“I expect so,” the man answered. “I expect that’s what brought me. It’s lucky you were here.”
“The Good Lord musta been looking out.”
People were so suggestible.
Octavia cried out when she saw the man carrying Isaiah’s limp body up the walk, Bill Johnson trailing just behind. The boy was put to bed. A doctor was called.
Plates of spoon bread were offered. Bill cradled his on his lap and gobbled it down. He hadn’t tasted home cooking in a long time, and Octavia was a fine cook.
“What happened?” Octavia asked.
“Well, ma’am, the little man was lost, and I was just tryin’ to help him out….” Bill told her the same story he’d given before. He was nearly finished when he heard the older Campbell boy bursting through the front door as if he might break it down.
“Where is he? Where’s Isaiah?” Panic in his voice.
“Resting.” Steel in hers.
“I’m sorry, I—”
“Save your breath for prayer, Memphis John. I already heard from Mrs. Robinson that you were arrested and Papa Charles had to bail you out,” she said bitterly.
“Can I see Isaiah?”
Bill didn’t hear anything, and he could only assume the communication was a signal—a nod, a gesture. How many such silent conversations had he missed over the years? He could hear Memphis slinking away to some other room—to his brother’s side, no doubt. Those two were close, a bond forged by tragedy. That gave Bill the smallest pause, but he pushed it away. It wasn’t his job to put the fairness back into the world.
“Don’t be too hard on the boy,” he said to Octavia, a peace offering. He stood to go, and Octavia gave him his cane plus another piece of spoon bread in waxed paper.
“Thank you, Mr. Johnson.”
“Bill.”
“Thank you, Bill.” He could hear the catch in her voice. “Oh, my sweet Jesus, Lord Jesus. What if you hadn’t been with him? What if he’d been alone?”
“The Lord works in mysterious ways, Miss.”
“You call anytime,” Octavia said after him. He was at the little gate out to the street.
“Thank you. I believe I will.”
Bill Johnson turned toward the night, which was not as dark as the place he’d been. He took the rose from his pocket and curled it tightly in his left hand. “I’m sorry, little man. I’m real sorry,” Blind Bill whispered. When he opened his hand again, the rose had turned to ash.
In the quiet of the back bedroom, Memphis watched his brother breathing in and out. Each breath felt like an indictment: Where… were… you… brother? He swallowed dryly, terrified. What if he had brought this on Isaiah? What if a curse meant for Memphis had reached out and touched his brother instead? He felt sick inside, and sweat beaded on his forehead.
“Don’t you worry, Ice Man,” he whispered. “I’ll make it right. I’ll take it on.”
Memphis placed his hands on Isaiah’s small body, shut his eyes tight, and waited for the warmth and the trance, the strange dreams of healing. But nothing happened. His hands never gained warmth. His brother slept on, like the enchanted resident of a bespelled fairy-tale kingdom, and Memphis, the dragon-slayer, stood on the other side of the kingdom’s unassailable walls.
He slunk down by the side of the bed and buried his head in his useless hands.
BRETHREN
The ruins of old Brethren lay up in the heavy woods of Yotahala Mountain, a name the Oneida had given it, meaning “sun.” But there was precious little of that as Will’s Ford made the steady two-mile climb over the narrow dirt road through heavy woods barely touched by the late-afternoon gloom. A light early-October snow had begun to fall. The wispy flakes danced in the glow of the Model T’s headlights. The car hadn’t much heat, and Evie shivered as she sat in the backseat, absorbing every bump.
“Close now,” Will declared above the steady whine of the engine. “Look for a twined oak. That’s the turnoff.”
“I wasn’t doing a thing but walking past,” Evie said, continuing an earlier conversation. She was still shaken up about the encounter with the faithful outside the fairgrounds. “Not a thing.”
“It isn’t your fault. There’s nothing more terrifying than the absoluteness of one who believes he’s right,” Will said. He was hunched over the wheel, craning his head this way and that, not content to trust Evie and Jericho to do the searching on their own. “The records keeper told me there’s been a resurgence in the Brethren cult in recent years.”