Solomon Riddle closed his eyes and moaned with pleasure. “Have I died? Am I in Heaven?” he asked.
Mindy snickered and topped off his coffee. “Mr. Riddle, if they open up the Pearly Gates and you find yourself in Ragland, Alabama, I’d go straight to Saint Peter and ask for your money back.” She flashed him a grin and went back to refilling the napkin dispensers.
“Miss Mindy, if they don’t have key lime pie like this in Heaven, I want no part of it,” he said, tapping his fork against his plate for emphasis. “And if the angels don’t look exactly like you, I will be most sorely disappointed.”
Mindy smiled and shook her head, but Solomon suspected that the extra wiggle in her hips when she turned to pluck orders from the pick-up window was intended just for him. She carried hamburgers over to the bikers sitting in the booth by the door, then collected plates from a trio of old timers that had polished off their BLTs while Solomon nibbled at his pie.
Mindy came back and hovered in front of him, refilling ketchup bottles, sugar caddies, and salt and pepper shakers. “What’s up next for you, Mr. Riddle? Not leaving us too soon, are you?” She kept an eye on his cup, freshening his coffee every time he took a sip.
“The fine time I’m having down here, you’re going to have to work pretty hard to get rid of me,” he said. He opened a folder and flipped through his notes, arriving at a page with a long, half-completed checklist. He turned the folder to face toward Mindy and asked, as he had for the past three visits, “Do you see anything I ought to add?”
Mindy leaned in, holding Solomon’s gaze until she lowered her eyes to look at the list. She smelled like vanilla, and Solomon edged as close to her as the counter permitted. “If you already plan to head to the Haunted Hayride, you should stick around for the Harvest Festival,” she said, adding it to his list with her pen. “That should give you a little taste of Southern culture most folks don’t get.” She pocketed her pen, and when she put her hand on the counter, her fingertips grazed Solomon’s. “What do you have on tap for the day, Mr. Riddle?”
“Well, that depends,” he said, clearing his throat. “I don’t think my piece would be complete without an in-depth interview with the proprietress of Dixon’s Diner, Southern institution that it is. I don’t suppose you’d know how I might arrange one?” He inched his fingers forward. “I was hoping I could tempt her with dinner in Anniston.”
Mindy rewarded him with a sly smile, leaned forward, and added Dinner with Mindy Dixon to his checklist. “If you can find a way to keep yourself busy this afternoon, Mr. Riddle,” she said, “I suspect she can make room for you in her busy schedule tonight after six o’clock.”
Solomon bit his lower lip, trying not to grin like a fool. He gave her hand a spontaneous squeeze and, recollecting himself, turned the pages of his notebook to the inside front cover and fished out a flyer printed on garish pink paper. The page featured a simple triangular emblem with the letters “CBA” squeezed inside, a small cross mounted on the top. “In the meantime, I think I might pay the Church of the Blessed Almighty a visit,” he said. “An old-fashioned tent revival should give me plenty of grist for the mill. Local color can’t get much more colorful than that.”
Mindy looked at the flyer, frowned, and scribbled some directions on the back. “You be careful out there, Mr. Riddle,” she said. “The CBA meets about thirty-five miles outside of town, and the last five miles will be dirt roads. With the rain we’ve had, I don’t know that Triple-A will even try to rescue you if you get stuck.” Her pen hovered over the page for a moment, and then she jotted down a phone number. “Don’t get too caught up clapping and singing, Mr. Riddle,” she said, turning to retrieve another order from the window. ”I’d save some energy for dinner with Miss Dixon if I were you.”
She winked at him over her shoulder, and Solomon winked back. He tucked a few bills under his saucer, dropped the folder back into his satchel, and stepped out into the late October sun. He was grinning unreservedly before the door closed with a jingle behind him.
Solomon drove northeast, stopping once to buy a bottle of water and again to buy a bouquet of wine frost dahlias from a woman selling pumpkins, gourds, and flowers at a roadside stand. He looked at his watch, glanced at his directions, and nodded. He would be back in plenty of time.
The miles melted behind Solomon as he daydreamed at the wheel. He always thought he might slide down to the Southeast when he retired, and he fell a little more in love with the region every time he paid a visit. His affection came through in his writing: his chronicles of Southern life were the most popular features in The Wayfarer, and eventually his editor stopped trying to send him anywhere else. He was on the other side of forty, but his travels kept him looking and feeling young–young enough to harbor a serious schoolboy crush and to entertain the idea of settling down in Ragland. Lately, he had become infatuated with the sound of the words “Mindy Dixon Riddle” when he strung them together.
