The Preacher's Marsh

by David Niall Wilson

  “The sheriff told me there’s no room for another man of God here,” he replied, uncertain what reaction to expect.

  “The swamp has its own Gods,” she replied cryptically. “Word travels fast here, preacher man. I know why you came. You should let that leg heal, and then let us walk you out to that road when none of the folks in town is looking. You met the friendly ones, for the most part. If Reverend Cumby gets an eyeful of you, he’ll be raining fire and brimstone on your head, along with another beatin’, or worse. He’s protective of his ‘flock,’ and because he comes out and stands at the end of a cotton row once a month to bring us ‘the word,’ he figures we belong to him – spiritually speaking.”

  Gideon was surprised to hear this.

  “The impression I got was that none of them was much interested in your spiritual growth,” he said. He picked his way through the conversation carefully. He’d already made wrong assumptions once in this place, and it had nearly cost him his life.

  “Oh, Reverend Cumby only wants to pretend like he’s preaching to us,” she said. “I don’t think he believes we’ll make it to Heaven, or, if we do, it will be some lower area, or working the Holy cotton fields. That man talks a lot about sin, and about salvation, but he never comes any closer than it takes him to send a boy out with a collection plate. If the Methodists could work their way in they’d do it, but there’s more Baptists, and one of them is Sheriff Hawkins, so they keep their distance.”

  “He comes out here to ask for money?” Gideon asked.

  “He would go on down to hell and pass the plate with oven mitts to protect his hands if he thought he’d get a good take,” she said. There was a note of bitterness in her voice that she couldn’t quite hide.

  “And now there’s you, preacher,” she said. “What did you come for? We don’t have much out here, as you can see. Why did you walk all that way from your home up North? What do you want?

  Her eyes narrowed, and she cocked her head to one side in a way that made Gideon smile, despite his pain. She managed to seem rustic and elegant all at once, and with her hand on her hip and her eyes pinning him to the ground, there was something regal in her manner as well. Clearly, however many others lived out among the trees, she was one of their leaders.

  “I didn’t come here because I wanted something,” he said, searching carefully for his words. “I came here because I was called to it. I saw the war form a different place than you did – different from those men in town as well, I guess. I saw men and boys dying, women left behind to struggle and worry and raise children who never met their fathers or brothers. I saw a whole lot of evil washing over the land and not much being done about it.

  “We fought that war for a lot of reasons. Sometimes I wonder if any two men understood it quite the same way. One of the reasons, though, was that it was time for men and women in this country to stand as equals. The days of owning another human being have passed, and though those ways haven’t been banished from the minds, or the hearts of the men who stood to gain most from them, laws have been passed to bring them to an end.

  “Laws are just words, though. You can pass a law that says the sun won’t set in the evening, and good luck with it. You can tell men who have worked their land with the muscle and hearts of men they claim to own that they no longer own those men, and that they have to be fair and pay for a day’s wages, but it doesn’t mean a thing if it isn’t enforced.”

  “You think you can make Boss Pope pay us?” she laughed and slapped her knee. “That is something I want to see, preacher. I surely do.”

  Gideon smiled wanly. “I know I can’t make a change like that on my own.” He said. “I don’t even know if it can be fully made in my lifetime. I only know that it’s my place as an American citizen, and as a man of God, to do what I can do. We fought and killed and died in this country so freedom could be shared by all the men and women of our country, and I came to see what I could do about sowing the seeds of that work. I came to try and make a difference, if that makes any sense.”

  “It don’t,” she said, turning away. “You’ll get yourself killed, and everything will be the same as it was, except God will have one less preacher down here, and one more up there to bother him.”

  “We’ll see,” he said.

  She snorted, but she didn’t disagree with him again.

  “Come morning, you’re going to have to lay quiet,” she said “They find out we took you in, and they’ll kill you. Probably kill me too.”

