Harvestman Lodge (46 page)

“I understand that position,” Eli said. “And agree with it.”

Melinda said, “I think I do, too. Though I was raised in the household of one of the knuckle-dragging types you mentioned.”

Feely firmly shook his head. “No, no, Melinda, don’t speak so harshly of your father. I know Ben, and though he and I have some very different viewpoints and personal styles, I find him to be a good and authentically devout man, following and advocating for the public good as he sees it.”

“Just in an overly intense way, maybe,” Melinda suggested.

“I agree he is an intense man. And I’ll add that while over-intensity might be a social sin, it’s no moral one. We are, in terms of temperament, largely what we’re programmed by brain and experience to be. Ben Buckingham included.” Feely paused and chuckled. “Ben just needs to settle back, have a cold beer, and chill out a bit.”

Melinda broke into laughter. “Rev, you have no idea how much I’d love to see that! No idea! To see that fundamentalist, I’ve-got-all-the-answers intensity calmed down, even for a brief time … it would be so wonderful! You can’t imagine what he’s like sometimes.”

“Perhaps I can, Melinda. Remember: I’m one of the local preachers he openly called a ‘denier of God’s word’ in one of his letters to the editor, because I had dared to suggest, during that big creationism-in-schools row a few years ago, that perhaps the geological record and other concurring evidence regarding the antiquity of our earth and universe might be validly looked upon as a divinely-provided biblical commentary, guiding us on how literally we should or should not interpret some portions of the scripture. That seemed and still seems a reasonable, common-sense position to me, but obviously it was heresy to your father. He lambasted me thoroughly in letters. So I’ve got personal experience with the intensity of Ben Buckingham.”

Melinda asked quietly, “How is it, Rev. Feely, that you can be a man of faith but remain so … I don’t know the word I’m looking for … so
peaceful
, so
not
intense! I got the impression, growing up in my house, that any person of faith who wasn’t all but foaming at the mouth and raging against sin at every moment, was falling short, displeasing God by having a ‘lukewarm’ faith.”

Feely answered in typically thoughtful fashion. “I honestly believe what I said before: much of our behaviorial style is more or less programmed. There are people of naturally calm temperament, such as I am, and those who are more inclined to ‘foam at the mouth,’ to borrow your phrase. If you want to see good examples of what I’m saying, just go to UT Knoxville on a football Saturday and look around the crowd in Neyland Stadium. You’ll see some people who behave as if they escaped the nearest lunatic asylum, raging and screaming and hating the opposing team and their fans, and so on. Then you’ve got other enthusiasts, just as devoted and supportive of their team, just as emotionally invested in the game, and yet they stay seated and limit their public displays to some dignified clapping and maybe waving a big foam finger around a few times. What’s the difference? Individual temperament. Simply that. The default settings of individual base-level personalities. And if this applies in sports, or in devotion to a popular musician or band, why would we expect it would not apply to the individual ways we reflect our spiritual persuasions? I’ve known so-called ‘holy rollers’ who dance and wave their hands and shout in worship, and others who simply sit quiet and prayerful. Both might be equally sincere and authentic people of God, yet they exhibit radically varying worship attitudes. Just like those fans at the football game. Me, I’m inclined toward the quiet and cognitive approach, doing all things ‘decently and in order,’ as the scripture puts it. Others, such as Ben Buckingham, maybe, are more inclined to ‘strap on the full armor of God’ and charge headlong into battle, slashing and drawing blood. Both approaches have their time and place. And each type, I’ve observed, never fully understands the other.”

Melinda pondered it all a few moments, then said, “Rev. Feely, I’m going to be a visitor in your church tomorrow morning. We have a series of revival services coming up in my own church, and the guest speaker is kicking it off tomorrow in the morning service. He’s a real pulpit-slamming, hell-raising type of preacher, pardon the expression, just the kind Dad likes. I think I’d prefer something a little softer-toned this weekend.” She pointed at Eli. “And I’m bringing that backslider with me, whether he likes it or not.”

“Are you, now?” Eli said. “What if I just decide not to go along?”

“Then I’ll put aside the ‘quiet and cognitive’ approach long enough to break in and drag your lazy, secular ass out of bed and force you to go with me!” she said.

