“Won’t me.”
He told me he was on leave, Mattie thought.
“I was thinking this morning if it was any of the Benfields I used to teach,” said Beatrice. “And this one’s name was Wesley, too. Just like you. And about your age.”
Wesley glared at her. “Well, it won’t me.” That awful woman staring at him, big earrings, thick powder on her face. He stared back as long as he could, then looked at Mattie.
Mattie was horribly confused. As she sat, she said, “Well, he’s not the same one. This is my cousin’s boy.”
“Beatrice, Mattie wouldn’t bring an escaped convict to Sunday school,” someone said, and laughed.
“I’m from Arizona,” said Wesley. He sat beside Mattie and picked up a hymnbook. That woman was liable to call the law, and they were liable to come surround the place. If they did he’d. . . he’d. . . just put on one of them choir dresses and sing in the choir and they’d never know he was there. He’d hide right in the middle of them. That would be awesome—the last place on earth they’d look for him. Hell, he could do that anyway. Then he could sneak out amongst the crowd, borrow a car from the parking lot and haul ass. That would be the safest way to do it and—what a genius move.
“Let’s bow for the opening prayer,” said the lady at the wood thing up front.
Mattie prayed silently. Dear God, I didn’t know. Peter lied too. I didn’t have no idea . . .
Wesley looked around. There was a bulletin board display on the wall at the front of the class. An angel with an extended hand stood behind a church. From her hand orange strings extended to groups of people of different colors from different nations. The title of the display was “Missions.” There was a chalkboard along one wall, and a flip chart of maps by the door.
“. . . and be with the sick and afflicted in the hospital beds throughout this nation, throughout this state, this county. We especially ask Thy blessing upon those members of our church who are now sick, especially Trixie Byrd, and the Collingwood boy. And now be with us as we study Thy word. We are especially grateful for our visitor this morning. Please bless him in this hour. All things in Thy blessed name. Amen.”
I, I need to think, thought Mattie. I’ll tell them he needed Sunday school and church. I had to lie—Peter had to lie. Mine was a little white lie because this boy needed church so bad. Now maybe after church I can make him go back like he’s supposed to. Maybe he’ll let me take him back.
“Okay, let’s open our quarterlies to today’s lesson,” said Carrie. “The scripture is from Psalms.”
Mattie had not read her lesson. She was astonished at herself. She had never once come to Sunday school unprepared. Was the Devil behind this: the whole thing. Should she just get up this minute and go make a phone call to the YMRC? Go get a newspaper? Or should she . . . Dear gentle Jesus, guide and direct me in this hour of need. Help me to understand what Thou wouldst have me do.
Mattie relaxed her shoulders and looked at Wesley. He was reading from the hymnbook. She put her finger on the scripture passage in her Bible, slipped toward him and held the Bible between them so he could look on. This was not working out right at all.
“The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein . . .”
Wesley held the hymnbook as he looked at the Bible. Mattie pushed the Bible closer to him so he would hold it with her. He put the hymnbook in the empty chair beside him, and held to the Bible. Mattie placed her finger on the passage.
Carrie taught the lesson from the quarterly. She said that the Psalmist was talking about how the earth is the Lord’s and that one day he’s coming back to claim it no matter what; that we should remember that America may be providing what amounts to the world’s last hope.
As the lesson continued, Beatrice fidgeted with her handkerchief more and more. She was going to have to do something. Call the authorities. Mattie must have made some mistake; she was getting quite old. That boy could be dangerous.
Mattie tried to think—to untangle the confusion in her head. What should she do? Wesley must have escaped. But he needed the church—all the more now.
Wesley thumbed through the hymnal, came across “Shall We Gather at the River” and studied the words: “. . . where bright angel feet have trod.” Muddy bright angel feet on the riverbank, he thought. Bright lights between their toes, shining through the mud. That one’s feet on the bulletin board was behind the church. Bright angel feet jumping all around in the grass. White bright feet with neon blue blood vessels. He’d like to marry somebody with bright angel feet.
When the lesson was over, they all stood for the final song. Wesley picked up the hymnbook and fumbled to find the right page. The head woman played the piano and they all started singing: “This is my Father’s world, and to my listening ears . . .”
Carrie gave the closing prayer, and dismissed them. Several women remained. Hanna Brown talked to Wesley: “We hadn’t had a young man in here since I don’t know when. It freshens up the place.”