  “I can’t ask you to take that kind of risk,” he said. He placed his palms on the ground and tried to press himself up, but the flash of pain in his leg cleared that thought from his mind quickly. “I don’t want anyone to be hurt for my sake.”

  “You just do what you’re told,” she said. “You stay here, keep the flaps closed, and don’t say a word. I’ll leave some food, some water. No one much comes here. I keep myself further into the woods than the rest of them. Don’t like late-night visitors. Don’t have much use for people, truth be told. The swamp, she talks to me. The bones of the animals have their own language, and the plants give me their strength for medicine.”

  “You’re a healer?” Gideon asked. His eyes lit with interest. “Are you trained?”

  She laughed. The sound was fresh, like the breeze that leaked in through the tent-flap door. She turned to him and looked him up and down to see if he might be teasing her. When she saw that he was not only serious, but that now he was confused by her laughter, she came and sat beside him on the floor. Her eyes danced with amusement.

  “You been up north too long, preacher,” she said. “Where you think I been, finishing school? There’s no one to teach medicine in the swamp. I learned from my mother, she learned from hers. Some of it I learned from the swamp. Sometimes you just know. You break a leaf, or make tea from something you’ve never tried before, and you taste it, or smell it. You rub it between your fingers and you feel something tingle on your skin. The world is full of healing; you just got to know where to look.”

  “God has a way of giving us what we need,” Gideon said softly. “He provides when life feels hopeless. If he has given you the ability to understand plants, and to relieve suffering, you have been gifted with something special.”

  “My gifts come from my mother,” she said. “God didn’t have anything to do with it. If God put my grandfather on that slave ship and stole him away across the sea; if he left me and mine to work until we drop so some fat white man can beat us and tell us to go work some more? I don’t want anything to do with that God. I’ll trust the swamp, and the spirits.”

  “God is with you in the swamp, and in the fields,” Gideon said.

  “You need your rest,” she said. She pushed him back, not too gently, and he fell against his pack. He tried not to smile, but failed.

  “You’ve heard all of this before,” he guessed.

  “I’ve heard a lot of things,” she replied. “Seen things too. What I’ve seen, I believe – what I hear is usually just someone making noise to listen to their own voice. Reverend Cumby told us how God was in the cotton. He preached to us about how children and young ladies would wear the clothing made from that cotton, how it would keep people warm and make things beautiful. He told us that from the back of a hay wagon surrounded by children, and young ladies, not a one of them wearing a new, warm, or clean bit of clothing. He stood there in his polished boots and not a child among us with more than a shredded bit of leather to tie to his feet. He talked like he didn’t see us at all, smiled that devil’s smile and held out his hand like we owed him something.”

  “I’m not Reverend Cumby,” Gideon said.

  She turned and studied his face.

  “No, I reckon not,” she said. “Still, your God left you half dead in a cotton field, and Cumby is sleeping on goose down.”

  “My God brought me to you,” he said… “Or you to me. Either way, I’m where I was intended to be. He will guide me.”

  She shook her hea
d and rose.

  “Sleep, preacher man. When we’re done in the fields tomorrow, I’ll see about moving you closer to the swamp – farther from the Popes. They don’t come here often, but when they do, there’s no telling what they might tear into. I’ll get you out of sight, and out of mind, and help you heal that leg.”

  “I’ll earn my keep,” he said. “I can’t pick in the fields, but there are other things that need to be done.”

  “Oh, I’ll keep you busy, preacher man. Don’t you worry yourself over that. No one here eats for free.”

  “If I spoke on Sundays, would your people listen?” he asked.

  “You’ll have to ask them,” she said. “There’s a few who pray to your God, a few others who might if someone other than Reverend Cumby was behind the words.”

  “It’s not the man behind the words that’s important,” Gideon said.

  “Your Jesus was a man,” she said, surprising him. “There’s a difference, though, preacher. He walked into the desert for forty days and learned to heal. I walked into the swamp. We’ll see who teaches who before all is said and done.”

