Faithless

“The Lord does not abide laziness!” the man was screaming, his finger inches from a younger man’s face. “Your weakness has cost us a full morning’s work!”

The man with the finger in his face looked down, contrite. There were two girls in the crowd, and they were both crying.

“Weakness and greed!” the old man proclaimed. Anger edged his tone so that each word sounded like an indictment. He had a Bible in his other hand, and he raised it into the air like a torch, shining the way toward enlightenment. “Your weakness will find you out!” he screamed. “The Lord will test you, and you must be strong!”

“Christ,” Jeffrey muttered, then, “Excuse me, sir?”

The man turned around, his scowl slipping into a puzzled look, then a frown. He was wearing a white long-sleeved shirt starched to within an inch of its life. His jeans were likewise stiff, a razor crease ironed into the front of the legs. A Braves ball cap sat on his head, his large ears sticking out on each side like billboards. He used the back of his sleeve to wipe spittle from his mouth. “Is there something I can help you with, sir?” Lena noticed that his voice was hoarse from yelling.

Jeffrey said, “We’re looking for Ephraim Be

The man’s expression yet again turned on a dime. He smiled brightly, his eyes lighting up. “That’s across the road,” he said, indicating the way Jeffrey and Lena had come. He directed, “Go back down, take a left, then you’ll see it about a quarter mile down on the right.”

Despite his cheerful demeanor, tension hung in the air like a heavy cloud. It was hard to reconcile the man who had been screaming a few minutes ago with the kindly old grandfather offering his help to them now.

Lena checked out the crowd of workers- about ten in all. Some looked as if they had one foot in the grave. One girl in particular looked like she was having a hard time standing up, though whether this was from grief or intoxication, Lena wasn’t sure. They all looked like a bunch of strung-out hippies.

“Thank you,” Jeffrey told the man, but he looked like he didn’t want to leave.

“Have a blessed day,” the man answered, then turned his back to Jeffrey and Lena, pretty much dismissing them. “Children,” he said, holding the Bible aloft, “let’s return to the fields.”

Lena felt Jeffrey’s hesitation, and didn’t move until he did. It wasn’t like they could push the man to the ground and ask him what the hell was going on, but she could tell they both were thinking the same thing: something strange was happening here.

They were quiet until they got into the car. Jeffrey started the car and reversed it out of the space so he could turn around.

Lena said, “That was weird.”

“Weird how?”

She wondered if he was disagreeing with her or just trying to get her take on the situation.

She said, “All that Bible shit.”

“He seemed a little wrapped up in it,” Jeffrey conceded, “but a lot of folks around here are.”

“Still,” she said. “Who carries a Bible to work with them?”

“A lot of people out here, I’d guess.”

They turned back onto the main road and almost immediately Lena saw a mailbox sticking up on her side of the road. “Three ten,” she said. “This is it.”

Jeffrey took the turn. “Just because somebody’s religious doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with them.”

“I didn’t say that,” Lena insisted, though maybe she had. From the age of ten, she had hated church and anything that smacked of a man standing in a pulpit, ordering you around. Her uncle Hank was so wrapped up in religion now that it was a worse addiction than the speed he’d shot into his veins for almost thirty years.

Jeffrey said, “Try to keep an open mind.”

“Yeah,” she answered, wondering if he’d let it slip his mind that she’d been raped a few years ago by a Jesus freak who got off on crucifying women. If Lena was antireligion, she had a damn good reason to be.

Jeffrey drove down a driveway that was so long Lena wondered if they had taken a wrong turn. Passing a leaning barn and what looked like an outhouse gave Lena a feeling of déjà vu. There were places like this all over Reese, where she had grown up. Reaganomics and government deregulation had crippled the farmers to their knees. Families had simply walked away from the land that had belonged to them for generations, leaving it to the bank to figure out what to do. Usually, the bank sold it to some multinational corporation that in turn hired migrant workers on the sly, keeping the payroll down and profits up.

Jeffrey asked, “Do they use cyanide in pesticides these days?”

“Got me.” Lena took out her notebook to remind herself to find the answer.

Jeffrey slowed the car as they breached a steep hill. Three goats stood in the drive, and he beeped his horn to get them moving. The bells around their collars jangled as they trotted into what looked like a chicken coop. A teenage girl and a young boy stood outside a pigpen holding a bucket between them. The girl was wearing a simple shift, the boy overalls with no shirt and no shoes. Their eyes followed the car as they drove by, and Lena felt the hairs on her arm stand straight up.

Jeffrey said, “If somebody starts playing a banjo, I’m outta here.”

“I’m right behind you,” Lena said, relieved to see civilization finally come into view.

The house was an unassuming cottage with two dormers set into a steeply pitched roof. The clapboard looked freshly painted and well tended, and except for the beat-up old truck out front, the house could have easily been a professor’s home in Heartsdale. Flowers ringed the front porch and followed a dirt path to the drive. As they got out of the car, Lena saw a woman standing behind the screen door. She had her hands clasped in front of her, and Lena guessed from the palpable tension that this was the missing girl’s mother.

Jeffrey said, “This isn’t going to be easy,” and not for the first time she was glad that this sort of thing was his job and not hers.

Lena shut the door, letting her hand rest on the hood as a man came out of the house. She expected the woman to follow, but instead an older man came shuffling out.

“Chief Tolliver?” the younger man asked. He had dark red hair but without the freckles that usually accompanied it. His skin was as pasty as you would expect, and his green eyes were so clear in the morning sunlight that Lena could tell their color from at least ten feet away. He was good-looking if you liked that sort, but the short-sleeved button-down shirt that he wore tightly tucked into his khaki Dockers made him look like a high school math teacher.

Jeffrey looked momentarily startled for some reason, but he recovered quickly, saying, “Mr. Be

“Lev Ward,” he clarified. “This is Ephraim Be

“Oh,” Jeffrey said, and Lena could tell he was surprised. Even wearing a baseball cap and overalls, Ephraim Be

Jeffrey said, “I’m sorry to meet you under these circumstances.”

Ephraim gave Jeffrey what looked like a firm handshake despite his obvious palsy. “I appreciate your handling this personally, sir.” His voice was strong with the kind of Southern drawl Lena never heard anymore except in Hollywood movies. He tipped his hat to Lena. “Ma’am.”

Lena nodded in return, watching Lev, who seemed to be in charge despite the thirty-odd years that separated the two.

Ephraim told Jeffrey, “Thank you for coming out so quickly,” even though Lena would hardly characterize their response as quick. The call had come in last night. Had Jeffrey been on the other end of the line instead of Ed Pelham, he would have driven straight out to the Be