The night leaned in as somehow Ruby found a way to accept that kiss and, in so doing, dipped her big toe into life.
OF COURSE she didn’t hear the knock on the door ten yards away. Or the second. In fact, ten people had gathered on the front porch without Ruby or Ephram hearing a sound. It was not until Celia, the Pastor and the rest of the congregation surrounded them on the small hill that Ruby sensed an inkling of danger and looked away from Ephram. She let out a short scream and slipped from Ephram’s arms, feet weak beneath her.
Ephram stepped up bravely. “Y’all best get—”
Five grown men tackled him, including Sim and Percy Rankin. They pulled him out of the door, down on the wet ground, while the Pastor began, “Ephram we come here to re-re-re-re-reclaim your soul in the name of Jesus.”
Ephram pushed against them with all his might. “Damnit! Y’all stop this foolishness and let go of me!” But they pressed him harder into the mud.
Sim slapped his hand over Ephram’s mouth. Ruby hung back, unable to run, unable to fight. Two strong Rankin elders gentled her onto the land as the congregation began to pray over Ephram. Release this child of God. Release this child of God. Over and over. Soon, the congregation whipped up a froth of hails and hosannas. The Pastor yelled above them, “ ‘For G-G-God so loved the world that he g-g-gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever b-believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ ” Amens leapt up from the circle like flames. Pastor Joshua continued, “We are g-gathered to cast the unclean spirits from our Brother Ephram Jennings.” Ephram struggled against the men sitting upon his chest. He flipped over onto his stomach and broke free for a moment. The men yelled, Whoa there! Git him! Hold him, until he was once again conquered. They sat again, this time upon his back, his stomach pressed into the mud. Celia stood holding a Bible, eyes closed in apparent meditation, but there was a steel girder in her jaw. Ruby was frozen. She wanted to run but was held in place. She tried to speak, but terror caught in the back of her mouth.
Finally she scratched out a whisper, “Ephram …”
Celia let her left eye slide open, then her right and a grin tugged at her lips as she started walking towards Ruby, left hand holding the Bible, right palm raised against the night, “Lo, be free of the inciting words of Jezebel,” and the women called out, Jezebel! Jezebel! Celia sang louder, “Jezebel, what called her man from the righteous path. For she will not sway thee, for her is nothingness against the wall, food for dogs!” Righteous Polk found the one dry spot of grass and fell out on it, her body writhing, speaking the gibberish of tongues.
Gertie Renfolk began singing, At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light, while Celia advanced upon Ruby. Ruby heard the growl before noticing that it was coming from her own throat. It built in size and stature as Celia and the women closed in. Celia’s voice rose over the rising sound, “I command ye out! Out of this woman, you unclean demons. ‘Ye are of your father the Devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.’ ” Ruby crouched against the ground and somewhere under the rubble of men she could hear Ephram calling for her. The world began to sway for Ruby, as if she were in a tire swing, up and down, up and down. And the burden of my heart rolled away. Ruby swung her open fist at the women before they reached her, falling off balance from her own momentum, from the sway of the earth. She overheard one woman whisper, You sho was right, Sister Jennings, them demons got hold of her for sure! Then a chorus of You sho was. Tell the truth and shame the Devil. Amen! Then from Celia, “Child, accept the Lord, renounce the sin that opened the doorway to the unclean spirit.” Ruby’s growl was a roar now, she heard a song bitten off in a crush of voices. Ruby could see through the legs of the women. The Pastor was bending over Ephram, throwing something down on him; he yelled out. Someone grabbed at her left leg and held it tight so she kicked the right with great might as the tire swing looped over and over, spinning the hands and the stars, and her growl had turned to biting snarls and oil was on her forehead, now her right arm was held when she looked down in the mud and saw the pocketknife; she grabbed it in her left hand and swung. It caught the fleshy part of Celia’s thumb. The Bible went flying. The world fell silent as the women backed away. Ruby leapt to her feet, the knife thrown into her right hand. She stood like a beast. Celia was scrambling up, up, then running, then tripping over Righteous Polk’s brown legs and falling flat, and Ruby was over her and she was screaming, blubbering something about her thumb, about not to cut her, please God, yelling, That crazy bitch is gonna kill me, as Ruby towered over her, knife pointed sharp against the wind. The thumb squeezed out blood that fell on the earth and Ruby’s children scrambled away, scrambled into the chinaberry, scrambled into the tip-top branches. Then the men were all up, running towards her, She’s got a knife. Gonna hurt Sister Celia! Tryin’ to kill her. Grab her! I ain’t ’bout to get myself cut. Jump her back. You jump her back, fool, don’t be telling me what to do. The roar was bellowing from Ruby’s chest, the knife pointed at her tormentor when some man came up to her, his voice was soft like she had heard in a dream and he was saying her name, saying, Please don’t hurt my sister, saying, Please, baby, give me the knife, they done now, ain’t y’all done? And a chorus of voices agreeing that they were done. But done is a cake, like the one some man brought her days before, done is a cobbler like the kind some women stuffed into her mouth, done had nothing to do with this she wanted to say but the sound from her mouth mixed with saliva dripping. Then someone was reaching out to her, some hand was on her wrist saying, Baby, stop Ruby, please, for the love of God, so she threw the knife back into her left hand and cut into the air only it wasn’t air, it was soft, and then it was hard and then it was wet warm wet warm warm wet sticky warm and a man was falling like a dove to the earth and then everyone was gathering and blood, blood hitting the earth. Dark wet spreading from the belly of his shirt. Then they were lifting him, all of them, the woman and her fat thumb screaming and crying, tears flying hot under the trees. There was a parade of men and women screaming, directing, saying to put pressure, to move, to — but words were a rumble in her head as she fell to the earth. Now the growl of a broken spent thing oozed from her mouth. Somewhere in the distance they carried a man, a man spilling blood, spilling hope, spilling a name over and over and over again, a name she had forgotten was hers.
Alone on the hill the black book flipped wind-thin pages, spine open on the earth. Ruby lay on her side and watched as they flipped this way and that, this and that, catching the moon in their white. Her body was untouched, unharmed, still she did not move, could not move, only watch the wind and the paper for hours, her heart pounding soft in her chest, until the black night became gray, and gray became the pink of sunrise, and pink became yellow, which became hot white and the pages dried from morning dew and started turning again. She heard a buckboard easing down the road, some kind of tittering as it rolled steadily by. Lucky that it was a back road, lucky not one single human paused at her door. Finally, as the evening settled, Ruby heard the black bird cutting the air with a gentle clucking. She crawled towards it, then discovering the knife still in her hand, brick brown sticking between her fingers, she plunged it into the earth and dragged her body after her. It seemed impossible to use her legs, unthinkable to stand. In this way she made it to the chinaberry as the sun was dipping over the western horizon, orange and plum streaking after it.