The Homecoming of Samuel Lake

  He couldn’t send Toy, because Toy had already been through so much and didn’t need to be worrying about problems that more than likely didn’t exist. Willadee was working, besides which no good could come of throwing Bernice and Willadee together right now. Calla didn’t drive, so she was out. That pretty much left the law and members of the congregation, and Samuel didn’t relish the idea of getting any of those people involved. They might all be the finest folks in the world, but they weren’t family.

  Neither was Bootsie Phillips, but he suddenly came to mind. At first, Samuel thought that was the craziest idea he’d ever had, but then he remembered what Willadee had told him recently—that ever since the day Toy was shot, Bootsie had developed a whole new image of himself. He’d stopped drinking quite so heavily, frequently said things that made sense, and had appointed himself Willadee’s protector when she started working in Never Closes.

  Samuel looked around until he spotted Noble and waved him over. Noble bounded up onto the stage with his daddy, glad to be of service. Samuel put his arm around the boy, leaning down close to his ear. “Run across the road and dig Bootsie Phillips out of Never Closes, and bring him over here.” He kept his voice down to a murmur.

  Noble did a double take, thoroughly confused. “Bootsie? What on earth do you want with—?” But the look on Samuel’s face reminded him who was the kid and who was the grown-up here. “What if he’s not in there?”

  “The place is open, Noble. He’s in there.”

  “I thought it was against the law for me to—”

  “You don’t have to go all the way inside. Go through the house and stick your head in the door and ask your mama to tell Bootsie I need him to do something for me.”

  “What if he’s drunk?”

  Samuel was trying to be patient, but the more Noble balked, the more tense he felt. On top of that, his little crowd was getting restless. He was about to have to either start the music or tell those folks to go on home.

  “Just do it,” he said. “Do it now.”

  Noble took off for the house. Samuel blew out a sigh, slipped his guitar strap over his head, and walked over to the microphone. The congregation settled down, waiting expectantly. Samuel plucked at the strings, running songs through his mind, trying to choose the right one for this moment. He and Bernice always had a music list planned out, but most of those songs begged for harmony, and that was one thing he couldn’t manage on his own. After a moment, he opened his mouth, and his sweet tenor rang through the night.

  “I am weak but thou art strong,” he sang, and it was like he was casting a spell. Every man, woman, and child in the place got easy at the same time, smiling gently and swaying like grass in the wind.

  Willadee didn’t know what to think when Noble stuck his head in the door and told her his daddy needed to see Bootsie Phillips.

  “What on earth does he want with Bootsie?”

  “I asked him that,” Noble told her. “But he didn’t tell me.”

  Willadee shrugged and turned to Bootsie, who was seated at the bar in a semi-sober state, keeping an eye on the regulars.

  “Need anything, Willadee?” he asked eagerly as soon as he saw her looking his way.

  “Samuel wants you, across the road.”

  “What on earth does Samuel want with—?”

  “Nobody knows. But it must be big for him to send Noble over here to get you.” She didn’t really figure it was all that big. The last time there’d been a crisis at the revival, Samuel had found a rat snake in his amplifier and couldn’t get it out. But it was good for Bootsie to feel needed.

  Bootsie was off his stool before Willadee finished talking. He stood up straight as a master sergeant, motioned for Noble to lead the way, and off they went.

  “Now, y’all behave yourselves while I’m gone,” he called over his shoulder to the customers, “or you’ll answer to me when I get back.” To Willadee he said, “I won’t be gone any longer than I have to.”

  Willadee smiled, the way she always smiled when Bootsie delivered some solemn pronouncement or made a show of looking out for her. Actually, she’d never felt she needed any protection in Never Closes. All the regulars seemed to consider themselves responsible for her safety. They even watched their language when she was nearby, and Bootsie wasn’t the only one who had cut down on his drinking.

