Canaan Camp

Chapter Eight

A Kindred Spirit

Saeger Pond, near Blue Creek, May 25

            An ethereal mist hovered on the mirrored water as the unseasonably warm air and cool spring fed waters of the old millpond combined to induce a slightly milky layer of air just above the water.  Their boat drifted silently, impelled by the quiet currents feeding up from below.

            Richard flipped a top-water lure toward a clutch of lily pads, miscalculated, and landed it a foot above the water line into a miniature forest of ten inch-high may apples.  A light twitch jerked the lure into the water without snagging.

             "Nice natural presentation," said Carl Hoag, just as a large mouth broke the surface with a loud splash, sucking in the lure.

            Before Richard could set the hook, however, the lure popped to the surface two feet from where the bass had hit it.

             "Didn't like the taste of plastic, I guess," he observed.

            He wasn't really disappointed.  Catching fish was fun, but the ritual was the main thing.  He worked the lure in a slow retrieval, wondering idly if his momentary contentment was some genetic carryover from his predator past, perhaps the contentment that came from trying to outwit prey.  Hunting used to do it for him, especially turkey hunting, but he could no longer hunt.

             "No cursing," observed Hoag, as he took his smoldering pipe from his mouth.  "Bad sign.  You don't have the appropriate vocabulary for this sport?"

82.

                     "What's to curse about, Doc?  It's perfect out here."

             "Subjective.  Sometimes when I'm out here I'm convinced there's only me and God in the world.  I swear I do.  Those days could last forever.  But then, sometimes it seems I'm just pissing away one of the last few days I have left on the top side of this earth."

             "And today?"

             "In the balance.  It would help if I caught a damned fish, preferably a big one."

He drew on the pipe, and the sweet, odd aroma of the maple-laced tobacco flavored the air.  "How are you doing, now?" asked Hoag.

             "Oh, a session, huh?  Better than I've been in a long time, Doc.  Wish you had a scalpel sharp enough to excise a thing or two in my past, but on the whole, I'm fine."

Richard was surprised that he had said as much as he had.  Hoag nodded thoughtfully.

             "Ever get angry?"

             "Angry?"  He shook his head.  "No, you?"

             "Damned right.  Sometimes I think about what they did to me, to us---I read about normalizing relations with those communist bastards---I want to get in my Thunderchief and bomb and strafe the place ‘til there's not a heartbeat left in the Red River Valley."

            The vehemence of the sentiments spoken so softly jarred.

             "Is that healthy, Doc?"

             "I don't know.  All I know is that sometimes that's the way I feel," he said.  "No use lying about it."  He unscrewed the lid of a large stainless steel thermos.  "Coffee?"

             "If it doesn't have anything in it," replied Richard as he reached for the cup Hoag offered.

            Richard felt a small stab on the inside of his left elbow, and slapped reflexively.  He examined the mosquito bite, a dime-sized smear of his blood.  Sudden nausea hit him.  He set the cup down, nonchalantly trying to ignore the pounding in his temple.  As if he were suddenly vulnerable, he felt a desperate need to get off the water, away from his exposed position.  He took a deep breath, telling himself that it was silly.  There was no danger.

             "What's wrong?" asked Hoag, noticing that the color had drained from Richard's face.

             "I . . . nothing.  I just suddenly got this feeling."

83.

                     "Feeling?"

             "Kind of like . . . I don't know," he said with a self-deprecating laugh.  "Like panic maybe."

             "This happen often?"

             "Not for a long time---and nothing like this.  Doc, it was like I was walking point again---you know what I mean?  Like when you suddenly know you've walked right into the cross hairs . . . and you know it's too late."

            Hoag nodded.  "I wasn't a grunt, but I know the feeling.  It's like when you know a SAM's coming up your ass and your missile detection warning hasn't sounded yet.  Mind telling me what you were doing last time it happened?"

             "Just looking at myself in the mirror."

