“To see the crop circle. Jason wanted to see it.”
“I heard she and Darren are back together, trying to work things out.”
Job watched his boot kicking gravel, the woodpecker shit still on the toe. “Well, I should get back home,” he said. “Field work. See you at church?”
“I can’t go back there,” said Penny. “The only reason I went at all was Will. And you. I think I’ll head up to Pastor Divine’s church this Sunday. Give him a try.” She took his hand. “Why don’t you come up with me? We could go out for lunch after. Make a date of it.” She kissed Job on the cheek, smiled at him as she got in her parents’ car. “Think it over. Give me a call.”
A brief thrill ran through Job. He watched Penny’s car drive off, then turned, smiling, to find Barbara leaving the co-op. She looked up from the handbag she was rummaging through, caught sight of Job and walked the other way.
Liv called him over. “How you doing?” she said.
“Okay, I guess.” Job glanced at the side of the truck, at the letters proclaiming Liebich’s Trucking, then at his boot scuffing dirt.
“He’s just driving me to Wetaskiwin,” said Liv. “We’ve got a few things to settle. Listen, I heard some of the talk at the café. About Will. And some about you. Don’t let it get to you, okay? It’s just talk. It’ll quiet down when something more interesting turns up.”
He wanted to ask, What are they saying? But he couldn’t bear to. He already knew. Or guessed.
“How’s Penny?” she asked.
“As good as can be expected. I guess she won’t be spending much time around here any more. She’s talking about getting involved with Divine’s church.”
“I think she’d be very happy there.” Liv pasted on a fake smile, blinked twice.
“I take it you don’t like Penny.” Or could she be jealous? The thought pleased him.
“I don’t have much feeling for her either way. It just seems like her only goal as a good little Christian is to be cheerful all the time. You can do that with weed, if you want, and get a better result.” She turned her eyes on the storefront. “So, where were you after the revival? I waited, but you’d disappeared.”
“I had to pack away the tables, clean dishes.”
“Couldn’t they have waited?”
Job watched the Bullick kid make another pass on his bike, said nothing.
“Thought I’d see you at the café at least.”
“Things have been kind of strange.”
“I gather.”
Dithy Spitzer marched across the road, headed towards them. Job looked back down at his boots. “So, what things are you settling?”
“What’s that?”
“With Darren.”
Liv pulled at a thread on the hem of her shorts but stopped when the hem started to unravel. “We’re taking Jason to see a counsellor.”
Darren banged out the co-op door. Cowboy hat tilted back to expose his forehead. Reddish skiff of stubble across his chin. Eyes like slough water before a storm. He carried two Pepsis and handed Liv one through the window. “Hey, Job,” he said. “Any more aliens land on your place?” He laughed as he walked around to the driver’s side and got in the truck.
“Give me a ring,” said Liv, “all right?”
“Yeah, sure.” But he knew he wouldn’t, because at the moment he stepped back from the truck and waved, the only clear thing in his head was the image of Darren’s hand on the skin of Liv’s thigh.
Eleven
As Job watched Liv and Darren drive off, a cold spray of water hit him in the back of the head. And there was Dithy, water pistol aimed menacingly at him. “You got to get out more,” she said. “Go!” She sprayed him again, this time in the face. “Go!”
He waved his hands to avoid another spray to the face, then stumbled back up the sidewalk and headed to his truck. He reached it just as a trike skidded to a halt beside him, raising a cloud of dust. Ben.
“What are you doing driving that thing into town?” said Job. “Your dad will have your hide.”
“The bull, he’s in the lake!”
“All right. Get in the truck. We’ll come back for the trike later.”
Job dragged dust to the farm, picturing the worst: the bow of the bull’s back like a whale’s breaking water, its head submerged, drowned.
“Mom doesn’t want me spending any time with you,” said Ben. “Not alone.”
“Yeah. She told me.”
“You’re not gay, are you?”
“No.”
“I had the trike down in the coulee. I left the gate open. It’s my fault the bull got out.”
“You know you’re not supposed to drive the trike down the hill. You could kill yourself.”
“You going to tell Dad?”
