by R. A. Nelson
My hands clench and unclench in the raw earth, squeezing tight as I can. That’s when I notice it. The marks in the dirt around Sugar Tom’s chair.
“Hey.”
“What?” Certain Certain says. “What is it, boy?”
“The ground,” I say, more and more distressed. “I put him over here on account of it was in the shade, and there was some nice soft grass here—but look at it. Look how it’s torn up all around his chair.”
“I see it. Maybe he was kicking, you know, kicking his legs out and—Lord Jesus.”
We both see it at the same time. The big tracks in the dirt circling all round Sugar Tom’s chair. Tracks that look like two crescent moons turned in toward each other.
I draw in my breath. “It’s a cloven hoof.”
The halls at the county hospital are long and green. The lights are harsh. I have to keep brushing my sleeve across my eyes.
Me and Certain Certain are sitting on plastic chairs that are connected together by two big pieces of shiny metal. Up the hall a ways Miss Wanda Joy is pacing back and forth, can’t sit still a minute. She’s got a cell phone stuck to her ear, talking a blue streak, probably to Tee Barlow.
“Now, you and I know, all kinda critters could have made those tracks,” Certain Certain is saying. “Big old buck nosing out of the woods. Billy goat. Cow wandering around loose.”
“On an island?” I say. “Besides, you ever see a goat or a deer or a cow that big? Those marks were wider than my hand. And how come those men and Tee Barlow didn’t see it? It had to be circling and circling just about the whole time we were gone. And not one of them saw it?”
Certain Certain lets out a long blast of air like he’s been holding it in.
“So what are we going to do about it?” I say. “Cancel the service?”
“I reckon it’s up to Miss Wanda Joy.” She’s still on the phone, stomping her foot now, trying to make a point. “She’s the head of this ministry.”
“We have to tell her,” I say.
Certain Certain’s white eyebrows shoot up to the top of his head. “Boy, you think she is fired up now, you tell her Sugar Tom’s been attacked by the devil. She’s goin’ be twice as determined to hold that service.”
He’s right.
A heavy lady in rubber gloves and a bunchy blue outfit walks by holding a bottle of something. Certain Certain waits for her to get past us.
“I’m not saying you shouldn’t be afraid,” he says. “Fear, it keeps you sharp. But don’t let it run things. Maybe there is something bad on that island. But maybe this thing needs to happen because of that very reason. Pray about it, boy. That’s all I can say. Lord wants soldiers in His name. So pray.”
Miss Wanda Joy stops pacing. She snaps the phone shut and puts it in her big purse. A man with red hair wearing a white coat and holding a clipboard comes up to her. We can’t hear what they’re saying, but I can see Miss Wanda Joy’s shoulders sag. The man writes some things on the clipboard and pats her on the shoulder; you can see her flinch—she has never much liked being touched. The doctor heads off down another hallway, and Miss Wanda Joy starts walking toward us, face all pinched. We stand up.
“He’s resting now,” she says, running a finger under each eye. “They are taking him to Florence to do an MRI. See how much damage has been done. Then when he’s up for it, they’ll start his rehabilitation.”
“Could we go talk to him?” Certain Certain says.
“He’s sleeping. They said … it may be the entire right side of his body that is affected. He will probably have to—to relearn some things. His doctor believes it’s going to be a long-term thing.”
“I’m so sorry,” Certain Certain says. We stand there feeling useless.
“In the meantime,” Miss Wanda Joy says, sniffing, “we have a great work to do. The service will go forward as scheduled. I have to feel this is a sign of some kind—a message that the tribulation is near, because the forces are working so hard against us.”
“Are you sure, ma’am?” I say. “We could put it off awhile till Sugar Tom—till he feels better.”
She clutches at my hand, fastening on it so tight it almost hurts. “No, Little Texas. This is our mission. This is what we have come here to achieve. It’s what—it’s what he would have wanted. Have you seen the ladies’ room?”