“That’s because I had a good bath last night.”
I’ve got to talk to him, thought Mattie.
“What?” Hanna leaned toward Wesley, smiling, with a frown around her eyes.
“That’s because I had a good bath last night. I wouldn’t have freshened up the place before then.” Wesley looked around for the woman who’d put the finger on him. He didn’t see her. He was going to have to do something, leave or hide, one.
Hanna laughed. “Did you hear that Mattie. He said he had a good bath last night.”
“He did have a good bath last night.”
“He’s such a funny young man.”
Beatrice was on the phone in the church office. “He’s with Mrs. Mattie Rigsbee, Paul Rigsbee’s wife. She won’t be sitting with Paul—he’s dead. She’ll probably be sitting with Carrie Bowers about halfway down on the left. Carrie’s wearing a white hat. . . . That’s right. . . . Yes . . . Mattie’s a widow. Paul died of a heart attack five or six, let’s see, five years ago. Went in the blinking of a eye sitting in his car at the stoplight on Tuney Lake Road. Thank goodness he won’t driving along. . . . Yes, okay, you’re welcome.”
Only Mattie and Wesley remained in the Sunday school classroom.
“Sit down,” said Mattie.
They both sat down.
“Did you escape?” said Mattie, looking straight ahead.
“Well, I sort of did.” Wesley looked out the window, at the bulletin board with the “Missions” display, at the announcement written in yellow chalk on the chalkboard: “Bus leaves for White Lake Saturday at 9AM. Sign up in the office.”
Sheriff Walter Tillman and Deputy Larry Hollins, of Hanson County, on car patrol, received radio orders from headquarters. They drove toward the church. “I’ll go in the front door after they get started,” said the sheriff, “and that’ll be in the back of everybody. You get somewhere behind the preacher, somewhere you can see from—maybe there’s a door—so you can see him and catch him if he tries to run out that way. I’ll wait outside the front door. When you get positioned, give me two clicks on the walkie-talkie; I’ll come in and when I spot him I’ll arrest him.”
“And you told me you were on leave,” said Mattie, looking at Wesley. “Well, well. This is some fix.”
“I think maybe I better get out of here,” said Wesley, standing, glancing at Mattie. “Now I’m a wanted man. I’m headed south for Florida.”
“You ain’t growed up enough to be a wanted man. That’s one of your problems. I wanted you to spend one Sunday morning in church . . . in a good church. You should have done your time. You shouldn’t have escaped. It’ll make it that much worse when they catch you. What are you going to use for transportation?”
“Them.” Wesley pointed to his feet.
“Well, if you ain’t out of town by 12:30 or 1:00 then stop by for dinner. I got all that food, and it’s ready. You might as well.” Lord have mercy, I’ve lied once, thought Mattie. Peter did
it three times. I might as well feed him before he leaves.
Wesley stood. “Well, I’m getting out of here. See you later. If anybody wants to know where I am just say south of the border. Say he said he was going south of the border.” He walked out.
Now there’s that extra pork chop, thought Mattie. Well, well. If they catch him, I hope they catch him gently. She stood to go upstairs to the sanctuary for church service.
Wesley moved along a hall toward a door which led outside. Two children were just inside the door, two women just outside. The women were holding black pocketbooks. He could sure use a pocketbook or two. He pushed open the door and stepped outside. He wouldn’t hide in the choir—if the coast was clear, he’d borrow a car. Suddenly there was a sheriff’s patrol car coming down the road toward him; he spun around, walked back inside, stopped and watched the car slow, stop. Two uniformed lawmen got out, hitched their belts, and looked around. Wesley saw stairs at the far end of the hall. He’d better walk slowly, carefully. He’d go upstairs, find a closet or something. Mrs. Rigsbee would tell them he’d gone, left, and somewhere up there in a closet or something would be the safest place in the world. He could stay until everybody was gone. The choir would be too risky. He could say that’s what he did. He walked up the stairs, holding himself to one step at a time. He wanted to sprint. He reached the top of the stairs and turned the corner. Damn. Choir members, in long dress things, were filing through a door. Jesus. That Beatrice woman was one of them. He’d have to go back downstairs and hide in a room down there. He turned and started back down the stairs. Feet. Coming up. Black spit-shined shoes, pants with a stripe. The Law. He turned on the stairs. He’d have to walk past the choir people. No, the last one was going through the door.
