THE PREACHER'S MARSH
By David Niall Wilson
Smashwords Edition published at Smashwords by Crossroad Press
Copyright 2010 by David Niall Wilson
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OTHER CROSSROAD TITLES BY DAVID NIALL WILSON:
NOVELS:
NOVELLAS:
The Not Quite Right Reverend Cletus J. Diggs & The Currently Accepted Habits of Nature
'Scuse Me, While I Kiss the Sky
COLLECTIONS:
The Fall of the House of Escher & Other Illusions
The Whirling Man& Other Tales of Pain, Blood, and Madness
UNABRIDGED AUDIOBOOKS:
Roll Them Bones / Deep Blue / The Orffyreus Wheel / The Not Quite Right Reverend Cletus J. Diggs & The Currently Accepted Habits of Nature
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ONE
In 1868, Old Mill, North Carolina was no more than a smudge on the map. There were roads leading north and south, maintained for the most part to transport cotton. There was a cotton gin, a general store, a scattered spread of housing for those who worked in town.
Near the edge of town on the way up from the south road the Baptist church gleamed and glittered. Its walls were brilliant white wood, and the steeple held a shiny metal bell that was polished and cared for as if it might have been cast from the Holy Grail itself. On the north road, a smaller Methodist church sat back a ways from the road. It wasn’t as brightly painted as the Baptist building, but it had colorful stained glass windows and wood trim.
The fields surrounding the town stretched out along bumpy dirt roads toward the Great Dismal Swamp on the Virginia side and the Perquimans River on the southern boundary. Owned by a very few families, this land was planted almost exclusively with cotton. Some of it was farmed by sharecroppers, a few acres by squatters, but the majority of it was worked in much the same way it had been for the past hundred years. The local gentry had been forced to release their slaves from bondage, but other than the formal release, little had changed. The cotton still had to be picked, and the slaves who had worked the fields for so many generations had nowhere else to go. In most cases they’d stayed on, either remaining with the families who’d owned them, or putting up shacks and hovels nearby and working as freedmen for little or no wages. The south did not leap into the new America. President Lincoln’s war brought change, but it was slow, seeping change.
When Reverend Gideon Swayne walked into town in late August, the sun was just setting over the cotton fields. The streets were all but bare, only a couple of barefoot, grimy kids pushing wagons of produce and other goods back to wagons for their parents. Most shopping in town took place on Saturdays. Reverend Swayne arrived in Old Mill on a Tuesday, and any man, woman or child with two good legs and the use of their hands was picking cotton, sunup to sundown.
He was a tall man with coal black hair that was a little long for the time, swept back over his ears and his collar. He had several days' growth of beard, but it was difficult to tell if this was by choice, or just from the lack of a place to shave. The dust of the road was heavy on his pants legs; his face was drawn and thin. He couldn’t have looked less like he belonged if he’d flown in on a broom, and gossip had flown about from mouth to mouth and house to house since he first appeared on the road outside town and was spotted by a group of field hands picking cotton.
He stopped in the road in front of the Baptist church and stared up at the steeple. He put his hand over his eyes to shade them from the bright sunlight and took in the gleaming paint and the polished metal bell. He glanced in through the windows and caught sight of wood paneled walls and flashes of color behind the pulpit.
Brother Dan Cumby was pastor of the church, and he lived in a neat, well kept bungalow situated on the lot next door. His grass was cut close to the ground. The bushes that lined his porch were trimmed to geometric perfection. Not a speck of dirt besmirched the purity of his paint, nor a smudge the clarity of his glass windows. It was a comfortable home by the standards of the day. Reverend Swayne had seen dozens of homes on his way into town, and none of them approached this one for comfort.
Inside the house, someone pulled the drapes aside, just a fraction of an inch. Reverend Swayne felt the weight of eyes staring, but he did not return the gaze. He continued to study the church, as if he were considering walking up and knocking on the door, or stopping by to visit. Then, with a quick shake of his head, he leaned down, grabbed his bags, and turned back to the road, continuing into town.
When he was out of sight, the drapes fell back into place over Pastor Cumby’s window. No one came to the door, or watched Reverend Swayne’s progress. He rounded a corner and stepped up onto a boardwalk that lined the front of the town’s few offices and stores. There was an awning, and he stood for a while, relieved to be out of the sun.
