Mama reached down and tried to get Stump to stand up, and it looked like she was pulling on his hand, but Pastor Chambliss wouldn’t let him go and Mama cried and looked like she was hollering for him to turn Stump loose. I felt Joe Bill tugging on my jeans so hard that I was scared he was going to yank me out of that window and I wouldn’t be able to see a thing.

“What are they doing to him?” Joe Bill said, but his voice was just barely a whisper and it sounded like he was running out of breath and he had to force out the words. “Jess,” he said. “What’s he doing to him?” I just kept watching Mama, and I didn’t say nothing to Joe Bill because seeing her cry got me crying too and I didn’t want Joe Bill seeing me do that.

Another man came up on the stage and kneeled down, and I figured he was helping Pastor Chambliss hold Stump still, but I couldn’t see nothing except Mama crying and trying to hold on to Stump’s hand. It looked like she was still hollering for them to get up and leave him alone.

“Jess, we better go,” Joe Bill said. I felt him behind me pulling on my shirt, but I didn’t turn around and I didn’t get off my tiptoes.

“They shouldn’t be doing that to him,” I said.

“Jess,” he said. His voice sounded like he was about to cry. “We got to go. He’s all right.” He didn’t say nothing after that, and I turned my head to ask him to put his hands under my feet to boost me up so I could see Stump, but Joe Bill was gone. When I looked across the field, I saw him hightailing it toward the woods, and I watched him run through the high grass with his untucked shirttail flapping out behind him.

I looked in the church again and saw Mr. Gene Thompson standing right up on stage too, and he had his arms locked around Mama and she was crying and fighting with him, but he wouldn’t let her go. I still couldn’t see Stump or Pastor Chambliss either, and I looked around and around but it was only a little crack and I couldn’t see everything in there. I dropped down and ducked under the air conditioner to the other side where Joe Bill had been standing and I got up on my tiptoes and raised myself up onto my elbows so I could look in again, and when I did I saw Stump laying on the stage and Pastor Chambliss and that other man laying on top of him. Stump’s feet were kicking like he was trying to get away and a couple other men left their chairs and walked up on the stage and put their hands on him and touched him and somebody was just banging away on the piano and just about all of them had their eyes closed except Mama and Mr. Thompson. She was staring at them where they were laying on Stump and holding him down and touching him and she was crying and hollering for them to stop. Stump kicked his legs around like he was trying to run sideways on the floor, and Mama screamed so loud that I could hear it over that piano and I could hear it over the air conditioner and all those people singing.

For a second I forgot where I was and I hollered out, “Mama!,” and when I did she jerked one of her hands up over her head and busted Mr. Thompson right on the lip. He let her go and raised his hand and touched his mouth to see if there was blood coming out. Mama got down on her knees and started pulling all them people off Stump, and he sat up as quick as he could and she hugged him to her and rocked him back and forth and all those men just sat there on the floor and stared at Mama and Stump like they didn’t know what to think. Mr. Thompson looked down at Mama, and then he whipped his head around and his big, yellow eyeballs looked right through that little crack like he was staring straight at me.

I figured everybody in the church’d heard me holler out for Mama, and when I leaned back to drop myself down I felt somebody behind me and they put their hand over my mouth and pulled me backward out of the window. I reached out for the window ledge, and I felt a chunk of that old wood break off in my hand. Whoever it was behind me tackled me, and we fell back into the high grass. The sun hit me right in the eyes, and I couldn’t see and I was crying and I couldn’t catch my breath because somebody’d put their hand over my mouth and it was keeping out all the air. Then it felt like something heavy was resting on my chest. I closed my eyes and tried to scream, but then, when I opened them, I saw it was Joe Bill sitting on top of me.

“Be quiet, Jess,” he said. “Be quiet.” I tried to roll over on my stomach so I could get up and run, but he wouldn’t get off me. “Be quiet, Jess,” he said again. “They’re just trying to help him.” I was scared to death, and I was crying so hard that I couldn’t even breathe. I laid there fighting with him on top of me, and before I knew it I was up and running for the trees.

I ran all the way across the field and into the woods, and I kept running until I was dizzy and had to stop to catch my breath. I looked around for Joe Bill, but I didn’t see him. There was a tree beside me, and I reached out and held myself up to keep from falling over, and then I leaned my back against it. I heard something crashing through the trees behind me, and I knew it was Joe Bill coming to find me. I put my hands on my knees so Joe Bill wouldn’t see me crying, and when I did I saw my hand had blood on it and I had it all over my blue jeans and it was on my shirt too. I turned my hand over and saw that a splinter half as long as my middle finger had gotten stuck down in the fat part of my hand right below my thumb. All of a sudden it hurt so bad that I couldn’t even think about touching it. I just stayed bent over with my other hand on my knee and I stared at the splinter and watched a drop of blood run through my palm, down my fingers, and into the leaves. I tried to clear my head and think about something else besides what I’d seen them doing to Stump. I heard Joe Bill running through the woods behind me.

He stopped running, and I heard him panting like he was out of breath. I turned my head so he wouldn’t see me crying, and I tried to make a fist to hide all the blood, but that splinter was so big that it wouldn’t let me close my fingers. A drop of blood had landed on my shoe and was running off the side into the dry leaves.

“It’s all right, Jess,” Joe Bill said. He couldn’t hardly talk because he was so out of breath. “They were just laying their hands on him,” he said. “They were trying to help him.” I looked up at Joe Bill. I saw that he was crying too.

T

HREE

WHEN I DIPPED MY HAND INTO THE RIVER, THE WATER was so cold that it almost took my breath away. I let my wrist go limp, and I swished it back and forth like a brook trout flicks its tail in shallow, rocky water, and I watched the blood leave my hand and move into the river like red smoke drifting up from a fire. I took my other hand and cupped water into it and splashed it over my face to keep my eyes from getting too red and swollen from all the crying. I didn’t want Miss Lyle or Mama or nobody else up at the church to know I’d been crying because I didn’t want them asking me nothing about what we’d been doing.

Joe Bill sat by the water on top of a rock a little piece down the bank with his arms locked around his knees. He looked out at the river. Neither one of us had said a word since we came out of the woods and snuck back down to the riverbank. I stared at his back for a minute, and then I stood up and shook the water off my hands.

“You know we can’t tell nobody about this,” I said to him. “We shouldn’t have seen that. We weren’t supposed to see anything.”

“I know,” Joe Bill said.

I thought about what I was saying, and then I pictured those men lying down on top of Stump, and in my head I heard myself holler out for Mama. I stood up and turned away from Joe Bill before I started crying again, and I untucked my shirttail and wiped my eyes with it. I tried to keep my right hand from touching my shirt any more than it already had so I wouldn’t get more blood on it.