against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread.
And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.
Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.
And Moses made a serpent of brass and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.
Reverend Willis closed his Bible. He slowly removed his glasses and lay them on the pulpit. He lifted his head and his eyes roamed the church, till every one of us felt he was staring straight into our own souls.
“The serpents are loose among us. We have felt the sting of their bite and the poison of their venom. We have been left to die.”
He paused and a nervous shifting crept among the congregation. Quiet hmmms and ohhhs rose from bowed heads. The reverend waited. When he stepped from behind the pulpit and lifted his arms high, his palms to the sky, all heads rose.
“God will never leave his people!” the reverend shouted.
A deep and whispered Amen from Efram Bobb. His mother gripped his arm.
“God has given us a brass rod, made in the image of the serpent. Look upon this rod and life is yours. Forever, my brethren. We have been granted the rod of our faith, our everlasting faith that God is good and we are strong in the face of our tormentors.
“The fiery serpents have been loosed and we have felt their venom. But they are weak and we are strong. We are bonded by our love. Our love for our families, our love for our gathered brethren, our love for this good earth we walk upon, and most of all, our abiding and never-ending love for the good God that put us here.”
We stood as one to hear his words. Reverend Willis turned to the pulpit and took his Bible. He held it high and the Amens grew louder as we watched. He lowered the Bible and pointed to the door behind us. We turned, half-expecting Christ himself to enter. He then pointed the Bible to our left and to our right, all with slow deliberation, to the bright green leaves of spring and the graves nestled among the trees.
The image of what happened next will stay with me forever. Reverend Willis lifted the Bible in an arc, like the sun moving from morning to the evening purple sunset. We followed, mouths open and eyes pleading, as he moved the Bible high over his head, then lowered it to point behind himself, at the painting of the crucified Jesus on the cedar backwall of our church.
“He is risen and walks among us,” he said.
Stationmaster John
The Monday following, Pokoni and Amafo woke up long before sunrise. Pokoni filled a small pan with water while Amafo stoked the fire in the woodstove. When the water was bubbling near to overflowing, Pokoni spread two tablespoons of coffee over the boiling liquid.
The smell of strong coffee soon filled the house. Amafo leaned over the cookstove, tilted his head back, and drew in a deep breath. When the grounds settled to the bottom of the pan, Pokoni carefully poured two cups and placed them on a wooden table between them. As Amafo took a slow sip, she spoke the first words of the morning.
“Where will you go?”
“Maybe buy you something, Hester.”
“Nothing I really need. Maybe some thread. Blue, dark green. Don’t spend too much.”
“Mostly I’ll be spending time.”
“William, please stay away from the marshal,” said Pokoni.
“I can’t do that, Hester. I can’t show fear. You know that.”
“Then be careful. You can do that.”
“I’ll be careful. I have some new friends picked out. Hope they have time for an old Choctaw.”
“I ’spec they will. You purty good at picking your friends.”
“You know Maggie Johnston?” Amafo asked.
“One-legged Maggie?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, I hear she knows how to handle Hiram Blackstone,” said Pokoni. “I am thinking she’s a good one to have on your side.”
“That’s what I’m thinking too,” said Amafo. Ten minutes later, while Pokoni gathered breakfast eggs, Amafo saddled and readied Whiteface for the three-mile trip to Spiro.
Awakened by the sounds in the henhouse, the yard rooster stretched his neck and turned his eye to the colors of the coming dawn. He scratched the ground, flapped his wings a dozen times, threw out his chest, and commenced his crowing.
“Guess you and me both got something to say,” said Amafo, nodding to the rooster.
“Just be careful how you say it,” said Pokoni. “Maybe don’t be so bold as that rooster.” With the coming daylight, she could see that Amafo’s cuts and bruises had turned the right side of his face into a swollen mass of blue and black flesh. His nose was purple and a dark spot of blood covered one eyeball.
“Let me make you some eggs. Just take a minute.”
“No,” said Amafo. “No need to put off going. I better get on with it.” He mounted Whiteface and patted her on the rear.
Pokoni walked beside him for the first quarter mile, then squeezed his arm to say good-bye. She stood in the road and watched till Whiteface disappeared in a wispy cloud of fog. The last thing she saw was Amafo reaching into his pocket and slipping on his eyeglasses.
“He didn’t want me to see his broken glasses,” she said aloud. “He thinks he looks fine except for his glasses. Please Lord, don’t let him know what he looks like. Don’t let him see himself in a shop window. He would die on the spot. Let me do the seeing for both of us, please Lord.”
On the walk home, Pokoni carried on a running conversation with herself, Amafo, and Please Lord.
“I hope you know what you are doing, you shy little man, you,” she said to Amafo. “You gonna be the talk of Spiro tonight.”
“Don’t let him go and get himself killed,” she said to Please Lord.
“Yessir, they will talk about my sweet William at the supper table tonight. Wonder how the talk will go at the Hardwicke household?” she said to herself.
“You go doing something foolish and I’ll bruise you on the other end,” she said to Amafo.
As Pokoni approached the house, she turned and faced the pink clouds to the east and offered her morning prayer. “Please Lord, if it be Thy will, get him home to me tonight. I’ll do anything you say. Bring him home safe.”
The sun had barely yellowed the tops of the pine trees when Amafo dismounted on a hillside overlooking the town. Still hidden from view, he stood in the shadows of a thicket. Spiro greeted him with a cool blue aura, somewhere between foreboding and friendly.
“This day can go either way,” he said aloud. “I ’spec I better keep a sharp eye out for flying boards. Not like last time.” Amafo laughed to himself.
Daylight soon replaced the long shadows of buildings. Sharp sunlight flashed upon brass doorknobs, glass windowpanes, weathervanes, silver hair combs, golden watch chains, knife blades, and gun barrels. Hypnotized by the symphony of light playing out in the valley before him, he leaned against the bark of the oldest elm in the grove. He was more exhausted than he knew. His knees gave way and he slid down the tree till his bottom settled in the leafy mulch of the forest floor.