As he stood, he scanned the storefronts. There was no one in sight, but he didn't seem upset, or even particularly surprised. He spotted the Walz's General Store, and shouldered his bag again. A few moments later he pushed the door opened gently and stepped inside.
Devon Walz glanced up from where he was arranging cans on a shelf. He hadn’t expected business – during the workday in the middle of the week he might as well have closed the doors and gone home. When the door opened and a tall stranger stepped through, it caught him off guard.
Gideon Swayne stood in the doorway, hands clasped before him and his bags on the floor at his feet. He was a big man, but he was quiet and made no untoward moves. Devon put the can he was holding down on the shelf, wiped his palms on his pants legs, and stepped into the main aisle of his store.
“Howdy,” he said, keeping some distance from the stranger. “Can I help you?”
“I hope so,” Reverend Swayne said. He smiled, and the smile was contagious. His eyes were a deep, chocolate brown. His clothing was clean, but not too expensive. The coat was cut in a style Devon didn’t recognize, and there was a twang in the voice that screamed “Yankee.”
“I’ve come a long way,” he continued. “My name is Reverend Gideon Swayne. No reason you’d know it, or that it would matter, but it’s what my mother gave me, and it has served me well.”
“Pleased to meet you, Reverend,” Devon said. He wasn’t sure what to make of the strange greeting. A man’s name wasn’t something he’d be inclined to question, and no one in Old Mill was going to need to be told that this man had come a long way. Everyone within forty miles of town knew everyone else, and very few outsiders stayed more than a day or two. Family came in to visit, at times, but for the most part Old Mill was a world unto itself.
“We got two churches here already, Reverend,” Devon said. “Pastor Cumby preaches at the Baptist church to the south, and Reverend Winslow leads the Methodist worship to the North. Most folks here go to one, or the other. No disrespect, but if you’ve come looking for work, you hit the wrong town.”
Reverend Swayne’s smile never wavered. He stepped forward and offered Devon his hand, which the grocer shook.
“There is always work for a man of God,” Swayne said. “Times are changing. The country is changing. I have heard a particular call, and I’ve come in answer.”
“I don’t think I get your meaning, Reverend,” Walz replied, frowning.
“There are many rooms in my Father’s house,” Reverend Swayne said. “I’ve come to check on the souls of the newly free. I’ve come to make sure God is part of their lives, as He is so obviously part of the lives of those who worship here in town. Tell me, sir,” he turned to Devon and there was a light in his eyes that had been missing only moments before, “who preaches to the freedmen? Where do they worship? Do they have a church, or do they meet in their homes.”
Devon stared. Color rose to his cheeks, and his pulse slowly rose to his throat and pounded.
“I take it,” Reverend Swayne said, studying the grocer’s face, “that they do not worship here in town.”
“They do not,” Walz growled. “Mr., you’ve come to the wrong place to be spouting that Yankee crap. You want to make nice with the niggers, you go do it, but you won’t find them here in town. Not if they know what’s good for them. They get fed, and they work, just like they always have.”
“There’s no call to get angry,” Reverend Swayne said calmly. “I don’t intend to herd them into your store like a cattleman, or to drag them into your churches. I’ve only come to do the Lord’s work in best way I know to do it. Our Lord did the same. His apostles were stoned and beaten for teaching in the streets and spreading the message of his love to the low, the criminal – the poor. How can I do less?”
Footsteps sounded outside, and both men fell silent for a moment. The door opened, and another man stepped through. Reverend Swayne stepped aside to make room.
“Howdy, Devon,” the newcomer said in a booming, forceful voice.
“Howdy sheriff,” Devon said, nodding.
Sheriff Hawkins was a tall man with broad shoulders and a belly just beginning to protrude over his wide, leather gun belt. He glanced around the store and made a half-hearted effort to pretend he was there to shop, then turned to Reverend Swayne. He swept his gaze up and down the stranger’s tall frame, and then he smiled. He held out one big, meaty paw to shake, and he met Gideon Swayne’s eyes. There was no humor behind the smile, and there was just the hint of controlled violence in the man’s grip.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” he said. His voice had the timbre and inherent threat of a growling bear.
Reverend Swayne took the offered hand and shook it firmly. He met the sheriff’s gaze easily, and his smile was genuine.
