by Rilla Askew
“I guess.”
“No, he is. That’s what he said. Two or three times, on the way over the mountains. I just didn’t understand what he meant.”
Misty Dawn edged forward. “How’d you get in if they’re blocking the doors?”
“Oh, I went out through our kitchen door, down the back steps, and around behind Mrs. Griffith’s. I came in through the Pastor’s Study door.”
Sweet said, “I forgot there was a door there.”
“Is it in the back?” Misty said. “We could maybe sneak out that way.”
“And go where?” Vicki said.
“Fort Smith,” Sweet and Misty Dawn said together.
“All right, good. Where’s your car?”
Sweet and Misty Dawn looked at each other. “Well,” Sweet said, “that’s one of our problems.” After a beat, she said, “My car’s sort of stuck. I was kind of hoping we could borrow yours.” She held up her hand as Vicki started to protest. “I promise I’ll take full responsibility! I’ll tell them you didn’t know I was going to take it!”
“No, I’m saying you can’t. The sheriff’s parked behind us.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Mommy, I’m hungry,” Lucha said. Sweet shot a look over. The child had her face tucked against her daddy’s chest, her long legs dangling. Her daddy said something in her ear, and she answered in Spanish. “She needs some breakfast,” Misty said. “She hadn’t had anything to eat since last night.”
“There might be some saltines in the kitchen,” Vicki said.
“She needs food, like real food—not crackers.”
“Misty Dawn, don’t be rude!” Sweet snapped.
“Well, she does.”
“Well, whose responsibility is that? Miss Mommy.”
The bored look slid down. Misty Dawn walked over and took Lucha out of her husband’s arms. Sweet could have bit her tongue. Oh, why couldn’t she keep her mouth shut? At least till this was over. Vicki Dudley was in the process of unwedging the rocking chair from the door. “I’ll see what I can find in the kitchen,” she said. “I think that’d be better than my trying to go to my house and back.”
“But they’ll see you!” Misty cried out. “Can’t they see in the kitchen?”
“It’s a sunny day out. I doubt they can see inside that far.” Vicki opened the nursery door just as Arvin Holloway’s voice squawked into the room over a loudspeaker: “YOU MEN ARE RISKING ARREST FOR OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE AND INTERFERING WITH AN OFFICER!”
They heard Brother Oren’s answer, slightly muffled because he was turned away, but clearly enough, as he was using his strongest pulpit voice: “ ‘Thou shalt not oppress a stranger!’ ” the preacher called, “ ‘for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt!’ Exodus twenty-three, verse nine!’ ”
“THIS AIN’T NO JOKE, PREACHER!”
“We never take the Lord’s Word for a joke, Sheriff!”
“Y’ALL STEP ASIDE AND LET ME EXECUTE MY SWORN DUTY OR I SWEAR I’LL HAVE EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU IN JAIL!”
There was a brief silence, like a held breath, then they heard roaring car motors coming fast along Main Street, then the sound of squealing tires turning quickly, braking. Then the sound of several slamming automobile doors.
Oren Dudley’s hands were trembling. He was trying to keep from rubbing his face, a bad habit, he knew, because his wife often pointed it out. He didn’t want to take his eyes off Arvin Holloway. He was worried the sheriff might try to rush them now that he had five deputies lined up with him. Five deputies seemed like a lot. What if there was a crime going on somewhere in the county? Clyde Herrington, standing next to him, took a little coughing fit.
“You all right?”
“It’s nothing,” Clyde answered between coughs. “This always happens, I don’t know what it is.”
“MOVE ALONG PEACEABLE AND WE WON’T PRESS CHARGES!”
“This cold air can’t be good for it.”
“Aw, he’s all right,” T. C. Blankenship muttered from the other side.
“I’m all right,” Clyde said.
“Well,” the preacher said, “I appreciate y’all standing with me.”
“I’M FIXING TO GIVE YOU MEN A COUNT OF THREE!”
“I don’t know what this is about, Preacher,” T. C. said, “but those were some convincing verses.”
“ONE!”
