Sweet Savor

The hail fell from the black heaven like starry white balls of redemption. It fervently knocked on the hard-frozen red earth like a man beating a firmly locked door.

The brown boots, soles worn in layers, stomped the red ridges of the ground, going toward home. A cold wind blew into the man’s eyes and made his red and blue jacket flap like a war flag. With his callused, work-stained hand, the man pulled the cap over his eyebrows onto his squinting eyes to keep from looking directly through the wind. A man couldn’t rightly see in all that horrible blowing. His heart thumped as if a demon chased him, beating at him.

Joe Fergerson was a sly devil, Andrew decided, but he didn’t fool him none. He knew why Joe had given him that box of matches free. He weren’t just trying to be friendly, that’s for sure. He knew exactly why it was. Ever since he could remember he had been going to Frank’s store and he’d done it with pride. But now this Joe was a-trying to get him to change right in the middle of things.

He’d always got a good deal at Frank’s. Couldn’t get no better deal as far as he was concerned. When you find a place that has good deals, you may as well go there for the rest of your life. Like as not, you’ll not find no place no better anywheres else.

But he just weren’t going to change stores, that was all there was to it. If it hadn’t of been for that fierce wind blowing, giving him that bad taste in his mouth and those hailstones beating on his white hairs that stuck through his cap, he wouldn’t of gone into that store of Joe’s nohow. If he’d a been younger he wouldn’t of done it neither, he decided.

That’s what Joe was doing, anyways. Trying to take advantage of an old man like everbody else was a-doing.

His feet stomped the rough ridges of frozen mud. “I’m going back and pay for these matches tomorrie anyhow,” he said to the wind. He gazed out from behind his cataracts as far as he could. I may surely be old, but ain’t no storm gonna stop me from getting home. He knew the way rightly enough. Avoid a little hill here, and through the gully where he’d found old Abe Metcalf’s body, stay to the left of the red bank, and stay clear of the stream. Finally, there was that little dirt path that led to the steps he’d dragged from the woods to put in front of his house. When he got to the stone steps, he clambered up them, clutching the wood rail, then thrust open the door and went in, slamming the door against the pushing wind.

* * * * *

Joe Fergerson grinned mightily as the old man left the door of his store. The fat black woman standing in one aisle shook her head and said, “You sure look like you’s please with yoursef, Mr. Ferg’son.”

“Well, I guess I am. It’s not every day I get a good idea like that. Maybe now he’ll come and shop here instead of going all the way down to Frank’s. I think maybe I’ll start giving free matches to all my customers.”

The woman stuck out her lips and looked at him with squinted eyes.

“Anyway,” he said, “it doesn’t hurt to try.” He paused for a moment. “You know, what beats me is why a man would walk right by my door and go a quarter of a mile out of his way down to Frank’s when he could come in here and get a better deal. I’ve seen him many times go walking by my store with a set expression on his face, staring straight ahead, as if maybe he was afraid I might entice him to come in and give his soul to the devil.”

“It’s no devil that man’s afeared of, not a-tall. He knows you tryin’ to steal away Frank’s bisness an’ he don’t want no part in it. He’s more ‘tegrity than that, an’ it ain’t no box of matches gonna change his mind, lucifers or no. It’s made, and that’s that,” she said, punctuating her words with vigorous nodding.

“Good competition never hurt anybody,” he said. She gave a nod, her eyes squinting and her stomach stuck out so that you could see the outline of her belly button. A heavy brown coat draped down to her calves.

“But you may be right at that,” he continued. “He may not come back at all. But there’s no harm in my trying to make a little money—everybody’s got to eat, you know.”

“I knows that for sure,” she said.

“He sure is a strange old man though; I’ve never seen an old man so strange.”

“He’s surely that all right, that he surely is. I ‘member when I was just a tiny child him was out there tillerin’ that garden of his. His great big back was stretched out into the blue sky and the sun was beatin’ down hard on him like the gospel message, sweat comin’ down his red face in great big drops, like he was sufferin’ the agony of Gethsemane. My feet was in that brown, manured dirt—me was just as black as it was—and my big eyes was all turned up to him, and I look up at him, and I say—me was just a little child, and I’d been a-listenin’ to the revival—and I say, “Misser Andrew, Misser Andrew, why dasn’t you get yourself redeemed, why dasn’t you get yourself baptized? Don’t you know that that blue river of redemption don’t run for no man forever? Dasn’t you know you’s gonna wake up burnin’ one of these days?

