Dance on the Wind (70 page)

So he asked of his guest, “Where are you off to?”

Raising an arm that looked more like a winter branch inside the huge, ill-fitting coat he wore, the stranger pointed off here, there, and over there. “No place special. Off to where the spirit moves me. God tells me where I am to go—as He told the wandering Israelites of Moses and Joshua of old. Yet, truth be it, I—like you—am alone. Alas, that is God’s condition yoked upon the shoulders of some, is it not, son? As many as we might have around us, family and acquaintances, we are still alone in this life, and God makes the only sure friend we will ever truly have.”

With a snort Titus said, “I had me lots of friends.”

From beneath the bushy eyebrows that stood out like a pair of hairy caterpillars on the pronounced and bony brow, the stranger sneered, “Yes—I can see by all these companions you have brought along with you on this journey.”

“They are here!” he snapped at the sudden, harsh judgment, and tapped a finger against his chest. Then added, more quietly, “Right in here.”

For a long moment the stranger regarded that, then smiled warmly as he tossed Bass three ears of the corn. “Yes. I believe you might just be the sort who would hold a friend dear in your heart. But be busy now: find us something to boil our corn and potatoes in.”

“I ain’t got nothing near big enough—”

“Tied on the far side of my saddle,” the stranger interrupted. “A wandering wayfarer like myself must always have himself an all-purpose kettle in which to boil anything and everything that God provides for the table. For a prayerful man of the Lord, nothing he finds is ill-gotten gain.”

“You lost me on your track again.”

“God has taken care of me for more years than you have been breathing, young man. And I trust in Him for when there are not folks to take me in and spread their board before me. At such times God will provide me the opportunity to feed myself.”

Titus looked down at the capon, a castrated rooster
grown plump for the table. “You … you didn’t steal all of this, did—”

“By the heavens, no!” he roared, laughing. “The farmer I spent last night with—but I already told you, didn’t I? Get that kettle of mine from the horse and see that it’s filled with water from yonder creek. Once you’ve removed his saddle for me, you best be plucking feathers from that bird, unless you want to mud him.”

Titus stopped on his knees. “M-mud him?”

“Ahh, yes,” he said, regarding the fire pit. “You seem to have a good bed of coals going already. Let’s mud these gamecocks tonight, my young friend. You go on about your chores and get to boiling those fruits of God’s fields while you and I find a spot of dirt where we can mix in a little water to make a good, stiff mud.”

“You ain’t told me what the hell for.”

The old man laughed easily, that gap-toothed mouth working with a throb. “Not what the hell for! For a
heavenly
repast! We’re going to coat these fat little roosters with mud, a thick shell it must be. Then stuff them down in the coals to cook themselves inside that shell of temporal earth.”

“They’ll cook up like that?”

“And when we drag them out of the fire, prepare to dine on the outskirts of paradise, my young friend,” the old man explained. “All we have to do is crack the hardened mud shell, and in pulling it off, we tear away the feathers.
Sacré bleu!
as the French in St. Louie would say. We are ready to eat!”

When it came time for everything to come off the fire and out of the coals, Titus discovered he was much hungrier than he had ever imagined. He hadn’t eaten like that in days. Ever since that last of Lottie’s meals … Lottie and Marissa’s.

Something about the chill, frosty air and the crackle of the campfire gave muscle to his appetite. All of his hungers. So he tried desperately to force her into the recesses of his mind as he pushed himself back from the pile of bones and gristle and three corncobs.

“You damn near made that bird disappear,” the stranger said. “Along with those potatoes, skin and all.”

“I like the skin,” Titus replied. “And them birds—mudded an’ all.”

“It was a fine feast, wasn’t it?”

“A good change from pig meat.”

With a visible shudder the old man wagged his head. “How I have come to hate Ned.”

“Ned? Why you hate him? Who’s he, anyhow?”

“Not who—what. Ned is pork. Ned is pig meat. Ned is the sustenance of the devil himself! No, I haven’t partaken of Ned in so long, I cannot remember.” He pointed a bony finger at Titus. “And you would do well to swear off it as well. Cloven-hooved, unclean, filthy beasts that they are.”

