But Poe came – yes – and put an end to all that, to mah feeling of well being.
XII
A wholly joyous moment burst upon Fists Wiggam’s mean-spirited horizons.
With the intention of selling Abie Poe’s spent bullets to the Ukulites as souvenirs, the Wiggam boy had furiously searched the slate-slab wall that encircled the wishing well. He found instead a note, folded inside a plastic bag, that had been stuffed between two slabs. His eyes narrowed and he chuckled as he read.
Dear Sardus,
I am struck barren and deemed unworthy to mother your child. I will remain your wife through all eternity. We will be united in a kinder world, for we have both known another so bitter and terrible. I await your hand and in the Kingdom stand, for here in my heart be your seated place.
Your advent embrace,
Rebecca.
By mid-afternoon, Fists had pinned the suicide letter to the public notice-board outside the Courthouse. By six o’clock, there was barely a soul in the whole valley who had not visited the Courthouse to read it, except perhaps Sardus Swift himself, who had not been seen since retiring to his lonely fortress nearly a year before.
XIII
This period of perpetual rain became known amongst the Ukulites as The Three Years of the Malediction and was synonymous with death, catastrophe, divine vengeance and destruction. As the figures show, by the end of the second year, 1942., the mortality rate had risen to over double the tally of 1940. In 1943, more than three times as many deaths occurred as did in the year before the rain. Observe these figures:
1940
5 deaths
1941
9 deaths
1941
12 deaths
1943
16 deaths
But if we are attempting somehow to come to terms with the extent, or rather the depth, of the Ukulites’ tragedy, we should also note that at the end of 1943 there were four more Ukulite adherents than there had been before the rain. The reason for this is simple: the pluvial downfall was responsible for a mad escalation in the number of births over that same triennial. Here are the figures:
1940
3 births
1941
4 births
1942
18 births
1943
17 births
1944
16 births
Thus, if one considers only the statistics given above, the years of catastrophe could just as easily have been tagged ‘The Three Years of Fecundity’. The children conceived in this triennium became known as ‘Rain Babies’ or, later, ‘Rain Children’.
XIV
‘What shall we do with this day? What? Now that we have cleansed our souls in the sacred waters, what shall we do? What?!’ demanded Poe from the pulpit.
A dark murmur travelled through the congregation, each looking one to the other. But most eyes rested finally on Philo Holfe, eldest and tallest of the Holfe brothers, who had been unofficially elected spokesman for the Ukulite community. One-time curator of the small Natural History Museum located in the annex of the Courthouse – now sadly neglected and rarely opened – Philo Holfe was a simple but well-meaning man, commanding respect if not for his brains, then for his brawn.
Philo’s considerable bulk rose from his pew, afloat in a galaxy of lobbying looks. Eloquence was a word Philo did not know. After some time he reluctantly spoke. ‘If you please, Preacher Poe, perhaps that question is best left up to you? What shall we do this day, now that we have been cleaned?’
‘Perhaps we should lay right down in the same stinking cesspit that first sullied us?! Is that what you want?! Shall we sit on our goddamn laurels and bemoan our accursed misfortune?! Shall we just bide our time and wait for heaven to run dry?! Shall we wait?! Brothers and sisters! No, I say, and again I say no! Today is a day of reckoning. God watcheth this day and judgeth all. Through the sacred rite of Baptism we have tilled the soil of our souls, we have readied our spirits for the seed of The Creator – God, Maker of AH Things. Behold! The seed of the Lord shall sprout! In most the seed of the Lord will flourish, rich and green – but lo! There are yet those who grow, even now, black and twisted among us. It is they who have corrupted the valley, have infested its soul, and have brought the wrath of God down upon you!’
The rain seemed to hammer a little harder in support of the preacher. Wetly, Philo asked ‘How shall we know, Preacher Poe? How shall we spot the black ‘n’ twisty plant?’
The congregation approved the question with a low murmur.
‘I, Abie Poe, am a specialist in weeds! I am the hand that roots them out! They shall no longer say “I am the Branch of Life” – they who are the Stalk of Death!’
Encouraged by the echoes of support, Philo boomed ‘What must we do? What means you by the Stalk of Life and the Branch of Death?’
