No one looked at anyone when they spoke. No one grabbed a friend by the waist. People touched, but not like before. Women and girls quietly stroked each other’s hair. Among the grieving men and boys, brothers and fathers to the dead girls, talking gave way to shoulder squeezing and lengthy handshakes.
My father reined Whiteface to a slow walking halt in the shade of two old oaks. Morning service was still an hour and a half away.
Amafo gripped the side rail of the wagon and swung himself to the ground. Whiteface whinnied and neighed. As Dad tied the reins to a tree, Amafo pulled his hat low and stepped into the woods. Moments later he reappeared in the midst of the grieving ones. Pokoni gripped my hand and we both watched him move among his new brethren. Slow and slower still, he lost himself among them.
My eyes teared up to see him stooped and hollowed through with sadness, but Pokoni only smiled and said, “Sweet child, you ’bout to see why I love your ’mafo so. Stop your tears and watch.”
Amafo soon stood before Amelia Chukma, Lillie’s mother. He took her hands, both hands, and held them for the longest time. Though she had not been at our last night’s gathering, Mrs. Chukma knew the all of it. Her mouth dropped to see the bruises on my Amafo’s face. She shook her head and smiled a sweet and tender smile.
Her hand seemed to lift apart from her will, as if awakening from a dull, numb sleep. Her fingers softly sketched the purple lines and swollen flesh of my grandfather. She gently moved her fingertips across Amafo’s face.
I watched a leaf fall, swaying back and forth. In one movement, Amafo lifted his palm to Amelia’s head and guided her to his shoulder. In the thin arms of Amafo, Mrs. Chukma started slow, as if feeling her way at it, then she shook and sobbed––deep, long wailing sobs.
At first the fellow mourners ignored this loud intrusion, but soon they turned to look. One by one they moved to comfort, some to Amelia, some to their own wives, some to quiet the fears of their still-living children. The wailing cry we needed came bursting forth. A graveyard cry was not enough, not for this scorching act.
This was the final day the mourners gathered by themselves.
Serpent of Brass
Rose
Brother Willis arrived soon with his wife and seven children. Out of respect, Amafo waited till the preacher spotted him and nodded, then he moved to help with the horses. Jamey dashed to the dirt play yard by the church, where the Willis children were already ignoring their mother.
“Stay near the wagon and don’t get your clothes dirty before church!”
The Willis children were pelting one another with dirt clods in the usual order. The oldest was clobbering the next oldest and so on, as mischief slid down the branches of the Willis family tree till the three-year-old sat in the mud making the baby eat dirt against his will.
“Church just would not be the same without those Willis children,” Pokoni once said. “Reverend Willis could rant and rave all day about the demons of Hell and nobody would listen. But take one look at those children of his and you will never again doubt that demons are real. Yes, the Lord works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform.”
Samuel had more sense than all the others put together. He knew not to involve Roberta Jean in their mischief making. Respect for her standing in the community as a young lady had little to do with Samuel’s thinking.
Samuel avoided Roberta Jean because of the big black rock she carried in her purse. She had discovered the rock in the lava beds of the Kiamichi Mountains during a summer church campout with other girls her age. She hid it deep in her purse before anyone saw her. That night she explained her theft to the Lord.
“Dear Lord, please forgive me for taking that rock from the lava beds even after we had all promised Miss Stella we would not take anything. I don’t think you’ll ever understand why I took it seeing as how you don’t have any mean little brothers. So I am not asking for your blessing, just your forgiveness.
“I don’t plan on ever having to use this rock. Somehow I think just having it handy will be enough to protect me. Amen.”
Samuel knew of the rock, had even tried to steal it a few times, sneaking into Roberta Jean’s room when she was away. But Roberta Jean never, ever left home without the rock. Barely did she ever leave her room without it. Thus, from his early years, Samuel granted his big sister Roberta Jean her place in the family. She had a weapon and he was convinced she would use it if threatened.
The younger members of the Willis gang were far less bothered. I fully expected one of them to be clobbered by the black rock. In fact, the promise of such a clobbering was one of the main attractions of the First Christian Church of Skullyville, and one reason not to miss a single Sunday service.
On this Sunday, when middle child Blue Ned Willis came skulking from the blackjack oak shadows towards Roberta Jean, she at first pretended not to notice him. Blue Ned lifted his arm and took aim with a glob of hard round mud. Roberta Jean casually reached into her purse and lifted the black rock, holding it high and flashing its sharp edges in the sunlight.
Even a dumb-as-the-dirt-clod-he-held child like Blue Ned Willis understood this message. He shrugged as if to say, Why waste a good mud clod on you anyway? —and ran in search of other victims.
Momma and I walked up the three wooden steps and entered the church. A single aisle ran down the center of the building. We found our place two rows from the front and to the right of the aisle, near the window. All the women sat to the right, the men to the left.
The windows were open and the curtains moved with the soft life of an old man napping. I sat on the end of the bench, where it touched the wall, and felt the sunlight warm my cheeks. More than anything, I liked these minutes of settling in, of smoothing my dress just so and lifting or lowering the window to suit the needs of rain or heat or bitter chill. I eased my shoulder against the pine planks of the wall and closed my eyes.
Since Reverend Willis occupied the pulpit, the Willis boys were guarded at either end of their pew by the Bobb brothers, Efram and Ben. They were strong-armed and stiff-lipped and no Willis boy would dare disturb their divine Sunday peace. They always wore identical black suits with knee-length coats and sleeves as thick as trees.
“God has a way of evening things out,” Pokoni always said. “He gave those Bobb boys all that arm muscle to make up for not giving them any necks.”
Beneath her gentle ribbing was a profound respect for the Bobbs, shared by all in the community. After their father died, Efram and Ben had given up schooling and courting to work alongside their mother on the family farm. The Bobb brothers were hard-working men and worthy of respect.
They kept their arms folded throughout the service, nodding and pointing with their lips while others shouted “Amen” and “Glory Be.” They joined in the hymn singing with voices straight from the caves, deep as the dark and awesome as an echo.
Three hundred people were in attendance that morning, squeezed into a church built for a hundred and fifty. Brother Willis moved to the altar, saying simply, “Hymn number 48.”
We sang “Amazing Grace.”
Shilombish Holitopa ma!
Ish minti pulla cha,
Hattak ilbusha pia ha
Ish pi yukpalashke.
Pi
