Days of Little Texas

by R. A. Nelson

What has it done with her? If it’s done anything to her, so help me God, I’ll…

  I drop to my knees and pray before the door, half silent, half in desperate whispers, for what seems forever, fighting my own terror. I get up, try the door, and it opens easily this time. I pull the light cord and call down the stairs, faint with fear for her.

  I have to trust that she got away. I have to.

  Please, God.

  The composition book is still where I dropped it when I fell through the doorway. I pick it up and clutch it to my stomach like something might try to wrestle it loose from me, then hurry upstairs. My room is empty. I shut the door, wishing I could lock it.

  What’s to stop it from coming back for me? But somehow the night doesn’t have that feeling anymore. It’s like whatever was chasing us has left the house. Left because it got Lucy?

  Please let her be all right. Please, God, please.

  I bring the book over to the lamp. Its outside is spotted and gray, covered with faded little leaf shapes. It stinks of mold and looks to be held together by pure mildew. I turn to the first page….

  A single name: Thaddeus Palmer. Probably the person who owned the book. But why not Vanderloo?

  In a fever I turn through the pages—what can it tell us about what Lucy and I are supposed to do?

  I begin to read. The first page has two columns under the heading “1854,” marked “Births at Vanderloo” and “Deaths at Vanderloo.” There are lists of names below each one, some marked with checks. The names sound old-timey: Silvey, Miss Parsey, Peg, Liddy.

  I flip through a bunch more pages—more numbers and dates and names for other years. It reminds me of the green ledger book Miss Wanda Joy uses to tote up the love offerings after each service. Like somebody keeping records for a business.

  A business?

  I drop the book like my hands have been scalded.

  Slaves. These are the names of slaves.

  Next morning I look out at an overcast sky, the water dark and broiling around Devil Hill. More rain is coming. I wonder about Lucy.

  I head downstairs and stash the composition book behind a cushion in the den before going in to breakfast. They are all talking about the service, trying to figure out what tasks can be done on a rainy day. I wait for a chance to show the book to Certain Certain in private.

  “How’d it go last night, Lightning?” he says, grinning a little. “Didn’t hear a peep out of you.”

  “It was fine,” I say.

  There is a reason they showed us this, I tell myself. Focus on the composition book.

  I pull Certain Certain off into the den after we eat and hand him the notebook.

  “I wanted you to take a look at this.”

  Certain Certain turns the notebook over and takes a long look at the pages. “Well, I’ll be God—where’d you get this, boy?”

  I’ve never been very good at lying. “Found it down in the basement.”

  “What you doing prowling around down there?”

  “Just… exploring.”

  He touches his torn lip, considering. “It’s a property ledger from the Vanderloo Plantation, 1854 to 1866. Valuable historic artifact. Plantation owners used ’em to keep records of their property.”

  “Their slaves.”

  “Same thing. Chattels—same as a cow or a wagon or a bale of cotton. Sometimes owners, they kept their books their-selves. Other times an overseer did it for them. Look here….” He touches a place in the book where it says “Letty’s child” under the birth column. “Girl child born March eighteenth. Then look on down here.” He points under the column marked “Deaths.” “Letty’s child” appears again next to “June 11.”

  “So her baby died,” I say.

  Certain Certain nods. “Total loss to the owner. That’s the way they looked at it. Poor little thing. Measles, chicken pox, whooping cough, things like that killed folks off all the time. Pretty near every family had two or three children who never made it to their tenth birthday. Now, with slaves, well… it was even worse.”

  “Didn’t anybody ever treat ’em decently?”

  “Some did. Some did, yes. But when you’re being treated like a horse, does it really make all that much difference? Barlows know you got this?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Something like this ought to be in a museum. You want me to give it to them, keep you out of trouble?”

  “No, I will,” I say. “But can I look at it just a little while longer?”

  “I reckon it’s okay, long as you don’t damage it. Go easy on that binding, Lightning.”

  Heavy drops start spitting against the big windows, so I spend time up in my room studying the ledger book for clues and thinking about Lucy.

