Rapture of Canaan (32 page)

“The tractor’s missing,” she hollered. “Hey, the tractor’s gone.”

“The John Deere’s in the garden,” Barley hollered back.

“No,” Bethany shouted. “The old one. It’s gone.”

We followed the tire tracks to the edges of a field, then around the back side to a tiny pond not even big enough for fishing. It was left right there.

When people heard the news, they began surveying the woods all around it, but at night time, nobody had found a trace of Grandpa Herman.

Over supper, we collected flashlights, and everybody warmed up with soup and bread. Then Everett said that there was no need for anybody else to get lost and that only the men should go out after dark because they knew the woods, and besides, if Grandpa came back, he’d need some people to greet him.

“That’s craziness,” Nanna argued. “And I’m going looking.”

“Now, Mamma,” Uncle Ernest said, “you won’t do us a bit of good out there. Please don’t make us have to worry about you too. Just stay here and wait with the women.”

Then I thought that Nanna was going to cry because her lips began to tremble, and the little blue place on her bottom lip jumped like a flea. She said, “I can’t figure out how we didn’t hear him crank that tractor.”

“The barn’s a ways away,” Mustard said. “It ain’t your fault, Nanna.”

“A big old noise like a tractor cranking though. You’d think we would have heard that.”

“We were running all them sewing machines,” Mamma mourned.

We sat up all night waiting for the men to come back with Grandpa, but they didn’t. Then it started raining, hard, and when Nanna heard the drops hitting against the tin roof, her lips quivered so violently that she had to bite down on them to keep them from wiggling right off her face. But she didn’t cry.

I thought I knew what she felt like. I imagined her feeling just the way I did when James died. It wasn’t that crying was shameful or unexpected. It wasn’t that crying made you look little or weak. It was just that one tear that broke away from an eye held that tight was enough to bring down a floodwall. Who could ever know the pressure behind it, or how big that flood might be? And what if the water kept coming and coming forever?

Around ten o’clock, the younger boys came home, soggy and cold. Mamma fed them, and Bethany sent them all to sleep at her house.

“You need some sleep, Nanna,” Bethany said.

“I can’t sleep,” Nanna snapped. “I’m going out there to look for him.”

“No, Leila,” Great-Aunt Imogene tried. “You know old women can’t see at night, even with a flashlight.”

I was holding Canaan, and Laura wasn’t even trying to take him away. It seemed like all the rules and all the problems of the community had been suspended temporarily, and I got to play with him all that night and kiss his head as much as I wanted and follow him around that great room as he ran. I got to feed him and watch the way he opened his mouth when the spoon approached. I was the one who got to rock him to sleep. I only felt the tinest bit guilty for taking pleasure in such a troubled time.

“I think the best thing we can do is hold a prayer meeting,” Laura said.

“That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day,” Mamma replied, placing her hand on Laura’s shoulder.

So we sat in a circle and began calling out to Christ. Everybody prayed, together, aloud, and most people cried. Occasionally, there’d be a break, and then they’d start up again.

But during one break, Nanna spoke up and said, “Children, I believe I’m going to get in my bed and do my praying there.”

“Do you want me to go with you?” Mamma volunteered.

“No. You stay here. Maybe Ninah will come sleep with me.”

“Go with her, Ninah,” Mamma instructed, even though I was already on my feet.

“Now, y’all come get me if you hear anything,” Nanna demanded. “Don’t let me sleep if you hear any news.”

“We won’t,” Wanda said, and kissed her cheek.

“Any news at all,” Nanna whispered.

 

 

 

W
e walked right in
Nanna’s
back door, and
I
was about to take off my shoes when Nanna pulled out a flashlight and threw me some long johns to put on under my clothes. “We’re going looking,” she said.

I knew from her tone that there was no need to try and change her mind. I didn’t want to anyway.

Five minutes later, we stole out the front door, walking quickly down the dirt road and keeping our eyes primed for headlights in the distance.

“Where are we going?” I asked her.

“To the place where we dunked you,” she said carefully.