He hurried into the room the choir had left; there was a long, open closet—dress things inside. He heard footsteps. The footsteps stopped, then shuffled. The choir and congregation started singing. His heart knocked rapidly in his head and throat. He pulled a dress off a hanger, put it on, zipped it, picked up a hymnbook. He would go with the choir plan—hide in plain sight. He started for the choir door. In the hallway he met the deputy: shiny badge, all that leather, and a big pistol up under the elbow. The deputy spoke: “Can I see the whole auditorium in there from that door you think?” he asked, his hat in his hand, motioning toward the entrance to the choir.
“I don’t know. Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”
“There’s a boy in there we need. Escaped from the RC. I gotta be able to see the place from back here.”
“Un huh, okay.”
Wesley stepped up the steps and into the doorway leading into where the choir was standing, singing. They were loud: “Ye chosen seed of Israel’s race . . .” He held onto the door frame, licked sweat from his upper lip. There were several seats at the near end of the last row there in front of him.
The deputy stepped on Wesley’s heel, leaned against him. “Excuse me.”
Wesley smelled the deputy’s aftershave. He stepped in. The voices of the congregation singing hit him full force.
Mattie, from her pew, noticed one of the choir members coming in late.
Deputy Hollins, trying to stay concealed, yet see from the door to the choir, suddenly realized that the way he could be the least conspicuous would be to get a robe and get in the choir, there on the back row. Otherwise, the suspect might see him peeping in the door. He found a robe in the choir room, and as he moved into the choir, he signaled Sheriff Tillman with two clicks on his walkie-talkie.
The sheriff had been waiting at the top of the steps just outside the closed front door of the church—wondering what the dickens was taking Hollins so long. When he heard the two clicks of static on his walkie-talkie, he stepped inside.
Dodson Clark, an usher, stood just inside the door, cleaning his fingernails with his new Swiss Army knife. Dodson, when he was growing up, aspired to be two things in life, a fireman and a church usher, the former so that he could live dangerously, the latter so that he could stand or sit in the foyer during the entire church service—sliding out into a back room or even outside at will.
Dodson looked up to see the sheriff. “Well, hey, Sheriff,” he said, above the sound of the music. “You are Sheriff Tillman, ain’t you?”
“That’s right. How you doing?” said the sheriff, taking off his hat.
“Welcome to Listre Baptist. Here,” Dodson picked up a church-service bulletin.
“Oh no. I’m trying to pick up a young man might be with a Mrs. Mattie Rigsbee, who supposed to be sitting—”
“She’s about halfway down on the—”
“About halfway down on the left.”
“Let’s move right over here and we can see; yeah, there she is, beside Carrie Bowers with—”
“A white hat.”
“—a white hat. Yeah.” Dodson looked at the sheriff.
“No boy there. There’s supposed to be a male with her: Caucasian, sixteen years of age, five feet nine, sandy hair, light complexion.”
Dodson pictured a sixteen-year-old youth—he’d better be Caucasian—standing and spraying the congregation with machine-gun fire. Dodson would duck, crawl along under the pews, grab the assailant by the ankles, pull hard, trip him up, disarm him.
“How about going down and getting her,” said the sheriff to Dodson, “and asking her to come back here so we can step outside and I can ask her a few questions.”
Dodson asked young Terry Miles, another usher, if he’d mind going down and getting Mrs. Rigsbee. He, Dodson, needed to stay with the sheriff.
Alora and Hanna Brown stood together, singing the opening song, three rows behind Mattie and Carrie. Finner was in a small room upstairs, taping the service for shut-ins. Alora had noticed a young man, then an older man, both strangers, slip into the choir. Then she saw Terry Miles come down, get Mattie and lead her out. As the song ended, Mattie came back to her seat.
The sheriff, standing outside the front door, clicked his walkie-talkie button three times, the signal for “meet me at the vehicle.” He’d learned from Mrs. Rigsbee that the Benfield boy had fled the scene.
“Who is them strangers in the choir?” Alora whispered to Hanna, as Clarence Vernon made the morning announcements—just after the opening song.
“Where?”
“On the back row. There, that one slipping out, and the other one, standing beside Bill Parker.”
