Read Online A Different Sun: A Novel of Africa by Elaine Neil Orr - Free Book Online Page A

brought fish,” the fellow said. He started toward Henry, carrying a small basket. “Take it easy, not too much at a time.”
    Henry opened the basket to find fried fish, still warm.
    “You fix this for me?” he said.
    “Well, I fixed it. Always carry dinner.”
    “Won’t you need it?”
    “Not like you do.”
    “I thank you,” Henry said, shaking the man’s hand. The hand was large and Henry expected it to be rough, but the palm was tender as a baby’s bottom in heaven.
    “You’ll be fine now. Try not to ride yourself to death, or your horse,” the man said.
    Henry watched him walk off until there was nothing left to see. He ate half of the fish and lay back down.
    He spent a week at the abandoned house. Rabbits were plentiful. He recalled Bible verses his mother had taught him.
For God so loved the world He gave His only begotten son.
The man who had brought the fish never showed again, and Henry began to believe he had been visited by an angel of the Lord. The more he thought on it, the greater his joy. God in heaven loved him and longed for his soul.
    Henry’s ideas of Jesus came clean and fast. The Savior had found a field of labor among the least of these. He taught in the countryside and healed the sick wherever he found them. He stood against the high priests who sought only to expand their own power. Henry’s complaint against God had been His demand. Give all you have, even your mother. Now Henry wished to give up everything, especially his guilt, and keep only God.
    When he passed into Georgia he traded in his horse, using money from his stable work to purchase a better one. But he kept the rifle, a Yager. A muzzle-loaded, smooth-bore long gun, it carried a ball and two buckshot and it was heavy. If he used it again, it would be to shoot himself if he were fixing to die anyway in some lonely place where God would forgive him for not letting the bears or mountain lions eat him before he was dead.
    His eyes still closed, Henry felt along the river rock out of habit. But of course he didn’t have his firearm on the Eno River. He was having a good rest on the sunny shale. When he checked his midsection, he could tell his organs were behaving better. With that reassurance, he let himself enjoy the sun a little longer.
    Henry had feared what he might find at his father’s farm, but the man had set himself straight, hiring a young free Negro to work and take part of the yield. “You’ll stay with me,” his pa said, patting him on the back. “I knew you’d be home. If you don’t favor your mother. All the good looks was on her side.”
    Henry was a little sorry his father didn’t need his help more. “If I won’t discommode you,” he said, “I’ll stay.”
    “You’re joshing me,” his father said. “What a way of speech you always had.”
    Henry cleared his throat. “I’m through fighting. If I can find a way, I’m going to preach. I guess I got some religion from Mama too.”
    “Like I said, you’re from your mother. If it hadn’t been for that tuberculosis.” The old man seemed graveled and Henry thought he might choke up, but his keen blue eyes shone content. “I’m proud of you, then,” he said.
    Henry was offered a nearby church, but by the fourth Sunday he could feel the women pulling at him. He meant to live without a woman, without a wife, hoping such penance would relieve the guilt. “I’m going to do some circuit preaching,” he told his father. “There’s many a person moving into Georgia that hasn’t got the gospel.”
    “I wouldn’t stop God, no sir,” his pa said.
    Henry preached so for five years, into north Florida. The clutching in his stomach was gone, but another feeling took its place, something below his breastbone. It made him think of a throng of birds caught in a domed ceiling trying to break through to light. He took it as a sign of spiritual limitation and began studying all the theology he could find, the history of religion, and the early