went silent as Parker drew close to the edge of the woods. He looked around. Far off sounds reverberated through the trees, but he seemed enveloped now in an island of quiet and of encroaching darkness.
“I’m here,” he whispered, not sure what else to say. “Where are you?”
Nothing.
Then he ran his hand along the hard wooden scale of the oak tree and felt an immediate buzz that vibrated up to his elbow. He could feel the anger. At first he thought it was the tree itself that was somehow enraged at his touch. Parker backed off. His hands turned clammy, and he wanted to run.
“I’m not afraid of you,” he said a little louder, and he wanted to mean it. Then he touched the tree again. The darkness was quickly becoming absolute, but his eyes were now accustomed to the murky light. He felt the coarse rope first, then the wet, heavy arm of the man being restrained. The poor, torn clothing covering him materialized next. And Mr. Gray was here too. He seemed to be looking on from further back in the woods.
What he heard next were the words echoing off the trees, indistinct and coming from the leaves, the ground, the sky – everywhere at once: “. . .deserve to be cast into hell; so that divine justice never stands in the way . . . makes no objection against God's . . . power . . . to destroy them. Justice calls . . .for an infinite punishment of their sins. . . the tree that brings forth such grapes of Sodom, cut it down. Why cumbereth it the ground?”
Then the third man – the dark man with the wild black hair (Momma would say ‘did you comb your hair with an eggbeater?’) – closed on him and started to bring down his angry blue pistol like a cane. Parker was able to fight off his fear even as he saw Mr. Gray moving in their direction, accompanied by a slight whooshing sound, while the poor man roped to the tree screeched in awful anticipation of what would happen next.
“I’m not afraid of you,” Parker said again, and thought he meant it this time. What was next? He tried to remember the plan.
The man with the pistol was still, and in that way, even more ominous than before.
“All wicked men's pains and contrivance which they use to escape hell,” the black-haired man said to no one in particular, his hard eyes seeming to drill into Parker’s very soul. “ . . .while they continue to reject Christ, and so remain wicked men, do not secure them from hell one moment. . .”
Then Parker remembered.
“You don’t belong here,” he said quietly, then more forcefully added. “You need to move on. You need to let go.”
The man brought the revolver down, aimed it steadily at him. “You need to move on,” Parker said one more time. He could smell the man’s sweat and his sour breath. Parker’s fear was beginning to evaporate. “Leave,” he said. “Now. You don’t belong to this time. To this place.”
“. . . . defender of the wicked . . .” There was spittle at the corner of the dark man’s mouth as he spoke. Parker wondered if this was the ghost of something that is – or something that never was?
“I know you're hurting some,” Parker said. “And I know you have done some bad things.” He felt compassion for the man welling up in him, coming from some new place. “But it’s time for you to go away. And to stay away.”
“Who are you?” the dark man dropped his revolver to his side. He suddenly looked as tired as anyone Parker had ever seen.
“I’m someone who wants to help you,” Parker said, now feeling detached from it all, hovering above the scene and watching the play.
The ropes around the blackjack oak fell from the man being restrained there, then dissolved as they floated to the ground. Now free, the man with the threadbare clothing and the dull, empty expression backed off, then ran into the woods. Mr. Gray turned and watched him, then returned his gaze to Parker and the dark man.
The angry dark man fell to the ground, his big blue revolver now gone. He looked so tired and so . . . alone.
“I’m sorry,” Parker said. “But I think things will be better now.”
The dark man looked up at him again, and for a moment there was that flash of anger, but it passed, and he acted as if he were seeing Parker for the first time. He stared down at the grass, then back to Parker, like he just remembered something.
“You shouldn’t ‘a shot that bird,” the man said.
“I know,” Parker said. The dark man shrunk and became a puddle. He dissolved into the lawn and only Mr. Gray was there, leaning against a pine tree, his long duster and his hat hiding whatever it was he was inside. The only thing that really surprised Parker that entire mad evening was the way Mr. Gray now lifted his hand in the same half-salute, half-wave Parker always used when he said good-bye to him.
Mr. Gray was gone. For good, this time. And Parker never again visited that dark, lonely place in new school year classrooms or anywhere else, and Momma never again filled the hole it left.
“Katy-did . . . katy-did . . . katy-did. . .” now arose from the woods as the forest critter symphony casually resurrected. The frogs were slower to join in, then even a few tardy geese honked by overhead. Later, when black-as-pitch summer storms scowled angry lightning eyes at him, and growled and growled, the thunder rolling off every hill and home, off every blackjack oak and pine tree, he forced himself to think of birds as fragile as the nuthatch, dry and warm in some safe, comfortable place.
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