"Great, take her side," I said.
"Katie"-Mose wrapped one arm around her and an ear-to-ear grin spread across his face-"how would you like some brunch? We tried when he was little, but that little squirt never gravitated toward manners."
"I remember," she said over her shoulder.
"Mose," I interrupted, "don't be fooled. That woman is a wolf in sheep's clothing."
"Miss Katie," Mose piped up, "don't pay that little whippersnapper any mind. If he gets smart, I'll get a switch and we'll find some discipline."
"I'd like to see that," she said, smirking.
Jase approached Glue's stall and stuck out his hand. Glue leaned his head over the gate and tickled Jase's fingertips with his nose, leaving them slimy with spit. I picked some hay off the middle of the barn floor and held it out to Glue. Glue whinnied and gently pulled it out of my hand. Jase copied my gesture, bringing a delightful laugh out of him. It was a sweet sound.
Only thing missing was a petite black woman with a glass eye and dentures, sitting on a five-gallon bucket with her dress hiked up over her knees and her knee-highs rolled down around her ankles. Miss Ella left some pretty big footsteps. They swallowed Rex's.
Chapter 12
THE TWO OF THEM WALKED OFF. KATIE TUCKED HERSELF under Mose's arm and left me standing alone with Jason in the barn.
"You like my horse?"
Jase nodded.
"You want to ride him?"
Jase nodded again, this time faster. "Hey, Mose," I called. "Is Glue working today?"
"Yup. They'll be here this afternoon."
I nodded and looked to Jase. "Wait right there, partner." I returned from the tack room with a hackamore, a dry saddle blanket, and the children's Western saddle I'd been working on. It fit boy and horse perfectly. I set Jase atop Glue, shortened the stirrups one notch, and watched Jase's face light up like a Q -beam as his toes slid into the stirrups. Three minutes later, I led Glue from the stall and we walked out of the barn.
Katie saw us and let go of Mose's arm, acting like she wanted to lift Jase off the horse. "Miss Katie," Mose said, wrapping his arm around hers, "that horse is almost as gentle as the young man that's leading it. Best you come with me and let's eat some eggs. I want to look at those eyes of yours."
I turned south out of the pasture, underneath the water tower, now faded, overgrown, and covered in poison ivy and confederate jasmine, and down through the orchards. We walked around the southern end of the orchards and through the pines, where we neared the rim of the quarry. Nearing the edge of the sixty-foot drop-off and the base of the rusted and dangling zip lines, we stopped to look down in the mineral spring.
"Unca Tuck?"
That got my attention. I lifted the stirrup, tightened the saddle, and looked up at Jase. "Who told you to call me Uncle Tuck?"
Jase's face tightened and took on the same expression it had in Bessie's when he looked over his shoulder, expecting a blow. I put one hand on the saddle horn and lowered my tone. "Did your mama tell you to call me Uncle Tuck?"
Jase nodded, fear written all over his face.
"Well"-I smiled and patted him on the foot-"you'd better. You call me anything other than Uncle Tuck and I'll dip you in that spring down there. You got it?"
Jase smiled and nodded excitedly. I clicked, and Glue began walking again. "Unca Tuck, how'd you get this horse?"
"Well ..." I stripped a piece of hay and stuck one end in my mouth. "I was working in Texas when-"
"With your camera?"
I held it up for him to see and nodded. "Yup, with my camera." I stripped another piece of hay and handed him half. When I slipped it in my mouth, he did the same. "I met this guy that owned a whole bunch of horses. He raised them, but he was sort of an impatient person and he didn't really like old Glue here. He was actually thinking about making him either a gelding or sending him to the glue factory when I asked to buy him."
"What's a gelding?"
"Well ..." I rubbed my chin, which needed shaving, and thought about this answer. "A gelding is a horse that's had his you-know-whats cut off."
Jase's eyes narrowed and he started thinking real hard. After two or three seconds, he said, "What are his youknow-whats?"
I raised my eyes, looked back toward the barn, then at Glue, and said, "Whoa." Resting my hand on the saddle horn, I thought for a minute and then pointed beneath Glue. "You know, his, ummm ... his equipment."
