The Killing Room

by Richard Montanari

  When the Preacher finally came to her he touched her forehead. The feeling began in her toes, a sensation of warmth and serenity she had never before experienced. The world soon became a bright white light and there was no doubt – no doubt at all – that it was the Spirit rising within her.

  The next thing Ruby knew she was lying on a cot behind the tent, a cold cloth on her forehead. The woman sitting next to her was big and jolly. She wore old grease-stained overalls and smelled of hand-rolled cigarettes and orange candy.

  ‘Am I in heaven?’ Ruby asked.

  The woman laughed. ‘No, little darling, you’re still in West Virginia. It’s been called a lot of things, but heaven sure as hell ain’t one of them.’

  Ruby knew that evangelists were travelers, just as she knew that there had always been wanderlust in her own shoes.

  That night she went home, did her chores. At dawn she took her school dress and her good dress, her few other possessions, and left.

  She never went home again.

  When Ruby returned to the campgrounds, the tent was dark. She entered, saw a solitary figure standing at the pulpit. It was himself. Ruby would always remember how the Preacher looked – tall and regal and divinely sent – silhouetted against the cream-colored canvas of the tent in the moonlight.

  The Preacher saw her and smiled. Ruby felt as if she might faint again, but she put her hand on the edge of a chair, and after a few moments she felt fine. The Preacher came around, pulled out a chair, and welcomed her.

  And thus Mary Elizabeth Longstreet became a member of the Holy Thunder Caravan.

  Ruby spent that summer traveling with the caravan, roaming across southern Ohio and northern West Virginia, to towns like Grand Run, Friendly, Sistersville, and Paden City. The Preacher liked to move along the banks of the Ohio River which, in the summer months, made it convenient to baptize folks.

  At first there were just seven people in the entourage. You wouldn’t think by just looking at the tent and the hundred or so chairs that there was so much work involved in planning, moving, setting up, taking down, packing.

  Ruby was not a big girl, but she was much stronger than she appeared. Many times she matched the two older boys who helped out.

  At each stop the Preacher would set them up at a small motel or a campsite, then go into the town to spread the word. When possible he would get himself interviewed on the local radio station. He could always get the Holy Thunder Caravan mentioned on the religious pages of the local newspapers for free, but it wasn’t until he took a small ad in the entertainment section that the bigger crowds began to show up.

  Some nights the Preacher would summon Ruby to his room. There he would sit in front of the mirror while Ruby brushed his beautiful golden hair. One of the few things Ruby carried that was of any value was her grandmother’s hairbrush. The brush had a gold-tone stamped metal handle, along with a base inset bearing a hand-embroidered floral petit point sample. Night after night Ruby would brush the Preacher’s hair – never fewer than one hundred strokes – while he regaled her with stories from the Good Book.

  Over the next few months, while she toured with the caravan, Ruby spent much of her time with the twins, Abigail and Peter. The twins, who had been taken in by the Preacher when their parents were killed in an automobile accident near Elkins, were just toddlers at the time, and had been touched by the Lord in a way that made them special.

  On many nights, when the tent had been struck and packed away, when the chairs and booths had been loaded into the truck, and the caravan was ready to depart at dawn light, Ruby would read to Abigail and Peter.

  Their favorite story was from 1 Samuel, 17, the story of David and Goliath.

  When Ruby was thirteen, her womanhood bursting, everything changed.

  One evening, on a hot July night, just outside Moundsville, the Preacher took her hand and said, ‘Come with me, child.’

  They went to his RV, a grand place where Ruby had never been. Inside were soft golden sofas, a television, and the ceiling was painted with a bright blue sky.

  At the back of the main part of the RV, hanging from a hook, was a pink dress, store-bought and beautiful. The preacher told her it was hers, and that she should put it on.

  They had supper, just the two of them, at a fold-down dining table. Ruby was so nervous she had to remind herself to chew her food. She had wine for the first time in her life.

  When they were finished, and Ruby had cleared the plates, they sat across from each other on the sofas.