“I’ll explain it when we get a minute.”
“TWO!”
On the street behind the three Latimer County Sheriff’s Department cruisers other vehicles were still arriving, all of them belonging to local people, quite a few of whom were members here at First Baptist, Oren Dudley was glad to see. Or at least he hoped he was glad to see them.
“THREE!”
Nothing happened. The air was crisp and clear, the only sound a few motors that hadn’t gotten switched off yet. Also the muffled squawk from the sheriff’s radio. Holloway was scowling fiercely across the yard, bullhorn lowered, right fist on his hip. Throughout his night of prayer and searching, Oren Dudley had imagined a few different scenarios, but he hadn’t anticipated anything like this—him and two of the church deacons facing off against most of the Latimer County Sheriff’s Department and four men from the town. The rest of the people who had gathered stood watching in silence, even Claudie Ott. So great a cloud of witnesses, Oren Dudley thought to himself. Apostle Paul to the Hebrews. Lay aside every weight. “Sheriff,” he called out, “I’m willing to talk!”
“Come on then!”
“I’m going to need a few guarantees!”
Why, of all the arrogance, Arvin Holloway thought. He hesitated, raised the bullhorn. “LIKE WHAT?”
“Like you meet me there in the middle!” Oren Dudley nodded at the angled sidewalk. “And your men stay back where they are by the cars.”
“I DON’T AIM TO NEGOTIATE WITH SOMEBODY OBSTRUCTING OFFICIAL SHERIFF’S OFFICE BUSINESS!”
“All right, we’ll just stay like we are then!”
Well shit fire, Arvin Holloway thought.
“Looka there, Preacher,” T. C. said, very quietly, and the preacher glanced over to see his wife standing on the little square back porch of the parsonage. The way the house set, she couldn’t be seen by the sheriff and the others out front. She wore a significant look on her face. After seven and a half years of marriage, Oren Dudley could most generally read his wife’s faces, but right now he couldn’t. He gave a little shrug. Vicki shook her head, opened the door, and went in the house. Unable to think of anything better to do, the preacher called out, “ ‘Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares!’ Hebrews thirteen, verse two!” He was thinking he might have to start over if this situation went on very much longer; he was getting close to the end of the verses he’d memorized.
Meanwhile Vicki Dudley was rushing through the parsonage kitchen, where little Micah was pounding on his high-chair tray and Carl Kirkendall was hunched at the table, still eating, and Isaiah was crawling around on the sticky tile floor for some reason, and on into the bedroom, where she grabbed her husband’s Scofield Study Bible off the nightstand; she hurried through the living room, calling toward the kitchen “Y’all mind, now!” as she went out the front door. Pausing on the concrete steps, she tried to assess the situation.
The townspeople had arranged themselves into little bunches of sixes and sevens as they tried to find t
he best location to see from. A few were talking on cell phones. Colton Springer and his little pregnant girlfriend were both texting, it seemed. Her husband and the deacons remained in perfect alignment in front of the Fellowship Hall doors, and directly across from them, the deputies and a few local men were rowed up in front of the vehicles, the sheriff glowering in the midst of them with his hand on his gun belt. Well, Vicki thought, I don’t guess he’ll shoot me. Nevertheless, she hoisted the enormous black book high over her head like a white flag as she walked it through the crowd and across the soggy yard to her husband. She leaned in a little when she handed it to him, saying, “I wish you’d talk to me, Oren.”
The preacher said, “I know.”
She stepped back then, gave him another significant look, which meant, in her own thoughts, I’ve seen them and they’re fine but don’t take too long with this, those people are hungry, but which he took to read I am with you, Oren, always, and he squeezed her hand. She turned and made her way back through the crowd to the parsonage and went in to see about the boys.
The sheriff hollered, “Preacher, I’m about to lose patience!”