“Reverend Gideon Swayne,” he said. “I’ve come a long way, sheriff, all the way from the great state of Illinois.”
“That is a long way,” Hawkins replied. “If you don’t mind my asking, Reverend, why? Don’t you have a church back there waiting for you to lead them to the Promised Land? You wouldn’t be running from someone, would you? Pardon my asking, and I mean no offense, but we’re a pretty tight-knit little town. It’s my business who comes, and who goes – how long the stay – you know?”
“No offense taken, sheriff,” Gideon said. “I was just telling Mr. Walz here that I’ve come on a mission. I did have a flock in Illinois, a little town called Random. We’ve done a lot of praying these past few years, a lot of soul searching. The war hasn’t been easy on anyone. I can only imagine how much worse it must have been here.
“A lot of men and women who looked to me for guidance had family who died here, or near here.”
“We all lost kin,” Walz cut in.
Reverend Swayne nodded, but went on without pausing.
“A part of what we prayed for,” he said, “involved the reasons behind the war – the people we were fighting for. A lot of our prayers involved freedom, and the release from suffering. Men died – young men, old men, fathers and brothers, and it seems to me, gentlemen, that it’s important we be certain they didn’t die in vain. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Neither the sheriff, nor the grocer trusted himself to answer. The words sounded reasonable, and the man delivering them had a wide, friendly smile, but there was something lurking behind the words that they didn’t trust.
“Thought you said you came here to preach to the niggers,” Walz said at last. The words came out too quickly, as if he wasn’t sure whether to speak or spit. Sheriff Hawkins turned to the grocer, studied his expression, and then turned back to Gideon.
“That true, Reverend? You come to make sure the darkies find their way to glory?”
Gideon refused to be riled so easily. He’d been traveling for a long time, making his way across country, mostly on foot, and as he traveled he told his story. Despite having fought a war that nearly tore the country in two, setting family against family and town against town, he’d found very few sympathetic audiences. He’d expected a less-than-friendly welcome to the south, and he was prepared for it as well as a man can prepare for such a thing.
“I understand how you might disagree with my message,” he said at last. “I didn’t come to start trouble. A lot of hours of prayer are behind me. The money, love, and spirit of a small church brought me here, and my intention is to make them proud of me.”
“You got any niggers in your congregation back home, Reverend?” Walz asked. All hesitation had evaporated as his anger heated. “You even got fields to be worked back there? Crops? You ever see a field of cotton go bad because no one was there to pick it, and the weather hit?”
Gideon remained silent.
“I think maybe you’d better carry your message a little further, Reverend,” Sheriff Hawkins said slowly. “Around here, we’ve got two churches, and they’re about all I can handle. I keep the peace; we get along, white and colored, just fine.”
“Just like you have for the last hundred years, I suspect,” Gideon cut in. The words were sharper than he’d intended, and he gave himself an inward kick in the seat of his trousers for letting them get to him so quickly. He’d been on the road too long. He was far enough south, and if any place he’d come across in his travels needed his work, this appeared to be it.
“I apologize, gentlemen,” he said quickly. “I have been on the road a long time, and I’m very tired. If you’d be kind enough to point me toward a place I might spend the night – a barn, or a room I might rent, and a place where I can find a meal, I’d be much obliged to you.”
At first it appeared as if he would receive no answer at all. He stood his ground, but sweat dripped down the back of his neck and under his collar. His hand trembled, just a little. He hoped they didn’t notice, but there was nothing he could do.
“You want to keep that attitude under lock and key,” Sheriff Hawkins said at last. “We don’t take to strangers easily, and you don’t know a thing about that war. You sat back in your quiet little town, prayed on Sunday and sent your boys off to fight. We lived in the middle of it.
“This street you see outside? Every building on the other side of it burned four years ago. It’s all new, and we built it together, every man, woman, boy and girl within forty miles was here. Those who had money donated it, those who didn’t worked. They didn’t have the time to spare – the cotton needed picking. They didn’t have as many workers to do the picking because their fathers and brothers and sons were dead, or in prison, and the slaves were set free, asking for money, or running north.
