Saving Grace

  But Troy Lee just kept getting worse and worse, and Daddy never showed up.

  My birthday came and went, and nobody remembered it. Nobody told me Happy Birthday.

  I was fourteen years old.

  And then one day in early November, everything happened at once. It was a Saturday morning, a beautiful cold sunny day with the sky so blue and the air so crackling that it made me feel like running all around the yard shouting.

  “Let’s you and me climb the ridge,” I said to Billie Jean, who looked at me like I was crazy. Even then, Billie was a more beat-down and slow-moving person than I was, perfectly content to do whatever Mama was doing, as if she was a grown woman already.

  “What do you want to go up there for?” she asked me in her flat little voice. “There’s not anything up there.” Which was true, but that was just exactly what I liked about it, the miles and miles of nothing but sky and mountains stretching out from Chimney Rock, and I wanted to feel the wind that always blew up there, I wanted it to chill my very bones.

  “Well, I’m going by myself, then,” I said. “See you later.”

  “I’m going to tell Mama,” Billie said. “You know she don’t want you to go up there.”

  So I hurried to put on some pants and an old jacket that Daddy had left, and ran out the back door and headed up the trail past the toilet and the cedar trees before Mama could stop me.

  I was out of sight by the time I heard her calling me. “Florida Grace! Florida Grace! You come back here!” Her voice got fainter and fainter as I went on. I was cold at first, but the more I climbed, the warmer I got. To get up the mountain, you had to climb a winding rocky trail and then pass through a laurel slick where it was dark and steep, almost a tunnel, but it was all worth it when you came out on a grassy bald at the top of the ridge.

  Sunshine was everywhere. The trees around the bald were taller than down below, with grass between them, almost like a park. Most of the leaves had fallen. I loved it up there. I kicked through the bright leaves as I went along, looking up through the tree limbs which were like lace against the deep blue sky. I took big deep breaths of the cold air and felt my blood race all through my body. I felt bigger. I knew I could do anything. I walked the ridge until I got up so high that the tall trees gave way to brush, and then I was above the tree line in a windy place of flat table rocks and scaly lichen and low-growing tough little plants. I had to climb up and down over the table rocks, which appeared to have been flung out there by a giant.

  Now I was up so high that I could look off to my left and see the whole valley spread out like a picture down below, like a faraway land of make-believe, dreaming in the sun. I couldn’t see our house, but I could see the Dutys’ store and their house and the Jesus Name Church and the road winding in and out of the hills, and the Little Dove River, a sparkling silver chain. Cars looked like toys from where I was. I wondered what Ruth Duty was doing, and if anybody was in the church house. I wondered if Marie was up yet—she got to sleep late, which was a sin at our house, and not only that, but her mother slept late too. Marie had said so. I wondered what Marie was going to do that Saturday, and what her mother was going to do. Maybe they would drive over to Asheville, where I had never been.

  But I didn’t care too much what Marie was going to do, as I climbed that ridge so high above her, so high above them all. That morning I felt too good to care. I thought I would rather be me than anybody.

  I climbed all the way to the end of the ridge, right out to Chimney Rock, and then I climbed up Chimney Rock itself, surefooted as any boy. I remember it was the first time I’d ever climbed Chimney Rock, which was actually two rocks, two huge boulders perched on top of the last cliff looking out over the whole county, so you could see distance on every side, wherever you looked, three hawks swooping great circles through miles of air, smoke rising here and there down below. I remembered that it was hog-killing time, and that we would probably get some fresh meat later on in the day from the Pearsons, who were butchering. We didn’t get meat often, so it would be a special treat. I stood on the rock and thought about how good it would taste. Maybe Troy Lee would eat some and it would make him feel better.

  In spite of the cold up there, I was hot from climbing. I took Daddy’s jacket off, then took my shirt off too. I didn’t know I was going to do it before it was done. The wind felt great on my chest and my back, I reached up and took off the rubber band that held my ponytail, and let the wind blow my hair all around. I stood at the very edge of Chimney Rock with my feet wide apart and my arms folded, like an Indian brave. I looked out and pretended that my tribe owned everything I could see, mountain after mountain until they grew blue and hazy in the distance over toward Tennessee. I drew in big deep gulps of cold air until I got dizzy. Then I sat down beside a pile of smaller rocks, where I found a pointed white rock which I used to scratch my name GRACIE in big capital letters right across the flattest place on the top of Chimney Rock, I went over and over the letters, so they would last. I stood back up and took one more look around before I put my shirt and my jacket back on and started down.

