The crane blared its motor again and pulled the elephant higher and higher. The legs kept kicking like he was swimming or treading water and the big body swung above the pen and over our heads. I seen the elephant’s eye blink as it swung back and forth and round and round.
“Look at the trunk,” Annie said. The elephant’s trunk was flopping around like a snake caught on a hook.
The deputies and policemen gathered to one side and waved the crowd farther back. The sheriff took a rifle and aimed at the elephant’s head.
The sheriff fired, and then fired again. And all the other men in uniform started firing at the elephant’s head. Annie and Fay put their hands over their ears. It was deafening. They must have shot twenty times, and then twenty more. The smoke of gunpowder drifted over the crowd. When they finally stopped shooting you could see blood dripping from the elephant’s trunk and from the mouth and running back down the elephant’s shoulder. The big eye was still open.
“He’s not dead yet!” somebody yelled.
I seen the hind leg move, but it might have been from a breeze or the jolt of the crane. The policemen fired several more rounds into the elephant’s head. After what seemed like an hour the body was still. Once it was dead, the elephant didn’t look as big as it had before. It hung like something ugly wrapped in canvas or a shroud.
I COULDN’T HARDLY drive the Model T home. I nearly run off the road twice between East Flat Rock and the depot, and Annie screamed. Fay was crying and Troy didn’t say nothing except, “Boy, it took that elephant a long time to die.”
After I let Annie and Troy off I drove on back to our house. But I wasn’t hardly aware of what I was doing. I kept hearing the elephant squeal, and the wheeze in its throat as the chain tightened. I seen the great body swung on the chain like a mountain tore loose, a hunk of the earth ripped out. I kept hearing the shots the deputies fired one after another.
Instead of going to the house with Fay to tell Mama what had happened, I headed toward the river. Without looking where I was going I banged into cornstalks and weed stubble. I stepped through cockleburs and Spanish needles. I felt like I couldn’t breathe until I got away from other people. And I kept seeing the elephant’s eye, swole up and wet, a bulb of fear.
Where are you going? I said to myself. I knocked a cornstalk out of my way. At the river I walked beside the hazelnut bushes and under the sycamores. The leaves was wet and my good shoes was getting soaked. The river muttered like it was teasing me.
I felt silly for going to the fairgrounds to see the elephant die, and I felt sillier for having took Annie. Instead of making a good impression and showing her a good time, I had showed her something awful, something I was ashamed to have seen. I was ashamed to have been seen there. I was sick in my guts and in my bones. I hated that I had took Annie and she had seen it all.
But something bothered me even more than shame. Something about the death of Jumbo had seared through me and scalded me and scorched the marrow in my bones. More than being ashamed, I was scared. I kicked the leaves under the sycamores and put my hand on a river birch. The birch bark curled like pieces of dry skin.
The elephant is just an animal, I said. You have killed muskrats and mink, wildcats and foxes and deer. You have killed hogs and a sick dog one time.
As I walked out of the trees into the edge of the field I seen something gleaming in the pine thicket across the pasture. It was hard to guess what would be shining so among the pines. I tried to think if we had throwed away any bottles or jars there. Had a piece of tinfoil blowed across the pasture and lodged in the brush of the thicket?
My daydreams and ambitions was big and awkward as the elephant, and I was just as trapped. I had tried to turn this way and that way. Nothing I’d tried had worked. I had fell down in the mud at Hicks’s funeral and spilled his corpse out in the rain. It was the panic in the elephant’s eye that I recognized. Its helpless terror stirred and chilled me.
What was that flashing like a signal from the edge of the pines? I wanted to keep walking, but if the sun moved, whatever it was wouldn’t shine no more and I wouldn’t be able to find it. I crossed over the end of the cornfield and headed toward the pasture. I climbed over the bars of the milk gap and aimed myself at the flashing light. Whatever it was must be under or between the bushes and was catching the late sun that come through a gap in the thicket.
