“Hallelujah! I feel the Spirit!” cried out one of his chorus girls. She closed her eyes as if in ecstasy and brushed her hands from her bosom down to her hips. “It’s in me!” She moaned and toppled backwards. The audience gasped as the two other girls scrambled to catch her. It looked like a rehearsed move to Juliana, but she supposed most of the crowd hadn’t seen five years’ worth of midway tricks.
This inspired people in the crowd to scream and squirm in response. The punchy piano music accelerated, and the writhing and screaming spread through the tent.
Juliana frowned. She doubted this man was anything but a big talker who knew how to sway a crowd. She was beginning to feel stupid for coming to the revival, like just another mark who couldn’t see the game.
“I know why many of you are here tonight,” the preacher said. “Word gets around, don’t it, about the wonders of the Lord that unfold right here, in this very tent? I’ve heard people say I can cure the blind, heal the sick, chase out the demons of illness.” Many of the crowd shouted excitedly. “They say I can take a crippled man and make him walk, that I can cast out all manner of pox and measles.” The crowd grew more excited, and many began trying to push their way to the front.
Juliana tensed. This was it, the alleged healing part of the show.
“Those folks are plain wrong!” the preacher shouted. “I’m just a simple country preacher. It’s the Lord that heals! It’s the Spirit that heals the sick and the suffering little children, and the lepers and all of ‘em! I am just a humble vessel of the Lord, that’s all!”
The crowd roared their enthusiastic response.
The preacher’s assistant brought up a man with his arm in a sling. The preacher prayed, danced around, and laid his hands on the broken arm. The man took off the sling and waved the bandaged arm at the crowd, grinning, and the crowd shouted things like “Hallelujah!” and “Praise the Lord!” There was no way to tell whether he was a shill or not.
The family with the polio-stricken boy was trying to push their way to the stage, but the thick crowd wasn’t budging. Juliana decided to let the little boy’s leg be her test of whether the healing was real. She jumped in front of the family.
“Crippled boy, coming through!” she shouted. “Let us through, he’s crippled! Please!” She did her best to look sad, pulling out every carnival trick she knew. A few people eased aside, but they didn’t get far, so she raised the stakes. “Dying boy! Look out, this boy’s going to die right now! Help this dying boy reach the stage!”
More people took an interest now, and some even helped out, passing the word along and urging others to step aside. She kept repeating her plea as she advanced, opening a narrow path for the family, who followed right behind her.
She kept up her patter until they reached the very edge of the stage, where the father was able to pass the little boy to the preacher’s assistant, who carried him over to the preacher. His parents watched, the father hard-eyed and skeptical, the mother full of hope.
Juliana crossed her arms and waited to see whether a miracle would happen.
“Oh, yes, this boy’s been stricken, all right,” the preacher said. “Sick leg, does everyone see that? The boy cannot walk!” The preacher’s assistant held the boy out for the crowd to see, then turned him toward the preacher, who said, “But the Lord is merciful, and offers us hope. Tell me, boy, do you love the Lord?”
“Yes,” the boy answered, in a small voice.
“And the Lord loves you, too. And we can ask Him for the great gift of healing, we can ask for His blessing...” The preacher danced around the stage a little, then shouted, “Demon of affliction, I cast thee out! Go back to the fires of damnation from which you rose!” He slapped the boy’s leg, hard enough that Juliana jumped in surprise and the boy’s mother cried out.
The assistant turned the boy to face the audience again and held him up high. Beneath his overalls, which were cut off at the knees, everyone could see that both his legs appeared perfectly healthy. The crowd gasped.
The assistant lowered the boy to his feet. He looked off-balance for a moment, then finally took a chance and put his weight on his newly healed leg. A smile burst across his face, and his mother cried out again.
“Healed, praise the Lord!” the preacher said. “God is in this tent with us today, ain’t He?”
The crowd roared that yes, He was, while the assistant carried the boy back to the side of the stage and handed him back to his shocked father and weeping mother. Juliana immediately stepped forward and grabbed the assistant’s sleeve.