Suttree went along the high rolling country above the river. Two seagulls tracked their pale shapes in the shadowed calm under the bluff and far downstream he saw an osprey turn very high and hang above the distant thunderheads with the sun parried pure white from underwing and panel. He has seen them fold and fall like stones and he stayed to watch it out of sight.
The path he followed wound along the hills through grass and bramble and cut crosscountry toward the lower reaches of the river. It angled down a long bank of shale, it went through a wood. When he came upon the river again it was upon a dead and swollen backwater of coves and sloughs where slime and froth obscured the shapes of floating jars and bottles and where lightbulbs peered from the slowly heaving jetsam like great barren eyes. He went along the narrow path past fishermen, old women, men and boys. Galvanized minnowpails were tied to stumps at the water’s edge and picnic hampers stood in the shade. A little girl squatted with her skirt hiked and watched between spattered shins her water trickle along the packed clay. Old men nodded solemnly to Suttree as he passed. Howdy. Howdy. Doin any good?
He went down a strand of mud and crusted stone strewn with spiderskeins of slender nylon fishline, tangled hooks, dried baitfish and small bones crushed among the rocks. Toeing tins from their molds in the loam where slugs recoiled and flexed mutely under the agony of the sun. The path climbed along a wall of purple sandstone above an embayment and in the sunlit shallows below him he could see the long cataphracted forms of gars lying in a kind of electric repose among the reeds. Bird shadows scuttled past but did not move them. Suttree leaned against the face of crumbling stone and watched them. One of the gars came about slowly, the water stirring and going among the willows. His dull side gave back the light like burnt brass. The other three lay like dogs, heavy shapes of primitive rapacity basking in the sun. Suttree moved on. At the head of the cove a hogsnake snubnosed and bloated lay coiled and sleeping in the dry ruins of a skiff.
The path ran on to a landing and there was a biblecamp bus parked there and people in their clothes were floundering around in the water. He descended the grassy bank among the watchers and took a seat. A preacher in shirtsleeves stood waistdeep in the water holding a young girl by the nose. He finished intoning his chant and tilted her over backwards into the river and held her there a moment and brought her up again all streaming and embarrassed and wiping the water from her eyes. The preacher was grinning. Suttree moved closer to watch. An old man nodded to him.
Howdy.
Howdy.
The girl had nothing on beneath her thin dress and it clung wet and lascivious across her cold nipples and across her belly and thighs.
You saved? said the old man.
Suttree looked at the old man and the old man looked back with eyes smoky and opaque.
No, he said.
The old man unscrewed a jar of dark brown liquid he held in his lap and spat into it and put the lid back again and wiped his mouth. Say you aint? he said.
No, Suttree said. He was watching the girl clamber out of the river.
The old man nudged another near him. Here’s one aint saved. Says it hisself.
This old man looked past the first one’s shoulder toward Suttree.
Him?
Aye.
Been baptized?
You been baptized?
Just on the head.
Just on the head, he says.
That aint no good. It wont take if you dont get total nursin. That old sprinklin business wont get it, buddy boy.
The first one nudged Suttree. He’ll tell ye right, he said. He’s a lay preacher hisself.
Sprinklers, said the lay preacher in disgust. I’d rather to just go on and be infidel as that. He turned away. He was dressed in soft blue overalls and he was very clean. The other one eyed Suttree again. Suttree was watching the preacher in the river.
Tell him to get down yonder in the water if he wants to be saved, the second old man said. He put one hand to his mouth, his jaw muscles working.
It aint salvation just to get in the water, the first said. You got to be saved as well.
Suttree turned and looked at him. Can you take your shoes off? he said.
The second old man leaned to see him. Jesus never had no shoes, he said.
The first was motioning for quiet with one flapping hand. He turned to Suttree. Aint no need to damp your shoes, he said. A feller can repent shod or barefoot either one. Jesus dont care.
What do you think about the pope and all that mess over there? Suttree said.
I try my bestest not to think about it atall, the old man said. He suddenly flung one arm upward in a gesture of such violent salutation that people drew back from around him.
That’s my grandniece Rosy yonder. Just turned fourteen and saved right as rain. Makes a feller wonder at the ways of the Lord, dont it? How old are you, son?