Jase's eyes lit up and his face looked like someone had just shared the secret of life with him. He sat up in the saddle, tried to look serious, and said, "Oh."
Jase leaned over and tried to look underneath Glue. "Has he still got them?"
"Yep," I said.
"Let me see." I lifted Jase off the saddle and we squatted next to Glue. I pointed up to Glue's privates and nodded. Without thinking, I spit between my teeth and lifted Jase back atop the saddle. Jase put his feet in the stirrups and attempted to imitate me, but ended up with dribble on his chin and chest. I noticed it, wiped it off his face, and said, "That's a good try, but lean over next time and push harder with your tongue." Jase nodded like he understood perfectly.
Riding a few moments more, Jase asked, "Why would that man in Texas do something mean like that?"
"Well"-I pulled the twig out of my mouth and spat again-"sometimes a horse is real feisty, or just plain mean, and if you cut off his you-know-whats, it calms him down. I guess it just makes him nicer so you can ride him." I thought for another minute. "It's like it takes the meanness out of him."
Jase fell quiet for several minutes. "Unca Tuck, can they do that with people?"
I paused. I wasn't quite sure where this was going. I stripped another twig. "Well, I guess so. I've never seen it done, but I've heard that they do that sometimes with people in prison who hurt other people in ways that are real bad."
The light softened in the shadows of the pine trees on the other side of the pasture, so I tied the reins to a small sapling and bracketed five or six frames of Jason on top of Glue. I figured I'd send them to Katie when she got wherever she was going. Looking through the viewfinder, I studied Jason. He was sweaty, covered with dirt, his eyes honest, curious, and expectant. The entire frame spoke of most everything that was good. Everything a kid should be. I slung the camera back over my shoulder and tugged on the reins again. I took three or four steps and realized that life, and lots of it, was sitting on top of my horse.
We walked past the slaughterhouse and scalding pots where the camellias grew wild and several climbing roses wound through the boards of the pen. Rex never came down here, so the vines had grown thick and covered most of it now. We finished our loop and circled around the cedar trees that lined the graveyard. We walked behind the back side of St. Joseph's, then on Waverly Hall and to Miss Ella's house. We were gone almost an hour, but it seemed like sixty seconds. When we got to the front porch, Katie nervously rose from Miss Ella's rocking chair and bounced off the porch. "Hey, big guy, you have fun?" She lifted Jase off the saddle and squatted down to straighten his two-holster belt.
"Hey, Mom, did you know that some real mean guy in Texas was gonna cut off Glue's you-know-whats?"
Katie looked at Jase. "What do you mean, his 'youknow-whats'?"
"Well"-Jase squatted down and pointed underneath Glue-"Unca Tuck met this guy in Texas who was just real mean and he was gonna cut Glue's privates off with a pocket knife or even a pair of scissors!"
Katie looked at me as I tried to dig a hole in the earth's crust and disappear. Jase continued. "I asked Unca Tuck if they could do that with people, 'cause I thought maybe if we did that to Daddy, he wouldn't be mean anymore."
Before he even finished his sentence, Katie had picked him up and walked back inside. "Come on, my little cowboy. It's time for lunch."
After lunch, Katie put Jase down for a nap even though he didn't want one. It was the first time I had seen him kick and scream, but she didn't put up with it, and the last words I heard out of his mouth before she whisked
him through the front door were, "Yes ma'am." Reminded me of another woman I once knew.
Child, I disciplined you because I loved you. Same thing with the Lord. "He chastises those he loves. " You might as well get used to it.
Katie caught up with me walking down the fencerow toward St. Joseph's.
"I wanted a chance to talk about the `Uncle Tuck' thing."
"It's all right. It caught me a bit off guard, but it's probably best."
"I'm sorry anyway. I didn't know what else to tell him. I don't want him to know we're as lost as we are, and we've been in the car so much. Not going anywhere. He needs a connection. It wasn't right, but I didn't know what else to tell him. I'm sorry."
"He's a great kid. I don't know much about your exhusband, but somebody's done some great work with that boy." She smiled, nodded, and looked out over the pasture as we walked toward St. Joseph's. "I took a few pictures of him on the horse. I'll send them to you when you get wherever you're going."
