Salvation

(AKA Out of Egypt)
The day sagged as it ambled down into night. So too did its denizens. Thus the mule at end of day trudged on the wagon rut that passed for a road in the hamlet known as Egypt. The mule sagged, the wagon he pulled sagged and so did the figure framed gray against the shadowed trees and cabins that lined the lane, the one who drove the mule forward. Will had put in a full day in the fields and had only another full night to which to look forward.

The mule and the wagon and Will trudged onward. Past the cabins and small fields deeper into the woods the plodding beast, the creaking buckboard, the rocking body doggedly headed for their destination, Will’s daughter’s husband’s house.

Will’s daughter’s husband had built his cabin beyond the end of the wagon rut, deep in the woods and on the banks of a creek populated with alligators and water moccasins. Most people didn’t go that far, even if hunting or fishing. A place dark, dank, and dangerous, the banks of the creek were off limits to children and off putting for adults. Will felt no joy in going to such a place, just a duty.

As the wagon neared the cabin, Will straighten his back and popped the reins of the mule to urge the beast forward with a bit more urgency. The mule responded at first, but soon slowed again. The rut grew rougher here and the footing less sure. But the sun was falling faster now it seemed and Will wanted to at least be started back out of here before all light was lost so each slowing of creature movement brought another pop of the reins, another jerking forward, a greater chance of the beast making a misstep.

Finally the small clearing where the cabin stood opened to Will. He swung the wagon wide right and turned left so as to stop in front of the cabin door but be pointed outward of the woods and back towards the wagon rut. He stilled the wagon, pulled the brake, but he did not get out of the wagon. He held the reins and simply sat still, looking forward, back toward the settlement through which he had just come.

“Cora! Cora! Come on child! Pack your grip! Time to go!”

The cabin door opened slowly, but Cora did not appear. Instead a man, a big man, filled the door, a man who leisurely leaned against the door jam, brawny arms folded across his broad chest. No shirt and his suspenders hanging on the sides of his trouser legs, clearly this was a man about to bed down for the night, and from the wicked smile on his lips, he had no intention of doing so alone.

“What’s this all about, old man? Why you out here yelling at my house?”

Will continued to look forward.

“Cora! Come on child!”

The man looked toward the wagon rut.

“What old man? What are you looking for out there? Someone else coming?

The man looked back at Will.

“If you are looking for company, looks like it ain’t coming. So what you want old man? I ain’t got time this foolishness. It’s been a long day and I’m gettin’ ready for bed.” The words dripped with sex and sin and arrogance.

Will spoke again, but this time he did look at the man.

“Then you best go to bed. Come on Cora!”

The man shifted in the door, now standing upright with arms still folded, legs now spread apart, his body fully blocking the door. Through the sneer of one who felt himself invulnerable, the man spoke again.

“Look old man, I don’t know or care what you think is going to happen here. But I’m going to bed. So is my wife. Now go home old man.”

The man turned to go back in the cabin

“Come on Cora”

The man whipped around and quick stepped to the edge of the cabin porch.

“Look old man get the fuck outta here! This here is my property and I want you and your raggedy wagon gone. Cora ain’t going no damn where, ya hear me? Nowhere lessen it’s across my dead body. Do you hear me old man?!?”

Will looked down at the floor of the wagon. He reached down between his legs. When he straightened up he was holding a 12 gauge shotgun. With his left hand on the triggers and the barrel rest across his his torso in his right arm, Will spoke.

“That how you want it?”

Something fell inside the house. The man was startled and looked back quickly then back to Will, but Will simply adjust his gaze from the man to looking past him into the cabin.

“Cora, get a move girl. You burning daylight.”

Will could now hear scurrying inside. The man simply stood on the porch hands out from his side, palms turned open toward the shotgun, staring at the shotgun, fearing he dare not look away.

More noises came from inside the house. Then in the door stood Cora, in a night gown and an overcoat and bare feet, clutching tight a Gladstone back so hurriedly packed that pieces of cloth could be seen sticking out.

She stood looking at the back of the head of the man who was her husband and she could not move.

“Come on Cora, It’s alright now. Time to go.”

Cora stepped forward. Then she took another step. She turned sideways and side shuffled past her husband. She nearly lost her footing on the stairs and it not been for the railing at her back, she surely would have tumbled down the steps. She kept her eyes on her husband the whole time not daring to look away until she was in the yard beyond his reach; there she turned and ran to the wagon. She threw the bag in the back and pulled herself up and in, sitting next to her father. Will turned at looked at his daughter, at her bruises, her scars, her black eye, the eye he had seen the day before in the Bland’s General Store. The eye that made him come here this evening. The eye that now made him turn back to the man and pull the hammers back on the shotgun.

“Pa don’t.”

It was more prayer than plea. Will did nothing for a long time then slowly eased the hammers down and stared at the man on the porch. He looked smaller now. Will stood and stepped into the back of wagon. There he knelt, the gun still trained on the man.

“Take up the reins, Cora. Let’s go”

Cora reached down on the floor of the wagon and picked up the reins. She clicked her tongue and popped the leather. The wagon began moving. Not until the pair could see the first of the small fields and cabins that lined the wagon rut did Will moved back to the bench in the front to the wagon. He laid down his gun on the floor of the wagon and took the reins from his daughter. Cora folded her hands in her lap, and with back straight and eyes forward looking into the last rays of a dying day, she began to sing.