The Nearly Complete Works, Volume 3

by Donald Harington

  She told Every that he had probably forgotten but the previous three times he had carried her over the mountain she had fainted. He hadn’t noticed the first time because he had gone to sleep right afterwards, and he hadn’t notice the second time, down at the gristmill’s meadow, because he’d got in a fight with Raymond, and he’d left her tied to that tree after raping her, which got her over the mountain anyway. “It’s not really a ‘trance.’ I just get so carried off when the big moment comes at the end that I just swoon clean away, as if it were too much for a body to bear.”

  Every frowned. “That happened…with Dolph?”

  “Yes. Once.”

  He pondered with a long face for a while before speaking. “Well,” he said, “that was just God’s way of telling you that He didn’t approve of what you were doing.”

  “No, Every,” she said. “It was just my way of telling me that I approved of it so much I couldn’t stand it.”

  He accused her of hurting him. She said she was just trying to help him understand. He quoted Scripture to her. The Bible was full of injunctions against the flesh. When this little sermon was over, she excused herself, saying she wanted to run over to Dawny’s house to find out if he was okay. He usually showed up at this time of day. It was in fact the closest house to Latha’s, and she did not need a lantern to light her way. Rosie and Frank were unwelcoming. Rosie said they had caught Dawny out in a whopping lie, telling them that there was a bunking party the previous night at Latha’s place, with all the neighborhood kids in attendance, when in fact Dawny had just gone there alone. Rosie had learned from the mothers of some of the other kids who were supposedly there that their children had not attended any bunking party.

  Frank had given Dawny the real what-for, and practically mopped the floor with him until he was black and blue. Latha sobbed, but realized she had already had her cry for the day and it was after supper now anyway. She went back to her own house, thinking of persuading Every to kidnap Dawny and take her and the boy on the road with him. But she realized she could never leave Stay More again.

  There was only one thing that would take her mind off her grief, and she didn’t know if she could persuade Every, holy man that he was, to take her over the mountain after all these years. Maybe he couldn’t even do it. But she reminded him of that first night they’d spent together, all those years before. She heard him sigh in the memory of the pleasure of it. But he caught himself, saying he hadn’t known at the time that they were committing fornication, which is strictly forbidden by the Bible. She said she didn’t believe it was fornication, because they’d been in a kind of common-law wedlock ever since that night, and they had had a child together, a beautiful girl named Sonora. Every said still and all he didn’t think they had any moral right to commit fornication again, not tonight anyhow. She challenged him to ask his Lord. She said since he claimed to be able to talk with the Lord he ought to get the Lord’s opinion of whether they were fornicating or not. He protested that he’d need privacy and meditation to get in touch with the Lord. She offered him the use of her bedroom. Or her outhouse. He decided he’d just take a stroll down by the creek, and he walked off the porch. She called after him to be careful he didn’t step on her cantaloupes. Then she was alone, alone with herself for the first time in many hours, and she was glad of it because aloneness was her natural element, she had been comfortable with it ever since Tennessee; there was a great effort to talking so much all of a sudden. Those bugs and frogs out there in the grass and trees were as talkative as all get out. But the lightning bugs never made a sound; just light. The lightning bugs didn’t talk; they were just there.

  “I’m here, Lord,” she heard herself saying, and wondered why. Then she heard herself asking, “Are You there, Lord?” She even waited, and tried to feel, if not hear, any answer. There was none, no wonder. But still she felt as close to prayer as she had ever come. It was as if, having been talking so much all day, she had to continue, had to keep talking although there was nobody to listen, save the Lord, if He could, if He was, if He did, and she doubted it. “Listen,” she said, “I don’t believe he can really hear You, but if he can, tell him a thing or two, will You? Remind him he married me, oh, twenty-eight years ago, wasn’t it? Were You in on that one? Then straighten him out. Tell him we’ve got just as much right as any of Your other creatures. Tell him he doesn’t need to be such a Bible fanatic. You don’t really think it would be fornication for us, do You? He says You preach love and mercy. Get it across to him that he misunderstood something important about that time in that Nashville hotel room. You didn’t fix me up because of that ‘covenant’ with him, did You? Then open his eyes. I can stick with him forever if all he wants to do is preach Your love and mercy. But if he wants to stuff us with all this ‘sin-and-salvation’ clamjamfry, why then I’d have to turn him away once again, and then where would I be? Where would he be? If You actually want him to devote himself entirely to You, then that’s that, and I hope You can use him more than I could. But I just wish You’d give him to me. Now, do I have to say ‘Amen,’ or will You just accept—”

  Hush! she said to herself, and hushed, thinking, There’s nobody listening. Nobody listens to those bugs and frogs except their mates. No reason to talk to anybody except somebody you want.

