O'hara's Choice - Leon Uris [131]
“They’re ugly, but they’re mean, SIR!”
Ben stubbed out the second cigarette butt and took a step toward Zach and pitched into his arms.
“Oh, oh,” Ben said, speaking quietly into Zach’s ear. “We have been penetrated by an enemy spy. Her cigarettes were loaded.”
“What would that be?”
“Opium, you asshole. Anyhow, brave Marines do not buckle at the first sign of distress. Gimme a boost and I’ll inspect them on horseback.”
Zach threw Ben onto the saddle.
Ben started down the line, muttering and cursing, with Zach running after him.
“You are on your horse backward, SIR!”
“Like hell I am. He’s just pointed in the wrong direction.”
• 41 •
WINTERSET
Two Weeks Later—Nebo
Sister Sugar: When the sun come up on Nebo . . .
Chorus: Weary Moses looked him down . . .
Sister Sugar: Over Jordan stood the promise . . .
Chorus: Weary Moses looked him down . . .
Sister Sugar: Oh my childs, I go no further . . .
Chorus: Weary Moses looked him down . . .
Sister Sugar: Josh, we take them ‘cross the river . . .
Chorus: Weary Moses lay him down . . .
Sister Sugar, Chorus, and Congregation:
In the cold, cold ground,
We done set old Moses down.
‘Cross the river we did go,
For the battle of Jericho.
Lay him down! Lay him down! Hallelujah! Lay him down!
Extemporaneous lyrics and glory-bound voices shouted out sightings of Jesus and Mary and loved ones gone. No matter how frenzied the singing and shouting and stomping and clapping became, the voices continued to blend heavenly.
On a cold, clear day like this and with an eastern wind, their singing would leap clear over to Wyman’s Creek Landing, where the Quakers contemplated in the utter silence of their simple meetinghouse.
The sea grass and swamp grass and cattails and bittersweet and bayberry were spiked up stiff from last night’s ice storm and began to bend, crack, and drip, lighting billions of diamonds. The branches of the trees hung wearily under their burden.
A staccato of breaking ice popped from every direction. This was a land alone, part Maryland, part Virginia, and all of Delaware, a state of little consequence, named for Indians who were too trusting of the white man.
It was as though a pagan giant had turned over a humongous pot of mud, and wherever it splattered down it formed a convulsive coastline with uncountable numbers of islands, estuaries, rivers, creeks, sounds, straits, and baylets.
This entire glob of land existed as a 150-mile barrier against the Atlantic Ocean on its east. A passage in and out of the Chesapeake Bay around Norfolk’s tidewater allowed ocean and bay to merge and mingle. With the James and Potomac Rivers feeding the bay and the Atlantic finding its way into the bay, one of the world’s most abundant waters of marine life evolved.
The land behind the bay contained the magic nutrients to yield that imperial Maryland tobacco. With many of the plantations gone, the shore’s soil was sufficient for general farming.
The black village of Nebo was pleasantly self-exiled from the mainstream and mostly concerned with getting their field crops and seafood to market and otherwise keeping clear of the white people.
The village was built on marshland, barely gripping bedrock, so its cottages were on somewhat of a tilt. In the Nebo Abyssinian Baptist Church, the steeple would virtually sway like a metronome when the congregation was in full song.
Beyond Wyman’s Creek Landing, Zachary O’Hara pulled Jeff Templeton’s livery van off the road and gazed at the mournful loveliness of the place.
The road was slushy and every tree crackled and dripped, animal tracks scrambled and disappeared, and the bare threads of the farmlands pocked out of its dusting of snow.
“It’s enchanting,” Zach said.
“It isn’t too kind to visitors this time of year. We sure glad Laveda built her lodge here. Willow and I come over often as we can. Amanda is going to scream and faint dead away when she sees you. She wasn’t expecting you for five more days.”
“I got a grace period.