You are clumsy as the elephant, I said to myself. And like the elephant you blunder around and hurt people. You are guilty and you are trapped, and nobody is able to help you.
As I got closer, the light under the pines seemed to throb and shift. And then I seen there was a limb stirring that made the light twinkle. At first I thought it was a pile of old jars and rubbish that had been uncovered by the rain. I got down on my knees and crawled into the thicket, pushing aside some briars and honeysuckle vines.
It was glass that was shining, jars and jugs washed by rain and catching the late sun. But there was also something in the jars that made them sparkle, like they was full of water. And then it come to me: This was where Moody hid his blockade liquor. This was where he kept his supply, close to the house so he’d always have some to sell and drink hisself.
The jars was heaped in a low spot, and they’d been covered with pine needles. But the rain had washed the needles off, and Moody had not been back to cover them yet. There must have been thirty or forty fruit jars of corn liquor, clear as springwater. I unscrewed a lid and smelled the contents. The scent was subtle and surprising, not as fruity as I expected. It was a scent with dignity in it. I sniffed the fumes like there was a message in them.
Brushing off the remaining needles to get a better look, I seen what appeared to be a square of folded cloth. It was covered partly in leaves and dirt. It was oilcloth folded like a tight envelope. I opened it up slow and seen money, some fives and tens and twenty-dollar bills, as well as several gold pieces. This was where Moody had kept his bootlegging money all along. He always claimed to be broke so he wouldn’t have to spend any or pay Mama for his board. He had kept it out here wrapped in oilcloth. I counted out the money. There was a little over seventy dollars. Moody didn’t have much to show for all his bootlegging, but at least he wasn’t as broke as he had claimed.
I was so tired and weak I set down on the pine needles, and I was so thirsty I wished I had a dipper of cold water. But there was no water in the thicket, only the mason jars heaped there. The fear and guilt for watching the elephant die had parched me. I held up a jar in a beam of late sun and unscrewed the lid. The scent filled and inspired the cool air. Maybe I’ll try a little sip, I thought. I’m so tired and scared I’m about to crack. A drink might ease my anguish. I took a sip and it burned my tongue. Swallowing quick, I felt the flare and flush in my throat and belly. But it felt good too, warm and uplifting.
I took another drink and it seemed the colors of the thicket and late sun got mellower. Though I was setting in the pine needles, I felt raised. I could think clearer.
As the liquor worked its way into the veins of my arms, I felt lighter. And I felt both shielded and naked at the same time. So this is why Moody likes to drink, I thought.
I looked out across the pasture, beyond the house, toward the church and Meetinghouse Mountain. The little steeple was just in view between the tips of the hemlocks. The mountain rose beyond, high against the deep blue sky.
I seen a church on the mountaintop, one you could see from all over the valley, a church with a steeple so high it caught the first and last light of day. I took another sip from the jar. The liquor whispered and hummed in my ears. The sun was gone from the thicket, and the air was getting cool, but I didn’t care. I was warm inside the stove of my skin. Late sun touched the top of Meetinghouse Mountain with rose-and-lavender light, like it was bleeding, like the peak was a chosen spot.
I am afraid, and I’m afraid of being punished for my awkwardness and my daydreams. I am clumsy and helpless. I must do something right. I will not just wallow in the mud. I
will not be penned in and hung. I could die before I get anything done. In the great curve of centuries I am already dead.
The late sun touched the very tip of Meetinghouse Mountain with copper, rose and copper. They was the colors of a stained-glass window. I had seen pictures of cathedrals built on hilltops. The great churches of the Old World was on hills where they could be seen for miles around. I had read about Chartres Cathedral in the Adams book, about how it was built on a hill on top of the ruins of a pagan temple. The high ground, the mountaintop, was the place for an altar and a place of worship. A church was shadowy like a grove. A grove on top of the hill was the most sacred place.
