A Land More Kind Than Home Page 3

  “You ain’t afraid, are you?” Chambliss whispered. I tried to say something to him, but it was like the words got caught in my throat and I couldn’t cough them up good enough to speak. He gave my neck a hard squeeze and shook me good, and when he did I felt that rattler buck against the roof of its crate and I thought I’d been bit for sure. “Are you afraid!” he hollered at me then.

  “No,” I finally said so quiet I almost couldn’t hear myself. “I ain’t afraid.”

  “You ain’t got to be afraid if you believe,” he whispered. “If you got your faith, there’s nothing in this world that can hurt you. Not the law, not no man neither. Ain’t nothing you need to fear but the Lord himself.”

  Once he said that, I felt that hand let go of my arm, and I pulled it out of the trap on that crate just as fast as I could and tucked it under me with my other hand. I heard him close that trap with his boot, and then I heard him behind me setting that folding chair back upright. I still had my eyes closed because I was too afraid to even open them, and I stayed there on my knees on the floor with my arms pulled up under my chin like I was praying. I heard his footsteps come around in front of me, and he bent over and closed the latch on that crate and picked it up by its handle. I could tell he was standing right there over me because I heard him breathing heavy, but other than that it was quiet again, so quiet it was almost like nothing had happened.

  “Hope to see you on Sunday,” he finally said. “If you get a mind to it, come on inside and join us for worship.”

  I stayed hunkered down there in the front row of the church and listened to his footsteps as he walked down the center aisle toward the door. I heard him open it up and step outside, and when he did my eyes sensed the explosion of light the door let in even though I had them closed just as tight as I could. He was outside, but I stayed froze just like that until I heard the sound of his car engine revving; I still didn’t move when I heard him pull out onto the road and head out toward the highway. Once I was sure he was gone, I opened my eyes and tried to look around to get my bearings, but the light from the door was gone, and I knew my eyes would have to fix themselves against the blackness that had once again taken over the church.

  Jess Hall

  TWO

  I FOLLOWED JOE BILL FARTHER DOWN THE RIVERBANK THAN we’d ever gone before. We stopped at the bridge and came up a new path from the river through the bright morning sunlight and crossed the road toward the woods on the other side. We walked along the railroad tracks where you could smell the dusty ties getting baked dry in the heat, and then we went into the trees and crawled through briars and over rotten limbs and didn’t say a word to each other until we stood in the shade on the edge of the woods and stared across the field at the back of the church.

  It was so hot that my hair and my shirt were soaked through with sweat, and I figured that if I told somebody I’d just been baptized in the river with all my clothes on, they would’ve believed it. I could feel that sweat running down my legs beneath my blue jeans, and I knew it would start itching me when it dried. I untucked my shirt and wiped my face, and then I tucked it back inside my jeans because Mama had told us over and over that we’d better keep our shirts tucked in while we were at church, especially on Sunday mornings. She always said Joe Bill’s mama didn’t care one bit about what he looked like at church, and I reckon she was right, because he’d untucked his shirt and unbuttoned some of its buttons too. He reached up and grabbed a tree limb and pulled it down and held on to it. I looked around for a limb that I could pull down and hold on to too, but there wasn’t any that I could reach. Joe Bill was eleven and I was nine, and that meant he wasn’t just two years older than me, he was two years taller too.

  I watched a hot breeze come across the field and move through the high grass on its way to us. I looked over at Joe Bill as the breeze pushed his cowlick off his forehead. His hair was blond, but in the shade it looked almost as brown as mine because it was wet from him sweating so much. He looked over at me, and then he looked back toward the field.

  “It’s right there,” he said, nodding toward the back of the church.

  I looked across the field, but I didn’t know what I was supposed to be looking at because I hadn’t ever been behind the church before. Up front it had big windows that somebody had covered over from the inside with newspapers so long ago that they’d been turned yellow from the sun. There was only one window around the back of the church, and it had a rusted old air conditioner sitting up inside it.

  “Right there,” Joe Bill said. He raised his hand and pointed his finger out across the field to where that air conditioner hung out of the window. There were some rotten-looking boards blocking in the sides of it, but it almost looked like it might be too heavy for them boards to hold it up in there. “You see it?” Joe Bill asked.

  “I see it,” I told him. He looked over at me again, and then he took a step closer like somebody might’ve been watching us and he was afraid they’d hear what he was about to tell me next.

  “There’s gaps in between them boards and the window frame,” he said. “If you get up close enough, you can see right in there.”

  I looked at that air conditioner, and even though I couldn’t hear it from where we were standing, I could see it blowing hot air down into the grass right under the window. The church was painted white, but around the bottom it had turned orange from where dirt and mud had splashed up from the grass during rainstorms.

  “I bet he’s still in there,” Joe Bill said.

  “You think?”

  “I bet he is,” he said. “It ain’t been long since Mr. Thompson came down and got him.” Joe Bill let go of the limb he’d been holding, and it whipped right past my ear and snapped back up into the tree.

  “Hey!” I hollered out. “You just about took my dang ear off!”

