The Whippoorwill Trilogy - Sharon Sala Page 0,105

with fire in their eyes and expectation on their faces.

Eulis shuddered. Last time he’d seen a crowd look like this it had been a lynch mob. When they started moving forward, he held up his hands.

“Brothers and Sisters.”

They inhaled as one and paused.

“Step back and give this sinner room to grow.” Say! That sounded good, even to me, Eulis thought.

They did as he bid, widening the space between themselves and the kneeling whore at the watering trough.

Eulis bent down. “Are you sure you know what you’re doin’?” he whispered.

Letty looked up, her sweat-glazed face glistening in the dim, yellow light. Her eyes were glassy, her lips sagged. When she didn’t answer, his stomach knotted. He’d lost her to the madness—and to the raccoon. Then she clutched at his pant legs.

“Have mercy on me, Preacher. Cleanse my soul.”

He leaned closer so that only she could hear. “I’m not a preacher, you fool. Don’t you remember nothin’?”

She buried her face in her arms and started to sob. Certain that it was only a matter of time before his identity started to unravel, his only hope was that a dip in the murky water of the trough might do her some good.

“She says she’s ready,” Eulis announced to the crowd, and sighed with relief at the pleased murmurs that he heard.

To the surprise of them all, Letty stood, then lifted her own skirts and stepped into the trough, lying back in the waters as if she were going to bed.

Bits of green moss scraped loose from the sides and floated to the top, sticking to her skin like a fungus. Her breasts, loose from their binding, moved with the ebb and flow of the water like two raw eggs in a pitcher of beer.

The congregation was behind him—waiting. Eulis didn’t know what to do. He’d seen people baptized before. He knew—sort of—what was supposed to occur, but he’d never heard the proper words being said.

“What the hell,” he mumbled beneath his breath. “I been playin’ by ear all day. What’s one more incident gonna hurt?”

He grabbed Letty’s hair and pushed her under.

“One for the money.”

He yanked her up.

“Two for the show.”

When he sent her back, green slime slid between the fingers of his hand.

“Three to make ready.”

This time Letty was gasping for air as he shoved her back down in the trough.

“And four to go!”

Just before she passed out and drowned, he yanked her up the last time.

“Hallelujah, she is saved!”

Letty staggered to her feet, spitting moss and gasping for air while water ran out of her hair and into her eyes. Her clothes were plastered to her body like wet paper on a drinking glass, but there was a light in her eyes that had never been there before.

The congregation seemed stunned by what he’d done, and for a moment Eulis feared the worst. It was Letty who saved the day.

“I am a new woman,” she announced, then bowed her head and covered her nudity with her hands.

A woman stepped out of the crowd and threw her shawl over Letty’s bosom. A sigh went up. The baptism might have been a little unorthodox, but the preacher was from back East. Maybe that’s the way they did it there. And the whore knew shame. That meant it took.

Will the Bartender began singing again.

Eulis wanted a drink.

It was over.

Jubilant, he turned to face the crowd, only vaguely aware that three people on horseback were coming toward the livery. If they’d come for the baptizing, they were too late. He waved to Will the Bartender.

“Take them back to the hill,” he said. “I’ll be along as soon as I see to Miss Murphy’s welfare.”

The congregation marched back toward the arbor with Will in the lead.

Eulis turned back to Letty. She was shivering. “Maybe you should put on some dry clothes.”

She stared at him, as if seeing him for the first time. Her chin was quivering, her eyes glassy with shock. Eulis couldn’t tell if it was from the chill, or from her emotional state.

“I’m a new woman… ain’t I, Preacher?”

Eulis rolled his eyes and then lowered his voice. “Snap out of it, Letty. I ain’t no preacher and you know it.”

Letty blinked, then looked down at her dress—and the lack thereof.

“What happened to my dress?”

“You come out of it like a pit poppin’ out of a rotten peach. One minute you was all buttoned up and the next thing we knew, you was spillin’ out all over.”

“Oh lord,” she groaned, and pulled the shawl tighter