THE SECOND COMING

II

                I arrived at Uncle T.J.'s house on time. Clifton was ready. I don’t think that I would have been disappointed if he had thought up an alternative adventure. But he was as determined as ever and we were soon on our way. We told his grandparents that we were going to check our trotlines. I don’t think they even heard us. They were sitting on the front porch, Aunt Hallie snapping green beans and Uncle T.H. reading the Bible. Neither of them looked up. We backed off the porch and across the yard, quietly. Then we simply evaporated, headed for the bayou.

Clifton was giving the directions and I was following as best I could. I was, at the same time, plotting an escape route in the event that old man Ratliff became involved. I didn't mention this to Clifton, of course, for it was his strong belief that if you even thought of an unlucky possibility it was more likely than not to happen. Planning for any sort of mishap, would, in his way of looking at it, invite that very disaster, so why bother?

                "Lucky for us they live on the edge of the bayou," Clifton explained as we crossed the Ratliff's field. "We'll act like that's where we're headed and then we'll just move up in the cover of the woods when the sun starts going down."

                "Sounds good." I tried to sound older than I was.

                "You ain't told nobody, have you?'

                "Who would I tell - Mama and Papa?"

                "Something like this, well you just got to keep it to yourself," Clifton said with a wise nod. "No use letting it get around."

                "You're right," I agreed and fought away the image of old man Ratliff's knife.

We decided to sit for a time on the bank of the bayou to wait for the sun to go down. It was quiet and peaceful there. The shade felt good and there was a soft summer breeze drifting through. We had a few moments - time to ponder the greater mysteries of life.

                "Clifton?"

                "What."

                "Why do men want to?"

                "Want to what?"

                "You know," I struggled for the words.  "See nekkid women."

                "Just something to do," said Clifton.  "Just for fun, like us I reckon. Why else would they want to?"

                "That's what I wondered, myself," and I noticed that the woods were getting darker. "Think it's nearly time?"

                "Purty near," he replied and I felt something inside me tremble like it was cold but I knew it couldn't be in August.

                "Clifton?"

                "What."

                "Do you reckon we'd go to hell for this?"

                "We ain't old enough. You got to get to what they call the ‘age of accountability’ for it to count that hard agin’ you."  He paused for a minute as he chewed on a twig.  "I reckon we're safe from about anything for a couple of more years. Except maybe killin' or something."

                "Oh," I said. I hoped that the relief didn't show through in my voice.

                "So I guess we'd better get going," he said.

                "Yep, I guess we'd better," I said.

                We were able to stay well hidden by hanging close to the edge of the bayou, it being so low that time of year.  We got due south of the Ratliff place just as it got dusky dark for we could make out the two oak trees that stood by the house place. As we began to ease our way up the bank toward a vantage spot, Clifton whispered his final instructions.

                "No more talkin'. Find yourself a low tree limb to sit in and enjoy the show. I"ll whistle like a Bob White two times when it's time to go. Okay?"

                "Okay," I whispered, thankful that I didn't have to muster enough spit to talk out loud.

                "You won't forget this night," Clifton said, and disappeared into the darkness.

                He didn’t have to tell me that. I eased forward toward where I thought the house was and immediately decided to amend Clifton's plan. I wasn't going to climb any tree and risk getting caught there by a Ratliff. No thank you. I'd take my chances on foot even if it meant getting in closer.

                I took each step slowly, easing through the foliage as I had been taught to when hunting, not making a sound, even when walking on dry leaves, the way they said Indians could do. I parted each vine carefully, half expecting some trap to spring, set by a Ratliff as a precaution against...  well against people like me.

All around me the night voices of lowland insects had erupted with the end of the last light and I had never heard them enjoin so loudly. Surely they were alerting the household to the presence of strangers. I stopped, swallowed as best I could, and eased forward again. Never in my life, I imagined, would I ever be as alone as I was now.

                "Surely I'm almost there," I was thinking when the area directly in front of me exploded in light. I froze in my steps. A sharp, electric surge raced across the back of my tongue and I could almost see the front of my overalls bounce with every beat of my heart which I knew could be heard for half a mile. I couldn’t, of course, see my hair but I was sure it was standing straight up. This was it. This was what life had come to for a ten-year-old boy who would never see another adventure, who in fact was destined to die before his first was really underway good. I froze and waited.

                Then I realized that I was still in the shadow of the woods and that, at least yet, nothing was coming for me. As I watched, with blood screeching through my head with every heartbeat, the scene formed before me.

                The light was coming from a lantern which had been swinging from an arm and which now was being set on a barrel. The light framed a clearing about fifty feet across with the Ratliff's chicken house on the back side and the woods on the other three. In the center of the light was Geehaw Ratliff. Her head was framed in its glow and the scene brought back a memory of something I had seen before. But I was too scared to remember what. A picture of something I had seen. What was it?

