World Made by Hand

Sixty-three

When I got to the old high school sometime later and asked to talk to Brother Jobe, one of the sisters, without hesitation, led me around the back of the building, around the north end of their big garden where the football field used to be, and pointed at the edge of the woods along an up-slope pasture. A distant figure dressed in black sat up there.

“Thank you,” I said.

“I think he’s been waiting for you.”

I climbed over a stile into the pasture and made my way up the hill. Cadmus was among the horses there. A dozen of them were huddled in the shade of a large oak tree along the fence running up to the woods. At the top of the hill, Brother Jobe sat in an unpainted rough-sawn slat chair with a jug on the ground in the clover beside his chair. He was drinking whiskey from a jelly glass with cartoon characters embossed on it. Sweat beaded on his low forehead.

“Afternoon, old son. Have a drink?”

In fact, I was still intensely hungry, and I was not accustomed to drinking liquor in the middle of the day, but it suddenly seemed like a good idea.

“All right,” I said.

“I only have but one glass,” he said. “You’re welcome to share or drink straight out of that there jug. I don’t have no cooties.”

I went for the jug. A stiff pull. It was good whiskey.

“Have a ding-dang seat, you’re making me nervous.”

I sat on the ground next to him.

“I love to watch the horses,” he said. “You know, all those years back down home, my people were just crazy for the NASCAR. They’d go out to some honking huge oval track at Darlington or Daytona and watch those dadblamed machines go round and round and round, making all that noise. A horrible din. For hours and hours. If I knew how somebody could endure that, I’d die happy. Not to mention calling it recreation! Heck, it’d be more interesting to go out to the freeway overpass and watch traffic. At least the goldurn cars’d go in different directions. Anyway, I’m glad that foolishness is over. The car wrecked the southland. It wrecked Atlanta worse than Sherman ever did. It paved over my Virginia. They made themselves slaves to the car and everything connected with it, and it destroyed them in the end. Well, here’s to the New South. May it rest in peace.”

He raised his glass and took a good gulp. We had a nice view from the top of the pasture. You could see clear over the school into town, down Van Buren, the street trees all in a line, the jumble of rooftops amid the billowing foliage, and a glimpse of Main Street at the end of the vista.

“I can see how you could grow to love this little burg, though,” Brother Jobe said. “It’s a sweet corner of the country. Good fertile land too. I wish the town wasn’t so beat, but maybe we can bring her back. You see down there where the school auditorium is?”

“Yeah…”

“We’re going to build a pitched roof on her with a real steeplenot one of those dumb-ass cartoon steeples like they did in the old times on them churches that looked like goldurn muffler shops. In a few years you won’t recognize this place. It’ll be like unto a shining city set upon a hill.”

“How’d you get out of your cell, Brother Jobe?” I said, the whiskey finally driving some of the tension out of my skull.

“How do you suppose?”

“I can imagine you worked the combination lock open somehow.”

“Yeah, well, that would be an obvious one.”

“Is that what you did?”

Brother Jobe shrugged.

“What I can’t figure, though, is how you got into Karp’s cell. That’s a regular padlock, and I have the only key and the lock isn’t broken. I don’t see how you did it.”

“What’d I tell you the other day about this being a world of strangeness? Science don’t rule the roost no more.”

“Did you kill him?”

“Was I supposed to know that he’s dead?”

“I’d say so.”

“Then I’d say he was struck down by the Lord’s righteous wrath.”

“Were you the instrument of it?”

“Look at that fine mare yonder, the big bay with the star blaze. I’m aiming to breed my jack to her and go into the mule business big time. You folks don’t appreciate a mule. They ain’t stubborn. They’re sensible is all. You can’t make them do some durn fool thing that’ll endanger their lives or well-being. They’re smart. But they’ll gladly follow any reasonable command, and they’re smoother riders than your horse. People feel it’s demeaning to ride a mule, but I’ll take a mule to a saddle horse any day. Plus, they can endure the heat where a horse can’t.”

“What am I going to say to those people up in Karptown when I bring the body back?”

“If it was me, I’d tell them to come down and fetch it themself.”

“It looks like we lynched him.”

“Maybe they’ll have to suck it up.”

“What if they don’t.”

“Then they’re liable to see more of the Lord’s justice.”

“You were the one who was so hot for legitimate authority and due process around here.”

“Still am. I want to live in a peaceful, orderly land. Nobody’s sicker of strife than I am. Trouble is, some people and the things they do, there’s no earthly legal remedy for. You gave it a good shot, though, old son. You’re upright as all get out.”

“He died in my charge.”

“No one worth caring about will see it that way.”

“What are you going to do? Cast a spell over everybody?”

“Have a little faith. I have faith in you,” Brother Jobe said. He poured himself three fingers of whiskey in the glass and passed the jug to me. I was nearly brain-dead with fatigue and frustration, on top of the whiskey. I put the jug aside.

“What do you propose I say about how come you busted out of jail?”

“Say I was bonded out on my own recognizance and will appear in court to pay a substantial fine for my unseemly attempt at good-humored fun. Giving haircuts ain’t a capital crime here is it?”

“You mind me asking you a personal question?” I said.

“I dunno. What?”

“What’s your actual given name?”

“What’s it matter?”

“Just curious.”

“I was born Lyle Beecham Wilsey.”

“You’re a regular human being, right?”

“I like to think so,” he said.

There was little more to say, except for one thing.

“I was shocked to hear about Brother Minor. We spent a week together riding down to Albany and back, you know.”

“I know.”

“He was considerate of us who rode with him. I was fond of him.”

“Yes, he was a spirited young man,” Brother Jobe said. “Brave, righteous. Helpful. Cheerful. I had high hopes for him. He was my son.