“But if a man’s hungry—”

“He’s better off going hungry than biting into any Ned! God will provide for His redeemed souls … without any of us having to descend into the fiery depths and dine on the devil’s fodder.” He raised his face and arms to the sky, closed his eyes, to say, “Praise God I no longer eat such a beast.” Then he quickly opened his eyes and looked directly at Titus. “Don’t you hunt, son?”

“Y-yes, sir. I hunt.”

“That’s a fine piece of workmanship there.”

Titus rubbed it, looking at what he took to be wanton envy and desire for the weapon on the stranger’s face. “It was my grandpap’s.”

“I see.” And the stranger peered into Bass’s eyes again. “With such a beautiful piece, a man would never again have an excuse for eating Ned.”

“No, I s’pose he wouldn’t,” Titus admitted, feeling backed into a corner as he watched the old man dust off the front of his clothing, so old and worn they were slickened, shiny with age.

The stranger dragged over the leather satchel he had worn over his shoulder when he’d first walked up to the fire. From it he took a pipe, then another, and finally a small pouch he pitched carelessly over his shoulder and caught in his hand behind his back dramatically.

“Would you care to share a smoke with an old man?”

“I would. Yes,” Titus answered enthusiastically.

“I take it you’ve smoked before?” He handed over the pipe and pouch.

“Years now,” Titus lied as he opened the pouch. “I been on the river. The Ohio clear down the Messessap to Norleans.”

With the pouch back in the old man’s possession, he asked Titus, “What brings you north to St. Lou?”

“Been wanting to go there for years now.”

“Years?” And he leaned forward to snag a twig from the fire, holding it over his pipe bowl.

“For about as long as I can remember.”

The stranger regarded Titus over the pipe bowl he huffed on until it glowed, watching the youth tamp the dark tobacco shreds into the pipe. “You’ve got it packed too tight for to draw good. Loosen it some before you try to light it.”

Titus nodded, feeling the hot burn of embarrassment rise along his neck.

“It’s all right, young man,” the stranger confided as he leaned back against the poor saddle and blanket Titus had removed from the big, bony horse he’d brought north from the Guthries’. “Every man has to learn for himself the
feel
of filling a pipe’s bowl, to sense when it is packed tightly enough. Too tight, it won’t draw and you can’t keep it lit. Too loose—about the same problem, and it smokes too fast or goes out on you. Rest assured, this is one of the lessons in life that all young men like yourself are bound to learn. Among many, many others.”

When he had loosened the tobacco and had it going, he drew in his first long pull of smoke. It bit and burned. Coughing, he flushed with embarrassment again.

“No matter, son,” the stranger said. “You go ahead and learn on your own.”

“But I learn’t four winters back at Louisville—”

“No need to be ashamed for a little cough or two—”

Titus interrupted, “Maybe I just be a little out of practice.”

“Likely so, young man,” he said with a grin. “Likely so.”

At last Titus felt the heady impact of the tobacco seep across his brow, similar to the first sensations he had enjoyed
from a liquid elixir, the likes of Monongahela rye or spruce beer. Titus leaned back against the stump of a tree and regarded the fire, smoking contentedly. Then he asked as maturely as he could make it sound, “What is it you’re bound to the south to do?”

“Me? I always go to the south. And to the west, before I head north again to St. Lou.”

“Around and around in a circle?”

He pulled the pipe from his gapped teeth. “That’s what circuit-riding preachers do.”

“Should’ve knowed you was a preacher man. From the way you … the way—”

“I talked?” And he chuckled. “But—I ain’t one of the rappers. Trust in that.”

“A r-rapper?” Titus asked.

“A queersome breed of spiritualist, to my way of thinking, young man. One who summons communication from the dead, who make knocking sounds from the world beyond.”

He felt a chill course down his spine just from the mere mention of dead spirits, that instant thinking on Ebenezer Zane. “You ain’t one of them, is you?”

“Told you I wasn’t,” the stranger explained. “I make my circuit a month’s time every trip. As far south as I can go in two weeks before turning back around to head north to the land of the wealthy and very, very Catholic French in St. Lou. What is it you’ll be doing in that city you so long desired to visit?”L

“I don’t plan on visiting. I plan on staying awhile.”

