It was Cheri Ann Bee who started it off. She was seven now, and not even baptized yet, but she still bore her testimony, and at the end she said something real simple, but it about broke Tina's heart. "I'm sorry I didn't get sick that day and stay home," she said, "so I could've gone with Mommy and Daddy to visit Heavenly Father." Cheri Ann didn't cry or anything; she just plain believed that things were better with her mother and father. And as Tina sat there with tears in her eyes, she wasn't sure if she felt like crying out of pity for this girl or if she felt like crying because she herself didn't have such plain and simple faith, and lacked something of that perfect trust that death was just a matter of going to pay a call on God, who would invite you into his house to live with him.
"I'm sorry, too," said Brother Deaver, and then he did cry, tears running down his cheeks. "I'm sorry I went to work that day. I'm sorry that the Christian Soldiers were so afraid of provoking the black community of Greensboro that they didn't come take me out of class at A&T and let me hold my babies in my arms while they were dying."
"His kids wasn't babies," Scotty Porter whispered to Tina. "They was bigger than me."
"All children are always babies to their mama and papa," Tina answered.
"I called my mama that morning," said Annalee, and wonder of wonders, she was crying, too, looking as soft and vulnerable as a child. "I told her how Pete was keeping the kids home from school and we were making a picnic of it at the fire station. And she said, I wisht I could come. And then she said, Can't talk now, Anny Leedy, there's somebody at the door. Somebody at the door! It was them at the door, and there I was talking to her on the phone and I didn't even say I love you one last time or nothing."
There was silence for a while, the way there always was in testimony meetings from time to time, when nobody stood up to talk. It always used to be so tense when nobody talked, everybody feeling guilty cause the time was going to waste and hoping somebody else would get up and talk cause they didn't feel like it. This time, though, the silence was just because everybody was so full and there wasn't a thing to say.
"I knew," said Pete, finally. "I had a dream the night before. I saw the men coming to the doors. I was shown. That's why I kept the kids home. That's why I got us all over to the fire station."
"You never told me this," said Annalee.
"I thought it was crazy, that's why. I thought I was plain out of my mind to take a nightmare so serious. But I couldn't leave you all home, feeling like I did." Pete looked around at the others. "My station, they stood by me. They turned on the hoses and drove them back. My captain said to them, 'If you touch any fireman or any fireman's family, don't be surprised to find your own house on fire someday, and the fire engines a little slow to show up and save you.' And so they went away, and we were alive." Suddenly his face twisted up and he sobbed, great and terrible sobs.
"Petey," said Annalee. She put her arm around him, but he shrugged her off.
"God showed me a vision, don't you see? All I could think to save was my own family. Not even my brothers and sisters! Not even my mama! I had a chance to save them all, and they're dead because I didn't give warning."
Brother Deaver tried to soothe him with words. "Pete, the Lord didn't command you in that dream to give warning. He didn't tell you to call everybody and tell them. So he probably meant to take the others to himself, and spare only a few to suffer further in this vale of tears."
Pete lifted his face from his hands, a mask of grief with reddened eyes staring out, wild and terrible. "He did tell me," said Pete. "Warn them all, he said, only I just thought it was a nightmare, I was too embarrassed to claim to have a vision, I thought they'd all think I was crazy. I'm going to hell, don't you see? I can't go to Utah. I'm rejected and cast off from the Lord."
"Even Jonah was forgiven," said Brother Deaver.
But Pete wasn't in the mood to be comforted. It was the end of the meeting, but it was a good meeting, Tina knew that. Everybody said the things they'd been holding back all along, or had those things said for them. They'd done what a testimony meeting was supposed to do. They'd confessed their sins, and now there was hope of forgiveness.
It was afternoon of Easter Sunday. The day had warmed up right smart, and Jamie shed his jacket and felt the wind cool on his back and arms, right through his shirt, and felt the sun hot, too, right at the same time. Best kind of weather, best kind of day.
"I guess you got an earful today."
