The Eulogist Read online

  The air was rife with pine and tobacco and harvested hemp. Autumn thistle nipped at Abel’s fetlocks as we fell into a companionable trot. Whole families—including slaves, chickens, and sheep—joined the procession as if everyone had heard the call. For an entire day, in wagons and on foot, upon horses and mules, we swarmed the road as it diminished to a lane, a trail, a field, hooves and wheels pummeling the sod and grinding it to dust.

  “Heavens,” I said, fanning myself with my bonnet, “what a horde.” I nervously eyed the hatter from Maysville, who had joined us some miles back. Riding alongside us, he had been prattling on to Erasmus that he was fleeing persecution.

  “What is it that persecutes you?” Erasmus asked.

  “Demons,” said the hatter.

  “Demons?” said I, looking at the insects buzzing about his face. “Why, sir, ’tis flies.”

  “Flies to you,” said the hatter with an evil look.

  He pulled ahead and was replaced at our side by a slave chauffeuring the two old women in a carriage who had been traveling for days, having heard about the revival from a neighbor who heard it from a seed salesman who read it on a flyer in Versailles, Kentucky.

  “Have you heard the Word of the Lord?” they said cheerfully, leaning forward in the carriage.

  “Alleluia,” said I.

  There was talk of little else. Who would be preaching? How many people might gather? Whatever glory awaited us was sure to pale in comparison to the shared confections of our speculation.

  And then we were upon the revival camp—a vast field already dotted by tents and reverberating with the din of sawing and pounding, shouting and song. Erasmus scanned the landscape, trying to find a pattern in the chaos or at least a face he recognized. Then he spotted the farmer we had hailed on the road, who, with his three children, was setting to string a rope between some trees and build a shelter.

  “Hail, brother,” said Erasmus, navigating us to the site. “We are wondering if we might keep you company in this paradise?” He jerked his head at me in the dray beside him. “A little tabernacle for my sister.”

  The farmer, whose name was Fenton, looked at the oldest girl, who shrugged. “My wife says it is all right. You and I can sleep out under the stars ’less it rains.”

  His wife? The girl looked barely sixteen—and already a mother of two! “Thank you kindly,” I said, dismounting from the carriage with the help of Fenton. I was coated with dust and needed to relieve myself, but I could see little prospect of privacy.

  As if he read my mind, Fenton said, “They’ve set latrines up yonder. You might want to keep Caroline company.”

  Thanking him, I walked with his young wife to a sheeted area that enclosed a series of holes in the ground and buckets of water. It made the amenities at Mrs. Humphries’s seem luxurious, but I was so happy to be away from that boardinghouse that I gathered my skirts up around my waist and squatted. Seeing as Caroline was squatting next to me, I said, “How long have you been married?”

  “Four years,” she said. With her dress pulled up, I could see her burgeoning belly and knew she was with child.

  “Fenton looks a bit older than you.”

  She did not seem to take offense. Just stood up from where she was squatting and fixed her pantaloons into place. “Old enough to be my daddy. But then, my daddy and ma are dead, as is Fenton’s first wife and family. So me and Fenton . . . we started over. Praise be to God.”

  “Praise be to God,” said I, though given the death of Fenton’s family and Caroline’s parents, I was unsure as to what we were praising.

  We walked back to the camp, where Erasmus and Fenton had managed to wrestle a couple of tarps into not-half-bad shelters. Fenton was describing how his family, along with several others, including Caroline’s parents, had been scalped and left to die. “You know, Brother Erasmus, if it weren’t for the comfort I find in the Word, I fear I might not have been able to carry on. Four girls and a boy—all dead. A wife so lovely it would make you weep. That was the end of Illinois. You can have Illinois as far as I’m concerned.”

  Erasmus took a tobacco leaf out of his pouch and deliberately rolled it. “Well, you have a lovely wife now,” he said. “Young.”

