Close your eyes. Count to three. Breathe deeply. Witches cannot pass over running water. You remember this now, looking at the waterfall that flows down. Past the staircase starting at the pellet grills. Past the propane grills. Past the high end coolers and Thermoses. And down the plaster rocks into the pond below, pooling next to the bamboo forest of fishing poles. The fish in the pond stare at them blithely - the tools of their execution. It's just fish, anyway. Witches could not pass this. If there was a witch buying a grill, she couldn't get a fishing rod. Rivers and running water have always been seen as a barrier against evil things. Why do you think that is? Rivers are powerful, and eternal. No dam on Earth can stop one forever. Sometimes, in calamity, they change course. They destroy. And they carve for themselves a cold narrow groove across this Earth. Grasses springing from the old River bed, freshly fallen trees rotting to feed the banks of the new one. And so with the course of the river, so goes the course of purity that wards against evil. Around the gun counter, a crowd of men gather: huddled, muttering, simian. Downstairs across the river, a fudge shoppe. The lady at the counter told you when you got it home to microwave the fudge. “Try putting it on a graham cracker.” You joked and said, “I'm not sure it's gonna make it home.” She laughed. Maybe. More than anything. The sound is holy. The sound of the river. You hear the waterfall behind you. A fake river, on fake stone. Past stuffed deer and pictures of the Ozarks three-thousand miles away. A river like this might not protect you from anything. But rivers can always change course. Welcome to Bass Pro Shops.