Eli arched his brows and looked at Feely. “See you in church tomorrow, Reverend! Secular ass and all.”

“Well,” Feely said, “I and my ordained clergy ass will welcome you both.”

“SO, WHAT DID YOUR research into Harvestman Lodge show you?” Eli asked Feely as the trio explored the building more fully. Feely had been through the place many times and made for a good tour guide. “What is the great secret nobody wants to talk about? And what does this building have to do with it?”

Feely shrugged. “Every town needs a place to hide its secrets, I suppose,” he said.

“And those secrets are … ”

Feely looked at Eli. “ … Hard to pin down in any specific way, that’s what they are. So many rumors, each with multiple variations … ”

Eli asked, “But what’s the truth? Were you able to find it?”

Feely stared at a cobweb in a ceiling corner. “Enough of it to lose sleep for three nights running.”

Melinda spoke. “Was there a child who died here?”

Feely frowned. “A child was … lost. That’s the way I would put it. A child was lost.”

“Lost? meaning … ”

“Probably dead, yes, though not at this location. If not dead, surely damaged as a human being.”

“Just what do you know?”

Feely took some deep breaths and paced in a circle a few times, obviously struggling with his own thoughts. “I know broad truths, not narrow. I have suspicions on some specific matters but no certainty as to how to sift through what facts I have.”

“Can you give us the broad truths, then?” Eli asked.

“And your interest is … ”

“Not journalistic. Literary. Not on behalf of the
Clarion
, just on behalf of myself. Harvestman Lodge seems to me like likely grist for a future novel, set in a fictional place, with fictional people, fictional events. No real names and nothing to link back to any identifiable person or place or situation. No mention of Harvestmen or Sadlers or Kincheloe County.”

“I’m somewhat puzzled,” said the clergyman. “How can you know if there is material for a novel when you know so little about it?”

“Because anything that would cause the dissolution of a community organization, generate endless wild rumors that go on for years, cause entire bureaucracies and even the local media to clam up into silence, and send rising politicians scurrying to disassociate themselves … something with that much impact has to have substance and significance.”

“I … I see your point, Eli. But, quite candidly, I’m not sure I can trust someone else to … I’m, uh, not trying to offend you, be assured … ”

“You’re not sure you can trust me to disguise sufficiently the content to avoid compromising pledges and promises you have made to other people.”

“Well … yes, yes, I suppose that’s a fair way to put it.”

“I already told you, I have no interest in this from a journalistic viewpoint. I just want to write a novel. Make-believe. Nothing real, not even an ‘inspired by real events’ tag like they always have on bad TV movies. I’ll make sure details are altered as needed to make my story work and ensure its full separation from reality. My interest in this is nothing you need worry over. You are simply the first person I’ve run across in this county who is even slightly willing to let the topic go further than a sentence or two before it lapses into dead silence.” Eli paused and studied Feely’s face. “Besides … I’m wondering if maybe you actually want to talk about it, at some level.”

Feely’s lips moved very slightly in what might have been a silent prayer. He squeezed his eyes closed, pursed his lips a moment, then relaxed. His eyes opened.

“All right, Eli. I’ll tell you what I can. And I’ll trust you and Melinda, just as others have trusted me. God knows I hope I’m not breaking their trust right now.”

Eli and Melinda seated themselves on the edge of the big, dusty desk, feet dangling. Melinda’s right foot was in constant motion, a toe-tapping motion in the air, a nervous habit … nervous now because of the feeling in the room that hidden things were about to be revealed.

Hoping to kickstart the revelations, Melinda asked, “Reverend, does the phrase ‘Rising Angel’ mean anything to you?”

“It means to me that you’ve probably been to visit Erlene and her Hall of History. And please, do call me Kyle.”

“Reverend just feels more natural to me,” Melinda said. “Is that okay?”

“Sure. Whatever you prefer.”

Eli said, “We could just call you Touchy, like Lundy does.”

Feely chuckled. “That works, too.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

FEELY TOOK A DEEP breath and began to speak.

