Deliver Us From Evil

by Allen Lee Harris

  “Where?”

  “Why, down to the river. To the shallows.”

  Tom opened his mouth to say something, but he was wheezing too hard. Sixty-nine and a lifelong smoker, Tom had fallen prey to emphysema five years earlier. Still, he managed to get out, “Come back.”

  “That’s right, Tom. He’s come back.”

  Tom stared at her. “Who? Who’s come back?”

  She was still beaming. “Why, don’t you remember, Tom?” Sadie said. Suddenly her smile sagged. “I was so sad when it happened. When he took little Catherine. I didn’t understand then, you see,” she said, glancing back into the woods, in the direction of the river. “But I understand now. I know all about Newjesus, Tom.”

  “New Jesus?” Tom said with a gasp.

  Again she was smiling. “I’m going on now, Tom. It was nice talking with you again.”

  “NO!” Tom yelled. He tried to run after her, but aside from thick undergrowth, Tom simply didn’t have enough endurance. He stopped and watched her disappear, still singing.

  Bent double, trying to get his breath back, Tom heard the words over the sound of his own ragged wheeze: Lo, He comes with clouds descending. Once for favored sinners slain...

  4

  Charlie McAlister stopped by the post office. Inside his box, along with various flyers, was a letter from his brother, Frank. He stared down at it. Just what he needed. Without opening it, Charlie carried it outside and sat down on the front steps of the old, pre-Civil War building, its crumbling stone overrun by vines.

  He knew what the letter would say. Three years younger than Charlie, Frank was the owner of a successful Buick dealership in Atlanta. Two weeks before, he had come through Lucerne, on his way to Orlando to conclude what he’d called the biggest deal of his life: the purchase of the largest Buick dealership in central Florida. Frank had even brought along a bottle of Chivas Regal to celebrate with. “Liquid gold.” When Frank was on his fourth drink, the conversation took a sentimental turn. “When we was kids, I was always running to Charlie to get me out of this jam or that mess. And old Charlie, he was always there. A regular rock of Gibraltar. And smart? Talk about smart, you should have seen him, always sneaking off to read a book, knowing how to spell every word in the dictionary. Wasn’t a teacher in that little old schoolhouse didn’t think he wasn’t going to make something of himself. Be president. Or a senator, at least. So a while back I start asking myself, How come it is I’m up here in Atlanta, living in a house that costs five hundred thou, pulling in three hundred a year, and big brother’s down in this little nowhere town, not making shit, if you pardon my French.” Frank poured himself another drink. “But that’s all going to change now, Charlie.”

  Surprised by this remark, Charlie had looked at Frank. “Oh?”

  “Guess who I’ve decided to have run my new dealership?” Charlie would finally be able to buy his family all “the good things in life,” as Frank explained. A nice car, a good stereo, a VCR, a computer for Larry to play videogames on. “Hell, you wouldn’t even have a color TV if I hadn’t given you our old one last year for Christmas.”

  True to form, Lou Anne had rallied to Charlie’s defense. “He looks after us just fine,” she told Frank. But Charlie knew Frank was right. He couldn’t afford to get his family those things. Every time he thought of his wife’s little collection of classical records, he felt a stab of pain in his heart. She was Lucerne’s solitary piano teacher, and each record represented a week of extra lessons, in addition to the regular scrimping. Even then she always needed to have Charlie talk her into the purchase, just once, he thought, it would be nice to take her to a record store and say: “Buy every damn thing you’ve ever wanted.”

  But it wasn’t only the lack of material things. Frank had brought up another point. “I mean, Charlie, what the heck kind of future can a smart kid like Larry have in a hick town like this?”

