When We Were Saints Read online

  The day grew grayer the room darker. The friends waited and hummed. Then Archie stood up. It is now or never, he decided. He had to say something. He knew he would regret it for the rest of his life if he didn't. In spite of what Clyde had said, he felt he was responsible for his grandfather taking ill when he did. All he had to say were two words: I'm sorry. Heads turned toward Archie when he stood up, but the humming continued. The heads turned back to the dying man. Then, just as Archie opened his mouth to speak, his grandfather, Silas Benjamin Caswell, opened his eyes. The humming stopped. He lifted his right hand and pointed. One thick yellow fingernail pressed into Archie's stomach. Silas Benjamin looked at his grandson, and Archie looked at him.

  "Young man, you are a saint!" his grandfather said.

  His raised arm flopped back down by his side, his eyes closed, and with the release of one last dry breath, he died.

  Chapter 3

  ARCHIE THOUGHT IT was fitting that it was pouring rain on the day of his grandfather's funeral. He believed it was the old man's way of raining hellfire and damnation down on his head one more time. He let the rain soak his good wool suit as he walked alone from the church to the graveyard and waited for everyone else to arrive. His grandmother and friends rode in cars following the hearse the half mile to the graveyard. The rain and the need for umbrellas and the waiting for people to get to their cars and line up had slowed everyone down, so Archie had a good twenty minutes to stand alone at the empty grave site.

  His grandmother had given him an umbrella to hold and the site had a canopy over it, but Archie didn't take advantage of either of those things. He felt he deserved the punishment of the cold rain. He looked out past the deep pit with the fake-grass rug pulled over it to the gravestones just beyond the Caswell plot and discovered three stones standing side by side, one with the word BACK written in block letters, the next with the word STREET, and the third with THRASHER written on it. Before he knew what he was doing, Archie had invented a new character for the comic strip that he had been working on: the Back Street Thrasher a daredevil mountain biker with a penchant for murdering people and archenemy of Mountain Mike the Mountain Biken When Archie realized what he was doing—and how angry his grandfather would have been to know that at his very funeral he was working on the comic strip his grandfather had forbidden him to do—he felt ashamed of himself and kicked the mud at his feet.

  "Look at you, Archibald, all soaking wet," his grandmother said when she caught up with him. "I gave you that umbrella to put over your head, not to use as a walking cane. Now come on, you're standing up front with me, and take this camellia." She handed him one of the two white flowers she held in her hand. "I want you to lay it on his casket after Brother Will's words."

  Archie took the flower and stood with his grandmother beneath the canopy. The rain beat down hard, so that Brother Will had to yell to be heard over the noise. It slanted in and pelted Archie's legs. He stepped in closer to his grandmother hoping to protect her legs from the cold water. His grandmother patted his arm in thanks. While the pastor spoke, gesturing toward the casket, Archie looked out to the three strange gravestones that stood in the fog that rose up from the leaves covering the ground around them.

  He noticed someone standing beneath the oak tree just beyond the stones, directly across from him. It was a woman or a girl; Archie wasn't sure which. She was tall and slender; that much he could tell, but she held her umbrella so low, Archie could not see her face. She was dressed all in black, from her boots and tights to the dress that came down to just above her knees. Two slender young-looking hands gripped the umbrella. Archie wondered who she was and why she wasn't standing with everyone else. It looked almost as if she was deliberately standing in front of him, watching him from beneath her umbrella. He stared out at her and felt for a moment that he was seeing some kind of ghost rising out of the fog, and he determined that when the service was over he would go and find out who she was. He knew that if Armory were there he would call out to her and probably even would have done so in the middle of the service.

  Remembering Armory made Archie's heart sink. He missed his old friend. He turned his attention back to the service, but when it was time to bow his head for one last prayer Archie kept his head lifted and his eyes fixed on the figure still standing beneath the tree.

  After the service Archie followed his grandmother's example and kissed his flower and placed it on top of the casket. Tears welled up in his eyes, taking him by surprise. He had yet to cry for the loss of his grandfather: He thought to say something, anything to make up for not speaking before the man had died, to make up for all the ways that he had hurt his grandfather over the years, and all the fights they had had with each other. He thought again to apologize for the still and for vomiting on him, but what was the use? His grandfather was dead, and anyway, an apology wasn't enough—but what was? Becoming a saint? Was that what his grandfather's final words meant? Was he saying, "It'll take your being a saint the rest of your life to make it up to me now, boy"?

  His grandmother's friends had their own ideas about what the words had meant, and after the service, when Archie was trying to get away and catch up with the stranger beneath the tree, they held him back and gave him their take on Silas Benjamin Caswell's final words.

  Miss Nattie Lynn Cooper shook her finger at him and said, "You listen to me, child, your granddaddy's last words were a warning. Take care, Archibald, and sin no more—that's what the old prophet was saying!"

  Mrs. Wally Hoover said, "Nonsense, Nattie Lynn, don't you go scaring the boy half to death. Old Silas was just having a heraldic vision. It had nothing to do with Archibald at all."