  “Shhhh!” he whispered. “Be quiet.” He closed his eyes and dropped his head and for a minute it looked like he was fixing to pray, but then he opened his eyes real slow like he’d just woke up from a nap. “Listen,” he said.

  “To what?”

  “You can’t hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “Listen,” he said again.

  I dropped my head and closed my eyes just like I’d seen Joe Bill do, and for a minute I couldn’t hear nothing at all except for a few birds fussing in the trees above us and the sound of the breeze coming through the dry grass, and after a minute I couldn’t even hear that. But then, real slow, the singing of the crickets raised up out of the woods behind me and their chirping sounded like somebody was scratching a spoon across a clean dinner plate, and past that, across the railroad tracks on the other side of the woods, I could hear the river running slow toward Marshall, and it was so soft that I wondered if I was making it up or remembering the sound of it just because it was supposed to be there. Then I couldn’t hear nothing until I turned my ears to listen for what was in front of me out there in the field where the grasshoppers and the katydids hummed in the high grass. That was a noise I’d always heard without even knowing I could hear it, and when I heard it, I could finally hear what Joe Bill was talking about. At first I heard it like a heartbeat, and I felt it in my chest like a heartbeat too, like it was inside my body thumping up against my ribs because it wanted to get out. It made me think about the Madison High marching band at the football games and the marchers with the drums strapped to their chests and the feeling you get inside you when they march out onto the field at halftime with the batons and the horns and the drums and all that noise they make. And now I could hear other noises floating just above the sound of that heartbeat: the electric guitar came out over the field like a crackly old radio that wasn’t tuned in good, and the sound of somebody banging away on the piano followed behind it. All of a sudden I knew that what I was hearing was music, and when I opened my eyes I knew it was coming from inside the church. I looked over at Joe Bill.

  “It’s music,” I said.

  “I know,” Joe
Bill said. “They must be singing in there.”

  We stood in the shade and listened to what we could hear of the music coming across the field. Every now and then I could hear people’s voices, and it sounded like they were shouting.

  “Are you going to take a look?” Joe Bill asked me.

  “I ain’t decided yet,” I said, but deep down I wished I could tell him no because I was scared to death of going all the way across that field to spy on folks inside the church. Mama had told me and Stump it wasn’t right to spy on grown-ups, and one time she caught us hiding up in the barn listening to Daddy and Mr. Gant hang the burley. When she found us, she took us inside the house and whipped us good across the backs of our legs with one of Daddy’s old belts.

  “I told y’all not to go spying on grown-ups,” she said. “Especially your daddy. You don’t need to know the kinds of things a man like him talks about.” But I already knew what kinds of things men like my daddy talked about. They talked about burley tobacco and farming and other men they knew who got new cars or new girlfriends or whose wives had got sick and died without nobody expecting it. I couldn’t figure out what was so special about that kind of talk that made it something me and Stump couldn’t hear. I wanted to tell her that all Daddy talked about was the kind of stuff folks talk about while they’re working or while they’re sitting around and visiting. Only thing she ever talked about was God and Jesus and Pastor Chambliss and what all they had going on down at the church. Sometimes I wanted to say, “If it’s so great down there, then why can’t you get Daddy to go with you?” and “If it’s so wonderful, then why can’t me and Stump go inside too?” I wanted to tell her that I got tired of hearing about that kind of stuff, but I didn’t say nothing about what I thought because I didn’t want her getting out that belt and whipping me again.

  Joe Bill reached out and punched me in the shoulder. “Come on,” he said. “You ain’t being a sissy, are you?”

  “You go on up there,” I told him. “You’re the one that wanted to come up here so bad, and I ain’t letting you get me in trouble. They’re going to be getting out here pretty soon, and my mom will have a fit if she catches me spying.”

  “It ain’t even close to noon yet,” Joe Bill said. “On Sundays they don’t even let out until one. It’s going to be a while. Besides, it ain’t really spying anyway. I bet she would’ve let you go inside with Stump if you’d have asked. It ain’t wrong to look in there just because you didn’t ask.”

  “They didn’t ask me either,” I said. “Mr. Thompson came down and got Stump, not me.” But even as I said that, I was glad Mr. Thompson hadn’t come down to the river looking for me. I didn’t want him holding my hand and leading me across the road to the church like he did with Stump. He was old and bald except where he had pale yellow hair sticking out from behind his ears. It was the color of dead grass, and his face and his arms and hands were covered in dark brown spots that looked like big freckles. His old yellow eyeballs were always wet, and they looked too big for his head, like they might just pop out on you any second. That morning, when Mr. Thompson reached for him, Stump put his hand behind his back and got up close to me. Even Miss Lyle made a face like she didn’t want Mr. Thompson touching Stump.

  “Come on, Christopher,” Mr. Thompson said. “Don’t be afraid. I’ve come down here to tell you that today’s your special day. We want you to worship with us this morning.” His breath smelled like Stump’s and my clothes after we played outside during the wintertime.

  “Why is it his special day?” Joe Bill asked.

  “Because,” Mr. Thompson said, “the Lord’s called him.” He went to take Stump’s hand, but Stump wouldn’t let him touch it. He’d closed his fingers around something and made a fist and he wouldn’t open them. “What’s he got?” Mr. Thompson asked. I looked at Stump.