Jamie turned around. He couldn't believe he hadn't heard a big woman like Tina come lumbering up behind him. But then she wasn't so big these days. And he had a lot of noisy thoughts going round in his head.
"I figured a lot of this out before, anyway," said Jamie. "I heard tales of the Greensboro massacre."
"Is that how they tell it? That our people were massacred?"
"Sometimes," said Jamie. "Other times they call it the Purification of Greensboro. Them as says that usually allow as how other places need purification, too."
"I hope all our people are heading west. I pray they all have sense to go. We should've gone years ago."
"May be," said Jamie. But he knew this wasn't what Tina came to say.
"Jamie," said Tina.
This was it.
"Jamie, what's holding you here?"
Jamie looked around at the trees, at the bright spring grass, at the distant curls of smoke from two dozen chimneys spread out through the hills.
"You hardly speak to your neighbors, leastwise you didn't till we came here, Jamie. You got no close friends in these hills."
"They leave me alone," said Jamie Teague.
"Too bad," said Tina.
"I like it. I like being left alone."
"Don't tell me lies, Jamie."
"I was a loner before the collapse, and I'm a loner now. Whole thing made not a speck of difference to me."
"Don't tell yourself lies, either."
Jamie felt anger flash out inside him. "I don't need anybody talking like a mama to me. I had once and I killed her dead."
"I don't believe that lie," said Tina.
"Why?" demanded Jamie. "Do you think I'm so nice I'd just naturally never kill a soul? Then you don't know me at all."
"I know there's times you kill," said Tina. "I just don't believe you killed your mama and papa. Because if you did, then why are you still so mad at them?"
"Leave me alone." Jamie meant it with all his heart.
But Tina didn't seem interested in leaving him alone. "You know you love us and you don't want to lose us when we leave."
"Is that what you think?"
"That's what I know. I see how good you are with the kids. What a friend you been to Peter. Don't you see that's half why he wanted to stay, to be with you? We all count on you, we all lean on you, but you count on us, too, you need us."
She was pushing too hard. Jamie couldn't stand it. "Back off," he said. "Just back off and leave me be."
"And when we pray, you fall silent, and your lips say Amen when the prayer is over."
"I got respect for religion, that's all."
"And today when we all confessed the blackest things that hurt us to the soul, you wanted to confess, too.
"I confessed a long time ago."
"You confessed a terrible lie. That's what I keep wondering about, Jamie Teague. What sin are you hiding that you think is so bad that it's easier to confess to killing your mama and papa?"
"Leave me alone!" shouted Jamie. Then he ran off from her, ran off up the hill, scrambling fast so he knew there was no hope of her keeping up. Didn't matter. She didn't chase him.
Mick Porter took his brother Scotty with him everywhere. Never let that little boy out of his sight. Have to look out for a kid like Scotty, always running off, always getting into things like he shouldn't.
In the old days it wasn't like that, of course. In the old days Mick used to complain to Mom about how Scotty always had to do everything the same as him. Mick used to wallop Scotty sometimes, and Scotty'd
break down whatever Mick made out of legos or blocks, and it got to be like a war. But that all ended. Just didn't happen no more, on account of who'd break up their fights and send them to their rooms till they could just treat each other like civilized human beings now? Mick felt like he was almost Scotty's dad. I am his only kin, and he's my only kin, so look out, everybody else, and that's all.
So Mick had Scotty tagging right along with him, gathering fallen sticks for kindling and getting in some rock-throwing practice, too. Mick wasn't up to getting squirrels, yet. He still had kind of a hard time hitting the same tree he was aiming at. Scotty, of course, had no idea about aim at all. He just felt good if the rock went more than five feet in the general direction he threw it.
Hardly a surprise, then, when Scotty threw his latest rock and it went sideways, whizzing right past Mick's nose and then going thunk, right into something soft not more than a few feet off.
"OK, I'm dead, just skin me gentle so you don't wake me up."
Mick near to swallowed his tongue he was so surprised. There was Mr. Jamie Teague, sitting right there, and until he spoke Mick hadn't even noticed him. He just held so still all the time.
"I hit something!" said Scotty.