  A gullywasher kicks up later in the evening with scads of lightning. After supper me and Sugar Tom head up to his room, and he digs out his old chessboard and gives me a game while we listen to the thunder spanking the sky. Tonight I’m so distracted, he kills my rook with one of his pawns.

  “What’s bothering you, Ronald Earl?” Sugar Tom says. He moves his bishop from clear across the board, hemming my king in. “Checkmate.”

  I cough, waiting to say something, then figure I should just get to it. “What do you think about everything that’s been going on? Do you think anything’s liable to happen at the service?”

  “Ronald Earl,” he says, “when you’ve been in the ministry as long as I have, there is nothing—nothing, I’m telling you— on God’s green earth that surprises me anymore. You have to remember, we are targets—we don’t hide our light under a bushel basket, we let it shine. And Christians aren’t the only ones who see our light, believe you me. The others are drawn to it, too.”

  “What others?”

  “The fallen ones. Warriors of darkness. They see the light, and they can’t keep away. Did I ever tell you about the time I sat up with Miss Gayola Thompson? In Birmingham Memorial Hospital? When she was having her female troubles?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I had fallen asleep in my chair, and she woke me up, terrified something was in the room with us. Kept screaming it was in a corner up by the ceiling. I was barely awake, and the lighting was quite dim, but I thought I saw something there, too. Makes me go cold all over just thinking about it. Eyes, Ronald Earl. Several sets of eyes up in that corner of the ceiling. Watching her. I reckon that’s what they do. Beset a person in a time of great weakness, hoping to wear down their faith. Turn them against the Lord in their despair.”

  “You think it was demons?”

  “Devils. Demons. Whatever you want to call them. Something was there. You could feel it in the room. Only saw those eyes for a brief little moment, but I snatched up my Bible and read the book of Leviticus straight through out loud.”

  “Why Leviticus?”

  Sugar Tom pulls at his big, hairy ear.

  “Lot of strength in that book, Ronald Earl. I’ve found over the years there are occasions where it’s not the message so much as the words themselves. Do you see the difference? There is a great power in words we can see. Concrete, solid words. Tabernacle. Altar. Turtledove. Meat. Bullock. Blood. Leviticus is full of them. It yanks you away from the bad things and pulls you right back down to the goodness of the earth.”

  He raises his arms up, fingers spread, eyes rolling back in his head. His voice gets so big, it fills the whole room.

  “‘And he brought the ram for the burnt offering: and Aaron and his sons laid their hands upon the head of the ram. And he killed it; and Moses sprinkled the blood upon the altar round about. And he cut the ram into pieces; and Moses burnt the head, and the pieces, and the fat.’”

  “I see what you mean,” I say.

  “Power of the Word,” Sugar Tom says. “It’s the bedrock the church is built on. Ran those devils right out of that hospital room. Miss Gayola slept good and sound for the first time in days. Woke up ready to bounce her grandchildren on her lap. The Word is our shield, Ronald Earl. No matter what is waitin
g for us on that island, the Word is stronger.”

  I try to think of the best way to ask my next question, somehow smooth it out.

  “Um. Then why do you think … when Pastor Hallmark got drug away … why couldn’t he—”

  “Why couldn’t he stand up to the devil? I won’t speak to the size of a man’s faith. Only the Lord can answer that. But I know you’ll be fine. I’ve seen it in you—that power. When it’s flaming full bore, nothing can stand against it.”

  I say good night and head out feeling a little better. Miss Wanda Joy catches me coming out of the bathroom. She’s wearing her purple bathrobe.

  “I’ve been meaning to speak with you all day,” she says. A lock of hair big around as a coffee cup is hanging loose on her forehead. I wonder what she does with all that hair, how she ever gets it dry. “I hope you’re as excited as I am.”

  “Yes’m.”