  It was a question Charlie had been asking himself a lot recently. In fact, the last time he had really blown up at anybody had been over the very same issue. Slim had been going on about Clemson, saying how he was going to go to barber college in Willard as soon as he was old enough, then come back to Lucerne and take over that second chair in his daddy’s shop. Turning to Charlie, Slim had added as an afterthought: “Reckon your Larry could just take over your job, too. You could make him a deputy or something, let him kind of get used to it.” But almost before Slim could get his last words out, Charlie had jumped all over him: “I’ll tell you one thing. My son’s not going to wind up being sheriff of some two-bit little town.” To which a startled Slim could only reply, “Sure, Charlie, if you say so.”

  Charlie hated to admit it, but it looked like Slim had accidentally stumbled across something profound—the only true test of whether a man was happy with his lot—namely, whether he would be content to see his son doing the same thing.

  Charlie wanted something else for his son, something large and good, something that would carry him far beyond the limits of Lucerne.

  And there was no doubt, fifty to sixty thousand dollars a year would make a difference in his son’s life. The only question was, what kind of difference?

  Frank’s son, Randall, was completely spoiled by his “advantages,” and Charlie didn’t want that for his son, either. In fact, he was beginning to realize now that there was just no way he could guarantee anything for Larry’s life. He had done his best to raise him, but what kind of man he would turn out to be, that was pretty much up to Larry. For better or for worse.

  Not that Charlie—so far—had much to complain of. Larry had reached the age of fourteen without mishap or heartbreak, either for his parents or for himself. In fact, if Charlie could locate any problem in his son’s life it was simply that the boy had never really faced any real problems. Towheaded and sturdily built, a good student and a born athlete, Larry was the kind of boy who instantly made friends with everyone—he even got along with all the old ladies in town. There were times when Charlie wished that maybe his son’s life weren’t quite so relentlessly untroubled. His mother used to say: Some people are born with good dispositions, but it takes a little suffering to produce character. Charlie looked back down at the letter. Without opening it, he crunched it down into the pocket of his khaki trousers. He took out a Kool and lit it.

  From where he was sitting, he could look out over a good half of Lucerne. What had Frank called it? A one-horse pisshole of a town. Frank was right. All you had to do was look at K. J.’s Texaco. After years of neglect and disrepair the station now had reached a point where it was virtually impossible to tell whether it was simply closed for the night or whether it had been permanently shut down. Much like Lucerne itself.

  Thirty years before, things had been different. Back then the Randolph cotton mill was at its peak, attracting people to Lucerne from as far away as Augusta and Albany. Highway 44 was still the only way of getting from Macon to Savannah and K. J.’s Texaco the only service station for the 160 miles in between. In its heyday the station had boasted two pairs of rest rooms, the one in the front marked “White,” and the one around back, “Coloreds,” though with the coming of the Civil Rights Act that had changed. Texaco instructed K. J. to integrate, which he did in his own fashion, painting over the old words, though if you cared to look, you could still read them through the thin coat of whitewash. While nobody ever said anything about it, the custom continued to be observed for the next few years, at least by K. J. and Carl. Until one day the toilet in the white men’s room got so clogged that only a plumber sent down from Willard could save it, and K. J., torn between laying out thirty, forty bucks, on the one hand, and using the old Coloreds, on the other, chose to keep the money and abandon tradition. He put a sign on the door of the broken john that read: “Temporarily Out of Order Use Coloreds.” But as it often happened around Lucerne, the temporary had a way of going on for a pretty good while.

  Charlie e
ased back and felt a breeze, with its hint of a cool and quiet evening. It was one of those moments when he suddenly understood why, in spite of its drawbacks, he continued living in a place like Lucerne. One of those moments when, instead of just moving slow as usual, everything seemed to stop altogether. It never lasted very long, but while it did, it gave the little town an elusive and mysterious air.

  It usually hit him right in the evening and especially at that time of the year, right after the time change when people were still being surprised by how much daylight was left after supper and still trying to fill the time by cleaning the dishes, watching the news, watering the lawn, or walking up to the post office. Or, if that failed, sitting out on the porch for a few minutes after all the talk and the gossip of the day had been exhausted, when the first fireflies started to show themselves and even the dogs had run out of things to say.