  “Crazy Arms” was just winding down on the jukebox, and all of a sudden, Willadee could hear the music from across the road. Samuel singing, high and clear. Just Samuel. Willadee listened for a second, wondering why Bernice wasn’t singing, too. Then Samuel’s song ended just as a rompin’, stompin’ hillbilly number started playing on the jukebox, and Willadee couldn’t hear herself think.

  Samuel had all the little kids in the congregation lined up at the edge of the stage singing “This Little Light of Mine.” When Noble and Bootsie stepped inside the tent, Samuel saw them and nodded for Noble to go take a seat. Then he and Bootsie ducked back through the tent flaps into the frigid night air.

  Bootsie stood there, fairly steady on his feet, looking Samuel in the eye. “What’s up, Preacher?”

  Samuel explained that his sister-in-law hadn’t made it to services, and hadn’t called anybody to say she wasn’t coming, so he was concerned and he needed somebody dependable to go check on her.

  “More than likely she’s fine,” he said. “But you never know. It’s possible she had a flat tire or some kind of car trouble.” He didn’t add that she might have poisoned herself or that she might be sitting at home planning a murder.

  Bootsie swelled with pride at being trusted with such an important responsibility and assured Samuel that he’d be glad to go, there wasn’t much he wouldn’t do for the Moses family or the Lake family, either.

  “Well, I’m grateful for the way you’ve been looking out for Willadee. You’re a good man, Bootsie.”

  Samuel gave Bootsie a hearty pat on the back. Bootsie rocked back and forth like a sailor on a ship deck, managing somehow not to lose his balance and fall slap over.

  “I’m sure tryin’ to be,” he said gravely. “It ain’t as easy as it looks.”

  All the way to Toy and Bernice’s house, Bootsie kept thinking how nice it felt to have people depending on him and calling on him when they had a problem. Not too long ago, there wasn’t a soul in the county who would have trusted him to check on their family dog, much less a beautiful, delicate woman like Bernice Moses.

  Bootsie’s log truck was a worn-out old piece of embarrassment that rattled and clanked and shuddered and wheezed and listed to the left. He always had to grip the wheel with both hands and wrestle mightily to keep from flattening oncoming traffic. Ordinarily, he drove hard and fast, as though he couldn’t wait to see what would happen when the wheels came off. Tonight was different. He poked along, scanning the roadside for a broken-down car and a frantic woman, but the only frantic thing he saw was a squirrel that was spinning around and around trying to decide whether it wanted to run under his wheels or head for the woods.

  When he got to Toy’s place, there were no lights on anywhere, not even on the porch. Bootsie felt his way through the darkness, going across the yard and up the steps.

  “Anybody home?” he called out. The only sound was a tree limb scraping against the side of the house.

  He knocked several times, but no one answered, so he opened the door, eased inside, and switched on the lights. The living room was so neat it looked as if nobody lived there.

  He moved on, through the house.

  The tiny little dining room was as fastidiously kept as the living room, and so was the kitchen, except for the table. Bootsie saw the jumble of cans and bottles—the cleaning supplies and the medicines—and he figured he knew why she hadn’t shown up at the revival. She had obviously worked herself to exhaustion cleaning house, plus she must have cramps, which he knew from his wife could be more painful than anything a man could ever imagine, so she’d taken some Cardui and a nerve pill and had gone to bed early
. Probably she was sound asleep by now, conked out by the Miltown. He didn’t have any explanation for the spilled rat poison, but he’d already done more thinking in one night than he usually did in a week, so that one little detail didn’t bother him.

  He thought about heading down the hallway and finding the bedroom and looking in, just to make sure that his theory was correct, but he had certain qualms about that. What if Bernice waked up and thought he had broken in and was intending to do her harm? What if Toy came home and misinterpreted the whole situation and Bootsie wound up like Yam Ferguson, with his head facing in the wrong direction?

  As far as Bootsie was concerned, he had done what he was sent to do. He tiptoed toward the front door.

  And then he heard something. A low, guttural moan.

