by Ron Rash
“Is this about your daughter, Eliza?” Reverend Yates asked sharply. “Because if it is, I swore I’d never tell where she went, and I’ll honor that, even with her own mother.”
“It ain’t about that hussy that you helped run off from me,” Gunter said, looking at Eliza. “You tell him. You’re the one says I got to do it.”
“I want you to baptize Mr. Gunter,” Eliza said.
“Why would you want that, Eliza?” Reverend Yates asked.
“To marry Pearl,” the widow answered softly.
“She’s of a mind it’ll wash any devilment right out of me,” Gunter said. “I don’t think much is in me, but it seems some folks do. Anyway, if getting doused puts a mother’s mind at ease I’ll abide it.”
“Pearl is a child,” Reverend Yates said. He looked at the girl, wrapped in a quilt she cinched tight around her neck. Like her mother, she stared at the ground.
“There’s many been married at her age, Preacher,” Gunter said. “There’s one in your own congregation.”
Reverend Yates looked at Pearl. She was not shivering, but her cheeks glowed from the cold. He had baptized her and Susanna on the same July Sunday five years ago. A thin, delicate child, one often sick. He remembered how light she’d felt as he took her in his arms and lowered her into the river.
“You and your mother come into the house, child.”
“Nah,” Gunter said. “We need to be getting back. Some of us has to work more than just on Sundays.”
“Eliza,” Reverend Yates said.
She looked at him now, her pale face blank.
“This Sunday, Preacher,” Gunter said. “Douse me in the morning and me and Pearl will get the justice of the peace to marry us right after. I done got that set up.”
“Our baptisms are held in warmer weather.”
“I know for a fact you baptized Henry Cope last winter,” Gunter challenged.
“He was dying,” Reverend Yates answered. “Even then it wasn’t this cold.”
“I know that water will be cold,” Gunter said, grinning now, “but I figure Pearl will warm me up real good later.”
“It isn’t just the water that cleanses a man,” Reverend Yates answered. “It’s what is in his heart.”
“I know that, Preacher.”
“What if I won’t do it?”
“We’ll go to Boone,” Gunter answered. “There’s more than one preacher in this county. Of course, that’s a mighty long walk for these two gals, especially with the chance of more snow coming.” Gunter turned and nodded at Eliza and Pearl. “Go on now,” he said.
Reverend Yates watched mother and child disappear back into the woods, stepping in their earlier footprints, as if in Gunter’s presence they dare not even disturb the snow.
“We’ll be seeing you Sunday, Preacher,” Gunter said, raising finger and thumb to tip his hat. He nodded at the shotgun. “I’m a forgiving man, maybe you ought be the same, especially since I wouldn’t be needing a wife if you’d not meddled in another man’s business.”
“I know my business, Gunter,” Reverend Yates replied, but the words sounded feeble.
“Good,” Gunter replied. “Do it come Sunday.”
Gunter jerked the reins and the horse turned. He kicked a bootheel against its flank and went back up the path. Even when Gunter was out of sight, Reverend Yates heard the crunching of snow under the horse’s hooves. He stared at the woods, the bare gray branches reaching upward as if in lamentation.
* * *
—
Susanna had come in the middle of night, pounding frantically on the front door. Looking out the window, he’d seen her silhouetted behind a lantern’s glow. When Reverend Yates ushered her in, he saw she was barefoot and dressed only in a shift. Susanna raised the lantern to show the purple bruises where his fingers had grasped.
“All I done was be late fixing his bath,” Susanna pleaded. “He said next time it’d be a rope around my neck, not a hand. He’d do it, Reverend. You know he would.”
“What would you have me do?”
“Get me away from here, someplace he’ll never find me.”
“What of your mother and sister?”
The fear in Susanna’s eyes dimmed.
“They ain’t able to stop him from killing me,” she answered, a sudden coldness in her voice.
Whether she had or had not understood the intent of his question, Reverend Yates would never know. She’d asked for his help, he told himself, so how could he not give it? Was there a relative who could take her in, he asked, not close by but one out-of-state? Susanna nodded. Don’t tell me where, Yates said, just which state. He’d put a quilt around her and they walked down the street to Marvin Birch’s house. The three of them had gone to Marvin’s dry goods to purchase Susanna shoes, clothes, and undergarments, enough to wear and also fill a carpetbag. Marvin was known as a skinflint, but he refused any money. Which was all to the good, because it left twenty dollars to give her after Reverend Yates paid for the ticket to Johnson City. She could get to her final destination from there, he’d told her.
Afterward, he’d returned home and waited for Gunter to show up, the shotgun by the door, unloaded, though Gunter would not know that. But it was Eliza who’d come on that October morning. Reverend Yates told her he didn’t know where Susanna was and would swear so on a Bible if need be. Without another word, Eliza walked back up the path to her farm. Except for some glares when they’d passed each other in the street, Gunter did nothing. Perhaps he believed, as Reverend Yates feared, Susanna would return on her own. He’d seen it before, women or children fleeing and then returning not out of corporal need but some darker necessity. At such times, he feared some malevolent counterpoint to grace operated in the world. But Susanna had not returned. Gunter obtained a divorce on grounds of abandonment.
