He wondered how he'd kill an hour or so, and wished he'd had the sense to bring a book. He'd thought general stores were supposed to stock magazines or at least the local papers, but the Co-operative had none. He was surprised how much he'd begun to miss the Times. The cemetery across the street held no interest for him in all this heat, the dusty headstones baking in the sun. Briefly he thought of the corpses beneath; at least they'd be cool down there.
His shirt, he saw, was sticking to his back, and there were already sweat stains beneath his arms. With a sigh he rubbed the perspiration on the back of his neck and walked into the main room of the store.
Too bad the Brethren seemed never to have heard of air conditioning; the only trace of refrigeration in sight was the cooler near the back. Bert Steegler, carefully marking catalogues at the front counter, looked up with as little friendliness as he'd displayed when Freirs had entered. Steegler's wife was across the corridor in the post office section, filling out a pile of official-looking forms. Freirs wandered down the nearest aisle, smelling the clean, cozy scent of spice, coffee, and floor wax. One aisle up from the passage leading back to the warehouse stood three large burlap sacks of grain, the first of them open at the top. I wonder whether you plant this stuff or eat it, he thought, running his hand through the kernels.
'Is there somethin' you want?' Steegler had come around the counter and was peering down the aisle at him. Freirs dropped the grain and pointed to the cooler.
'I think I'll get myself one of these hero sandwiches.' He took the largest, with a not-too-cold can of diet cola. 'And I'd better pick up some insect spray,' he added, suddenly remembering to lie to the Poroths. A dark red can labeled Chemtex caught his eye; this brand looked even stronger than the first. For Outdoor Use Only, the label warned; probably that just meant it was powerful.
Steegler eyed the can dubiously and seemed reluctant to ring it up.
'Don't worry,' said Freirs, grinning. 'I'll make sure I point it away from me.'
But as the other looked up, Freirs saw the hardness in his gaze, the set of his mouth, and realized he'd misread the man's expression.
'You fixin' to stay out here much longer?' asked Steegler.
Freirs flushed guiltily. Had the other read his mind? 'What do you mean, "out here"?'
'I mean here among the Brethren.'
'Oh, I don't know,' said Freirs. Across the corridor Steegler's wife had paused in her writing and appeared to be listening. He chose his words with care. 'Sarr and Deborah are expecting me to stay until the end of the summer. Why?'
Steegler shook his head. 'Nothin'. Just wonderin', that's all.' He totaled Freirs' bill with pencil and paper, a small drawer serving to hold the cash. 'You tell Brother Sarr I said hello, all right?'
'Oh, sure,' said Freirs. 'Sure thing.' Taking his purchases, he walked quickly from the store. He was confused. Why had Steegler been so hostile? It was almost as if the fellow wanted him to leave town. ..
Not until he'd seated himself on the hard wooden bench on the Co-op's front porch and was unwrapping the sandwich on his lap did an explanation present itself. Of course! he decided. He must nave heard me over by the phone and figured I was calling New York. He's probably afraid I'm running out on the Poroths.
Freirs felt better now. Yes, that must be it. It wasn't that Steegler wanted him to leave town – quite the opposite. The fellow wanted him to stay!
Ever since he'd first laid eyes on him that warm Sunday in May, Bert Steegler had never forgiven the outsider for sleeping in the graveyard. Oh, he'd seen him, all right, up there in the shadow of the Troet monument, snoozing away the afternoon with his fat belly in the air, just like those were his own people up there and he had a right to he amongst them. Steegler and his wife had family buried there – poor little six-week-old Annalee, Lord rest her soul – and he took it amiss to see this sloppily dressed stranger lying on top of the departed like they were so many clumps of earth. He had seen Brother Sarr Poroth climb the low hill to the monument that day, had seen him wake the city fellow and take him down to his truck, and had heard how the Poroths had opened their home to him. Brother Sarr didn't seem to mind the outsider; but then, Brother Sarr didn't seem to mind very much about a lot of things: the proper respect the community was due, to say nothing of his own mother, the boy up and going off to get his education in some other town, then trotting back home like the Prodigal. And now he was flouting the Co-operative itself- which was, after all, really no more than the community of Brethren anyway, as they existed on paper – to which he owed – what was it now? Why, it was over $4900, the last time he'd checked. How did the boy think he was going to pay that off? A good thing his father wasn't alive, Lord rest his soul; the old man wouldn't have taken kindly to a son so deep in debt to the Go-op.
Steegler craned his skinny neck and peered out the window. Yes, he was out there, all right; he knew he hadn't heard the fellow walk down the front steps. There he was, sitting fat and lazy on the bench, young enough to work, certainly, and probably strong -folks who carried a lot of weight usually had the muscles to go with it – but preferring to remain there in idleness, swallowing his sandwich and staring out at nothing, with Lord knows what sinful thoughts in his head. Brother Rupert Lindt was right about the fellow: that sort expected others to work for them but wouldn't do a lick themselves. It set a bad example, him being there like that, with his bulging pockets, in front of the store that was the symbol of the community. He should never have listened to Amelia he should have taken that bench away years ago; he'd warned her it was an invitation to the idle, but she'd maintained that old folks needed a place to rest their bones. As if old folks had nothing better to do this side of the grave than sit and stare at the street. For all he knew, the fellow was discouraging trade.
From across the room the glass door to the cooler didn't look completely shut; it would be just like the outsider to leave it hanging open, wasting the propane gas whose price had just gone up another dollar twelve a tank. Steegler hurried down the aisle to check and saw, with a tiny edge of disappointment, that the door was in fact closed. He turned lest any of the cornmeal livestock feed had spilled from the sack the fellow had been running his hands through. That's when he saw the worms.
The corn was alive with them. There were dozens – no, hundreds, he suddenly realized, as his eye took them all in: squirming little yellowish things nearly the color of the corn, slipping in and out amongst the kernels like the inhabitants of some satanic city.
And even as Steegler told himself that it couldn't be the stranger's fault, that the worms must have been breeding there for weeks, that the unusually hot weather was to blame, or whoever'd sold him the corn (hadn't it been Brother Ham Stoudemire?) – even as these thoughts occurred to him, the association was formed: the stranger spoiled things just by touching them. It was like the Bible said: at his touch sprouted vermin.
He couldn't wait to tell Brother Rupert about this. He could almost see the other now, the slowly widening eyes, the deepening scowl, the angry clenching of his huge fists.
Bert Steegler was no fool. He had a good idea what was behind Lindt's dislike of the outsider: it was that thin redheaded girl, the one'd he'd had with him that Sunday right here in the store. Steegler had seen the larger man glance her way and glance again, and he'd sympathized; everyone knew Sister Anna led Rupert a hard life.
Still, he could appreciate the truth of what Lindt said. The fellow out there on the porch just didn't belong here. He had come amongst the Brethren bearing the taint of the city; he was a gateway for sin. Gilead would need a cleansing to rid itself of him.