Sufficient Grace (34 page)

He's really panting now and keeping up a stream of prayer. ‘Oh God, oh Lord, oh Lord
.'

He is scared, and he is hurting. He is crying out. ‘Oh God. Oh my God.'

And he sure ain't cursing; he is praying and praying hard.
He is praying. ‘Help me, Lord. Give me help.'

I guess that I'm the closest thing to an answer to prayer that he's going to get.

‘I'm so cold. Oh Lord.'

I don't know what to do. Even though I want to leave, I feel like I can't just go and let him suffer so. I run out of the barn and look around the farmyard for anything that might help us through. I don't know if what I bring is better than what I leave behind; I can't even see clearly for the tears in my eyes. Following the fence lines, I run across the fields. I bring Peter.

By the time we make it back and into the barn, Samuel is laying flat on the floor, blood soaked through his shirt and pants. The boy must have slept for a while: a red snow angel is traced around his body. He sees us and barely raises his eyes; he cannot speak.

Peter moves quickly, dropping the first-aid kit between Samuel's legs and kneeling down before him. He pulls out the thick bandages and begins tying tight around the meat that used to be Samuel's right arm. ‘Hold on, boy. Hold on.' He ties that rope hard.

Samuel is screaming again, but not aloud. I hear the screaming inside my head.

Peter reaches across to tie the left arm — less remains here. ‘You'll live through this, Samuel.' The man keeps wrapping and tying. ‘I've seen worse.'

And I see that Uncle Peter is saving this life. I see he never would have done it; he never did what needed to be done. He couldn't sacrifice a child that he knew was evil, and he couldn't sacrifice an infant that kept him from love. He has been out of the hunt too long.

I back away from the man and boy. Tangled together, from above, they must look like the stamen of a heart-red flower. Samuel deserves to die. I know what to do. I run outside and into Grandma's house. I can see clearly; there are no tears in my eyes. I bring Ingwald.

We run across the farmyard and into the barn. When Ingwald sees his prodigal, Samuel's flesh tangled through and mixed with bloody metal, he cries out, ‘Jesus!'

Peter scrambles up and raises his hands toward his brother. ‘If we take him in, the boy will make it. He has more than a chance.'

Ingwald rushes toward Samuel and looks at Peter's face. Then, calmness enters the father's eyes, and his face goes white as Ingwald realises he has His answer. He speaks the Word: ‘
The axe is already at the root of the trees
.'

Samuel starts screaming again. Ingwald's cheek is mapped with scars.

I stand and watch. ‘Pastor?'

Ingwald sways with his hands raised toward heaven. He closes his eyes and shakes his head.

Samuel is a voice above the wind.

Peter wipes a bloody smear across his forehead. ‘Brother, I don't know if this is the answer.' He walks toward the door. ‘But it's your God.'

‘We already have His answer,' Ingwald is screaming over his son as his brother walks into the wind. He finishes, ‘
And every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
'
Ingwald's knees clunk when they hit the floor.

He places his pale hand on Samuel's back and weeps and prays over him. He watches the life drain out of his only son as they sit, both tangled around the tractor, together on the bloody floor. As he holds Samuel's head like a jewel, Ingwald waits with one foot dangling in the manure gutter and one foot standing steady on the floor. It is cold, as it often is, even in this thawing time. There is ice and there is snow, and the wind blows constant outside the door.

While Samuel bleeds below, red seeping into the pitted concrete, I climb the ladder into the haymow once more. The light is fading, and I stumble and hardly recognise the place. I walk toward the hay chute and struggle to slide open the heavy door. It is windy and cold; snowflakes swirl around me as I stand high above the farmyard, looking out into the deepening night.

I look out toward the woods.
These are our trees
.

I look out toward the farmstead.
This is our home
.

I look out toward the river.
This is our water
.

Finally, I look out toward the heavens, to the snow and the dark; there is a glow from the farmyard light, glowing bigger than the moon. I hold myself against the chute. I keep holding tight.

Wrapped in Grandma's coat, still stained with Naomi's blood, I open her worn, leather Bible to the passage marked with a crimson ribbon.
Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me.

40

HE COMES, SNOWMOBILE SMEARING A BLACK STAIN ACROSS
the white snow of the farmyard. He comes first — like I knew he would — Reuben. He moves big-boned and strong, quicker than he ought to be, pulling his long legs through the snow bank and galloping into the gaping barn door to see the end of it all. I hear the tractor cut off and then only the low moaning of the father. In my mind's eye I see Samuel, wet, being held tight. I know Reuben waits with Peter, apart from the dying, watching.

Now there is an angel who stands in the sun; he cries to the birds in mid-flight, he calls them to eat the flesh of the mighty and the small, all men and every living thing. Even the beast is slain and eaten. He is slain with the sword from the mouth of the rider, the angel that rides the horse. The angel stands in the sun and watches the birds gorge themselves on all flesh.

Next, Daddy comes, the rusty pick-up bringing dirty tyre tracks and boot marks. He stays inside those tracks.

And then the women come. That barn phone works, and the women come. Gloria and Naomi come quick, my momma driving the truck. Gloria runs to the barn and Mom is close behind her, pulling on her coat. Naomi stays in the truck, pressing her hand to melt the window frost.

Gloria almost makes the barn door when they catch her. Peter and Mom hold Glory's arms and block her way. The birds are swirling, making the air black with their wings. They swoop and cry with their high, screaming voices.

And now, up here in the haymow, there is no place to go, no fish or bird or animal to slip inside and slide away. There is nothing but my skin and my eyes, no coming time of fear or dread. Except that final reckoning, it comes still; I have no choice in that.