“An’ he look at me from away up there, thinkin’ maybe he’s gonna find somethin’ in my wee face, then he takes that big hand of his off that shakin’ tiller and runs it hard and slow under his nose so as it looks as if his mouth was gonna come off, an’ he takes that big left finger of his and points it straight at my small dark eye, and he says all fierce, ‘Girlee, ain’t no redemption I know’s got a thing on good hard work,’ he says. ‘A man’s gotta work to live, but he sure don’t need no redemption to. Good hard work’ll make a man feel better than any redemption plan ever could, and make him sleep better nights, too. The only baptism a man needs is a good hard sweat pourin’ down his back. It’ll wash him cleaner than any baptism ever could and it’ll stop any blazin’ fire. Blood’ll not clean a man. Blood’s the dirtiest thing in this world. To me’s a pity Christ was buried in some barren pit, instead of in the good green ground where he’d a done some good. When you’s growed up,’ he told me, ‘you’ll see how it ‘tis for yourself.’

“But I guess I ain’t never growed up none; I guesses I still just a little child, ‘cause I still don’t see what he was a-sayin’.”

Joe looked at her sharply as if he didn’t believe anyone as large as she was could be a little child. She paused to stare him back.

At that moment a customer emerged from the rear of the store. “Say, you got any of them smoke de-tectors? I was in the back there lookin’, but I don’t see any of ‘em nowheres.”

“Yes,” Joe said, as he reached his hand under the counter and pulled one out. “You came to the right place. No other store in town carries them.”

The man laughed. He had already been to Frank’s.

“Say,” the man said as Joe gave him his change, “I couldn’t help hearing, it’s so quiet in here. You two were talking about old Andy Tillman, weren’t you?”

“Yes,” Joe said, “yes, we were. He was just in here for the first time.”

“That man sure is a crazy character, ain’t he? I’m not inclined to think he has much sense. Using a tiller instead of getting himself a tractor to plow that field of his. He was wearing that funny-looking cap with the patch that looks like a cucumber on the front of it, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, sure was.”

“Yea, he never goes anywhere without that crazy thing on his head. Makes him look like he’s got a garden growing out there, with all that hair sticking out all over the place through them holes.”

“Now I knows you two thinks he’s crazy,” the black woman said, “but Andrew’s one of the nicest men I knowed. Ever time I talked redemption he’d say, ‘Now girlee, you just shet that blamed foolishness up,’ but almost always when I seed him he give me some candy out of that big overalls pocket. Used to let me play among the worms he dug up with that tiller of his. Why, if ever my daddy needed his garden tillered, or a tree cut down, Andrew’d do it for him without bein’ asked, and not ask anything for it.

“I guesses he’s done more good deeds than any man I knowed, an’ he’s got a white hair for ever one of ‘em, and he’s sure got a headful too, but they’s all been numbered, an’ I suppose the Heavenly Father’ll know what to do when it come judgment time.

The woman continued. “But it’s jus’ like he says, a man’s gotta earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, and that he does. I done watched him all the days of my born life, and that’s what he does, don’t let nobody tell you different. I’ve seen him out in that pow’ful burnin’ sun, his shadow all black afore him like a sinful soul a-leaving a body—when the sun get low like that, that’s the way it look too—but he never paid that sun no mind. He jus’ let that face of his get all red like a man ashamed of his sin, but too proud to ‘mit it, an’ he kept right on workin’. Never stopped and never will so long as he’s got breath in him, I’d ‘magine. Gets his money plantin’ them vegetables of his.”

When she paused, Joe laughed, and then gave a grin to the man holding his new smoke detector. “So, you don’t think I’ll see him in my store again, do you?”

“That’s for sure!” she said.

“Well, I guess I’ll just have to look forward to seeing you then, Miss Emma. You don’t plan to quit coming here, do you?”

“Landsakes, no, Mr. Ferg’son,” she said, buttoning her coat. “Ain’t no harm in a body goin’ where it can get a better deal, an’ you’s got ‘em. I’s sure no fool Mr. Ferg’son.” And saying that, she placed one pair of panty hose, large size, upon the counter.

