Summer of the Redeemers (14 page)

Magdeline Scott fled the little stage. She ran behind the piano and disappeared into the darkened corridors of the church. There was only the sound of her hard-soled shoes on the linoleum and the slamming of a door.

I felt as if a giant fist had unclenched on my ribs. Magdeline Scott. And Georgie. I peeped at him through the window. His face was turned down, and something that looked suspiciously like a tear was hanging off the end of his nose. The two adults beside him, the heavy-set man who had stood up and called Magdeline, and the thinner woman had lost all semblance of life. They were stone. They both looked straight ahead, without expression. Somehow the rest of the congregation had shrunk away from these three. They were isolated and alone in the center of a crowded pew.

From the middle of the church a young man stepped forward. He smiled to the left and right as he went up to the stage.

“Timothy!” The preacher’s greeting was warm.

“That poor little girl standing up here makin’ up stories to tell just broke my heart. Especially when I was so full of sin myself, before the Lord touched my soul. Poor little thing can only imagine what sin is. But I’m here to tell you I know sin. I’ve walked hand in hand with Satan, and I’ve felt the worldly pleasures he tempts all men with.”

He stepped up on the stage and turned to face the congregation. “I came to the Blood of the Redeemers Church last month, as most of you know. From Texas. Some of you know about my dealings out there, and some don’t. But it was Brother Marcus, when he was out there on his May ministry, that took a moment out of his life and changed mine completely.”

Timothy was glib. No one in the congregation seemed to notice when Brother Marcus backed into the shadows and disappeared. Everyone
was enthralled with Timothy’s story of sex and drugs in Texas.

I saw Marcus leave. He went out the same door Magdeline had left through. Georgie and his parents sat like rocks in the pew. I felt a sudden need for action, to hurry around the church and see about the girl. There didn’t seem to be anyone who would make sure she was okay except Georgie, and he wasn’t about to move off his pew.

I’d come to the church to see something, and what I’d seen was more than I’d expected. I knew what fornicating meant. Effie had talked about it. Married people did it, but they didn’t call it fornicating. They called it making love or making babies. Teenagers and boys called it fucking. The only time I’d tried to call it anything I’d gotten in big trouble. I couldn’t imagine standing up in church and laying claim to fucking. Not a girl no older than me. I wasn’t certain what it all meant.

Timothy was still talking, and Brother Rueben had joined him on the stage and was leafing through the hymnal for his next selection. I was suddenly aware that someone was looking at me. Greg was seated in a pew all the way across the church, but he was staring directly at me. The tiniest smile touched his lips when he saw that I saw him. I knew what he was thinking—I couldn’t leave them alone. I was inviting him to do something. I drew back and pressed hard against the white wall, even knowing that it was too late. Greg had seen me.

Thirteen

P
RESSED
hard against the wood, I waited for Greg to sound the alert. My life flashed before my eyes, or at least parts of it that I didn’t want to remember. The past summer, against Mama Betts’ iron will, I’d convinced The Judge to take me to see
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
at the Jexville Theatre. It had taken the movie five years to make its way to Jexville, and I’d been waiting for half my life to see it. Mama Betts said the movie had permanently scarred me because I was always talking about pod people and invasions.

Sweating against the white wood of that church, I knew real terror. The Redeemers were worse than aliens. If Greg screamed that I was at the window watching, they’d pour out of that church with the single-mindedness of ants. They’d catch me and drag me inside and pretty soon I’d become one of them. I was terrified. Paralyzed. I had the sudden urge to pee.

I thought I was going to wet myself right there on the spot when a rock thudded about an inch from my head. Alice was half crouched at the creek, waving me toward her. She was ready to cut loose with another rock if I didn’t respond. My fear broke and I took off running.

I was about twenty yards from the creek when I heard the scream. It was followed by a plea. “Stop! Please don’t!” and then the sound of crying.

“What the hell’s going on?” Alice asked.

I almost tumbled headfirst into the creek. “Come on.” I urged her. “Let’s get out of here before they all come out.”

“Bekkah! What happened?”

The sound of screams rose again on the air. “Jesus Christ! I hope he doesn’t hurt her bad.”

“Bekkah Rich, who’s screaming and crying like that? I’m not going another inch until you tell me!”

“Fine time for bravery, Alice. It’s Magdeline Scott. She confessed to fornicating, and the preacher is probably beating her.”

“Holy shit.”

We ran to the bicycles and pedaled toward home. We’d gone about half a mile when Alice suddenly braked. “We can’t just run off and let them beat her.”

I stopped, too, sweat running down the leg that I braced in the hot sand. “What can we do?”