  She began to rock slowly in her rocking chair, and let Time fall back into its timelessness.

  Sometime later a figure riding a mule came trotting by, and turned down the main road into the village, spurring the mule for all it was worth. As the mule and rider disappeared into the darkness down the main road, Every reappeared.

  “Who was that?” he asked jerking his thumb in the direction the mule and rider disappeared.

  “I think that was Sarah Chism,” she said. “Yes, it looked like Sarah Chism.”

  “Hmmm,” he said. “A woman riding a mule. I wonder what that signifies?” He came and sat back down in the chair he had vacated some time ago.

  “Sarah Chism riding her mule signifies Sarah Chism riding her mule,” she said. “Though I’ve never seen her out at night before.”

  “Hmmm,” he said. “Is that a fact? Then it must signify something.”

  “Maybe the mule needs exercise,” she said. “The way she was running it, she really looked to be giving it a work-out.”

  “Hmmm,” he said again, and seemed to be in deep thought.

  After a while, she asked, “Well, did you reach the Lord?”

  “I did,” he affirmed. “But He sure didn’t have much to say to me.”

  “Who can blame Him?” she said. “The poor Fellow’s trying to get some rest in preparation for His big day tomorrow of listening to billions of church services.”

  “Now you just might be right,” he said. “Leastways He didn’t seem much inclined to give me much of His time.”

  “What did He say?” she asked.

  “Strangest thing,” he said. “He just said one thing. All He said was, and I quote, ‘Straightway will I show thee thy true vocation.’ That’s all. Now what do you make of that?”

  “Oh, come on, Every,” she said. “You’re just making that up.”

  “No, now,” he said. “I swear. I heard it in me as clearly as I’ve ever heard Him in me. And that’s what He said, word for word. Straightway will I show thee thy true vocation. As if I hadn’t already found my true vocation a long time ago. What do you reckon that could mean? That He was going to give me some kind of sign right away? Then what kind of sign is Sarah Chism riding a mule?”

  “Maybe He wants you to be a muleteer, or a mule trader,” she said, thinking I’d lots rather be married to a mule trader than to a preacher.

  “Why would He want that?” Every said, in an obvious turmoil of perplexity. “What does He mean by ‘true vocation’ anyhow? I’ve got a true vocation, darn it, and why doesn’t He know it?” Every suddenly sprang up out of his chair. “Land o’ Goshen!” he cried, pointing. “Yonder she comes again!”

  Sarah Chism on the mu
le came back up the main road, riding not as fast as she had headed into the village. Sarah caught sight of them silhouetted against the light of the windows and turned her mule toward them and rode up to the porch.

  Sarah squinted at him and asked, “Is that you, Every? Is it shore-enough a fact what they say, that you’ve become a preacher?”

  Every seemed reluctant to answer, as if to do so would bring down upon him that awful sign he anticipated. Finally he mumbled, “Yeah, Sarah, that’s right.”

  “Then pray fer us all!” Sarah wailed. “My man Luther’s done went and shot a revenuer! I’ve went to git Doc Swain, and he’s a-comin to try and fix him. He aint kilt dead, but he’s all full a buckshot. Pray fer im, preacher! Pray fer us all!”

  She jabbed her heels into the mule’s belly, and rode away.

  “Tarnation!” Every exclaimed.

  “That’s it, Every!” Latha said to him. “That’s your sign. That’s what the Lord wants you to be.”

  “What, a revenuer?” he asked.

  “No, a moonshiner,” she said.

