"Ask blessin fer us this evenin at the School Potluck, Lem." It wasn't a question.

"Sure nough, Preacher, sure nough. Say, I wanna brang my boy Elmer Lee over to yer place and let ye talk at him. He ain't worked a day in over a year, mebbe two. His mama says he'll come aroun, but I don't believe he will."

"Anytime Brother Lem."

"I don't believe he will. Them young'uns o'his ain't got no shoeleather. Another barfoot winter. Babys'll be bad sick with the ague."

"Hurts me deeply, Brother. I'll surely take a word with yer Elmer..."

Polk moved him along, Old Lemuel paused over Tizzy, peering down at her. "I said my piece. I'm his daddy an I don't believe he'll ever go back to work."

Tizzy drew a blank, staring up at the elder fellow. In all her thirteen years she'd hardly spoken three words to the man. Her fourth was not forthcoming. Sister Lucille Weeks was now pressing her father, Preacher Polk, for a prayer and a bedcall on her failing mama who was lingering too long in the final stages of consumption. Sister and Preacher murmured in soft confidential tones while Lemuel shuffled off--and an idle echo caught Tizzy's ear. Her head turned, her gaze sifted out through the oyster dusk, eyes falling on the road rounding the Livery. Light struck her.

Headlamps. A revving motor mill. Loud and clear, a slate-grey pickup rumbled past their bustling churchyard. Out of the truck's window hung the lanky likes of Matthew Birdnell. Pure-defiled white trash. He was nineteen or something near enough. Tongue wagging from his head, the bespectacled Birdnell leered back at Tizzy. He opened the truck door and stepped out of the rolling rattletrap. It pa.s.sed on, he danced a jig in place for a moment, then raced after the pickup and leapt back into the cab. Tizzy had to gasp.

So did many others.

Tizzy looked up at her father; still buried in paritioner's affairs, deaf to bad m.u.f.fler pipes.

Turning back again, Tizzy couldn't help ogling that Birdnell truck as it wheeled fast through the Mercantile--around the gas pumps--and here Matthew came revving back toward The First Reconstructed Church Of Cayuga Ridge but, oh my, he pulled abruptly to the roadside. He hopped out, whipped off his filthy shirt and dangled a long leg over the fender. His ribs stuck out, sickly white in the moonrise. A match flared quickly, he lit a ready-roll, every movement wiry and unexpected like he had fireants in his britches. His bent hornrim spectacles were supplied by County Relief, no doubt, and held together by electrical tape. Matthew took a couple of furious puffs then smirked in Tizzy's direction. Smoke leaked from his teeth.

After a tick, she felt a daffy grin overtake her.

She knew she was not pretty. Sometimes she felt like a boy. When Tizzy Polk looked in the mirror she saw a doughglob with almost Shanghai chinaman eyes; her black hair always looked cut to fit a mush bowl because it was. But right now, Matthew Birdnell was smiling at her.

Lord knows why she smiled back at trash such as him, but as she did it, she glanced up and that put the brakes on everything. Preacher Polk, he glared straight down at Jehovah's wanton daughter, lashing her with his ruthless eye, daring her.

Tizzy went blank as the moon.

The third-grade cla.s.sroom was brightly lit and festooned with chains of colored paper and crayon drawings of stout turkeys and pilgrims with hatchets. Farmer in the Dell tinkled from a wind-up Victrola as Griz Turlington overflowed his overalls on a tiny chair at a tiny table in the corner. He shuffled the dominoes and kept yarning bull with the other big men at the table.

"Don't like no radio," he said. "Never did, you bet. Couldn't never git no reception under Ole Riddle Top an fer my money is jest as well. Keeps them radio waves from a-cuttin through ye all the time."

"Hear'd that Vinson boy snuck outa bed last week, ain't seed hide nor hair since." That was T. Wayne Law.

"Hail," Mr. Soaks played a deuce, "how many zat this year?"

Tizzy hugged close to the woodstove, catching heat and eavesdropping on the men's language. The room was stomping with baby kids. They fooled around doing dumb baby dances for Mrs. Tesher, the third-grade room mother, while Mrs. Bowdrenaire and Miss Crowell had a table of older babies busy carving pumpkins. Little Rafer Don Pitt kept waddling over to the desk and sticking his jelly-stained fingers up into Granny Raminy's German chocolate cake. Teacher Elga's desk was spread tonight with sweetcakes and berry pies and the like.

Behind Tizzy Polk the coal warmed her hands and bottom. It had a thick oily smell Tizzy didn't care for. She preferred hickory. Just then--beasts o'sodom, I say--she heard her father's d.a.m.ning brogue, not that you could miss his holy bull-timbred voice; he drew attention like a lightning rod. And, right now, Preacher was coming hard up the backdoor step of the cla.s.sroom with his gladhanding deacons in tow. He must of polished off that big plate of hopping john and goatshead cheese; soon they'd be courting a berry pie, just wait and see. Now, all the children sang.