“Oh, I believe that’s the young man was in Sunday school. He had a fresh bath last night he said. Maybe he’s going to sing a solo.”
Alora whispered, “What was he doing in your Sunday school?”
“He was with Mattie. Look, he’s leaving, too,” whispered Hanna.
After the service, Harvey Odum stood in the almost empty church parking lot. He was talking to his wife, who stood beside him, frowning, rubbing her bare arm as if she were cold. He put his hand behind his head and looked around. “I know I parked it here,” he said.
X
Soon after the church service, Mattie, in the kitchen, looked into her oven. The biscuits were about ready. Robert and Laurie, Robert’s new girlfriend, sat at the table, sipping iced tea, ready to eat.
A maroon Chrysler LeBaron eased up to the back door, on the lawn, well out of sight of the road out front.
“Who is that?” Robert asked Mattie.
“I don’t know.”
“Why did they pull up on the lawn like that?” asked Laurie. Laurie had practically no chin and curly black hair.
Robert was worried. His mother was hardly talking, even though Laurie was asking questions, like Laurie seemed to do quite a bit. That was one of the things Robert liked about Laurie. She knew how to bring people out. But what worried him was that his mother was one of the last persons on earth who he’d thought would ever need bringing out, yet here she was being brought out by Laurie. His mother was too quiet today.
Whoever that was, thought Mattie, would be bringing news or questions about what happened at church. “I was goin
g to tell you what happened at church today,” said Mattie to Robert. She needed to explain—the truth—so it wouldn’t seem like she was some kind of criminal. And now here was no telling who, and she hadn’t had a chance to explain to Robert yet. This young woman kept asking all these questions.
Mattie walked to the back door to meet whoever it was. She saw Alora and Finner walking over from their house. Who could—Wesley!
“I come to eat.”
“Well, come on in. It’s on the table. Who’s . . . ? Did you . . . ? Alora, y’all come on in.”
Robert looked at the young man coming in the back door. Something about his clothes looked familiar. Very familiar. Indeed, this fellow was wearing Robert’s own light blue shirt with the white collar and his navy blue tie with the little red lions on it.
“Y’all, this is Wesley. Wesley Benfield,” Mattie said to Robert and Laurie. “This is my son Robert, and Laurie Thomas, his friend,” said Mattie. “And let’s see, this is Alora and Finner Swanson.”
“Is that my tie?” asked Robert.
“Yeah, your shirt, too.” Wesley nodded toward Mattie, “Grandma said I could wear them.”
“Grandma?”
“Could be. Can’t ever tell, you know.” I ain’t no kin to you, though, thought Wesley.
The sheriff’s patrol car pulled up in the backyard behind the maroon Chrysler.
“Y’all are all kin?” Laurie asked Robert. This is strange, she thought.
“Go ahead and get you something to eat,” said Mattie to Wesley. “There on the stove. There’s a plate. We were about to start. Alora, don’t y’all want something?”
“No, we ain’t kin,” said Robert.
“Naw,” said Alora, “we already eat. We just wanted to find out what was going on in church this morning. What all that mix-up was about.”
“Ain’t that Harvey Odum’s LeBaron?” said Finner.
Mattie looked at Wesley.
“I ain’t sure what his name is,” said Wesley. “I borrowed it.” Wesley had a plate and was spooning on creamed potatoes. He forked a pork chop onto his plate. “I’m going to take it by his house.” He made a little indentation in the top of his potatoes and spooned on thick gravy. He looked out the back window. There was the sheriff peering through the window of the LeBaron. Wesley took a bite of potatoes, put his plate down on the stove. “I got to go to the bathroom.” He turned and walked through the kitchen and den and to the front door where he held on to the knob and looked through one of the small squares of glass. A deputy was leaning against another patrol car on the side of the road. He walked down the hall and into Mattie’s room and looked out into the backyard. The sheriff was at the back door and the deputy who had stood right beside him in the choir was leaning against the sheriff’s car. Hot waves spread from Wesley’s scalp down over his neck and shoulders. They had the front, back, and both sides covered. He walked across the hall into his and Robert’s bedroom, closed the door, opened the dresser and got out the pajamas he’d worn the night before. This was it. They had him. He’d get in bed and tell them he was too sick to move. Heart trouble.
Walking Across Egypt Page 12