Oren Dudley held the large Bible squarely out in front of himself as if to say, See, Sheriff? No tricks. “I just wanted to look up a passage of Scripture!” he called. “Then we’ll have a word of prayer! I believe that’ll help calm things down a bit, maybe!” Arvin Holloway was boiling, but what could he say? No Bible reading? No praying? The preacher thumbed through the onionskin pages. He didn’t actually have a particular passage in mind, but the book was here, and so he thought he ought to use it. As things went, though, a new verse wasn’t necessary, because it was at this juncture that Ida Coley detached herself from the clutch of women standing nearest the sanctuary and started toward him. Alice Stalcup followed her. The two permed, powdery, elderly ladies arranged themselves on either side of the two deacons. “Why, I thank you,” the preacher murmured. “I truly thank you.” Not to be outdone, Claudie Ott and Edith Martin came tottering along the walk and stood, both of them, next to Ida Coley. Then Phyllis Wentworth crossed over and stood on the other side of Alice Stalcup. “What the hell are y’all doing!” the sheriff shouted, then he remembered to use the bullhorn. “WHAT IN THE WORLD DO YOU PEOPLE THINK YOU’RE DOING? YOU CAN’T DO THAT!”
Later some of them would say that they did what they did purely because Arvin Holloway told them they couldn’t. Others claimed that they hadn’t really known anything about that law; if they had, they might have acted different. Some said they’d just surmised that if the pastor of the First Baptist Church aimed to stand against the law (and here by the law they didn’t mean statute but officers), then, by gosh, that was good enough for them. In the long run, there turned out to be a whole host of reasons—conscience, ignorance, rumor, the makings of a good show—but for whatever individual private reasons it started, the order went like this: Curtis Shawcross and his wife, April, then Tommy Joe Holbird, then Gladys Chester, then the Alford twins, then Sue Ann Whitelaw, then Floyd Ollie and Wade Free. These were the names of the next bunch that crossed the scrap of yard to stand in front of the glass doors.
Wednesday | February 27, 2008 | Late morning
Watonga Municipal Hospital | Watonga, Oklahoma
In the late morning light slanting into the bare room, Luis sits in a hard straight-back chair beside the bed. His heart is peaceful, although he is farther from his sons today than last night on the black plain. But this is of no significance. Our Lady has not abandoned him. This is the most important thing. Many hours ago, in the thin predawn light, Luis watched as the boy twisted inside the sleeping bag, coughing, making the small weeping sounds like a cat, throwing his head side to side, his forehead dry and hot, like a stove fired too high with burning wood. Then the sweat returned and his hair was drenched wet again, like a boy swimming in a river. The sleeping bag, also, was soaked with sweat, but the boy did not shiver with cold, only grew hotter and hotter, until, as the light reddened toward the rising sun, the boy suddenly ceased his restless twisting, became very still, his skin bloodless, his features soft and lax. Luis prayed every prayer, but he did not have the good faith then, his heart was not calm. Dead, the despair told him. What a long hopeless time it was before Luis saw the deep ragged breath the boy drew in, the slow calm exhalation. At once Luis hoisted himself to his knees on the frozen ground, praying prayers of gratitude. The boy slept peacefully then.
He sleeps peacefully now, his bandaged arm resting across his chest. Sprained, not broken. Luis had been correct about this. The woman doctor told him when she came to look at the boy. She did not ask Luis where the home of the boy is, who his parents are, although she could have asked if she liked. She speaks spanish. She is not mexican, however, but indian—the same as the man who stopped to help them.
Luis had seen the vehicle coming from the east, very far away, while he stood alone at the side of the road. It did not slow as it passed Luis with his hand in the air but continued on a little distance before it stopped and began to reverse. When Luis saw the brown face of the man through the window, he began at once to speak—the man was like him, indian, or part indian, Luis believed he would know spanish, but the man did not appear to understand. However, he opened the vehicle door and climbed out. Luis saw then that he was a large man, very much taller than Luis, big in the shoulders and belly—too big for the indians of mexico. Maybe it was for this reason, his great size, that the man did not seem concerned that Luis might rob him on this deserted road, or lead him into a trap.