             "Well, with an ugly face like yours, the only reason you'd inflict that particular punishment upon yourself was if you were shaving.  Cut yourself, didn't you?"

Richard nodded.  The panic had subsided, but he was still trying to figure it out.

             "Am I going crazy or something?"

             "Hell, Richard, we're born crazy.  Some of us spend the rest of lives trying to get better.  Those that don't cook up wars if they're real ambitious and commit mayhem to make our recovery harder.  You're not going crazy."

             "Then what the hell's going on?"

             "Panic attack brought on by a symbolic cue.  The sight of blood in your case."

             "No," said Richard irritably.  "I've never had that problem."

             "Hey, I'm not trying to convince you.  You asked me a question.  I gave it my best shot."  Hoag repacked his pipe and applied a flame to it.  He puffed noisily at the stem until a blue-gray wreath of smoke tendrils twisted slowly upward between them.

"For me, it's soup."

             "Soup?" said Richard with a smile.  "Soup frightens you?"

            The thought was ludicrous.  Hoag had to be making it up.

             "It's only the cue.  They had this watery slop with a little rice or some greens in it, maybe a little pig fat if they were feeling generous.  We calculated that they kept us down around eight hundred calories a day.  Purposely starving us and laughing their asses off as they did it.  Didn't give a damn about the Geneva Convention or any of the other rules we westerners had made for gentlemanly warfare. 

             "We lost our ability to resist disease.  Most of the guys died of dysentery or URI---upper respiratory infection.  Even without medicines we could have survived those if we had a decent diet.

             "Those little bastards killed us by deliberate neglect."  He laughed ruefully.  "Of course the beatings didn't help.  So, I get real angry, and can't do anything about it.  And now I'm this grown man who gets scared of chicken noodle soup!  At least I don't have to worry about MSG allergy because there's no power on earth that could get me into a Chinese restaurant."

84.

                     He laughed sardonically.

             "So, how do you handle it?" asked Richard.

             "Spit in its face, and laugh at myself---I mean, after all, it is pretty ludicrous, isn't it?  At least the liquid you're afraid of is traditionally known to bother people.  Me?  How can anyone take a man seriously who suffers from vichyshoise-a-pnobia?"

            He puffed at his pipe.  "But I get the best revenge there is."

             "Which is?"

             "Living.  I took the worst they had to offer, and I'm still standing.  I'm breathing free air, while those dumb bastards have to live in their communist paradise."

             "Doc, is this part of that . . . post traumatic stress stuff?"

             "That's what they call it in DSM-IV.  But don't get the idea that it's just for soldiers.  Kids who've suffered or witnessed abuse go through it too.  Rape victims, hostages---anyone that violence has grabbed ahold of."

             "So when will I get over it?"

             "Right after I do, I suppose.  It ain't going away, Richard.  But you'll make progress given the support you have.  I tell you the truth because I think you deserve it and you're strong enough to take it.  You shouldn't expect anything more than to have more good days than bad ones.  When it hits and hurts, then recognize what's happening and tell yourself that it's gonna hurt for awhile."

            Richard nodded, but it wasn't what he wanted to hear.

             "And one other thing.  Don't expect anyone else to understand, because you don't understand it yourself and you never will."

            Oddly, talking about it made Richard feel better.  At least his nausea was gone.

             "Where in the hell does this stuff come from?" he asked.  "I mean it's not logical, not a survival trait or mechanism or whatever?"

             "Sure it is.  It's gut level non-verbal survival stuff.  Your body's yelling:  Hey!  Look out!  That damned thing almost killed you once!"

             "Let me guess.  You got a double---make that triple major:  medicine, psychology, and drama."

             "A little respect, dammit.  I'm being pedantic here.  You asked a question, now listen to the answer."

85.

                     "Sorry."

             "Well, you should be.  The subconscious mind is an idiot, Richard.  Logic doesn't mean jack to it.  And remember, it's the original operating system of this package we got when we were born.  The logical part is only an overlay.  We think with our conscious mind, but this more primitive stuff is always running in the background.  It's wired in closed to the endocrine system, so basic emotions like fear and rage are triggered by it."

             "So, what you're saying is that when it comes down to nut cutting---when the do-or-die situations arise---we've got an idiot at the switch?"

             "Yeah, but he tends to work pretty well whenever he's correct about the situation.  You and me, we got an over-active, enthusiastic little bastard as an autopilot.  He insists on trying to take over when we don't need or want him.  The only defense we have is to recognize when he grabs the wheel unnecessarily, slap his grubby little hands, and take it away from him."

             "Sounds like a plan.  So tell me about your progress.  You got him in line?"

             "I learned not think that way back at the Hanoi Hilton.  For you and me, Richard, it's a two-step.  We take two steps forward, and know sure as hell that we are going to slide one step back, and sometimes two.  We make progress, but realize that he can pull us all the way back to square one if we're not careful."

             "Why?"

             "Because he's us, and that's who we are."

             "I'm not sure who I am sometimes, Doc."

             "No, your problem is that you are not a killer, but you have killed someone---and to part of you it doesn't make a damned bit of difference that he deserved it."

             "Twice, Doc.  I've killed twice."  He stowed the rod in the bottom of the boat before continuing.  "The second only bothers me because I can't get the sound and feel of killing him out of my mind.  He deserved it, and I'd do it again.  I'm not the least bit sorry.  The first one didn't deserve anything.  He was just a kid somebody gave a rifle to and told to go play soldier.  He was trying to kill me at the time, so I don't guess I had a choice---but he was no more than twelve."

             "That's what Somalia was like?"

             "For me."

            Hoag puffed at his pipe before resuming in a quiet voice.  "It was pretty antiseptic up there in the sky while I was doing the old nine-to-five from the South China Sea.  Later, the gooks did a pretty good job of convincing me that it wasn't so clean after all . . . and I do wonder how many innocent people I killed."

             "I came damned close to taping one of those confessions."  He reeled in his lure.  "I never let anybody know that before."

86.

                     "But you didn't?"

             "In my mind I did.  I gave in.  I was ready.  You don't have any idea how low they can make you feel.  I was laying naked in my own urine, while this gook interrogator sat on this chair with one of its rungs pinning my neck to the concrete floor.  A second gook, we called him Weasel, beat me from neck to ankles with this fan belt for having a bad attitude, for communicating with my fellow criminals.  I was ready to do anything to make it stop.  I would have informed on anyone, admitted anything.  I agreed to do it, but they couldn't film me until the visible wounds healed."

             "What stopped you?"

             "They waited too long.  I had this tremendous load of guilt and despair---I didn't think the war would ever end, and I was convinced that they'd bury me right there in the red earth of that compound, so I was ready.  Then they killed Cole Hardy.  He got a flu or something, and they just let him die there---coughing his lungs out.  He couldn't swallow anything, and we just watched him fade away.  I never knew anyone could last so long.

Anyway, if they had just taken us out one at a time and shot us, that I could have understood.  But their total lack of respect for human life---well, it made me remember who the good guys were.  There's no way in hell I was going to confess after that."

             "I guess you've paid your dues, Doc," said Richard with genuine respect.  "So what do I do?"

             "Your job.  Your family responsibilities.  Ride out the storms the best you can.  Enjoy the sunshine when it comes.  Then get up tomorrow and do it again."

            Hoag cast his lure, and watched silently until the ripples reached the boat.

             "Hell, you'll do fine.  You didn't ask for any of the stuff that happened to you.  You were just dealt a couple of lousy hands, and from what I can tell, you played ‘em pretty well.  So give yourself a break."

            He twitched the lure.

             "And you've got a good attitude.  I don't hear you bitching and moaning about how it ain't fair."

             "So I guess I'll get over it in time," replied Richard as he picked up his rod and cast into a different area of the pond.

             "Weren't you listening?.  This ain't going to go away.  Your life has changed and you have to deal with it."

             "Like losing a leg?"

             "Or your virginity."

            They both laughed.

             "Why do we always make jokes about things like this?" asked Richard.

87.

                    "Gallows humor," said Hoag.  "What the hell else are we going to do?"

 

            When the sun rose above the trees, the strikes dwindled to nil.  After Carl hooked the same submerged log for the third time, he'd have enough.

             "Richard," he said.  "Let's go find something wet and cool.

             "Yeah, I'm ready to go too.  Great place though.  Glad you brought me."

             "A doctor's duty is never done."

            Richard watched in amusement as Hoag secured his johnboat to the trailer with nearly a dozen tie downs.  The hand winch would have sufficed.

             "Don't you think that's a little overkill there, Doc?" he said as his new friend looked for a suitable place to hook his last miniature bungie cords.

             "They don't have a prize for boat dumping the last I checked.  I drop this old girl on the road you'd probably cite me for littering."

             "Doc, what do you know about this Wilderness Church?"

             "Don't have religious opinions," came the immediate and terse reply

             "Then tell me about Camp Canaan."

             "Canaan Camp," Hoag corrected, looking at Richard intently.  "Most locals don't like it or the old guy who started it."

             "How come?"

             "Well a fellow by the name of Williams died and left them about half of the good land in the county that didn't belong to the state, so it doesn't set too well."

             "Because they're outsiders?"

             "That, and the fact that they weren't one of your more traditional churches.  If they were Baptist, Methodist or Pentecostal, folks would probably be as pleased as punch with the camp."

             "That aside, what do you make of them?"

             "Why?" laughed Hoag.  "You thinking about joining them?"

88.

                     "One of Jill's students dropped out and went out there.  She's worried about him."

             "Tell her the kid could have gotten in a worse place.  Those folks are hard workers.  They farm, log---keep to themselves mostly.  Old Joshua's a Messianic nut in my opinion, but he didn't fall for the millennium trap."

             "Millennium trap?"

             "Yeah, you know---thinking there was something magical about the year 2000, like the second coming was immanent.  He kept his options open.  He preaches that the end is near, and that his group will stand alone against the forces of evil at the last day."

             "Oh, a doomsday cult."

             "Yeah.  Well a cult is like a heresy, ain't it?  If it ain't your church, then it's a cult, and if it ain't your truth, it's heresy. 

             "So the kid's not in a bad situation?"

             "He'll give up pork, work hard, live morally, and attend services like two-a-day football practice.  Unless he dies of boredom, it can't be too bad for him.  She shouldn't worry about the kid, Richard.  Despite what the locals have to say, those are pretty good people out there.  They just keep to themselves.  They ain't kidnapping babies, or arming for the battle of Armageddon."

             "The religious thing may be good for him," said Richard.  "He's been in juvie trouble, but seems to have straightened out after a little stay in the Youth Center over at Poplar Bluff."

             "How's he get sent to the Sears Center?"

             "He was with a group of kids who tried to burn down his high school."

             "That would probably do it."

 

May 25, Canaan Camp         

           The disjointed ravings had lost their amusement value, and the PCP made him so wild that Paget feared people would get suspicious.  He had switched to a roofie-wine cocktail last night, but he might have overdone it.  Sixteen hours and the old bastard was still stone cold zonked.  Paget's own head pounded from a hangover, so he just wasn't up to the old faggot today, sober, or high on dust.  He mixed another of the roofies and some vodka into Joshua's morning orange juice.

89.

                    If he dies it ain't no biggie, he decided as he coaxed the old man to swallow enough of it to keep him out.

           Later, he sat with feet propped on the uncleared table and opened the scrapbook he had found earlier in Joshua's nightstand.  Inside were photos along with yellowed newspaper clippings.  On the third page an article neatly snipped from a slick papered magazine lay beneath the clear plastic overlay.

