Spencer's Mountain (8 page)

One year after Lucy's Christmas presentation half the congregation stopped speaking to her because she had given all the principal parts in the pageant to her own children, ugly little skinflinty things; they all looked like cats, and since it was the year Barbie-Glo was taking that mail-order course in toe dancing, Lucy had worked in a toe dance for Barbie-Glo who was playing the part of Mary the Mother of Jesus, and her little brother Woodrow, who was supposed to be
Joseph but forgot all his lines and turned the whole thing into an awful mess.

There were even those in the Baptist church who hoped now that a new minister was coming he might appoint someone else, more capable if somewhat less dedicated than Lucy, to conduct the annual celebration which had become such an ordeal.

In the living room of the parsonage, Ida Italiano and Eunice Crittenbarger were waxing furniture. Eunice was a snoop and a gossip and turned every social encounter into an opportunity to find out anything she could about other people's business. Since prying into other people's affairs came naturally to Eunice it was inevitable that she become the local correspondent for The Charlottesville
Citizen
and submit to the newspaper each week an account of what she considered newsworthy in New Dominion, some of which was published and which earned her the sum of three dollars a week. For this sum she would submit from ten to fifteen pages of single-spaced, badly typed copy from which the editors had to delete such items as:

“I wonder what old Preacher Goolsby really did die of,” Eunice remarked to Ida.

“I think it was just old age,” replied Ida. “He'd been feeble for years and he was way up in his eighties.”

“I don't know,” said Eunice. “Once they get sick people over there in that Old University of Virginia Hospital you're
just as good as dead. All they do is let them young students cut people open and study what's inside 'em.”

“I've heard that,” said Ida, “but they sure were nice to me over there that time I broke my hip. The nurses took real good care of me and never a day went by the doctor didn't come in and look at me. He was an Episcopalian, that doctor, but he was just as nice as he could be.”

“Anyway, I'll bet we never do find out exactly what Preacher Goolsby passed on with. Miss Ida, didn't you and Preacher Goolsby have a fallen-out one time?”

“It wasn't what you would call a fallen-out. No,” said Ida.

“Seems like I heard y'all had a fuss or somethen.”

“What you're thinken about was when Preacher Goolsby married Clay and Livy. But it wasn't any fuss and never a harsh word passed between us. He come to me the very next day and told me he'd married 'em, said he turned 'em down at first, but they would have found another preacher somewhere, and they would of. But there never was any hard feelens between the preacher and me.”

“What did you have against Clay Spencer marryen Livy?”

“Clay was a wild boy. I don't reckon I would of carried on so if I'd known then how he'd settle down. He's been a good husband to Livy and I love him now just like one of my own. You won't find a more good-hearted man than Clay Spencer.

“I love to hear Clay tell a joke. I'll be feelen just as blue as I can be, real down in the dumps, and I'll run into Clay Spencer and he'll have me laughen in no time.

“Clay drinks and he takes the Lord's name in vain, but he's a good provider for Livy and he's a good father to them children. Lord, how he loves them children. I reckon you just have to take the good and the bad in this world. We better do some work, Eunice, or that preacher's goen to walk in here and find us gabben our heads off.”

***

As the late evening sun shifted into the west it cast a pool of light into a particularly fruitful fishing hole on the
Rockfish River. It illuminated for a moment an empty whiskey bottle, an enormous string of sizable bass and two drunken men.

“There was something I stopped here to ask you,” Mr. Goodson said. “I can't for the life of me remember what it was.” He baited his hook and cast with an elaborate gesture, but the bait fell into the water directly in front of him while he searched with unsteady eyes across the river where the bait should have gone.

“Maybe you just stopped to do some fishen,” suggested Clay. He lay in the grass squinting up at the falling sun, his hands crossed over his belly. His hook had long since been swept downstream and into an overhanging willow tree where it was hopelessly entangled.

“I can't remember why I stopped at all,” said Mr. Goodson, and he started to sit back in the grass. When he was halfway down there came a sudden whirring from his reel, a big fish from the sound of it.

“Jesus Christ!” shouted Clay.

“That's it!” said Mr. Goodson.

“Grab that fishen pole, man,” shouted Clay. “You have done snagged yourself a sea monster.”

“That's what I stopped to ask. Which way is New Dominion?”

“The hell with New Dominion,” cried Clay. “Bring in that fish, son.”

The entire length of cord had unwound from the reel and the rod was bent in a taut oval and the line was tearing through the water so fast it made a sizzling sound. There was so much tension on the line that the rod was beginning to slide gradually into the river.

Mr. Goodson caught up with the reel at the river's edge. When he held the rod securely he gave a slight jerk to set the hook in the mouth of whatever behemoth had taken his bait. Slowly, torturously, he began to reel in. Beside him, Clay interrupted his prayer only to shout some unintelligible direction for landing the fish.

Neither of them was ever to know what was at the other end of the line. With a stinging zip the line snapped and the bent rod snapped straight.

“Great Jumpin' Jesus!” shouted Clay. “Damn to hell that black-souled fish and Jonah's black-bellied whale!”

Mr. Goodson blinked.

“You shouldn't talk that way in front of me,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because I am a minister of God,” Mr. Goodson said. “I may even be your minister.”

“I ain't got no minister except the sun of the sky and the dirt of the earth,” said Clay.

“I am the new minister of New Dominion,” insisted Mr. Goodson.

“You're lyen,” said Clay.

“No sir,” said Mr. Goodson and hiccoughed.