‘The Stalk of Death are those that challenge the bounds of Decency, that wallow in lust and walk in the mire of unfaith and adultery, that worship secretly strange and vile gods, that place false crowns upon their heads, that tempt and bespoil the righteous, that close their ears to the word of God, that use the name of the Almighty in vain! These things be the pith of the Stalk of Death! Our work is simple. Root it out!’
Poe raised his hands to the rafters and curled them into fists. ‘I am the sickle that hovereth poised at the foot of the Stalk of Death!’
Poe slammed down both fists simultaneously, thumping the leather-bound Bible that rested upon the pulpit.
‘But who, Preacher Poe? Who?’ asked Carl Holfe, standing suddenly, his urgent question echoed by the entire congregation as it rose to its feet in a rowdy clamour. With fingers outstretched, Abie Poe raised his hands a second time. He stood there for some minutes, head lowered, hands extended. Finally the din quelled and Poe lifted his head.
‘I think we have one brave soul here willing to cast the first stone. Mrs Eldridge, would you like to come forward?’
From the congregation came forth six women, led by the cripple. A platoon of hags with ruckled faces disfigured by the bitter bile of their days and eyes small and yellow and mean with spite. Six wives like six hooded lizards, blowing lethal breath. The mussitation of the crowd dropped instantly. All that could be heard was the squeal and scrape of the battered wheelchair as it drew up before the pulpit and slowly turned to face the congregation. Hilda Baxter, the cripple’s constant companion, stood behind her tightly gripping the handles of the chair. Eliza Williamson and Bess Snow stood either side of her like a pair of matching suitcases, and behind them, to the left and right of the pulpit, tiny Hulga Vanders and giant Kate Byrun gave the stone sorority a lopsided look. Each woman gave Poe a nod of recognition then turned to the congregation, now seated, and silently challenged any dissentient. Wilma Eldridge fingered her crucifix, massaging the silver Christ to warmth.
‘Clearly, brothers and sisters, Satan has planted a thistle in God’s very soil.’
‘A-men,’ said the women around her in unison, the claque echoing them a moment later.
‘And clearly we must locate that thistle and tear it from the earth.’
‘A-men!’
‘Brothers and sisters of the prophet Jonas Ukulore, I know where it grows! That thistle! That weed! I know!’
‘A-men!’
‘That evil weed, perverting and corrupting! I know! That evil weed, whose solicitating arms reach down into the very hearts of our homes!’
‘A-men! A-men!’ the men and women of the congregation blattered with growing momentum, though there, were few among them who knew who it was they prosecuted.
‘The weed grows deep, and black are its roots. Scarlet is its demon flower!’
‘A-men!!’
‘Yea! Ululites! Yea! Soldiers of the Lord!’
‘A-men!!’
‘That weed grows deep on Hooper’s Hill! Together we must find the strength to cast it out! A-men!!’
‘A-men!’
The women all rose to their feet, thin hard
hands clasped to rising chests. Those who had them looked to their husbands, and the transgressors among these men were the first to stand in support. Gloating smiles slid into the mouths of the women. Wilma Eldridge drubbed the arms of her chair and Poe thumped at his Bible till all four fists were beating the same grave and direful meter. Soon the valley sounded with the manifold thump! thump! thump! of fist against leather or polished oak. Thump! Thump! Thump! pounded the heart of the House of the Lord, up on Glory Hill.
XV
Cosey Mo lay slumped in the kick and prickle of morphine, the bloody syringe hanging, spent, between thumb and fore. She tied off. The crashing rain retreated, becoming a distant murmur to her ears. Her heart’s heavy beat lay like a wonderful egg, warm in its wet and crimson nest.
Naked on the bench seat, she curled toward the window that overlooked the valley and peeled back its curtain. Drawing up, she forced her eyes to focus. Catching sight of a set of headlights moving up Hooper’s Hill, her eyes drifted to the clock on the wall. It was twelve noon. Sunday. In the past few weeks, Sunday afternoon had become one of her busiest periods; even so, twelve o’clock seemed very early.
Naked still, and perched on the end of her bed, Cosey applied her make-up, her limbs’ former languor lost in a series of well-practiced movements – a blackened stroke, a blushing smudge, a smear of scented cherry, a lavender dab – until her heavy lids and sullen pout were brought magically alive. She pulled on a pair of stockings, hitching them to nothing, and, lastly, the pink robe. Buttoning it down the front, Cosey Mo seemed oblivious to the number of vehicles that had pulled up outside her caravan.
