and Rue wished the witchman well on his warpath of revenge.

As the old man hobbled off into the fog, the bears began to grouse. "And what about us?" they said. "We're still bears! You didn't do a consarned thing to help us, Rue."

"Now, the way I see it," Rue said thoughtfully, tapping at her nose, "A bear ain't too bad a thing to be. At least you ain't been turned inta this."

And she showed them the final design.

Let me tell you, friend, those bears set off screaming, tearing off through those woods—and when the trees got thick again, they did not care; they just smashed right through. And so they disappeared into Eastwest, with nothing to mark their passage but distant, crashing screams.

Rue wandered back Chowbibward, and once she made it to the sign at the head of the wood, she decided to take a temporary break from her princessing to do a little official hoboing. She dug into her top hat and pulled out her pocketknife, and on the bottom of the Eastwest Wood sign she carved the hobo code for WARNING: SCREAMING BEARS.

Once she had finished, she smiled to herself and went right on back to her home stomping grounds—but if she had been paying more attention, she might have heard that noise. That quiet noise, right there, peeking around the trees of Eastwest. That sound like a drum echoing back on itself, until it was a right delicate cacophany. Those were not drums at all. Truth was, that voodoo witchman did not get too far. He was using voodoo magics, sure enough—but he had stolen them from the voodoo god while the god was not looking. And you can only run from a god for so long.

So the voodoo god crunched on the witchman's bones, and tappity-tapped his fingertips on the dead trees, and watched Rue as she made her way out through the woods.

And just so he would not forget her face, he took up one of those trees, and carved himself a doll in her likeness, such as even Momma Thadday wouldn't know the difference.

And once the voodoo god found Rue's boots sitting there in the forest, and decorated his doll with them?

Rue herself would have to think twice upon such a confrontation.

But that confrontation didn't need to be rushed. The god had time. He had all the time the world had left.

He slipped the doll into his pocket, and ambled along and away.