  Archie looked out past the women and saw the figure still standing in the same place, as though she was waiting for something. He wondered if maybe she was waiting for him. The thought made chills rim down his spine. He still considered the idea that she was some dark spirit a real possibility.

  Then Miss Callie Butcher stepped forward and argued with the others, taking hold of Archie's hand. "With old Silas so close to death, he was not of sound mind. The fool was just speaking gibberish," she said. She shook Archie's hand in hers and added, "Don't you think another thing about it, Archibald."

  Archie couldn't help noticing that nobody, not even him, believed his grandfather's words meant just what he had said—that Archie was a saint.

  At last the women moved on, and Archie hurried out toward the oak tree before any more of his grandparents' friends could catch hold of him. As he jogged he saw that the dark figure was moving. Then he realized she was coming toward him, and he thought of the Back Street Thrasher wondering if he had conjured up some kind of evil spirit. Archie slowed down, then stopped. The figure kept walking. The rain and wind whipped her dress about her knees and beat upon her umbrella. She held the umbrella so low over her head that Archie wondered how she could see where she was going. As she approached him, Archie began to back away. Then he heard her speak in a soft voice.

  "This is for you, Archibald Lee Caswell," she said. She placed a small laminated card in the palm of his hand.

  Archie looked down and read the words on the card:

  Who are you, Almighty God of goodness and wisdom,

  that you should visit me and judge me worthy,

  I who am lower than the worms in the soil,

  and most despicable?

  "What's this supposed to mean?" Archie looked up and saw the figure retreating.

  "Hey!" he called. He started after her but then he heard Clyde yelling to him. He turned and saw Clyde and his grandmother gesturing for him to come on, it was time to leave. He looked back for the girl—he was certain she was a girl and not a woman—and saw her already across the cemetery, heading toward town.

  Archie looked down at the card in his hand, squeezed it, and then set out across the graveyard to join Clyde and his grandmother:

  Chapter 4

  ARCHIE LOOKED FOR the strange girl as he rode through town on his way hom
e from the funeral, but he didn't see her. Then for several days afterward, he rode his bike the nine miles into town, or on days when his grandmother who didn't see well, needed to run some errands and Clyde couldn't drive her he drove her in his grandfather's truck, even though at fourteen he had no license, and searched for the girl while his grandmother went about her business. He didn't have much to go on, no face and no name, but still he wandered in and out of the shops and boutiques that lined Main Street searching for her wanting to find out who she was and how she knew his name, and why she had given him that card. What had those words to do with him?

  It was early April and not yet the high tourist season there in town, so Archie had hoped that she would be easier to find, but although there were a number of tall, slender girls with soft voices, none of them seemed right to him. He either knew the girls already, or if not, they didn't show the least bit of interest in him. The girl at the cemetery had known his name. He figured if he spotted her, she would startle or draw in her breath or in some other way show him some bit of recognition.

  The girl and the card with its unusual message weren't the only things on his mind. Archie felt that his grandfather haunted him as well. He had written an e-mail message to Armory about it, but Archie decided something had to be wrong; his best friend hadn't written him back in over a week, and they had promised to e-mail each other every day. Archie decided to call Armory, and after getting permission from his grandmother he did.

  Armory answered the phone laughing, and Archie felt so happy to hear his friend's deep voice on the other end, he laughed, too.

  "Hey, it's me, Cas. How are you? I've been e-mailing you like we promised, but I haven't heard back from you. Everything okay?"

  Archie heard Armory whisper something to someone and then Armory said, "Cool!"

  "Huh?"

  "Oh, sorry, Cas. What did you say?"

  "Are you okay?" Archie spoke louder as if Armory had trouble hearing him.

  "Yeah, sure, great. Well, you know how it is, getting used to a new school and all. Oh, wait." Armory laughed. "Sorry, I guess you don't, being home-schooled all your life. How's that going, anyway? Your grandfather giving it to you as usual? Still trying to convince you the South won the Civil War? Man, I'm glad to be out of Hicksville."

  Who is he talking to? Archie wondered. It sounded as if Armory was saying everything for someone else's benefit. As if he was putting on a show for someone. And what had happened to his voice? He sounded like a Yankee.

  Archie took a deep breath, feeling irritation rising in him. "Armory, I wrote you—he died. I told you that. You wrote back, remember? You said, 'Cool!' Remember?"

  "Oh yeah. Oh yeah? So what's that like, having the old buzzard out of the way? Are you, like, going wild, or what?"

  Archie heard his friend whisper again and then laugh. The conversation was going about as well as the e-mails. "Who's there with you?" he asked.

  "No one—anymore," Armory said. "So go on; what were you saying?"

  Archie took another deep breath and pushed on. "I think my granddaddy is haunting me."

  "Cool! Like a ghost or something?"

  "No. His words, his last words keep bugging me. I looked up 'saints' on the Internet and read this article that said that they used to throw saints to the lions or stone them to death, or they cut their heads off just because of their beliefs. Ever since I read that, I've been having all kinds of nightmares. You think Granddaddy Silas wants me stoned to death? Saints are Catholic, right? You know how Granddaddy never did abide by anything Catholic. You know what he was like. There was only one religion—his. He meant to insult me, take one last jab at me, right? Make me feel guilty for what we did?"