He quirked at a smile at his reflection in the rearview mirror and ran his fingers through his hair. Behind him, facing the westbound lane, he saw a handmade cardboard sign with “CBA” emblazoned across it.
Solomon pulled over onto the shoulder and checked his trip odometer; he was scarcely fifteen miles outside of town. He frowned, made a U-turn, and pulled up beside the sign. An arrow beneath the initials pointed toward a long dirt road that curved into a row of loblolly pines. Below the arrow, however, was a small emblem unlike the cross-topped pyramid logo he had on his flyer. It looked like an inverted peace symbol, three forked lines twisting into one, but the single line they formed had been turned into a second arrow, this one pointing downward. “Weird,” Solomon muttered, scanning the directions Mindy had given him. The location was off by twenty miles, but there could only be so many CBA’s on the outskirts of Ragland. He eased his Chevy off the pavement and headed for the trees.
The road was in fairly good shape, although grass had begun to sprout up between the old grooves carved by tire treads. Past the pines, the country was wild and beautiful. It looked to Solomon like farmland that had gone untended for about thirty years, even if the road had been in more regular use. He drove past the remains of a rusted gate and saw the posts of a barbed-wire fence; someone had come by and salvaged the wire itself. The road straightened out and tracked into another cluster of trees. A mile beyond them he came upon the burned-out husk of an old farmhouse. The brickwork of the chimney still stood, lurching over the ruin, but the roof and walls had caved in long ago. Solomon considered turning back, but he glimpsed movement further down the road and crept forward.
The road snaked into another stand of pines, and nestled inside them was a weatherbeaten barn. Dirt roads led out from the barn in three directions, and about two dozen cars and trucks lined their shoulders. A teenage boy in a hand-me-down suit a size too small for him waved Solomon into a spot between two Fords, an old Ranger and a brand-new F-150. “Is this the revival meeting?” Solomon called to him, poking his head out the window, and the boy smiled, nodded, and kept on waving him forward.
The boy turned toward the barn, jammed two fingers in his mouth, and whistled piercingly. He waved to Solomon, dashed to a nearby picnic table, snatched a slice of watermelon, and ran off behind the barn. Moments later a set of middle-aged twins in summer dresses and sunbonnets ambled out of the barn in bare feet, peering around until they spotted Solomon. They exchanged a quick word and headed straight for him.
“Welcome, welcome,” they said, almost in unison. Solomon put the Chevy in park and climbed out, offering each woman his hand as soon as he was on his feet. Though the clothes they wore seemed new, they looked like schoolmarms in their Sunday best. “You’re just in time,” they said, “we’re about to get started. Come inside, come inside.”
“Ladies,” a voice boomed from behind Solomon, “where are your manners?” Startled, Solomon turned and found a tall, rangy man approaching him from a footpath that vanished into the pines. He was dressed neatly in a black suit and white button-down shirt, though he, too, was barefoot. Solomon guessed he was pushing fifty, but a creased brow, crow’s feet, and a dash of gray at his temples were the only signs that betrayed his age. He was tanned, handsome, and clean-cut. Solomon introduced himself, and the man shook his hand firmly.
“The Reverend Isaiah Greene,” he said with a slight bow, and then wagged his finger at the two women, assuming a mock-scolding tone. “And these rude ladies,” he said, “are Winnie and Minnie, our terrible twinnies.” He winked at Solomon, and the twins laughed. “We’re sorry to be so hasty, Mr. Riddle, but our service begins presently. May I ask what brings you to our little gathering?” His voice had an edge to it that Solomon couldn’t identify.
“I write feature columns on Southern culture, Reverend, and I was hoping you would allow me to stand by and watch your revival,” Solomon ventured.
The Reverend relaxed visibly at the end of Solomon’s sentence, and he nodded to the twins, who bustled off toward the barn. He stepped toward Solomon, clapping a hand to his shoulder. “We sometimes worry that visitors don’t know quite what they’re getting into, but if you’ve come for a revival, Mr. Riddle, we’ll send you home with something worth writing about.” He raised a warning finger with his free hand, while the other urged Solomon gently forward. “If you wish to enter into our lord’s presence, however, I feel you ought to take part in the service. Ours is a church of witness and works.”