Dust and chaff and old, old dirt has been falling into my eyes. Outside, the clouds must have shifted; when I look up through the door again, shafts of sunlight stream down at me. Dust mites float in the air. As they turn and swirl, they are beautiful and glint in the light like tiny pieces of gold. There is beauty in this world too, even in this haymow — even, and at last, in this place.

My brother kneels before me. Reuben is wiping my face, wetting his hanky by pouring water from his hunting flask, rubbing blood and dirt from my cheeks. And Naomi is here too, holding out her hands like a cup. She's come to find me. Eyes blinking, she rests on a hay bale with empty hands.

I'm mostly tired and not yet scared, not yet at all. But it is still on my heart, and he is at rest in front of me. So I ask him, and he answers.

‘She was ours, Ruth. I couldn't leave her there, out in the cold. I couldn't just leave her all alone.'

And this is why Reuben finally moved.

March will not die quietly. There is a blizzard coming — even after the early thaw, the sky aims to snow again. All that mud and muck lining the roadsides, sticking to our boots, will soon be layered with sparkling icy white. The blood was revealed, but the snow will cover. It will all be beautiful again.

41

WE COULDN'T HAVE
AN OPEN CASKET
;
SAMUEL WAS TOO
torn up. Daddy kept saying, ‘He's in there alright; don't you worry.' But I wasn't worried; last time I saw Samuel, he was pale and empty on the floor. It'd take more than a miracle to live through that, and I don't think we get many miracles around here anymore.

It is amazing, though, what a body can live through. Reuben told me once about some scientists that froze a rat and then thawed him out fifty years later. After he was melted, that little Lazarus remembered things from before he was frozen. It is a wonder that the rat could come back alive from the icy dead; I guess he wasn't really dead after all, just waiting. Now, I've seen a yearling deer froze to a fence post and leftover apples iced onto a tree, but I don't suppose neither was much good after the thaw.

Samuel didn't end up going down amongst the trees of Babylon; he didn't fill another secret grave behind the church. He was laid next to Grandma in the plot Ingwald had planned for himself. I was surprised we were able to get him in the ground. Must be the machines they got now for digging can break right through the deep frozen earth. In old times, folks had to predict the number of graves they would need over winter and dig them before the frost set in hard. I do wonder how they decided who would die. I also wonder when the thaw will come again to Failing. Spring takes her time in coming here, but I am happy to be kept waiting for a while.

Whatever is buried is meant to be revealed; whatever is secret is meant to be known.
With the measure you use, it will be measured to you — and even more. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him
.

So I wait; I wait listening to the sound of my breath coming in and going out of my body. At the funeral, I asked my momma if she could hear me breathing. She said she couldn't, but it sounded so loud to me, I still think she could; I think they all could hear the sound of my lungs working.

I understand: just because you think you don't hear something don't mean it's not there. Maybe you just didn't listen close enough or maybe you just can't remember if you even tried to listen. Mom and Daddy keep bringing me forth on Sunday mornings to be anointed with oil during the prayers for the sick; they're keeping a close watch on me. Holding hands they stand, nearest to one another, together with me in our lonely pew. Reuben spends his Sundays running that trap line with Peter. They've got miles of line crisscrossing both my uncle's and my grandma's land.

I will feel better soon; I keep telling them that I will be better soon. I just need to get more sleep and stop pondering all the time about frogs freezing in the mud and thawing in the spring. I need to stop thinking about breathing, sweet air coming in and going out. I need to stop praying about Samuel in the deep, dark hole, and what is buried with him in his frozen brain. I ponder on blame and babies and bathwater and such. I wonder what is worse: creating life that will just die or destroying life that should not ever live? Who is guilty, the gardener or the snake? And who will carry this weight for eternity, Samuel or me?

Naomi ain't helping. While her parents wait upon the Lord with fasting and prayer, she has been staying with us, sleeping in my bed.

She lays in the crook of my arm and whispers all night. ‘Did she breathe? Did she fly?'

I can't answer her questions, because I can't hear the answers.

I've got enough questions of my own. When those who have fallen asleep rise again to meet Christ in the sky, will their memories thaw and fly with them? Will I fly up to meet Jesus in the sky? I don't think I'll be sleeping tonight, neither. But at least I'll have Naomi laying by my side. From the beginning, from the first breath God gave man, God gave Naomi to me.

After my momma named me Ruth, Gloria thought it only right to name her miracle Naomi. They knew we would be friends forever, and I would follow Naomi and protect her wherever she would go. I have done my best to keep their promise to each other; I have done my best to keep Naomi safe.

My love for her burns within me like a flame; she is the child I carry within my heart. I am the lover of her soul; she will not be taken from me. I will be with Naomi, should the Lord tarry, until we lay down together and die. Even then, we will hold each other in death, breathless and asleep underneath the ice and snow and mud. We will hold each other and together never be alone.

AND HERE WE
ARE AGAIN
.
NIGHTCRAWLER BABIES SLIDE UP
through the mud, sniffing to see if they can smell spring on the air. This old birch, with her slippery new skin, has shot out three coiled tendrils, green infant branches spreading wide and swaying in the wind. Now I know which one is the innocent fawn and which one is the guilty thief. I wonder still why God didn't take the momma this time.

It sure ain't amazing grace, but it is sufficient, near enough.

My grace is sufficient for you,
for my power is made perfect in weakness
.
2 Corinthians 12:9

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Due to the highly allusive nature of
Sufficient Grace
, I am deeply indebted to the biblical, Norse and Ojibway stories and traditions represented. The work of the great hymn writers has had a profound effect on my life and my ear. Curriculum available from the School Violence Prevention Program under the auspice of the Native American Initiative of the Center for Civic Education is an excellent source for legends such as ‘The Forsaken Brother'.