“I imagine he’s not home, if you took the trike out.”
“He said something about meeting Pastor Divine.”
But when they reached the farm, Jacob was in the yard, just getting out of the car. He talked to Ben as if Job weren’t there. “What are you doing with Job? Didn’t you hear a word your mother said?”
“Ben ran into town to tell me the bull’s in the lake,” said Job.
“How’d you know?” Jacob asked Ben.
“He saw from the top of the coulee.” Job felt the corner of his eye twitch. A thing that always happened when he told a lie. “I’d asked him to watch the cows. Pasture’s running low. Thought they might try breaking through to the upper hayfield.”
“Well, let’s go get the bull out of the lake,” said Jacob, sighing. As if he were in charge and this was one more thing he had to take care of. “You,” he said pointing at Ben, “stay here.”
Job drove the Case with the front-end loader down to the lake. Jacob followed on foot behind. Twenty-five feet out into water, past cattails and slough grass, out where a child could sink to his death in mud, the bull was wallowing. Job picked up stones, then, stepping up to the water, flung them at the bull, aiming to splash just in front of the animal’s head.
“What’re you doing?” said Jacob, catching up to him.
“Trying to get the bull out.”
“Why not just pull him out?”
“Might not have to,” said Job. “Rather not get into the water next to him.”
The bull jerked his head back from the splash of each stone flung into the water, but stayed firmly lodged in muck. Job took a few quick steps into the lake, thinking he could scare the bull into pulling itself free, but only succeeded in getting stuck himself. He took a step forward but found his boot left behind. Job stepped back into the boot. He swung around, yanked his boot free, dragged himself forward to the bull.
An American bittern hidden in the reed canary grass sounded for all the world like a slough pump: glump, glump, glump. The lake smelled of mud and the slough mint growing around its edges. Coarse grass sliced into Job’s fingers as he moved through it, leaving nicks like paper cuts. A sudden, eerie shiver ran up Job’s spine, the same shiver he remembered from childhood when, stepping into slough water when he knew he wasn’t supposed to, he found himself stuck knee-high in gumbo and in black water up to his waist. He feared his father’s licking but was more scared of what dark, unnamed thing skimmed below the water’s surface.
The old bull was tiring. Job smoothed his hand over its face and neck like he might a horse, murmuring to it, trying to calm the animal. The bull looked back with one wild eye. Job found himself caught in its stare. Startling, to be this close to such an alien consciousness. But then animals had no consciousness, did they? At least that was what Abe had taught his sons, that animals had no souls. It made butchering time easier, bearable. Yet there was a soul here—Job felt certain of it—a terrified soul.
He bent a little closer, scratched behind the bull’s ear, looked into that one eye. “There, there,” he whispered. The bull leaned its head into Job’s hand as a dog might, enjoying the scratch. Job was rarely this close to his bulls, except for the times he pinned the
m in the chute for injections, or clipped their hooves, or treated a wound. It was never wise to make a pet of a bull, the way he made pets of some of his cows. A bull was unpredictable, calm one moment, pawing the ground the next. A creature ruled by raging hormones and drives. The bull’s breath was loud, wedges the colour of raspberry sherbet, but transparent now. Job put a cheek to the creature’s massive head to listen closer to its breath, but the colour did not intensify.
“You want a hand?” yelled Jacob.
Frightened by Jacob’s shout, the bull flailed, flinging Job backwards. For a long, panicked moment Job found himself underwater as he tried to right himself. He gulped mud. Spat and thrashed. One foot made contact with the soft belly of the bull. Then, seeking earth, his feet sank into mud. He found himself groping the wiry hair of the bull’s back. The bull snorted and twisted from his grasp and he fell backwards again. He felt another thrashing beside him, he thought for a moment that the bull had torn itself loose. But there was a hand at his neck, yanking his shirt collar, dragging him from mud.
Job caught air, struggled out of Jacob’s grip. “Leave me alone!”
“I was only trying to help.”
“If you hadn’t yelled, the bull wouldn’t have thrown me,” said Job.
Jacob dragged himself from the water, perched on a log and sulked.
Job slogged through slough grass after his brother, wet jeans heavy around his legs, then drove the tractor down to the water’s edge and rejoined the bull in the mud, fashioning the chain loosely around the animal’s neck. He attached the chain to the draw bar and drove the tractor forward, slowly, to gently lift the bull out of the muck neck-first. Freed from the mud, the bull fought its way back to shore, then, exhausted by the struggle, stood passively at the lake edge, snorting. Job unhooked the chain from the bull’s neck and replaced it with a halter. It would be an easy matter, now, to lead the exhausted animal back home.
Job slumped down at the edge of the lower field where alfalfa and brome met wild rose brambles. “I’m sorry for getting mad,” he said. “Thanks for pulling me out.”
Jacob waved a hand. “It’s all right.” After a time he laughed. “Remember when you got stuck in the mud out here and I tried to rescue you?”
“And got stuck yourself,” said Job.
“We called out for—what?—two hours before Dad came down to find us. Then he beats the crap out of me and doesn’t lay a hand on you. He says, ‘You should have known better.’ Like I’d instigated it. He wouldn’t believe me when I said I was trying to get you out.” He looked away, at the lake. “You given any thought to the halfway-house project?” he said.
“It’s not something I want.”
“Well, it’s not really a matter of what you want, is it?” said Jacob. His voice slid into a pastor’s lilt. “It’s about what God wants. You think I’m staying on this farm or thinking about running this halfway-house project because I want to? If I did what I felt like, I’d sell this place right now, set up my own ministry someplace. But this was Granddad’s land, and Dad’s land, and you’re set on keeping the farm in the family. And Lilith doesn’t want to move any more. When Jack proposed this halfway-house project, I figured that’s what God wanted for me. That’s why everything happened to bring us here. So I’m staying.” He looked past Job’s shoulder, and Job watched his brother’s face sag in fatigue as the thought settled into him. Then the tense smile was back on Jacob’s face. He gave Job’s thigh a pat. “Anyway, take it to the Lord. Ask God if he wants you to involve yourself in this halfway-house project or not. Let God make the decision. That’s what he’s there for.” Jacob stood up. “I better get back to the house. You want me to take the bull up?”
“No. I’ll do it.”
Job watched Jacob start his slow climb up the bank of the coulee. Maybe it was as simple as Jacob said. He’d pray for confirmation, ask God if the halfway house was what He wanted for Job and the farm. Or not. But the trick was to figure out God’s answer. He gave it a try and said a prayer with his eyes open, in case God threw him a sign and he missed it.
A duck heaved itself onto the bank and waddled straight over to Job as if it were a city bird, hoping for a handout. A mallard, with a white shred of diaper stuck to its butt. Will’s bird. It gripped Job’s pant leg in its beak and tugged, then tugged again. Clamped hold of a bit of skin and yanked.
“All right,” Job yelled, kicking it off. “I’ll do it, I’ll do it.”
“What was that?” Jacob called down from the hill.
“I said I’ll do it.”
“What?”
“I’ll check out Pastor Divine’s church. If I like what I see, we’ll go ahead with halfway house.”
The duck wheezed out a quack, like the laugh of a child’s pull-along toy, before waddling back to the water and disappearing into the bulrushes.
Twelve
Job sat in a metal folding chair near the front of the church, watching as Pastor Divine worked his way down the line of those who came forward to be slain in the Spirit. Penny took Job’s hand, her moist palm a thrill in his. She wore a pink blouse with a ruffle at the neck, and her hair was piled on her head in an elaborate do she might have worn to the prom. “Isn’t this exciting?” she said.
Ben slouched in his seat beside Job, kicking the underside of the empty chair in front of him. He was dressed much as Job was, in a Sunday shirt and clean jeans. Next to him Lilith chewed the side of her ring finger, her eyes on Jacob as he walked down the line with Pastor Divine, as one of the catchers for the slain.
Bountiful Harvest Church was an old Safeway building, with an S-shaped roof, and all the windows covered over in a light grey stucco. At the entrance to its parking lot there was a sign with an arrow that read Miracles This Way.
Inside, high above the crowd, fans churned the air. On the stage hung two childishly constructed fabric hangings depicted flames of fire, of renewal, of the Holy Spirit. Between these flames hung an unpainted wooden cross.
Pastor Jack Divine had had the crowd stand and sing for nearly two hours before finally announcing it was time for the anointing. The air was stifling, filled with the stench of men’s aftershave and sweat. A number of the women held their hands cupped in front of their chests in supplication, as if holding a bowl and waiting their turn for the bowl to be filled. Some held their hands higher, in the way small children ask, “Up?” One man wore an ambulance driver’s outfit. A woman in her forties danced in the aisles, twirling a bright pink flag tied to a stick.
Penny looked so happy, so certain, the excitement of meeting God rosy in her cheeks. It took Job’s breath away. To feel that excitement, that certainty. To know. He felt instead as though he couldn’t swim, the rescue rope was slipping from his grasp, and the boat was pulling anchor, leaving him adrift in this strange ocean. Pastor Divine had said there was no faking this; if God wanted you slain in the Spirit, he’d take you. If he didn’t think you were ready, if there was something standing in the way, some secret sin, some flaw in your Christian character, then he wouldn’t let the Holy Spirit flow. “You can fake a conversion experience,” Pastor Divine had said, “but you can’t fake a baptism in the Holy Spirit.”
As Divine came nearer, Penny took her place in the aisle. Divine touched her lightly on the forehead. She fell into Jacob’s arms, and he laid her gently on the floor.
“Why aren’t you standing?” said Pastor Divine, stepping up to Job’s seat. “Don’t you feel the call to be baptized in the Holy Spirit?”
Job stood and shook his head, though now that he was standing before the pastor he did feel something. A gnarled burl of anxiety in the pit of his stomach that Pastor Henschell called “conviction by the Holy Spirit,” and what others may have simply called guilt. Guilt over what he couldn’t say, though on reflection any given day produced an abundance of things to feel guilty about. “Yes,” he said.
“Well, which is it?”
“I want to be anointed.”
“It’s not what you wa
nt,” said Pastor Divine. “What you want means diddly-squat. What does God want? Do you feel God’s call?”
Job glanced at Jacob. His brother’s face was splotchy from the exertion of catching those slain in the Spirit. A bead of sweat ran down his cheek. He nodded at Job, as if to encourage him. “I feel it,” said Job. He thought he felt it.
“All right then.” Pastor Jack pressed a hand to Job’s forehead, and when Job took a step back but didn’t fall, Jacob took him by the arm to steady him. “Don’t you feel the Spirit?” said Pastor Divine.
“No.”
“Try to feel the Spirit. Sometimes you’ve got to give it a little help. Open the door.”
“I’ll try.”
“Why not try speaking in tongues?”
“I don’t know how. I mean, God would have to do that through me, wouldn’t he?”
“Loosen your tongue in faith.”
“How’s that?”
“Say some nonsense words; try out some syllables. You know, like nanana papa, that sort of thing. You’ll get over your inhibitions, and then God will help you out.”
“I’ll try.”
Pastor Divine moved down the row, and Job mumbled as he’d been instructed, nanananana, papapa, watching as the anointed fell one after the other, their inhibitions shaken loose and dropped like a pocket full of coins. Lilith fell to the floor sobbing. A woman lay next to her, laughing. A boy in the seat in front of Job held his hands up, murmuring to the Lord as if to a lover. Others, rocking back and forth, clicked their tongues against the roof of their mouths.
Ben stayed slouched in his seat with his arms crossed. He’d refused to stand when Divine came on him and wouldn’t look at his father. Job knew exactly what he was feeling, as Job himself, cringing in the pew beside his father, had gone through the same agonies of embarrassment each Sunday, and had endured cruel taunts about his father and brother at school. Jacob had joined in with Abe, standing in church when his father stood, waving a hand in the air, calling out, “Thank you, Jesus!” or tottering back and forth in what Job supposed was a trance, gibbering in choppy, meaningless sentences that sounded vaguely Italian.
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