But it made me mad to be ridiculed. I didn’t see how contempt and disrespect for another person’s most precious beliefs made the world one bit better. So even if I did find the concept of demonstrating faith through snake handling a bit...unusual, I was determined to keep it foremost in my mind that I didn’t have the answers to everything, that there was more on heaven and earth than I was aware of (hey! I remembered something from Shakespeare, I thought) and that everyone’s beliefs were worthy of respect.
“They don’t do that no more,” Dale said in answer to Viv’s question. “They had to shut that down after Plug Turner died.”
“What, did he get bit by a rattlesnake?” She gave a little laugh.
Dale didn’t care for her tone. “No,” he said with a defensive sneer. “It was a heart attack.” He moved to get out of the car, then turned back. “One of the snake pens came open and the snake got out. Plug went to open the bathroom cabinet to get out a fresh roll of toilet paper and there was that snake, curled up between the towels. Heart seized up on him. They say he was dead before he hit the bathroom floor.”
I thought maybe it was a good thing that I had reminded myself to be respectful, because otherwise I might have laughed at the irony of that story and made a permanent enemy of Dale. What a shame that would have been.
I backed out of the seat, one hand up to prevent balloons from escaping, and waited patiently while Stump waddled toward me and grunted when I picked her up. I settled her onto my hip and followed Viv and Dale up the three shallow steps into the church.
It was kind of like stepping into that school/church on Little House on the Prairie. There was one big room full of pews, a wood floor, and a small altar at the front. Dale led us through the room and out the back, to a room that was apparently a combination small office and store room. It housed a dark wooden table, a laptop and a small printer. There were stacks of papers and magazines everywhere, and a rolling bucket with a mop in the corner.
A shelf above the desk held a wooden plaque with “Without Faith It Is Impossible To Please God,” burned into it, a brown pile of something that looked kind of, but not quite, like dried twigs. It also held a coiled, stuffed rattlesnake. Stump growled at that.
“You looking at my trophies?”
A short, round man with flushed cheeks and hair in need of a trim was hauling himself up into the back door.
“Brother Parker.” Dale leapt forward and took the man’s hand, helping him in. Apparently the shortness of Brother Parker’s legs was not a good match for the steepness of the steps.
“Did you kill these yourself?” Viv asked, nodding toward the various snake paraphernalia. She picked up one of the twigs and shook it, and I realized they were the rattles from various snakes. Some were just a half-inch or so long, some were closer to an inch and a half. I had heard somewhere that the number of rattles indicated the age and size of the snake, so that one must have been a biggie.
Brother Parker shook his head. “Not all of ‘em, but a few.” He picked up the longest one and held it up proudly. “I helped with this granddaddy. It was me and three other brothers from here at the church.” He dipped his head and looked at Dale, a crooked grin on his face. “We did not handle this one except with the business end of a pistol, I’ll tell you that much!” Then he gave a wheezy laugh that made his cheeks even redder.
He mopped his forehead with a folded handkerchief and tried to catch his breath. “What can I do for you nice people?”
Viv and I looked at Dale. Stump continued to glare at the snake, perhaps to make sure it stayed put.
“We wanted to talk about that guy that got himself knocked off last week and dumped in the trash. You know anything about that?”
I looked at Viv, mildly alarmed. We had expected a bit more finesse than that. But then, Dale did say he knew how these people worked. Maybe the direct approach was best.
And in truth, Brother Parker didn’t seem particularly upset by the question.
“I know what you know, probably. Who he was and that he was murdered. If you’re asking if I know who did it, I don’t.”
Dale nodded. “Good enough.”He rubbed his hand together and turned to go.
“Wait!” Viv and I said together.
“He said he don’t know,” Dale said. “If he don’t know, he don’t know. Can’t know what you don’t know, right?” He nudged Brother Parker and laughed.
“What about your parishioners?” Viv asked. “How did the people in the church react to the stories about Hope for Home and its relationship with Friends of Joshua?”