“Good day to you,” Joe said as she went out the door, the strong wind blowing around her, and pressing her red scarf tightly against the right side of her face.

“Well,” Joe said when she was gone, “those old ones sure are a strange lot. I sure hated sending her out in that cold wind, but closing time’s closing time, and she could have talked till morning. Anyway, I don’t think she minded that cold a bit. She’s got that extra layer that will keep her warm in any weather.”

“In my opinion,” the man said, “she’s as crazy as old Andy is. Crazier maybe.”

Joe grinned. Then he put on his coat, turned out the lights and walked the man out, locking the door. They left, walking into the darkness.

* * * * *

Andrew, his cheeks puffing and shoulders heaving out the cold night air, clambered through the door, out of breath from the wind blowing in his face. His eyes groped up the banister and followed the same line until they met his wife’s eyes.

“Hello, Andy. Sure is cold out there, isn’t it?”

He nodded.

She asked, “Did you happen to get the paper as you came in?”

“No, I plumb forgot to look. So blamed cold out there, it’s hard to think straight. I’ll go get it by and by after I’ve warmed up a bit.”

“I meant to get it before I started supper, but I forgot. Got to looking in that old trunk of ours. Whew, it is cold—I can still feel the draft from when you came in.”

“Well, maybe I’ll get that fire lit by and by, and make this place nice and cozy.”

“Okay, but come to supper now—it’s fixed.”

“Just let me get out of my coat,” he said. He hung the coat on the hook by the door, and his cap beside it, as if putting away something he’d never needed anyway. He strode back toward the table his worn boots still on.

“So, how’ve you been all day?” he said as he sat down.

“Oh, all right. Got a call from Margie today—Said she’d be down tomorrow to see how we old folks are getting along. Seemed as if maybe she had some sort of surprise, but I couldn’t get anything out of her.”

“Did she say how they was a-gettin’ on?”

“Same as usual, doing fine.”

After a pause while Andrew chomped on his food, he said, “This sure is good; best thing I’ve eaten in a long time. What’s it called?”

“Well, thank you Andy. It’s cucumber casserole. I was mopping the floor this morning, trying to get that spot out of the corner over there—never did get it out—when I remembered an old recipe book I had stashed away in the attic. So-o-o, I decided I’d go up and look for the thing. Found it in an old trunk up there. There’s another surprise coming from it for you later on.”

“Wouldn’t be no blackberry pie, would it?” he asked.

She smiled.

“Found something else up there too,” she said. “Remember how when we were young we cut off a lock of each other’s hair and put it away?”

She held up an envelope, opened so he could see their hair in it.

“My hair sure was darker then, wasn’t it!” he said. “Sure brings back memories.”

She smiled at him fondly, got up, tousled his white hair as she went by, and put the envelope on the mantle. Then she returned to stand over his back as he ate, placing her arms about his neck, so that it seemed impossible to separate her from him. “Did your day go well?” she asked.

“Well, it weren’t real busy,” he said. “Ol’ John’s putting up a cabin. Told him I’d help him out. Said he’d like to buy some of that timber of mine behind the house. He seemed to think we’d get it up before the end of the month, but I don’t reckon we will. Take us at least part of the next. Said he’d give me two hundred for helping and pay extra for the wood.”

“That’s good,” she said.

“Sold that tiller of mine today too. Got a right reasonable price for it.”

“Then maybe we can get that new one you were wanting so bad.”

“That’s what I’m aimin’ at,” he said, smiling and nodding. “I guess I’ll go to town tomorrie and see if Frank still has that one I was a-lookin’ at.”

“I guess that will help out next spring.”

“Sure will. Guess it’ll turn up twict as much dirt as that other one would.”

There was a pause. He thought that at any moment his wife was going to go get that secret pie of hers.

Then came a knock, which they felt more than heard, muffled as if a large red mud pie were hung outside over the door.

“Now who could that be,” Sarah said as she went to peer behind a curtain.

“Certainly a blamed fool, I can tell you that,” he said.

“Well, he looks kind enough,” she said then opened the door a peek. “Come right in,” she said. The red jacket that was hung by the door blew as she closed the door behind him.

“Thank ye much, Missus.” He shoved a paper in her face. “I saw ye ain’t gotten your paper, so I fetched it for ye.”

