In a way, they weren’t that different from the kids at Lincoln School, who’d been thrown together with almost nothing. But Lincoln School had been overseen by the likes of DiMarco and the Black Witch and her lizard-on-two-legs husband, and fear had been what we’d all shared the most. With the crusade, the spirit of Sister Eve ran through everything, and that made all the difference.
There was routine to the days, and seldom idle time. Whatever work needed doing was accomplished in the morning—potatoes peeled, canvas mended, the big tent and the whole area around the village cleaned of every bit of litter. A couple of men took one of the trucks and went to neighboring towns, posting notices of the crusade. When our work was finished, Sister Eve often sent us out to help in the community. I learned that she’d preceded the crusade to New Bremen and had visited local ministers and the Catholic priest and had asked about parishioners in particular need of assistance. There weren’t many farmers who could afford to pay hired help, and wherever possible, Sister Eve offered her people, men and women alike, whose labor was free. From almost the day we joined the crusade, Mose and Albert and I went out to help. Our first day we mended fences, the next day repaired a barn roof. A couple of days later, I helped Albert fix the engine on a tractor the farmer swore would never run again. We cut jimsonweed from a cornfield, and the next day bucked hay, just as I’d done for Hector Bledsoe, but it was different this time because we were helping folks desperately in need so the labor didn’t feel onerous. I thought how different it might have been at Lincoln School if the reason we were helping out Bledsoe had simply been that he was a man in need and not that he and the Brickmans got wealthy from our labor.
Every morning, after he and Sister Eve had gone over the books, Sid disappeared for a couple of hours, God knew where. Every afternoon, Sister Eve took a powder as well, and it was a while before I discovered the why of her vanishing.
At the end of a week, while Mose was at work in the kitchen tent and Emmy with him, and Albert was trying to repair the gas generator that powered the electric lights for the revivals every night, and we hadn’t been promised out to help some farmer in need, I found myself with rare free time on my hands. I decided I would get to know New Bremen a little better.
I came to a park with a ball field where a group of neighborhood kids had thrown together a pickup game. They called to one another and joked, and their lives seemed to be all about play and the comfort of easy friendship. I descended a steep hill to the flats along the river, where grain elevators rose like castle keeps at the edge of the railroad tracks. A steepled, white church also stood near the tracks, and on the dirt streets around it were more houses, smaller and cheaper-looking than those built among the hills above. Through the opened church door came the moan of an organ as someone practiced hymns for the upcoming Sunday service. I followed the tracks to a wooden trestle, which crossed the Minnesota River. I sat on the crossties, staring down into the opaque, cider-colored water below, and tried to imagine what it might have been like if I’d been born to the quiet life in New Bremen.
Which turned out to be a thing I couldn’t do. Not because imagination failed me, but because I was afraid to dream in that way. In my whole life, I could recall no dream ever coming true.
I walked from the trestle along the riverbank, following a path the locals had worn, maybe kids coming down to enjoy all the adventure that a river offered. On the far side were fields of young corn, nearly knee-high and verdant green, and beyond them rose hills that carried the sky on their shoulders. On that lazy summer afternoon, alone with the river and the lovely valley it had carved, I felt a deep desire to belong there, to belong anywhere.
Without realizing it, I had walked all the way to the place just below the meadow where we’d landed the canoe the first night I’d heard the voice of an angel call to me from the revival tent. To my great surprise, Sister Eve was there, sitting cross-legged on the sandy spit where she’d talked us all into joining the crusade. She was alone, her head bowed, and it was clear to me that she was deep in prayer. I didn’t want to interrupt her reverie, so I turned and began up the riverbank as quietly as I could.
“Odie,” she called to me softly.
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“No intrusion. Join me.” She patted the sand at her side.
“This is where you come?” I said. “Every afternoon?”
“Wherever we take the crusade, I try to find somewhere set off a bit so I can be by myself. It’s not always a place as lovely as this.”
“So you can pray?”
“So I can refresh myself.” She spread her arms wide as if to embrace the river. “And so I can open my heart to the beauty of this whole divine creation. If that sounds like prayer to you, then call it prayer.”
It was painfully clear that she felt something I didn’t, something wondrous and fulfilling in that place where I possessed only a deep longing. She lifted her face to the sun, and her hair fell away from her cheek, exposing the long scar that ran there.
“This reminds me a little of the Niobrara,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“A river in Nebraska, where I grew up.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
I knew it was rude, but curiosity was eating me alive. “That scar.”
Which didn’t seem to surprise her in the least, and I wondered if it was a question she got asked a lot.
“Remember I told you God gives us all cracks so that his light has a way to get inside us? This scar, Odie, that’s my crack. It was given to me the day of my baptism.”
“I thought you just got dunked in water for that.”
“In my case it was a horse trough.”
I figured this had to be a good story, and I wanted to hear it, but before I could ask, someone called from the riverbank above us, “Sister Eve. Come quick. It’s Emmy.”
