James Marlon - John Crow's Devil

“It’s your brand. That is your mark. This is your beast. Do you deny that that is your mark, Master Fergie?”

“Is my — I mean, is the MacMillan brand, but is not my cow.”

The Apostle stared at him, his eyes wide open like a child. Massa Fergie spat again and watched it roll in dirt. The show of defiance wasn’t enough; the Apostle was still looking at him. Silence hovered, feebly interrupted by gulps, shuffles, and fidgets.

“You’re right, old man. This is not your cow. This cow have a new mark, written by Satan himself! All you people who love your signs and your wonders, wonder about this. Who inverts God’s promise? Who take everything God meant for good and turns it to bad? Who twists good into evil just as easily as he twisted this cow’s neck? Well, who? Is there no voice in Gibbeah?”

One by one, a chorus of “Satan” and “the Devil” popped off all over the cornfield.

“A spirit of witchcraft is on this village, you hear me, but mark my words, we’re going to cut it out! Cut it out! Cut it out!”

Lucinda’s back began to itch.

“Burn it.”

Followed in single file by The Five, the Apostle went back to the church.

The Rum Preacher ate his way to Sunday. It excited the Widow just to keep up. Bligh was making himself young and her too. Nowadays she decided not to curse such things. When he prayed, which he did often, she prayed as well, not to God or to him, but to the space between them. She mixed the beverage sweeter, holding back the Seville orange and pouring extra spoonfuls of sugar. She rolled the dumpling dough softer. Her touch became light, freed from expressing bitterness in every gesture. Her hair showered down on her shoulders. She was wearing blue. The Pastor was blind to his own handiwork.

“You goin out in that hot sun today?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

That was all they said for the rest of the day. In the past, silence would be thickened with tension, but now it took on the grace of familiarity. The Pastor and the Widow had developed a way of unspeak that seemed better than words.

A man wore forgiveness in a way unlike shame, even though both possessed a similar lowness. But in that lowness was no despondency or self-hate, only submission and release. Bligh was beyond pride and self. The Lord had killed him. He was reborn for the second time, for one purpose. He would take nothing for the journey but the knowledge that he would never be left nor forsaken. Fear of the Lord was the beginning of wisdom, but humility before the Lord was evidence of it. The Rum Preacher would be ready. But not today.

Lucinda rushed back to her house, hushing herself and wrapping the bandages tighter. The iodine had not stopped burning. The night before, a million screams imploded in her mouth. She had shut her lips tight, lest they escaped while the whip sliced across her back. Someone was making her young too. In the past, she could explain it as a consequence of her unclean days. But now there was an everlasting heat that she could not whip out. So she whipped harder. Lucinda was a simple woman who concluded simply. But here was something that seemed monstrous. Something so beyond herself. More than once she had come close to letting her fingers have their way again; all ten digits finding points of pleasure in the fleshy folds of her dark vagina. She could smell in herself the rawness of fish. It disgusted her, yet brought fuel to her heat. She was a simple woman who concluded simply. If one spoonful did not cure, then two would do. If ten lashes could not cure, the solution was twenty. She whipped harder. By her stripes she would be healed. Lucinda stuffed her mouth with sponge and showered her back with iodine to let the wounds scream. God was not pleased, but he would be. Of her sacrifice, she was sure of it. Lucinda was to be the bride of Christ but her ring finger got lost in a thatch of pubic hair. It was that damn Apostle. Him and those bold red books and the bold red tip of his circumcision.

When she awoke the next day, her fever had left its damage. The bed was soaked with sweat, iodine, and blood. She wrapped herself in more bandages, so many more that the normally poised woman now seemed to develop a hunchback.

The Apostle cracked his knuckles on the podium and addressed the congregation directly. He declared that there were demons in the church and threw himself into a fit of tongues. He declared that there was a spirit of witchcraft in the village that had to be broken for the children’s sake. He commanded the spirits gone in the name of the Father. Cows were God’s creatures, as bright and beautiful as everything else He made. The Apostle reclaimed the cow in the name of the Father. The congregation whooped and hollered. Then he called to the altar all those with a burden on their hearts.

A few came up and the Apostle laid hands. He commanded one woman to let go of bitterness and slaughter the spirit of hate that had been killing her from the inside. He commanded her to take her virginity back in the name of the Father. She lifted her dress and the Apostle touched it, shouting to the congregation that he felt her hymen grow back. She writhed, shook, and screamed as soon as his hand touched her forehead. Then she fell to the floor, almost missing the hands of one of The Five who was there to catch her fall. She screamed again, more than her throat could bear, and began to cough.

“I command you to come out of her in the name of the Father!” he shouted. “Spirit of witchcraft, I command you to come out of her in the name of the Father! Spirit of whoredom begone!” The woman bucked and bellowed as if her belly had begun to split open. Foam came to her mouth. Her eyes were lost inside her skull. At the same time another woman began running from one end of the altar to the other and back, screaming, “Come out o me! Come out o me!”

The Apostle pointed two fingers and The Five went after her. He laid hands and she too fell bawling and screaming. The church was in uproar, but the organist kept playing and the choir kept singing. The ladies of the front row leapt to their feet and interceded in tongues. Others followed, rising with their arms spread wide and eyes shut tight. And yet there were others, disturbed and frightened, who did nothing but watch. By the end of the service, eight, all women, were delivered from evil spirits.

The noise was such that even Pastor Bligh listened from his window. He threw himself into a fit of praying too, but for a different purpose.

The Apostle declared that the curse upon the cows had been lifted, and from now on there would be no obeah cows. No more guzum. But, he added, these things were only the fruits and branches; the whole root had to be dug up. The obeah man. The Devil man. The fornicator with the whore of Babylon. The Antichrist — oh yes! Men could be witches too! Look at poor Clarence, who was so caught up in the Devil’s schemes that he corrupted a married woman in the process. Since the Devil and his children did their nefarious deeds at night, at night they would wait, and at night they would cut it out!

Some feared and some hoped that just this once, night would renege on its promise to come. But come night did, draping her dew-wet, cricket-chirping canopy over Gibbeah. The torches were lit and the people were ready. Tonight they would go into the Devil’s camp and take back what he stole. By the blood of the Father.

Massa Fergie feared for his cows. He was late. Night caught up with the herd on the road and he beat them hard, terrified that he might meet the Devil there. Or Rolling Calf. Maybe somebody should have told the cows that they had reason to fear. They trotted along with easy procession despite the whip, doing as they always did when it got too dark to see grass. By the time they arrived at the bullpen, all had come home save one. He ran back into the darkness after the cow.