  That evening after we had eaten a meal of fried corn and stew and were walking back toward the tent, I grabbed Erasmus and made him face me. He had an inch or two on me, but I could rear up, and that evening I did, looking him so hard in the eye and stating in no uncertain terms that he would not abuse the friendship of farmer Fenton no matter how young and comely his wife, no matter how many sidelong glances she tossed at him, no matter if she thought Erasmus was the Second Coming.

  “Livvie, I have no idea what you are talking about.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Look, Erasmus, these people have a second chance. Do not go saving one soul too many.”

  * * *

  For the first few days, I watched Erasmus around Caroline like a raptor. Once or twice I saw his eyes linger and imagined him imagining her. At night, I slept on hastily made beds of straw next to Caroline and the two children. The ground was hard, and the ignominy of lying among strangers took me back to the tight quarters of our Atlantic crossing. We ladies did our best with our hair and the cleanliness of our garments, but in the end, we sacrificed our comportment and made do with the dirt and the flies and the shocking lack of privacy.

  In the morning, I helped Caroline with the wash and tending to the children. Children have always been drawn to me, though I know not why. I was fierce and ill-tempered, and my resemblance to a hawk had been remarked upon more than once. Nevertheless, there was excitement—the excitement of expectation. Even I felt it, though I was sure I had nothing in common with most of the assembled that were hoping for Second Comings or at least an assurance that Jesus had not plain forgotten them like a hand-me-down pair of gloves.

  “So do you really think the spirit comes into you, Caroline?”

  “Oh, who knows?” said Caroline as she busily chased the toddler who, but for being a boy, looked just like her. Her calico skirts twirled around and settled. “But Fenton puts it in me either way.”

  That old goat, I thought. But a flash of envy swept through me.

  “Sister,” said Caroline, “have you ever . . .”

  “No,” I said quickly. “I am unmarried.”

  “But your brother’s mighty fine.”

  For the first time, I discerned keenness in eyes that had otherwise struck me as dull. I said, “He is my brother.”

  To which she said, “And we are all in the wilderness.”

  * * *

  All the next day and the day after that, the racket of call and response, the hollers of hucksters calling to a captive audience of pilgrims, the songs of worshippers threatening to ignite the sere grass. I expect there were a thousand people and from all over, given the different accents. Indians, too, and Negroes, some even of the free variety, who had started their own churches in the North. I tagged along after Erasmus as he visited every camp, looking for affiliation. At night, the fireflies competed with the glow of lanterns and cook fires. A makeshift band of a banjo, a harmonica, and a fiddle sounded out the notes of a melodic and righteous God.

  Praise God from whom all blessings flow . . .

  Sparks flew. Leaves reddened, the damp air presaging winter. I pulled my shawl tighter around my shoulders. There were several men looking at me. Dear lord, thought I.

  It looked like half the population of the border states had congregated, if not to worship, then to socialize in what might otherwise be a bacchanal, had more liquor been available. This little city of tents was teeming, and it was easy to get lost. Turn this way, and you would end up with the Baptists. Miss your lane, and some Holy Rollers would have you in their midst. I came across scenes I shall never forget: men blessing women in overly familiar ways; the next moment, someone crying out praise, or just crying out, weeping, apparently, from joy.

  In the end, it was not Caroline whom I had to wat
ch. On separate platforms, groups of preachers teamed up to damn or save our sorry souls. I have never heard such palavering before or since—Amen! and Glory! and Sweet Jesus!—a frenzy, mind you, completely without restraint.

  Born of sin, ye are. And but for the Lord’s forgiveness, in sin ye shall die.

  I was crammed between Caroline and one of the ladies from Versailles. Erasmus stood at the back of the tent in hope of special vantage from which to study the orators. Tonight’s fare was Presbyterian, but it was no Presbyterianism I recognized. The first man who took the stage began to pace back and forth and query the congregation. Had we looked into our souls? (Evidently, we had not.) Did we know Jesus as a friend? A personal friend? Really? How? If we thought we knew Jesus, was it not possible that it was Satan in the guise of Jesus—a wolf in sheep’s clothing—for hadn’t we all sinned by gambling, swearing, whoring, drinking, cheating, and thinking unclean thoughts? (I confess to the last in this litany.)