* * *
THEY’D LAID HER on a cot in the women’s tent, and much of the crusade had gathered around her. Albert hovered over her, and Mose knelt at her side holding her little hand. Emmy’s eyes were closed, her face drained of color. I went down on my knees beside my brother.
“What happened?”
“Another of her fits.”
“What is it?” Sister Eve asked.
“We don’t know exactly,” I said. “She hit her head on a fence post a while back. She’s been like this ever since. She usually comes out of it.”
Her eyes fluttered open and she stared up at me, dazed.
“He’s okay,” she mumbled. “He’s okay.”
“Who, Emmy?”
She gripped my hand with a sudden, unexpected fierceness. “Don’t worry, Odie,” she said. “We beat the devil.”
Then she let go, closed her eyes, breathed deeply, and was asleep.
“Let’s get her to the hotel,” Sister Eve said.
Everyone cleared away. Mose carried Emmy out to the automobile that Sid usually drove, a shiny red DeSoto. He laid her on the backseat, and Sister Eve covered her with a blanket that had been folded there. I sat with her and cradled her head on my lap. Mose and Albert sat up front with Sister Eve, and she drove us to the Morrow House. Upstairs, Mose laid Emmy gently on the bed, then he and Albert headed back to the crusade village. Sister Eve sat with Emmy, holding her hand, and asked me to leave and to close the door behind me. I stood at the window of the parlor room, where we usually ate breakfast, and stared outside at the town square. I watched people going about their business in a normal fashion. And I knew that would never be me.
The door to the hallway opened and Sid came in. He eyed me in a way that reminded me of how Lucifer, the rattlesnake, had looked at me.
“Heard about the little girl.”
“Her name is Emmy,” I said.
“I told Evie you kids would be nothing but trouble.”
“Everyone is trouble, Sid, you included.” Sister Eve came from Emmy’s room, leaving the door
open behind her.
“How is she?” I asked.
“Fine, Odie. Awake now. She’s asking for you.”
Emmy was sitting up, her back propped against a couple of pillows. She smiled at me.
I sat on the bed. “You okay?”
She nodded. “Sister Eve told me what happened.”
I hadn’t closed the door completely, and I could hear raised, angry voices from the other room. I’d never heard Sister Eve and Sid argue before. It scared me, in large part because they were arguing about us—Emmy and me and Albert and Mose. I’d figured from the start that our time with Sister Eve would become like every other good thing I’d ever had. Gone.
Sid said, “When we leave this burg, those kids go their own merry way.”
“I say what we do and don’t do, Sid.”
“You want to keep me in this show, you cut those kids loose.”
“If you want to leave, Sid, I won’t stop you.”
“Listen, Evie, you remember how it was before you met me? You were a two-bit sideshow act. I made you Sister Eve.”
“God made me Sister Eve.”
“Was it God got you an offer of a weekly radio broadcast in Saint Louis?”
“What?”
“I got a telegram from Corman. If you want to go national, he’s offering a big auditorium in Saint Louie. They’ll broadcast straight from there to millions of Americans every Sunday.”
“Millions?”
“Millions, baby. You’ll go national.”
“When?”
“We do Des Moines but cancel the Kansas stop and head straight to Saint Louis.”
The other room was quiet. I looked at Emmy and she looked at me.
“That’s where the kids are going, Sid. We’re taking them with us. When we get there, I’ll help them find their family, and then they’ll be out of your hair. Deal?”
Another long quiet. “Deal,” Sid finally said.
I’d been told lies all my life, and I knew one when I heard it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
LUCIFER STUDIED ME. I studied Lucifer. He had me at an advantage because he never blinked. The other snakes generally seemed lethargic and docile in the glass cages, but Lucifer was always ready to strike. He repulsed and fascinated me at the same time.
After Whisker showed me the rattlesnake, I’d begun sneaking into Sister Eve’s tent, just to look at that sinuous reptile and to make certain that he was still imprisoned behind that glass. Lucifer had slithered his way into my dreams at night, sometimes chasing me, sometimes springing up to strike at me with terrifying suddenness. Sometimes he and the murdered one-eyed Jack leapt at me from the dark of a nightmare together, and I’d wake and couldn’t go back to sleep. Emmy would assure me dreamily, “Everything’s okay, Odie.”
But she was wrong, and I knew it.
All that might have been good in my life had been destroyed by the Tornado God. Though I recalled my early years only vaguely, I remembered them with a sense of happiness. Then the Tornado God had taken my mother. After that, despite being on the road constantly, my father and Albert and I had found ways to be a family and to be happy. Then the Tornado God had lodged three bullets in my father’s back. The Lincoln Indian Training School might not have been such a bad place, all things considered, but I knew in my heart that the Tornado God had put the Brickmans in charge just to make it hell. For a brief moment, I’d hoped that my life might be saved by Cora Frost, but the Tornado God had snatched her away, too.
So I didn’t trust that everything would be okay. The Tornado God was watching, always watching, and I was sure he had something diabolical and destructive up his sleeve. This time, however, I thought I was a step ahead. I knew the source of the ill wind that was sure to blow in. It would come from Sid.
