I realize what he had in mind.
Slow learner, I guess.
The church interior was shadowy. The chairs were arranged in orderly fashion. The altar was dark.
On a hot day like this all the ancient service-station odors rose up. You could almost hear the bell on the drive clanging to life and a motorist saying, “Fill ‘er up, would ya? And I guess you’d better check the oil.”
And then I heard them. And then I had my first understanding-dread, actually-of why he’d brought me here. And the real implication of his “pure” remark.
He nudged me down the aisle with the barrel of his gun.
I began to make out the dimensions of the snake cage. I tried to guess from their sudden hissing and rattling-the approach of intruders-how many of them there were.
“What the hell you going to do?”
“Just keep walkin’.”
I stopped. In an instant I weighed the threat-getting shot in the back versus having to do something with rattlesnakes. So I stopped.
He stabbed the barrel of the shotgun nearly all the way through me.
“I said to keep walkin’.”
“I’m not going near those damned snakes.”
“Watch your language. This is the house of the Lord.”
“And I suppose the Lord wants you to put those snakes on me?”
“You’re not pure.”
I flung myself forward, hitting the floor and rolling to the right. I was slower than I’d hoped and he was much, much faster. He put a bullet about three inches from my head. It ripped up some concrete and ricocheted off the far shadowy wall.
You could smell the gunfire; the rattle of it echoed in the small place.
“Get up.”
He came over and kicked my ankle so hard it felt broken.
“You bastard.”
He kicked me again in the same place. Even harder.
“The next time you use a word like that, I’ll put a bullet in your brain.”
The bullet or the snake? They each frightened me but in different ways. At least a bullet didn’t have those glassy eyes and those fangs and that forked tongue and that-But I got to my feet. I didn’t want to die on the floor there. Got to my feet and tried to stand tall but it was difficult and not just because I’m short. It was difficult because my right ankle hurt so much where he’d kicked me.
He grabbed me by the shoulder and flung me on the altar.
There had to be at least three of them, maybe four.
They made even more noise than the bullet had. Angry, filthy noise.
I stumbled on the altar platform and sprawled facedown before the small raised box on top of which the snake cage sat.
“Stand up.”
“What’re you going to do?”
“You said you were pure? I’ll give you the chance to prove it.”
“I’m not going to handle those snakes.”
“I’m sick of talk, you. Now stand up.”
The pain in my ankle was fading much faster than I had thought possible. But I didn’t want him to kick me again. This time he’d probably break bone.
“I’m not afraid of the snakes because I’m true to my Lord.”
“Is that why you slapped your wife the night Muldaur died? Because the Lord wanted you to?”
“He’s ordained that sometimes man needs to instruct woman in the ways of righteousness.”
“And that includes slapping them around?”
“I don’t take any pleasure in it, if that’s what you mean. I do it because the Lord has ordained it. I’d be committing a sin if I didn’t do it.”
All the time the hissing continued.
“Sometimes one man must instruct another man in the ways of righteousness, too.”
“That’s what you’re doing with me?”
“You need to know if you’re impure. I’m actually doin’ you a favor.”
“Gosh, thanks so much.”
He prodded me with his toe just above the ankle.
I really didn’t want to get kicked again. I pushed myself to my feet. Sometimes, you kid yourself and think you’re tough. But then something like this happens.
I’d banged my head on the floor just now and had a headache. My ankle was sore. I was pasty with sweat. And all I could hear were the snakes.
I was being pushed toward them. They may not actually have been louder, they may not actually have been angrier. But they sure sounded that way. I stumbled toward them.
He clubbed me on the side of the head hard with his rifle barrel.
I dropped to my knees before I realized where I’d be: kneeling next to the snake cage.
“Open it up.”
He had to shout to be heard above the hiss and rattle.
I just looked at him. Terrible things were going on in my throat, my chest, my bowels.
“You open that up and grab one of ‘em. If it don’t bite you then you are judged worthy by Divine Wisdom.”
I couldn’t talk. Literally. I tried. But my throat was raw and dry with fear. Only a few inches and a mesh of metal kept the rattlers at bay.
I wondered if he’d really shoot me. He seemed crazed but was he that crazed? And-a wild thought that should have occurred to me much earlier-what had he been doing in the Muldaur trailer so early in the morning? He’d arrived before I had. What was his exact relationship to Viola Muldaur? Was he pure? Could he pass the snake test?
Then he did it. Leaned in, unlatched the simple lock that held the lid down on the cage.
“I’m makin’ it easy for you.”
And for the second time, he fired his weapon.
One year at camp I’d slept in the grass and during the night a bat kept flying inches over my face. I always remembered the heat of its passage. The bullet was like that now. The heat of its passage.
I did a kind of dance on my knees, jerking sideways, frontways, slamming into the snake cage. And then doing, in simple animal reaction, the unthinkable.
I reached my arm out and grabbed the far side of the cage to keep it from falling off the low table it was resting on. And then I jerked back, astonished at my stupidity as the snakes flew out at me, at least two snakes arcing their heads into the top of the cage, trying to get at me.
“Open it!” Oates shouted.
And then swung the rifle barrel into the side of my head again. My entire consciousness was sliding into pain. It was getting difficult for me to think.
I nudged up against the cage.
He swung the rifle around yet another time.
This time I consciously stopped myself from bumping against the cage.
And this time I realized how I could get out of this situation, rifle or no rifle.
It was not without risk. There would be a few seconds there when the snakes would be close to me, able to bite me and hold on if they wanted to.
But I didn’t have much choice. The snakes or the religious crackpot-y decide.
“Open it,” he said. His voice was raw now.
He’d glimpsed the future. One of the snakes striking me, filling me with poison. He spoke in the raspy tone of true passion.
