Heaven's Crooked Finger

by Hank Early

  His smile vanished. “Doing the Lord’s work.”

  “It’s good to know some people never change.”

  “I agree. Like your daddy, for one. He’s still the same today as he was when he baptized me in Ghost Creek.”

  “Except he’s dead.”

  Choirboy smiled expansively, showing off clean, straight teeth, like well-polished tombstones.

  It was one of the most disarming smiles I’d ever seen, and I was truly thankful when the library door swung open and hit my shoulder.

  A young woman came out. “Excuse me,” she said. She glanced at Choirboy and moved quickly on past.

  “I got some stuff to do,” I said.

  He kept on smiling, not speaking, so I grabbed the door before it closed and slipped on inside, to what I hoped would be friendlier faces.

  Just before the door swung shut behind me, I could have sworn I heard him say it again, or maybe it was just the old memory bubbling to the surface. Either way, it sent a chill through me, and I wanted to plug my ears.

  Repent.

  * * *

  I didn’t fare much better inside the library. I approached the front desk to ask a small blonde-haired woman where I could find the microfiche, but when she turned around and smiled pleasantly, the question I’d planned to ask got stuck in my throat.

  Her smile disappeared immediately once she recognized who I was.

  “May I help you?” she said, and I realized she was just going to pretend she didn’t know me.

  “How have you been, Mrs. Shaw?” I said.

  “It’s not Shaw anymore.” She didn’t offer her new name.

  “I’d like to try to explain what happened.”

  “I’m not interested. Do you need some help?” She barely opened her mouth when she spoke, and her voice literally quivered with hate.

  I winced and shook my head. “Your microfiche?”

  “Why are you even here?” she said, ignoring the request she’d demanded I make.

  “I’m here . . .” I was about to say for Granny, but then I remembered Granny was a reviled figure among people associated with the Holy Flame. I just shook my head. “I’m here for work.”

  “Work?”

  “Yeah, I’m on a case.”

  “You some kind of cop?” Her voice was loud now, and people looked up from what they were doing to watch our conversation. She was visibly angry.

  “I’ll just find it myself,” I said.

  “I don’t want you here.” She turned around, looking for someone who’d help her. A young man wearing a suit came out from the rear of the library.

  “What’s the trouble?”

  Maggie’s mother clenched her fists together and glared at me. She said nothing else. Even when the young man repeatedly asked her if she was okay.

  I took that opportunity to slip away and look for the microfiche.

  * * *

  Rufus had narrowed the time down to the early nineties, and he said he remembered it was in one of the smaller local papers, maybe Riley or Dalton. I got to work, still buzzing from the espresso and the awkward encounter with Maggie’s mother. It felt weird to me that I could be away for thirty years and come back to the exact same vitriol. Yet it wasn’t surprising, which explained why I’d resisted coming home in the first place.

  I worked for nearly three hours before the library page stuck her head into the back room and said, “We’re closing in fifteen minutes.”

  After that, I worked quickly, squinting hard into the machine, hoping something would catch my eye. And it did.

  The headline itself was classic RJ Marcus.

  Old-Time Religion Wins Against Mountain Drug Dealers

  I took out my phone and snapped a photo of the screen. I checked to make sure it was clear enough and then took two more before giving the reel a good spin so nobody would know what I’d been looking at and then left the library.

  I didn’t look at the front desk as I slipped out the door.

  16

  To say Mary was shocked to see me was an understatement. She looked like she’d seen a ghost when she answered the door and I was standing there. And if I didn’t know better, I could have sworn she looked pleased. I’d gone by to pick up Goose first, and he nudged her knee until she knelt to pet him.

  “You miss your flight?” she said.

  “You could say that.”

  I stepped inside and heard Granny call from the kitchen. “What did I tell you?”

  “Shush, Granny.”

  “You two have a bet or something?” I said.