O watch yer step, step, step, O when yer ramblin o'er the land...

Swiftly, Tizzy slipped through the babies and domino shufflers, then out into the school hallway.

It was dark here, her steps made a hollow sound. It was chilly too since both doors were open at the hall's far end, beside Teacher Sue's first grade. The feast and fire were all outside except for the third grader's room she'd fled; a haven set aside for nursery kids, dominoes and sugary delights. Outside the princ.i.p.al's office, Tizzy lingered, peering into the gla.s.s trophy case at basketball pennets and greenish bra.s.s cups from years gone by. Each plaque, each flag, bore the school mascot within a rusty orange circle; for they were the Cayuga Ridge Bearcats. The official bearcat was almost crosseyed; his lower jaw jutted forward with both fangs rising over his upper lip like a werewolf. Tizzy stood and imitated him with her own lower fangs for a spell, her gaze glittering over the dark trophies.

When Tizzy finally went out front, she hit the bottom step and Shonda Gay Biggs descended upon her. Shonda asked where Tizzy had been hiding herself in such a loud voice she made Tizzy want to wallop her whoring hide but good. Apparently n.o.body heard. Most psalmsingers were gaggling around by the lit schoolkitchen porch as Tizzy headed for her own dark corner of the playground, wishing she were alone. Shonda Gay grated on good and decent nerves under any circ.u.mstance, and Tizzy didn't care to draw undue attention at this time. Oh, they were the same age alright, Tizzy and Shonda Gay, but Shonda Gay had unusually large bosoms for thirteen and seemed to know it. Her mama actually let her come to school during Indian Summer wearing her brother's outgrown overalls with nothing underneath. Tizzy's desk was right beside her and trash like Shonda Gay got ripe as the days heated up. Besides, she once said Tizzy's nose looked like a mashed turnip.

"Gristlebrain, you know my daddy," she quickly informed Shonda as they approached the gnarled pilgrim oak by the teeter-totter. "He allows I should stay close."

"Hey, you missed all them boys--"

"What boys?"

"They come over an asked did we wanna sniff some cleanin fluid. Kin you believe it?"

"You doober girl, swear you didn't. That's the queerest thing I ever heard of--"

"Well--"

Tizzy frowned. They were out of earshot in the darkness, but she walked hameheaded and straight on to the tree. Shonda Gay was also two inches taller, and Tizzy hated looking up at silly tramps who never stopped yakking. "Shonda Gay, you let those holler boys fool you so."

"Matthew Birdnell was one o'them boys," Shonda confided with glee. "I saw him sniffin them rags."

"Where?" Why did she care? Tizzy wasn't proud of such stirrings.

"Behind the lunchroom."

"Matthew Birdnell...?"

Shonda cackled sharply. Tizzy winced; she was being pointed at and didn't like it.

"Clary was right. You do have a fancy fer that dopey Matthew Birddog!"

Tizzy wheeled in her print dress, trained her ire on two dumb-ox eyes two inches above her. "I most certainly ain't got no fancies fer that creepy boy. And you best not be a-tellin n.o.body differnt. It's just that I was surprised he had the gumption to show hisself after such disrespectful behavior at vespers this evenin. He just better not fiddle with me or my daddy's gonna git him right with G.o.d."

Shonda Gay was a mouthbreather. She nudged her bosoms into their proper place, her eyes dulled by cleaning fluid, by the visions Tizzy put in her head.

"I thank yer probably correct in that a.s.sumption," she mooed. "Tizzy I'm gone git me a puddin." And she lumbered off at half-lope in her feedsack skirt. The hem was too short of course, revealing the nettle scratches on her plump thighs.

Some folks are too dim for disgrace Tizzy told herself. Then she crept on over to the tree, making sure not to b.u.mp the teeter-totter against the big root that grew beneath this oak.

There was a mama c.o.o.n who lived in this tree and foraged in the wood nearby, along this dark end of the playground. Only a low stone wall separated the yard from thick sugarpitch pine, and the local hunters never even put their dogs to scent till they were well up the draw from Cayuga Ridge. So Tizzy had come to know this mama c.o.o.n well over time. At this moment she held a fistful of pumpkin seeds in her dress pocket. Hopefully, she could coax her out. She'd heard the little trilling c.o.o.nlets during recess on Friday, but had never seen them. Their mama kept high in the nest of the tree during daylight then ventured forth at sunset. Tizzy had made mama's acquaintance now and again. But it was a secret. Preacher wouldn't allow her a pup, and any cats that snuck around the house he poisoned with catfish heads laced with lye. He said they were evil things and would betray a trust.

