The Preacher's Marsh

by David Niall Wilson

  The mound was large. Even after such a short time, the superior tools and the hard work of his two new helpers had paid off handsomely. Gideon studied the pile, then moved back to his belongings. He dropped to the ground and dug through his pack, searching until he found what he was after. One of the ladies of his church had given him a leather poncho. It was to have been for cold weather, or to keep the weather off of his head and back, but now he had a new use for it.

  He gripped the cloak tightly and levered himself back to his feet, just as Elijah and Sarah stepped back into the clearing. The girl stared at him disapprovingly. It was obvious she thought he’d been resting while they continued to work. Gideon started to explain himself, then thought better of it. His actions would do more than any speech might, so he swayed across to the mound and dropped the poncho onto the ground.

  Working slowly so he wouldn’t fall, he hand-walked down the crutch until he was seated beside both the poncho and the mound of debris. He quickly began taking handfuls of it onto the leather. Elijah caught on almost at once, and knelt on the far side of the poncho.

  Within just a few moments time, they had nearly half the pile bunched near the center of the strip of leather. Gideon lifted one of the corners and folded it in toward the middle. Elijah did the same on his side. Sarah stepped to the far corner, at an angle from Gideon, and lifted another corner. She handed it to Elijah, who now held two. She let go and moved to the final corner, and moments later Elijah was dragging the bundle toward the edge of the clearing. She followed him, as if she feared to stay alone in the clearing with the large, white stranger. Gideon smiled.

  He stared at the corner they’d cleared, and then he closed his eyes. He imagined the church back in Random, Illinois. He thought of how the women brought in baskets of food every Sunday, the scents of fresh bread and roasted corn mingling with spices and hot tea. He tried to imagine a steepled roof rising through the clearing and into the trees, and he could almost see it. It was bent, canted to one side and ragged, but just for a moment he could see it, and he smiled.

  He was still smiling when Elijah and Sarah returned for the second and final load. It was a good day’s work – the best since he’d started, and for whatever it meant, he had allies. When the last of the pile had been cleared, Sarah turned to him. She smiled, and when she did so, her face lit up like a small sun. He smiled in return, and she turned and fled through the trees, leaving Gideon and Elijah staring after her.

  “I need to make a tent,” Gideon said at last. “Will you help me?”

  Elijah nodded. Gideon rose, and they went to the pile of materials that had been slowly growing since Gideon’s arrival. There were two fairly large bits of canvas. He stared at them, and at the strips of rope, leather, and cloth piled beside them. It had seemed a simple thing a few moments before, but now it occurred to him that, once again, he had no idea what to do next.

  Elijah must have picked up on his dismay, because the boy leaned in, grabbed one of the pieces of canvas and a strip of leather, and headed back to the cleared corner confidently. Gideon followed as quickly as he could. The boy surveyed the surrounding trees. He chose a tall oak with a branch broken off about the height of a grown man’s chest. He took the leather, looped it around the branch, and attached it deftly to one corner of the canvas.

  “What can I do?” Gideon asked, feeling silly asking such a question of such a young boy, but at the same time overwhelmingly grateful for the help.

  “Hold this,” Elijah replied. He placed one of the corners of the canvas sheet in Gideon’s hand and raced back into the trees. He returned a few minutes later with a tall, straight branch that was notched at the top. He grabbed the tool he’d used for clearing the ground and dug a hole, then placed the thicker end of the branch in and patted the soil tightly around it. This held it in place until he was able to get a second bit of leather and attach the front of the canvas to it.

  After he’d repeated this with the second sheet, overlapping the two at the top to form a seam, he brought stakes of cut wood and pounded them into the ground, tying off the sides and corners of the canvas to drawn them outward. Gideon had seen such tents used by the army many times, but had had no idea how to make such a thing. Before he knew it, Elijah was taking the last flap of material available and fixing it so that it could be tied in place across the front of the makeshift shelter.

  The boy stood back, pleased with his own effort, and stood.

  “Thank you,” Gideon said.