“When in Rome,” Solomon said, nodding to the Reverend. “I’ll do my best to keep up, though I haven’t been to church in quite some time.”
“All are welcome in the presence, Mr. Riddle,” he said, “and nothing pleases us more than to help a soul find its way back home. I have the feeling you are meant to be here–we only meet when there is need, and our need today is great. Our lord works in mysterious ways.”
They paused at the entrance to the barn, where the twins met them. They urged Solomon to take off his shoes and socks, and the Reverend helped him keep his balance as he did so. They shook hands once again, and the Reverend rounded the outside corner and headed toward the rear of the barn. Inside, the twins led him to the second row of folding metal chairs, and Solomon sat between them.
Sunlight streamed through the barn doors and two open loft windows, but the interior was lit with fat white candles anchored in place with their own wax. The atmosphere was thick with incense, and Solomon spotted smoking censers dangling from the rafters. Eight youngsters sat in the front row, digging their toes into the barn’s dirt floor, and about thirty well-dressed adults sat in the rows beside and behind him, chatting quietly. A folding table covered with a white cloth had been converted into a makeshift altar, and a bookstand stood at its center, flanked by two tall candles. Solomon had been expecting a more elaborate production, but the modest arrangements pleased him. The only remarkable article in the entire barn was a long wooden staff, a metal version of the inverted peace symbol attached to its top.
Solomon turned to ask the twins a question, uncertain of the denomination he was dealing with, but the congregation rose in unison as the Reverend entered through a side door. He wore a coarse brown stole around his shoulders, and he carried a slender, yellowing volume. He welcomed the children in the front row individually, crouching down to shake their hands, and he nodded in greeting to several in the assembly, Solomon included. He placed his volume in the stand and opened it to a page marked with a golden ribbon. He spread his arms, bowed his head, and read a brief prayer. It sounded like Latin, but he spoke too quickly for Solomon to be sure. He then raised his head and intoned “We are gathered in the name,” which the small congregation repeated before returning to their seats.
Solomon found the liturgy surprisingly bland. The Reverend offered a long, generic discourse on community and the demonstration of faith through personal testimony and good works, and the assembly received it in attentive silence. Even the children scarcely fidgeted, their eyes following their minister as he paced back and forth behind the altar. Solomon fought the urge to glance at his watch, and he twice had to stifle a yawn. He flexed his calves, pushing his toes against the cool dirt floor, and tried to stay alert.
When the congregation rose again, however, Solomon sensed an abrupt change in the tenor of the mass. Every member, even the children, shook out his or her limbs and stretched. Solomon did so as well, feeling a little absurd; it seemed like they all were getting ready to run laps around the barn. The twins, however, wore serious expressions, and a few worshippers rolled up their sleeves.
The people who stood at the end of each row turned sideways, and all the members of the gathering linked hands, forming a single, serpentine line. The twins gripped Solomon’s hands firmly, their eyes fixed upon the Reverend.
Without warning, without preamble, the Reverend stomped on the ground. The impact of his bare sole sounded muffled on the dirt floor, but Solomon heard it clearly. He stomped again, and then again, nodding his head in time with his foot, and Solomon heard the last man in line pick up the rhythm behind him. The stomping spread slowly and methodically through the coiled assembly. Solomon stomped on cue when his turn came, and he watched as the remaining parishioners completed the sequence. Soon they were all stomping in perfect unison, and the Reverend, stomping himself all the while, retrieved the staff and gestured toward the side door where he had entered. “Come!” he bellowed, and the teenager that had shown Solomon to his parking place rolled in a man in a wheelchair.
Winnie and Minnie squeezed his hands more tightly as they gazed upon the newcomer. The man in the wheelchair looked awful. His complexion was ashen and waxy; his head sagged on his neck, as if he had little muscle tone. He was clad in jeans and a blue western shirt, but he wore them oddly, as if someone else had dressed him. His eyes were closed, and his arms flopped limply in his lap. Solomon winced sympathetically at the man’s obvious infirmity, but he could not turn away.
“Friends,” the Reverend cried, “behold the work our lord has set before us!” He drove the staff into the ground, in synch with the rhythmic stomping, and called out again. ”Let the petitioners come!”
Two barefoot girls, both teenagers, entered through the side door. They flanked the wheelchair and looked out into the assembly. “We love our papa,” the taller one said, and Solomon heard her clearly over the stomping. “We need our papa back.” She attempted to continue, fighting back tears, but she failed. Her sister sobbed and grabbed her hand, and the Reverend stepped from his place, stood between them, and leaned over their father. He tilted the man’s head back carefully and unbuttoned his shirt, then returned to his place behind the altar.
