The Homecoming of Samuel Lake

by Jenny Wingfield

  “Just unload the kids, and go park the trailer in the barn,” she told Samuel. “It’s too late to move your stuff inside, and you wouldn’t want anybody pilfering through it.”

  Samuel did as she said.

  On Saturday, Calla’s toilet backed up, so Samuel had to spend the day digging up the septic tank field line. He had no trouble finding it, since the grass on top of those things always grows so much greener and brighter than the grass around it, but he had plenty of trouble chopping out the sweet gum roots that had grown through it and tangled around it. The job took all day. The car and the trailer stayed shut up in the barn, and nothing got unloaded, so there was none of the usual commotion that occurs when a family moves into a house. Which is why folks around the community were pretty much in the dark about the fact that Sam Lake and his family had moved back home to Arkansas.

  Bernice didn’t go down to breakfast on Sunday morning. She just stayed in bed thinking about how wrong this situation was. And that’s how it happened that she first got the Inspiration.

  Actually, it was Samuel who inspired her, although he didn’t know it. He and Willadee were in their room getting dressed for church, and their voices drifted through to her, clearer than clear. Bernice didn’t even have to press her ear to the wall to hear. It was as though This Moment Was Meant to Be.

  Willadee was asking Samuel if he was all right about this—about going to church this morning, knowing that people were going to be asking him why he wasn’t back home in Louisiana, preaching to his own congregation. (For sure it was going to be humiliating for him to admit that he didn’t have a congregation.) And Samuel was saying that he wasn’t about to let the Lord down by not showing up at His House on His Day.

  “I have to believe that there’s a reason for all this,” he said. “Maybe there’s something I’m supposed to do right here that I couldn’t do if I were anywhere else. Maybe there’s someone that I’m supposed to reach out to, or some problem I’m supposed to help with.”

  Bernice sat straight up in bed.

  In the next room, Willadee was agreeing with Samuel. It must be that God had something for him to do here, and the only way to bring it about was to uproot him from Louisiana loam and replant him in Arkansas clay, and probably the fields were right now ripe unto harvest.

  Bernice flung back her covers and leapt out of bed. The fields were ripe, all right. She being the fields. And she was so ready for harvest she couldn’t see straight.

  Before Bernice could hardly turn around, Samuel and Willadee were loading the kids into the car. Calla had long since opened the store, and Toy had headed down to the pond to do a little fishing as soon as he’d closed the bar—so neither one of them was around to gum up the works. Even so, Bernice barely had time to wash her face, and brush out her hair, and slip on the dress she’d worn to Papa John’s funeral. It was a pale gray number, with a slightly scooped neckline, just perfect for this occasion. Proper and tantalizing, all at the same time. She didn’t bother with makeup, because her skin didn’t need makeup, and besides, when you cry, makeup runs, which makes a woman look absolutely scary, and she intended to cry this morning.

  She came running out of the house at the very last moment, letting the screen door slam behind her. Samuel jerked his head around and looked back in her direction, and then he did a double take. It wasn’t every day you saw Bernice Moses run.

  “Something wrong, Bernice?”

  She waited until she was right up close to him before she answered, so that he’d be able to smell her perfume while he listened.

  “I was wondering if I could ride to church with y’all,” she said softly.

  If Sam was surprised, he didn’t show it. He smiled that big, wide, handsome smile of his and said, “Well, come on, then. There’s always room for one more in God’s house.”

  As if God had one little thing to do with this.

  Samuel took her arm, led her around the car to the passenger side, opened the door, leaned in ahead of her, and said, “Willadee, Bernice wants to ride to church with us.”

  Willadee gave her husband a knowing smile and slid over to make room. Bernice got into the car the way she’d seen movie stars do, gracefully lowering herself onto the seat, and managing to show just enough flesh to be tempting as she swung her legs in. She glanced demurely up at Samuel, to see whether he’d been tempted, but he was busy making sure none of the kids had their fingers in the way as he shut the car door.