  As I climbed back over the table rocks, I thought about the vision Daddy had had on Roan Mountain when he was twenty-five years old, which I had heard him preach about many times. Daddy had started out as a young preacher but had backslid real bad, to where he was gambling and running liquor and drinking it too, and one morning after a big drunk he woke up alone laying by the side of the Roan Mountain road. His hands were cut and swollen, so he knew he had been in a fight, but he couldn’t remember who with, nor what they were fighting about, nor where he’d been. Daddy said that when he tried to raise up his head, he felt so bad he almost died on the spot, so he just laid real still, and wished he would die. He was in a low distress, he said, when all of a sudden the whole world went dim and the voice of the Lord spoke out of the darkness loud and clear.

  “Virgil Shepherd, get up from there,” God said, and so Daddy got right up, and his pain was gone. He stood on that dark road and waited to see what would happen next. “Virgil Shepherd,” God said, “I am calling you to be my own special minister, and go out to all the people, and spread my word.”

  But Daddy held back and said, “How do I know you are the Lord talking and not the Devil?” and God said, “I will give you this sign.”

  Then lo the darkness gave way to sunlight, and there in the middle of the road appeared a dazzling white serpent, and Daddy was anointed to walk over there and pick it up, and it grew tame as a toy in his arms. “Now go forth and spread my word,” God told Daddy, and this was the true start of Daddy’s ministry. Next God sent a truck to give him a ride down off Roan Mountain, and when he got back to town everybody that knew him shrank back upon seeing him, for his hair had turned pure white.

  I thought about all this as I was climbing over the table rocks on my way back, and for the first time I dared to wonder if it was true or not. I wondered if it had really happened as he said, or if it had all happened in his mind, which might also make it true, but different, I thought. That would be different.

  I looked all around me real careful as I climbed, but I didn’t see any sign of God or Jesus either one. I didn’t see a thing but the bright cold day, and I didn’t feel a thing but the hard rough rocks beneath my hands and the wind and the sun on my face.

  I was getting real hungry as I walked across the bald and clambered down through the laurel slick and came out by the cedar trees to where I could see our holler. There was a truck parked on the road below. It was a truck I didn’t recognize right off, and so I thought it must be the Pearsons bringing us some pig meat, and I started running down to the house.

  I kept running until I got close enough to hear, and then I slowed down, and then I got to the back door and stopped. I knew that voice, all right. I would have known it anywhere. I felt like I ought to go in there, but I just couldn’t move. I felt awful. I felt I had turned to stone or to
salt, like Lot’s wife. Then Billie Jean came tearing through the house and out the back door, and ran smack into me. She was sobbing as though her heart would break. We held each other tight as she told me what was going on, the best she could through her tears.

  Joe Allen had come by to visit and give Mama some money, Billie said, but when he saw how sick Troy Lee was, he pitched a fit and said that he was going to take Troy Lee to the hospital. He had a borrowed truck and he was going to take him in it. Mama was welcome to ride along with them.

  “What did Mama say?” I asked Billie Jean.

  “Well, at first Mama was crying,” Billie told me, wiping her face, “but then she started getting Troy Lee’s things together, like Joe Allen said. When all of a sudden, there was Daddy a-standing in the door. Didn’t none of us see him come, nor hear him, nor nothing. He just about scared us to death!”

  “Then what happened?” I asked Billie Jean, while inside the house I could hear Daddy invoking the Lord to rid Joe Allen of whatever demon possessed him. The sound of Daddy’s voice gave me the chills.

  “Mama dropped all of Troy Lee’s things in the floor and ran to Daddy, but he didn’t kiss her, nor nothing,” Billie said. “He put out his hand to stop her, looking first to Troy Lee, and then to Mama, and then to Joe Allen. It was like he took it all in real fast. Then he fell to his knees and prayed out loud to thank God that he had come back in time to take care of his family.” Billie Jean was sniveling. “But Joe Allen said, ‘No sir, you might as well get up from there, because God don’t have anything to do with this. This little boy is sick, and he is going to the doctor, God has done drawed a blank on this one.’ So then Daddy said, ‘Son, I forbid you to take that boy from my house,’ and Joe Allen said, ‘I wouldn’t hardly call it your house, you’re not ever here, everybody in the world has got to take care of your own family for you.’ Then Daddy stood up and stepped forward and said, ‘Son,’ again, and Joe said, ‘Don’t you call me “Son.” Don’t you never call me “Son” again.’ ”

  “And then what?”