Solomon looked upon the man in mute disbelief. His chest was caved in, as if he had been shot with a cannon. The skin was unbroken, but the entire area from his neck to his waist was a dusky purple, verging on black at the center of a deep, round indentation.
Behind the altar the Reverend spread his arms once more, and he looked down at the girls. “Eleanor Godwin, Abigail Godwin, are you prepared to take up this burden?” The girls looked to the Reverend and nodded vehemently. “Begin,” the Reverend said, and the two began stomping their feet.
The Reverend looked out over the congregation, peering into the eyes of each member, one by one. Solomon flinched when the Reverend’s gaze came to rest upon him. He kept stomping in time, his right foot pounding against the dirt floor, holding on to the twins as if they might keep him from falling.
“Thomas Godwin was a good man, a good father to these daughters, a good servant of our lord,” the Reverend said plainly, his head bowed, as if speaking with the earth. He lifted his head, his jaw set and eyes bright, and cried out to the assembly: ”Children of Ba’al-A’zul, will you let this stand?”
In reply, the congregation stomped on the ground with even greater force. Solomon felt soreness growing in his knee and his hip; his sole tingled each time he raised it from the floor.
Eleanor Godwin reached out and clutched the hand of the last boy in the front row; Abigail Godwin reached out and clutched the hand of Reverend Greene, who had stepped out from behind the altar. “Ba’al-A’zul,” he intoned, his voice quavering with each heavy footfall, “we call to you, united in power and purpose. Favor us!” With that he grabbed the hand of Thomas Godwin, and Solomon felt a strong vibration shiver through his outstretched limbs.
The entire assembly kept stomping in silence for several minutes, sweating and breathing hard. The sound of their feet thundered in Solomon’s ears, though he felt that the mounting volume must be an effect of his thrumming pulse. The ache in his leg grew, creeping down the bone, and the muscles of his thigh burned.
Then he felt a rhythm not his own, and with one voice the Children of Ba’al-A’zul, Solomon included, cried out in triumph.
Solomon stomped even harder, jamming his heel into the floor. He grinned fiercely, oblivious to the people gathered around him. Unmistakably, in perfect counterpoint to his own measured tempo, something underneath the earth was thumping back.
The impression was faint at first, but it grew to a steady, rhythmic, insistent pounding. The cloth on the makeshift altar shook, the candles guttered, and the censers swung from the rafters. The head of Thomas Godwin lolled back and forth, keeping time with the strong, contrastive cadence that surged against Solomon’s feet. He felt a lightness rising in his gut, the kind of vertigo that accompanies the moment when a plane leaves the ground, and Solomon gasped, suddenly unable to catch his breath.
Thomas Godwin gasped as well.
With a wet, muffled popping sound, the hollow in Godwin’s chest shifted and bulged, snapping flush with the surrounding skin, as if someone had hammered it out from the inside. The purple stain on his torso spread and lightened as the blood that had pooled beneath his skin returned to its proper vessels. Godwin took in great, ragged breaths, his eyes cloudy but wide open; the veins at his temples, forehead, and throat pulsed in time with the rhythm welling up from the ground.
As Solomon watched, Godwin rose up from his chair with only the Reverend’s hand to support him. His movements were jerky and erratic, as if he could not bring his muscles fully under control. He clenched his teeth, however, baring them at the assembly, and he slowly raised the Reverend’s hand, standing before the congregation like a punch-drunk prizefighter.
Godwin lifted up his bare foot and howled, but Solomon understood that it was really something else that howled through him. Godwin drove his heel into the ground, and Solomon blacked out.
* * *
Solomon woke on the lawn outside the barn. He had been laid out on a blanket, and one of the children from the front row slept on a blanket beside him. He scrambled to his feet and retched, the force of the convulsions doubling him over. He lowered himself to one knee and caught his breath, dimly aware of approaching footsteps.
“Here, Mister, you’d better drink this,” a voice said soothingly. The teenager that had guided Solomon to a parking spot passed him a bottle of water and crouched down beside him. He had ditched his suit and was wearing khaki shorts and a tee shirt. “The first time is always the hardest,” he said, plucking some crabgrass up by its roots. He jerked his thumb at the girl on the adjacent blanket. “It was Holly’s first time, too. I reckon she’ll be out for a couple hours yet. You both did real good, though.”