  "Clyde's Catholic, isn't he?" Armory asked. "Old Silas liked him enough to let him run the farm."

  "That's different. He was like a second son to Granddaddy. He knew Clyde since Clyde was two."

  "Well, I think it's cool dreaming about getting your head cut off. Chop, chop. You get all the luck, man."

  "Yeah, thanks. I don't feel so lucky. Remember I wrote you how when Granddaddy died, he poked me in the stomach when he spoke those words? Remember I said he dug his fingernail into my stomach?"

  "Uh—well—okay."

  Archie could hear him snickering, as if what he was saying was so funny. Archie didn't know what to do but continue. Armory was his best friend, after all—or he had been. Archie said, "It's weird, I know, but I can still feel my granddaddy's poke." He rubbed his stomach. "It's like this dull pressure just above my belly button. It's here all the time, like a warning or something."

  Archie heard someone giggling. There was someone on the other line. It sounded like a girl. Then the giggling turned to laughter and the girl spoke. "Who is this clown talking? Armory, do you hear him drawl? What a hick. I can't believe you used to know this dude."

  Archie said, "Who is this? Armory? What's going on?"

  Then he heard Armory's deep laughter along with the girl's. "Cas, meet Darcy, my girlfriend. I said she could listen in on the other line. She wanted to hear you talk with your accent."

  "What accent?" Archie asked. "You know I don't have much of an accent."

  "'Whut ac-see-nt?'" the girl said, imitating him. "You sound so corny."

  "Told you," Armory said.

  Archie didn't know what was going on, but he'd had enough. Without making a sound he hung up the phone and then sat staring at it for several minutes. He didn't know what to think about what had just happened. How could Armory have humiliated him like that? He felt he had just lost his best friend, and he didn't know what to do about it. He wanted to talk to someone, but who could he talk to? He and his grandmother never talked about those kinds of things, and Clyde was busy on the farm. Archie should have been, too, but Clyde had told him to take some time off from work because he had been too distracted lately, and that made him dangerous around all the machinery. It felt like nobody wanted him around.

  Archie headed outside and aimlessly roamed the farm. His grandparents owned more than two hundred acres of fields and pasture and woods, two large ponds, a stream, and behind their home, a mountain: Caswells' Mountain.

  He walked into the woods and through the fields, past the grazing sheep and cows. He pitched rocks into the stream that ran down the steep slope of the mountain, then climbed to the top of the mountain. He lifted his head to the sky and spoke to his grandfather asking him, "Have you blessed me or cursed me, Granddaddy?" Archie's answer was a dull pressing sensation just above his belly button. That night he returned home and went to bed without dinner.

  The next day he woke up feeling strangely calm and still dreamy after a night of dreams he couldn't remember but he knew they had been pleasant for a change. He awoke early and again climbed to the top of the mountain. He sat down on a boulder and sucked on a lemon he'd carried in his pocket. He watched the cows grazing in a field below him. He watched them a long time.

  The day had started out cool and sunny and calm, a day Archie had called a blue day. Every day, he believed, held a color; every day had a certain cast to it, blue or green or gold or pink. That day Archie had called blue, but after sitting for a couple of hours staring out at the fields, the light changed, deepening the colors about him to purple, and the wind began to blow. Right from the start the wind had felt uncommon, as if it had swept up from beneath him.

  Archie tossed his lemon away and looked about. The cows that he had been gazing at only moments before seemed closer clearer as though he were looking at them through a telescope, and each hair on their brown-and-white bodies stood out in detail, perfect and alive. Everything, he realized, looked that way: the rocks, the patches of spring snow, the grass, the trees; everything was filled with a spirit and an energy that radiated out toward him. The wind blew harder and Archie's hair stood up on his head. He ran his tongue over his front teeth, licking the sourness off them. He saw the pines, a cluster of them bending in the breeze, bowing, beckoning.

  Archie stood
up and experienced a strange sensation of weightlessness. He could not feel himself. He could not sense where his legs and feet ended and the ground began. His whole body had no beginning and no end. The sky, the air the sun, the earth, and the trees belonged as much to his body as his skin and bones. He walked toward the trees. He felt light and transparent. The pines swayed and bent, speaking with the creaking of their branches, the bristling of their needles, the thump of their cones as they fell to the ground. Archie listened, but it was like the speech of his grandfather when he spoke in tongues—foreign, and powerful. He felt the power and the energy of the trees course through his body. They were alive as he was alive, full of spirit and consciousness. He dropped to his knees and cried. Tears of joy and of worship flowed from his eyes. His heart, his whole being, filled with joy.

  Archie stayed with the trees until the light faded and the wind died down and the voices around him grew silent. He did not know what had happened to him, or why, but as he descended the mountain, following the stream in the dark, he remembered the words on the card the girl had handed to him:

  Who are you, Almighty God of goodness and wisdom,

  that you should visit me and judge me worthy,

  I who am lower than the worms in the soil,

  and most despicable?