Without need of explanation the man followed Luis, and when they arrived where the boy lay, the big man said words that Luis did not understand—maybe english, Luis was not sure. The man crouched beside the boy, touched the top of his head, frowning; the boy was not coughing then, but he was very hard asleep. Luis said, He needs to see a doctor. His arm is hurt, but this is not what gives him the fever, I think. He has been coughing all the night. The man answered nothing. His eyes grazed the boy, the bicycle lying on its side, the empty water jar, the backpack. Then he gathered up the boy inside the crawling man sleeping bag and began to walk the asphalt path to the parking area. Luis followed.
On the highway the man turned to the east—the direction from which he, and Luis and the boy, had come. Luis was troubled to see they were traveling away from his sons, not toward them. ¿We are not continuing west? Luis asked, but the man answered nothing. Luis twisted around to see the boy on the seat behind. The boy drowsed; once his eyes opened, and he looked around the unfamiliar vehicle a moment, then he closed his eyes again and slept. Luis turned back to watch the road. East a little ways, and then south, the big man saying nothing, and Luis also was silent, because they had no shared language between them. He wished he knew even a little english, or that the man spoke a little spanish, like the boy. He wanted to ask where the man was driving them, how much distance away from the Guymon town.
It seemed a long time, maybe almost an hour, before the indian stopped in front of a small gray building in a small brick town and lifted the boy from the backseat and carried him inside. Luis followed, sat in a chair beside the boy, and the boy leaned against him, dozing and waking. Every person in the clinic was indian: the young girl behind the desk, the people waiting in the plastic chairs, all ages, men and women and children, and the woman doctor, too, when at last they were able to see her. The big man stayed with them while they waited. He talked to the boy in english when the boy was awake, and also to the doctor when they crowded into the small room where she examined the boy. The doctor told Luis in spanish that they must take the boy to the hospital. And so the big indian drove them here, to this small hospital, to the back door where the ambulances arrive. Luis understands that this place is even more far from
his sons, but whether the distance is far or near is no matter. He will see his sons if the Father wills it. Luis will continue to pray to the Virgin to intercede, and she will continue to offer her mercies. Our Lady has not abandoned him. For what reason did he doubt? It is difficult now, in this warm room, to recollect his fear. Fear and faith, they are two sides of the same person. Luis has known this for many years. But the will of the Father is always inscrutable. He has his own purpose. Luis will accept whatever comes, he has promised this. However, he holds hope. There have been now already sufficient miracles. It may be the will of the Father to grant one more.
Wednesday | February 27, 2008 | 10:45 A.M.
First Baptist Church | Cedar
The first reporter on the scene was Logan Morgan of 2News Working for You. This was due in part, she later said, to her excellent interpersonal community outreach skills (it had been, in fact, her mobile number that Colton Springer’s girlfriend was texting), and also the fact it had only taken her twenty minutes to drive the thirty miles from Poteau, where she’d spent the night with her grandmother so as not to be traveling home to Tulsa on last night’s icy roads. The instant she reached the church in Cedar and saw what was happening, she got on the horn to the station and called for a camera crew. Then, with excellent foresight, as she would point out to her supervisor, she climbed up in the back of a conveniently located pickup and started filming straightaway with her fully charged iPhone. Thus the first video to hit the airwaves (not counting the grainy, blurred clip somebody uploaded to YouTube) was the one Logan Morgan captured of the five Masons and the two deputies in a showdown in front of the church sanctuary.
The five men weren’t outwardly identifiable as members of the Fraternal Order of Masons—it was Logan Morgan’s astute investigative reporting that would ferret out this fact—but they were clearly all local men, all of indeterminate age, two wearing ball caps and one in a battered Toby-Keith-style straw cowboy hat. All five appeared at once calm, self-effacing, and resolute (as her quiet voiceover described it) as they eased away from the crowd and strolled casually to the front porch of the church to stand shoulder to shoulder, unarmed, against the two clearly armed deputies who were trying to head in through the church’s front doors. She caught the entire dramatic scene, scanned over to the sheriff scowling at the preacher and the handful of citizens in front of the prefab addition, then zoomed in smoothly to the free-standing marquee in the church yard:
