where we were standing, I could see it blowing hot air down into the grass right under the window. The church was painted white, but around the bottom it had turned orange from where dirt and mud had splashed up from the grass during rainstorms.
âI bet heâs still in there,â Joe Bill said.
âYou think?â
âI bet he is,â he said. âIt ainât been long since Mr. Thompson came down and got him.â Joe Bill let go of the limb heâd been holding, and it whipped right past my ear and snapped back up into the tree.
âHey!â I hollered out. âYou just about took my dang ear off!â
âShhhh!â he whispered. âBe quiet.â He closed his eyes and dropped his head and for a minute it looked like he was fixing to pray, but then he opened his eyes real slow like heâd just woke up from a nap. âListen,â he said.
âTo what?â
âYou canât hear that?â
âHear what?â
âListen,â he said again.
I dropped my head and closed my eyes just like Iâd seen Joe Bill do, and for a minute I couldnât hear nothing at all except for a few birds fussing in the trees above us and the sound of the breeze coming through the dry grass, and after a minute I couldnât even hear that. But then, real slow, the singing of the crickets raised up out of the woods behind me and their chirping sounded like somebody was scratching a spoon across a clean dinner plate, and past that, across the railroad tracks on the other side of the woods, I could hear the river running slow toward Marshall, and it was so soft that I wondered if I was making it up or remembering the sound of it just because it was supposed to be there. Then I couldnât hear nothing until I turned my ears to listen for what was in front of me out there in the field where the grasshoppers and the katydids hummed in the high grass. That was a noise Iâd always heard without even knowing I could hear it, and when I heard it, I could finally hear what Joe Bill was talking about. At first I heard it like a heartbeat, and I felt it in my chest like a heartbeat too, like it was inside my body thumping up against my ribs because it wanted to get out. It made me think about the Madison High marching band at the football games and the marchers with the drums strapped to their chests and the feeling you get inside you when they march out onto the field at halftime with the batons and the horns and the drums and all that noise they make. And now I could hear other noises floating just above the sound of that heartbeat: the electric guitar came out over the field like a crackly old radio that wasnât tuned in good, and the sound of somebody banging away on the piano followed behind it. All of a sudden I knew that what I was hearing was music, and when I opened my eyes I knew it was coming from inside the church. I looked over at Joe Bill.
âItâs music,â I said.
âI know,â Joe Bill said. âThey must be singing in there.â
We stood in the shade and listened to what we could hear of the music coming across the field. Every now and then I could hear peopleâs voices, and it sounded like they were shouting.
âAre you going to take a look?â Joe Bill asked me.
âI ainât decided yet,â I said, but deep down I wished I could tell him no because I was scared to death of going all the way across that field to spy on folks inside the church. Mama had told me and Stump it wasnât right to spy on grown-ups, and one time she caught us hiding up in the barn listening to Daddy and Mr. Gant hang the burley. When she found us, she took us inside the house and whipped us good across the backs of our legs with one of Daddyâs old belts.
âI told yâall not to go spying on grown-ups,â she said. âEspecially your daddy. You donât need to know the kinds of things a man like him talks