  Did we want to know Jesus?

  Those among us who were most eager (assuredly not I) were invited to the front to sit upon the “anxious bench” while a succession of preachers worked their magic. The second preacher took the stage, and I gasped, for there he stood in all his ghoulish glee—no one better suited to treat us to images of hell, for he was so well versed in the subject that I suspected he might have actually visited the place—Ephraim Morrissey, the pious purveyor of pornography packaged as preaching who had left Cincinnati two weeks earlier.

  “Those who will not repent shall be eternally damned,” Morrissey roared, “. . . in tar-laden air that shall choke the breath . . .”

  I was stunned to see him, for I was under the impression that he had left to take up a new congregation. Next to me, Caroline began to squirm. She had not yet risen to the anxious bench, but her discomfort was palpable. With each acid word, I could feel her sweet ardor succumb to Morrissey’s tongue. Conjuring from Deuteronomy, “the waste howling wilderness” and “the teeth of beasts and the poison of crawling things,” he exhorted that many of us were already condemned with no hope of redemption.

  “You are shaking, sister,” I said to Caroline.

  “And you are not?”

  Dusk now. On the face of the reverend, torchlight rendered the terrain of Hades. The crowd was in his thrall as if mesmerized by the bared fangs of a snake. Looking into each of us, he said, “The Devil will push himself into the boudoir of your wives and daughters, seizing their weak souls, possessing them for himself . . .”

  Then we heard it.

  “Alleluia.”

  It came from the back of the room. A shuffling as some turned to see who had tossed this white stone into Morrissey’s murky pond.

  “Alleluia.”

  “Oh dear,” I said, for by the second time he spoke, I knew it was my brother. He was striding down the aisle, a look of determination both in his gait and on his face.

  Please no, I thought.

  “Calm yourself, Brother Ephraim,” shouted Erasmus, bounding up onto the stage. He took the Reverend Morrissey by the shoulders, affronting the older man to the point of dumbness. Then he turned toward the crowd. “We must all thank the righteous reverend, but I bring good news. Behold, the Lamb of God!” Sweeping his gaze across us, Erasmus cried out, “Lo! I come to speak of salvation, not tribulation. The time of the singing of the birds is come!” He raised his arms. “Alleluia!”

  A murmur of confusion erupted all around me. Caroline said, “Sweet mercy. Is that your brother?”

  Erasmus cleared his throat. His eye bored into every individual in the first row. His voice brimmed with emotion as he shouted even louder, “Alleluia!”

  This time the crowd responded with a tentative “Alleluia?”

  “Jesus died so that God may shower us with His mercy. And there shall be upon the fields a great flowering of hope. Alleluia!”

  With more certainty now—“Alleluia!”

  “What?” said Morrissey.

  “Jesus suffered on the cross so that we could rise. And the angels will come to lift us up. The time is nigh. Alleluia!”

  “Alleluia!”

  “For the year of jubilee is come!”

  “Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!”

  Even I joined in, albeit weakly. By the fifth alleluia, many had begun to weep in response to Erasmus’s promise of joy on earth in spite of Man’s lowly condition and horrible sins if only they would come to Jesus, come to Jesus, come ye sinners, come.

  And out of the crowd she came, her arms thrust forward, her palms turned upward as if she was pleading—the beautiful girl who had won the heart of James. Her transformation was so extreme that I barely recognized that gracious creature. Her auburn locks had descended into chaos, her lovely eyes gone wild. So possessed seemed she that, had I been a Catholic, I would have crossed myself. As it was, I could only gawk while one by one the congregation took note of her, the last one being Erasmus, who was so busy issuing glad tidings that he was unaware until she was only feet away. Upon seeing her, he paused but a moment before his torrent of words increased in pace and volume like a river after a squall. He spared nothing, even as Julia Morrissey crawled onto the stage and knelt before him, shoulders convulsing. Indeed, were he to lie right down then and there and personally bestow rapture upon the prostrate woman, I would not have been surprised. But Ephraim Morrissey stepped in.