“Do you think he’s there?” I asked. I wondered if she was afraid he’d drowned himself. Just the thought chilled me.

“I don’t know.”

She was almost running. I had to hustle just to keep up.

When we came to the woods, we turned on the flashlight and made our way through the branches. I went first so I could hold back branches for her and strip down the spiderwebs with my face so they wouldn’t cross hers. But I don’t think Nanna noticed any of that.

I hoped the batteries in the flashlight were good. We needed the light. The moon was hidden by all the clouds, and the rain felt like a million mosquito bites against my skin.

When we got to the creek, I shined the light on the water, looking for a narrow place to cross, but Nanna never slowed down. She walked right through the water, and I ran behind her, then ahead.

When we came to the clearing where James had killed his first deer, I talked her into stopping to catch her breath. My own lungs were stinging, and I had to spit to make way for the air I was gulping.

But not long afterwards, Nanna was walking again, and we didn’t stop until we came to the broken tree that stretched out over the pond.

Nanna took the flashlight, pulled herself onto the trunk, and stepped out over the water. “Herman?” she hollered. “Old Man, you’ve been out here long enough. You’ve scared us good, and it’s time to go home.” When she said “home,” her voice caught halfway and squeaked with the loss.

“Nanna, he’ll be okay,” I promised her stupidly.

“Now you don’t know that, do you, young lady?”

“No, ma’am,” I admitted.

“Well, then hush.”

She swung the flashlight left and right, studying the reeds, the surface of the pond. But I was searching for rope. Even after Nanna got down and we walked along the bank, rope was all I could think about.

“Do you reckon we could see any better from the dunking plank?” she asked as we approached the giant tree.

I couldn’t imagine climbing to that place again.

“Maybe,” I said. “I’ll go.”

“We’ll both go,” Nanna insisted, and she walked over to the makeshift ladder and began her climb.

I had the flashlight then, holding it straight up so Nanna could see where to put her hands. I worried so hard that she’d fall, and if she did, I wanted to be there to catch her. But she was steady and moving like someone so determined that I knew that even if she was marching to her death, she was sure it was what she wanted to do.

When she reached the top, she straddled the thick branch and scooted her way along.

I couldn’t help feeling that sick fear of heights. I couldn’t help remembering the only other time I’d been in that tree, and I sensed again and again that everything inside my rib cage was dropping from within its frame. My heart, my lungs, my stomach and liver and gallbladder, all dropping. The only thing that convinced me it couldn’t happen was the thought of all that kudzu tangled inside.

And then we were on the plank, side by side. Nanna took the flashlight and waved it across the water and land.

“Did you see that?” she said, when she noted a movement.

“Turtle,” I replied.

The rain had cut to a drizzle, but I was soaked and shivering, listening to my teeth tapping out the fear and coldness I couldn’t admit. Because the leaves hadn’t grown on the trees yet, there was nothing to protect us from the wetness, even up high. In the quiet, I let myself remember for just a second the horrible swishing of a branch being pulled through water.

“The night I first loved Herman,” Nanna said finally, “I knew there was more to God than praying and singing songs and going to preaching.”

She turned off the light, and we sat completely in darkness, suspended above the pond like someone about to be punished. I thought maybe we were being punished already. I worried that she might jump.

“I knew after holding him and kissing that way, kissing so hard that one person’s breathing was enough for two, I knew one of the reasons why my mamma killed my pappa, and at the same time, I knew I’d found out what God was about.”

I put my hand on her legs to be sure that if she moved, I’d have a grip on her, and even if I couldn’t keep her up there with me, I could go down too. He-ba-ma-shun-di and splash.

“I remember the day he began Fire and Brimstone. He’d been planning it for a time, and he couldn’t think of the right name. He came bustling into the kitchen one day and said, ‘The Church of Fire and Brimstone and God’s Almighty Baptizing Wind,’ and then he broke out laughing, and I fixed him some grits, and I watched him eat, just staring at his speckled skin and his laughing eyes. All along I wanted to call it ‘God’s Wind.’ I thought ‘God’s Wind’ was enough. But it was Herman’s project.”