We all have secrets. With them, we’re like squirrels with nuts. We hide them away, and bitter though they may be, we feed on them. If you’re careful, you can follow a squirrel to his cache. The same was true for Sid, I thought. So I became his shadow.
In the morning, he would breakfast with Sister Eve and Emmy and me, then drive off in the red DeSoto and be gone until noon. What he did in that time was something he kept secret.
I asked Whisker about it, and he shrugged and said, “Always goes off like that somewhere. Never thought to ask where. His business.”
I meant to make it mine.
We’d been with the Sword of Gideon Healing Crusade—Whisker told me Sid had given it that name because it sounded “kinda manly and holy and promising and comforting all in one big appetizing helping”—for well over a week when, on a morning we were all free of chores, a bunch of the men, young and old, put together a baseball game in the meadow near the tents. Whisker joined in, and I was surprised to see that even with his spindly arms, he swung a pretty mean bat. They put me in the outfield because they figured I couldn’t do much damage there, which was all right by me.
There was some argument in the beginning over which side would get Mose. By then, everyone in the show had seen the grace in Mose’s every movement. He was a young lion, sinuous and powerful, an otter in his easygoing playfulness. Everyone liked Mose and everyone wanted him on their team. Albert was another matter. My brother could be dark and brooding sometimes, and although he worked magic with engines and such and could jerry-rig any kind of contraption, he claimed a disinterest in athletics. I figured sitting on the bench at Lincoln School had soured him on the risks associated with taking part in organized sports. He declined at first to be a part of the game that day. But the sides were uneven without him, and cajoled mostly by Mose, he finally gave in. Like me, he was exiled to the outfield.
Our side was up to bat when I noticed Sid watching the game. He was usually gone in the mornings, so this was unusual. But his red DeSoto was parked near the tents, and I figured that at some point he’d take off on his mysterious business. The game was going hot and heavy, and Mose came to the plate. The women who helped with the crusade looked on and cheered, and Mose gave them a big grin in reply. Then he pointed toward left field, indicating that was where he intended to hit the pitch, and he signed, Home run. Just like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, I thought.
Dimitri, the big Greek cook, was pitching for the other side. He had arms like rhino thighs and hurled the ball so fast and hard that Tsuboi, who was catching, gave a little cry each time it hit the thin pocket of his old glove. Dimitri threw twice, and Mose let both pitches fly by without a swing. On the third pitch, Mose split the air with his bat, and the crack of it against the horsehide was like a gunshot and the ball went sailing, a diminishing white dot in the blue sky above left field. Sid, like everyone else, was mesmerized—by the hit itself, by the endless flight of the ball, and by the sight of Mose running the bases with all the power and grace of a colt in the Kentucky Derby. This was my chance.
I slipped away and slid into the red DeSoto, onto the floor in back, drew the folded blanket off the seat, and lay it over me. It was stifling hot, but I didn’t have to wait long before I heard Sid open the driver’s side door. He settled himself behind the wheel and we took off. He drove, I reckoned, for more than half an hour before pulling to a stop. He killed the engine and got out. As soon as his door closed, I sat up and peeked through the window. We were in a city, parked alongside a curb in front of a line of buildings, storefronts and offices. The nearest city I knew of was Mankato. I watched Sid stroll down the sidewalk, a brown leather satchel in his hand. He paused, set the satchel down, lit a cigarette, then continued on.
I left the DeSoto and followed at a safe distance. He disappeared around a corner. I ran up and carefully peered around the building. He’d stopped halfway down the block in front of a café, where he took a final drag off his cigarette, tossed what was left onto the street, and went inside. I crept to the café window.
Inside, Sid sat in a booth talking to some people. At first, I couldn’t see them because Sid’s body blocked my view. He pointed south, as if giving directions of some kind. He o
pened his satchel, took out an envelope, and handed it over. He stood up, said a few more words, then turned to leave. That’s when I saw who was in the booth, and I knew that Albert had spoken the truth. Sister Eve was too good to be true.
* * *
BACK IN NEW Bremen, Sid parked in front of the Morrow House, grabbed his satchel, and went inside. I slid from the back and followed after him. He went directly to Sister Eve’s suite. I waited a few minutes, then went in myself. They sat at the table where Sister Eve usually had breakfast delivered. She looked up and, when she saw me, seemed relieved.
“There you are, Odie. We thought we’d lost you.”
“I was just bumming around town,” I said.
She studied me closely. “Are you all right?”
I wasn’t. I was so full of anger I wanted to spit. I wanted to explode at her, at them both. But I kept the lid on.
“I’m fine,” I said. “But I think I’d like to lie down for a while.”
I went to the bedroom I shared with Emmy and shut the door, but not all the way. I left it open a crack and stood beside it, listening.
“I told them to meet us in Des Moines,” Sid said, keeping his voice low.
“We don’t have to do this, Sid.”
“You’ve listened to me this far, Evie. And haven’t I got you places?”
“All right,” she said, giving in, but not happily.
“And here are the papers to sign for Corman.”
I peeked through the crack and saw him pull a document from his satchel, which he laid before Sister Eve.
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