  “And then Daddy started praying for Joe Allen, and then he switched back over to Troy Lee,” Billie Jean said, and sure enough, we could hear him in there going at it. Daddy could pray for hours on end, he was famous for it.

  “Where’s Mama and Joe Allen now?” I said, and Billie said she didn’t know.

  She clutched the sleeve of Daddy’s old jacket. “Don’t let’s go in there, Sissy,” she said. “Let’s walk down the road.”

  But I was bound and determined to see what was happening. I held Billie Jean’s hand and we went around the side of the house to the front porch, where we found Joe Allen sitting on the porch steps, smoking a cigarette.

  “Well, there you are, Billie Jean,” he said. “I was wondering where you had got to. Hello there, Sissy.” He grinned at me.

  “Hi,” I said. I looked at Joe Allen good. There was something different about Joe Allen. He had a new job now, working at Mister John Ritter’s lumberyard, where he was in charge of filling the orders and sending out the trucks. But Joe Allen had been living on his own and working for years, first at the sawmill, then at the lumberyard. He was a man now. That was it. Joe Allen had become a man, Though he was still skinny as a rail and that same old piece of hair fell forward into his eyes, he held himself in a certain way, like a man who meant business. He took one last drag on his cigarette and ground it out under his boot heel and then threw it out in the yard and stood up.

  “What are you going to do now?” I asked him.

  “I am going to take Troy Lee to the doctor,” he said, “come Hell or high water. Troy Lee is fixing to die, Sissy.” That was something I had been knowing and not knowing at the same time, I realized. “It don’t matter if Daddy’s back or not. Daddy’ll kill him.”

  Billie Jean made a sound and Joe Allen looked at her.

  “I mean he’ll let him die, which is the same as killing him. Sick people need medicine, they don’t need no mumbo jumbo,” Joe Allen said. Then he looked at me. “Come on and help me, Sissy.”

  “What do you want me to do?” I asked.

  “I don’t know exactly,” Joe Allen said. “But you come on in here. Billie, you go sit in the swing,” and Billie did it, crying hard again. Joe Allen shook his head. I followed him into the front room and stood still for a minute while my eyes got adjusted to the dimness. There was Daddy all right, big as life, praying on his knees before the sofa where Troy Lee lay in a kind of sleep, his little face dead white. Mama sat in the chair, wringing her hands. She looked up at us with her eyes wide, as if she didn’t know who we were. Daddy didn’t even turn around.

  “Step aside, sir,” Joe Allen said in an even voice.

  Daddy didn’t move.

  “Step aside, sir,” Joe Allen said again. Mama stood up and I went over to her. Daddy had both hands on Troy Lee, and was leaning across his little form all wrapped up in the quilt. Joe Allen moved forward and put his hand on Daddy’s shoulder, pulling him back. Quick as a flash, Daddy flung out one arm and hit Joe Allen in the stomach. He doubled over for a minute and then straightened up and pulled Daddy back with both hands, flinging him to the floor and then jumping on top of him, his hands at Daddy’s throat. Daddy rolled back and forth, clawing at Joe Allen’s hands, his face terrible. It was red and splotchy, the way it sometimes got in meeting. Daddy threw Joe Allen off and leaped to his feet and started kicking him, and then Joe Allen was up too. He hit Daddy real hard in the face, and blood started spurting from Daddy’s nose, It poured all over his white shirt. Daddy sat down with a jolt.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mama go in the kitchen and come back with her big pickling crock, which she raised above her head. I reached up and grabbed it and sent it rolling out the door and off the porch. I put my arms around Mama from behind and held her tight, which was easy, for she was so slight and I was strong. Daddy’s nose was bleeding, but he sat still, half propped up against the chair, which had been overturned in the struggle. He sat still because Joe Allen had pulled a knife on him. Joe Allen held the knife out toward Daddy in his right hand, his eyes never leaving Daddy’s face as he moved past him to pick up Troy Lee in the quilt and throw him over his shoulder like a sack of flour.