  “She was just convinced you’d come back. Apparently, she’s also convinced you and me should date.” Mary smiled and pulled her hair back. “She’s old, what can I tell you?”

  “Well, she was right about me still being here.”

  “I see that. Now explain yourself.”

  She led me to the kitchen, and I gave Granny a hug. She tried to put on a good face, but I could tell she was worn out. Probably the midnight doctoring of Goose the night before had contributed to that.

  “Get him some shine,” Granny ordered. Mary grabbed a cup and poured me a few fingers. Whiskey with Rufus and moonshine at Granny’s. No wonder I’d decided to stay.

  “Well?” Mary said.

  “I got something on McCauley.”

  “That’s why you stayed?”

  “I don’t know why I stayed, okay? Maybe I got drunk and missed the flight. Or maybe I just like the weather. Either way, I’m here, and I found something on McCauley.”

  “Fair enough,” Mary said. “I’d love to hear it. I’ve got nothing.”

  I told her about my fortuitous meeting with Rufus and our ensuing conversation that led us to the fishing shack. I described the place as well as I could and told her about the list with my name on it.

  “Earl,” she whispered softly, seemingly amazed by the revelation of my name being on the wall of the shack. It wasn’t far from how I felt.

  “So I asked Rufus if he’d ever heard about any map. He recalled a newspaper article from the early nineties.”

  “We’ll go to the library tomorrow,” Mary said.

  “I’ve already been.” I reached for my phone. “Got it right here.” I unlocked the phone and pulled up the photograph. “Here,” I said, handing it to Mary. “Read it out loud. I can’t see this. You got young eyes.”

  She took the phone and frowned at it. She squinted and began to read:

  Old-Time Religion Wins Against Mountain Drug Dealers

  Robert Jackson Marcus, best known to his congregation as “RJ,” still believes in the power of God. After being the head pastor at the Holy Flame in rural Coulee County in North Georgia for nearly twenty years, he’s seen God work in ways that “will blow your mind.” The latest—and, according to Marcus, greatest—example of God’s power happened earlier this spring, deep in the mountains near the small town of Riley, when Marcus and some others, while on a spiritual search that led them to a spectacular waterfall Marcus calls “the tears of God,” were accosted by some men brandishing weapons who told the minister the land was private and they’d need to move along.

  “We are peaceful men,” Marcus says. “We told them we’d be glad to move along, but that we’d be back after prayer and fasting if this was where God wanted us. See, I’d seen this place before in a vision. Most people don’t believe in visions or prophets anymore, but I’m not most people. Still, I gave them the benefit of the doubt.”

  Marcus is indeed “not most people.” He’s an imposing man with a deep, soaring voice and a faith that has stood the test of time.

  “I’ve always been a believer, and I’ve always talked to God. Most people don’t have the faith to listen, but I do.”

  After returning to his church, Marcus and his friends prayed about the land. According to members of the Holy Flame, they’d never seen their minister so dedicated to prayer and fasting. He holed himself up inside his church office for three weeks, only speaking to his closest frien
ds and his wife. When he emerged, he said he’d heard the voice of God, who had instructed him to sketch a map. Marcus claimed if the men followed this map, God would keep them safe and lead them to a special place at the top of the mountain.

  “I told the church that I was going back. God had showed me a well at the top of the mountain not made by the hands of man. He told me it was his well and I was to take it back for his people. I invited any of the elders to join me if they wanted to but made it clear I wasn’t forcing them. Four of them came, including Daniel Edwards. He wasn’t but twenty years old at the time.”

  Marcus and his men ventured into the mountains again with a renewed energy. Despite the implied threat of violence, none of them carried weapons. Instead, they were armed only with the map and what Marcus calls “the old faith.” They moved into the region, more sure than ever they were approaching a holy place. As they neared the spot high in the mountains Marcus said God had showed him, they were fired upon. Young Edwards was hit and later died when he refused to seek medical help and instead insisted on continuing the pilgrimage.