  Elijah nodded. Then he turned and met Gideon’s gaze fiercely. “When you build the church,” he said, choosing his words carefully, obviously afraid to say the wrong thing, “my momma can come here and talk to God?”

  It was a question, and at the same time, it was a statement. Gideon was touched.

  “Of course,” he said. “You don’t need a church to talk to God, Elijah, and you don’t need my permission. Your mother is welcome to come here at any time. I talk to God every day.”

  Elijah watched him carefully. “You do?”

  “Of course,” Gideon said. “He’s always with me.”

  “In that field out there,” Elijah pointed off through the trees. Gideon assumed he pointed toward the Pope cotton fields, “he was there?”

  “He was,” Gideon nodded.

  Elijah glanced down at Gideon’s leg dubiously.

  “It wasn’t God that broke my leg, Elijah,” Gideon said, leaning down to ruffle the boy's hair. “It was men. God sent me you. Do you know where the name Elijah came from?”

  The boy nodded. “My momma told me…but I don’t know if she got it right. She don’t read. We got a Bible, but she just remembers what Reverend Cumby says, and what the other women say.”

  “When Jesus was tired,” Gideon said softly, staring off into the swamp, “he took some of his followers and he went up onto a mountain to be alone in a place where it was quiet. He needed something to help him go on – a sign from above. Do you know who came to him?”

  Elijah shook his head, but Gideon saw in the boy’s expression that he suspected what came next.

  “It was Elijah, and others,” Gideon said solemnly. “Just like you came to me in the cotton. I’ll never forget that, son. You tell your mother, when the church is built, she’s welcome here. I’ll read to you all from The Bible, and if she wants, I’ll teach her to read it for herself. It’s why I came here. I thought I knew that before I started, but now…”

  His words trailed off, and he stared at the tent, the clearing, and the trees surrounding them. The light was fading, and he knew he should start a small fire.

  “Go and get some rest,” he said. “I’ll see you soon. You’ve been more help than you know.”

  Elijah smiled up at him, waved, and ran off through the trees, leaving Gideon standing alone in the twilight. In that moment, he felt very close to God.

  * * *

  The church didn’t go up quickly, but as the days passed, more and more assistance arrived. Some brought materials, and others offered their time and labor. Through it all Elijah was there, never far from Gideon’s side. Sarah was there most evenings, as well, and though she never said a word, despite Gideon’s efforts at drawing her out, she worked steadily and smiled more often.

  “You sure don’t learn fast,” Desdemona told him one evening, staring at the framework of the church building that had risen in the clearing. “Boss Pope is gonna find out about this sooner or later, and there’s going to be hell to pay, no matter what God has to say.”

  Gideon smiled at the joke. He liked listening to Desdemona’s voice. When he got her started on the swamp, or the cotton fields, or the families that worked at her side, she could go on for hours in her rich, drawling tones. Sometimes Gideon leaned back against a tree and found, much later, that he’d drifted off to sleep while she talked, and she’d covered him against the chill. His quarters were now a mirror of hers. He’d erected walls on three sides using trees he’d felled, or found already fallen, and shaped for the purpo
se. The walls stood to the height of his shoulders, and he’d made a peak of the roof using branches, moss, and some of the original canvas walls to block most of the weather.

  “I have no quarrel with the Popes, other than the way they treat their workers,” Gideon said. “I expect you’re right – he isn’t going to be happy about the church, and the sheriff isn’t going to be pleased to see me still alive and close by.”

  “Reverend Cumby will set them on you, you wait. If none of the others get riled, he’ll preach hell and damnation at them until they run out here and do something about it. You’re stealing souls from him – he’ll say that makes you a demon.”

  “What do you think?” Gideon asked softly.

  She eyed him carefully and shook her head.

  “Don’t get no ideas, preacher man. I don’t believe in your church, or your God. You have these folks working together and happy, and that’s a good thing, but when the swamp is ready to swallow you, or call to them, you best get out of their way – and mine.”