As Tizzy approached, she made a chitting noise up into the dark tree by tapping her ballooned cheek, calling mama c.o.o.n. But Tizzy stopped, suddenly, when she heard the splat of running water. What trickled on the leeside of the great pilgrim oak, hidden from her view? There was a wheezy snicker, a privied snort at some little privy joke; she heard shuffling feet.

"Who's there...?" she whispered. Edging around the tree, Tizzy saw the hunched shadow shaking his privates at the root and bark. He was peeing on his white-top shoes. His flow ceased and Matthew Birdnell turned to face her.

"Hey there, sweet lips, I been a-lookin fer you."

b.u.t.toning his flap, he hooked on a low limb like some monkey then swung around the tree. His cowlick and huckleberry smile were pressing close upon her and this forced Tizzy back against the oak.

"Well I cain't imagine why you'd waste your time in such a fashion," she advised. "Why don't you run on back to the mule trough, Matthew Birdnell, and wash yer dirty hands."

"Thought I might steal a little sugar from you..."

His eyes were bleary behind the hornrim County spectacles and his breath bore a sour smell, like kerosene or something. Maybe he had been sniffing those rags. His gait was certainly unsteady enough. Matthew bent over her, forcing her to grip the bark with taut fingertips. At least he'd put his shirt back on.

"Ever give up any sugar before, little gal? Reckon you ain't..."

"I cain't imagine what yer filthy gourd is jawin about. And if I was sugary trash, it wouldn't be with no razorback like you."

Those last words sounded too quivery to her. Weak, and that wasn't good. He snorted; it was a peculiar clogged sort of laugh he had. But Matthew didn't further the discussion. Matthew swooped down and kissed her.

For some reason she didn't push him off. She just froze there like a stunned quail. His lips were kind of warm and slippery in an interesting way that fingered something in her belly again. When Matthew did release her mouth she couldn't even blink. No. But look. A chip in his eyegla.s.s lens.

"Boy, you don't know what yer a-flirtin with..." What a weak-kneed croak that was, like it escaped someone else's throat.

"Haw..." he said, and smiling, he came back for more. This time Tizzy's lips couldn't help working a bit themselves and she felt his bitter tongue force itself betwixt her teeth. Her breath left her body, she had nothing to say, nothing remotely. After he'd tasted plenty, he reared back his head again, and Matthew Birdnell's smirk began to spread.

She saw a drop of red blood then, just rolling from his left nostril. He had no idea. Such a c.o.c.k-eyed leer, such a c.o.c.k-eyed boy, oblivious to the b.l.o.o.d.y drip.

No, she never got the chance to tell him.

In the darkness behind Matthew, a hand grabbed him by the scruff, ripping him away from Tizzy. It was her daddy, Preacher Polk in his pilot coat and round hat. He shucked the lanky boy across the teeter-totter where Matthew landed with a sickening crunch. The totter-teetered. Folks laughed, jeered, rejoiced up at the schoolhouse. Meanwhile, the wild, lashing eye of nimrod fell upon the girl and to Tizzy this night looked a lot longer.

S T E P 2.

Of course Matthew hightailed over that fence and lit for the piney deep. The Preacher stropped her then nailed Tizzy inside the coalbox that night. She soiled herself. That meant Preacher had to strop her again in the morning before he sent her off to school in the foul dress. None of the kids made much fun of her, they were used to seeing Tizzy arrive on the playground with her lunchbucket and the occasional badge of shame. Besides, everybody got distracted by the sight of Matthew Birdnell and his little half-breed Pappy chasing their hogs on foot, past the school, then back up the holler towards home. Apparently they'd broken fence again the night before. Tizzy pretended not to, but snuck a peek anyway. Maybe she wasn't alone in her shame. Matthew was red of face. He kept a frown and a mean willow switch on those trotting hog b.u.t.ts.

"At's humiliatin, ain't it?" lop-eared Tobe McCoy huffed softly behind her.

Then the bell rang. Later that afternoon, sitting at her desk in Miss c.o.c.kelbay's cla.s.s, Tizzy was daydreaming out the window when she saw that Studebaker pickup of his rattle by outside--just before Miss c.o.c.kelbay thumped her on the head for ignoring new sums on the blackboard. She might of spied Matthew Birdnell another time or two in the days to come, she wasn't sure. Matthew Birdnell wasn't her concern. Only he knew how many holes he dug or how much hate he sweated and heaved, cursing G.o.d in heaven. About a week and a half later Tizzy was walking barefoot along Pearlwick Road after school.

