Tom Piccirilli - November Mourns

“Sure.”

“Are you familiar with Mark 16:18?”

“No,” Shad said, though he realized it had to be the verse about snakes. Something about laying hands on. If you couldn’t quote the passage word for word, then you couldn’t say you actually knew it. That’s how it had been back in Becka Dudlow’s Bible class.

“It’s the central passage that forms the core of our faith. ‘ They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. ’ From that verse came the original belief of the snake handlers.”

“Everybody’s got to have their own blessing,” Shad said. “Makes them feel like God’s giving them extra attention.”

“Well, I’d say you’re probably right about that, much of the time. We want to earn our consideration. My great-grandpa Saul was one of the founders of the Holiness Church in eastern Tennessee. Used to bring the serpents with him to the camps and down into the mines.”

“How’d that go over with the other men?”

“Not well, at first.”

“I’d guess not.”

The others at the table had heard the tale before, but expectation and curiosity still grew in the air, the mood fluctuating, as if they had never heard the end of the story.

“At the close of the nineteenth century, the industrialization and factories of Moloch were spreading down through the South. The rich owners began to turn their backs on God and praise only silver. They replaced our farming and our way of life. They paid poor wages for unskilled labor, offered only high-priced rental properties and unsanitary conditions. The bitterness of men took hold and they became violent.”

“Tell what happened, Daddy,” Rebi said. Jerilyn let out a soft snort that only Shad could hear.

“The snakes saved us,” Gabriel said. “God gave us the signs of his power. We followed his will. We bore witness and struggled with the serpents, and sometimes managed to heal the dying with the venom.”

Shad had talked to a couple of drug dealers in the slam who’d come out of the river bottoms and whose fathers had mined those same mountains. On the outside they drove Mercedes and Porsches, had houses in Miami, and yet they still fucked around with snake handling. It wasn’t poverty that pushed them. It was the primitive urge to try yourself against the hand of fate.

The glass of the windows vibrated with a gentle staccato.

“Thing was, all of them were actually afraid of snakes,” Lucas Gabriel said. He shifted in his seat until he was aimed entirely at Shad. “Saul most of all. Rattlers terrified him. His baby brother had died in the crib after being bitten. They knew firsthand the kind of agony one would go through. All of them had seen congregation members die. They went to church and were visited by the spirit of the Lord, and yet they never knew if they were going to get back out the door alive. If not, at least they died in service.”

That was about as old-school as you could get. “Where’s the cannibalism come in?”

“One summer the green timbers of a mine gave way and there was a cave-in. They got most of the men out safely, but it took rescuers seven days to dig Saul free. He was trapped alone there in a far chamber, except for the snakes. When he was rescued, the lower half of Saul’s left leg was gone. People figured that he got so hungry he actually ate it.”

There was an even more subtle analysis going on now. Shad allowed himself to be set up, and said, “He was driven to that extreme in only a week?”

“No, a’course not, but that’s the way legends get started. Saul’s leg had been crushed and gangrene had set in. He surely would’ve died from his wounds, but he claimed the snakes fed off his rotting leg and saved him.”

“Maybe it’s true.”

“Maybe it is, at that.” Shad knew he was expected to grin but not laugh at the miraculous twist, so he did. Gabriel joined in for a moment. “After that, Saul came out here with his wife and sons, my grandfather among them, and together they built this house. This hamlet grew up around the faith.”

Looking down to take another bite of pie, Shad saw that it had been cleared along with all the other plates. Only a few folks remained around the table, and some were talking and appeared to have been deep in conversation much of the time. He’d been focused too sharply on Gabriel.

It was dark outside and a weariness began to settle on him. He’d been up since dawn with almost no sleep and had covered at least fifteen miles of rugged terrain on foot. Jerilyn’s shoulder pressed him from one side and Rebi sort of nuzzled him on the other. They both smelled faintly of jasmine, which he hadn’t noticed before.

Gabriel pursed his lips and appeared to be considering his words. “Will you stay the night? You appear to be exhausted, and I doubt you’ll find your way back to Jonah Ridge in the dark. Pardon my saying so but you don’t seem to be an expert mountain traveler.”

“I’m not.”

“One misstep on the Pharisee and you’ll meet the Lord earlier than I presume you’re expecting.”

“Aren’t you holding your services tonight?”

“No, that’ll be tomorrow afternoon. The roundup and the storm have agitated the snakes. I want to give them a chance to calm down some.”

All right, now it wasn’t a fairy tale anymore, but the beginning of a dirty joke. Traveling salesman staying overnight with the farmer’s two luscious young daughters. There were so many punch lines he couldn’t decide on any one of them.

“So, you’ll stay?” Gabriel asked.

“Yes, if you’ll have me.” Where else would he go?

“Of course we will. Jerilyn will make up one of the guest rooms for you. Although the house seconds as a communal center of sorts there’s still plenty of free space. We’ll talk more in the morning about your sister if you like.”

This huge home just for Gabriel’s family and the snakes. Shad could hear them thumping and knocking about in their containers somewhere deeper in the house. “Thank you.”

The sisters looked at him and he looked back, wondering how far into perdition he’d already fallen and how much further he had left to go.

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT SHAD AWOKE naked on his feet, standing at the side of the bed. Jerilyn sat next to him, her open hand on his slick back. The room was filled with a muted pink light from where she’d thrown her slip over the small nightstand lamp. He was breathless and his chest hair was heavy with sweat.

He was aware of the nearness of her beautiful body, and the pattern of drying salt on her belly and between her breasts. A fine mist of perspiration still coated her flesh. That heady scent of jasmine wafted through the room. Shad’s breath came in bites. There was a remote sense of satisfaction within him-no, it was satiation. He struggled to remember their lovemaking and couldn’t. Your own mind was sometimes the worst gyp of all.

She grinned and her teeth were bright in the shadows. “You’re not him, but it’s okay, we still had fun together.” Jerilyn leaned back upon the pillows, spread herself over the sheets. “You’re a nice-looking boy. I like your body. And those streaks of white hair.”

He’d missed so much of what had happened that he felt dispossessed and displaced before her. He should be flattering her or cooing other soft words, but the proper time had already passed by.

“Who are you waiting for?” he asked.

“It’s not for you to know.”

Shad tried to search out the truth in Jerilyn’s eyes, but saw only a glistening of love that wasn’t for him. “You really write him letters and send them off on the creek?”