  “Stay right there, sir, that’s right,” Joe Allen was saying in an easy voice like a chant. “Don’t you move none. That’s right,” he said, backing out the door. When Joe Allen got on the porch and turned to go down the steps, I could see Troy Lee’s head bobbing against his back. Troy Lee didn’t open his eyes.

  I let go of Mama, who turned around and looked at me in a tragic way. “Oh Sissy, the devil has done claimed you for his own,” she said, and rushed over to Daddy, who still sat there against the chair like he didn’t know what was going on. Mama knelt down on the floor and covered his bloody face with kisses.

  Right at that minute, two more things happened.

  Troy Lee’s cat, which I had completely forgotten about, went dashing out the open door, and as I leaped after it, thinking to grab it and keep it for him, I almost ran into Marie, who appeared in the doorway at that very moment and then stood there frozen, her mouth in a perfect round O. She and her mother had just showed up to surprise me. Behind her I could see Billie Jean’s scared white face, and down at the road I saw Joe Allen’s truck peeling off past that familiar red station wagon. Then I felt Daddy’s hands like iron on my arms just above the elbow.

  Marie started crying and pushed the brown paper bag she’d been carrying into my arms. Her mother got out of the car and started screaming for her to come. Without a word to me, Marie turned and ran down the hill and got in the car, and then they were gone. Daddy pulled me back in the house and whipped me with his belt until I bled, but I didn’t even care, and when I finally started crying, it was not because of the whipping, it was because I knew that was the end of my friendship with Marie.

  I saw her at school of course
, but it was not the same. It was never the same again. Marie didn’t ask me to come home with her anymore, nor talk to me much at lunch. When Mrs. Royal came to school to be our room mother, such as at Thanksgiving when she brought all the stuff and helped us make Indian and Pilgrim costumes, she treated me just like she treated everybody else. Nice but distant.

  For a long time I kept the brown paper bag containing my blue corduroy jumper and my flowered blouse hidden in the corncrib, so I could go out there and try them on whenever I felt like it. Then one cold day in January, I took Mama’s scissors and cut them to ribbons, and threw the pieces down the toilet hole.

  When the Girl Scout troop started, I wasn’t in it, which didn’t matter because we had a lot of snow that winter and so Billie Jean and me couldn’t get to school much anyway. It turned out that Troy Lee had had scarlet fever. He stayed in the hospital for a long time and then he was well, but Joe Allen kept him in town, which seemed to be all right with Mama. She was real busy helping Daddy with his ministry because Evelyn had up and gotten married, over in Tennessee. Daddy wouldn’t talk about her or let us answer her letters. He said Evelyn was lost. I kept thinking about what I had promised God I would do if Troy Lee got well, that I would open my heart more to Him, but though I did go to meeting the same as ever, and though He came down on people to the right and the left of me and even on Lily Jones—they had to break the ice in the Little Dove River to baptize her—He never came down on me, nor sent me any sign. Sometimes I’d think about Marie and her family, and Melinda and Spice, and all the things I had seen and done at her house, but it was like it had all happened a long time before, in a book or a dream.

  And as for Troy Lee’s cat, we never saw it again.

  * * *

  IT WAS A hard winter, as I said. Billie Jean and me were alone in the house a lot, and to tell the truth, she was not much company, or much help. Billie Jean had always been real shy, but this winter she got more shy than ever, and something else. I don’t know how to say it exactly. It was like she moved back in her mind someplace, away from everything. I believe it started when Joe Allen took Troy Lee away. The first time I really noticed it was not long after that, when we got snowed in for a whole week while Mama and Daddy were down in South Carolina. I was about to work myself to death keeping wood chopped and the stove fed, and hauling water in from the well. We didn’t have any gloves in the house, and my hands got chapped, with big red cracks in them, and bled. One morning I slipped in the snow on my way back from the well and spilled a bucket of water. I just laid there and let the snow fall in my face and closed my eyes. It was so early that you couldn’t even tell yet whether the sun was going to come up or not, and I was already exhausted. I wanted to lay there forever. But I knew I couldn’t, for I had to take care of Billie Jean, and so finally I pushed myself up, and after a while I went and got some more water and struggled back to the house with it. I didn’t know what we would do if the well froze solid—so far, I’d been able to break the ice by dropping the bucket down on it a lot.