  “Gideon,” he said.

  She stared at him, a question in her eyes, and he smiled.

  “My name is Gideon – Gideon Swayne.”

  “Good name for a preacher,” she said.

  Desdemona slipped out through the canvas flaps and into the night. Gideon watched her go, then laid back and closed his eyes. He drifted into sleep to the sound of insects singing, and the low moan of the wind through the trees.

  THREE

  It was a week before Gideon could stay on his feet for any length of time, even with crutches. He spent his days preparing food, gathering herbs and supplies that Desdemona needed, and clearing a small patch of ground. The freedmen had come together to bring him scraps of canvas, a few boards, things they could ill afford to give up, but that they presented to him with all the gravity of the wise men carrying gifts to Jerusalem. He wasn’t used to the work – he’d lived his life in relative peace. The church had called him at a very young age, and though he’d done as he was told, and studied hard, he had never faced physical challenges of the magnitude he now experienced daily.

  One of the old men, an elder with very dark, leathery skin and hair the same color and consistency as the cotton, stayed behind with him most days. Ben, probably not his given name, but the only one the man knew, could no longer put in a full day in the fields. The heat of the noon sun was too much for him, but his spirits were high. He was up with the dawn, and he worked constantly. There were things to be mended. Some of the shelters needed repair, clothing was torn, and it was a constant struggle to trap, hunt and gather enough food. Gideon followed Ben on long rambles through the woods, most of which would have been shorter rambles without the crutches and the pain.

  He learned to fish, set snares for rabbits and other small animals, how to avoid snakes and which were the most dangerous. He learned which plants should be gathered any time they were spotted, and which ones not to touch if you didn’t want to develop a nasty rash. He learned how to start a fire, how to keep it from smoking, how to burn it low so that the coals were good for cooking.

  He worked with Ben until the workers returned from the fields. Sometimes he helped serve the food, though it was difficult for him to get around on the makeshift crutches, and by the time the day had passed, he was sore, exhausted, and his leg throbbed. It was then that he started his real work.

  At first he was able to spend only a few moments a day clearing weeds, dragging branches and limbs, and prying stones loose from the moist earth. He’d chosen his spot carefully-- a small clearing surrounded on all sides by tall, slender trees growing too close together to support a lot of foliage. He’d never built anything in his life. Not really. As a boy he’d helped mend fences, and had been present at a few barn raisings, but a lot of years had passed, and even in those early days he'd been more of an observer, not really involved in the construction.

  Even if he’d paid close attention in those days, it wouldn’t have had much bearing on the work at hand. There were no piles of lumber lying about, or well-oiled tools to work with. There were castoffs, broken axes and hand-crafted wooden mallets, and many of these were in use, or guarded carefully by suspicious workers.

  On the fourth day of his labor, Gideon lay on the ground in the corner of his clearing. He had a makeshift hoe made from a broken bit of iron that had once been used to bind the slats of a barrel. He’d tied it to a stick with a strip of cloth. His back ached from hobbling about during the day. Sweat dripped into his eyes, but he ignored it. The first few times the sweat had poured down into his eyes, he’d brushed at it with the back of his hand. The dirt stung, and his clothing, already matted and filthy, was no good for cleaning it out.

  He worked slowly and carefully, clearing a foot at a time. It was about ten minutes into the day’s work when he felt the weight of watching eyes. He had no idea who it would be, and he didn’t want to scare them off, so he didn’t look up. He dragged the flat edge of his piece of iron over the ground, working out a stone here, or chopping deeper to find the base of the root of some odd shrub or weed. He’d cleared a space about a yard square, and was oddly pleased at the result.

  He gathered what he cleared into a small pile. After fifteen minutes more, he was exhausted. He swung his tool out and started to drag it back across the uneven ground, but he couldn’t do it. He leaned forward and laid his head on his upper arm. Sweat and dirt mingled and he thought if he rested that way for too long, his cheek would be stuck in place, and they’d find him there passed out, when the morning came.