The preacher nodded like he was thinking, running his tongue over his teeth. “Well, I’d say disappointed for the most part. People weren’t happy about it, that’s for sure.”
“Did anyone express anything beyond just...disappointment? Indicate they were thinking along the lines of violence?”
He curled his lip a little and shook his head. “Nah, not really. Oh, you know people. They talk a big game sometimes, but I reckon it’s just talk.”
“Give us an example of the big talk,” I said.
“Oh, you know – guy ought to be horsewhipped, ought to be in jail, lose his medical license. Stuff like that. Somebody was saying we ought to get Matt Macon to start some kind of protest or something.”
Dale and Viv both glared at me. I shrugged.
Anxious to turn the conversation in a different direction, I said, “Are you aware that your church is listed as a hate organization?”
He gave a chuckle. “Oh yeah. I hear that one a lot.” He elbowed Dale. “We’re big haters around here, ain’t we?” Rubbing one hand along the full curve of his belly, he said, “Mostly I just hate going hungry.”
“Do you understand why your church is on that list?”
“Well, of course I do. For one thing, people like to keep lists. And for another, we tell the truth, and sometimes the truth makes people uncomfortable. You know why John the Baptist got his head cut off, right? He told Herod he was sinning to be having sex with his brother’s wife. That’s all. He didn’t have the power to do anything about it, just told him it was the wrong choice to make. So he got his head cut off. People don’t like it when you point out their sins. Talk like that don’t get you many fans.”
“You got plenty of fans, Brother Donny,” Dale said.
“And sycophants,” I said before I could catch myself.
“Yeah, well, I don’t want neither. I’m not out here to make fans or friends or enemies. I’m here because after Brother Plug was called home, I believe the Lord called me to step into that gap and speak His Word, and so that’s what I’m doing, unless and until he tells me to do otherwise. I let Him worry about what lists I’m on.”
“So it doesn’t bother you that some of what you say might...offend people?”
He drew his head back. “Honey, you can’t breathe these days that you don’t offend somebody. If I say I like the color blue, well, I’m sexist and want to keep women down and I’m not being too nice to green. What have I got against green? Can I not see that singling blue out like that, why, that’s an act of aggression against green and it is not to be tolerated?” He shook his head. “Being offended has replaced baseball as our greatest national pastime. So no, it don’t bother me. Somebody got a legitimate issue and want to discuss it with me, well now, I welcome that. I truly do. That’s how we find the humanity in each other, in ourselves. We don’t always find agreement, but we find each other and that’s a good thing. We usually find we have more in common than we think. But no stirrin’ up stuff just for the sake of stirrin’ up stuff. No walking around life on egg shells. Got no time for that.” He laughed again. “Look, people have been calling me names since I picked up my first snake. If that didn’t bother me, then being called a hater by people who disagree with me certainly isn’t going to bother me.”
I wasn’t sure, but I was getting no lynch mob killer vibe from Round Brother Parker, either. I couldn’t speak for his parishioners, but I didn�
�t think we were going to get anything else out of him except a narrowing down of the list.
We stopped at Pack-A-Sack to get gas and a snack for Dale. Viv and I stayed in the car. It was thick with silent tension. I sat amidst the balloons, still kind of feeling like a big pile of dog doodoo while Viv chewed on nothing, her lips working back and forth.
“Look,” I finally said, leaning forward. “I feel awful about your birthday. I would love to do something to make it up to you. I swear I have no memory of you ever telling me – ”
“Would you just hush?” Viv she swatted at the seat irritably. “Just let it go.”
“I can’t let it go. You’re one of my dearest friends, and I feel horrible. I need to do something.”
“It wasn’t even my birthday!” she snapped. Her lips drew down in a frown, and she opened her mouth like she was going to say something else, then stopped.
“Ummm...what?”
“It wasn’t really my birthday.” She looked annoyed.