JOSH LEYLAND

A VOICE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS

Second term Congressman, Josh Leyland, from the Florida panhandle, is making populist hay with his third party bid for a Florida Senate seat while the major party candidates engage in one of the nastiest mud-slinging campaigns the sunshine state has witnessed.  Leyland's anti-big business, anti-big government, back-to-the-people message is attracting growing support from voters sickened by the attack ads his two better-known opponents have been directing at each other for the last three months.

Running on a shoestring, with an unpaid volunteer staff, stumping the state in an air stream trailer, Leyland is attracting much more than attention.  He is building solid blue-collar support and a statewide following despite a disturbing lack of specifics in his proposals to bring government back to the people.  Leyland is very good at striking cords that reverberate in harmony with the feelings of a disenchanted electorate, but if he has a tune of his own, no one has yet heard it.  It is all very well to point out a problem, but leadership requires solutions.  Leyland promises he has a program, and says that he and the people will take care of the specifics when they take back their government from the professional politicians.

His gypsy caravan of silver-colored old-fashioned trailers captures the imagination, while his camp-meeting style oratory sounds like something from William Jennings Bryan.  What bothers us is his singular lack of specifics.  We don't so much want to know what is wrong, as we want to know what he intends to do about it.  So far, Leyland is a voice crying in the wilderness.  The problem is, we don't have a clue as to what he is saying.  If he starts making sense, then his opponents had better take notice.  The electorate surely will.

 

           The next few pages of the scrapbook were filled with follow up clippings, some from newspapers, some from magazines.  Paget just skimmed them disinterestedly.  The final clipping caught his attention.

 

SOUTHERN AIR FLIGHT ENDS IN TRAGEDY

Seventy-eight people died today in the fiery crash of Southern Air Flight 302 in the early morning hours in Pensacola.  Trying to land during a thunderstorm, the commuter jet en route from Miami ran off the runway, and the passenger compartment broke into two sections.  Jet fuel ignited on impact, engulfing the larger section in which there were no survivors.

Miraculously, the smaller section spun clear of the main wreckage, saving the lives of six commuters.  Among them was Joshua Leyland, candidate for the vacant Senate seat in Florida.  The colorful and controversial politician is reportedly in stable condition at a local hospital.  The extent of his injuries is unknown.

According to first reports, the jet came down nearly three hundred yards short of the runway.  The cause of the crash is believed to have been a microburst, a violent and sudden gust of wind accompanying the storm.

 

90.

                   Scrawled below the clipping was a short sentence:  "Why me?"

           Because you were one lucky bastard, thought Paget.

           That Joshua wasn't running some kind of scam dumbfounded him.  He could understand the sheep eating up his crap.  They had to, or the old man would never be able to get them to sign over their social security checks.  That the old man really believed he was some heaven sent messenger had never entered Paget's mind.

           You're crazy.  You got lucky, and think you were chosen?

           Although it was asinine that the old man believed it, the realization that Joshua was sincere made him furious.

           A groan came from the next room drew his attention.  Joshua sat on the edge of the bed, his blood-shot eyes and tousled hair giving him a wild, desperate look like the winos remembered from his childhood, pathetic bags of bones and delusion who couldn't have told you what day it was if their lives depended upon it.  That the arrogant old man had been reduced to such a condition was encouraging as well as satisfying.  It looked like he was going to have to stay at the camp for longer than he intended.  If he could weaken the old man enough, he might get him to loosen up the ridiculous rules so that he could come and go as he pleased.

           I'll have to do something about the Stick Man though, he said to himself.  He's the only one in this hellhole with any authority besides the old faggot.

           He plastered on a sympathetic smile and went in to give Joshua the rest of his juice.

           "How are you feeling this morning, Father Joshua?" he asked.

           "I don't feel so good," said the old man, putting both hands to his temple.

           "You're probably just depressed about last night."

           "Last night?" 