  ‘You know, the Lord has very big plans for you, Mary Elizabeth.’

  ‘He does?’

  The Preacher waited a few moments, as was his way, then rose. This night he wore black, right down to his tie. He moved like a cat across the small space. He sat on the sofa next to her, took her hand in his. This close, she could see the small flecks of gold in his eyes. She felt light-headed at his nearness.

  ‘There will come a time – not for many years, God willing – when I will no longer be able to bring the Word to the people,’ he said.

  ‘Why not?’ Ruby managed. She fidgeted on her cushion, the store-bought dress a little too tight.

  The Preacher smiled, and Ruby felt her knees begin to knock. She did her best to stop them.

  ‘Although I am young now, it will not always be so.’

  She knew what he meant, but she could not imagine him any other way than he was at that moment. ‘Let us drink the Lord’s bounty,’ he said, handing her a crystal goblet. He took his own, and they touched the rims together, making a sound not unlike the pealing of a bell on a great, shining chapel on a hill.

  She lifted the glass to her lips and drank. At first she found this new wine to be bitter, but the more she had, the less bitter it became.

  The Preacher read to her from the Scriptures well into the night, and as he did they continued to drink the bitter wine.

  *

  In the dream that was not a dream, the Preacher stood at the foot of the bed. He was now dressed in red, and wore a Roman collar.

  ‘Mary,’ he said softly.

  In the dream that was not a dream Ruby was naked. She felt the humid night breeze through the window. She could smell the honeysuckle and summer hyacinth.

  In the dream that was not a dream the Preacher entered her. The pain was terrible, and in the dimness of the bedroom she saw his eyes, felt the heat of his breath, and for a moment she looked inside him, and there saw deep and terrible chasms of fire.

  Ruby awoke in her own sleeping bag, inside one of the trucks. She sat up, her head hurting and spinning, her body aching, a wicked thirst inside her. She frantically tried to find her new dress.

  It was gone.

  The next stop was near a small town in southwestern Ohio called Hannibal. They set up the tent in a field overlooking a lake. It was late summer and the mosquitoes were out in full force. The Preacher sent two boys into town to tack up the flyers.

  By six o’clock the people began to arrive. It wasn’t a large crowd, but this was only the first night. The Preacher always stayed three days in a new town in order for the word to spread, and it always did.

  There were a total of nine people in the caravan in those days.

  The Preacher learned that, when they were in small towns, poor towns, by the second night he had gotten what money he could get from the people. It was then that the Preacher instituted his From Thy Bounty nights, encouraging the people to bring food as offering, instead of money. He would hold an abbreviated service, and donations of money would of course be accepted, but mostly people would come with home-baked breads, smoked meats, jams and preserves, and homemade pies.

  They always ate well after that.

  When the caravan reached New Martinsville they were joined by a man named Carson Tatum. Carson was in his mid-fifties, a kindly widower with more money than faith. Carson Tatum had sold his small chain of hardware stores at a tidy profit, it was said, and dedicated his life to the Word as revealed by the Preache
r.

  The Preacher needed a driver to haul the ever-increasing amount of gear, and a bargain was struck. The gatherings had grown from an average of fifty or so people to well over two hundred, expanding as word of the Preacher’s healing powers spread.

  Carson, who had never had children of his own, took immediately to Ruby, and they became fast friends. Many times she would ride in the front seat of his F-150, and he would delight her with stories of his time as a merchant marine, making stops in faraway places like Singapore, Shanghai, and Karachi.

  A few months later they stayed at a rundown motel outside Youngstown, Ohio. The entourage had grown to eleven people by then.

  Ruby had not been feeling well, and another girl, a year or so younger, had taken over the care of Abigail and Peter.

  The new girl was blond and pretty, but withdrawn, and had about her many of the ways Ruby had had when she first joined the caravan. She revered the Preacher, could barely look his way when he spoke to her.

  Ruby’s illness began with a sour stomach every morning, which many times led to her vomiting. More than once she could not make it to the Porto Sans that were always set up near the tent for the people who attended the meetings.