“Why in the world did you say it was?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I just...I had my reasons.”
“Viv!” I gripped the edge of the seat and leaned forward. “Are you frigging kidding me? I felt awful!”
‘Yeah, well. That’s what you get.”
“For what?”
“You would have forgotten my birthday, if I’d ever told you when it was.”
I had to allow that.
The next thing I knew, though, she picked up a magazine from the seat and swatted at my hand.
“Ow!” I said, rubbing my fingers. “What was that for?”
“He told you it was my ninetieth birthday and you didn’t even question it. Neither one of you.”
“Oh,” I said meekly. I hadn’t questioned, in fact.
“Not one bit of incredulity. Would it have killed you?”
“Actually, I did think of it, I just didn’t want to be rude and make it sound like it was really old or anything.”
“Ninety?! Are you frigging kidding me?”
“Well, how old are you? I’ve always wondered.”
“Would you believe 140?” She swatted me again. “Why yes, I believe you would!” She flounced in her seat, arms still crossed, glaring out the driver’s side window.
Dale came sauntering out of the store carrying a Big Red and a bag of Cheetos.
“Don’t tell him!” Viv hissed.
Dale opened the car door and set the stuff inside. “Don’t eat ‘em all before I get back,” he said, grinning at me.
Between my fury at Dale and my fury at Viv, I’m somewhat surprised I didn’t explode. I wanted to grab that bag of Cheetos and crush them over Viv’s head, then take my dog and go home. I imagined a few scenarios where I did just that, but they all ended with me having to walk too far, and Dale and Viv ending up in the news as they received the reward and the glory for finding CJ Hardin’s killer.
Viv and I sat in stony silence as Dale pumped the gas. I waited for Viv to apologize for lying to me, even though I knew that would never happen. I figured she was waiting for me to apologize for believing the lie she told, and that wasn’t going to happen either.
Viv looked out over the parking lot, ignoring me. I slipped my hand into my pocket and drew out the short rattle I’d kept from Brother Parker’s desk. I held it in one hand, pulled one of the balloons down to my lap and squeezed it gently between my knees.
Stump looked grumpily at me and shifted, and I mouthed a silent “Shhh” at her.
I leaned closer to the back of the seat, put the rattle up close to Viv’s ear, and shook it steadily.
Her entire body went rigid.
I squeezed my knees hard. The pop! sounded like a bomb going off in that small space.
Viv let loose a torrent of swearing and jumped from the car. She danced around the parking lot, flailing and swiping at her legs, at her shoulders, tugging at her shirt. “Is it on me? Is it on me?”
Dale stared at her with a wide-eyed, pole axed expression. Then he ran after her, swiping helpfully, saying, “What? What? What?”
They jerked around the parking lot until finally Viv got a look at me, slumped against the car door, laughing so hard I was sliding into the floorboard. She froze and narrowed her eyes at me.
Dale kept pulling at her clothes and looking for snakes until she finally batted his hands away. “Never mind! It was nothing.”
Dale didn’t seem to notice the tense silence between me and Viv as we drove back through town, because he was filling it with his own ridiculousness. He could definitely handle those snakes. They thought he couldn’t because he’d accidentally dropped one near a kid one time, but that hadn’t been his fault. The kid had been being all bossy and trying to tell him how to handle it, like he was going to know better than Dale who was trying to listen to the Holy Spirit. Not even the Holy Spirit could work around that kind of yammering. Anyway, if the kid knew as much as he claimed he did, he shouldn’t have screamed like that with a snake so near him. That’s why he almost got bit. It wasn’t Dale’s fault –
“Hey, is that an Hombre following us?” Viv asked, looking in the mirror.
Dale shut up and slid down in his seat. “Is it?!”
I looked behind us, but didn’t see anything other than the usual minivans, pickups and SUVs.
Viv swung the Caddy into a car wash and parked in one of the bays. She turned to Dale. “It was a white pickup with some kind of logo on the back window. It could have been an Hombre. I couldn’t tell.”