  Except they were already watching.

  The first to slip out of the shadows surrounding the clearing was the boy, Elijah, who had first stumbled across Gideon in the cotton field. Elijah walked slowly and tentatively into the clearing. He came very close to where Gideon lay sprawled on the ground, and squatted, his head cocked curiously to the side.

  “What you doin’” he asked.

  Gideon licked his lips, trying to replace lost fluids. With a great effort, he sat up. He let go of the hoe, not wanting to embarrass himself if he turned out not to have the strength to draw it back to himself.

  “I’m building a church,” he said.

  The boy glanced around the clearing. He looked down at the mound of dirt Gideon had cleared, and at the odd, bent bit of metal he was using to clear the land. Without a word, Elijah stood, leaned in close, and picked up the pile of rubble. He carried two handfuls of the branches and dirt and stepped into the trees. In a moment, Gideon saw him return. Behind him, another short figure hovered at the edge of the clearing. It was a girl – Gideon didn’t know her name, but he’d seen her around the camp.

  “It’s okay,” he said softly.

  He’d managed to sit fully erect, and was starting to get his strength back, slowly. In a moment he’d be able to lever himself to his feet, using the crutch, and hobble over to where he’d left a small jug of water. He needed the drink badly, but he didn’t want to ask Elijah for it. He didn’t want to show a sign of weakness, or ask for help he’d done nothing to deserve. He already owed the boy his life.

  The girl, a year or two older than Elijah, maybe ten, sidled into the clearing. Elijah had stepped into the trees again with the last of the meager pile of stones and branches Gideon had gathered. The girl studied the cleared corner, then she disappeared into the trees. A few minutes later, she and Elijah reappeared. Both had tools of their own with longer handles. One was flattened on the end, like the blunt end of a pickaxe; the other was a more efficient version of Gideon’s hoe.

  They walked to the corner opposite where Gideon had begun his work without a word, and started clearing. They worked quickly, their speed and discipline born of long hours in the cotton fields under a burning sun. There was no laziness in them, no dishonesty to their work. They saw a job that needed to be done, and they set to it. The only thing that remained was for Gideon to find o
ut why.

  He gripped the crutch, placed the tip in the soil and lifted. At first he thought he was going to fall back and re-injure his leg, but somehow he managed to gain his balance and stand upright. He hobbled over to his belongings and leaned down, using the crutch for balance, until he had the water jug in hand. He took a long drink, closed his eyes, and let the cool liquid run down his throat. After a moment, he drank again, careful not to take it all too quickly, then corked the jug and lowered it back to the ground.

  When he turned back, he saw that the two children had already cleared an area twice the size of the one he’d begun. They worked quickly, shoulder to shoulder, and the pile of rubble they’d gathered was nearly two feet tall and as big around as a wheelbarrow. Gideon watched for a few minutes, and then he stepped forward.

  “Wait,” he said.

  The girl whirled on him, jumpy – ready to flee at the first sign of betrayal. Gideon’s heart went out to her. He wondered what sort of life had brought her to such a state. He stood very still, leaning on his crutch.

  “You have done enough for today,” he said. “You worked hard in the fields, and I don’t want to be the cause of you being too tired to work tomorrow. Help me get this moved,” he gestured at the mound of cleared branches and stones and soil. “If you’ll help me, after, I’ll see about making a shelter in the corner you cleared.”

  Elijah nodded, though he still didn’t’ speak. He leaned his pick carefully against a tree in plain site. The girl did the same with her hoe.

  “What’s your name, child?”

  The girl looked up at him, shook her head with a jerk, and bent to the pile at her feet. Elijah watched her for a moment, then glanced up at Gideon.

  “Her name is Sarah,” he said. “She can’t talk.”

  Gideon frowned. He started to ask more, but Elijah didn’t wait. He was already leaning down to help the girl. The two disappeared from the clearing, laden with handfuls of debris.