Elijah of Buxton Read Online Free PDF Page B

I’m afraid it has the look of conjuring to it.”
    I couldn’t understand what he was talking ’bout. I was sure I hadn’t done nothing that no one could claim was conjuring.
    I said, “No, sir, I wouldn’t never do nothing like conjuring. I waren’t doing nothing but chunking stones.”
    He said, “That’s what I’m talking about. I’ve never seen a soul throw a rock like you do and, Elijah, I have to tell you, I’m quite concerned. I have to do some serious pondering on this to see if it’s the work of the Devil. You do know that being left-handed is one of the sure signs of being in Satan’s clutches, don’t you?”
    I said, “No, sir!”
    He said, “Keep that in mind. Come on with me, I’m going a little deeper in the woods to practice-shoot. And bring some of those rocks you have there.”
    I’d told Ma I waren’t gonna go no farther than the Atlas Clearing, but since I was gonna be with the Preacher I figured it’d be all right if I followed him. ’Sides, if it meant I’d get to see him shooting off his mystery pistol, waren’t nothing gonna stop me!
    I’d spent lots of time sneaking through the woods, mostly at night, but I didn’t recognize the way the Preacher started leading me. All I knowed for sure was that it was where me and Cooter’d been warned not to go, off toward the way where some of the white people that didn’t like us lived. Pa’d told us it was a way full up with black bears and bats and, worst of all, millions of rattling-snakes!
    I sure was glad the Preacher had his gun ’cause, truth told, whilst I knowed I wouldn’t have no trouble chunking a rattling-snake with my rocks, I caint say for sure if I could stop one of those black bears.
    Me and the Preacher must’ve walked for half a hour, but I couldn’t be sure, when you don’t know where you’re heading, time don’t seem to run by like it normal do. But with every step we took I was getting more and more disappointed in this new area.
    From the way Pa had warned me, I’d always pictured these woods as having so many bears hanging out of the trees that the sunlight would’ve been blocked off from hitting the ground! I’d always pictured that there’d be so many rattling-snakes hissing and shaking in these parts that you’d near ’bout go deaf from the racket they made. But we’d been walking a good long time and there was still plenty of sunlight and I hadn’t heard rattle the first. We hadn’t even seen one bat.
    Finally we got to another clearing and the Preacher said, “I’m going to give you some tests, Elijah, and I’m hoping that they prove you haven’t been conjuring, because if you have, it’s my responsibility to let the word be spread.”
    I waren’t sure what he meant by that, but I knowed it waren’t good.
    He said, “I’m going to set these pieces of wood up at about twenty paces and I want to see how many of them you can hit.”
    I started thinking this over. Hitting something from twenty paces waren’t nothing, but I wondered if I should miss one or two of ’em on purpose so’s the Preacher wouldn’t see no signs of conjuring.
    But this was the Preacher, and he was so smart it’d be hard to fool him. He was always telling me he’d forgot more than I ever knowed, which don’t make a lot of sense, but it was probably gonna be best on me if I chunked for real and didn’t hold back.
    The Preacher walked off twenty steps and set up five hunks of wood ’bout three feet apart one from the ’nother.
    He came back and told me, “Let me see how many of them you can hit before I count five.”
    I put two stones in my right hand and three in my left.
    The Preacher raised a eyebrow like he hadn’t never seen nothing like this and said, “Set! Go! One