  Marcus’s face grows dark when he speaks of that terrible time. “We begged him to let us take him back, but he was a true believer. Danny told me God’s finger wasn’t crooked.” When asked to explain this, Marcus simply said it meant God didn’t make mistakes. “What he touched was touched. There wasn’t no accidents. That was what Danny believed. It’s what I still believe.”

  Marcus and his men forged on ahead. Eventually, they stumbled upon the reason for so much resistance: a field of marijuana hidden in a secret meadow. Here, they encountered violence again, as several shots rang out, but none of Marcus’s troop were injured, and they pushed on, using the illegal plants for cover as they continued deeper into the wilderness.

  “Eventually, we reached the place I’d dreamed about, the well. It’s hidden from all men lest they have the spirit of the Lord inside them, and even then it takes much prayer to see it. It’s a place where the finger of God touches the earth, where God himself can touch a sinner and make them pure. We hunkered down there and prayed and prayed and prayed.”

  Despite the prayers, Marcus said the group hit a low point when Danny died. “It hurt, of course. Losing a man of God always hurts. We didn’t lose faith, though. You never lose faith. You adjust. God is always asking us to adjust. Those with true faith can and will do that. He overcame the grave. The least we can do is overcome small adversities.”

  The drug dealers eventually found Marcus’s encampment, a place he’ll only describe as “fortified by God’s righteousness,” and during a great storm, Marcus commanded them to leave.

  “The power of God surged in me, and it wasn’t me speaking,” he says. “It was God. They had guns. We had God. We won. There’s a lesson there for all of us.”

  “It was the greatest display of God’s power I’ve ever seen,” says eyewitness and longtime friend of the pastor, Billy Thrash. “He called upon God for protection, and the Lord delivered fire from heaven. He saved us on that day, and I have no doubt in my mind it was because of the holiness of the man who led us and the sacred place he led us to.”

  After Marcus and his men returned from their sojourn, they reported the events to the authorities, who found the field of marijuana and seized more than five thousand individual plants. Four of the five suspects have been apprehended based on descriptions provided by Marcus and other individuals. The fifth suspect is still at large at the time of publication.

  According to Coulee County Sheriff Hank Shaw, the operation Marcus uncovered was “significant.”

  “I’m not typically given to hyperbole,” Shaw said, “but I’ve never met nobody like Brother RJ. The true power of the Lord is in him.”

  Marcus, who considers himself a “link” to the powerful religious past of North Georgia, is quick to point out his priorities.

  “Every man, woman, and child must decide in this life. The decision is to leave sin behind and follow the Lord. It might be hard for some, but what those that continue on a road of sin will face in the next life is harder than anything they can imagine. I don’t think there is anything more important than a man giving his life to God. Hell never ends. It never stops. It’ll consume you and then consume you some more.”

  When asked what he’d say to the men who’d once used the mountainside for illegal drugs, Marcus demurred. “I would tell them the same thing I tell any man. Get it right. Get your life straight. Run from sin like it’s on fire. Run to the Lord. Our doors are open every Sunday, and we believe in forgiveness.”

  The Holy Flame is located off Caldwell Mill Road (third gravel road on the right), and services are held every Sunday at 9:30.

  When Mary finished reading, I was physically shaking. I took a moment to try to compose myself. There were so many conflicting emotions, so many things to unpack inside that article.

  “Sounds like an advertisement for your father’s church,” Mary said.

  I nodded. “Not surprising. It was probably written by a member.”

  “So much for objectivity in journalism.” Mary handed the phone back to me.

  But before I could say anything else, I heard Granny’s voice. “The well,” she said. “I heard of it before.”

  Mary and I both looked at her.

  “When you’re a midwife, you hear things nobody else does. A woman who never used a foul word in her life will go to cursing like she was getting paid by the four-letter word.” She shrugged. “Some of them remember things they suppressed. Others just clench their teeth and fight an internal battle with nary a word. This girl—her name was Allison, if I recall—had come up hard; she was a fighter. I could just smell it on her. You know how I get those feelings about people.”