She crossed her arms like she was cold and nodded. "That ... that'd be great." We walked farther down the fencerow as a flock of geese, in a long and stretched out V, flew overhead several hundred feet up.
"Where're you going?"
I stopped walking and pointed to the church. "Thought I'd check on things." I slowed because I wasn't sure I wanted her to go with me.
Katie eyed the church. "When did she die?"
I knew, but I acted like the number wasn't quite as close at hand as it really was. "A little over seven years ago."
"You still miss her?"
A family of moles had tunneled through one corner of the pasture, creating a maze of upturned earth and underground tunnels. I stepped over a tunnel and said, "Every day."
We stepped through the split rail fence and walked around the front of the church, where I let my eyes follow the muscadine vine climbing like a sentry across the front door. When the grapes on the vine were ripe, Miss Ella would pluck a few of them, suck on them, smack her teeth like they were hard candy, and spit out the seeds. "When I'm away from the craziness"-I pointed to the camera bouncing on my hip-"I come here."
We stepped through the threshold and the boards creaked under our weight. Pigeons flew out of the rafters above, flapping their fat wings, cooing, and fluttering back into their nests. A single blue pigeon sat on Jesus' head, bobbing its beak back and forth and strutting inside a ring of thorns. Light poured in the hole in the roof and showered the altar with a broad beam of daylight. Cobwebs decorated most every corner, and a prayer book lay on the floor beneath the railing, fat and bloated with rainwater. Roaches had eaten most of the binding.
I waved my hand from wall to altar to floor to wall. "She really loved this place."
Katie nodded.
A year or so after Miss Ella came to work here, Rex officially closed the church and brought in dozers to level the whole thing. Miss Ella found out, flung wide the doors, and pointed her crooked finger in the faces of the men driving the dozers. The church hadn't been operational as a church for fifty years, but locals would use it to pray, get married, and bury their dead. Rex got the news, stormed in, and found Miss Ella snapping beans in the kitchen. "Woman! When I say to do something, you do it!"
Miss Ella just kept right on snapping beans.
Rex walked up and slapped her, openhanded. I saw it because I was the six-year-old kid cowering in the pantry. Miss Ella put down the beans, wiped her hands on her apron, stood up, and looked at Rex. A foot shorter, she really had to crane her neck. Softly and gently, she said, "Unless you become like one of these"-she pointed to me, shaking in the pantry-"you will not see heaven."
Rex's face turned beet red. He huffed, looked like he'd blow a fuse, and ran his fingers inside and around the waist of his belt. "Woman," he boomed, "I don't give two cents for all your Bible quoting. You can just as quick find your ignorant butt on the street. What I say is. You understand me?" He took his hand and squeezed her cheeks until they cut into her teeth. With Rex's hand still vise-gripped on her face, she put her foot on the stool behind her and stepped up, leveling her head with Rex's. When he looked into her eyes, his hand let go.
She wiped blood on her apron. "Mr. Rex, I've done everything you've ever asked me. But I won't do this. That's God's house, and if you insist on tearing it down, I'll strap myself to the steeple and call every paper in Alabama. My mom and dad are buried out there." She looked out the window toward the cemetery and fingered her wedding band. "So is George."
She sat down and picked up another handful of beans. Over the snapping, she said, "Now, I need this job and I need the money, but more importantly"-she looked at him-"you need me because you can't find a soul who's willing to put up with you 'cause you ain't nothing but meanness."
Then she whispered, "I am here for one reason. So please leave all church matters to me."
Rex's wheels were turning and he knew he'd never find another Miss Ella. If he fired her, he'd have to become a dad for more than five seconds, and he didn't want that. He backhanded her hard across the cheek and spit in her face as he screamed out of the kitchen, "You watch your mouth, or you'll find your ugly little butt back in the fields where you belong!"
Miss Ella wiped the blood off her lips and I crawled out of the pantry. I placed an ice cube inside a wet rag and handed it to her. I was too scared to speak, but she could read my face. She smiled, lifted me onto her lap, and nuzzled my nose with her forehead. "Child, don't you worry. I'm fine." Her eyes followed the smell of Rex. "Never better."
Katie and I walked down the single center aisle. Katie brushed the pews with her hand and said, "I used to dream of doing this."