“The fraternal order of Tennessee Harvestmen had its origins in the 1920s after a series of brush arbor evangelistic and revival meetings that took place in a field just outside of Tylerville, the place where the Spears-Hinkle plant stands now. The Rev. Jeremiah Cadwaller led services nightly beginning at seven and ending, according to the big advertisement in the
Clarion
, ‘when the Holy Spirit dictates.’ Very old-fashioned kind of affair, a throwback to the camp meetings of the prior century. The few photographs that were taken of the event showed the field covered with brush arbors and tents and open campsites where families came and typically stayed multiple days and nights. There was even a barn-like building put up on a neighboring farm as a crude, temporary hotel for those who wanted more substantial shelter than a tent or a brush arbor. Thousands of people in attendance over the course of nearly two weeks of revivalist, fundamentalist preaching from the good Rev. Cadwaller. And despite my well-known penchant for being critical of some of the teachings and attitudes of my fundamentalist brethren, I’m not speaking ironically when I say ‘good reverend’ in regard to Cadwaller. The man had a reputation of being a fine and sincere gentleman, surprisingly soft-spoken and kindly of heart and spirit, according to old remembrances of some who heard him. I’ve spoken with several aging locals, most of them women, who were in attendance at the Walker Creek Revival, as the event came to be remembered.”

Feely had begun pacing back and forth as he spoke, the motion seeming to help keep his thoughts and words focused. He stopped abruptly, hesitating. “Perhaps I am wrong even to delve into this, but I think you’ll find it as interesting as I did that, reportedly, several local young women who were present at that big camp meeting became young mothers nine months after. Most were unmarried. Several local family lines owe the existence of some of their people to, er, rather irreligious interactions that happened between local young folk in the woods surrounding the Walker Creek camp meeting grounds. The local Campbells, Tates, Flatts, Parvins, and some others … entire branches of those family trees, I’m told by older folk, can be traced back to the Walker Creek Revival.”

“Oh my,” said Melinda. “I guess that’s just what happens when … ”

Feely finished her sentence for her. “When you get a huge group of people, including the young, virile, and nubile, together in a setting and atmosphere that encourages both emotion and boldness of response. There were lots of dense woods around that big camp meeting clearing in those days, many places young men and women could sneak away in response to inspirations born more of body than spirit. It’s just a fact of human nature, and human weakness, that such things will happen, and that has been a part of the secret history of mass religious gatherings for scores of decades in this nation of ours.” Feely paused again, thinking a moment. “It is as well a clear illustration of the frequently encountered life principle that certainly applies to the history of Harvestman Lodge: what is originally inspired by a desire for the good can give way to lesser and lower drives. Such is what happened here.”

“How does an old 1920s revival meeting lead to Harvestman Lodge?” Eli asked. “I presume there is a reason you started out with that story.”

“Yes, and let me show you the connection. In attendance at that camp meeting was one Mordecai Sadler, a highly successful merchant in several counties of the region, mostly in Kincheloe. Sadler had, when he’d lived in Knox County, been on the verge of entering the Masons. But Rev. Cadwaller was noted for his anti-Masonic stance, holding an attitude toward the Freemasons as venomous as your father holds toward the alcohol trade, Melinda. Typical of him, he used the preaching platform at Walker Creek as a bully pulpit for his views on Masonry in addition to his more basic evangelistic and revivalist material. Mordecai Sadler, hearing it, was persuaded away from his Masonic ambitions, and came away from Walker Creek with the conviction he had been called by God to establish an independent and entirely new fraternal organization, one that would embrace in particular those involved in agriculture in this eastern portion of Tennessee. Our region was dotted with farms, most of them small and family-owned. Some of them pretty much subsistence farms. And of course there was much tobacco grown. The Fraternal Order of Tennessee Harvestmen would provide what Mordecai Sadler called, in rather flowery terms, ‘fields of righteous service for those who yearly bring us the life-sustaining harvest, allowing them to reap new crops for the good of their fellow brethren and children of the Lord of the Harvest.’” Feely stopped, took a breath, and smiled. “Yes, I memorized that line right out of an old Harvestman manual I found a year or more ago in a drawer of that desk you’re sitting on. I’ve got it on a shelf at home in my study now.”