The Visitor stood up from the altar. “Let me put a case to you, Reverend Thrower. Purely hypothetical. Let us suppose you were in the same room with the worst enemy of all that I stand for. Let us suppose that he were ill, and lay helpless in his bed. If he recovered, he would be removed from your reach, and would thus go on to destroy all that you and I love in this world. But if he died, our great cause would be safe. Now suppose that someone put a knife into your hand, and begged you to perform a delicate surgery upon the boy. And suppose that if you were to slip, just the tiniest bit, your knife could cut a great artery. And suppose that if you simply delayed, his lifeblood would flow out so quickly that in moments he would die. In that case, Reverend Thrower, what would be your duty?”
Thrower was aghast. All his life he had prepared to teach, persuade, exhort, expound. Never to perform a bloody-handed act like the one the Visitor suggested. “I'm not suited for such things,” he said.
“Are you suited for the kingdom of God?” asked the Visitor.
“But the Lord said Thou shalt not kill.”
“Oh? Is that what he said to Joshua, when he sent him into the promised land? Is that what he said to Saul, when he sent him against the Amalekites?”
Thrower thought of those dark passages in the Old Testament, and trembled with fear at the thought of taking part in such things himself.
But the Visitor did not relent. “The high priest Samuel commanded King Saul to kill all the Amalekites, every man and woman, every child. But Saul hadn't the stomach for it. He saved the king of the Amalekites and brought him back alive. For that crime of disobedience, what did the Lord do?”
“Chose David to be king in his place,” murmured Thrower.
The Visitor stood close to Thrower, his eyes wounding him with their fire. “And then Samuel, the high priest, the gentle servant of God, what did he do?”
“He called for Agag the king of the Amalekites to be brought before him.”
The Visitor would not relent. “And what did Samuel do?”
“Killed him,” whispered Thrower.
“What does the scripture say that he did!” roared the Visitor. The walls of the meetinghouse shook, the glass of the windows rattled.
Thrower wept in fear, but he spoke the words that the Visitor demanded: “Samuel hacked Agag in pieces in the presence of the Lord.”
Now the only sound in the church was Thrower's own ragged breath as he tried to control his hysterical weeping. The Visitor smiled at him, his eyes filled with love and forgiveness. Then he was gone.
Thrower sank to his knees before the altar and prayed. 0 Father, I would die for Thee, but do not ask me to kill. Take away this cup from my lips, I am too weak, I am unworthy, do not lay this burden upon my shoulders.
His tears fell on the altar. He heard a sizzling sound and jumped back from the altar, startled. His tears skittered along the surface of the altar like water on a hot skillet, until finally they were consumed.
The Lord has rejected me, he thought. I pledged to serve Him however He required, and now, when He asks something difficult, when He commands me to be as strong as the great prophets of old, I discover myself to be a broken vessel in the hands of the Lord. I cannot contain the destiny He wanted to pour into me.
The door of the church opened, letting in a wave of freezing air that rushed along the floor and sent a chill through the minister's flesh. He looked up, fearing that it was an angel sent to punish him.
It was no angel, though. Merely Armor-of-God Weaver.
“I didn't mean to interrupt you in prayer,” said Armor.
“Come in,” said Thrower. “Close the door. What can I do for you?”
“Not for me,” said Armor.
“Come here. Sit down. Tell me.”
Thrower hoped that perhaps it was a sign from God that Armor had come just now. A member of the congregation, coming to him for help, right after he prayed– surely the Lord was letting him know that he was accepted after all.
“It's my wife's brother,” said Armor. “The boy, Alvin Junior.”
Thrower felt a thrill of dread run through him, freezing him to the bone. “I know him. What about him?”
“You know he got his leg mashed.”
“I heard of it.”
“You didn't happen to go visit and see him afore it healed up?”
“I've been given to believe that I'm not welcome in that house.”
“Well, let me tell you, it was bad. A whole patch of skin tore off. Bones broke. But two days later, it was healed right up. Couldn't even see no scar. Three days later he was walking.”
“It must not have been as bad as you thought.”
“I'm telling you, that leg was broke and the wound was bad. The whole family figured the boy was bound to die. They asked me about buying nails for a coffin. And they looked so bad from grieving that I wasn't sure but what we'd bury the boy's ma and pa, too.”
“Then it can't be as fully healed as you say.”
“Well, it ain't fully healed, and that's why I come to you. I know you don't believe in such things, but I tell you they witched the boy's leg to heal somehow. Elly says the boy did the witching himself. He was even walking on the leg for a few days, no splint even. But the pain never let up, and now he says there's a sick place on his bone. He's got a fever, too.”
“There's a perfectly natural explanation for everything,” said Thrower.
“Well, be that as you like, the way I see it the boy invited the devil with his witchery, and now the devil's eating him alive inside. And seeing how you're an ordained minister of God, I thought maybe you could cast out that devil in the name of the Lord Jesus.”
Superstitions and sorceries were nonsense, of course, but when Armor brought up the possibility of a devil being in the boy, it made sense, it fit with what he knew from the Visitor. Maybe the Lord wanted him to exorcise the child, to purge the evil from him, not to kill the boy at all. It was a chance for him to redeem himself from his failure of will a few minutes before.
“I'll go,” he said. He reached for his heavy cloak and whipped it around his shoulders.
“I better warn you, nobody up at their house asked me to bring you.”
“I'm prepared to deal with the anger of the unfaithful,” said Thrower. “It's the victim of deviltry that concerns me, not his foolish and superstitious family.”
Alvin lay on his bed, burning with the heat of his fever. Now, in the daylight, they kept his shutters closed, so the light wouldn't hurt his eyes. At night, though, he made them open things up, let some of the cold air in. He would breathe it in relief. During the few days when he could walk, he had seen the snow covering the meadow. Now he tried to imagine himself lying under that blanket of snow. Relief from the fire burning through his body.
He just couldn't see small enough inside himself. What he did with the bone, with the strands of muscle and layers of skin, it was harder than ever it was to find the cracks in the quarry stone. But he could feel his way through the labyrinth of his body, find the large wounds, help them to close. Most of what went on, though, was too small and fast for him to comprehend. He could see the result, but he couldn't see the pieces, couldn't make out how it happened.
That's how it was with the bad place in his bone. Just a patch of it that was weakening, rotting away. He could feel the difference between the bad place and the good healthy bone, he could find the borders of the sickness. But he couldn't actually see what was happening. He couldn't undo it. He was going to die.
He wasn't alone in the room, he knew. Someone always sat at his bedside. He would open his eyes and see Mama, or Papa, or one of the girls. Sometimes even one of the brothers, even though it meant he had left his wife and his chores. It was a comfort to Alvin, but it was also a burden. He kept thinking he ought to hurry up and die so they could all get back to their regular lives.