“People starved here, Reverend. Good people. People died here as well, and since then we’ve been rebuilding our town, and our lives. We’ve gotten the workers back into the fields, and we’ve gotten them back under control. You aren’t waltzing in here in your funny suit with your holier-than-thou ideas and tearing it back down. Understand that I’m telling you, not asking you.
“You can stay in my barn tonight. There’s hay in there, it’s warm enough, and it's soft. Watch out for snakes. I’ll see to it that someone brings around some food, and some water. I’ll even bring enough to get you to the next town if it will get you there quicker, but don’t you think for a minute you’re staying around here.”
“I appreciate the offer of shelter,” Gideon replied, “and you are right, I don’t understand. There are a lot of people, towns, even states that don’t understand. Not the way you do. Not the way we should. I do know one thing, sheriff. If we don’t find some common ground in the middle where we can learn that truth in peace, this nation will crumble around us.”
“This ain’t your common ground, preacher,” Walz growled.
Gideon fell silent and nodded slowly. There was nothing to be gained by arguing with them, and quite a lot of potential for loss. He wasn’t going to find the people he’d come in search of in Old Mill, though they undoubtedly lived on the outskirts. He didn’t need the sheriff’s permission to spread the Lord’s word, but if he angered the man now, he’d end up arrested and escorted out of town – or worse.
“If you don’t mind,” he said, “I’m very tired. If you could show me that barn, I’ll settle down and get some rest.”
Sheriff Hawkins stood very still for a few moments. Gideon wished he could hear the man’s thoughts, because the hard, lined face gave nothing away.
“Follow me,” he said. He turned and headed for the door. Gideon picked up his bags and followed.
At the door, Hawkins stopped, glanced over his shoulder, and caught Walz’s gaze.
“Tell the boys I’ll be around tonight,” he said. “Make sure they all come.”
Without waiting for a response, Sheriff Hawkins pushed out the door and into the street with Gideon at his heels. The door closed behind them, but a moment later, Devon Walz pushed it open again. He stood with the door open just a crack and watched until the other two men rounded the corner and were out of sight. A moment later, he stepped out onto the street, locked the door carefully behind him, and hurried off in the opposite direction. There weren’t many men in town, but those that were, he would find. The others he would reach by sending messages with the workers who drove in the trailers of cotton to the gin.
Word spread fast in and around Old Mill. When the cotton was in season, there wasn’t much else to talk about. When someone acted out, or some young buck was caught with another man’s daughter, it was news. This put it all to shame. The sheriff almost never called a meeting, and when he did, it meant trouble for someone. Devon thought he knew what was coming, and as he walked and spread the word, he grinned.
~ * ~
The barn was clean and dry, and that was better accommodations than Reverend Swayne had seen in days. He dropped his bags near a tall mound of hay and turned to the sheriff gratefully.
“I truly appreciate this,” he said.
“Just don’t get too comfortable,” Hawkins said. He didn’t smile, and he didn’t offer his hand a second time. “I’ll send a girl around later with some food – I don’t want it said Old Mill turned a man of God away hungry. Don’t mind if they say we turned you away, though. When the sun’s up in the morning, I’ll expect to see you on the road.”
“I understand,” Gideon answered noncommittally. “Both you and Mr. Walz made your opinions crystal clear. I may be getting on in years, and I may be a Yankee at heart, but I’m not a stupid man. If you don’t mind, I’m going to settle in and try to get some sleep. It’s been a long day.”
“It has at that, Reverend,” Hawkins said. “It has at that.”
When he was alone, Gideon settled his belongings and drew forth a worn Bible. There was enough light from the door to see by, and he sat for a long time, reading and thinking, then reading a bit more. The words were familiar and comfortable, and they helped him to relax, and to order his thoughts. He had no intention of moving on in the morning, but he did intend to get out of Old Mill. Those he sought would be in the fields, or living on the fringes of the town, and he wouldn’t reach them by sleeping in the sheriff’s barn, or rotting in his jail – assuming the town even had one.
Just before sunset, a young girl brought him a plate of biscuits drowned in thick white gravy and a small jug of water. He thanked her, but she scurried back into the growing shadows without a word. Gideon settled back into the straw, ate the biscuits slowly, enjoying their savor. He washed it down with water from the jug, set the dishes aside, and settled back to sleep.
When the footsteps and hushed voices surrounded the doorway to the barn just before midnight, he was sound asleep.