  Bernice hadn’t counted on what the ride to church would actually be like. She’d imagined herself and Samuel in the front seat, with Willadee in between them feeling ugly and awkward. Samuel would sneak longing glances at her over Willadee’s head, and she would favor him with an occasional enigmatic smile. If Willadee caught on, she’d probably pout, which fit right into Bernice’s plan, since nothing makes a man want another woman as much as being reminded that the one he has is determined to hang on to him.

  As for the kids, they were more or less background color, part of the scenery that surrounded Samuel. She’d never thought much one way or the other about Samuel’s kids. She’d also never been shut up in a car with all three of them at once.

  Before long, she realized that there would be no longing looks from Samuel. He and Willadee were holding hands in Willadee’s lap, and Samuel pretty much had the air of a man whose longings had been recently satisfied.

  The kids were unobtrusive enough for about the first half mile, but then Noble took to leaning forward and sucking in deep breaths through his nose.

  “What are you doing back there, Noble?” Samuel finally asked.

  “Sitting here.” Which was true.

  “He’s drinking in her perfume,” Bienville said. You read enough books, you learn to spot these things.

  Noble turned as red as a beet and gave his brother a look that said he’d tend to him later. Bienville wasn’t worried. He’d been tended to before, and always lived over it.

  “Why do women wear perfume, Aunt Bernice?” Bienville asked.

  “To attract males,” Willadee drawled.

  “We just like to smell nice,” Bernice corrected.

  “Well, you sure do smell nice, Aunt Bernice.”

  “Thank you, Bienville.”

  “Do you attract many males?”

  Willadee felt the laughter coming and tried to stifle it, but it wouldn’t be stifled. Pretty soon it started gurgling in her throat. Bernice was sitting there with her mouth open and her brain working overtime, trying to come up with a good, workable answer. She couldn’t say “More than my share,” because there are times when the truth just gets in the way of a woman’s purposes. And she couldn’t say “Only my husband,” because that would make her sound dull, which was totally unacceptable. And she for sure couldn’t say “I’m trying to attract one right now.”

  Finally, she said, “Oh, I never pay any attention to things like that.”

  Samuel managed to keep a straight face, but only because preachers learn early on not to laugh when they shouldn’t. Another thing preachers learn early on is that the best way to pull a congregation together is to get everybody singing. So he asked Swan if she knew any new songs.

  “Does it have to be a hymn?”

  “No, just something everybody can sing along to.”

  Swan told him that Lovey had taught her “My Gal’s a Corker,” and that sure was a good sing-along song. Ordinarily, Samuel would have nixed that one, but not today. Today he said, “Well, let’s hear it.”

  Nobody ever had to ask Swan twice to sing. She had a great big voice for such a small girl, and she wasn’t afraid to turn it loose. She set in to singing, verse after verse, and the other kids joined in. Noble made sound effects. They were clapping their hands, and stomping their feet, and getting louder and louder, and Willadee and Samuel never even told them to pipe down. They didn’t let up until they pulled into the yard of the Bethel Baptist Church. (The Moses family had always been Baptists, those who went to church. When Willadee
had married Samuel, she became the first Methodist Moses ever.) As the car rolled to a stop, Noble bellowed the last note of the song in the most rutting-buck tone he could muster.

  Bernice made up her mind then and there, whenever the sweet day came that she finally got Samuel, Willadee would get the kids.

  She flung open the car door and stumbled out, and wouldn’t you know, the first thing she did was step into a hole. The dainty little heel of her dainty little shoe broke clean off with a snap you could have heard all the way to El Dorado.

  “Are you all right?” Willadee asked, when she could see clear as day that Bernice was in pain. Breaking a heel on a pair of shoes that make your feet look simply precious is a painful experience for any woman.

