Wiley Cash - A Land More Kind Than Home

“It ain’t even close to noon yet,” Joe Bill said. “On Sundays they don’t even let out until one. It’s going to be a while. Besides, it ain’t really spying anyway. I bet she would’ve let you go inside with Stump if you’d have asked. It ain’t wrong to look in there just because you didn’t ask.”

“They didn’t ask me either,” I said. “Mr. Thompson came down and got Stump, not me.” But even as I said that, I was glad Mr. Thompson hadn’t come down to the river looking for me. I didn’t want him holding my hand and leading me across the road to the church like he did with Stump. He was old and bald except where he had pale yellow hair sticking out from behind his ears. It was the color of dead grass, and his face and his arms and hands were covered in dark brown spots that looked like big freckles. His old yellow eyeballs were always wet, and they looked too big for his head, like they might just pop out on you any second. That morning, when Mr. Thompson reached for him, Stump put his hand behind his back and got up close to me. Even Miss Lyle made a face like she didn’t want Mr. Thompson touching Stump.

“Come on, Christopher,” Mr. Thompson said. “Don’t be afraid. I’ve come down here to tell you that today’s your special day. We want you to worship with us this morning.” His breath smelled like Stump’s and my clothes after we played outside during the wintertime.

“Why is it his special day?” Joe Bill asked.

“Because,” Mr. Thompson said, “the Lord’s called him.” He went to take Stump’s hand, but Stump wouldn’t let him touch it. He’d closed his fingers around something and made a fist and he wouldn’t open them. “What’s he got?” Mr. Thompson asked. I looked at Stump.

“Let me see your hand,” I said. Stump put his hand behind his back again and stood there looking toward the river like he couldn’t hear me. “Stump,” I said, “let me see what you’ve got.” He finally opened his hand, and when he did I saw that he’d picked up a little piece of quartz that he must’ve found while we were down at the river skipping rocks with Joe Bill. He was always doing that, picking up shiny rocks and keeping them in his pockets until we got home. We had a whole shelf in our room where we kept the rocks we collected. We even had us a big purple quartz rock about the size of a baseball that Daddy had found when he was turning his tobacco rows. I held out my hand to Stump. “I’ll keep that for you,” I said. “I won’t let nothing happen to it. I promise.” He dropped the quartz into my hand, and I slid it into the back pocket of my blue jeans. Then me and Joe Bill just stood there and watched Stump and Mr. Thompson walk across the road toward the church.

I didn’t want Stump to go inside there without me, even though Mama’d told me over and over that I wasn’t old enough to go to church with her just yet. But she’d also told me over and over that I should always look out for Stump and make sure that nothing happened to him, that I was like the big brother and he was like the little one. But I figured that what she’d said didn’t matter now, and I felt awfully little just standing there watching Mr. Thompson take Stump’s hand and lead him across the road.

There was a black drop of blood starting to scab on my arm where something must’ve scratched me on the way through the woods, and I took my finger and picked the scab off and rubbed the blood back and forth across my skin. It left a rusty trail through the hairs on my arm. Me and Joe Bill had been standing in the shade so long that the sweat on my legs was getting dry and it was starting to itch. I wiped my finger on the back pocket of my blue jeans to get the blood off, and then I scratched my legs with my fingernails until they stopped itching. I could feel that music beating inside my chest from clear across the field.

Joe Bill squatted down in the grass and put his elbows on his knees. Then he picked up a stick and started snapping it into little pieces and tossing them out in front of him. He didn’t look at where they landed because he was too busy staring at the back of the church where that air conditioner sat up in that window and shook like it might break those boards and fall out on the ground any second.

“What do you think Stump’s doing in there?” I asked. Joe Bill didn’t say nothing for a long time, and then he laughed and broke off the last little bit of that stick and tossed it into the grass. He looked up at me and smiled.

“He ain’t singing,” he said. “That’s for sure.”

“Well, he’s in there for some reason,” I said. “Mr. Thompson said it’s his special day. Maybe my mom wanted him to be with her.”

“But why?” Joe Bill said. “He can’t even talk or sing or nothing.”

“That don’t matter,” I said. “Maybe he’s old enough to go to church with them. He’s thirteen. He’s older than you.”

“So what,” Joe Bill said. “I’m smarter than him. At least I can talk.”

“Just because he can’t talk don’t mean he ain’t smart.”

“My brother says if you can’t talk, then it means you’re dumb,” Joe Bill said.

“Well, your brother’s an asshole,” I said, and as soon as I said it I knew I shouldn’t have. Joe Bill turned real slow and looked up at me like he couldn’t believe I’d said it either. We stared at each other for a minute, and then I squatted down beside him and picked up a stick and started snapping it into pieces so I wouldn’t have to look at him while he was staring at me.

“Don’t talk about my brother,” he finally said.

“Don’t talk about mine either.”

“I’m just telling you what Scooter told me,” Joe Bill said.

“I don’t care what he told you,” I said. “Why do you stick up for him all the time? All he ever does is beat the crap out of you.” Joe Bill stood up straight and looked at the church, and then he looked down at me.

“You going up there or not?” he asked. “Because if you ain’t I’m going back down to the river before Miss Lyle starts looking for us.” I didn’t say nothing; I just sat there snapping that stick into little pieces until it got shorter and shorter and I stared out across the high grass toward the church and thought about what I should do. Joe Bill sighed real loud and turned around and started walking into the woods. “I should’ve known you’d chicken out,” he said. “You always do.”

I tried to picture what Stump was doing inside the church with that loud music pumping and all those folks singing and hollering, and then I thought about how he wouldn’t be able to tell me one word about what he’d seen. I figured that if I was ever going to find out what they did in there then that morning might just be my only chance. “All right,” I hollered. “I’ll go.” Joe Bill stopped walking and turned around and looked at me. “I’ll go if you come with me,” I said. “If I get caught, then you’re getting caught too.”

“Finally,” he said. He walked out of the woods toward me. I watched him for a second, and then, without even hardly thinking about it, I crept out of the woods real slow to the edge of the field where the grass was tall and bright yellow in the sunlight and I hunkered down and set out across the field like I was afraid I’d bump my head on something if I stood up too tall. The field seemed like it went on forever once I was out of the woods, and I figured that if I stood up straight I’d be able to see the road in front of the church and I could probably even see part of the river where it ran toward Marshall. I knew that meant that anybody driving by might be able to see me too, and I was afraid of Miss Lyle coming up the riverbank across the road and spotting me any second. I got down just as low as I could and I bent my knees almost to the ground and kept walking.