"What's that?"
"Walking down the aisle."
"What, with me?"
"No." She hit me in the shoulder again the same way she had in the barn. `Just in general, you codfish."
"It's been a long time since you called me that."
"Yeah, kind of weird. Anyway, Trevor was never a big fan of churches."
The pews were fitted up next to the windows so the person farthest from the middle could lean against the wall. I pointed beneath the second pew. "One day she found me curled up under here, hiding. I think I was about seven. It was getting late and Rex had been himself."
Katie nodded and put her hands in her jeans pockets. She wore no wedding band, but the thin pale line showed where it had been. Her hooded sweatshirt hid her neck but not her worry. Last night's sleep had helped, but she'd need more than one night to smooth the wrinkles. I continued. "Miss Ella sat me up and said, `Child, what's wrong?'
"I said, `Miss Ella, I'm scared.' She walked me up to the railing and we sat down right about here with our backs to the altar, looking that way." I pointed down and out the front door. "She scooted up next to me and pulled me under her wing. `Tucker, haven't I told you,' she said, smiling, `I'm not going to let anything happen to you. The devil can't touch you. Not ever. Before he can, he's got to ask the Lord, and the Lord's just going to tell him no. So you just shut your eyes, and lay down right here. I'll protect you.' I spread out on that purple pad and put my head in her lap. I remember being really tired. She put her hand on my cheek and said, `If you get scared, you just remember that `no weapon fashioned against you can stand."'
"I think that was one of her favorites."
"She had lots of favorites."
While her ears were trained on me, her eyes were not. Ever since she had arrived at the house, Katie had looked perched to spring and her head moved on a swivel. From her anxious perch, she could view the end of the drive and Miss Ella's cottage.
I put my hand on her shoulder. "Katie." She didn't see it coming and flinched. "It's just me." She smiled and took a deep breath. "He's not here. And he's not going to find you here. If he does, I've got a really big baseball bat and I can still swing it."
She laughed uneasily.
"If that doesn't work, I've got a few really nice goldinlaid shotguns that ought to do." She brushed my hand away, and I tried
to make light of the moment. "Besides, you've got that Dirty Harry thing stuck up in the closet. With a little practice, you might hit the broad side of a barn."
"Okay, okay." The smile was real this time. "I hear you."
"Katie"-my tone softened and grew more serious"and if none of that works, I know this lady in heaven who's got a front row seat. She can bring down thunder, and she's not afraid to do it either. I'm speaking from experience."
Katie sank down against the railing, let out a deep breath, and focused about a hundred miles out the back door. I walked through the pews, circling around like a maze, letting my hand gently rub the tops of each. "When I got a little older, maybe I was nine, I walked in here and found Miss Ella leaning against the railing with her knees about where you are." Katie looked down and brushed the dilapidated purple velvet with her hands.
"Tears were running down Miss Ella's face. I ran up alongside and put my arm around her like she always used to do me. `Miss Ella, you okay?' She nodded and wiped her eyes. `Well,' I asked, `what are you doing?' She turned around and sat about like you are now and said, `I'm asking God to protect you. To keep the devil from ever putting a finger on you. He's already been whipped once, so I'm just asking God to keep it up. To keep sticking it to him.' I liked the idea of somebody other than me getting a whipping, so I sat down next to her, leaned against the railing, and pulled a squished and warm peanut butter and jelly sandwich out of my pocket. I licked around the edges and asked, "Miss Ella, do you talk to the devil?'
"She shook her head. `No, not really, other than to tell him to get back in hell and stay there.' She pointed down into the earth, and that got us laughing, which we needed, so we laughed another minute and let our giggling fill the room.
"Miss Ella poked me in the stomach and said, `And I told him I hoped it was hot too.' She put her arm around me and tore off a corner of my sandwich. `Give me some of that sandwich, boy. I'm hungry too. Wrestling with the devil always makes me hungry.' We chewed a minute or two, and with peanut butter stuck to the top of my mouth, I said, `Miss Ella, does my daddy have to ask your permission before he can hurt me?' She swallowed her corner, picked me up, and gently pointed my chin toward her. `Absolutely. Nobody can touch you without talking to me first. Not the devil and not your father.'