The Homecoming of Samuel Lake

Chapter 7

The little lane wound and twisted and tapered down to almost nothing, and kept on going. Every bend promised some new discovery. And delivered. A slim young tree, silvered by moonlight. Dancing stars, mirrored in the rocky stream that tumbled alongside the rutted lane. Nothing was ordinary tonight. Even cow pastures and falling-down fences had an otherworldly look.

And the silence! It was like the immense quiet of snowfall, right here in summer. This had to mean something. Something good. Only good could come from so much light where there would ordinarily be darkness.

These were her thoughts as she rounded a final bend, and saw the house. It was smallish, built of faded wood and topped off by a tin roof. There were lights on inside, so the windows glowed golden against the silver of the night. An extremely neat yard wrapped around the house, and in that yard, there was a gleaming something. A vehicle. A pickup truck. As clear and brilliant as the night was, the light was no good for telling color. But Swan knew in her bones. It was red.

She heard a dull, grunting noise, like a person makes when they’ve been socked in the stomach. It took a second for her to realize that she’d made the sound herself. She couldn’t seem to move. Surely, her heart had stopped.

Only her mind was not immobilized. It was racing wildly, imagining the unimaginable. What if that little viper of a man was out here, somewhere, slithering around in the dark? What if he was watching her right now?

She whirled and fled. Running, scrambling, away and away, back along the rutted lane. She could feel Ballenger, back there, behind her—and could sense him, up there, ahead of her. No direction was safe. The June breeze was his hot breath. The rustle of leaves was a sinister whisper. The snakeman, hissing her name.

Swan thought of herself as a person who was prepared for anything. But she wasn’t prepared for this. And she wasn’t prepared for what happened next.

The moon slid behind a thick bank of clouds, and the world went dark. Suddenly, Swan couldn’t see where she was going—so she stumbled. There was nothing to catch hold of, to break her fall. She threw her arms out, flailing every which way like twin windmills, but that didn’t stop her from falling, either.

It seemed as though she fell for the longest time. Head over heels, and heels over head. When she stopped falling, she lay still, afraid to move. The reason she was afraid to move was that her hand was touching something soft and warm. Another hand.

Her eyes were closed, and she kept them that way, afraid of what she might see if she opened them.

“Well, are you dead?” a voice asked.

It wasn’t Ballenger’s voice. Swan could have died then, from relief. She opened her eyes, just enough so that she could peer through the darkness. Then she sat bolt upright.

The person talking to her … was the kid. Ballenger’s little boy. The one who had gotten slapped that day outside the store. He was sitting in the ditch, dressed in a ragged T-shirt and underdrawers. A skinny little fellow, his hair standing on end, his eyes studying her soberly. Swan made herself stop trembling and studied him back.

“What are you doing out here?” she asked him, finally.

“Waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“Till it’s okay to go back.”

“Back where?”

The kid pointed toward the house.

Swan said, “Why isn’t it okay to go back right now?”

“Because.”

“You’re too little to be outside by yourself at night,” Swan said. “Why can’t you go back?”

The kid just shrugged.

Swan sighed. She figured she could guess the answer. Still, this kid really didn’t need to be out here alone, and she couldn’t stay here with him.

She said, “Well, maybe you ought to go back now, because I’ve got to get on home.”

He shook his head again, vigorously.

Swan said, “Well, I can’t babysit you.”

“Nobody ast you to.”

She stood up. “Well, don’t let a bobcat see you. A bobcat could eat you in two bites.”

He said, “I can kill bobcats.”

“Yeah? With what?”

He just stared at her. Swan was beginning to feel cross, because she knew she’d get into trouble if she didn’t turn up at Grandma Calla’s pretty soon. They’d have people out looking for her, and nothing makes grown-ups quite so mad as finding a child safe when they’d been scared silly that they might find that child dead.

She said, “Well, look. I know you’re probably afraid of your daddy. I’m afraid of him, myself, and I only saw him once. So why don’t I have my daddy talk to your daddy? My daddy’s a preacher. He talks people into changing their ways all the time.”

He said, “My daddy would kill your daddy.”

Swan dropped back down on her knees, facing him. The moon had come out of hiding, and she could see the kid’s face real plain. It was a beautiful face, with fine, high cheekbones and lush black lashes and a mouth that was fuller than it looked right now—because right now it was pulled tight, into a hard, brave line. Those black eyes of his were cutting right to her soul. Those fierce black eyes. He was, she thought, the damnedest thing she’d ever seen.

“You,” she said, “talk an awful lot about killing, for somebody who’s not hardly big enough to pee standing up.”

But you couldn’t even insult him. He just cocked his head to one side to show that nothing bothered him.

She got up again. “Go home,” she said.

He didn’t budge.