  In her third month Ruby began to show, and despite her efforts to hide the presence inside her, she knew what was happening. She came to the Preacher’s RV one night to tell him the wondrous news, but she was turned away.

  Before she went back to bed she saw the new girl, Bethany, playing with Abigail. They were playing a game of hide and seek among the tangle of rusted Fords and pickups.

  Bethany was wearing Ruby’s pink dress.

  On the way back to the tent, tears streaming down her face, Ruby thought she heard a growling sound nearby, a low keening coming from just beyond the edge of the forest. As she approached the wood, she saw two black dogs, big males by the cast of their shadows.

  As she stepped into the tent Ruby saw the dogs lope forward, heads lowered, then lay down on either side, their heedful black eyes like shiny marbles in the growing dusk.

  Two weeks later, outside Coshocton, Ruby helped set up chairs. When she was finished, she stepped outside the tent for a cup of water, and caught sight of something moving at the edge of the field. When she stopped and looked closely, the sight made her heart jump. It was the two black dogs she had seen in Youngstown, nearly seventy miles away. They had followed the caravan.

  When the dogs approached, tails between their legs, Ruby felt something stir inside her.

  Five months later, in early spring, on the evening of Holy Saturday, the Preacher put them all up at a motel in Morristown, Pennsylvania. Ruby had her own room.

  In the middle of that restless, sleepless night, the baby said it was time to be born. Ruby barely made it to the door of her room before her water broke. She opened the door, hoping she could make it to the next room where Carson Tatum was sleeping.

  What she saw in the parking lot stole her breath.

  The caravan, and everyone in it, was gone.

  Ruby awakened in a clean room. She would soon learn it was a family clinic in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania. When the doctor came to speak to her, she found she had no voice. They brought the baby boy to her. He was beautiful.

  After a week, she bundled the boy, took his medicines, and lit out. The first three nights they slept on the side of the road.

  The dogs were never far away. Sometimes they would bring food to them, food they had found in the Dumpsters and back lots of diners.

  It was warm enough so that Ruby did not yet have to worry about the boy catching his death of cold. In those next months they moved at night, taking refuge in daylight.

  Before long they would come to know the darkness.

  By the time the boy was three, Ruby had flowered. They had been taken in by people they met along the roads. For nearly two years she and the boy were the boarders of a man and woman who ran a general store in southwestern Pennsylvania. One of her employers along the way was a small community college in Ohio, and Ruby, sleeping only a few hours a night, would wander the stacks of books in the library. She spent a good deal of time gathering food scraps from the cafeteria, but most of her free time she would spend in the library, reading everything she could. She discovered early that she had a facility for memory. She read to the boy from the time he was six months old.

  A year later she saw the man at a diner in Romansville, Pennsylvania. Ruby and the boy were staying at a bed and breakfast where Ruby was performing housekeeping chores in exchange for room and board.

  He had gotten heavier, the flesh of his neck grown flabby. His shoulders had acquired a weight that only time and sadness could build. But there was no mistaking him. When Ruby and the boy approached the booth, Carson Tatum looked up. For a moment he looked as if he had seen ghosts. Then his face softened, and he was Carson again.

  They got their pleasantries out of the way.

  ‘Let me look at you,’ he said. ‘You are a sight, Ruby Longstreet.’ He reached out and touched the boy’s shoulder. ‘And your boy is quite the man.’

  ‘He is my joy,’ Ruby said. ‘Is the caravan nearby?’

  Carson nodded. ‘Just over in Parkesburg,’ he said. ‘It’s just down to the Preacher and three others now.’

  Three others, Ruby thought. She said nothing.

  Carson stirred his coffee for the longest time, even though there wasn’t but an inch in the cup, and probably cold at that. ‘It was wrong what he done,’ Carson finally said. ‘Just wrong.’

  Ruby had no reply to this. None that she would say.