“Well, I reckon it’s decided, then,” Certain Certain says when she heads off to find it.
“I guess so,” I say.
“It’s still up to you, you know. She can’t do this without you.”
He takes in a long breath with his whole body. For the first time he looks like an old man to me. “I’m going to ride up to Florence with him, make sure everything is okay.”
He lays his big hands on my shoulders. “Look at me, Lightning. Now listen here. Whatever—whatever you think is out there on that island, we’ve got the real power on our side. You understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes.”
“That said, I wouldn’t feel right running off without leaving you any protection.”
Certain Certain dips his hand into the collar of his shirt. He draws the slave tag out on its leather cord and pulls it over his head. He slips the cord around my head, letting it settle on my neck. It feels strange there, still warm from his skin.
“No, I can’t…,” I say, taking the cord in my fingers, starting to pull it off. “I really shouldn’t…”
“It would mean a lot to me to know you have it,” he says, pulling my hands back down.
“But…”
“Hang on. Just hang on and listen to me a minute.” We settle back down in our seats. “You know what hospitals make me think of?”
I shake my head.
“That time back in Corinth when I got shot. It felt like I was at the end of a very long road. At twenty-six years old! But it wasn’t just the pain or the fact I was vain on my looks, a real ladies’ man, and now I would never look good ever again. It was more than that…. I didn’t know anything else life might have for me. Wasn’t interested in nothing else but myself, you understand. But then one day something happened that changed everything.”
“What was it?”
“Wish I could tell it like Sugar Tom… that I saw the Lord appear to me. Or a burst of light like Saul on the road to Damascus. But it was like this: I was laying there feeling sorry for myself, face aching like fire, pushing some Jell-O around on a plate, when a knock comes at the door. I was surprised. The doctors mostly just breezed in. I knew it couldn’t be anybody I knew—most of my relatives, friends, they had washed their hands of me.
“It was my Uncle Fish, from Meridian. Remember I told you ’bout him? I hadn’t seen him in maybe three, four years. In my family he was that Jesus Man.
“‘You messed up, didn’t you, son?’ was the first thing Uncle Fish said. But he didn’t try to lecture or nothing. Just said he had something he wanted to give me. I figured it was going to be a Bible, but instead he handed me that slave tag, said it had been in our family four or five generations at least. He couldn’t recollect how many greats to put in front of my grandfather, it was so long ago.
“I didn’t know one thing about history back then, how important it is. Didn’t care to know, either. What did dead people mean to me? I was alive. ‘I’ll tell you what they mean,’ Uncle Fish said. ‘Man who wore that tag was part of the Underground Railroad, leading slaves to freedom up north. The man who wore that tag was friends with Harriet Tubman. One of her warriors in the battle to end slavery. A Christian man. But he refused to take that tag off. Was honored to wear it. Sleeping with moss for a pillow, drinking brackish water full of baby mosquitoes, dodging patrols with a price on his head … that tag was with him. Till he passed it along to his children. Then it was handed down over the years till it came to be in my hands. Now I’m passing it along to you.’
“Uncle Fish leans over, gives me a kiss on the head, and says, ‘The good Lord Jesus filled that tag with love and protection. And I pray
He does the same for you. Only thing is, a big responsibility comes with it. When it gets passed along, it gets passed along with the knowledge of what has gone into it. What it stands for. But most of all—what you are going to stand for. That is the power of this tag, boy.’ That’s the last time I ever saw my uncle.
“I woke up long into the middle of the night, heartsick, thinking about everything he said. All that’s ever been done for me—done by people who didn’t even love me! I wept like a little baby, clutching that slave tag for all I was worth. Praying. Praying like I never knew the meaning of the word before. The next morning was the first morning of my new life.”