  “Aw, heck, Latha,” he said. “You can’t read signs. Don’t you know what this signifies? Sarah asked me to pray, didn’t she? That means the Lord is telling me that my true vocation is praying for folks! That means He wants me to pray for that poor revenuer, to strengthen my true vocation as a preacher.” And Every knelt immediately on the porch and thanked the Lord for the sign, and asked Him to save the poor revenuer’s life. But the words of his prayer were nearly drowned beneath the sound of Doc Swain’s car roaring up the road. The engine roared, then coughed, then roared again, spluttered, belched, roared, coughed: the car came into view, jerking and bucking. It came abreast of the post office, roaring, then spluttered and died. Doc Swain tried to start it again. It would not start. Doc Swain jumped out of his car and kicked it viciously with his foot. “Goddamn scandalous hunk of cruddy tinfoil!” he yelled, and kicked it again. “Sonabitchin worthless gas-eatin ash can!”

  Then he turned wildly about, yelling, “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”

  “Here’s your true sign, Every,” Latha said to him. “The Lord wants you to be a doctor.”

  “Naw,” he said. “I’m afraid it’s something else.”

  “A horse?” she said.

  “Get me a lantern, quick,” he said. She went into the house and brought out a lantern. He took it and ran out to Doc Swain’s car. He gave the lantern to Doc Swain, saying, “Hold this.” Then he opened the hood of the car and bent over into the car’s innards. A minute passed. He said to Doc Swain, “Just set the lantern down on the fender and get in and try to start it.” Doc Swain did so.

  The car started right up, and the motor ran evenly. “Hey!” Doc Swain hollered. “Thanks a load, Every! What’d you do to it?”

  “Distributor cap had worked loose,” Every said.

  “Well, lucky you were here!” Doc Swain said. “I got to get out to Luther Chism’s. He’s shot a revenuer, the damn fool.” Doc Swain let out the clutch and roared away.

  Latha and Every returned to the porch and sat down again. Every was in a morose mood. She let several minutes pass before saying, “So that’s it. The Lord wants you to be an auto repairman.”

  Every said, “Maybe,” and nothing else.

  “Well,” she observed, “I guess it ought to be a good-paying line of work.”

  “Oh, it’s good-payin enough, all right,” he said. “Worked my way through Bible College working nights in a garage in Nashville. And I’ve had to do a stretch of car work hither and yon from time to time, just to make ends meet. Preaching don’t pay enough to be called a job of work, ’less you settle down in a good-sized city with a big congregation, and I wouldn’t care for that.” He was silent again for a while, then he threw his head back and raised his voice so loudly she jumped. “Lord, what’re You tryin to tell me, Lord?” he demanded. “Don’t You want me, Lord? Don’t You need me anymore? Have I not been living up to Your expectations? Do You honestly want me to be nothing but a grease monkey?”

  He was staring so fixedly up at the sky that she let her own gaze follow his, as if she might find Somebody appearing up there. The sky was mulberry purple, and star-spattered. A star fell. Or a piece of one, a flaming fragment, leaving a trail. A falling star always means that somebody is dying. Maybe that poor revenuer. No, maybe it was—

  “What’s that mean?” Every asked her. “You remember all those old-time signs and portents, Latha. What do folks think a shooting star means?”

  “Falling, not shooting,” she corrected him. “Means somebody just died.”

  “That revenuer…” Every said. “Why, if he’s dead, then it means that me fixing Doc Swain’s car didn’t do any good anyhow, so that wasn’t the real sign the Lord meant to give me. Maybe there’s going to be another sign, the real one. I just caint believe the Lord would want me to fix cars the rest of my life.”

  “Maybe not the revenuer,” she said. “Maybe the one who just died was Preacher Every Dill. The preacher’s dead in you, Every.”

  “Don’t say that!” he protested. “That gives me the creeps.”

  She had an idea. “Let’s go to bed,” she suggested.

  “It’s still kind of early,” he observed.

  “For sleep, yes. But let’s not go for sleep.”

  “No,” he said.

  “Every,” she said in exasperation, “if you won’t sleep with me first I won’t marry you.”

  “And I tell you again,” he said, “that I will not sleep with you until I’ve married you.”