Nanna chuckled to herself. “Crazy old man. Always coming up with a plan, a way to do something different. Something that ain’t never been done before.”

After a time, the wind started passing right through me, not even shuddering me, and though I couldn’t feel my feet anymore, it didn’t seem to matter. I thought we might be ghosts already, or that that’s what we’d always been.

“I have loved that man more than anything,” Nanna muttered, more to herself than to me. “I’ve wondered a lot of times when this day would come.”

The night seemed to be holding its breath. For a while there, with Nanna saying so much and me not having a word worth its air, I thought for sure that the darkness was going to suffocate itself, blacking us out with it.

“And you know what else?” Nanna choked, then shook her head. “My mamma killed Pappa because she was always wishing, always wishing for more than she had. Wishing for another chance, another story to tell. But even Weston Ward wouldn’t have been enough. Even if he’d given her the moon, she would have been wishing for a star to go along with it....”

“It ain’t so bad to wish for things,” I told her.

“I reckon me and Mamma have more in common than I’d like to admit. Never satisfied with what the good Lord puts down before us.” She reached over and touched my thigh. I think her hand was pressing hard, but I was too chilled to feel it.

“But you’ve always known that, haven’t you?” Nanna continued. “That’s why you want me to keep telling the story. You wish for more than anybody I know, but you better be careful. That’s all I got to say.”

I forced myself to breathe, deep, to keep from dying with the night. The only thing I understood was that God’s will or not—Nanna wanted Grandpa back. But at least she was honest about it. At least she wasn’t afraid to say she’d like her tale to have a happier ending.

“Nanna,” I said, “you don’t know how this is going to wind up.”

“No,” she answered. “But things are going to change now. From here on out. That much I do know.”

I don’t quite remember how we got down. I think it was Nanna who held the light, and I groped around in the darkness, feeling my way. But I wasn’t worried about falling anymore. For some reason, maybe just exhaustion, I trusted my hands and the tree.

 

 

 

B
ack at Nanna’s we dried off with heavy towels, and Nanna
got us both dry clothes. I wore one of her dresses and a sweater, and I didn’t even mind looking like an old woman. We sat by her wood stove long enough to burn the chill out, though it never quite left my feet.

I didn’t know what to say to her. I wanted to comfort her, but I also understood that sorrow’s a silent place. It seemed like I could see Nanna shriveling behind her eyes. The force that made her eyes shine was backing up, getting farther and farther away.

“Are you okay?” I asked her finally.

It took her a minute to figure out I’d posed a question. She looked at me, her eyes like unplugged sockets, and replied, “Put on your shoes.”

I followed her onto the porch, hurrying to button my coat. “We should get started on breakfast,” I said. “The men will be back soon.”

“I want to take one more look,” Nanna replied. So we headed back out to the woods.

The foliage and weeds dried themselves against our ankles. It had rained so hard during the night that even after daylight came, it looked like the darkness had stuck to the ground. And as much as I loved Nanna, the only place I wanted to be was in the fellowship hall, preferably drinking something hot and holding Canaan.

Nanna marched across land we’d covered before. I could see the footprints of others in the muddy mulch. She took us in circles around the same piece of land and didn’t seem to notice we weren’t getting anywhere.

I kept trying to take the lead, but Nanna’d step out in front. It was almost as if she was assuring herself that I couldn’t see her face.

“We’re not going to find him out here,” I said after a while.

Nanna stopped walking, turned back to me, her hair pushed out of its bun by the rain and splatted against the sides of her neck. “If you don’t want to be out here,” she snapped, “then go your ass back to the church.”

I was surprised to hear her talk that way to me. But the thing that made me think I might cry was watching her stand with her hand against a tree and seeing a fat drop of water fall from a pine bough and land on her forehead. Nanna looked so insulted, as if the rain had hit her on purpose, and she slapped the drop away like a tick or a spider, put her hands over her face, and wandered off.