Certain Certain taps the tag on my chest. “You talk about that trouble tree absorbing things, Lightning. Well, this tag has absorbed some things, too. You pour enough love into something … You heard ’bout those men trying to turn lesser metals into gold? Alchemists. Well, this is stronger than that. Way stronger. Gold can melt. Gold can pass away. But love—love comes straight from Him. Most powerful force in the universe. Cancels out anything else.”
He straightens up, looks up and down the hall, then bores right into my eyes again.
“That tag’s been protecting my sorry tail a long, long time. Sometimes I think it’s got its own feelings baked right into it, you listening? All the people who have worn it, touched it—all that love passed down. You believe that? I don’t think it goes against His teachings. Else I would have gotten rid of it a long time ago. Like the Master says, you have love, what can stand against us?”
“But what’ll you do without it?” I say, voice choking a little.
Certain Certain smiles, showing me his dead teeth. “Don’t you worry ’bout that. I’ve been wearing it so long, it had to have absorbed itself right into my skin. I’ll be all right. Remember what I said, boy. Wrap your hand round that tag and pray. He’ll hear you. Always does.”
Riding back to the Barlows’, as I think about Sugar Tom and those cloven hoofprints, I can feel the slave tag pressing warm against my skin.
I’m sitting in front of the window in my room, holding that rook I’ve been carving. The moon is sitting on the lake, making everything sparkle. I can just make out the outline of Devil Hill.
I twiddle the rook in my fingers. This chess set was supposed to be ready by Sugar Tom’s birthday, but I couldn’t get it done in time….
My eyes water up. Sugar Tom … These people are the only family I know. What if I never get to talk to him again? I always thought I’d be there someday when he would nod off, dreaming about South Dakota for the last time. What if that’s happening now?
“Damnation,” I say out loud, squinching my eyes shut and flopping over on the bed.
“What’s wrong?”
I know who it is without even turning around.
For the first time since the healing, Lucy’s hair is thick and dry, her blue dress crisp and clean. Her eyes are morning glory blue, clear and shining. I want to rush over to her, but part of me is terrified my arms will just swing through the air.
“Come on, tell me. What’s wrong?”
“I’m—a friend of mine is sick. They say he had a stroke, and they don’t know if he’ll ever get better.”
She takes a couple of steps toward me. Her walk is perfect, natural, nothing herky-jerky about it. “A friend?”
“Sugar Tom,” I say. “He’s more like my grandfather, really. He had a stroke over at the plantation today.”
Lucy comes closer. Her eyebrows go down like she’s not understanding or maybe wants to ask a question.
“It—it attacked him over there,” I say, standing up from the window. “There were tracks all around the chair. Cloven hoofs.”
“You mean hooves,” Lucy says.
She’s an arm’s length away, practically glowing, she looks so good. So alive.
“You look … different,” I say.
“Different,” she says.
“Yes.”
She touches me on the cheek. “What’s different is not how I look,” she says. “What’s different is how you see me.”
But she’s not looking right at my face. She’s looking somewhere lower. She stretches out her arm toward me, puts two fingers on my collarbone, runs them down my skin, tracing the bones around my neck, moving so slow I can barely stand it. Touching me exactly the way I dreamed of touching her at the healing. The healing.
“Hey. Why did you get in the canoe with me?” I say straight into her ear, almost a whisper.
She sinks right down in front of me, wraps her skinny arms around my legs, crumpling her face against my knees, holding. Just holding.
I have never been held so hard by anybody. It’s so different—so different from the way it felt when Faye grabbed me. It feels like every ounce of heat in her body is flowing straight into mine.
I put my arms around her neck and set my chin in her hair. I think I could stay this way all night, forever.
After a little while Lucy lets go and pulls me up with her till we’re standing so close, we can barely breathe. It feels as if my heart is getting bigger and bigger inside my chest. Lucy leans against me, puts her soft mouth next to my ear.
“You idiot,” she whispers. “I got in the canoe because I love you.”
Certain Certain’s slave tag is dangling between us. She takes it out of my shirt and holds it by the rawhide cord.