“You were so all-fired ready to get evidence to call the police. Let’s stop at Connie’s and call them.”

For the first time since we’d left the church, I stopped to think. The Judge had taught me to “weigh the evidence.” He was always talking about news reporters and how they had to be observant and how they had to weigh the evidence of what they saw and what they were told.

“I didn’t see anything real.” I traced the sweat that ran down my dirty leg. I was ashamed of myself. I’d cut and run when I should have stood my ground and watched. So what that Greg had seen me? The Redeemers weren’t really aliens. They wouldn’t have hurt me. They might have gotten mad and called Effie, but they wouldn’t have hurt me. But they had hurt the girl called Magdeline Scott.

“If they beat her, that’ll be evidence enough.” Alice wiped the sweat from beneath her blond bangs.

“She said she’d been fornicating.”

“With who?”

“She didn’t say. She just got up in front of the church and confessed to fornicating. Just like she said she’d been eating Fig Newtons.” I was still amazed.

“Libby Welford fornicates.”

I cut a sharp glance at Alice. “How do you know?”

“I’ve got an older brother, remember?”

“Are you saying that Jimbo and Libby fucked each other?”

“No!” Alice frowned. “He didn’t fuck her. Harley Adams, the mayor’s
son, did. But Harley told everyone he’d done it with her. He told Jimbo she was real good too. That she knew how to make him feel like a man.”

It made more sense that Libby would do it with Harley than Jimbo. Libby didn’t hang around with boys who weren’t worth her time. Jimbo didn’t have any money and he didn’t have a car. Harley had both. It was something to think about.

“What are you going to do?”

Alice’s question hung in the air. What was I going to do? What could I do? If Magdeline Scott was going to be hurt, she already was. I hadn’t seen anything, not really. “Let’s get back to the woods. We’d better rinse off and put our dresses back on.”

“We’re going to pretend we went to church, aren’t we? We’re not going to do anything about the Redeemers.”

It was almost an accusation, but not quite. Maybe it was just that I felt so damn bad about it all. “When I get back from Missouri. I’ll think of something by then. I’ll talk to Daddy.”

“When are you coming back?”

“Sunday. I’ll be gone a week.”

“I’ll miss you. Of course, that girl could be dead by then.”

I gripped my handlebars. “I wish you could come with me, Alice. I’m not so sure I’m going to like flying.” That was a lie. I knew I’d love it, but I didn’t want to rub it in that I was going.

“Maebelle V. and I’ll be back here, waiting.” She sighed and we both started pedaling home. “We’ll be right here on Kali Oka Road, where nothing ever happens when you aren’t around.”

Missouri was a different country. Hills rumbled to the horizon, and the university was like a town for grown-ups only. I felt like a munchkin, and The Judge was too quiet. On Tuesday we ate breakfast and then I went with him to his office at the liberal arts building. That morning I stayed in the classroom and listened to him lecture. It wasn’t a bit like school. The students were grown and they sat quietly and asked questions like they were really interested. It reminded me some of the dinner table talk we had at our house, except no one in the room would disagree with Daddy the way Effie did. It didn’t seem to be much point to talk if all they did was spew back what he said. There was one girl with long blond hair who practically hung on every word
he said. After the class, she waited to talk with him. She kept looking at me like she knew who I was.

“Bekkah, this is Cathi Cummings. She’s a graduate student from Hushpuckena, Mississippi.”

The way Daddy said it, I knew the word tickled him. He liked the odd Indian names for some of the little towns around the state. When I got up close to the girl, she wasn’t really a girl, she was a woman. Her long blond hair made her look younger from a distance. I knew graduate students were older than regular college students. She dressed older. Instead of the denims that most of the other students wore, she had on a real short skirt and a matching jacket. She looked like she had a job instead of going to school.

“Cathi graduated from Ole Miss with the highest honors in her journalism class. She worked up in Washington, D.C., at the
Post
for a few years before she decided to get her master’s.”

Daddy was looking at Cathi as he talked. It was hard to figure out what he was thinking, but it was easy to see that what he said pleased her. Something about it didn’t sit right with me. It felt almost as if she was trying to crowd into my life.

“What kind of place is Hushpuckena?” I didn’t want to talk to her, but I had to say something or Daddy would be disappointed with me.

“Not much bigger than Jexville,” Cathi answered. She had a drawl, but it wasn’t like mine. It was somehow familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Maybe it was just after all of those flat midwestern voices I was glad to hear something I knew.

“I’ve told Cathi a little about Jexville and the Ollie Stanford trial.”

Ollie Stanford was the Negro they were holding in the Jexville jail for murder. I hadn’t come all the way to Missouri to talk about the same thing I heard at home all the time. “Are you married?” I asked Cathi Cummings.

