“My car broke down. Bowman gave me a lift. Don't ask me why that inspired the baring of his soul.”
I unsheathed a straw and jammed it into my tea.
“Do you want to hear this?”
“Go ahead.”
“It seems the reverends Bowman and Claiborne have been slugging it out over ministerial boundaries for some time. The Holiness movement isn't what it once was, and the parsons are forced to compete for followers from a dwindling pool. This takes showmanship.”
“Could we back up? We're talking snakes here, right?” Ryan asked.
I nodded.
“What do snakes have to do with holiness?”
This time I did not ignore Ryan's question.
“Holiness followers interpret the Bible literally, and cite specific passages that mandate the handling of snakes.”
“What passages?” Ryan's voice dripped with scorn.
“‘In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them.’ The Gospel of Mark, chapter sixteen, verses seventeen and eighteen.”
Ryan and I stared at McMahon.
“‘Behold I give unto you the power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing by any means shall hurt you.’ Luke, chapter ten, verse nineteen,” McMahon continued.
“How do you know that?” Ryan said.
“We all carry baggage.”
“I thought you trained in engineering.”
“I did.”
Ryan circled back to the reptiles.
“Are the snakes tamed in some way? Are they accustomed to being handled, or have their fangs been pulled, or their venom milked?”
“Apparently not,” McMahon said. “They use diamondbacks and water moccasins caught in the hills. Quite a few handlers have died.”
“Isn't it illegal?”
“Yes,” said McMahon. “But in North Carolina snake handling is merely a misdemeanor, and rarely enforced.”
Cynthia arrived with our meals, left. Ryan and I shook salt and pepper. McMahon covered everything on his plate with gravy.
“Go on, Tempe,” he said.
“I'll try to reconstruct this as best I can.”
I tested a green bean. It was perfect, sweet and greasy after hours of cooking with sugar and bacon fat. God bless Dixie. I had several more.
“Though he denied it in his interview with the NTSB, Bowman
I halted for a bite of pot roast. It was equal to the beans.
“But not rockets.”
The men waited while I forked another piece of meat, swallowed. Chewing was hardly necessary.
“This is really good.”
“What was he launching?”
“Doves.”
Ryan's fork stopped in midair.
“As in birds?”
I nodded. “It seems the reverend relies on special effects to keep the faithful interested.”
“Sleight of hand?”
“He prefers to think of it as theater for the Lord. Anyway, he says he was experimenting the afternoon Air TransSouth 228 went down.”
Ryan urged me on with a gesture of his fork.
“Bowman was working up a sermon on the Ten Commandments. He planned to wave a clay model of the tablets, and finish with a replay of Moses destroying the originals in anger over the Hebrew people's abandonment of their faith. As a finale, he'd dash the mock-ups to the ground, and admonish the congregation to repent. When they begged forgiveness, he'd hit a couple of levers and a flock of doves would rise up in a cloud of smoke. He thought it would be effective.”
