“Sure it works,” Benoit said.
“I’m about to puke from this fish already. I don’t want nobody fooling with me.”
“Tell him to get hisself healed, Billy Jo.”
“Get yourself healed,” Billy Jo said, his mouth filled with bread and carp.
“Let me be.”
“Go ahead, Brother.”
“I ain’t sure.”
“It ain’t Jesus’ will to let a man suffer when you can cure him.”
“You want me to try, Jeffry?”
“No.”
“Don’t listen to him. He’s sick in the head with fever,” Benoit said.
“His head’s all right. He ain’t got faith,” Brother Samuel said.
“You got no faith, Jeffry,” Benoit said.
“You guys let me alone.”
Most of the men had finished lunch and came over to watch.
“How about it, Brother?”
“I’ll try.”
The men held Jeffry’s arms and legs to the ground and pulled up his shirt to expose his stomach.
“Goddamn you bastards! Leave go! Do you hear me! I’m sick! Turn loose!”
He struggled for a moment and then became still. He twisted his head up to watch his stomach and to see what Brother Samuel was going to do.
“What’s them things you got?” Daddy Claxton said.
“Them’s what I control the spirits with.”
He knelt beside Jeffry, his face the color of mud under the straw hat that came down to his ears. His large ill-fitting clothes were damp with sweat.
“I’m going to use my moccasin fang and turtle foot first. It ain’t going to hurt none, you’ll just feel something pulling on you when the spirit leaves your body.”
“You guys got no right to let him do this,” Jeffry said.
“It’s time you got religion,” Benoit said.
“This ain’t religion. It’s conjuring. Don’t let him touch me with that stuff.”
“Lie still,” Brother Samuel said. “I’m going to make a cross on your belly.”
He drew a white impression of a horizontal line across Jeffry’s stomach with the turtle foot, then drew a vertical line through it with the snake fang. He placed the fang and the foot on the ground beside a piece of string and the ball of hair taken from a cow’s stomach. He folded his hands together and rocked slowly back and forth.
“Goddamn each of you bastards,” Jeffry said. He struggled again. The men held him firmly. The figure of the cross was pink and white on his stomach.
“Great Belial,” Brother Samuel began, “cast out of the spirits of Zion that want this man to bow before the bloody hill where you wrecked the faith of mighty Jerusalem, and let him take the snake to his cheek.” Samuel picked up the snake fang in his fingers and held the curved ivory point over Jeffry’s stomach. “With the sign of your kingdom I plunge the poison of the shade into your enemy’s heart.” He brought the snake fang down and struck the center of the cross.
“I’m bleeding,” Jeffry said. “Look at what you done. You stuck me full of poison. I heard you say so.”
There was a small drop of blood at the joint of the cross.
“I never seen nothing like that,” Daddy Claxton said.
“Jeffry don’t look good.”
“What the hell do you think I look like when somebody is sticking snake poison in me?”
“I didn’t put no poison in you,” Brother Samuel said.
“I heard you say it.”
“That’s just part of what I got to say to cast out the spirit.”
“You feel any different?” Daddy Claxton said.
“Yeah. I got a hole in my belly that I didn’t have five minutes ago.”
“I reckon it takes some extra conjuring to get you healed,” Benoit said.
“I had my fill. I don’t want no more.”
“It’s a powerful spirit got hold of you,” Brother Samuel said.
“It ain’t no spirit. It’s the runs. Everybody gets the runs,” Jeffry said.
“Try another cure, Brother Samuel.”
“Not on me. I ain’t having no more.” The men still held him to the ground.
“I ain’t got but one left.”
“Go ahead and use it. Jeffry is willing to do anything to get rid of the runs.”
“You sonsofbitches.”
“Don’t use cuss words when we’re talking about things of the spirit,” Benoit said, his pig-eyes smiling at Jeffry.
“I wouldn’t do this to none of you when you was sick,” Jeffry said.
“That’s because you got no charity. You got no faith, neither. Ain’t that right? Jeffry’s got no faith.”
“You rotten bas…”
A man clamped his hand over Jeffry’s mouth.
“Get on with the conjuring. We got to use force to get him healed.”
Jeffry’s eyes rolled wildly.
“What are you going to do with that ball of hair?” Benoit said.
“It’s for casting out the spirit.”
“How’s it work?” Daddy Claxton said.
“I send the spirit out of Jeffry into the ball of hair, and then I set fire to it and let the spirit free again.”
“What happens if he don’t get free?”
“Belial will send another spirit into my body to make me turn him loose.”
“Who’s this Belial guy?” Billy Jo said.
“He was one of the angels the Lord run out of Heaven,” Brother Samuel said.
“I never heard of no Belial,” Billy Jo said.
“That’s because you and Jeffry got no religion,” Benoit said.
“I don’t need none.”
“Mmpppppppht,” Jeffry said, beneath the clamped hand.
Brother Samuel held the ball of hair to Jeffry’s stomach and closed his eyes and began to speak in a language that none of the men could understand. He rolled the ball in a circle and his voice became a chant. Jeffry’s stomach started quivering under Brother Samuel’s hands. The pink and white impression of the cross had disappeared, and only the small smear of blood remained. Brother Samuel chanted louder and rocked on his knees, with his body bent over Jeffry.
“Is that all there is to it?” Billy Jo said.
“I got to set the spirit free.”
“You mean he’s inside that ball of hair?”
“Take it and hold it in your hand.”
“I don’t want it,” Billy Jo said.
Samuel offered it to Daddy Claxton.
“I ain’t touching it,” the old man said.
“I’ll hold it,” Benoit said.
Brother Samuel put it in his hand.
“It jumped! My God, there’s something in it!” He jerked his hand away and let it drop to the ground. The men were grinning at him. “I tell you it jumped. I ain’t lying. I felt it bump in my hand like it was alive.”
“The sun must have fried your brains.”
“One of you guys pick it up.” No one did. “Go ahead, pick it up. See if I’m lying. It tried to jump out of my hand.”
“You been drinking the kerosene from the line shack again?” Billy Jo said.
“All right, bastard. You pick it up.”
“You can play witch doctor if you want. I ain’t making an ass out of myself.”
“Turn Jeffry loose,” Brother Samuel said.
Jeffry wiped his mouth with his hand and tucked in his shirt. There was spittle and pink finger marks around his mouth.
“You see this piece of string?” Brother Samuel said. “I’m tying three knots in it. I’m going to give it to you, and I want you to put it in your pocket and not look at it till tonight. When the knots is gone your stomach won’t bother you no more.”
“You mean them knots is going away by theirself?” Daddy Claxton said.
“As long as he don’t look at the string till dark.”
“I ain’t going to look at it no time. I don’t want the goddamn thing. Hey, what are you doing?”
“I’m putting it in your pocket for you.”