~ * ~
Gideon woke groggy and disoriented in the darkness. A sound had snatched him from sleep, but it hadn’t repeated itself, and he was caught halfway between wakefulness and dreams. Then someone whispered and he stiffened. He didn’t rise, and he didn’t speak. He listened, wishing he hadn’t left his bags even a few feet away.
“It don’t seem right, him bein’ a preacher and all. Can’t we just wait for tomorrow?” The voice was high pitched and whiny, and it echoed in the stuffy silence. Gideon slowly rolled to his back, hoping whoever it was couldn’t see any better than he could. He thought he saw a flicker of shadow across the barn door, but nothing else moved.
“Shut up, Sam,” Sheriff Hawkins growled. “Keep quiet and do as I say.”
No one else spoke. Gideon watched as they entered. Their shadows followed Hawkins through the shadowed doorway and into the barn, making as little sound as possible. Gideon counted five in all. Five grown men – to do what?
Gideon drew his knees up to his chest, rolled over so he could reach the strap on his bag, and lurched to his feet. He knew he had no chance to escape so many, but he thought that there was just a chance that if he made it to the door and hit the road running, they wouldn’t follow. It was one thing to beat a man in the privacy of a barn, and quite another to do it in the open street for all to see. There had been hesitation in the one man’s voice, maybe it would be enough to see him through.
“He’s moving!” one of the men yelled.
Suddenly all of them were moving at once. Two leaped to block the door and something slid in front of Gideon’s ankle. He tried to leap over it, but was too late and seconds later he was falling. It was dark and so, he didn’t see the floor in time to break the momentum with his hands, or the bag. He hit hard, and the impact sent sparks of pain flashing through his mind.
By the time he shook off the cobwebs, and the real pain hit, his arms and legs had been grabbed and held tightly. A flame flashed off to one side, flared, and the light bobbed nearer. Gideon moaned, and a man he’d never seen held a lantern high. Five faces melted from the shadows. None were smiling, and the man in the center, just to the right of the lantern bearer, was Sheriff Hawkins.
“Sleep well, Reverend?” he asked.
Gideon struggled, but he couldn’t free himself from their grip. Someone leaned down and swung a punch, landing on Gideon’s ribs and driving the breath from him in an instant. He tried to double up, couldn’t manage it, and fought for the breath to scream.
“You want to bite that tongue if it helps you stay quiet,” Hawkins said matter-of-factly. We got business, but it doesn’t concern the rest of the town. You understand me, preacher?”
Gideon nodded. His face throbbed, and his muscles screamed from the tension of being held prone and spread-eagled on the floor of the barn.
Hawkins spat, and it landed with as sickening splash in the dirt beside Gideon’s face.
“You come down here,” Hawkins said, “mouthing off about prayer groups and your church folks back home. You tell us how the country has to heal, and how you’ve just come down to ease that suffering. You just wandered on down a few hundred miles of green countryside to walk through the rows of cotton and tell the niggers how Jesus is their savior, and everyone is equal in the eyes of the Lord. That about right, preacher?”
Gideon could only stare, wide-eyed. His throat was too dry for speech, and someone had gripped him tightly by the hair, preventing him from nodding.
“We didn’t just lose boys and fathers and brothers, preacher. We lost our lives. We lost our pride. We lost a way of doing things our grandparents learned from their grandparents. We crawled back down here to be kicked like dogs by blue-coated jackasses just looking for excuses to shoot us as war criminals, and we set the niggers free.
“You ever catch a fish, Reverend? You ever see a fish where the hook was set, and the mouth was ripped – maybe the prong popped through an eye, or sliced a gill, but you didn’t really want the fish? You toss it back in the water, and it flops over on its side, or its back. It swims in circles. It gets the water all bloody and attracts predators.
“I’ve got news for you, preacher, that’s what happened when we set those darkies free. They looked at us like we were stupid. They wandered in circles, trying to figure out what to do. A few of them got excited, like kids, and tried to take off. Some of them probably made it. The rest, though? You know what they did? They said “Yassuh Boss,” instead of “Yassuh Massah” and they went back to work.
“It’s their way of life too, preacher. It’s what their parents taught them. It’s what they know. You come in here and start preaching to them about freedom, and standing up for their rights, and being equal? What do you think’s going to happen? There’s going to be trouble. Folks will be hurt. Folks will hurt them. The cotton won’t get picked, people won’t get fed, and it will be your fault.”