“In fact I am,” she answered with a short laugh. “My husband is not very happy that I’m in school, though.”

She surprised me. There was a sharpness in her voice that let me know she wasn’t kidding around. She was angry with her husband for being angry at her.

“Is he a student too?”

“Not on your life.” She looked at Daddy. “My husband is an editor at the
Post
in Washington. His career is safely tucked in his pants.”

Daddy laughed and I didn’t understand exactly what she meant, but it sounded funny so I laughed too.

“When your father talks about you, Bekkah, it reminds me of my own childhood. I had an older brother who deviled me to pieces, and I found plenty of adventures to get into. Your father says you like horses. Maybe we can go to a stables this week and ride.”

Cathi had really nice eyes. They were green and they crinkled whenever she smiled. Most of The Judge’s students didn’t even bother to say hi to me. She was working hard to win my approval, but I couldn’t think why.

“I don’t know,” I answered softly. I had a sudden feeling that Effie would feel doubly betrayed by my riding, especially with this woman.

Cathi touched my shoulder. “Well, think about it. I promised your father that I would entertain you while he worked. He’s promised to give me an A.” She looked at The Judge and laughed, and he laughed along with her. They were friends, and she did sound like a lot of fun. The temptation to ride was hard to resist.

“There’s a new woman on Kali Oka Road and she has horses. She wants to give me riding lessons and teach me to jump.” I cut a look at The Judge.

“Bekkah’s mother is afraid of horses. She thinks Rebekah will get killed. This is a ploy by my daughter to put me in the middle.”

“Horses are safe, if she learns to ride properly,” Cathi said. “Lessons would be excellent for her, if this woman really knows what she’s doing. Why don’t I take her for a ride or two and see how she does?”

“Nadine has nine horses,” I added quickly. I was liking Cathi despite myself. “And five dogs and thirteen cats.”

“Sounds like a humane shelter to me,” Daddy said. “How about some lunch? Cathi, will you join us?”

I wasn’t certain that I wanted Cathi along, but it was too late to protest. “Is there a McDonald’s here?”

The golden arches were the biggest craze. Jexville didn’t have one, and probably never would. Mobile had just built one, and in the first few months they’d sold over a million hamburgers. Or at least that’s what the sign by the golden arches said. We didn’t get a chance to go to Mobile often. Effie hated the traffic and Mama Betts said she hadn’t lost anything there. But Arly and I loved it. There were department stores and drive-in burger places and movies and motorcycle shops.

“There’s a local joint that specializes in malts and burgers,” Cathi said. “It isn’t McDonald’s—”

“Thank God,” Daddy said under his breath.

“—but I think you’ll approve. They have the best chocolate malts in the world.”

“And fries?”

“The crispiest.” Cathi laughed. “Your father is an old man. He doesn’t remember how important a good burger can be in a girl’s life.”

We ate the burgers and talked. Cathi told me my father was a genius, and that the university wanted to hire him full-time. Daddy didn’t say much. He was watching me. I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t help but wonder how Effie would react to this. Cathi and I arranged to go riding the next afternoon when Daddy had a faculty meeting. Cathi had a lot of free time on her hands because she wasn’t working while going to school. Even though her husband didn’t want her there, he’d decided to pay for it.

Those days in Missouri passed in a blur. Cathi and I rode three times. She was a very good rider, and she taught me a lot. We were becoming friends, but we both held back a little. I wasn’t certain why, and I didn’t give it a tremendous amount of thought. We rode the horses and didn’t push each other.

Cathi had dinner with us several nights, and we played card games and laughed. She tried very hard to make my stay fun and exciting, but it wound up making me feel like I was a guest. And no matter how much Daddy laughed and joked with us, he was sad. I would catch him staring at me, and it was like he’d said goodbye and was going on a long trip. As soon as he realized I saw him, he smiled and tried to act normal. That only served to frighten me more.

At the university he seemed happiest. The students there all smiled when they spoke to him. A couple told me he was a wonderful man. They said he was hard and sometimes difficult, but fair. It seemed important for them to tell me.

I liked the students. They weren’t like any of the high school kids in Chickasaw County. These boys and girls acted like friends. They weren’t sneaking off to hug and kiss and giggle with each other. When they did that stuff Cathi assured me that they hid it pretty well. She said the students were idealistic, but that underneath all of the idealism were the bodies of young people, and they enjoyed hugging and kissing
and giggling. She said that one day I’d enjoy it too. When she said it I thought of Jamey Louise and gave a silent prayer that I’d never act so dumb over a boy.