  “Daughter,” said Morrissey gruffly, taking her arm. “Stand up.”

  But she did not stand. Instead she wrestled away from him and threw herself at Erasmus’s feet. Erasmus placed his hand on her brow and lowered his voice.

  “Come, sister. Come to Jesus.”

  The crowd let out a collective sigh as if they had all been taken in holy consummation and, indeed, in love.

  Ephraim Morrissey glared, an inferno of rage just beneath his skin. “Beware, my son, or the land will vomit you out.”

  Erasmus took Julia’s hand and helped her to her feet. “No more shall we quiver and quake before a vengeful God, for the Word of God is Love, and Love shall lift us up.” Ephraim Morrissey opened his mouth to protest, but his words were drowned out as the captivated crowd burst into a rousing rendition of “Blow, Ye Trumpets! Blow!”

  “Well,” said Caroline, while everyone around us bellowed, “your brother sure has a knack.”

  Chapter 8

  1828–1829

  I plunked down on my bed and threw off my hat. My hair was a sight, and my shoes were ruined, and I dearly wanted to boil some water and take a brush to my skin. Any minute now, James would return, and here I was, a heap of filth and disarray and no small situation to explain, though it hardly seemed up to me, but who else knew of James’s intentions—and besides, James would hold me accountable regardless of anything I might say, whether it was to tell him how the Reverend Morrissey had blown smoke like the Devil, or that Fenton and the hatter had to intervene and hustle us out in the middle of the night, the marriage having been performed by a Methodist preacher from Louisville who, by last count, had hitched twelve couples in less than a week. No matter that Erasmus and Julia had known each other barely two days at the hour of their betrothal, and both believing that it was “fate”—a laughable view, in my opinion, having far less to do with “fate” than a pressing physical urge, the consummation of which, I am certain, preceded the nuptials, and me all stiff and cramped for having had to share the hard bench on the wagon ride home with yet another body who now occupied the only chair in my bedroom, staring out the window.

  “Julia,” I said to my new sister-in-law, who held a pair of gloves in her hands as if she was prepared to leave at any moment. “Were you aware that my brother James had set his heart on you?”

  “Oh.”

  It was a punctuation—nay, not even that, for an “oh” that carries the weight of a question mark or an exclamation would have an inflection—something—that betrayed emotion. This was an “oh” so devoid of compassion or shock or dismay that I suspected she was unable to pla
ce James or could hardly recall having met him. That she was drained and spent, to my mind, hardly excused her, for I was girding myself to intercept my brother, and not with happy news.

  And so, when the time came, I met James at the door, having prepared a little speech about how Erasmus had not known of James’s infatuation (would it have mattered?) and how it was in the passion of the moment that Julia had been swept away (such passion, I might add, that any memory she might have had of James paled like the flick of a match to the roar of a forest fire).

  Instead, I blurted out, “Erasmus has taken a wife . . .” but was unable to finish, for James had already entered the parlor and beheld Julia, a look of delight infusing his expression to such a degree it would break your heart.

  “Miss Morrissey?”

  “Oh,” said she, and this time she could not quite hide the dawning realization of her betrayal, intentional or not, for had not James Givens paid close attention at church socials, taking special care to seek her out—although, truth be told, there were so many gentlemen in Cincinnati who pressed their case upon Julia Morrissey, yet none of them, not one, including James, stirring in her the inexplicable lurch of longing that Erasmus Givens had when he stood up to and so passionately contradicted her father.

  Everyone else seems scared of my father, she told me on the ride home. And with good reason, she had added without elaboration.

  I wished that I’d stood up to Ephraim Morrissey myself, but confronting ministers has never served me well.

  Erasmus set down his pipe and took Julia’s hand. “James, I have wonderful news. Miss Morrissey and I are married.”

  James made a sound—something between a cough and a retch. He stared at Julia so long I thought he was having a seizure. “Married?”

  “Brother,” said Julia, extending her hand.

  James wrenched his gaze from her to Erasmus. “To you?”

  In the light of the parlor filled with Givens candles, Julia’s hair was more burnished than ever.