He went on eastward looking for some high point he might climb and search for a light. When he found one he climbed it and turned, unwilling to believe all this blackness to the four points of the compass, but all lay sleeplocked and dark as if in all this desolate world he moved through he was the first man awaiting others or the last man left mourning those who had gone before.
For what seemed to him hours he had been following the sound of human voices raised in song and faroff imprecations of fervent faith or rage. He kept angling toward it and ultimately came out on a road. Beyond in a muddy clearing a tent and worshipers thronging out into the chill night. Voicescalled each to each. Goodnight, brother. God bless you. See you at the meetin tomorrow night.
He stood uncertainly by the wayside with the rifle which was by now an extension of himself dangling at his side searching countenances in the vague dusk and trying to decide who to ask.
A family passed. A short, slouching man and a bonneted woman, then, in descending order, a darkhaired girl and a teenage boy a year or two younger, then another boy younger still.
The man abruptly stopped, and when he did the woman and children as well as if they had walked into an invisible wall or were in some manner all geared together. The man was studying Tyler’s face intently and leaning forward in the failing light. Boy, he asked, are you washed in the blood?
Tyler shifted his weight on the balls of his feet. Not him, he was thinking. Man follow his directions, no telling where he might wind up.
I don’t reckon, he said.
Say you don’t reckon. That means you ain’t. If you don’t know for sure, then there ain’t no use hemmin and hawin about it.
No, then.
Then what are you even doin here then? This ridge is a place for worshipers tonight. No place here for sinners. No stormcellar here for sinners and backsliders to crawl into.
I just heard the singing and followed it. I’ve been turned around in the woods. I’m lost.
Lost? The face had leant closer yet and wore such a look of beaming benevolence that Tyler had begun to look skittishly about for someone else to ask. Madfolk he had fallenamong here and no safety in numbers such as these. The man had proffered his hand and Tyler shifted the rifle right hand to left and warily shook it. The hand was hot and dry and frantic.
I know all about lost, the benevolent madman was saying. I wrote the book on lost. I was lost myself till Jesus reached down tonight and plucked me out of the slop I was crawlin in and stood me on my own two feet. You can ask Pearl if you doubt what I say.
The bonneted woman was nodding indiscriminate agreement all the while, but the children’s faces watching were just the carefully closed and slightly skeptical faces of children and they told him nothing at all. The darkhaired girl was very pretty, and she was staring at him with a nightransfixed intensity.
Claude was saved tonight, Pearl said. He was a drunkard for twentyodd year, but tonight he give it all up.
I’m just trying to get to Ackerman’s Field, Tyler said. I come from Centre and I’ve been turned around in the woods.
Lord, you’re a long way from home, the man said. But you’re closer to Ackerman’s Field than you are Centre. You must be plumb wore out and about starved to death.
I just need to get to town. I have to see somebody bad. You don’t have a telephone, do you?
Lord, no. They work on wires, don’t they, and they ain’t never run no wires in here.
I can maybe catch a ride into town from here then.
But the man would not have it so. His hand had clamped Tyler’s biceps. His eyes sought Tyler’s eyes with a divine fixity as if righting this lost and doubtful sheep would consolidate his pact with whatever had struck him here this night. You goin with us. You goin to get somethin to eat and a bed to sleep in and you goin into town with us in the mornin. We go of a Saturday. Can’t let you wander around here all night, and it wouldn’t be Christian to leave you to the varmints.
Tyler made to pull away, but this seemed much the lesser of several evils, and at the mention of food his stomach had twisted with an almost painful writhing. He allowed himself to be tugged along toward whatever they were moving to. All the other revelers had gone as finally as if the night had taken them. The trees were steeped in a murky blue negation of light, and above them and the dark blue suggestion of horizon a moon had risen halfobscured by lavender clouds like a pale cataracted eye watching them.
The man talked as they progressed, he had not ceased. This here is Pearl, he said, gesturing toward the woman. These is Drew and Aaron and this here grown girl or thinks she is is Claudelle.
There was an old pickup truck turned into a sideroad. The truck had a flat bed with sideboards cobbled up out of slabs. It had been black but was a black now that remembered nothing of paint and seemed to draw light and suck it out of sight somewhere beneath its surface.
Nobody said anything, but Tyler guessed he was to ride in the back and climbed onto the tailgate. The two boys followed, and the girl would have as well, but the woman grasped her arm and pulled her toward the cab.
The road they followed was bowered so low with branches that they were forever ducking and ended sitting against the cab. As they progressed light to dark, the moonlight made lace filigrees of moving shadow in the truckbed. He rested his head against the cold metal of the cab.
The road spooled palely out behind them and shadow took it and it seemed never to have existed, a road formed by the headlights and diminishing in the red glow of the taillights, beyond that just windy space and nothingness save Sutter trying to devise a way to cross it.
What was you huntin? the biggest boy shouted over the roar of the truck. The younger boy was already asleep against Drew’s shoulder, eyes closed and lashes shadowed on his pale face.
What?
What was you huntin? Squirrels, rabbits, what?
Bears, Tyler said.
The boy glanced at the rifle Tyler clutched. He leaned to spit through the sideboards at the fleeing road and gave Tyler a cold cat’s look. You come armed mighty light for em, he said. Tyler just grinned and didn’t say anything. When the truck ceased they were not before some shotgun shack as he had expected they would be but a substantial farmhouse set in the lee of dark hills. Beyond it other buildings that lay in shadow, the bulk of a barn. He could smell woodsmoke from the fire they’d left. The cab doors sprang open and they got out.
Is Aaron done asleep? the woman called.
I reckon. He’s laid against me ever since we left.
Hand him down here then, Drew.
Claude was striding toward the porch. At its edge he halted. Boy, where’s that wood you was supposed to stack on the porch. There ain’t nary a stick up here.
Drew had scrambled down from the truckbed. I clearlight forgot it, getting ready for meetin and all. You reckon a good kick in the hind end would help you remember? Claude asked, but there was no real force behind his words. He seemed still touched by whatever of brotherhood he’d soaked up at the campmeeting and willing to pass this magnanimity along to those with human failings.
I believe I can remember it without you goin to that trouble, Drew said easily. I’d do it right now, I reckon.
I reckon you will. Take this lost sheep along with you to help. He turned to Tyler. Just follow Drew here. It’s down by the barn.
When they had progressed out of what Drew judged to be hearing distance, he said, He’s the damnedest feller for stackin wood on the porch I ever seen. Specially as long as I’m doin it.