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The dust boiled behind us, and I lost sight of them. As I lay down again and tried to get comfortable, I prayed that I would never again set foot on their farm. I never wanted to see any of those people for the rest of my life. And I prayed long and hard that no one would ever hear the rumor that the Chandlers and the Latchers were related.

My return home was triumphant. The Spruills were cleaned up and ready for town. They were sitting under a tree, drinking iced tea with Pappy and Gran and my father, when we rolled to a stop less than twenty feet away. As dramatically as I could, I stood in the back of the truck, and with great satisfaction watched them react in shock at the sight of me. There I was-beaten, bloodied, dirty, clothes ripped, but still standing.

I climbed down, and everyone gathered around me. My mother stormed forward and very angrily said, “You’re not gonna believe what happened! Three of them jumped Luke! Percy and two others caught him when I was in the house. The little criminals! We’re takin’ food over, and they pull a stunt like this.”

Tally was concerned, too, and I think she wanted to reach out and touch me, to make sure I was all right.

“Three of ‘em?” Pappy repeated, his eyes dancing.

“Yes, and they were all bigger than Luke,” my mother said, and the legend began to grow. The size of my three attackers would increase as the days and months went by.

Gran was in my face, staring at my nose, which had a small cut on it. “Might be broken,” she said, and though I was thrilled to hear it, I was not looking forward to her treatment.

“You didn’t run, did you?” Pappy asked. He, too, was moving in closer.

“No sir,” I said proudly. I’d still be running if given half a chance.

“He did not,” my mother said sternly. “He was kickin’ and clawin’ just as hard as they were.” Pappy beamed, and my father smiled.

“We’ll go back tomorrow and finish ‘em off,” Pappy said.

“You’ll do no such thing,” my mother said. She was irritated because Pappy loved a brawl. But then, she came from a house full of girls. She did not understand fighting.

“Did you land a good punch?” Pappy asked.

“They were all cryin’ when I left,” I said.

My mother rolled her eyes.

Hank shoved his way through the group and bent down to inspect the damage. “Say there was three of ‘em, huh?” he growled at me.

“Yes sir,” I said, nodding.

“Good for you, boy. It’ll make you tough.”

“Yes sir,” I said.

“If you want me to, I’ll show you some tricks on how to handle a three-on-one situation,” he said with a smile.

“Let’s get cleaned up,” my mother said.

“I think it’s broken,” Gran said.

“You okay, Luke?” Tally asked.

“Yep,” I said, as tough as I could.

They led me away in a victory march.

Chapter 23

The Fall Picnic was always held on the last Sunday in September, though no one knew exactly why. It was simply a tradition in Black Oak, a ritual as ingrained as the carnival and the spring revival. It was supposed to somehow link the coming of a new season, the beginning of the end of the harvest, and the end of baseball. It wasn’t clear if all this was accomplished with one picnic, but at least the effort was made.

We shared the day with the Methodists, our friends and friendly rivals. Black Oak was too small to be divided. There were no ethnic groups, no blacks or Jews or Asians, no permanent outsiders of any variety. We were all of Anglo-Irish stock, maybe a strain or two of German blood, and everybody farmed or sold to the farmers. Every body was a Christian or claimed to be. Disagreements flared up when a Cubs fan said too much at the Tea Shoppe, or when some idiot declared John Deere to be inferior to another brand of tractor, but for the most part life was peaceful. The older boys and younger men liked to fight behind the Co-op on Saturdays, but it was more sport than anything else. A beating like the one Hank gave the Siscos was so rare that the town was still talking about it.

Individual grudges lasted a lifetime; Pappy carried more than his share. But there were no serious enemies. There was a clear social order, with the sharecroppers at the bottom and the merchants at the top, and everyone was expected to know his place. But folks got along.

The line between Baptists and Methodists was never straight and true. Their worship was slightly different, with the ritual of sprinkling little babies being their most flagrant deviation from the Scriptures, as we saw things. And they didn’t meet as often, which, of course, meant that they were not as serious about their faith. Nobody met as much as us Baptists. We took great pride in constant worship. Pearl Watson, my favorite Methodist, said she’d like to be a Baptist, but that she just wasn’t physically able.

Ricky told me once in private that when he left the farm he might become a Catholic because they only met once a week. I didn’t know what a Catholic was, and so he tried to explain things, but Ricky on theology was a shaky discussion at best.

My mother and Gran spent more time than usual ironing our clothes that Sunday morning. And I certainly got scrubbed with more purpose. Much to my disappointment, my nose had not been broken, there was no swelling, and the cut was barely noticeable.

We had to look our very best because the Methodist ladies had slightly nicer dresses. In spite of all the fuss, I was excited and couldn’t wait to get to town.

We had invited the Spruills. This was done out of a sense of friendliness and Christian concern, though I wanted to pick and choose. Tally would be welcome; the rest could stay in the front yard for all I cared. But when I surveyed their camp after breakfast, I saw little movement. Their truck had not been disconnected from the myriad of wires and ropes that held their shelters upright. “They ain’t comin’,” I reported to Pappy, who was studying his Sunday school lesson. “Good,” he said quietly.

The prospect of Hank milling about the picnic, grazing from table to table, gorging himself on food and looking for a fight, was not appealing.

The Mexicans really had no choice. My mother had extended an invitation to Miguel early in the week, then followed it up with a couple of gentle reminders as Sunday grew near. My father had explained to him that a special worship service would be held in Spanish, then there would be plenty of good food. They had little else to do on Sunday afternoons.

Nine of them piled into the back of our truck; only Cowboy was absent. This set my imagination on fire. Where was he and what was he doing? Where was Tally? I didn’t see her in the front yard as we drove away. My heart sank as I thought of them back in the fields, hiding and doing whatever they wanted to do. Instead of going to church with us, Tally was probably sneaking around again, doing bad things. What if she now used Cowboy as her lookout while she bathed in Siler’s Creek? I couldn’t stand that thought, and I worried about her all the way to town.

Brother Akers, with a rare smile on his face, took the pulpit. The sanctuary was packed, and people were sitting in the aisles and standing along the back wall. The windows were open, and on the north side of the church, under a tall oak, the Mexicans were grouped together, hats off, dark heads making a sea of brown.

He welcomed our guests, our visitors from the hills, and also the Mexicans. There were a few hill people, but not many. As always, he asked them to stand and identify themselves. They were from places like Hardy, Mountain Home, and Calico Rock, and they were as spruced up as we were. A loudspeaker had been placed in a window, so Brother Alcers’s words were broadcast out of the sanctuary and into the general direction of the Mexicans, where Mr. Carl Durbin picked up the words and translated them into Spanish. Mr. Durbin was a retired missionary from Jonesboro. He’d worked in Peru for thirty years among some real Indians up in the mountains, and every so often he’d come and talk to us during missions week and show us photos and slides of the strange land he’d left behind. In addition to Spanish, he also spoke an Indian dialect, and this forever fascinated me.

Mr. Durbin stood under the shade tree with Mexicans seated on the grass all around him. He wore a white suit and a white straw hat, and his voice carried back to the church with almost as much volume as old Brother Alcers’s did with the loudspeaker. Ricky’d once said that Mr. Durbin had a lot more sense than Brother Akers, and he’d offered this opinion over Sunday dinner and created trouble yet again. It was a sin to criticize your preacher, at least out loud.

I sat at the end of the pew, next to the window, so I could watch and listen to Mr. Durbin. I couldn’t understand a word he was saying, but I knew his Spanish was slower than the Mexicans’. They talked so fast that I often wondered how they understood each other. His sentences were smooth and deliberate and laden with a heavy Arkansas accent. Though I had not a clue as to what he was saying, he was still more captivating than Brother Akers.

Not surprisingly, with such a large crowd, the morning’s sermon took on a life of its own and became a marathon. Small crowd, shorter sermon. Big crowd, like Easter and Mother’s Day and the

Fall Picnic, and Brother Akers felt the need to perform. At some point, in the midst of his ramblings, Mr. Durbin seemed to get bored with it all. He ignored the message being broadcast from inside the sanctuary and began to deliver his own sermon. When Brother Akers paused to catch his breath, Mr. Durbin kept right on preaching. And when Brother Akers’s hellfire and brimstone was at its fever pitch, Mr. Durbin was resting with a glass of water. He took a seat on the ground with the Mexicans and waited for the shouting to stop inside the sanctuary.

I waited, too. I passed the time by dreaming of the food that we’d soon have-heaping plates of fried chicken and gallons of homemade ice cream.

The Mexicans began glancing at the church windows. I’m sure they thought Brother Akers had gone crazy. “Relax,” I wanted to tell them, “it happens all the time.”