I sipped and seen the first star pop out over the mountain. The star snapped in the blue-and-lavender sky like a thought. I am seeing from a whole new angle, I thought. I have a new vantage point to think from.
My grandpa had built the first church on Green River out of the materials he had. I would build a new church out of what I could find available.
Lord, show me what to do that will have meaning and will last, I prayed. Show me what to do to quell my fear and lostness. Show me how to work for a purpose, and not just to blunder and fail. Don’t let me be a complete fool. Don’t let my spirit be killed.
Looking at the sky above the mountains, I felt like I seen the curve of the world stretching far as I could look, and the curve of time stretching beyond that, far as the curve of thought. The blood whispered in my ear: This is what you was meant to do, to pray in the woods and to build a church in the woods. The stars coming out above whispered in the dome of sky, like the whole sky was a whispering gallery.
I tried to stand up but felt my nose mash against the pine needles. I reached around, but the thicket turned faster than I did. The prow of a great ship plunged sideways through my head.
A voice whispered way back behind my ears: You will build a church. Upon that mountain you will build a church. You will place an altar in the wilderness. You will make a place of prayer and praise high in the wilderness.
I looked behind me in the thicket and seen nothing but darkness. I looked at the mountaintop under the new stars. And it come to me that the Lord had whispered to me his message, and he had whispered to me his covenant. I was to build a new church on the mountaintop. The old church was little and drafty. What the congregation needed was a new church, and it would be the work of my life.
I would build a church on the mountaintop with my own hands and on my own land. That was what I had been born to do. If I couldn’t preach with words I would preach with my hands. My sermons would be in wood and stone. For I seen the new church had to be built with rock that would last through the ages, like the churches in Europe. I would build a steeple that would inspire all that seen it in all weather and all seasons, as it pointed to heaven.
A church building was a kind of scripture and a kind of sermon. A church would inspire people when they wasn’t even thinking about it. A church was a sign to people of the covenant of grace.
I got on my knees and held on to a pine tree and thanked the Lord for showing me my purpose and my future. I felt an ease and strength I had not felt in a long time. The sky above the thicket leaned and swimmed a little, and the trees swayed and rocked a little. But my head was steady and clear. I seen what I had to do, and what I was going to do.
Eighteen
Muir
THE NEXT MORNING Mama said she thought it was a wonderful idea when I told her what I planned to do. But she said I couldn’t build a church without asking the preacher and the board of deacons. I told her that of course I planned to ask the preacher.
“In a Baptist church it’s up to the congregation,” Mama said. “The preacher ain’t supposed to have any more say-so than any other member.”
Fay said she had always thought the preacher was supposed to be the boss. Preacher Liner acted like he was the boss. All I could think of was that a new church would change the spirit of the community, and Mama agreed. But she said the whole membership would have to vote, after I told them what I was planning.
I hadn’t thought of that before. I hated to ask the very people who had seen me make a fool of myself trying to preach to vote for a new church I wanted to build. I doubted they would have any confidence in me.
“They’re not building the church,” I said. “I’m going to build the church myself.”
But I was pleased that Mama showed enthusiasm for my plans. She said a new church could give the Green River valley a new start. She seen that a new church could bring the people together and make them want to work together. But she warned me I would need a lot of help. And that I would need the support of the congregation.
“What if Grandpa had waited for a vote to build the first church?” I said.
But Mama just argued that was in a different time and before there was a congregation. And Mama said, as she always did, that I shouldn’t get carried away with my plans. I couldn’t deny I’d made a fool of myself more times than one. But this plan was different. It was something I would do at home. The land on the mountain belonged to us, and the rocks on the river belonged to us, and the trees on the mountainside. I told her it would be my sweat that put the rocks in place on the mountaintop.
“You couldn’t carry that many rocks to the mountaintop in forty years,” Fay said.
“If it takes forty years, then I will work forty years,” I said. I knowed there was churches in Europe that had took hundreds of years to build.