“Crap.” Dale looked around wildly, reaching into the back of his pants for his “not a toy” gun. “Are they back there?”
“I don’t think so. Go peek around the corner and see if you can tell which way they went.” Viv nodded toward the front of the bay.
“Me?” His voice actually squeaked.
“Yeah. Just go peek around the corner.”
He looked at her doubtfully for a few minutes, then opened the door and slipped slowly outside.
He edged up to the front of the car wash and slowly peeked around the edge of the cement wall.
“I mean it,” Viv said to me. “Don’t tell him.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want him to know I lied, of course.” She glowered in the mirror at me.
I was supposed to be the bad guy for believing her lies, and now she was concerned with what Dale thought of her.
Obviously she was fine with me knowing all her nasty secrets.
I might have been a little more forgiving if I hadn’t felt so bad for forgetting her fictitious birthday, or if she had acted like she was sorry at all.
It was time to call in bigger guns.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket. “Les!” I said cheerfully. “Guess what? We missed Viv’s birthday!”
She whipped her head around with her mouth in an “O.”
I gave her a quick sneer before I said, “I know! Can you believe it? I feel awful.”
I probably should have felt bad for involving Les, but I filed this one under Necessary Evil.
“We have to do something,” Les said.
“It’s okay, Dale and I are already on top of it. Actually, Dale is. He’s ordered a cake, and the car is full of balloons.”
“Salem, I have an Exodus meeting tonight. Can you bring her by here? I’d love to wish her a happy birthday.”
“Of course!” I crowed happily. “We’ll be there around seven.”
I flipped the phone shut and slid it back into my pocket with a smile. “Exodus at seven,” I announced. “They’re blowing it out for Viv’s ninetieth birthday.”
“We really don’t have to do that,” Viv said stonily.
“Oh, but we do. Lots of folks want to celebrate with you, Viv. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime event, your ninetieth birthday.”
I clapped her on the shoulder. She jerked away, her chin stuck grumpily out, and hunched over the steering wheel. “Where are we going next?”
“Ne
xt” turned out to be a bit of a mess. We were driving back down Slide when we heard a motorcycle and Viv became convinced a thousand Hombres were after us. She floored the Caddy and raced onto the Loop, weaving in and out of traffic. We thought we’d lost them when Viv took the spur out west of town and down some narrow back roads.
Then lo and behold, another motorcycle was right behind us. The driver wore a bandana and had a gray handlebar mustache.
“Viv!” I said. “Look in the rearview mirror!”
I shouldn’t have said that. As soon as she took her eyes off the road, we swerved to the left, then back to the right when she saw what I was talking about.
Viv screamed and jerked the wheel hard. The car fishtailed down a dirt road. Dale and I hit the floor. I cradled Stump under me, expecting bullets to start pinging against the Cadillac.
“He’s coming after us!” Viv said. The car bounced hard, and my heart pounded even harder.
Then, suddenly, we weren’t going so fast. I could feel the car straining to speed, but I could feel just as clearly that we were dragging, slowing almost to a crawl. I raised my head and peeked over the edge of the door.
“Ummm...Viv?”
“Mmm?” she said.
“Are we in a cotton field?”
“We’re beside a cotton field.”
We were in a cotton field. Not in the actual field, but along the edge. Where tractors with very large tires drove.
I looked to the right to see the motorcycle riding off into the sunset.
“I, um, I don’t think he was coming for us after all,” Viv said. The Caddy slid to a slow stop.
“He must have given up, since he was outnumbered,” Dale said.
Yeah, I thought. He gave up when we got stuck in the sand and there was no longer any challenge in it.
Viv tried to turn the Caddy around, but the strip of dirt was too narrow and she couldn’t bring herself to drive over someone’s tall cotton. She put the car in reverse, but the wheels got bogged down pretty quick.
Dale got out to look. “You’re stuck,” he said, climbing back in.
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