We sang five stanzas of “Just As I Am” for the benediction. No one walked down the aisle, and Brother Akers reluctantly dismissed us. I met Dewayne at the front door, and we raced down the street to the baseball field to see if the Methodists were there, Of course they were; they never worshiped as long as we did.

Behind the backstop, under three elm trees that had caught a million foul balls, the food was being arranged on picnic tables covered with red- and-white checkerboard cloths. The Methodists were swarming around, the men and children hauling food while the ladies organized the dishes. I found Pearl Watson and chatted her up. “Brother Akers still goin’?” she asked with a grin.

“He just turned us loose,” I said. She gave Dewayne and me two chocolate cookies. I ate mine in two bites.

Finally, the Baptists started arriving, amid a chorus of “Hello” and “Where you been?” and “What took so long?” Cars and trucks were pulled close, and soon were parked bumper to bumper along the fences around the field. At least one and maybe two would get hit with foul balls. Two years earlier, Mr. Wilber Shifflett’s brand-new Chrysler sedan lost a windshield when Ricky hit a home run over the left-field fence. The explosion had been terrific-a loud thud, then the racket of glass bursting. But Mr. Shifflett had money, so no one got too worried. He knew the risks when he parked there. The Methodists beat us that year, too, seven to five, and Ricky was of the opinion that the manager, Pappy, should’ve changed pitchers in the third inning.

They didn’t speak to each other for some time.

The tables were soon covered with large bowls of vegetables, platters heaped with fried chicken, and baskets filled with corn bread, rolls, and other breads. Under the direction of the Methodist minister’s wife, Mrs. Orr, dishes were moved here and there until a certain order took shape. One table had nothing but raw vegetables-tomatoes of a dozen varieties, cucumbers, white and yellow onions in vinegar. Next to it were the beans-black-eyed peas, crowder peas, green beans cooked with ham, and butter beans. Every picnic had potato salad, and every chef had a different recipe. Dewayne and I counted eleven large bowls of the dish, and no two looked the same. Deviled eggs were almost as popular, and there were plates of them that covered half a table. Last, and most important, was the fried chicken. There was enough to feed the town for a month.

The ladies scurried about, fussing over the food while the men talked and laughed and greeted each other, but always with one eye on the chicken. Kids were everywhere, and Dewayne and I drifted to one tree in particular, where some ladies were arranging the desserts. I counted sixteen coolers of homemade ice cream, all covered tightly with towels and packed with ice.

Once the preparations had met the approval of Mrs. Orr, her husband, the Reverend Vernon Orr, stood in the center of the tables with Brother Akers, and the crowd grew still and quiet. The year before, Brother Akers had thanked God for His blessings; this year the honor went to the Methodists. The picnic had an unspoken pattern to it. We bowed our heads and listened as the Reverend Orr thanked God for His goodness, for all the wonderful food, for the weather, the cotton, and on and on. He left out nothing; Black Oak was indeed grateful for everything.

I could smell the chicken. I could taste the brownies and ice cream. Dewayne kicked me, and I wanted to lay him out. I didn’t, though, because I’d get whipped for fighting during a prayer.

When the Reverend Orr finally finished, the men corralled the Mexicans and lined them up to be served. This was a tradition; Mexicans first, hill people second, children third, then the adults. Stick Powers appeared from nowhere, in uniform, of course, and managed to cut in line between the Mexicans and the hill folks. I heard him explain that he was on duty and didn’t have much time. He carried away two plates-one covered with chicken and one covered with everything else he could pile on. We knew he’d eat until he was stuffed, then find a tree on the edge of town and sleep off his lunch.

Several of the Methodists asked me about Ricky-how was he doing, had we heard from him. I tried to be nice and answer their questions, but as a family we Chandlers did not enjoy this attention. And now that we were horrified over the Latcher secret, any mention of Ricky in public scared us. “Tell him we’re thinkin’ about him,” they said. They always said this, as if we owned a phone and called him every night.

“We’re prayin’ for him,” they said.

“Thank you,” I always replied.

A perfectly wonderful moment like the Fall Picnic could be ruined with an unexpected question about Ricky. He was in Korea, in the trenches, in the thick of the war, dodging bullets and killing people, not knowing if he would ever come home to go to church with us, to picnic with the town, to play against the Methodists again. In the midst of the excitement I suddenly felt very alone, and very frightened.