"You hit my jeans," said Mr. Teague. "If I was a squirrel I might not be dead, but I'd sure be crippled."
"We can't cook you," said Scotty.
"Guess not," said Mr. Teague. "I'm sorry about that."
"We don't eat people anyhow," Mick told Scotty.
"I know that," Scotty said, his voice full of scorn.
Mick turned his attention to Mr. Teague. "What you doing just setting there?"
"Setting here."
"I just said that."
"And thinking."
"Of course you were thinking," said Mick. "Everybody's always thinking. You can't turn it off."
"And ain't that a damn shame, too," said Mr. Teague.
Scotty gasped and covered his mouth.
"I'm sorry," said Mr. Teague. "I grew up in a family where 'damn' was the nice way of saying stuff."
"I know a worser word," said Scotty.
"No you don't," said Mick.
"He might," said Mr. Teague. "You never know."
"It's another word for poop," said Scotty.
"Don't that beat all," said Mr. Teague. "Better not teach me what it is, now, Scotty. I might slip and use it in polite company."
Mick sat down near Mr. Teague's leg, and looked him in the eye. "Sister Monk says you didn't really kill your mama and daddy."
"Does she now."
"I heard her," said Scotty.
"Is she right?" asked Mick.
"I used to dream about killing them. But after they took us kids away from them, nobody ever told us where they were. Jail, I guess. I always meant to look for them and kill them when I got eighteen and could leave my foster parents, so-called, but the collapse came before I could get a fair start. So you see I meant to do it, and it wasn't my fault I didn't do it, so the way I figure it, I did it in my heart so I'm a murderer."
"No sir," said Mick. "You never did it. You got to kill somebody to be a murderer."
"Maybe so," said Mr. Teague.
"Then you'll come with us?"
Mr. Teague laughed out loud. He pulled his legs up close to his body and hugged them. They were the longest pair of legs Mick ever saw. Even longer than Daddy's legs used to be.
"You think my daddy's a skeleton now?" asked Mick.
Mr. Teague's smile went away. "Maybe," he said. "Hard to say."
"The Christian Soldiers killed him," said Mick.
"And Mommy," said Scotty.
"Those are what murderers are," said Mick.
"I know," said Mr. Teague.
"Brother Deaver says they killed our mama and daddy because we believe in a living prophet and how Jesus isn't the same person as God the Father."
"That's right, I guess."
"What did your mama and daddy believe?"
Mr. Teague took a long breath. He crossed his arms on top of his knees, and then rested his chin on top of his arms. He looked right between Mick and Scotty so long that Scotty started breaking twigs and Mick began to think Mr. Teague just wasn't going to answer, or maybe even he was mad.
"Don't break them sticks, Scotty," said Mick. "We can't use it for kindling if it's all broke up."
Scotty stopped breaking twigs. Didn't sass or stick out his tongue or nothing. It was all different now.
"My mama and daddy believed in getting by," said Mr. Teague.
"Getting by what?" asked Scotty.
"Just—getting by."
"That's what you wanted to kill them about?" asked Mick.
Mr. Teague shook his head.
"You aren't making sense, you know," said Mick.
Mr. Teague grinned. "Guess not." He reached out a long arm, and with a single long finger he lifted Mick's chin. Mick didn't like it when grown-ups started moving parts of his body around or grabbing his hand or whatever, like they thought he was a puppet. But it wasn't so bad when Mr. Teague did it, especially because he didn't act like he was planning to make Mick do something or yell at him or anything. "You love your little brother, don't you?"
Mick shrugged.
Scotty looked at him.
"Course," said Mick.
"Not when you're mad at me," said Scotty.
"I'm never mad at you anymore," said Mick.
"No," said Scotty, as if he was realizing it for the first time.
"I had a little brother," said Mr. Teague.
"Did you love him?" asked Mick.
"Yes," said Mr. Teague.
"Where is he?"
"Dead I guess," said Mr. Teague.
"Don't you know?"