  Mary and I both nodded.

  “Anyway, the baby was turned wrong, and she started panicking. I tried to calm her down, telling her I could do it, I’d done it before, and it would be fine, but she wouldn’t listen.

  “She started talking nonsense. Something about lightning at the top of a mountain. Saying something didn’t work. Saying she was still angry at God, and it was her fault. It didn’t work.

  “I didn’t shush her. I always just let them talk. Figure it’s just nature’s way of taking their mind off the pain. Sometimes, if it’s really bad, I’ll ask them questions. So that’s what I did. ‘Where was this?’ I asked her. ‘Where did you see the lightning?’

  “She was hurting pretty bad at this time, but I’ll never forget what she said: ‘The well.’ I remember because it didn’t make no sense then or now. But I thought of it first off when your daddy said that about the well.”

  “Do you remember her last name, Granny?”

  “I do. But you ain’t gonna get to talk to her. She’s dead. Long dead, actually. She died back in the late nineties.”

  “That would fit the timeline. The article came out in 1992.”

  Granny shrugged. “I reckon it does.”

  “What was her last name, Granny?”

  “DeWalt. Allison DeWalt. Her people are from over on Small Mountain. I’ll bet you there’s still a few of them left.”

  “Want to ride out there tomorrow?” Mary asked.

  “Is that aboveboard? I mean, I’m not really law enforcement.”

  “Look, if they’re going to give me a case and then not help me at all, then I’ll do what it takes. I’ll plead ignorance if anything comes of it. I could say I thought your PI license gave you the right. You do have a PI license, right?”

  “Not in Georgia.”

  “Like I said, I’m not worried about it.”

  “There’s something else,” Granny said, looking directly at me. I met her eyes and felt goose bumps crawling over my skin. “I think it might be important. She didn’t just die.”

  “What do you mean?” I said, but I didn’t really have to ask. I already knew before she said it.

  “She hanged herself from a tree, not a mile from where she lived.”

  17

/>   On the night Lester asked Maggie to marry him, I went down to Ghost Creek with a bottle of moonshine I’d been saving for a special occasion. I settled in on my usual rock and watched the moonlight streak the water as it slipped down the mountain. The evening felt charged with something supernatural and quick, something that touched my neck before sliding away like the nearly silent silver water, only to come back on the next breeze. I held off on the bottle, trying to be in the moment, sensing something big was about to happen. Daddy used to talk of his skin crawling, and I’d always wondered what that was like, but on that night, I felt it all over my body.

  Soon, I found myself on my feet, bottle forgotten for the moment, following the creek up the mountain, trying to find its source—or maybe I was trying to avoid what was coming. It’s easy to think back and say I knew, or if I didn’t know, to believe I sensed what was about to happen. But the present always pulls the past into focus. Being in the moment offers little in the way of true clarity.

  Whatever my motivation, I kept walking, and I resolutely tried not to think of Lester and Maggie. Since being effectively excommunicated by the church, I’d grown increasingly envious of Lester. Not only did he still have an opportunity to please our father, he also had Maggie, and I didn’t even have to love her for this to drive me crazy.

  Before long, I’d tired from my steep path up the mountain, but when I realized where I was, I decided to trudge on a little farther. I’d come to a forgotten place from my childhood, to the ruins of a little burial ground very few people knew about.

  But I knew about it because my sister was buried there. Aida only lived for a few hours before succumbing to what we later learned was encephalitis. Just as he would do later with me and my mother, Daddy forbade even the suggestion of taking her to the doctor. Instead, he held her up to the sky in the middle of a powerful rainstorm, hours after her complicated delivery by the local midwife. He beseeched God to heal her of her “deficiencies” and make her whole again. The only answer was thunder and a crooked fork of lightning out over the valley.