“Go home,” she pleaded. And this was Swan Lake, who never begged.

He still didn’t budge.

“Well, I’m going,” she warned. And she did. One step at a time. Hating every minute of it. Worrying all the way about that kid, and what was going to happen to him, whether he’d get snake-bit, or spider-bit, or be some animal’s supper. And where was he going to sleep? Would he dig a hole and curl up in it? Were his instincts that good? Or would his hateful daddy come raging out in search of him, and if he found him, what would happen then? What?

Maybe she should go back and get the kid, and take him up to his house, and give him over to his mother—but she had a feeling that mother wasn’t much protection. So maybe she should go back and get him, and take him home with her. But you can’t do that sort of thing. It’s kidnapping, even if it’s a kid who does the ’napping. Swan didn’t really think she’d go to jail for it, not as long as the law was still drinking for free at Never Closes, but she knew the story wouldn’t have a happy ending.

She made up her mind that, as soon as she got back to Grandma Calla’s, she was going to get her daddy to go find that kid and take him home and talk to his parents. Nobody would really dream of killing Samuel Lake, and even if they did think about it, they couldn’t succeed. Samuel Lake enjoyed the Protection of the Lord.

The hard part about this plan was going to be coming up with a good enough lie to explain why she’d been where she’d been, but Swan had tremendous confidence in her lying ability. And if worst came to worst, she could always tell the truth.

As it happened, she didn’t have to tell anybody the truth, or a lie, or anything else. She was almost back to Grandma Calla’s when she sensed something or someone behind her. She glanced over her shoulder, and there he was. That tough little guy. Walking ten or twelve paces behind her, as silent as an Indian.

“Do we have a plan?” Willadee was asking Samuel. They were lying in bed, curled together, the same way they had been for the past hour. They’d gone to bed before anyone else, which was something they almost never did. As wild about each other as they were after all these years, they still didn’t like to be too obvious about things like hustling off to their bedroom before it was really bedtime. This once, though, it had seemed to be the only way to get some privacy.

Willadee had told Samuel about John Moses, and the things that happened the day he died. (She didn’t mention the things that had happened the night before. She reasoned that Samuel had enough of a load to bear right now, she could tell him about the beer some other time. Maybe.) She’d also told him about how Calla had taken to going down to the living room in the middle of the night, wearing one of John’s old shirts over her nightgown, and just sitting there by herself, for hours at a time. Willadee had found her there one night, and asked her if she needed to talk about anything.

“It’s too late for talking,” Calla had told her sadly. “I had a million chances to tell John how I missed having him in bed beside me. How I wanted to smell his hair, and feel his skin, and touch him in the night. I should have swallowed my pride, but I wouldn’t, and now I’m choking on it.”

Samuel had listened while Willadee poured out her story, and when she asked him please not to ever let walls grow up between them, he’d promised that he wouldn’t. Then he’d told her about the annual conference, and how the superintendent had explained to him that, nowadays, churches had different needs than they’d had in the past, but that it wasn’t over for him, he still was licensed and all, there just didn’t seem to be a suitable place for him this year, so maybe he should contemplate, really contemplate, positive changes he could make, improvements he could make, in his ministry.

“They don’t want preachers anymore,” Samuel had told Willadee, his voice heavy. “They want social directors.”

“Well, you have to stand for what you think is right.”

“I think feeding my family is right, but I don’t know how I’m going to manage.”

“We’ll manage.”

“Will we?”

“Why, yes, you know we will.”

Several times, they had almost started making love, but the bed was so old and the springs so creaky that they’d decided to wait either until everyone else in the house was bedded down, asleep, or until inspiration struck and they figured out a way to have each other without risking getting funny looks at breakfast the next morning.

“Do we?” she asked again now. “Do we have a plan?”

“I could go looking for some oil,” Samuel said. “I could oil the springs.”

“I didn’t mean that kind of plan.”

“I know you didn’t.”

“We have to figure someplace to live.”

“I know we do.”

He was quiet for a moment. Just his breathing, the only sound. Strong and deep and steady. Then he said, “Willadee? What about the floor? Would you be really insulted, if we just did it on the floor?”

“Not insulted. But they’d still hear us.”

“We could be quiet.”

“Maybe you could.”

He laughed. Couldn’t help it. She hushed him with a kiss. After a little bit, he said, “I think I’m supposed to be scared or something, Willadee. I mean here I am with a wife and kids, and no job, and no house, and you know what, Willadee?”

“What, Samuel?”

“I’m scared, all right.”

She didn’t like this. Him being afraid. Him hurting. It was the worst part of this thing, that he should be hurt. Samuel, of all people.

She said, “Damn these springs.”

“What was that?”

“I said, ‘Damn these springs,’ Samuel.”