  He turned and followed the sound. The first room he looked into was the one where Toy kept all that liquor, and Bootsie almost didn’t make it to the next room. There were cases of bourbon and sour mash and scotch and vodka and gin and rum and God knew what else—everything a truly dedicated drunk could dream of, and all of a sudden Bootsie thought maybe he’d had enough of being semi-sober.

  He took a guilty step toward a case of Wild Turkey. This was going to change everything, he knew that. Nobody would ever trust him again, but dammit, he wanted a good chug of Bombed Tom, and he wanted it now. He reached into the case, took out a bottle, and opened it, forgetting why he was here.

  He was just about to take a drink when he heard another, louder moan. The sound jarred him back to reality with such a start that he spilled a couple of precious ounces all over himself.

  “Well, hell,” he said plaintively, as he set down the bottle and backed out of the room.

  He found Bernice sprawled facedown on the bathroom floor, wearing nothing but the clothes God gave her. She was every bit as flawless as he and every other man who’d ever laid eyes on her had imagined, but Bootsie didn’t even notice that, because of all the blood. There were thick red stains on the side of the tub and matted in Bernice’s hair and more streaks here and there on her skin.

  Bootsie felt like he’d been hit with a two-by-four. He couldn’t even breathe. He hung there for a couple of seconds, unable to make his legs work at all. Then he bolted into the kitchen and grabbed up the phone. What with barking at elderly ladies to please get off the party line so he could make an urgent call, it took forever to get hold of Early Meeks. He was so torn up he didn’t even hear the telltale clicks when those old biddies picked up their phones again to find out what all the excitement was about.

  Early listened to Bootsie’s babbling long enough to make out that Bernice was badly hurt, maybe dying, and there was blood all over the place.

  “Is she responsive?” Early asked.

  “Is she what?”

  “Can she talk? Can she open her eyes and look at you?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know!” Bootsie was crying now, scared to death and sick inside. “She’s facedown, and I’m afraid to touch her.”

  “Well, how do you know she’s still alive?”

  “Dead people don’t moan,” Bootsie said. “She keeps moaning.”

  “I’ll call for an ambulance and be there directly,” Early told him. “Don’t you go anywhere, do you hear me, Bootsie?”

  Bootsie heard him all right, and he knew what Early was really saying. He was saying that, whatever had happened to Bernice Moses, Bootsie Phillips stood a really good chance of getting the blame.

  When Early got out to Toy’s house, he found Bootsie dry-heaving on the front porch.

  “Where is she?” Early asked as he came up the steps.

  “Bathroom,” Bootsie managed between spasms.

  Early strode past, into the house. Bootsie listened to his footsteps, and when they stopped, he braced himself for whatever would come next. There was a full minute of awful silence, and then Early’s voice boomed like a cannon.

  “Bootsie! Get in here!”

  So this was it. Bernice must have died, Bootsie was the prime suspect, and if he ran, there’d be no place to hide. This, he told himself grimly, was what came of going around semi-sober. If he hadn’t adjusted his drinking habits, he’d be holed up in Never Closes right now, safe as a baby in its mother’s arms. He’d be gloriously drunk, and quite possibly asleep under the pool table. But no. He’d let himself care what other people thought of him, and had mended his ways to impress them, and that had been the start of his troubles. Now there was nothing he could do except face the music.

  Reluctantly, he went inside the house. Sirens sounded in the distance, getting more and more shrill as they screamed closer. Bootsie felt his legs buckle but managed to keep putting one foot in front of the other. At the door to the bathroom he stopped, unable to make himself take another step.

  Early was standing beside Bernice (beside Bernice’s body), holding an empty liquor bottle.

  “You know what this is?”

  “I didn’t drink a drop of liquor,” Bootsie protested. “I started to, but I didn’t.”

  “Maybe you didn’t,” Early grunted. “But she sure did.”

  He turned the bottle upside down, and blood dripped out onto the floor. Well, it looked like blood.

  “Sloe gin,” Early said. “Looks like she got drunk as a skunk and tripped getting out of the bathtub, and passed out lying on top of the bottle. If you didn’t reek of whiskey yourself, you’d have smelled it.”