  “Certain Certain has everything well in hand. We may have five hundred attendees at the service. I’ve tried my best to secure TV coverage, but they all tell me they have a policy against filming church services, unless I want to buy time on Sunday. But a fellow out of Atlanta—Atlanta!—is writing a story for the Journal Constitution. This is going to be the cornerstone in the next phase of our ministry, putting Little Texas and the Church of the Hand on a sound footing for years to come.”

  “Yes’m. I mean, that’s good news.”

  “Is anything wrong? You seemed quiet at supper.”

  “Just tired, I guess.”

  “I don’t see how. You’ve had your days free to rest. Aren’t you sleeping well?”

  “Mostly. At least after that first night.”

  “No more demons hanging around?” She smiles in a way that pulls down her eyebrows above her nose, making her look like somebody planning something wicked.

  “No,” I say, and I think that’s the truth, strictly speaking.

  “Well, good night and sleep well.”

  She goes on past me, then stops and turns around. “Have you selected a text for your sermon?”

  The question catches me off guard. “Um—no, but I was thinking maybe something out of Leviticus.”

  “Leviticus?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well. That’s an odd choice. All those verses about sacrifices. Quite a while since you cracked open the Old Testament, isn’t it?”

  “I guess so.”

  “But perhaps that’s best. Considering.”

  “Considering what?”

  “Oh, nothing.”

  She smiles and steps into the bathroom, pulling the door shut behind her. I can hear the lock turn and the shower water start up.

  She wants something to happen, I think. Bet she’s even praying for it.

  A lightning flash practically rips open the window. I can hear rain hammering the yard outside. Wonderful. Perfect match for my mood. The clock in the corner reads 2:04. I fall back on my pillow.

  “Are you okay?”

  My mouth goes dry. Lucy’s in bed with me—only this time she’s under the covers. Her leg is against my leg. The heat of her body fills the bed with warmth. I reach and turn on the lamp on the table.

  “Do you have to do that?” I manage to say.

  “It’s just so much fun,” Lucy says, smiling. “You’re constantly ready to be freaked out, you know that, Ronald Earl?”

  I’m in bed with a girl. She’s still a girl. I look at her sideways. Her arms are on top of the covers. She has one of the little Bible pillows pulled up against her stomach. I can see enough of the words to know what they say. Mark, chapter fourteen, verse twenty-two. TAKE, EAT: THIS IS MY BODY.

  “Did you look at it?” Lucy says.

  “Huh?”

  She’s pointing at the Vanderloo property ledger.

  “Oh,” I say. “I’ve been looking at it all day. I figured out what it is. It’s the slaves from the old Vanderloo Plantation, isn’t it? The people we’re supposed to help. That’s what they’ve been trying to—wait a minute.”

  “What?”

  “Where did you go last night? I didn’t know what happened to you! I fell into the kitchen, you were right behind me—”

  “It was too close to you. I couldn’t let it get you. I had to go somewhere else. Somewhere that would pull it away from you.” Her hair is limp against the pillow.

  “So where did you go?”

  “Home.”

  “Shoot. You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

  “I just did.”

  “Oh, forget I said it. But what would that thing have done if it had caught us down in the cellar? Can it hurt me? Can it hurt you?”

  Lucy looks hard at me, her frosty eyes making me blink.

  “Is there anything that can’t be hurt?”

  “I don’t know. No, I don’t guess so.”

  “Anything can be hurt, Ronald Earl. Anything.” She shifts around. I can feel her pressing against me under the covers. “But your body is nothing. My body is nothing. You understand?”

  It sure doesn’t feel like nothing.

  “‘Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost,’” I say. “First Corinthians, chapter six, verse nineteen. It’s just a vessel. Dust.”

  “Except it doesn’t really hold anything,” Lucy says. “What we are can’t be held. Not by a body. We’re too big. You’re too big.”

  She brushes against me. Her skin against my skin. I can’t help it. I don’t care what she is. She feels like a girl. A hot, soft girl. It’s starting. I can feel everything stirring. Just like in my dreams.

  I sit up. Slide my legs around out of the covers, away from her. I can’t let her see. Can’t let her feel.