  He studied her in return, but his smile didn’t falter. Her threat lacked conviction, and he’d caught her, more than once, standing in the shadows and watching him. He thought that, maybe, she would have joined the others and helped him with the church, if she just let loose of her inner control for a moment. Despite her rough life, and the too-often frowning lines on her face, she was a startlingly attractive woman.

  Gideon had never married. He’d had plenty of interested ladies back in Random, but for one reason, or another, nothing had come of any of them. His work had always come first, and though they were sweet ladies, the women of Random, Illinois, had not lit a fire in him hot enough to compete with his life’s work for his time, or his heart.

  Now, he wondered. He’d caught himself more than once drifting form his evening prayers into thoughts of Desdemona, wondering if she would stop by his clearing, or if he’d see her the next morning before she left for the fields. Soon he’d be strong enough to accompany the others, and he expected to spend his fair share of time working. He wouldn’t take pay for the work – not that he expected the Pope family would offer it, but he didn’t want to stand idly by while those around him worked. His leg was healing nicely, and he felt stronger than he’d ever felt. The work and the fresh air had done him a world of good.

  “I’ll start teaching soon,” he said. “Will you come?”

  She laughed and flashed one of her all-too-rare smiles at him. “I’ll come and listen to you, preacher, if you’ll come with me to the swamp the next full moon. I need to cast the bones for Laticia, Sarah’s mother. She’s asked me to read for her, and to see what can be done. You know the girl hasn’t spoken?”

  “I knew she hadn’t spoken around here,” he nodded, “but I assumed she was either shy, or had been hurt in some way. I didn’t want to embarrass her, so I’ve never asked.”

  “Her father left after the war,” Desdemona said. Her smile vanished at the memory. “He took off up north. Said he was going to send back money, then come for them and take them to a better life, but we’ve never heard a word. Don’t expect we ever will. Either he took off on his own, or they killed him.”

  Gideon didn’t have to ask her who “they” were. He’d a pretty good idea that Sheriff Hawkins and Reverend Cumby weren’t the only men between Old Mill and freedom that weren’t happy with the war’s outcome. He suspected that even if the man had gotten free of the south, there would be little he could do to get back in and get his family out.

  “Sarah?” he asked softly.

  “She hasn’t said a word since he left. First week, all she did was cry. Then one morning she got up, went to the fields, and started picking. Elijah has been watching out for her – his momma told him to, at first, and now I think he likes doing it. He talks for her sometimes, but she’s been silent for over a year.”

  “And you think you can help?” he asked. He tried very hard to keep the skepticism from his voice, but he saw in her eyes that he’d failed.

  “You come with me, and see for yourself, preacher,” she said. There was a hard edge in her voice at that moment that he regretted being the cause of.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I meant no disrespect. I don’t even know what you mean when you say “cast the bones,” but I should know better than to laugh at something before I’ve seen it. I was raised to believe in certain things. The rules in my home, Random, Illinois, are very rigid. The things my parents believed and taught me were identical to the things their parents taught them. Anything new or that they didn’t understand, was sinful. I’ve dedicated my life to their God, and his church.”

  “And my life was given to the swamp,” she said. “I never got asked if I wanted the sight, or if I’d like to have spirits invade my dreams. When it happened, folks stayed away from me. I grew up with only mother to teach me, and talk to me, and her ways were the old ways. They didn’t come from this swamp, but there are things here she recognized, and what wasn’t the same, she learned. What she learned, she passed on to me. Then she died.”

  “I’m sorry,” Gideon said. He saw pain wash over her features. It looked like regret, or loneliness, only bitterer.

  “It was a long time ago,” she said. “Cyrus Pope’s older brother killed her. She wouldn’t do what he wanted. He tried to make her, and he lost an eye for his trouble, but before it was over he’d beaten her to death. I saw the whole thing – I was too scared to help her.”

  “My God,” Gideon said.