           "The argument with John," he said, improvising.  "Here.  Drink this and you'll feel better."

           Joshua drained the glass and handed it back.  "I can't remember what we were arguing about.  It doesn't seem like John to be disagreeable."

           "He shouldn't question your authority like that, Father Joshua."

           "Shouldn't question my authority," mumbled the old man.   "No, uh---you know, uh---"

           "You forgot my new name, Father Joshua?" asked Paget gently.  "Don't you remember what you called me last night?  My new name?"

91.

                   "New name?"

           Paget had looked up "Joshua" in the old man's thick concordance to see if he could learn anything useful.  Two headings intrigued him:  Joshua and Moses, which he didn't think he could use because Moses was some kind of big shot, probably more powerful than Joshua.  The other name looked better, and it was paired with Joshua several times.

           "Yes.  Remember?  You said I should be called Caleb."

           "Caleb?  Yes, the faithful spy."

           "Spy?" blurted Paget in alarm, thinking he had made a terrible blunder.

           "He and Joshua were the only ones who had faith to take the promised land from the . . . uh . . . the Canaanites."

           Paget wondered if he should look up more references to this Caleb character.

           "Faithful Caleb," muttered Joshua.  "You will always be there when I need you, won't you?"

           "I'll be right by your side, Father Joshua---right by your side."

           "There is a friend," Joshua trailed off sleepily.

           Paget supported his head as the old man collapsed backward.  He looked down at the pathetic old geezer's slack mouth.

           A prophet! he said to himself with a chuckle.  How easy it would be to put my hands around his neck right now and choke the life out of him.  Then I could find some way to drug the whole camp and strangle each of them one by one.

           "Physical impossibility, Bobby Lee," he said aloud.  "Besides, my hands would probably cramp up." 

           He smiled.  Four hundred idiots, a pile of money, and their leader by the balls, meaning I've got the whole camp where I want them---except for Stick Man.  I've got to get rid of that skinny faggot.

           He patted Joshua's leg.  Then it'll be just you and me, old buddy.

 

           The old farmhouse was in dire need of remodeling, but it already looked a lot better since the accumulated trash and unserviceable furniture were gone.  Shane heaved the last mouse-infested armchair onto a trash pile to be burned after the first good rain.  Lingering morning humidity coupled with a breezeless morning made his clothes sticky.  He squinted at the noonday sun and considered removing his shirt, but decided against it because he didn't know what impression it would make on the girl.

           "Dinner time," said Mrs. Phillips, brushing back strands of gray hair from her red face.  "Come in and wash up."

           The old lady carefully emptied a bucket of sudsy water on the hollyhocks at the edge of the porch.

           "Thank you, ma'am.  I think I'm ready for a break."

92.

                   "It is warm today, isn't it?  I surely do appreciate you and Sister Raven helping us out."

           "Better here than over at the sawmill.  I'll bet those boys are burning up today."

           Shane was more than happy to be where he was.  As he walked into the kitchen, he saw the main reason for his happiness at the sink.  The dark-haired girl wore a white T-shirt tucked into baggy jeans rolled at the ankle above sandaled feet.

           "How you doing, Raven?" he asked, trying to sound casual.

           "Fine.  And you?" she said, making room for him at the sink.

           "Tired and hungry," he said without looking directly at her.

           "It's hot in here," he hazarded.  "What say we eat on the porch?  It's cooler out there."

           Although she didn't particularly want his attention, she could think of no polite way to turn him down.  Outside the silence was almost painful.  Shane tried to keep from looking at her too long at a time, but it was hard.  He wondered why such a pretty girl didn't have a boyfriend.  At first he had thought that she was coldly superior like some girls he had known, but now she just seemed shy and awkward, kind of like him.

           Raven knew that he was looking.  She always knew.  She was glad that the old couple was there.

           Mr. Phillips settled heavily into one of the two serviceable chairs they had been able to salvage from the abandoned house, breathing heavily and sweating profusely as he sipped his iced tea.  Shane noticed his beet red face.

