Читать книгу House of Purple Cedar - Tim Tingle - Страница 20

Serpent of Brass

Rose

Brother Willis arrived soon with his wife and seven children. Out of respect, Amafo waited till the preacher spotted him and nodded, then he moved to help with the horses. Jamey dashed to the dirt play yard by the church, where the Willis children were already ignoring their mother.

“Stay near the wagon and don’t get your clothes dirty before church!”

The Willis children were pelting one another with dirt clods in the usual order. The oldest was clobbering the next oldest and so on, as mischief slid down the branches of the Willis family tree till the three-year-old sat in the mud making the baby eat dirt against his will.

“Church just would not be the same without those Willis children,” Pokoni once said. “Reverend Willis could rant and rave all day about the demons of Hell and nobody would listen. But take one look at those children of his and you will never again doubt that demons are real. Yes, the Lord works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform.”

Samuel had more sense than all the others put together. He knew not to involve Roberta Jean in their mischief making. Respect for her standing in the community as a young lady had little to do with Samuel’s thinking.

Samuel avoided Roberta Jean because of the big black rock she carried in her purse. She had discovered the rock in the lava beds of the Kiamichi Mountains during a summer church campout with other girls her age. She hid it deep in her purse before anyone saw her. That night she explained her theft to the Lord.

“Dear Lord, please forgive me for taking that rock from the lava beds even after we had all promised Miss Stella we would not take anything. I don’t think you’ll ever understand why I took it seeing as how you don’t have any mean little brothers. So I am not asking for your blessing, just your forgiveness.

“I don’t plan on ever having to use this rock. Somehow I think just having it handy will be enough to protect me. Amen.”

Samuel knew of the rock, had even tried to steal it a few times, sneaking into Roberta Jean’s room when she was away. But Roberta Jean never, ever left home without the rock. Barely did she ever leave her room without it. Thus, from his early years, Samuel granted his big sister Roberta Jean her place in the family. She had a weapon and he was convinced she would use it if threatened.

The younger members of the Willis gang were far less bothered. I fully expected one of them to be clobbered by the black rock. In fact, the promise of such a clobbering was one of the main attractions of the First Christian Church of Skullyville, and one reason not to miss a single Sunday service.

On this Sunday, when middle child Blue Ned Willis came skulking from the blackjack oak shadows towards Roberta Jean, she at first pretended not to notice him. Blue Ned lifted his arm and took aim with a glob of hard round mud. Roberta Jean casually reached into her purse and lifted the black rock, holding it high and flashing its sharp edges in the sunlight.

Even a dumb-as-the-dirt-clod-he-held child like Blue Ned Willis understood this message. He shrugged as if to say, Why waste a good mud clod on you anyway? —and ran in search of other victims.

Momma and I walked up the three wooden steps and entered the church. A single aisle ran down the center of the building. We found our place two rows from the front and to the right of the aisle, near the window. All the women sat to the right, the men to the left.

The windows were open and the curtains moved with the soft life of an old man napping. I sat on the end of the bench, where it touched the wall, and felt the sunlight warm my cheeks. More than anything, I liked these minutes of settling in, of smoothing my dress just so and lifting or lowering the window to suit the needs of rain or heat or bitter chill. I eased my shoulder against the pine planks of the wall and closed my eyes.

Since Reverend Willis occupied the pulpit, the Willis boys were guarded at either end of their pew by the Bobb brothers, Efram and Ben. They were strong-armed and stiff-lipped and no Willis boy would dare disturb their divine Sunday peace. They always wore identical black suits with knee-length coats and sleeves as thick as trees.

“God has a way of evening things out,” Pokoni always said. “He gave those Bobb boys all that arm muscle to make up for not giving them any necks.”

Beneath her gentle ribbing was a profound respect for the Bobbs, shared by all in the community. After their father died, Efram and Ben had given up schooling and courting to work alongside their mother on the family farm. The Bobb brothers were hard-working men and worthy of respect.

They kept their arms folded throughout the service, nodding and pointing with their lips while others shouted “Amen” and “Glory Be.” They joined in the hymn singing with voices straight from the caves, deep as the dark and awesome as an echo.

Three hundred people were in attendance that morning, squeezed into a church built for a hundred and fifty. Brother Willis moved to the altar, saying simply, “Hymn number 48.”

We sang “Amazing Grace.”

Shilombish Holitopa ma!

Ish minti pulla cha,

Hattak ilbusha pia ha

Ish pi yukpalashke.

Pi chukush nusi atukma

Ant ish okchulashke,

Ish pi yohbiechikbano;

E chim aiahnishke.

Shilombish Holitopa ma!

Pim anukfila hut

Okhlilit kunai hoka,

Ish pi on tomashke.

Pi chukush nukhaklo yoka

Ant pi hopohluchi:

Il aiashucheka yoka

Ish pi kashoffashke.

Brother Willis always knew. The singing was so soft and sweet at first, the words so tender to hear. Every Choctaw could choose to cry or smile, the words let us choose. Soon, with all those new voices, the singing was loud and every word clung to the air till the next one wriggled free. We sang our own stories, sang them to the listening Lord above.

Before Reverend Willis began his sermon, the wind picked up and the pine trees swayed, filling the church with a soft murmuring of whispers. He took more time than usual flipping through the pages of his Bible. He was aware that his words would be repeated over and over in the coming months, at supper tables and all manner of Choctaw gatherings. They would be seen as our response to the attack upon Amafo. Our earthly response had been announced by Amafo, but the all-important Divine interpretation of these affairs fell to the Reverend Willis.

Before announcing the chosen scripture, Reverend Willis adjusted his reading glasses. His eyes took in the entire congregation and when he spoke his booming voice stilled the wind.

“We turn now to the Old Testament, to the Book of Numbers, chapter twenty-one, verse five.

And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread.

And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.

Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.

And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.

And Moses made a serpent of brass and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.

Reverend Willis closed his Bible. He slowly removed his glasses and lay them on the pulpit. He lifted his head and his eyes roamed the church, till every one of us felt he was staring straight into our own souls.

“The serpents are loose among us. We have felt the sting of their bite and the poison of their venom. We have been left to die.”

He paused and a nervous shifting crept among the congregation. Quiet hmmms and ohhhs rose from bowed heads. The reverend waited. When he stepped from behind the pulpit and lifted his arms high, his palms to the sky, all heads rose.

“God will never leave his people!” the reverend shouted.

A deep and whispered Amen from Efram Bobb. His mother gripped his arm.

“God has given us a brass rod, made in the image of the serpent. Look upon this rod and life is yours. Forever, my brethren. We have been granted the rod of our faith, our everlasting faith that God is good and we are strong in the face of our tormentors.

“The fiery serpents have been loosed and we have felt their venom. But they are weak and we are strong. We are bonded by our love. Our love for our families, our love for our gathered brethren, our love for this good earth we walk upon, and most of all, our abiding and never-ending love for the good God that put us here.”

We stood as one to hear his words. Reverend Willis turned to the pulpit and took his Bible. He held it high and the Amens grew louder as we watched. He lowered the Bible and pointed to the door behind us. We turned, half-expecting Christ himself to enter. He then pointed the Bible to our left and to our right, all with slow deliberation, to the bright green leaves of spring and the graves nestled among the trees.

The image of what happened next will stay with me forever. Reverend Willis lifted the Bible in an arc, like the sun moving from morning to the evening purple sunset. We followed, mouths open and eyes pleading, as he moved the Bible high over his head, then lowered it to point behind himself, at the painting of the crucified Jesus on the cedar backwall of our church.

“He is risen and walks among us,” he said.