Willadee kicked off the covers and sat up in bed. She drew her knees up underneath her and knelt beside her husband, leaning over him, kissing his neck, his chest, his stomach. Her hands touching, giving. He shifted his weight, pushing up against her hands. The bedsprings creaked rudely.

He let out a low moan that wasn’t quite as low as he’d meant it to be and said, “Love of God, Willadee,” and then, “Willadee, I need you so.”

Her mouth moved against his skin. Taking. Talking.

“Good thing, preacher boy. ’Cause if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be able to live through all I’m about to do to you.”

Downstairs in the swing, Bernice Moses was having a glass of iced tea with lots of lemon. Her ear was trained to the upstairs bedroom that happened to be right above the spot where she was sitting. She was listening intently. Listening, and not smiling. For the most part, Bernice had gotten everything she’d ever wanted out of life, and none of it had made her happy. There was only one thing she’d really wanted that she hadn’t gotten, and she was positive that if she could get it (no, when she got it), she would be deliriously happy. At last.

What she wanted was Samuel. And what was in her way was Willadee. What had been in her way, until tonight, had been miles. But the miles weren’t going to be a factor anymore, so that left only Willadee. And how much competition could she be, when you thought about it?

Bernice had been one of those Columbia County girls who had taken to their beds for a week after Sam got married. She was the only one who had the distinction of having been engaged to him—and having jilted him—and she was convinced that he had married Willadee on the rebound. Why else would he have married her, she wasn’t even pretty. Not according to Bernice’s definition of prettiness. She had all those freckles that she didn’t even try to bleach out or cover up, and she was plain as a board fence except for her eyes, and everybody had eyes.

Anyway, it wasn’t supposed to have turned out like it did. Bernice had meant only to jilt him for a little while, to teach him a lesson about not being too friendly with other girls. Samuel was friendly with everybody, male and female, young and old, he made no distinctions. It was enough to gnaw a hole in a woman’s insides. So she had simply done what any woman with any technique at all would have done. She had Given Him Something to Think About. You couldn’t blame her for that. Besides, she was planning to give in and marry him, as soon as he came around to her way of thinking.

Only Samuel never came around. While he was thinking about the lesson Bernice was teaching him, he met Willadee, and you never saw a man get so carried away over a woman. You’d have thought he’d struck gold. Of course, Bernice knew, always knew, that Samuel didn’t really love Willadee as much as he made out, but she never could get him to talk about it. Never could get him to talk to her again at all, except in the politest, most conversational sort of way, and that was worse than being totally ignored.

Bernice had gotten herself engaged to Toy, trying to teach Samuel another lesson, which he also refused to learn. He’d just gone ahead and married Willadee, and Bernice had had no choice but to go through with marrying Toy; it had just been awful.

Poor Toy. He was the kindest thing, and he was so crazy about her he couldn’t see straight. But when a person loves you so much that he asks for nothing in return, it’s only to be expected that that’s about what he gets. It’s like a Law of Nature.

So here Bernice was, sitting in the swing, thinking about how things had gotten to the sorry state they were in, when all of a sudden—springs started creaking upstairs. Not actually all of a sudden. It came on kind of gradually, and just increased in tempo.

That first little sound sliced Bernice’s heart almost in half, and the rest of them—coming louder and faster like they did—finished the job. It was absolutely enough to make a woman do Things She Wouldn’t Ordinarily Do.

What Bernice did was, she leapt out of the swing so fast that the contents of her glass flew upward like steam out of a geyser, and she had to cram her fist in her mouth to keep from screaming. There was tea and ice showering down around her, not to mention soggy lemon wedges, some of which lodged in her hair. Bernice groped for the lemon wedges, and flung them at the ceiling, and commenced to stamping her feet like a child having a hissy fit.

What’s important here, though, is that, all in all, Bernice Moses was too caught up in the moment to even notice when Swan crept up the steps and into the house, followed by a wide-eyed eight-year-old boy, who was dressed in just his underwear.

That kid was marching along behind Swan like she was the path to salvation.

Chapter 8

The bed Swan slept in was so high she always used a stool to climb up onto it. The little boy was sitting on the bed, backed up against the headboard. His legs stuck straight out in front of him like sticks. Swan had stretched out on the other end of the bed and was lying there propped up on one elbow, wondering how this deal was going to come out.

She said, “Okay. I’ve got you here, now what am I going to do with you?”

The black eyes gazed steadily back at her.

She said, “Well, what’s your name?”

“Blade.”

“That’s not a name.”

He nodded. It was so.

Swan turned the name over and over on her tongue, getting the feel of it. “Blade Ballenger. Blade Bal-len-ger. Your name is bad as mine.”

With a perfect lead-in like that, most folks would have asked her name, but Blade didn’t, so she volunteered it.

“Swan Lake. You laugh, I’ll cream you.”