  Bernice pulled herself up straight and hobbled toward the front door of the church. With every step, she kept reminding herself that, when you’re on a mission, you don’t let little things distract you. She had come here this morning to get saved, and she’d be damned if she was going to let anything or anybody ruin it for her.

  When they got inside the church, the congregation was singing the first hymn. Lifting their hearts in song, Samuel thought—and that thought was followed by a rush of emotion. A yearning for a congregation of his own. Most men in Samuel’s shoes might have asked themselves whether they had done something to displease the Lord, but Samuel didn’t think like that. The God he knew was giving and kind, so he was convinced that this experience was going to turn out to be a blessing, maybe the greatest blessing of his life. That didn’t keep him from hurting, though.

  Bernice hobbled down the aisle, slipped into the first vacant pew, and stepped on over to make room for the rest of them. The kids filed in after her, then Willadee, then Samuel. Swan started singing lustily before she came to a full stop. People turned their heads to look at her, the way they always did when she opened her mouth and that big voice came out. Swan didn’t notice. Anytime she was singing, she was in a world of her own. She would pour herself into the music, and it would pour out of her, tumbling like a waterfall, and there was nothing else she’d ever known that compared to the feelings that took her over.

  Samuel and Willadee nudged each other and smiled. The boys were wincing at their sister’s volume. Bernice stood erect, gazing straight ahead. Involuntarily, Samuel cut his eyes to see what she was looking at. It couldn’t be the scrawny, red-faced song director, because he was a constant blur of motion—strutting around, waving his arms in time to the music. Whatever Bernice was looking at was stationary. But knowing Bernice, she might not consciously be focusing on anything at all. She had a curious way of living inside her own head. You never knew what was going on in there.

  One thing was for sure. She was up to something this morning—and Samuel figured it had to do with her trying to get him back. You’d think, after all these years, she’d have given up, but if she gave up, what would she have? A marriage she never wanted, to a good man who loved her so much that she despised him.

  It wasn’t that Bernice ever actually chased after Samuel. She just managed every time he was around to drape herself someplace where he couldn’t help seeing her, and she talked to him in that silky, honey-drip voice, and she acted, well—amused. As if there was some powerful electric current between them and she found it comical to watch him trying to resist it.

  Samuel responded by treating her the same way he treated everybody else. He was gracious and polite, and respectful as you please. He never avoided looking her in the eye. He never looked away first. He never let her get under his skin.

  Truth was, Samuel felt sorry for Bernice. She was the most alone person he had ever met—so intent on staying forever breathtaking that she could never let any of life’s glories take her own breath away. He hadn’t felt a tingle for her since the day he met Willadee. (Talk about one of life’s glories. Talk about something taking your breath away.) But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to be extra cautious around his sister-in-law. An electrical cord doesn’t have to carry a charge in order to be dangerous. It can still be used to tie people up. And strangle them.

  Chapter 10

  The way you trained a horse was, you taught it that life was uncertain and punishment was sure. At least, that was the way Ras Ballenger trained horses. If the people who entrusted their animals to him had known his methods, most of them would have found another trainer.

  A few people would have used Ras anyway. Those who only cared about results. Ras definitely got results. He could get a horse to do damn near anything. You wanted it to be a high stepper? He could turn it into a high stepper, all right. You wanted it to prance around with its head at an elegant but unnatural angle? He could get it to where it would prance all day long and never bob its head once. You wanted it to be a good kid horse? He could turn it into a horse a three-year-old could ride.

  The thing was, the reason the horses Ras trained were so obedient and eager to please was that they were terrified of humans, and broken in spirit. They came away from his place groomed and gleaming, but with a vacant stare and a tendency to shudder when they were petted. Sometimes owners questioned Ras about that, and he had all sorts of explanations. The weather was changing, and you know how squirrelly horses can get when the weather is changing. Or they weren’t used to the owners anymore, after all they hadn’t seen them in a couple of months, but they’d get back to normal soon enough. Or they knew they were about to be moved, and horses hate being hauled. That sort of thing.