* * *
—
A polite knock interrupted Reverend Yates’s reverie. Opening the door, he found four congregation members on his porch, in the forefront Marvin Birch. He invited them in. Marvin seemed reluctant, but the others eagerly left the cold, though no one sat when offered a chair.
“We have heard about Gunter’s latest outrage,” Marvin said. “If I had known this was the purpose of his divorce, I would have ensured Judge Lingard did not grant it. What Gunter proposes, surely you will not allow?”
“If you mean the marriage itself, I have no part in it. He says he will go to the justice of the peace.”
“But the baptism,” Marvin said. “What of it?”
“If I don’t, Gunter told me he’ll go elsewhere,” Reverend Yates answered.
“But if you do so,” Marvin sputtered, “it would mean the community condones this abomination.”
“It was Eliza, a member of our congregation, not Gunter, who asked this of me.”
“That is of no importance, Reverend,” the storekeeper bristled. “Let them go elsewhere.”
“He will make them walk there, Marvin, and in this weather such a trek could give a girl with her delicate constitution the whooping cough or influenza. Would you want that on your conscience?”
“Doubtful, I say,” Marvin answered. “And if so, might not death be better for the child than being wedded to that blackguard?”
“There is something else,” Reverend Yates said, his voice more reflective. “What if the act itself, despite Gunter’s lack of sincerity, were to truly cleanse the man?”
For a few moments the men stared at the hearth, as if the flames might yield an answer.
“You believe Gunter capable of such change?” Marvin asked.
“No,” Reverend Yates answered, “but God is capable. It is the mystery of grace. I cannot be true to my responsibilities if I doubt the possibility.”
“But our responsibility as town elders is different, Reverend. We cannot permit this
.”
“So you question God’s wisdom in worldly matters?”
“God allows us the ability to discern evil, Reverend, and the strength to defy it.”
“Yet not in this matter,” Reverend Yates replied, with less certainty than he would have wished. “Be assured, I have not made my decision lightly, gentlemen. I appreciate and understand your concern, but the baptism must be allowed.”
* * *
—
The next morning at the service, Gunter sat with Eliza and Pearl on the back pew. Reverend Yates had contemplated altering the sermon he’d written out Thursday night, but found himself too vexed to do so. As planned, he spoke of Moses, and how he’d led his people to the Promised Land though unable to enter that place himself. He read the sermon with as little attentiveness as his congregation offered in their listening, Gunter’s presence casting a pall over the whole church.
Reverend Yates did not announce the baptism. Instead, he waited until the church emptied except for Gunter, Eliza, Pearl, and himself.
“This weather, surely…”
“We got quilts and dry clothes, even a sheet if you ain’t got me a gown,” Gunter said. “I’m going to have a fire on the bank, too. Got my wood and kindling and flint rock already waiting. So we’ll go on out there, Preacher. Have you a fire going so you don’t catch cold.”
Reverend Yates went to the manse and changed into the trousers and white linen shirt he always wore for baptisms. He put on a wool scarf and his heaviest overcoat. The water might rise to his hips, but the pants would dry quickly by the fire, so he took no change of clothes, only a drying cloth. The baptism pool was a quarter-mile away. Reverend Yates saddled his horse and followed Eliza’s and Pearl’s footprints in the snow, unsurprised when the hoofprints of Gunter’s mount, which preceded the woman and child, merged with those of other horses.
The trail curved and the river lay before him. A man-high fire blazed at the forest’s edge, stoked with enough wood to burn for hours. Pearl and Eliza huddled beside it, Gunter close by. Reverend Yates dismounted and tethered his horse to a dogwood branch sleeved with ice. The elders stood on the riverbank. In the crook of Marvin Birch’s right arm was a rifle.
As Yates approached, Marvin stepped aside so he could see the river.
“Tell me that ain’t a sign from God, Reverend,” the store owner said, facing the river as well.
The river’s deep bend that served as the baptism pool was completely iced over, the snow-limned surface unmarked but for the tracks of a single raccoon. Had Reverend Yates not known otherwise, he’d have thought a meadow or pasture lay before him.
“When have you ever seen it covered like this?” Marvin asked, his thumb on the rifle’s trigger guard. “Never a one of us has. It’s a sign to us all and I’ll abide no man to profane it.”
Reverend Yates turned and looked at Gunter, who appeared in deep reflection as he too stared at the frozen river.
“Marvin’s right,” another elder said. “It’s surely a sign from God.”
The other elders nodded their assent. For a few moments the only sound was the crackle of the fire.
“There will be no baptism today,” Reverend Yates finally said.
Only then did Gunter rouse himself. He shook his shoulders as if to cast off some burden.
“It’s just ice,” he said, and walked to the river’s edge. He placed a foot on the surface, pressed his boot heel more firmly until his full weight was upon it.
“You thought you could mock God, Gunter,” Marvin said, “but now God’s mocking you, and he’s doing it for all the world to see.”
“Fetch me a stout tree limb, woman,” Gunter said to Eliza.
As Eliza turned from the fire, Marvin Birch stepped close to Gunter. He gripped the rifle on the upper stock and held it out.
