“He’s a good huntsman. He’s a good man.”
“M-m-m,” Betty murmured in agreement. “Well, want to see what’s left of St. John’s of the Cross?”
Sister hopped onto her ATV, a 2001 Kawasaki. Used daily but well maintained, she didn’t think she could run the farm without it. She envied Crawford blowing into Wayne’s Cycle and writing a check for two brand-new Hondas. Knowing him, he bought the 750cc monsters.
They rode up to the edge of the old pasture, broomsages coming up, waving thin golden wands in the wind.
Sister slowed at the edge of the woods. Calling over her shoulder, she shouted above the motor,“Fence not bad. Let’s see if we can find an old farm road. We can mark a jump near the gate if there still is one.”
The two cruised along the woods until coming to the farm road. The gate, handmade from wood, was rotting out, hanging crooked on big rusted hinges.
Sister cut the motor and they both climbed off.
Betty reached the three-board fence and deftly looped the surveyor’s tape around the top board, leaving a tail to flutter. The jump site was twenty yards from the gate.
“St. John’s will be maybe a half mile down the farm road. Looks different, doesn’t it? Course, things change in eight years.”
“Things can change in eight minutes.” Sister laughed as she wiggled the old gate open. “Don’t see many hand-built gates anymore. Too bad.”
Betty fished in her pocket, holding up the sharp clippers.“Ready.”
They climbed on the Kawasaki and followed the farm road as it crossed another deeply rutted road, the ruts made by wagon wheels, not tires.
Sister called over her shoulder,“Once upon a time this was the old road to the gap. Guess it fell out of use around the turn of the last century.”
“Later. When the state built the new road—the 1930s.” Betty liked history. “Part of all the work F.D.R. cooked up.”
“Old man Viault kept things clean right up until the day he died. He and Peter were in the army together.” Her eyes twinkled. “Seems so long ago yet like yesterday. Those were men, weren’t they? Hate to see this place so run-down.”
“Marty says the Widemans are dedicated to restoring Little Dalby to its former glory.” Betty noticed a woodcock fly up out of the brush. “How about that. I hope they make a comeback.”
“Not much chance, Betty, not as long as all the raptors are federally protected. They’re killing the ground nesters at a frightening rate.”
“The runoff from pesticides is killing the ground nesters, too. I hate it.” Betty hugged Sister’s waist when they hit a bump.
A shift of hazy light, gold-filled with specks of dust, shone through the trees right onto the cross of St. John’s.
Betty’s hand flew to her heart. Then she hugged Sister and they both smiled as the tall woman cut the motor.
The roof, slate, held; the stone, covered in Virginia creeper leaves a bright fall red as Betty predicted, was in great shape. Some of the leaded-glass windows were broken, but not too many.
A big twisted wrought-iron handle on the blue wooden door worked fine. Sister pressed the thumb piece, the lock clicked. She swung the door open.
Covered in dust, the altar and the pews stood. All had been hand-carved.
Even the wooden cross, for the worshippers couldn’t afford gold or even brass, stood on the ornate wooden altar.
A soft flutter of wings snapped their heads upward and a great horned owl, male, swept overhead, out the front door.
“Athena’s boyfriend.” Sister laughed—he came down so quickly, so silently, he startled them both.
“Nest in the steeple?”
“I don’t know, but he knows how to get in and out. Well, it keeps the mice population in check.”
“Think he’s Athena’s boyfriend?”
“I expect she has a fella closer to home. I also expect she gives the orders.”
“Ever tell you about the time I saw a snowy owl? Big as Athena.”
“You did? Lucky you. They come down from the north. Pickin’s are good here.” She coughed. “Dust.”
“When do you think’s the last time anyone was in here?”
“Eight years, at the least. Old man Viault didn’t get around much at the end.” She coughed again.
Betty thought a moment.“This was the slave church, wasn’t it?”
“Was.”
“You’d think the master wouldn’t want a church in the woods.”
“I don’t think it was back then. Might have been on the edge, but if you look around at the trees out there, they aren’t but one hundred years old, maybe one hundred and twenty. That one cigar tree is pretty old, a good one hundred years.”
Cigar trees like moist spots.
“Maybe we should tell Professor Kennedy. I enjoyed meeting her the other night when you had her and Charlotte, Carter, Bobby, and me over for dinner. I like small gatherings best. She’s a fascinating woman and from Portland, Maine, of all places.”
“A real Yankee. Course I can get along with a true New Englander much easier than someone from the middle states most times. None of us can help where we were born.” She smiled slyly.
“Hell, none of us can help being born.” Betty laughed.
“That’s a fact. What I can’t figure is why some people are so unhappy with life.” She pointed to the altar, a blade of light falling on the cross, the streaky windows behind washed many times over by rainstorms. “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord.”
They walked outside, Sister closing the door behind her.
“We’ve let so much go. So much that has to do with slavery,” Betty mused.
“Yes, but remember that we let a lot of everything go. There wasn’t a penny after the war. Virginia didn’t begin to feel good times until the 1920s, and that was nipped in the bud by the Depression. And think about it, who ran the show? White men.” She held up her hand. “I’m not saying one thing against our forefathers, but it seems to me that people will preserve first what relates directly to them. So once a little money flowed south of the Potomac, the buildings that were shored up had to do with their history. It’s only been in the last two decades that a recognition of preservation for black folks has taken root.”
“And there’s not a damned thing to preserve for women.”
“Women’s work perished in the using,” Sister said with a shrug. “So it was. And in many ways so it is. I can’t be bothered getting angry or feeling shoved aside. I remember the protests in the seventies. I wasn’t against them but it was alien to me. I figure you make hell with what you have. I may be on the shorter end of the stick than the white man, but I’ve still got some say-so, some ability to relish this life.”
“You’re a different generation, Sister. Even myself, and what am I, twenty-five years younger than you? Of course, when I’m around you I usually feel twenty-five years older since I can’t keep up.” Betty laughed.
“Flatterer.”
“No, it’s true, you have some kind of primal energy.”
“Because I’m living my true life and I’m my true self.”
“It’s also in the blood.”
“Yeah, my mother and father both had energy. But anyway, here we are in the middle of the woods, the branches are waving, clouds are scattered, the fragrance of the earth and the leaves rises up to meet you. It’s perfect and I’ll bet you that some of the folks who worshipped here despite the hardship, the injustice of their lives, found moments of sheer beauty. They had to because you can’t live without it.”
“We can ask Professor Kennedy.”
“A deep knowledge.” Sister put her arm around Betty’s shoulders.
They walked around the back of the church checking the foundation, fitted stone.
“Couple of gaps here big enough for a fox.” Sister inhaled, a faint whiff of Reynard tingling in her nostrils.
“Here’s a sizable one.” Betty had stopped right at the back. “Almost big enough to crawl in.”
“You and I could. Some of our members would get stuck.”