  “Let me see your hand,” I said. Stump put his hand behind his back again and stood there looking toward the river like he couldn’t hear me. “Stump,” I said, “let me see what you’ve got.” He finally opened his hand, and when he did I saw that he’d picked up a little piece of quartz that he must’ve found while we were down at the river skipping rocks with Joe Bill. He was always doing that, picking up shiny rocks and keeping them in his pockets until we got home. We had a whole shelf in our room where we kept the rocks we collected. We even had us a big purple quartz rock about the size of a baseball that Daddy had found when he was turning his tobacco rows. I held out my hand to Stump. “I’ll keep that for you,” I said. “I won’t let nothing happen to it. I promise.” He dropped the quartz into my hand, and I slid it into the back pocket of my blue jeans. Then me and Joe Bill just stood there and watched Stump and Mr. Thompson walk across the road toward the church.

  I didn’t want Stump to go inside there without me, even though Mama’d told me over and over that I wasn’t old enough to go to church with her just yet. But she’d also told me over and over that I should always look out for Stump and make sure that nothing happened to him, that I was like the big brother and he was like the little one. But I figured that what she’d said didn’t matter now, and I felt awfully little just standing there watching Mr. Thompson take Stump’s hand and lead him across the road.

  There was a black drop of blood starting to scab on my arm where something must’ve scratched me on the way through the woods, and I took my finger and picked the scab off and rubbed the blood back and forth across my skin. It left a rusty trail through the hairs on my arm. Me and Joe Bill had been standing in the shade so long that the sweat on my legs was getting dry and it was starting to itch. I wiped my finger on the back pocket of my blue jeans to get the blood off, and then I scratched my legs with my fingernails until they stopped itching. I could feel that music beating inside my chest from clear across the field.

  Joe Bill squatted down in the grass and put his elbows on his knees. Then he picked up a stick and started snapping it into little pieces and tossing them out in front of him. He didn’t look at where they landed because he was too busy staring at the back of the church where that air conditioner sat up in that window and shook like it might break those boards and fall out on the ground any second.

  “What do you think Stump’s doing in there?” I asked. Joe Bill didn’t say nothing for a long time, and then he laughed and broke off the last little bit of that stick and tossed it into the grass. He looked up at me and smiled.

  “He ain’t singing,” he said. “That’s for sure.”

  “Well, he’s in there for some reason,” I said. “Mr. Thompson said it’s his special day. Maybe my mom wanted him to be with her.”

  “But why?” Joe Bill said. “He can’t even talk or sing or nothing.”

  “That don’t matter,” I said. “Maybe he’s old enough to go to church with them. He’s thirteen. He’s older than you.”

  “So what,” Joe Bill said. “I’m smarter than him. At least I can talk.”

  “Just because he can’t talk don’t mean he ain’t smart.”

  “My brother says if you can’t talk, then it means you’re dumb,” Joe Bill said.

  “Well, your brother’s an asshole,” I said, and as soon as I said it I knew I shouldn’t have. Joe Bill turned real slow and looked up at me like he couldn’t believe I’d said it either. We stared at each other for a minute, and then I squatted down beside him and picked up a stick and started snapping it into pieces so I wouldn’t have to look at him while he was staring at me.

  “Don’t talk about my brother,” he finally said.

  “Don’t talk about mine either.”

  “I’m just telling you what Scooter told me,” Joe Bill said.

  “I don’t care what he told you,” I said. “Why do you stick up for him all the time? All he ever does is beat the crap out of you.” Joe Bill stood up straight and looked at the church, and then he looked down at me.

  “You going up there or not?” he asked. “Because if you ain’t I’m going back down to the river before Miss Lyle starts look
ing for us.” I didn’t say nothing; I just sat there snapping that stick into little pieces until it got shorter and shorter and I stared out across the high grass toward the church and thought about what I should do. Joe Bill sighed real loud and turned around and started walking into the woods. “I should’ve known you’d chicken out,” he said. “You always do.”

  I tried to picture what Stump was doing inside the church with that loud music pumping and all those folks singing and hollering, and then I thought about how he wouldn’t be able to tell me one word about what he’d seen. I figured that if I was ever going to find out what they did in there then that morning might just be my only chance. “All right,” I hollered. “I’ll go.” Joe Bill stopped walking and turned around and looked at me. “I’ll go if you come with me,” I said. “If I get caught, then you’re getting caught too.”

  “Finally,” he said. He walked out of the woods toward me. I watched him for a second, and then, without even hardly thinking about it, I crept out of the woods real slow to the edge of the field where the grass was tall and bright yellow in the sunlight and I hunkered down and set out across the field like I was afraid I’d bump my head on something if I stood up too tall. The field seemed like it went on forever once I was out of the woods, and I figured that if I stood up straight I’d be able to see the road in front of the church and I could probably even see part of the river where it ran toward Marshall. I knew that meant that anybody driving by might be able to see me too, and I was afraid of Miss Lyle coming up the riverbank across the road and spotting me any second. I got down just as low as I could and I bent my knees almost to the ground and kept walking.