  “Nothing to do with your God, or any other,” she said. “Men. It’s always men and women who bring the evil, preacher. You can pray all you want, and you might find something good in the words, or the spirit behind them – but don’t take your eyes off the men. They’re the demons in your woodpile. That’s something my momma told me – when she was teaching me about fire.”

  “You miss her.” Gideon said.

  “I miss a lot of things,” she said, turning to face him. “I miss the peace and quiet I had here before you showed up. Now we have this church here,” she nodded at the building and shook her head again. “The trouble that’s coming, it isn’t coming from God, or from demons. It’s coming from men, and it’s going to be bad. When I cast the bones, I’ll ask about that too.”

  “I’ll come with you,” he said.

  “I know,” she answered, and her smile returned. “Even if you thought I was leading you into a hell hole, you’d follow, wouldn’t you preacher?”

  “Why do you say that?” he asked. He couldn’t help grinning in return.

  “You owe me, Gideon Swayne. I healed you, and I gave you something to stare at out of the corner of your eye. You won’t say it, and you might even deny it now, with me staring you straight in the eye, and calling you out, but I see what I see. You came here in search of something, and you think that thing is a church – a place to teach people about your God, and do some work you only sorta understand. That’s just part of it.

  “You came here because something was missing in your life that you weren’t going to find back in that mud-splat town in Illinois, wherever that is. You came south, knowing what you might face, and even when they knocked you halfway to Hell, you stuck it out.

  “You didn’t do that because of this,” she smacked her hand on the side of the church building. “Not just for that, anyway.”

  “Why, then?” he asked her, stepping closer.

  She backed away with a chuckle. “Oh no, preacher man. You come by my place tomorrow, and come with me to the swamp. When we get back, we’ll talk some more.”

  She turned and started out of the clearing, but Gideon stepped after her and grabbed her arm.

  “Wait,” he said. “You said I didn’t stay just for the church.” He patted the wall as she’d done. “What else? What was I missing?”

  Laughing, she patted herself on her behind and danced away into the shadows, leaving him to stare after her, mouth agape and other parts of his anatomy swelling in agreement. He watched until she was
completely out of sight, and then turned to his shelter with a sigh. It was going to be a long night of prayer, and he wasn’t sure even that would lift his burden.

  FOUR

  She came for him just after sunset two days later. Gideon hadn’t seen Desdemona since she’d shimmied off into the night, but he’d thought about her constantly. His work had suffered; those who helped him in the evenings had noticed, though none had spoken to him about it. They watched him out of the corners of their eyes, and grinned at him as if everyone shared a secret the preacher wasn’t in on. He would have worried over it, except that he couldn’t keep his thoughts focused on anything but Desdemona.

  Just before she came, he was standing alone in the clearing and staring at the church. As always, Elijah was there. Sarah had gone home to her mother, but the boy had begun hanging around later and asking endless questions, some about Illinois, some about the road between Illinois and Old Mill, and some about God, and the church. Gideon did his best to answer them all, but this night he was too distracted to be coherent.

  “What you thinking about?” Elijah asked.

  Gideon, startled from thoughts of Desdemona, groped for an answer that wouldn’t be a lie, but would certainly not give away truths he wasn’t ready to part with. He answered with a question.

  “What does it mean to ‘cast the bones,’ Elijah? Do you know?”

  The boy gazed up at him with an expression that was difficult to read. It was halfway between incredulity at the fact Gideon didn’t know the answer to the question he’d asked, and suspicion that he was being sidetracked from his own question.

  “Just what it sounds like,” Elijah said at last. “Someone has the sight, like Desdemona, they take a handful of bones. I don’t know where they come from – don’t want to know. Just old bones. They go and they…”

  Elijah hesitated, as if searching for the right word.

  “They pray, I guess,” he said at last. “I don’t know what else you’d call it. They go quiet for a long time. I saw my grandma do it once. She was there, kneeling in the dirt, and everyone stayed away. She had a fire, and she was too close to it – seemed to me she was too close – and it was like she wasn’t even there. I saw her, and I saw those bones, but I don’t know what she saw.”