“I see,” he answered, regarding his pipe bowl thoughtfully. “And pray—what can you do to provide for yourself? I take it you won’t be hunting for a living?”

“Don’t plan on it—but if’n I got to, I’ll do it.”

“Ah, yes. An enterprising young man who I am certain I will never find sitting on one of St. Louie’s street corners with all the rest of the tattered beggars, hands outstretched, pleading with all who pass by to drop in their dirty hands a ha’penny, a schilling, a guinea. Any trifle so they don’t have to work. Why, to think of it—there have been those who had the gall to call
me
a beggar!”

“You’re a preacher, can’t folks see that?”

He smiled widely, that gap between his two front teeth seeming to widen as he dusted off the front of his coat and shirt once more. “Yes. It is plain to see that while I am not a man of substance and means, I am nonetheless a man who takes care of himself and does not rely on charity. Tell me, my astute young observer of life and the manner of mankind—have you ever thought of taking up the staff of God and preaching His word?”

“Me? A preacher like you?”

“It is not easy work, let me assure you. But it is very, very satisfying.”

“No, sir. I never thought on it at all. I got me my hope to make it to St. Louie. See where things sit up there. Everything on beyond is wild and open.”

“Every man must find his own call. You’ve heard your own call, then. We’ll let it rest at that,” the old man said, seeming satisfied. “Yes. The beasts and the savages of the wild. Perhaps it is you are called to see them for yourself.”

“Maybeso I’ll get to do that one day.”

“By the grace of God, you will, my son,” the preacher replied. “Myself, why—I’ve traveled through the land of the red heathen for most of my life, and God has not once delivered me into the hands of mine enemies. Even the Shawnee, who were driven across the great Mississipp not long ago to begin a new life in the country south of Cape Girardeau. They and the Miami. On south, farther still, below the mouth of the Ohio, yes—I have gone among the Chickasaw, the Choctaw, and the Natchez of a time. All of them Eden’s children: savage in every respect and by and large not ready for the teachings of God.”

“So you just preach to white folks when you take your rides, make your circle?”

“It wasn’t always that way, mind you,” he explained, relighting his pipe with the burning twig as the night became all the deeper around them. “As a young man I first received the gift of tongues. I gave powerful sermons in the great cities of the east, dined in the finest of homes, held people in the palm of my hand by the thousands. Then one night at a camp meeting outside Philadelphia, I saw her.”

“Her?”

His eyelids fell contritely. “The woman who was to be my downfall.”

“Woman?”

“She sat in the second row,” he replied, looking off into the distance. “Once my eyes touched her, I could not take them off her beauty. No, not that she was the most gorgeous creature I had ever seen—for there had been others prettier. But there was something so altogether striking, appealing … seductive about her. With the way she stirred my carnal appetites—why, I knew immediately, there and then, that she was the devil himself come to tempt me.”

“The devil himself?” Titus asked in growing wonder, then swallowed, forgetting all about his pipe as he was completely drawn into the story.

“I spent the rest of the night preaching only to her. Forget the thousands who had flocked to hear my words that evening. Forget them all! I preached only to her. And in the end my faith was not enough. When the night was done and morning came through the windows of that grand hotel room, I awoke to find myself lying in bed beside that creature of temptation. I had succumbed. I had sinned. I had fallen as Adam fell—tempted by the devil made incarnate.”

“You … you had you … you diddled with that woman?”

The stranger nodded, gazing now into the fire. “I suppose I could have gone on preaching in those eastern cities—but in my heart I felt the ruin. My safe, secure life of preaching to the wealthy and numerous along the Atlantic seaboard was over. I disappeared over the mountains, wandered down the Ohio, on down the Tennessee River, finding my way into the Cumberland as if guided by some unseen hand. Now I do what I have always done since leaving that rich, prosperous life behind: I ride and preach. Many a morning do I arise early to prepare myself to speak to a small congregation in some faraway place in the forest.”

“How you find them?”

The old man smiled. “God takes me to them, to all those who are in need, don’t you see? So I go among them,
a new community nearly every day or so. Arising from my blankets before the sun and preparing my sermon. Sometimes there is a handful to listen to the word. Other times there may be fifteen or so. Faith is spread mighty thin in the wilderness, young man. Mighty thin indeed.”