  “What’s wrong?” she says.

  I’ve got my back to her, sitting there on the edge of the bed, head down.

  “I can’t—it’s not you. I mean, it’s you, but it’s not you. It’s me. I’m the problem. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t. I’m sorry.”

  She lays a finger on my back, making me buck a little. I can almost hear her frowning.

  “Shhhh. Don’t talk like an idiot. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re perfect.”

  “Perfect? Lord. I’m about the furthest thing from perfect you can get.”

  “I meant… perfect for me.”

  We don’t talk for a little while. Another lightning bolt rips the night to shreds.

  “You’ll never show me what it’s like, will you?” I say. “Home. What it’s like when you go there.”

  “Maybe,” Lucy says. “Maybe I can show you. We’ll see.”

  She’s running her fingers through my hair. It feels … indescribable. “Don’t you ever miss your parents?” I say.

  “No. God, you’re so sweet and dumb. I’m still with them. Every day.”

  “How?”

  “Well… let’s see. When you’re home, everything is right there in front of you, all the time. You never have to miss anything. It doesn’t go away. It can never go away. You just reach out—it’s there.”

  “So you can see your parents any time you want? Be with them?”

  “Yeah. Something like that.”

  I sit up on my elbows, making her pull her hand away. “I don’t get it.”

  Lucy sighs. “See, what you think is them—my parents— that’s not them. That’s only the tiniest little part of them. They are way bigger than that.”

  “Damnation.”

  Her lips turn down, eyes sad. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to make you feel bad.”

  “Just wish I was smarter.”

  She grins. “It’s not a smart thing or a dumb thing. Just telling you the way it is.”

  I lay back against the pillow again. “Have you got any brothers or sisters?”

  She does that funny little searching thing with her eyes, rolling them up and to the right.

  “You can’t remember?” I say.

  “Cut me some slack. I just don’t think about him much. I have a brother named Vincent.
He’s a lot older than me. Went off to Christian college in Virginia when I was still a little kid. What about you?”

  “It’s just me. I’m kind of adopted. My original folks—I was an accident.”

  “There’s no such thing as accidents, Ronald Earl. That’s one of the first things you learn.”

  “When you’re … dead?”

  “I told you, there’s no such thing as—”

  “I know. I know. But did it hurt? When you died? What was it like?”

  She sits there looking at me as if I should know the answer.

  “It’s not important,” she says at last.

  “It’s important to me.”

  Lucy laughs and pushes me with her arm. “Well, of course it hurt. What do you think?”

  “But I mean … is it… something to be scared of?”

  “It depends on the person, I guess. I bet there are people who are scared of rabbits.”

  “I got bit by one once.”

  “There you go.”

  “Hey, I didn’t say I was scared.”

  Lucy smiles. “I don’t know, Ronald Earl. Bunnies. Brrrr.”

  “You know what I’m talking about. The experience. Did you see lights? A tunnel? Any folks come to greet you?”

  “Hmmm … let me see. Publishers Clearing House. That check really is quite big.”

  “Aw, come on, Lucy.”

  “It was … foggy, okay? The important part is after. When you’re home, the important part isn’t me, it’s us.”

  “So we all have to act the same, think with the same brain?”

  “Nope. You’re still you. Completely you. But we’re all connected. Safe.”

  “So there’s nothing to be afraid of?”

  Lightning blasts outside the window again, making the outdoors move and jump.

  “I didn’t say that,” Lucy says. “You’re asking me things … I just don’t know. Turn over.”

  She rubs my bare back, laying her fingers there so light it’s the best thing I’ve ever felt. There has never been anything better than that. Never. I feel my eyes welling up. I’m so afraid to let her see me. Afraid to speak. Afraid of what she might hear in my voice.

  Lucy slips out of the covers and sits next to me, pulling the blue dress up to her knees. Her legs look so white. She touches my arm. Her fingers are scorching—“hot as hellfire,” Certain Certain would say. But I don’t want her to move them. I don’t care if they scorch my arm off.