  Like right then.

  For a split second, it was as if everything were holding its breath, listening, waiting. It reminded Charlie of when he was a child, how his daddy used to swing him and his brother in an old rubber tire tied to a tree by the barn. Sometimes his daddy would pull Charlie back as far and as high as he could lift him, holding him and the tire suspended at that point for as long as he could. Sometimes those few moments seemed like an eternity as Charlie could already feel in his stomach the thrill of the hurtling fall, of the earth rising up and the barn slipping away beneath his feet, feeling it taut in the rope, wondering how much longer his daddy could keep the world like that, perfect, frozen, outside of time. Until, breaking like a soap bubble at a finger’s touch, the illusion vanished and he was hurled back down.

  Charlie rubbed his nose. Off behind him a dog had barked, breaking the fragile spell. Probably Annie Teague’s basset, he thought. That was another one of the things that came from living in a town as small as Lucerne—you got to know everybody s dog by name and half of them by their bark.

  And speaking of dogs, Charlie stood up, walked out into the middle of the highway, and greeted an old friend.

  “Evening, Ralph,” Charlie said with a smile. “Life been treating you alright?”

  The old hound dog did not look up at Charlie. The only sign of acknowledgment was the merest twitch of his tail. Nobody could remember who first called the dog “Ralph” or where he had actually come from. But there was no question about it, he had become a town fixture. And while, strictly speaking, Ralph didn’t belong to anybody, there was always somebody who made sure he got fed. Tom Harlan, mainly. Today the dog was in his customary place, curled up smack dab in the center of Highway 44, one half on one side of the faded white line, one half on the other.

  Earlier in the afternoon, Charlie had watched from his window as Tom Harlan had come out of Becky’s Department Store, broom in hand, determined to shoo the dog away. Anybody else seeing it—anybody new to Lucerne, that is—would have figured Tom was angry. Far from it. What made him go through that charade, three, sometimes four times a week, was his anxiety that something might happen to Ralph. “You know how fast some of these trucks come down that highway,” Tom once confessed to Charlie. “Why, one day he’s going to be out there sleeping and . . .” Here Tom took off his glasses and shook his head. “Well, I’m not going to blame myself, I know that.”

  Charlie stared at Ralph. He could see Tom’s side of it. Still, he had to admit that Ralph seemed to know what he was doing. And, as if to prove the point, just as Charlie was about to turn around, the old dog stood up and stretched. Licking his side, he sauntered off to a little cluster of cool grass, well clear of the road.

  Just the other day Slim had been talking about Ralph’s famous sixth sense, saying how somebody should write in a letter to That’s Incredible to tell them how Ralph always knew when the trucks were coming, way before you could either see or hear them up the road. Charlie, humoring Slim, told him he ought to give it some thought.

  Charlie put his hand up to his eyes and squinted down the road. It was empty, as far as he could tell. He bent down to the asphalt top of the road and put his palms down flat against the surface, to see if he could detect any vibrations. Across the way, Ralph lay curled up in his new position, one eye open, casually watching Charlie.

  Suddenly Charlie jumped up and turned around. Flustered, Charlie managed to nod, “Evening, Reverend.” But as soon as he did, Charlie lost any sense of embarrassment. He had only to look into the old minister’s race, scarred and ravaged by the blades of Jesse Millard s thresher fourteen years before, to recall what counted and what didn’t.

  Kline nodded back, painfully shifting the weight of his maimed torso from his right crutch to his left, his leg braces creaking with each move. And before Charlie could say a word, he realized something was wrong, just seeing the Reverend there in daylight was enough to tell him that. The few times Rev. Kline had to leave the parish house, he did so after dark, slowly, agonizingly making his way down the streets of Lucerne, like a mangled ghost in search of the body it once had inhabited. Charlie knew, too, that the old man s avoidance of daylight had nothing to do with anything as trivial as shame or the desire for obscurity. It was simply part of Kline’s profound sense of courtesy: He refused to inflict even the sight of himself on others, refused to remind them of what everyone wanted to forget.

  Charlie said, “Something wrong?”

  Kline nodded at Charlie, his tragic eyes conveying a kind of apology for his presence. “It’s Sadie,” he said softly. “She’s gone off on one of her wandering spells again, Charlie.” That was how decent people always spoke of it. Sadie’s wandering spells. Since the night Catherine Kline had been buried, her mother would go off on one of her spells every few months or so. Mostly at night and not very far. She might be discovered on someone’s back porch, searching through a stack of old newspapers. When asked what she was doing, she would look up and give her sweet, addled smile. “I’m looking for little Catherine. Have you seen her?” Whereupon Charlie would be called and would lead her back to the parish house, listening to her delirious, senile babble.

  “How long has she been gone?”

  “Since early this morning. I didn’t want to worry you, Charlie. I know you get called on enough as it is.” Kline hesitated, his scarred face darkening. “But I’m afraid, Charlie.”

  “Afraid?”

  Kline looked away. “Something’s happened to her, Charlie. It’s gotten worse this past week. She’s been talking so . . . crazy. About Catherine.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  Kline was silent for a moment, then he muttered something, his voice and face stricken. Charlie looked up, not sure he had heard correctly. Blasphemy?

  Kline went on, shaking his head: “I told her, ‘Sadie, it’s not right to talk that way. God doesn’t do such things. What happened to Catherine was the act of a madman. How could God even ...” His voice broke and there were tears in the old man’s eyes.

  “I’ll find her,” Charlie said quickly, and before he could stop himself, added, “Don’t you worry. Everything will be okay.”

  Pulling out onto the highway, Charlie glanced back at Kline as the old man made his slow and painful way back down Philippi. His own final words man echoed mockingly in his mind. Everything will be okay. Fourteen years before, he had said the same thing to the Klines. Everything will be okay. Don’t worry. Well bring Catherine back.

  And they did. Alive even. Only, in retrospect, it would have been better for everyone if they hadn’t.

  5

  Tom Harlan had just gotten back into his pickup truck when he saw Charlie’s car. He jumped out and flagged him down. As soon as Charlie pulled onto the shoulder of the highway, Tom ran over. State she’s in, no telling what could happen to her back there. Especially if she goes where she says she was going,” he said, pointing over to the woods.

  Charlie stared grimly where the old woman had disappeared—the shallows—what Blount County people call
ed a stretch of the Allatoona about four miles down from where the old two-lane bridge allowed Highway 44 to cross the river. Here the Allatoona seemed to stop its flow, and at spots the water was only inches deep. The whole area was riddled with pits of quicksand, their locations shifting invisibly, treacherously over the years.

  Tom rubbed his leathery jaw and shook his head. “The way she was talking. . .”

  Tom didn’t need to finish his sentence. “I guess I’d best check it out,” Charlie answered.

  “Need some company?” Tom asked, still wheezing from his attack of emphysema.

  Charlie looked at Tom and shook his head. “Appreciate the offer, but I think I can handle it.” Charlie glanced back in the bed of Tom’s pickup. There was one box of groceries left; Charlie knew whose it was. “ ’Sides, looks like you still got old Doc’s things to deliver. Best you go on and do that. I’ll call if I need you.”

  6

  Fifteen minutes later, Charlie arrived at the spot where the dirt road petered out. From where he parked, he could hear the riser but still couldn’t see it. He glanced up at the sky. Although the sun hadn’t gone down yet, it was low on the horizon and no longer visible behind the trees that crowded close to the river on both sides. Charlie took his flashlight out of the glove compartment and walked to where the path began. He glanced down at his watch. No more than a half hour of good light left. He hoped Tom Harlan’s hunch was right. If Sadie wasn’t by the river, there would be no finding her tonight.