The sheriff hesitated for a moment, and then said.
“I can’t let that happen. I told you earlier, and you should have listened. It’s my job to keep things under control here. It’s my job to see people aren’t hurt, and that things run smoothly. I take my work seriously, reverend, as I guess you take yours. I’ve known your type, and when I sent you out here to rest, I knew you wouldn’t just leave.”
Gideon tried to struggle again, and Hawkins struck like a snake. He lashed out with one boot and sent it crashing into Gideon’s ribs. There was a sickening smack, and Gideon groaned.
“We’ve got all the Christianity we can handle in these parts, preacher,” Hawkins said, his breath heavy and his voice gone hoarse. “You aren’t welcome.”
They fell on him then. His arms and legs were released, and he tried to roll into a ball. Boots and fists struck from all directions. It seemed the more they hit him and the more he tried to crawl away or protect himself, the more frenzied they became. He was reaching for the straw, hoping to dig a hole beneath it and pull himself inside, when something crashed into the side of his head. He saw a brilliant flash of light, and darkness crashed around him, walling him in and the others out.
TWO
The sun rose over the cotton slowly, baking away the morning dew. The plants were nearly four feet tall, bolls thick and white and stalks rough and jagged. Sun filtered down through the leaves to draw what little moisture the soil held out and leave a cracking crust over the ground.
Workers had been in the fields for hours. The first hint of dawn brought them forth, trying to take advantage of the few hours where the dew softened the plants slightly, and it was possible to pick without butchering your hands or baking your back. That would come later in the day, but the morning, when the cotton sacks weren’t yet heavy and clothing had yet to plaster itself to everybody, soaked in sweat and caked with dust and dirt, was the best time. There were few good times in the fields during picking season, so they were savored when they arrived.
Gideon woke to the sound of voices singing. He didn’t hear footsteps, and he couldn’t see clearly, but he heard the voices. They were low and powerful, raised in rhythmic celebration. For a moment, before the throbbing, screaming pain in his bones and muscles hit full force, and before he realized that he couldn’t see, Gideon thought he might have finally taken the last walk into Glory. Their singing was beautiful.
He cried out from the pain, or tried to, but the sound that came forth was a pitiful, spitting mewl. His throat was dry and ached from multiple bruises. He clenched his eyes tightly, and then tried to open them again. All he could manage was thin slits. The sunlight was too bright, and it stabbed into his brain with slivers of light that exploded on contact with his thoughts. His cheek lay on the cool earth, still shaded – for the moment – from the pounding heat of the sun. He pressed his palms into that soil, and tried to lift himself. His shoulders trembled with the effort, and his head pounded. He managed to lift himself only a couple of inches before his arms gave out and he dropped back to the earth. This time his cry was slightly louder, though it burned in his throat.
He rolled to his back, and tried feebly to sit up.
Nearby he heard a rustle, and immediately thought of animals, or snakes. He flailed his arms and tried again to sit. This time he got his elbows beneath him. His eyes were sticky, and at first the thought they were just dry. Then he managed to get a hand up to brush across the lids. His face was matted with half-dried blood. His leg felt broken, and when he sat up and put pressure on it he nearly blacked out again. He gritted his teeth and used his sleeve to clear his eyes. They were still swollen, but he was able to make out a little of his surroundings.
The rustling sound repeated, to his left. He tried to peer over the tops of the cotton plants, but he couldn’t sit up fully. The pain in his leg prevented him from doing more than pushing up off the ground. The sounds drew nearer, and he coughed to clear his throat. The sound stopped.
“Help me,” he said, the words so soft they were barely audible.
The rustling began again. Something was moving toward him slowly. His heart pounded. His mind conjured dogs, snakes, gators – all the stories he’d heard and read about swamps over the years returned to him, magnified by the pain and warped by the too-bright sunlight.
“Who is it?” he called out. “Who…”
The leaves over him parted, and he saw the face of a young boy staring down at him. The child couldn’t have been more than seven. He was dark as molasses with bright, inquisitive eyes. When he caught sight of Gideon he pulled back sharply. There was no sound for a moment, and Gideon called out again.
“Help me.”