"They put him in a mental hospital same time they locked up my folks. Put my little sister in a mental hospital, too. Then they farmed out me and my older brother to foster homes. Never saw any of them again, but I reckon my little brother, being crazy like he was, I reckon he didn't last long after the collapse."
Mr. Teague was breathing kind of fast, and not looking Mick in the eye anymore. It was kind of scary, like Mr. Teague was a little crazy himself. "How'd he get crazy?" asked Mick. He wondered if the same thing was happening to Mr. Teague.
"Does he scream?" asked Scotty. "Crazy people scream."
"Sometimes he screamed. Mostly he just sat there, looking past you. He'd never look folks in the eye. It was like you wasn't even there. Like he was erasing you in his own mind. But he looked at me."
"How come you?"
"Because I brought him food."
"Not your mama?"
Mr. Teague shook his head. "It was when I was five. Your age, Scotty. And my little brother, he was three."
"I'm five and a half," said Scotty.
"And my little sister, she was only two."
"Was she crazy?" asked Mick.
"Not then. But she was sick. And so was my little brother. Both of them, all the time. Ever since they was born. My brother got pneumonia and cried all the time. Lots of bills to pay. My little sister was fussy, too. I used to hear Mama and Daddy yelling at each other all the time, about money, about too damn many kids. Fighting and screaming, and Mama screaming about how she just couldn't take any more, she just couldn't stand it if us kids didn't just shut up and let her be for just a couple of hours, that's all she wanted, just a couple of hours of silence, and she was going to have it by God or she'd kill herself, see if I don't, she said, I'm going to cut my wrists and die if you don't shut up. And me, I'd shut up all right, I kept my mouth shut. The older kids, they were in school. But my little brother, he was just sick and out of sorts and he just kept crying and whimpering and the more she yelled the more he whimpered and then my sister, she woke up from her nap and she started crying even louder than my brother did, they just screamed and screamed, and my mama screamed even louder, she just got this horrible face, and she picked up my sister and I thought she was going to throw her on the floor, but she did
n't do it. She just took her and grabbed my brother by his arm and dragged him along, dragged them over to the cedar closet that had a lock on the door and she opened it up and shoved them inside and closed the door and locked it. Cry and whine all you want to but I'm not going to hear any more, do you understand me? I just can't stand it any more I'm going to have some peace."
"Daddy locked me in the bathroom one time when I was bad," said Mick.
"Did they have a light in there?" asked Scotty.
"They had a light. There was a switch and my brother could stand on a box in there and turn it on, so he did. But they didn't like being in there. They screamed and yelled and cried like it was the worst thing in the world, and my brother banged on the door and rattled the handle and kicked the door and stamped his feet. But Mama just went downstairs and turned on the dishwasher and went into the living room and turned on the stereo and laid there on the couch listening to the radio until she fell asleep. Every now and then my brother and sister, they let up on their yelling, but then they'd start all over again. When the older kids got home from school they knew right off to stay away from Mom, and they didn't even ask where the little ones were. They knew you don't mess with Mom in a mood like that. Anyway, Mom got up and fixed dinner, and when Dad came home we ate, and Dad asked where the little kids were, and Mom said, Learning to be quiet. And when she said that, Dad knew not to mess with her, either. Except at the end of the meal he said, Aren't they going to eat? And so Mom slopped food onto a couple of plates and put spoons on them and then she handed me the key and said, Take them their dinner, Jamie. But if you let them out I'll kill myself, do you understand?"
"They was really in trouble I guess," said Scotty.
"When I opened the door my brother tried to get out, but I pushed him back in. He screamed and cried louder than ever, except he was hoarse by then. My sister was just setting in a corner with her face all red and covered with snot, but he kicked me and tried to shove me out of the way, but I knocked him down and then I knocked him down again and then I slid their plates in with my foot and slammed the door and locked it. My brother kicked and yelled and screamed for a while, but then he quieted down and I guess they ate their dinner. Later on they screamed and yelled some more, about going to the bathroom, but Mom just pretended not to hear, she just shook her head. They're not getting out by yelling, they're not getting their way by yelling."