A cur dog kept his distance behind her. The cowering scalawag was black, mostly, with tan paws and tail. Every so often Tizzy would find a pebble and chunk it at him, telling him to go home. Tizzy was a bad girl. She was wretched in her desires, wrong in her thinking. It did no good to attach herself to cur dogs or anything else she couldn't keep. Tizzy needed an angel to save her. And angels didn't come with tan paws or tan tails or long floppity ears. Angels came with wings.

A single lance of sunlight lay betwixt the peaks, golddust floating over the road. Ahead, the grade rose around the Jenks' leaning barn, climbing toward Coffin Holler and Tutweiller's Snoot. The dog slunk back. Tizzy took a few more short steps. She stopped. Her eyes slit. She took quick stock of the mutt behind, the road ahead--then Tizzy broke from Pearlwick Road, running--off through the thicket she shot. The pikeshoulder brush thinned as Tizzy flung through tall darkening timber; snapping pineboughs, then rosebriar before she came barefeet flying into the cemetery--a hidden potter's patch--filled with crumbly gravestones. She stopped fast, spraddle-legged.

How eagerly, Tizzy did dread, how eagerly that sunblot was dropping behind that fortress of trees; the dew would overwhelm everything. She already felt the chill. Soon, blue fleece would settle into these mountains, damping the risen dust. Unshielding her eyes, Tizzy's left hand touched a low statue. A cherub angel in plaster-of-paris, dotted with dark, fuzzy cutworms: they clung to moldering cherub face and wings. Tizzy let the angel go. She tread on needles. The air verily tingled with mountain dusk, each grave and its stone, creeping with the creeping moss. Sharp birds spake from the shadows.

Owww, her big toe stubbed a spade, Tizzy flinched, she spooked: "Whooozere?!"

She saw white-top shoes. Imagine that.

Matthew lay before a granite cross. Atop the grave as if he were the corpse, his hornrimmed eyes closed. He lay very still, as Tizzy began to squint in anger.

Her mouth opened to speak--but Matthew swung and clenched her ankle; "Grrrrrr," he grrrd.

Tizzy fought. And fought. She began siege on his face and sickly ribs, kicking with her free foot, attacking the Birdnell with all her might.

"Cutterout--cutterout--!" Matthew begged.

"Yer the most r.e.t.a.r.ded thing I ever seen," she whelped, still kicking. "Think yer so hot, well yer dumber than a papist pagan--Matthew! What if you was a-layin on top of yer grandma or grandpa? You'd think that was plumb funny wouldn't you--you ugly boy!"

Chortling, Matthew snagged her kicking foot then lifted it until Tizzy was struggling for balance. "Hold on ladybug! We gittin nasty now. Gittin good and nasty now!"

"Lemme go!"

"Swear I didn't know you could jig so good--"

"Lemme go--you burr-headed pig farmer!"

The loutish grin left him, abruptly, Matthew hoisted her leg until she fell with a flattening thud, knocking out Tizzy's wind. He leapt to his feet and dismissed her with a wave, pacing away.

"Yer a stupid little girl," he snarled. "You don't know nothin worth knowin. I bout had it with you. Right now--" Hitching his pants, Matthew began to strut back and forth across the Bane family ancestry, waking the clan with his ratty white-top spectators. "Right now yer jist a little bit o'history that's all. And yer too puny to know it."

Flat on her back, Tizzy choked, gasped for breath. "Uh...uh..." she swallowed deep. Where was her voice?

Matthew spat and kicked a gravestone. "Yeah...bout had it with you..." His head wobbled, pondering his destiny. "Hey! Tizzy! I got somethin you oughta see..."

He wheeled in a long stride toward the plaster cherub angel, jumping over Tizzy as he went. The grave was overgrown with weeds and sawgra.s.s. Matthew flicked a cutworm off the statue. Matthew knelt, then brushed clean the inscription on the stone below; barely readable in this failing light.

B A B Y O' K O N N 0 R.

BORN AND DIED MARCH 25, 1898.

"An Angel Pa.s.sing Through"

Tizzy rolled onto her side, onto an elbow as she felt her chest.

"My heart's a-fumblin..."

She watched Matthew riffle through the weeds, finding an old pistol hidden there. He shook it off, eyed Tizzy with a loose grin, then spun the cylinder.

"What er you doin with that?" she asked, agape.

"Pitchin dice. Jist call him Mad Dice Matt."

Standing, Matthew shoved the gun into the front of his belt, he struck a pose, rehung the gonads with his right hand. Suddenly, with one rash move, he jerked out the gun left-handed and fell to his stomach, rolling as he went, until he stopped and leered down the barrel at Tizzy. He hee-hawed softly at her.

"Where'd you git that?" she repeated with a slow smile. "I swear..."