           "Mr. Phillips, you'd better take it easy this afternoon," he said.  "It's awfully hot."

           "That's what I've been trying to tell the man," fretted Mrs. Phillips as she handed Shane a roast beef sandwich.  "He's going to make a widow of me if he doesn't take care of himself."

           "I'll go when my time comes, Dorothy."

           "Don't tempt the Lord," she scolded.  "Father Joshua says it's a sin not to take care of your body."

           Raven, sandwich and tea in hand, looked for a place to sit, but the chairs were taken and the front of the porch was in full sunlight.

           "Let's go sit under the tree," suggested Shane when he noticed her expression.

           "Okay," she said, stepping off the porch without waiting for him.

           He followed her, surreptitiously admiring her narrow waist and the way her flaring hips moved beneath her loose-fitting jeans.  He realized he was feeling lust, but maybe that was all right because he had "honorable intentions."  Father Joshua taught that God made women desirable so that the bond between the sexes would be strong physically as well as emotionally.  Admiring them was perfectly natural as long as your intentions were good.  Watching seemed sneaky somehow, so maybe he probably shouldn't do it too much. 

93.

                   But she sure is good to look at, he thought.

           When he first came he had been surprised at the way the women dressed.  He had expected something along the lines of a Pentecostal dress code, with women clad from wrist to ankle, long hair held tight to their heads in buns.  The women of the camp dressed modestly, however.  Many even worked in T-shirts and mid-thigh length shorts.  Raven was the exception.  She dressed as if trying to conceal herself like those Arab women with the veils and stuff.  It pleased him that she was modest.  No doubt she was a pure woman, saving herself for her husband.

           Such a woman would be a man's most precious treasure, he thought.  If I was lucky enough to win her---if she had kept herself pure for me that would be so . . .

           Shane decided that he did lust for her, but it wasn't a bad kind of lust.  It was a natural kind---the kind that resulted in children and families.  But that might be getting a little ahead of things.

           When they got to the shade, she sat on a tree root and looked up, her eyes making fleeting contact, and he knew that she knew he had been staring at her.  He blushed and averted his eyes.  She looked up again, noticing his embarrassment.   

           "You were right," she said, as eager to get past the awkward moment as he.  "This is a lot cooler."

           Sitting too close seemed not the thing to do, so Shane went over and sat against the gnarled ruins of a large tree.  Although happy to be relatively alone with her, he found himself as tongue-tied as a self-conscious thirteen-year-old.  He pretended to concentrate on the sandwich, until she tucked back a loose twist of dark hair, and tilted her head, offering her smooth cheek and neck to the breeze coming up from the field below.

He wished he had some bit of poetry he could quote to impress her, and immediately felt like an idiot for even having the thought.

           Raven, lost in her own discomfort, searched for a way through the awkward silence.  Her eyes drifted up to the branches of the old tree.

           "What are those?" she asked.

           Shane swiveled his head, glad for the distraction.  Small fruits clung to the twigs beneath saw-toothed leaves, some purple verging on black, some white.

           "Mulberries," he said as he stood to pick one and pop it into his mouth.

           "What do they taste like?"

           "Hard to describe.  Here."

           He dropped a few into her small hand careful not to touch her.

           "Don't get any on your clothes," he warned.  "They really stain."

94.

                   Raven tentatively bit down on one.

           "Odd," she said.  "But not bad.  I'll bet they make good jelly."

           "They used to make wine out of them, I think."

           The dark purple juice stained her lips, and he imagined her in his arms offering him those full sweet lips.

           "What?" she asked, seeing his smile.

           "Oh," he said quickly.  "Look at your fingers.  It's on your lips."

           Raven examined the dark stains and frowned.  She delicately licked her lips, imagining she could remove the stain.  Seeing the tip of her tongue brought a twinge of longing.