Glancing first in the mirror and then at the clock, she took a deep breath and opened the door, her breasts swelling and shifting inside her scant robe. ‘Well now, who’s the early bird then?’ she teased to the drumming rain. There, leaning and rocking on her heels, as she was, back and forth, in the doorway of the caravan.
From amidst the teeming folds of the rain-drenched noon, Abie Poe’s chill skull loomed forth a carping bone of accusation, hissing:
‘Behold, brethren! Behold the scarlet sloven! Discovered! Hear this, whore! Dirtiness is next to anti-Godliness! Yea! Painted seductress, your den is upturned! Temptress! Whore! Speak not, for your tongue is cloven! As is your gender! Cloven as the viper’s tongue! Cloven as the hoof of Satan! Your words know only the alleyways of trickery and deceit! Speak not, for our ears are warned against you! Bloody lily of the muck-heap! Begone! Yea! Get thee behind me, Satan! You have riddled this pious acre with sin and sloth! But your day has come! Out! Out! Get thee from our ground!’
The sisterhood of screaming heads hovered around the preacher, forming a grotesque gloriole about him. They barked like wounded bitches, Wilma Eldridge leading the pack.
‘Out! Fornicatrix! Begone! While we still have a mind to let you! Base baggage! Minx! Or is it better we burn you out? Wicked temptator! Witch! Out – or burn you we shall!’
Bobbing about the periphery of Cosey’s comprehension like smaller dogs, the menfolk, in sheepish support, finally echoed the bitter maledictions of their wives. Those who wore the leg-irons both of wifedom and of whoredom rattled their chains the loudest.
Framed in the doorway, Cosey had a tired quality to her appearance that served only to enhance her vigorous sensuality. The muscles that lay beneath her thin robe tightened as her body locked into a stance of defiant outrage. Her top lip curled back, baring strong white teeth, and she hissed and seethed and glared at her castigators. Trembling with rage, Cosey thrust one damning finger forward and the men cowered and dodged its accusatory line as if it were a hexing wand that she pointed, or a witch-doctor’s terrible bone.
The crowd fell silent, the rain hammering at its hind. Only Poe’s burlesque banter and the hawking squawks of the cripple, writhing and thrashing in her chair, rose above the rain’s interminable din.
Cosey pointed at Franklin Eldridge, who stood behind his wife, but it was the jaundiced eyes of the cripple into which she stared. Cosey’s lips rose in a cruel, mocking smile.
‘Why Franklin! For shame! You know your day is Friday and here you are again and it’s only Sunday! O such is the lure of a good, strong set of legs!’ Cosey’s robe parted for one taunting thigh.
‘Fra-a-a-anklin!’ roared Wilma Eldridge. ‘Shut her up!’
Franklin, a small sad man, hiked the steps of the caravan, and, wheezing like a distant dying siren, delivered a blow to the harlot’s mouth. He stood back, mouth agape, shocked at the measure of his deed, shocked by the violence and drawing of blood.
Dabbing at her lip and again extending her finger, Cosey saw more damage to be done. She singled out a bigger, badder target.
‘Oh it’s Doggy-Dawes! Down on all four…’
And with fists the size of Cosey’s face, Douglas Dawes pushed Franklin Eldridge to one side, and, barking once, batted the harlot’s skull first left, then right, back and forth, spinning her this way and that, and wrapping her in the beaded curtain that hung in the doorway. There she dangled like a limp marionette, then collapsed in a heap at his feet as though discarded by some reckless puppeteer.
Douglas Dawes descended the steps and was swallowed up by the slow-closing crowd. No sooner had he disappeared than the body of Cosey Mo stirred, as if driven on by the numbing narcotic. She raised herself to her knees, lifting her right hand a fraction and speaking through a mouthful of blood and pieces of teeth; she gurgled, she blithered, stupid. But the crowd was upon her before her utterance could take form, drowning her in a hail of fists and feet. The storm raged unabated, quelling only when her body lay, naked and limp, in the blood-coloured mud at the bottom of the steps.