  Ras never let the conversation linger long on such trivia. The thing that kept people coming back to him was performance, so he never wasted any time getting down to showing them what their horses could do now that he had worked with them so diligently.

  He’d get up on the horse and ride it around, and start it and stop it and back it and make it step sideways. He’d lope it and canter it and trot it and run it at a gallop. If it happened to be a cutting horse, he’d turn some calves into the lot, and he’d do a little cutting demonstration, which never failed to please the owners. Few things in the world are as pretty and flashy as the intricate dance a fine horse does when it’s separating a calf from a herd.

  At some point, Ras would go no-hands. He’d loop the reins around the pommel, and rest his hands on his thighs, and let the horse do the work on its own. He always wound up the performance by putting a kid in the saddle. He’d use one of his own if the folks hadn’t brought one along. Then he’d tell the kid what to do, and they’d go through a little replay of Ras’s original demonstration, and by that time, nobody was worrying anymore about whether the horse had a vacant stare. They’d be clapping Ras on the shoulder, and asking him how he did it, and pressing money into his ready hand.

  “A horse is smart,” Ras would tell them. Smiling. “All you have to do is show it what you want, and it’ll do it, or die trying.”

  So far, none of the horses that had been brought to Ras had died trying, although a few had come close.

  If you wanted Ras Ballenger to work with your horse, you had to take it to his place and leave it. After all, he could put in more time with it that way, and besides, he was already set up for it.

  The owners didn’t know it, but Ras’s setup included a twitch, a whip, and a place in his barn where the beasts could be cross-tied so that they couldn’t move an inch in any direction. A horse could be left for hours or days without food and water, so that it would be grateful and docile when it was finally released and given a drink. It could be tormented in any number of ways, and Ras Ballenger knew them all.

  At about the same time that Samuel Lake was sitting in church wondering what was going to become of his life, a big white gelding named Snowman was standing in Ras Ballenger’s holding pen, probably wondering the same thing. Ras was standing outside the pen, leaning against the wood rails, watching the horse watch him.

  They’d been like that—the two of them, watching each other—for a couple of hours now. Ever since the owner, a fellow named Odell Pritchett, from over around Cam
den, had dropped the horse off. Odell had explained that Snowman was green broke, but he needed some finishing work. He was a little high-headed. A little unpredictable.

  Ras had assured Odell that he would do what he could. Generally, all a horse like that needed was a little experience. (He didn’t say what kind.) A lot of special attention. (He didn’t explain that, either.) What he would do was, he’d work with Snowman every day. He’d be consistent, and show him what was expected of him, and before you could pour piss out of a boot, he’d have him whipped into shape. (He for sure didn’t elaborate on that one.)

  Right now, Ras was doing what he always did first with a new horse, which was to let the animal’s anxiety take over. He could stand here all day, if it took all day, just giving the horse a chance to realize that whatever happened next would be something it would have no control over whatsoever. An uncertain horse was a horse that made mistakes. And a horse that made mistakes was a horse that could be corrected. And that was the point where Ras Ballenger would start to truly enjoy his work.

  “You’re thinkin’ ’bout it now, ain’t you?” he asked. Talking soft. Laughing low.

  Snowman moved to the far side of the pen and turned his head away.

  “You’re thinkin’ ’bout how you’re bigger than me, and faster than me, and how you got four feet to my two,” Ras went on, and his voice sounded deceptively kind. “You’re wonderin’ whether this is all gonna be hard or easy, ain’t you, Snowman?”

  He stepped inside the pen, and walked over to the horse, and took hold of its halter, and snapped on a lead rope, which was already attached to a sturdy post that was cemented into the ground.

  “Well, I’m here to tell you, Snowman—it won’t be easy. ’Cause easy just ain’t no fun.”

  When Brother Homer Nations got up to make the announcements, the first words out of his mouth were the ones Samuel dreaded.