“Certain Certain gave it to me to wear,” I say. “He thinks it might protect me from whatever’s on the island.”
“Ronald Earl, there’s something I haven’t told you.”
“What?”
“My last name.”
“Okay, what is it?”
She lets go of the slave tag and puts her fingers in her hair. She looks into my eyes.
“It’s Palmer. Lucy Palmer … sound familiar?” She glances in the direction of the bedside table. I look over there, see the slave ledger.
A rush of electric cold races all over my body. I could practically throw off sparks.
I walk over and pick up the ledger and open it. There it is on the inside cover:
Thaddeus Palmer.
“Palmer,” I say.
“Yeah. He’s, like, my uncle or grandfather or something with a whole lot of greats attached to it.”
I walk a couple of steps toward the window.
“He’s—he was the overseer, Ronald Earl. At the old Vanderloo Plantation. Once upon a time.”
“You mean …”
“Yeah. The guy with the whip. They are showing me he had a hand in the auctions, too.”
I watch her face. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I … didn’t know it was me he was connected to. I didn’t remember … didn’t remember my name. Till they showed me just now. It felt like I was inside the book.”
“So what does this mean?”
“Well, now I know there was someone … someone who was like the catalyst, you know? Do you know what that means?”
I smile. “I’m not a complete ignoramus. More about seventy-three percent.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You mean somebody who set off all the bad stuff.”
Lucy nods and takes my hands. “Well—it was going on long before he ever came around. But another thing a catalyst can do is accelerate something. From what they’re showing me, I think he’s the one—my ancestor, Thaddeus Palmer—he made it possible for it to hold them. The pain he caused. The hatred and fear …”
“So you coming back, doing this for them—is it like making up for something he did?”
“How do I know? But I think it’s an important part of it.”
“But doesn’t that… doesn’t it make you mad? You’re basically saying you died just so you could help fix something some long-ago relative did.”
“If that’s the way you want to look at it.”
“I don’t believe the Lord … I don’t believe He would sacrifice your life like that.”
“What about all that ‘sins of the fath
ers’ stuff, huh? I know a little about this Bible jazz, too. Curses that carry down through generations for something somebody else has done.”
“Oh yeah?” I say. “How about Ezekiel, chapter eighteen, verse twenty? ‘The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father.’”
Lucy rolls her eyes and ruffles my hair, laughing. “You’re a real freak, you know that? How do you know what He thinks? How do you know He’s even a he?”
“Everybody knows that.”
“So you know every little thing about Him, huh?”
“Well… I used to think … well… no. But He wouldn’t kill somebody for that.”
“Even if it freed a lot of people? So they could go home?”
I remember something Certain Certain once told me: “Soul’s a soul, Lightning. No matter what state the body’s in.”
Lucy takes my hand. “Look, maybe … maybe it was just my time, Ronald Earl, you know? He, She, whatever is up there … knew that, correct?”
“Sure. He knows the number of every little hair on your head….”
“So maybe, knowing His plan for me, it was a good thing to do? Since it was going to happen anyway? Can I ask you something?”
“Anything. Ask me anything you want.”
Lucy pinches her lips. “Are you afraid of dying, Ronald Earl?”
I wasn’t expecting this. “Well—I pretty much think about it nearly every day. It’s kind of like my job to think about it.”
“Why?”
“To help people. Help them know what they are supposed to do with their lives. So they can have eternal life.”
“Life is eternal,” Lucy says. “Already.”
“I’m coming to figure that out,” I say, stroking her fingers. “Okay, to help them have a good eternal life, then. Protect them from—from things like whatever is on that island.”
“You’re dodging me,” Lucy says, looking deep into my eyes. “Are you afraid of dying?”
I take my hand away. “Everybody is, aren’t they? I don’t guess I’m so much afraid of it as I am scared about… what happens, you know? The things we can’t see, can’t know as long as we are down here. Like, do we just slide into the dark, waiting on the Last Days?”