  “Well,” she said, “that’s that, I guess. Nice to’ve seen you again, Every. Come back again some time.”

  But he did not leave. Nor did he say anything. They just sat and sulked, both of them, for many minutes.

  By and by Doc Swain returned, and stopped his car in the yard and got out. He came up and sat with them on the porch. “Every,” he said, “the United States government ought to pin some kind of medal on you. Providing, of course, that that poor bastard ever gets back to tell them about it. Pardon my language, Reverend. Well, I declare, if you have learned to save souls the way you’ve learned to fix automobiles, I reckon it’s true enough that you’ve honestly been transformed and revamped.”

  “Is he all right?” Every asked.

  “Well, he won’t be sittin down for a right smart spell, but he can just lay on his belly. I dug about twenty 12-gauge shot outa his ass-end—pardon me, Latha—his backside is shore peppered up, but, all considering, he’ll live—though for what I don’t know, ’cause Luther still aint figgered out what to do with him.”

  “Why did Luther shoot him?” Latha asked. “That was plain stupid.”

  “Haw!” Doc Swain exclaimed. “Lost his temper momentarily, I imagine. Seems what happened was, he caught that revenuer right in the old act of carnal congress with his gal Lucy. Caught him really with his britches down, and let fire with his shotgun before thinkin about it. Even nicked Lucy on the thigh too.”

  “I thought the revenuer was tied up,” Every said. “How could he have seduced Lucy if he was tied up?”

  “By dang if he aint still tied!” Doc Swain laughed. “He aint never been untied! Reckon Lucy had to unbutton his britches for him. But Luther claims the revenuer must’ve talked her into it, and that’s just the same as seducing her. I don’t doubt it, for that revenuer is shore a talkin fool; he could talk the hind leg off a donkey. No trouble talkin his own britches off. He come mighty near to talkin me into sendin him to a hospital, so he could get loose from Luther.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “And betray my own people!” Doc Swain demanded. “What do you think I am?”

  “Well, Luther can’t keep him forever, can he?”

  “Noo, but he aint about to let him loose before studying on the problem. Luther’s brains is kind of slow, you know.” Doc Swain stood up. “Well, I’m out way past my bedtime. Sure obliged to you, Every, for that quick repair job.”
r />   “Doc,” Every asked, “are you still the justice of the peace for Swains Creek township?”

  “I fergit,” Doc Swain said. “Seems like I am, but I aint jay-peed in so long I fergit whether my license is still up to date. But yes, come to think on it, I reckon it is. Why?”

  “Can you issue a marriage license?” Every asked.

  “Sure,” Doc Swain said. “Who for?”

  “Us,” Every said.

  “Who’s ‘us’?”

  “Me and her.”

  “By jabbers, it’s about time!”

  Chapter thirty-eight

  So that is how Gran and Gramps came to get married. It didn’t happen that night, nor the next day, nor the day after. For one thing, Dawny turned up missing. The whole population of Stay More, 112 that summer, went out looking for him, scouring the hills and woods and dragging the streams. In fact there were 113: Dolph Rivett went home to Spunkwater to fetch his bloodhound and came back to add that talented dog to the search. Everybody forgot that it was Sunday, and Every’s intended revival meeting was never held. Latha bent down a mullein stalk and named it Dawny. Every had to interrupt the search just once briefly at the request of Luther Chism to perform what would be his next-to-last act as a minister of the gospel: to officiate the quick nuptials of Lucy Chism and an agent of the U.S. Revenue Department, who agreed on condition that he be untied, freed and then hitched to Lucy for life, that he would never divulge the location of Luther’s still, or of Luther, to his employers. Thus Luther was able to go on for the rest of his life manufacturing Chism’s Dew, a supply of which he furnished to the searchers fanning out from Latha’s store porch. The men dragging the grappling hooks through Swains Creek and Banty Creek did not turn up any sign of Dawny or his body but they caught so many fish that an enormous fish dinner was made possible, with all the women contributing cole slaw and hush puppies. The search for Dawny became the single most significant social event in the history of Stay More since The Unforgettable Picnic so many years before.