  Carson looked over his shoulder, then back at Ruby. ‘The Preacher has thrown in with a traveling midway. It’s the only way he can draw people anymore. I want you and the boy to come this afternoon.’ He reached into his pocket, took out a pair of billets, along with a tight spool of red ride tickets. ‘You come about three o’clock. I’m going to have something for you.’

  ‘Something from the Preacher?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  Ruby chose her words with care. ‘There’s something else I need you to get from him,’ she said. ‘If he’s still got it. Can you do that for me?’

  Carson Tatum just smiled.

  The carnival was small, worn out. It smelled of axle grease and spun sugar and despair. Whatever it had once been, it was no longer. In fact, it was not much of a midway at all. There was a small Ferris wheel, a carousel with painted horses, a track with only four little cars, along with the usual games of chance. There were a half-dozen food stands offering elephant ears, funnel cakes, caramel apples. Fireworks were promised.

  Ruby had been here before. She knew this the moment she stepped onto the field, and the knowledge electrified her senses.

  She had been here in her dreams.

  Ruby took the boy by the hand, gave the man at the front booth their tickets. She looked to the edge of the field and, as expected, saw the black dogs. She had long ago stopped trying to tell which dogs were which. Ruby figured they were probably on their fourth or fifth litter. But there were always two. And they were always near.

  At three o’clock she saw Carson standing by the carousel. Ruby and the boy walked over. Carson took them behind one of the stands.

  ‘Big news. He’s about to pack it in,’ Carson said of the Preacher. ‘I just heard that he is going to go to –’

  Philadelphia, Ruby thought.

  ‘– Philadelphia,’ Carson said. ‘He lived there at one time, you know.’

  Ruby knew. She had read the Preacher’s book. When the Preacher’s mama left Jubal Hannah, and moved to North Philadelphia, the Preacher was only four.

  Ruby knew the past, just as she could see the future in her dreams. She saw her son grown tall and strong and wise. She saw him silhouetted against the waters of the Delaware River, at long last free from the devil within him.

  ‘Preacher said he’s gonna start a mission up to Philadelphia,’ Carson continued. ‘A storefront church of sorts. Maybe a second-ha
nd store.’

  This was in her dreams, too.

  ‘Did you get what I asked?’ Ruby asked.

  ‘Yes, missy. I sure did.’

  Carson looked around, reached into his coat, took out a thick paper bag. He handed it to Ruby.

  ‘Let him think it was me,’ Carson said.

  Ruby hefted the sack. It was much heavier than she thought it was going to be. ‘What else is in here?’

  When Ruby peeked inside she almost fainted. In addition to what she asked Carson to get for her there was a fat wad of money.

  ‘There should be forty thousand there,’ Carson said. ‘You take it and go make a life.’

  Ruby forced down her sense of shock, hugged Carson long and hard and tearfully, watched him walk away. He had developed a limp on the right side. An affliction, she imagined, from all the heavy lifting he had done for the Preacher.

  When Ruby paid her two spool tickets for the carousel, and she and the boy stepped on the platform, she saw Abigail and Peter for the first time in years. How big they had grown. Her heart ached with their nearness. She wanted to throw her arms around them like she had when they were small. She couldn’t.

  A few minutes later she saw the Preacher. Despite his troubles and the intervening years he still looked beautiful. Ruby reckoned she would have seen him this way no matter what he did to her.

  He did not see her.

  The Preacher put Abigail and Peter on horses. It all seemed to happen in slow motion, as Ruby imagined it had for St John.

  The Preacher chose a white horse for Peter, a red one for Abigail. The two children were fraternal twins, but now they looked a great deal alike, as if they were identical.

  Ruby then saw the Preacher put a small boy on a black horse. Ruby did not have to wonder whose child this was. The boy looked just like the teenaged girl standing by the cotton candy stand, the thin, nerve-jangled girl named Bethany, the girl who had come after Ruby. Ruby wondered how many girls there had been since.

  Ruby helped her boy onto the horse directly across from where the Preacher stood. This horse was old, unpainted. Its eyes were a faded gray, but most surely had one time been a coal black, as black as the dogs that were always near.