Free Shaman's Blood by Anne C. Petty

rituals caused many a New Orleans resident in the 1950’s to sprinkle salt over their doorsteps. According to the hand-lettered sign tacked beside the Soul Food office door, Mistress Savoie knew about protection, how to cast it and how to break it, but what she’d seen in Ned, or just behind him to be more precise, was apparently more than she felt prepared to confront.
    “That’s old serpent majik,” she told him, “but somethin’ else, too.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper that Ned strained to hear, and she’d made a protective hand signal in the air in front of his nose.
    “Go find yourself a Pentecostal snake-handler. I don’t want nothin’ to do with this.” He could smell her sweat, patchouli laced with something musky, making dark circles on her cotton blouse under her ample arms. And then he’d found himself curbside, watching the street lamps come on in the tepid Louisiana night and wondering what the hell to do. True to form, he’d hitched a ride out of town within the hour, heading west. It was a pattern that felt disturbingly familiar.
     
    *    *    *
     
    In the fading sunlight, Ned heard what he’d been waiting for.
    “Eloi shandai, shandai, harakushka, eloi …” The tongues of angels, according to St. Paul.
    The high nasal voice set the tone, and others in the congregation took up the chant.
    “Jesuslord … shandai … release Your Holy Spirit, lord … harakaharaka shandai …”
    Ned started walking toward the tent. Voices murmured, someone wept. A woman screamed, a baby began to cry and was shushed. Nasal Voice upped the ante and built the crowd into a frenzy.
    “Behold! The power of the Holy Ghost! Fill us up, fill up these sinners—witness the power of His protection!”
    Ned knew without a doubt what was going on by now. He pushed the tent flap aside and stepped into the sweltering confines of Brother Micah’s Southern Tent Revival. The stench of raw sweat and mildewed canvas filled his nose and mind. How many years ago had he been in one of these tents? The gloom was lit by a couple of hurricane lanterns hung from the tent struts, their sharp white light revealing maybe a hundred folding chairs set in rows bisected by one long aisle. A low wooden stage took up the space in front of the chairs. Onstage, Ned saw what he’d expected to see: several middle-aged men, thin to skinny, dressed in the kind of nondescript plaid shirts and shapeless pants you’d find in charity clothing centers. But the one who worked the crowd wore a cowboy-styled shirt and bolo tie. Ned pegged him for Brother Micah. A high table dominated center stage, and on it sat a couple of wooden boxes, each about two feet square with their lids closed. Except for one.
    The oldest man dipped his hand in the opened box and hauled out a timber rattler. He held it high over his balding head, its buzzing tailtip brushing his eyebrows. More shrieks from the crowd and loud yelps of “Praise Jesus!” The serpent began to thrash its tail, and the man danced around with it a bit, then reached into the box again, extracting another rattler. Ned felt a wash of old fear.
    “Behold! The power of the HOLY SPIRIT!” shouted the man in the bolo. Ned stood transfixed at the back of the crowd, drinking in the scene, the moaning, praying, weeping, shouting, and singing voices wrapping him up in the group trance. A gaunt, gray-haired woman who’d been standing at the back of the stage stepped forward and opened a second box. Ned felt sweat running down his ribs and mingling with the sour smell of the tent, not so much from the spectacle in front of him as from the unbearable stinging across his chest and the barest suggestion of a rasping voice inside his head. Or maybe it was the agitated buzzing of the captive serpents—he couldn’t tell.
    The woman flipped her long braid over her shoulder and reached into the second box, pulling out an even longer, fatter snake. A western diamondback, by its markings. More shrieks