“God won’t let you break that ice even with this, Gunter,” the store owner announced, nodding at the butt end, “and it made of hickory.”
“We’ll see about that, damn you,” the younger man replied, grabbing the rifle barrel with both hands and thrusting the butt downward.
The sharp report of shattered ice was instantly followed by a louder crack. The sounds crossed the river, echoed back. Gunter still gripped the iron barrel. He appeared to stare down at it intently as gray smoke encircled his head. He gave a violent shudder and fell forward, the webbed ice opening to accept the body. Gunter slowly sank. Soon the only sign of him was the water’s pinkish tinge.
* * *
—
After Gunter’s death, the community made certain that Eliza and Pearl were cared for. Then, at sixteen, Pearl married Lewis Hampton, whose father owned the valley’s best bottomland, ensuring Eliza as well as her daughter would never again go wanting. Susanna remained in Tennessee but she and her family visited yearly, even after her mother died. On such Sundays, the sisters and their husbands and children filled a pew.
To look upon such a sight from his pulpit was surely a sign of God’s grace, Reverend Yates told himself, but on late nights he sometimes contemplated his silence when Marvin Birch offered the cocked weapon. Had his refusal to warn Gunter been a furtherance of God’s will or a shunning of his own duty? Would he have held Gunter underwater until he drowned, or lifted Gunter back into the mortal world? On such nights the parlor became nothing more than shadows and silence, the manse’s stillness widening beyond the walls into the vastness of the whole valley.
Flight
The trouble had begun during her fourth month at the park. Until then most of the visitors had been hikers, older couples who tapped the ground with ornate walking sticks as they followed the two-mile loop. They smiled when they saw her and went on their way. Nevertheless, the best days were when it snowed or rained and fewer people were around.
But April brought those who fished. As Stacy had done with the hikers, she studied their behavior. The ones who cast in the stream’s catch-and-release section drove late-model Jeeps and SUVs, wore waders and vests and carried long rods and shiny reels. Anglers was her word for them. The gentle way they removed the barbless hook reminded her of a pet being freed from its leash. When asked for their licenses, they sometimes tilted their heads or rolled their eyes. You’ve seen my bamboo rod and Orvis vest, the gesture meant, you think I can’t afford a twenty-dollar license?
Fishermen drove pickups and older cars with dents and rusty mufflers. Such vehicles were often left unlocked, windows rolled down. Fishermen cast from shore and used closed-face spinning reels, often Zebco 202s. They stayed near the bridge where the hatchery truck made its weekly dump. Some even followed the truck from the hatchery. The trout barely hit the water before they were yanked out. Nevertheless, Stacy preferred these people to the others. To kill and eat their catch was a purer act, none of the pretend-play of being a predator.
When she saw the battered blue truck in the lot, windows down, bed filled with trash bags and beer cans, she assumed its owner to be a fisherman. But it was the expired license plate that made Stacy check for her ticket pad before walking down the trail. This was the trade-off for those winter hours of solitude, she’d begun to realize, and it would only get worse come summer. With picnickers, tourists, campers crowding the park, there would be times she’d have to go to the ridgetop, be above it all.
Stacy stepped onto the bridge. A man she didn’t recognize fished below. He’d heard her boots on the wood planks but did not look up. Instead, he cranked in his line, checked his corn-draped hook, and cast sidearm to the head of the pool. She left the bridge and came down the trail. Farther downstream, an elderly couple fished where the water slowed and formed a deep run. She’d checked their licenses and stringers last week.
“I need to see your license, sir,” Stacy said.
“I don’t need one,” he answered, his eyes on the line.
Once on level ground, Stacy saw that the man was
over six feet tall. He had a gut but thick-muscled arms, a stubbled chin that shadowed a centipede-shaped scar. The ball cap, jeans, and T-shirt were what many of the bait fishermen wore. Only the footwear surprised her. Instead of work boots, he had on black dress shoes.
“I need to check your fishing license,” Stacy said again.
“I told you I don’t need one,” the man said, still not looking at her. “So you can be on your way.”
She had already issued seven citations in the last two weeks—no license, too many fish. But no confrontations, only a couple of pleas of Can’t you let it go this time? But she was issued a Glock for a reason. Stacy felt the gun’s presence, that extra weight, on the side of her hip. Her instructors had emphasized that most rangers would never need to unholster their weapon. If it appears a situation might escalate, they’d said, step away and call for backup. Bob Clary, the park superintendent, had told Stacy the same. Proper protocol, but the man in front of her would think otherwise, see her as fearful.
“Then I’ll have to write you a ticket.”
The man looked at her now and smiled.
“You’re new.”
“I’ve been here four months,” Stacy answered.
“Well, Clary’s finally hired him a looker. I’ve always favored brunettes.”
“I need your driver’s license.”
“Sure,” he said. “That way you’ll know who I am.”
The man took out his billfold and handed Stacy the license. Eric Hardaway. She studied the photograph, no beard but recognizable. She filled out the citation, freed the original from the duplicate. When she handed it to Hardaway, he crumpled the paper with his fist, flung it into the water.