  Bootsie backed up to the wall and leaned against it, going weak with relief.

  “So she’s not gonna die?”

  “Not unless the hangover kills her. What were you doing over here, anyway? Another man’s house—another man’s wife—”

  “The preacher sent me,” Bootsie said. “He was worried about her because she didn’t make it to church.”

  “He better not send anybody to check on my wife when she doesn’t make it to church,” somebody said from behind them.

  Bootsie and Early both looked over at the same time to see two medics standing in the doorway. The one who had spoken was a short, muscular loudmouth named Lawrence something or other who’d been in the bar a few times lately while his wife was over at the revival. The other one was Joe Bill Rader’s brother Ronnie. They’d heard enough to understand that there wasn’t any real crisis here, and they were feeling chafed about it.

  “Sorry to get you boys out here on a wild-goose chase,” Early said. “Y’all can head on back to town. And I imagine the family will appreciate it if you two don’t go tellin’ everything you know.”

  “Don’t worry,” Ronnie assured him. “The first thing you learn on this job is how to keep your mouth shut.”

  Of course, they didn’t keep their mouths shut, and neither did the women who had eavesdropped on Bootsie’s phone call. Between the four of them, phone lines were buzzing all over the county with the juiciest tidbit to hit the area in quite some time. There wasn’t enough information available for anyone to piece the whole story together, so everybody formed their own conclusions, the most common one being that Bernice was a secret alcoholic and Samuel must have known about it. Why else would he have sent a disreputable character like Bootsie Phillips out to see about her, when there were plenty of good, God-fearing people who would have been more than glad to go?

  Naturally, there were also those who assumed there must be something illicit going on between Samuel and Bernice. After all, those two had been spending an awful lot of time together for months now, not to mention they used to be sweethearts, and neither one of them was the kind that anybody could ever really get over being in love with.

  The one thing nobody anywhere ever thought of even once was that perhaps Bernice Moses had for a single moment considered suicide.

  By the end of the service, several cars had pulled in at the revival grounds bringing individuals who weren’t there for the music or the spiritual awakening. Some of the drivers sat in their cars, keeping the motors running and the heaters on, waiting for the moment when the last pr
ayer was said and the worshipers came out of the tent. Others got out and stood around smoking near the entrance, determined to be the first to enlighten the congregation.

  Across the road, another car was parking out beside Never Closes, and this driver didn’t wait for anything.

  Willadee wondered what was taking Bootsie so long, and shortly after Hobart Snell arrived, she found out. Hobart was an old-timer who was bent at the waist from arthritis and crooked from head to toe in his business dealings. He didn’t often come to Never Closes to drink or for anything else, but tonight he hobbled in and headed straight for the bar.

  “Gimme some sour mash,” he told Willadee. “I don’t care what kind.”

  Willadee thought if he didn’t care what kind, she shouldn’t care, either, but she poured him a glass of Jack Daniel’s just to be nice.

  Hobart took the drink and held it under his nose, sniffing it, while he looked around the room, sizing things up. “I see your permanent fixture’s not back yet,” he said.

  “What permanent fixture?”

  “The logger. The drunk. Bootsie Phillips.”

  Hobart’s voice had a snide overtone that Willadee didn’t much care for and didn’t feel obliged to tolerate.

  “For one thing,” she said, “Bootsie is a friend of mine. For another thing, since you just got here, how’d you know he’d been gone?”

  Hobart snickered and took a sip of Jack.

  “I reckon near ’bout everybody in these parts knows where Bootsie’s been tonight,” he said. “How come your husband picked a fool like him to send to check on his girlfriend?”

  “Looks like my tent revival days are over,” Samuel told Willadee later, when they were lying in bed side by side.

  The rumormongers had had themselves a time spreading the word after church that the reason Bernice Moses hadn’t been there to sing was because she was passed out drunk on her bathroom floor, naked as a jaybird and so covered in sloe gin that Bootsie Phillips, who had found her, thought she was bleeding to death.