“Why is it his special day?” Joe Bill asked.

“Because,” Mr. Thompson said, “the Lord’s called him.” He went to take Stump’s hand, but Stump wouldn’t let him touch it. He’d closed his fingers around something and made a fist and he wouldn’t open them. “What’s he got?” Mr. Thompson asked. I looked at Stump.

“Let me see your hand,” I said. Stump put his hand behind his back again and stood there looking toward the river like he couldn’t hear me. “Stump,” I said, “let me see what you’ve got.” He finally opened his hand, and when he did I saw that he’d picked up a little piece of quartz that he must’ve found while we were down at the river skipping rocks with Joe Bill. He was always doing that, picking up shiny rocks and keeping them in his pockets until we got home. We had a whole shelf in our room where we kept the rocks we collected. We even had us a big purple quartz rock about the size of a baseball that Daddy had found when he was turning his tobacco rows. I held out my hand to Stump. “I’ll keep that for you,” I said. “I won’t let nothing happen to it. I promise.” He dropped the quartz into my hand, and I slid it into the back pocket of my blue jeans. Then me and Joe Bill just stood there and watched Stump and Mr. Thompson walk across the road toward the church.

I didn’t want Stump to go inside there without me, even though Mama’d told me over and over that I wasn’t old enough to go to church with her just yet. But she’d also told me over and over that I should always look out for Stump and make sure that nothing happened to him, that I was like the big brother and he was like the little one. But I figured that what she’d said didn’t matter now, and I felt awfully little just standing there watching Mr. Thompson take Stump’s hand and lead him across the road.

There was a black drop of blood starting to scab on my arm where something must’ve scratched me on the way through the woods, and I took my finger and picked the scab off and rubbed the blood back and forth across my skin. It left a rusty trail through the hairs on my arm. Me and Joe Bill had been standing in the shade so long that the sweat on my legs was getting dry and it was starting to itch. I wiped my finger on the back pocket of my blue jeans to get the blood off, and then I scratched my legs with my fingernails until they stopped itching. I could feel that music beating inside my chest from clear across the field.

Joe Bill squatted down in the grass and put his elbows on his knees. Then he picked up a stick and started snapping it into little pieces and tossing them out in front of him. He didn’t look at where they landed because he was too busy staring at the back of the church where that air conditioner sat up in that window and shook like it might break those boards and fall out on the ground any second.

“What do you think Stump’s doing in there?” I asked. Joe Bill didn’t say nothing for a long time, and then he laughed and broke off the last little bit of that stick and tossed it into the grass. He looked up at me and smiled.

“He ain’t singing,” he said. “That’s for sure.”

“Well, he’s in there for some reason,” I said. “Mr. Thompson said it’s his special day. Maybe my mom wanted him to be with her.”

“But why?” Joe Bill said. “He can’t even talk or sing or nothing.”

“That don’t matter,” I said. “Maybe he’s old enough to go to church with them. He’s thirteen. He’s older than you.”

“So what,” Joe Bill said. “I’m smarter than him. At least I can talk.”

“Just because he can’t talk don’t mean he ain’t smart.”

“My brother says if you can’t talk, then it means you’re dumb,” Joe Bill said.

“Well, your brother’s an asshole,” I said, and as soon as I said it I knew I shouldn’t have. Joe Bill turned real slow and looked up at me like he couldn’t believe I’d said it either. We stared at each other for a minute, and then I squatted down beside him and picked up a stick and started snapping it into pieces so I wouldn’t have to look at him while he was staring at me.

“Don’t talk about my brother,” he finally said.

“Don’t talk about mine either.”

“I’m just telling you what Scooter told me,” Joe Bill said.

“I don’t care what he told you,” I said. “Why do you stick up for him all the time? All he ever does is beat the crap out of you.” Joe Bill stood up straight and looked at the church, and then he looked down at me.

“You going up there or not?” he asked. “Because if you ain’t I’m going back down to the river before Miss Lyle starts looking for us.” I didn’t say nothing; I just sat there snapping that stick into little pieces until it got shorter and shorter and I stared out across the high grass toward the church and thought about what I should do. Joe Bill sighed real loud and turned around and started walking into the woods. “I should’ve known you’d chicken out,” he said. “You always do.”

I tried to picture what Stump was doing inside the church with that loud music pumping and all those folks singing and hollering, and then I thought about how he wouldn’t be able to tell me one word about what he’d seen. I figured that if I was ever going to find out what they did in there then that morning might just be my only chance. “All right,” I hollered. “I’ll go.” Joe Bill stopped walking and turned around and looked at me. “I’ll go if you come with me,” I said. “If I get caught, then you’re getting caught too.”

“Finally,” he said. He walked out of the woods toward me. I watched him for a second, and then, without even hardly thinking about it, I crept out of the woods real slow to the edge of the field where the grass was tall and bright yellow in the sunlight and I hunkered down and set out across the field like I was afraid I’d bump my head on something if I stood up too tall. The field seemed like it went on forever once I was out of the woods, and I figured that if I stood up straight I’d be able to see the road in front of the church and I could probably even see part of the river where it ran toward Marshall. I knew that meant that anybody driving by might be able to see me too, and I was afraid of Miss Lyle coming up the riverbank across the road and spotting me any second. I got down just as low as I could and I bent my knees almost to the ground and kept walking.

When I got about halfway across the field, I stopped and looked back and saw that Joe Bill hadn’t even moved yet. I waved my hand for him to follow me, but he smiled and shook his head and I knew that he’d been lying about coming with me. I thought about going back, but I didn’t want Joe Bill calling me a chicken again, even if he was one himself. And then I thought about Stump being in there with Mama and I looked out over the grass at the back of the church and I saw that air conditioner vibrating in the window, and I figured I’d already come too far to think about turning around.

I looked back at Joe Bill again and he whispered something, but he was too far away for me to hear what he said. He put his hands around his eyes and looked at me like he was trying to block out the sunlight. I turned around and walked toward the church, and soon I was close enough to make out the song they were playing, and I knew it was “Have Thine Own Way, Lord.” Sometimes Mama sang that song to me and Stump before we went to bed at night, and the words popped into my head like I was lying in bed and singing right along with her, but instead I was out there in that field behind the church, hunkered down and walking low to the ground with that song singing itself in my head.

A LITTLE BIT OF ROOF HUNG OFF THE BACK OF THE CHURCH, BUT IT didn’t offer hardly any shade at all, and by the time I made it to the church I could feel the sun burning through my shirt. I looked at my shadow where the sun threw it up on the concrete wall in front of me, and I thought about how easy it would be for Mama or Mr. Gene Thompson or Miss Lyle or somebody else to come around the corner of the church any second and catch me spying. I imagined seeing their silhouettes move against the wall while they crept up beside me. I could almost feel somebody tapping me on the shoulder, and I tried to think about what I’d say to somebody if they found me back there.