“Son, I hope you can do it,” Mama said.
“You’re just doing it to impress Annie,” Fay said.
Just then Moody come into the kitchen. He must have been listening on the porch. “Sounds like Muir wants to build a Tower of Babel,” he said. Moody knowed more Scripture than he let on. I hadn’t told him I’d found his stash of liquor and money in the thicket.
“I’d rather build something up than tear down what everybody else has done,” I said.
Moody lit his cigar and leaned on the mantel, grinning at me. I told him I would need his help in carrying the rocks from the river to the top of the mountain, and in cutting the trees.
“Don’t expect me to aid your foolishness,” Moody said. But there wasn’t as much sarcasm in his voice as I had expected. I think the idea of the church on the mountaintop had caught his interest too.
“Muir wants to bore with a big auger,” Moody said to Mama.
I would build a church with a steeple so high it would be the first thing people seen when they stepped outside in the morning.
The old church set at the foot of Meetinghouse Mountain. The new church would set on the top, higher than the peach orchard on Riley’s Knob. I crossed the pasture and walked through the Richardses’ field on the side of the mountain. The Richardses’ land joined ours, and our property run to the top of the ridge. I climbed up the mountainside behind the church to the steep part where Uncle Joe and Uncle Locke and Grandpa had dug for zircons in the 1890s and caused a landslide. Their pits was full of leaves and rainwater, and the big piles of dirt was still bleeding rocks and mud down the side of the mountain. Above the pits was a kind of shelf with more laurel bushes. But the very top was covered with white oaks and poplars.
I climbed to the peak and looked out through the trees. From there you could see all the way up the river valley to the Banes’ land and the Morrises’ land, to Chimney Top and the far end of the Cicero. To the right you could see far as Pinnacle and Mount Olivet. To the east you could see Tryon Mountain, which Grandpa used to call Old Fodderstack. And to the south you could glimpse Corbin Mountain on the South Carolina line.
Out of the river valley and the creek valleys and the branch coves, the ground gathered itself up to the height where I stood. The ground I stood on was like an altar next to the sky. This is the place the church has to be, I thought. I’ve hunted turkeys here, and I’ve found ginseng here, but this is the spot the church was meant to be. This is the place of worship. It was far from the rocks in the river that would be
used in the walls, and it was far from the spring. But rocks and water could be carried up the hillside. Climbing up the ridge, people would climb out of their ordinary lives into purer air.
I went ahead and talked to the preacher about my plans. I talked to him after prayer meeting on Wednesday night. After the service let out I took the preacher aside and told him there was a project I wanted to discuss. We stood on the steps of the church in the dark while the wind was roaring on the slope above. I was so nervous I felt sweat dripping under my arms.
“What is troubling you, Muir?” the preacher said. “I’ve felt for some time that something was troubling you.” The preacher leaned over me like he was pushing me away.
“What was troubling me was that I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” I said.
“The Lord will answer if you pray for guidance,” the preacher said.
“The Lord has showed me what he wants me to do,” I said.
“Not everybody is called to preach,” Preacher Liner said. Preacher Liner was such a big man you always felt he was pressing up against the air around him. I always felt like I was going to smother when I was around him.
“I’m not studying on preaching no more,” I said. “I’m going to build a new church.” The preacher didn’t answer. The wind on the mountain was so loud it sounded inside my ears and inside my blood. The wind chanted and pounded inside my head.
“Why do you want to do this?” the preacher said. He shifted in the dark the way a boxer or wrestler might.
“I feel led to do it,” I said. “I feel it’s what I was meant to do.”
“Might be the devil’s work,” Preacher Liner said. He was not pleased like I expected him to be. There was a stiffness in his voice. Preacher Liner was a big man with a face that got red when he preached. His eyes was the color of tobacco juice. He stood too close when he talked to you, like he was trying to drive you back.
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