The next thing he heard was the pounding of feet and the whipping of cotton plants as the boy crashed through them, running away.
“No,” he croaked. “Come back.”
It was only a moment before silence engulfed him again. He gritted his teeth and pushed harder, trying to raise himself to a sitting position. White hot pain flashed from his leg straight to his brain. His back arched his head hit the ground hard. The darkness rose, and he fought it. The green leaves and white cotton bolls wavered and shimmered. He reached up, tried to grab the leaves, and failed. Deep, black nothingness washed over him and flies landed, crawling unnoticed through the drying blood on his face.
~ * ~
When he opened his eyes again, he no longer lay in the cotton field. It was dark, and the flames of a fire danced nearby. His head was pillowed on his bags, and his leg was very stiff. He realized after only a moment that it was bound in a splint. He heard someone humming under their breath, but he couldn’t focus on the tune, or place the voice. It was unfamiliar, but comforting, rhythmic and smooth.
He tried to raise his head, and the sound of the motion alerted whoever it was nearby. The humming stopped, and before he managed to balance himself on his elbows, a cool, damp rag was pressed to his forehead, and a soothing voice whispered near his ear.
“Lay down. You aren’t ready. Just lie down and be still.”
She leaned over him, and he saw her face. She was beautiful. Her eyes were a deep chocolate brown. Her hair fell in waves over her shoulders, and her eyes were deep, wide pools.
Gideon did as he was told. He settled back onto his bags and tried to make out his surroundings. The fire, he saw, lay just outside a doorway of canvas, or burlap flaps that had been tied back to the side. There was a pot suspended over the flames, and all around him he saw indistinct mounds of cloth and board, bottles and jugs and odd shapes that might have been tools.
Every inch of his body ached. His head pounded, and if he looked too long at the fire his eyesight faltered, the world shifted, and his stomach lurched. He kept his gaze on the shadows, and on the figure of the woman, moving about with comfortable confidence.
She returned to his side with a cup in her hands.
“Drink this,” she said. “It’s tea – and herbs. It will help the pain in your head.”
Gideon started to nod, thought better of it at the first stab of pain, and let her bring the cup to his lips. She turned it up and poured just a small amount of the warm liquid into his mouth. He felt it trickle down his throat, but he was too numb to taste it. Whatever was in the concoction, it warmed his mouth, and then his throat, and within moments, he felt a tingle of sensation in his chest. He took several more sips, and was surprised to find that, with some effort, he could speak.
“Where am I?” he asked.
“Well, that depends,” she answered with an enigmatic smile. “If you was to walk straight out the tent here and keep going, you’d be as close to nowhere as this ol’ Earth has to offer. That’s what they call ‘The Great Dismal Swamp,’ and most folks who wander in there too deep don’t come back. If you walked around back, you’d see a bunch of trees, and if you kept going straight, you’d hit cotton. From there, that’s about all you can see.”
“The sheriff…” Gideon said. His mind was clearing, and as memory flooded in, shadows forms, lantern-lit faces, and swinging boots filled his thoughts. He closed his eyes and winced, and she raised the cup to his lips again.
“He don’t come here,” she said soothingly. “He don’t come into the woods, and he don’t come any nearer to the swamp than he has to. Probably thinks you're dead. You was close, layin’ out in the cotton. If Elijah hadn’t found you, you’d be there still, likely snake bit and feedin’ the buzzards.”
“Elijah?” he said. “Elijah came to me in the cotton?
She laughed loudly and stood.
“No prophet came for you, preacher man. Elijah is Sarah’s son. He was pickin’ cotton and found you sprawled halfway across his row. He ran to his momma, Jesamina, and she came and fetched me. We hid you in the shade and moved you here as soon as we was sure no one was looking.”
“Thank you,” he said. “But why? Why would you help me?”
“You needed helpin’,” she answered. “That’s all there was to it, start to finish. We couldn’t leave you out there in the cotton attracting coyotes and buzzards – we have work to do. That cotton ain’t goin’ to pick itself.”
“Thank you,” he repeated.
He reached out weakly, and she placed the cup in his hands. He sipped slowly, letting the warm tea roll down his throat. The aches in his body throbbed, but it was a throb of life. Where he’d been numb before, the warmth seeped in and brought his flesh back to life.