           She's so beautiful and wholesome, he thought, remembering the woman described in the Song of Solomon.

           "Are you laughing at me?"

           "No.  You just look so cute with purple lips," he stammered, coloring.  "Well---not cute.  Beautiful in a . . . oh boy.  What an idiot." 

           She frowned.  He was something new to her.  She had already picked up on his interest in her, and, as unwanted as that was, she could tolerate it because he was so juvenile, so boyish and innocent.  She envied him.

           "Did I . . . I didn't mean to---I didn't make you mad, did I?"

           She shook her head and looked away.  "Don't pay attention to me.  I'm kind of messed up sometimes."

           It explained nothing, and wasn't what she meant to say.  He saw her discomfort and wanted to say something to make it better, but he couldn't think of anything.  Relief came from the most unexpected quarter when she heard a rustling in the leaves behind her.  The hairs at the back of her neck prickled as she turned to see if it was what she feared.  A sleek, dark head lifted above the grass, and a small, forked tongue flicked out, tasting the air, sensing her presence.

           "Oh my God!" she gasped.

           "It's just a black snake," said Shane as she jumped up.

           "Don't worry.  They're harmless," he assured her as he interposed himself between her and it.  "Look at the size of him," he continued.  "Must be five feet long." 

           "I don't like snakes," she said hyperventilating.

95.

                   "I'll get rid of him," said Shane picking up a stick.

           As much as she wanted to be rid of the snake, it sickened her that she was eliciting what she was sure was a depressing display of male bravado.  His manly nature would impel him to kill it in order to impress her.

           Before she could say anything to dissuade him, he lunged forward.  Instead of battering the thing to bloody pulp, however, he merely pinned the creature's head to the ground.  Then he bent forward slowly and carefully grasped it firmly just behind the head.  Standing triumphantly, he held the snake at arms-length to show her.  It was male bravado, but palatable male bravado.  When the writhing serpent coiled around his forearm, she shuddered.

           "I'll just take him over there." he nodded toward a brushy draw leading down to the woods.  "Get him out of our way for awhile.  He'll be back after we leave.  They're territorial."

           After releasing the snake, he tugged a sapling from the ground, knocked the dry dirt from the roots, and broke some off.

           "Sassafras," he said as he twisted the roots to bruises them and rubbed in on his hands.  "It'll cover the smell of the snake until I can wash."

           He handed her a section.  Before she even brought near her nose, she recognized the scent.  "They used to make root beer from this," she said,

           "They still do."

           "No.  It's a carcinogen," she said.  "It can cause cancer."

           "I know what a carcinogen is," he said quickly.

           He blushed, and then laughed.  She caught the laugh, not the blush.

           "What?"

           "Me," he said, shaking his head.  "See what I did?  I've been showing off for you, playing nature science guy, and when you called my hand on something, I got all defensive.  Pretty funny, huh?"

           She looked at him without smiling.  To Shane it seemed that she was evaluating whether he was worthy of her attention.  Rather than become angry, he worried that he would fall short.

           "Did I make you mad?" he asked.

           He was just like a little boy, like a little brother, she imagined.  Raven shook her head and gave him just the hint of a smile.

           "How could I be angry with a guy who tells me all about mulberry's and sassafras and black snakes?"

           "We could probably have skipped the black snake," he said, feeling greatly relieved.

96.

                   "Yeah.  It gave me the creeps seeing that thing twisting itself around your arm, but I'm glad you didn't kill it."

           "So I did something right, huh?"

           "Yeah."

           That was all it took.  The whole episode was more like a science class field trip than a romantic encounter, but it had begun with Shane only infatuated.  Now he was hopelessly in love.

           "You know," he said suddenly.  "This is a just about a perfect day."

           Raven was dismayed at what she now realized that she had done.  It was all innocent and pleasant now, but there would be future demands.

           He'll want more.  Then what? she asked herself.  Then you'll have to tell him the truth.  After that you won't have to worry about him.