“How thoughtful. What brings you up this way?”

“Maybe you knowed that that preacher died at the church a while back. Well, I’m here to replace him. You all been comin’ to church recently?”

Andrew backed his chair away from the table and rose.

“We ain’t got no need of no preachin’. We’re good folks. Don’t need nobody telling us how we should live. An’ we got sense enough than to be out a-roamin’ in that fierce devil’s wind.”

“I knowed you was good folks, sir, I knowed that. But I felt a leading of the Holy Ghost, an’ so ye see, I was forct to see ye.”

“More likely as not, it was that blamed wind you felt a-pushin’ you around. Ain’t no such thing as ghosts and spirits, ain’t never believed in them, and never will, so don’t you put up no fuss about your Almighty spirits.”

“Well, sir, all I can say is that we’s all sinners, and we ain’t nothin’ but worms in the sight of God, worms as feed on dead men’s bodies, and we’s all low an’ dirty, ain’t no gettin’ ‘round it, never was, never will be.”

“That’s what you say, is it?”

“That’s what my Bible tells me, sir. I got a little something here as’ll show you how you can make it all right though.” And he pushed a black pamphlet into his hand, with big white words written on it saying, “Jesus Christ Can Save You Now.”

Andrew snatched the tract and strode toward the fireplace. “The only thing Jesus Christ can do for me today is to help me get this here fire lit.” He took a match from its case and struck it on the hearth. As the fire grew from the corner of the tract, he stuck it through the grating. The fire caught quickly into one hot, bright flame, cackling and crying on the green wood.

For a time no one spoke.

“That don’t hurt God none, sir,” the preacher said. “Without the faith in the Almighty Son, there ain’t no redemption for no man.”

“Faith!” Sarah said. “Faith!” She laughed. “You talk about your blessed faith from noon to night, but I haven’t heard anything that came of it. Jesus said if a man had the faith of a mustard seed, he’d move mountains. I haven’t seen one of you preachers who had the faith to move a hill of beans, not one. If faith’s what it takes to save a person, I think it’ll have to be more faith than a mustard seed, mister.

“My husband here has worked hard with his hands all his life and I don’t suppose he needs a loafer telling him what he needs to believe. He earns his money with sweat; he doesn’t have to beg for it at collection.”

“Work ain’t never saved a man as yet, ma’am. Inside a person he’s all black like a cockroach, an’ no work ever whitened a man.”

“Well, preacher,” Andrew said, “maybe I am a little black on the inside, but I’ve never been afraid of getting a little dirty on the outside, and I guess a little dirt on the inside won’t hurt me none neither. It’s good honest work that makes a man dirty—if you’re so blamed clean, maybe it’s because you ain’t never did no work. A little dirt on the fingerprints ain’t never done nobody any harm no time.”

“Folks, you’s best not reject this redemption plan. Christ was the free gift to mankind, free to you, free to me.”

“He surely is!” Andrew said. “I done heard of them free gifts before, and ain’t a one of them free. It’s always somebody trying to steal you out of your money. No sir, I don’t need no free gifts, that’s for sure!”

“God’ll be agin ye all your life, sir, if you reject His gifts.”

“God ain’t never helped me out none, but He ain’t never hindered me none, neither. I reckon that me and Him are the same—We don’t like listening to drifters filling our ears with babble. If God was so all-fired against my ways, He’d a done showed it to me a long time ago. So I reckon you’d better just get yourself on home and stay away from here. I don’t want none of your foolishness.”

In silence the preacher’s white face turned into the blackness outside, and Andrew shut the door firmly behind him. The noise of the wind that had been rushing in stopped as the door was closed. It was quiet except for the small thump that came from the fireplace as a red log of wood settled onto the grating, scattering sparks.

“Well, ain’t that something!” said Andrew, easily pulling one corner of the couch in front of the fire. “I’m plumb tuckered out after listening to all that foolishness. Don’t even feel like finishing my supper. Just feel like going to bed.” He tossed the paper his wife had handed him onto the hearth.