Solomon took a long pull from the bottle. He drew himself upright and took several deep breaths. “Thanks,” he whispered. The sun was just above the tree line in a cloudless sky. He glanced at the place where the three roads converged. Only his Chevy and the Ranger remained.
“I put your shoes over by your car, Mister, and the Misses Cooper made you up a plate. You’ll want to eat a good dinner, and you should take it easy for a day or two. These meetings take a lot out of a body.” The boy shook out the soil from the clump of crabgrass and wiped his hands off on his pants. “If it’s okay with you, Mister, I’d like to get Holly back home,” he said. “Our mamaw is going to throw a little party tonight in her honor.”
Solomon nodded. He wanted to grill the boy, to figure out what had just happened, but his desire to be away from the barn was overpowering. He took a step toward his car and his leg buckled, but he righted himself and shuffled unsteadily forward, dropping down on the ground by his shoes. By the time he was back on his feet, the boy had already loaded his sister into the Ranger. He climbed into the truck, tooted his horn, and drove off, waving goodbye with the back of his hand.
Alone in the clearing, Solomon felt immediately uneasy. He flexed his legs briefly, picked the plate off the hood of his car, and climbed inside. An envelope was balanced on his steering column, but he did not open it until he was back on the pavement of the main road and facing toward Ragland, a cloud of dust ebbing behind him. Inside was a handwritten thank you note from Eleanor and Abigail Godwin and a plain white business card. The front of the card read “Reverend Isaiah Greene” and listed two phone numbers; on the back, the Reverend had printed Witness and works, Mr. Riddle. We are beholden to you for both.
Solomon’s fatigued leg trembled all the way back to Ragland as he worked the accelerator, and though he tried to focus on the road, the image of Thomas Godwin lurching to his feet and the sound of that unearthly howl haunted him. More unnerving still, however, was his memory of a profound feeling of communion with the other Children and the unshakable awareness that they had called to something like a god, and that god had answered.
Solomon rolled into the parking lot of Dixon’s Diner too fast, his front tires rebounding against the curb before he could persuade his shaky leg to work the brake. He wanted nothing more urgently than some solid semblance of normalcy, coffee and company and the feeling that the world was just as it should be. He limped to the door, yanked it open, and hurried inside.
To Solomon’s great relief, little had changed. Mindy slid him a cup of coffee the moment he was seated and made coy allusions to “working up an appetite” and “saving room for dessert” whenever she came back to refill it. A new trio of old timers was talking about the threat of rain, and the bikers had been replaced by a teenage couple that was sharing a banana split. The diner was busy, and Mindy bustled between booths, shooting Solomon a smile whenever she passed. Half an hour later, when she flipped the sign on the diner door from “Open” to “Closed,” Mindy ran a hand across Solomon’s shoulders as she passed behind him.
One by one, as six o’clock approached, the customers paid their tabs, rose, and filed out, saying goodbye to Mindy and sometimes calling to the cook as they left. She bussed their tables and wiped them down, shooing Solomon away when he offered to help. He returned to his stool and closed his eyes, determined to ground himself in the moment and thrust all memories of the revival from his mind. He listened to the clatter of glassware, the hiss of the grill, the occasional jingle of the sleigh bells that hung from the handle of the diner door. He kept his coffee close to his nose, breathing it in, and rubbed his knuckles against the cool surface of the countertop.
The old timers were the last to leave, and Mindy fairly hustled them out the door, locking it behind them. “Got your keys, Wally?” she called to the cook, and she stepped into the ladies’ room with a tote bag when he grunted his assent. Solomon finished his coffee, pushed the saucer across the counter, and wiped up some spilled cream with a napkin. He didn’t feel especially good, but he felt steady; he had enough presence of mind to realize that he had better ask Mindy to drive.
When she emerged from the ladies’ room, dressed in jeans and a white turtleneck, Mindy looked lovelier than ever, and Solomon told her so. She smiled, squeezed his arm, and led him to the door, shaking out the key she would need to relock it from a crowded keychain. “Have a good night, Wally,” she called out, and the cook stepped through the swinging doors to the kitchen, drying off his hands.
“Power and purpose,” he said to her, nodding to Solomon.
“Witness and works,” she replied with a wave, taking Solomon by the hand and pulling him over the threshold into the deepening twilight.