Clay began to laugh. Almost immediately his laughter got out of hand and the great gulping
wah wah wah
sounds that were coming out of him were too strong to take standing up. He fell to the ground in a paroxysm of gleeful suffering, rolling over and over in the weeds, the mud and the pebbles along the side of the river. It was only when he rolled into the river itself, immersing himself completely, that the sound of his spasm of laughter fell still.

The sheepish grin on the minister's face turned to a look of concern as Clay disappeared beneath the water. But as quickly as he went down Clay was on the surface again. Making a great splash and cry he paddled about in the river and when he had refreshed himself he headed in to the shore. He crawled out onto the bank and lay there for a moment to catch his breath.

Mr. Goodson staggered down to where Clay lay inhaling and exhaling vigorously. He bent unsteadily over Clay and inquired, “You didn't see anything of that fish I lost down there, did you?”

Clay rose up and threw his soaking wet arm around his new-found friend.

“Son,” he said, “you're too good to lose. Come on, I'm goen to escort you to the Baptist parsonage myself.”

***

The parsonage had been spotless since four in the afternoon. Now it was close to six o'clock and the ladies were more
than anxious to go home and prepare supper for their men, but not one of them was of a mind to leave without greeting the new preacher when he arrived.

There were several conjectures about what might have happened to him, but not one of the ladies had the ingenuity to guess that the fault was Clay Spencer's.

When the sound of a car approached they would look up eagerly; when one finally stopped in front of the parsonage the entire membership of the Ladies Aid Society rushed up to the window and concealed themselves behind one of the white lacy window curtains they had installed that afternoon.

The arrival of the new minister would have been dramatic enough had he merely stepped out of the car and walked up to the front door. But the way in which he was to arrive was to furnish conversation for the next ten to fifteen years. In the first place, the ladies were astonished to see Clay Spencer step out of the car. Walking almost as if he were sober, which he nearly was by this time, Clay made his way around to the other side of the car. He opened the door, eased something out that had been slouched against it and threw it over his shoulder. Unaware that any eyes rested on him, Clay started for the parsonage carrying the inert body of the new Baptist minister. When he opened the front door he found himself staring into a circle of female faces.

“Good Lord, Clay, what's happened?” cried Lucy Godlove.

“He's all right,” said Clay. “He's just…” He had started to tell them the preacher's real condition, but he realized that he must not. “He's all right,” he said. “He just run into somethen.”

A chorus of sympathetic voices offered suggestions that somebody go after the doctor, that the preacher be put in bed, and that he ought to be kept warm. As the ladies pressed closer to offer aid they realized that Clay had been drinking.

“Clay,” said Lucy, “you are in no condition to take care of him. Put him down here and we'll do for him.”

“I'll just take him up to his bed if you'll show me the way, Miss Lucy,” said Clay, backing away.

“That preacher is liable to have infernal injuries,” declared
Lucy. “You can't tell what's broke inside him there and you ought not to be moven him around.”

“He'll be all right. All he needs is a little sleep,” insisted Clay, practically dancing around the room to keep the persistent Lucy from detecting the liquor on the preacher's breath. The activity began to rouse the preacher. He struggled up out of Clay's arms and assumed an unsteady upright position on the floor. Silence had fallen in the room which was broken only when one of the women sneezed.

“Bless you,” said the minister with a friendly smile.

Lucy Godlove's suspicion had become aroused and she stepped forward, put her face up close to the preacher's face and drew in a deep breath. She turned to the other members of the Ladies Aid Society and announced in a whisper of disbelief, “He's dead drunk.”

The ladies withdrew like a flock of hens discovering a rattlesnake in their midst. They reassembled on the road in front of the house and stood looking back at the parsonage in outrage.

Gradually it dawned on the preacher what had happened.

“God in Heaven,” he exclaimed.

“It's a good thing for you He's on your side,” observed Clay, “You're goen to need Him.”

***

The regular Sunday morning service at the Baptist church was not held the following morning. Mr. Goodson arrived a full hour before the meeting was scheduled but he was the first and only soul to arrive. For a long time he waited at the door for someone to come, and he was almost relieved that no one did appear. He was badly hung over. Further up the road the service at the Methodist church had gotten under way and it did not help his spirits any to hear them singing:

Mr. Goodson wished he had never seen a river. He wished he had never seen New Dominion and he especially wished he had never seen Clay Spencer. His career as a minister in New Dominion had been cut short even before it had begun and perhaps his entire ministry was doomed. He remained at the church until noon and then returned to the spic-and-span parsonage and sat trying to map out some campaign to win back his lost flock.

It was noon before Clay heard the outcome of his encounter with the new minister the day before. He had fished since early morning and returned home for Sunday dinner in the middle of the day. Olivia's mother and father had stopped by, as they always did after church on Sunday, and the entire family was sitting on the front porch. From the way his mother-in-law was rocking in her rocking chair, Clay could tell that she was furious.

“Miss Ida, I want you to know I'm sorry for getten that preacher tight yesterday,” he said.

“Huh,” said Ida without so much as a look in his direction.

“I didn't know he was a preacher until it was too late,” said Clay.

“What makes me so mad is that just yesterday I was tellen somebody what a good man you were, Clay Spencer,” said Ida grimly. “I could bite my tongue off today. You've ruined the Baptists, you're a shame to the community, and it's a wonder the Good Lord don't strike you dead in your tracks.”

“Aw now, Miss Ida,” said Clay, “it don't do a man no harm to take a drop once in a while. Even a preacher. And it wouldn't surprise me if that fellow didn't do a lot of good for this community. How powerful is he in the pulpit? Did he preach a good sermon?”

“I wouldn't know about that,” said Ida. “I went to the Methodists.”