Then I remembered. In the Bible, the pictures of the Virgin Mary always looked like that. With her head framed in light and all. The Wise Men would be looking at her and the Baby Jesus and the light would glow all around them like this. But this wasn’t the Virgin Mary and the Baby Jesus. It was Gehaw Ratliff and I was not a wise man I felt, just a common sinner, watching something I had no business watching.

She had all her clothes on but there was a number three washtub in front of the barrel and I could see that the tub was full of water. It had no doubt been set out earlier to warm in the sun. As for me, I was completely hidden in the dark, but another step or two would have had me walking into the clearing just as Gehaw did.

                So it seemed that for now I was safe. Gehaw went about her business without looking our way so I guessed that Clifton was safe as well and had a good view. Gradually, my heart stopped pounding and I felt as normal as a person could have felt under those circumstances, I suppose.  Actually if you had known the truth, there were a lot of places where I would rather have been, but I was here so I determined to take her in for all it was worth.

                As my presence of mind returned, I noticed that Gehaw didn't seem in any hurry to take a bath. In fact, she seemed a little nervous and kept looking toward the far corner of the chicken house. I was puzzled. If she was going to take a bath I wished that she would get it over with so I could find Clifton and get the hell out of there.

                Then I saw what she was looking for. There was someone else that had come to take part in this Saturday night ritual, a guest that was surely more welcome than the two of us. He was standing in the shadows at the edge of the building but I could make out who it was and I tell you I was shocked to the bottom of my feet, more shocked still when Gehaw walked over to him like she had been waiting for him all of her life, and shocked further when she took him by the hands and spoke to him so softly that I couldn't hear.

I was so shocked, in fact, that I didn't notice old man Ratliff come around the opposite corner.

             "Come out from around there," he yelled and I turned to see him clearly in the light.

I guess, now that I think about it, it was just a regular shotgun. But in that pale light, with the bugs beginning to swirl around it, things took on a bizarre look and the gun sure looked bigger. It looked more like a cannon, I thought, and it wasn’t even aimed at me.

"I got you now," Mr. Ratliff said. He sounded like a man on a hunt that had just trapped a coon in a tree.

“Hot damn boys, I got him now!” I half expected him to say something like that.

                Gehaw didn't say a word, just flattened herself against the building like maybe she could get so that her Papa couldn't see her. 

                "Girl git to the house," he said and motioned that way with the gun. Then he addressed the still hidden figure again.  "I told you once to get around here you son of a bitch. I got a shotgun."

                The other man never moved. I was the only one who could see them both and I could tell that he wanted to run but maybe he didn't know exactly where Mr. Ratliff was or whether there might be some more Ratliffs waiting where he wanted to run. Mr. Ratliff started toward that end of the chicken house.

It was when he was about halfway there that Gehaw let out a scream that curled my toes and that was when we first saw it. We must have all seen it right about the time that she screamed, for I heard the man behind the chicken house yell "Oh my God!" Gehaw was still screaming and even Mr. Ratliff stopped to look.

The shotgun went off.

                Let me tell you, it was confusing for a couple of seconds.  Old man Ratliff must have fired the gun off accidentally when he saw the thing in the sky and when that happened, the other man just disappeared. In fact, there seemed to be movement everywhere.

The spray from the gun hit the roof of the chicken house right over Gehaw's head and shingles flew every which way. She bolted and ran right by me out into the edge of the field and ran smack into a section harrow. The handle was sticking up and she hit it with a thud that made me sick to my stomach. She screamed again but just kept running out of the light and into the cotton field.

                "Come back daughter," old man Ratliff yelled but it was no use. She was gone. He didn't stay long either. He took one more look into the sky, threw down the shotgun and ran for the house screaming, "Mamma get the boys, the world's coming to an end and I done kilt Caroline!"

                “Caroline?” So that was her name. Of all the shocking things going on before me, I remember being most interested in the fact that Gehaw had a real name.

                Then I heard the woods coming alive to my right and in a second I heard Clifton holler, "Bobby, you all right?"

                "Yeah," I hollered back. "I'm right over here."

                Clifton materialized in a second and, after assuring himself that I hadn't been shot, pointed to the sky.  "What in the hell is that?"

                What we were looking was described by a lot of people in a lot of different ways, but I can tell you what it looked like to me, and, if Clifton were here, he would probably tell you the same thing. It was a great ball of fire off to the east and it was moving in mysterious loops looking to the whole world like a fiery host descending toward us ever so deliberately.

                There are those who say it wrote out various messages but don’t believe that. It was just moving back and forth across the sky like it was trying to decide exactly where it wanted to land. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you it was a frightening spectacle.

                "Let's get the hell out from here," said Clifton. I couldn't have been more in agreement.

                We didn't have to take the route back through the woods.  We could hear the whole Ratliff family already heading out to the road, all of them yelling for Gehaw. Clifton and I just skirted the edge of the field until we hit the road and then we started down it like we had been there all along.