Tilting her head towards the battered harlot and straining at her clogged wheels in an attempt to motivate herself, Wilma Eldridge cast her stupefied spouse a sly, conspiratorial glance.
‘Wheel me, Franklin,’ she barked, her voice set a-tremble by the violence she had witnessed. ‘Closer!’
Franklin Eldridge dutifully complied, the mud sucking noisily at the chair’s wheels as he pushed his wife alongside Cosey’s motionless body.
‘Lepers and harlots should be marked! Your shame shall not go unrecognized, Mystery!’ said the cripple, and proffering her hand palm up she added impatiently, ‘Franklin! The shears!’
Franklin reached into his jacket, produced a large pair of scissors, and pressed them into his wife’s hand.
‘May your sin be upon you, whore!’ she said, leaning out over the side of her chair. And the enraged woman set about hacking off to the scalp Cosey Mo’s bountiful locks.
She sat back in her chair with the long muddied locks of hair in her hand, and the cruel smile that had formed upon her lips as she attended to ‘the marking’ turned suddenly into a sneer of disgust. She flung the fistful of hair on to the churned-up ground.
‘Whore hair!’ she said, each word spat out like it was too foul for the mouth.
Philo Holfe broke up the crowd and Doc Morrow knelt by Cosey, lifting one arm by the wrist.
‘She’ll live, I think,’ said the doctor bitterly, and laid her arm down again.
The mob dispersed without a word. Franklin Eldridge took the handles of his wife’s chair. Wilma looked at him, her mouth twisted into a rebarbative smile of contempt. She nodded toward the outstretched arm of the battered whore, and, wet-lipped and gloating, was borne away. Cosey’s brittle fingers cracked like candy beneath the wheels of the chair.
Philo Holfe shuddered and for a moment shut tight his eyes. Then he said, ‘We’ll take her. Carl and me, we’ll take her out.’
The two brothers lifted the broken woman gently into the front seat of their pick-up. The doctor covered her with her sopping robe, brown and bloody.
Carl Holfe drove, making a wide turn atop Hooper’s Hill before plunging down the drive toward Maine.
Abie Poe backed his nag into the little caravan and with some added encouragement from his wicked spurs, the animal sent Cosey Mo’s tiny pink p
arlour tumbling down the side of Hooper’s Hill like a runaway toy.
Alone atop the hill, Abie Poe dropped to his knees and, stretching his arms heavenward, he wept. A thunderbolt leapt from a cloud’s blackened belly.
‘Thank you, Lord, thank you!’ cried the preacher into the crackling thunderama. ‘O thank you, and again I say, O Lord, I thank you!’
Ah saw the little caravan come careering down Hooper’s Hill and explode in a splinter of wet pink wood. From where ah sat the caravan was exactly the same size as mah thumbnail and ah watched the crowd as it followed it down the hill, led by the raving priest. With the wreckage at the bottom they managed to build a blazing fire, despite the rain. Poe flapped up blackly against an infernal backdrop of flame, framed in dark clouds as the kerosene smoked thickly. The windows exploded with four loud cracks. Showers of yellow sparks burst like constellations of new stars.
Ah saw all of Cosey Mo’s sexy red unnerwear hanging across the bushes like devilish fruit, and on the ground too in sheery pools of scarlet lace and bloody silk.
In mah mind’s eye, ah saw the hill all covered with naked, writhing whore-wraiths that moaned and romped in the mud, all humping ghosts in the mad grapple of copulation.
The following day ah sifted through the pile of ash and cinder that lay at the foot of Hooper’s Hill, and found amongst the charred remains a blackened beauty case. It contained the blue glass bottles of scented water. Coloured cotton-balls and bottles were both undamaged. In the case was also a hypodermic syringe and three attachable needles that were very sharp. A bubble of blood sprung upon mah thumb. Also a photograph of Cosey Mo, upon the back of which was scribbled a short poem, signed and dated June 1930; two tiny brown vials, the seals of which were as yet unbroken; a packet of three pink balloons that needed stronger lungs than mine to fill; and a gold locket containing a kindergraph of a little girl that was unmistakably Cosey Mo. Ah treasured these things in a shoebox that ah lined with strips of newsprint and filed under ‘Cosey Mo, 1943’. Ah also took a white nightgown ah found snagged on a shrub. When wrung out and dried it looked fresh and crisp.