He sighed heavily. “Don’t even feel like bothering with the news. It’s a shame an old man can’t get no rest from fools. All day long I put up with blamed fools. First, old John won’t listen when I tell him he’s putting up that cabin wrong. Says I’m too old to know anything. But after a few hours he stopped and did it the way I told him. Then that fellow won’t believe my tiller works. And then that blamed wind kicks up a hailstorm and I get beat to death and have to go to that store of Joe’s. Now that fool preacher!”

Sarah stood over him, putting her palms on his temples, then stroking his white hair. “Things will be better for the old man in the morning,” she said. “You can have some of that pie for breakfast. He stood up, hugged her shoulders, and together they strolled to the bedroom.

Andrew turned out the lights as they finished getting ready for bed.

“We need some air,” Sarah said as she put her knee under the cover. “It’s stuffy in here.”

“Well, I’ll just open the window a crack. Not enough to let out the hot, just enough to keep it sort of cool in here.”

“Moderation in all things.”

“Yep, a little air won’t hurt us none and it’ll make us sleep better. It’s only too much of a good thing that hurts a man, like that preacher. He just let that religion of his take a-hold of him, and it took him too far. And then there’s Joe. He ain’t gonna get nothing from nobody giving out free gifts; makes them too suspicious. It’d be better if he just sold them reasonable.”

“Yes, you’re right,” she agreed and closed her eyes. Then she opened them again and stared at two familiar shadows above the bed.

“Andy, did you fasten the door?”

“Now don’t you go worrying about that door. You ought to know I made sure it was locked.”

*************

Early in the morning three days later, when the sun had just arisen but was already warm, Joe spoke. “It sure burned that whole hill down; it’s a shame for all that good wood to be burned up that way.”

“And left that door of his a-standin’. He sure knowed how to make them houses,” Frank said. “Must’ve been that crazy wind that’d make a fire burn all that house up and leave that door of his a-standin’. Like somebody don’t want people to go lookin’ into the place where he was killed. The shame’s a pretty place like that’d get all burned black. But that wood on the hill’s a shame too. John told me that old Andy said he could use some of that wood to put up a cabin. Yea, John was kinda riled that old Andy wanted to help him out, you know—he was too old to help much, and made him put it up wrong the first time—but that was the only way to get him to let him use the wood.” He sighed. “But now they’re both gone. That fire done burned up old Andy and his wood with him. He was a fool to keep that gas for the tiller in his bedroom, especially with all that he had.”

The log rail was burned away around the stone steps that led to the blackened door. In a few places lumps of metal and brick were visible between burnt posts which once held up the house. The chimney was toppled over like a useless idol that would take no other sacrifices.

“Seems funny though that they didn’t wake up,” Joe said. I suppose they died of smoke.”

“Yea, sure is strange. But they said they was burnt crispy, blacker’n sin. Smelt like sin too. Ever little hair on him was burnt up. Weren’t no body to speak of—mostly went up in smoke. Nothin’ left to bury.”

“Well, he won’t plant a garden this year, so I guess he won’t be buying any manure from you.”

Frank laughed. “That’s for sure,” he said, “that’s for sure.”

A blackened refrigerator stood by a stove in the newly burned field. The place was so newly burned that Joe said that you could still see the ghosts of smoke.

“I’m surprised that no one saw the house burning,” Joe said.

“Well, I don’t know. With that cold wind a-blowin’ nobody would a been out. If they had a seen it, it wouldn’t a been no problem gettin’ it stopped though, with that creek of his a-runnin’ right by the house. Course, you would have had to climb over the hill to get to it.”

“You know,” said Joe, “there’s something I’ve always wondered. There’s about five quarts of blood in a man; seems that that much blood would drown a fire.”

“It’d take a lot more blood than’s tricklin’ in any man to put out a blaze like that. Only the blood of God Almighty could a had a chance at it, and He’s done wasted that on a million filthy sinners. Andy weren’t no sinner, though he was a mighty blamed nuisance, so I guess God couldn’t spare him none.”

In silence they walked through the stubble of the building. “Look here!” said Joe. “Look at those ashes in the hearth: Jesus Christ Can Save You.” Can you beat that!”

The next moment the wind blew the ashes to crumbs.

“Sure can’t,” Frank said. “But I can offer you a piece of the best tastin’ pie you ever ate. Found it in their black refrigerator. Sarah always was the best cook I knowed. Come on, we can get home and eat, and still be ready before that new preacher starts the funeral.”

Joe politely declined.

The End