He didn’t laugh. He didn’t even change expressions. Swan sat up, and bounced on the bed a little, and tried to think of something else to talk about. Finally, she said, “This is where I live. This week. That lady you saw a while ago—out on the porch? Don’t worry, she’s not crazy or anything. I think she’s mad ’cause her husband works nights.”

Still nothing.

“How come you followed me home?”

He lifted his shoulders, and let them fall.

“You know you’re going to have to go back.”

He slid under the covers and pulled the sheet up to his chin, as if he were putting on armor.

She said, “I didn’t mean right now. I meant sometime.”

He settled back into the pillow and closed his eyes. He must have been awfully tired. His little hands loosened their grip on the covers, and his body seemed to relax one section at a time. Blade Ballenger, at eight years of age, was too cautious to let go of consciousness all at once.

A lump formed in Swan’s throat. No way could she have explained just why. Slowly, carefully, she stood up on the bed, never taking her eyes off the kid’s face. There was a knotted string dangling from a bare lightbulb overhead. Swan tugged at the string, and the room went dark. For a minute, she just stood there. Later on, years down the road, she would look back on this moment as a time when the world had changed. All the moves she would make from now on would be in a different direction than she’d ever been headed before. But she wasn’t thinking about that now. She wasn’t even thinking that Blade Ballenger had changed anything, although he had. And he would. She was thinking about the fact that her daddy didn’t have a church, so she wasn’t technically a preacher’s kid anymore, and now she could be normal.

Through her open window, she could hear the music from Never Closes. Some country song. “Gonna live fast, love hard, die young—and leave a beautiful memory.” Why in the world would anybody write a song about a thing like that when nobody, but nobody wanted to die young?

Swan eased herself down onto the bed, and felt her way along, and crawled under the covers. Blade stirred slightly, then got still again. Sometime later on, when Swan was drifting into sleep, she heard him murmur drowsily, “Swan Lake. That’s a goofy name.”

In the wee hours before daylight, Willadee and Samuel did come up with a plan, which Samuel announced the next morning at breakfast.

“We’d like to stay here for a while. Until we can make other arrangements. If it’s all right.”

Noble and Bienville sure thought it was all right. They both let out war whoops. Swan thought it was all right, too, although she didn’t holler. You don’t holler when you’re sneaking food off the table to take upstairs to a Fugitive, and hoping nobody will notice.

Calla said it was all right with her, she wouldn’t have it any other way. She just hoped Samuel could cope with living in a house that had a bar attached. Samuel assured her that the bar wouldn’t bother him, he didn’t see how a bar could bother him if he didn’t go in it, and anyway, he was going to find a job of some sort, somewhere. It wasn’t as if he’d be lolling around the house making judgments about things.

What about preaching, Calla inquired. She knew Samuel well enough to know that, if he wasn’t preaching, he wouldn’t be happy. And she knew Life well enough to know that if one person in a house gets really miserable for any length of time, the misery spreads like smallpox.

“We’ve got that figured out,” Samuel informed her. “On weekends, I intend to do some relief preaching.”

“What on earth is relief preaching?” Bernice purred. It was a good southern purr, designed to tweak heartstrings. She was sitting there at the breakfast table, in this sleek white satin robe that must’ve been designed for the same purpose. Her hair was all brushed out over her shoulders—gleaming—quite possibly from the lemon juice. She looked for all the world like a picture out of the Sears and Roebuck.

Willadee gave Bernice a patient look and explained that sometimes a pastor needs some time off, like for a family vacation, or an emergency, or whatever. She went on to say that someone like Samuel, who was licensed to preach but didn’t have a congregation, could hold services in another pastor’s absence, and it could be very helpful and beneficial to all concerned.

“Lots of churches need relief preachers,” Willadee finished brightly.

Calla thought about that, and sipped at her coffee, and shook her head mournfully. “They won’t get any relief if they get Samuel,” she said.

Swan was in a terrible hurry to get back upstairs after breakfast. She was worried that Blade Ballenger might wake up alone in a strange place and be afraid. Or that he might come tumbling down the stairs any minute, and then everyone would discover that she had been hiding him. But her anxiety was nothing compared to something else she was feeling. Blade Ballenger had chosen her as a refuge. Hadn’t she been wishing fervently for someone to bond with? All of a sudden, her wishes were coming true right and left.

Just as she was about to bolt out of the kitchen, Samuel nabbed her. He and Willadee led her and her brothers into the living room, and closed the door, and gathered them into a circle, just like a scene from Ideals magazine.

“Our lives are about to change in a lot of ways,” he told them. “We’ll have to work at keeping our equilibrium. But I don’t want you to worry or feel afraid. Whatever is about to happen to us, it’s going to be good, because all God’s purposes are good.”