Read Online A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash - Free Book Online

alone.
    â€œJess, we better go,” Joe Bill said. I felt him behind me pulling on my shirt, but I didn’t turn around and I didn’t get off my tiptoes.
    â€œThey shouldn’t be doing that to him,” I said.
    â€œJess,” he said. His voice sounded like he was about to cry. “We got to go. He’s all right.” He didn’t say nothing after that, and I turned my head to ask him to put his hands under my feet to boost me up so I could see Stump, but Joe Bill was gone. When I looked across the field, I saw him hightailing it toward the woods, and I watched him run through the high grass with his untucked shirttail flapping out behind him.
    I looked in the church again and saw Mr. Gene Thompson standing right up on stage too, and he had his arms locked around Mama and she was crying and fighting with him, but he wouldn’t let her go. I still couldn’t see Stump or Pastor Chambliss either, and I looked around and around but it was only a little crack and I couldn’t see everything in there. I dropped down and ducked under the air conditioner to the other side where Joe Bill had been standing and I got up on my tiptoes and raised myself up onto my elbows so I could look in again, and when I did I saw Stump laying on the stage and Pastor Chambliss and that other man laying on top of him. Stump’s feet were kicking like he was trying to get away and a couple other men left their chairs and walked up on the stage and put their hands on him and touched him and somebody was just banging away on the piano and just about all of them had their eyes closed except Mama and Mr. Thompson. She was staring at them where they were laying on Stump and holding him down and touching him and she was crying and hollering for them to stop. Stump kicked his legs around like he was trying to run sideways on the floor, and Mama screamed so loud that I could hear it over that piano and I could hear it over the air conditioner and all those people singing.
    For a second I forgot where I was and I hollered out, “Mama!,” and when I did she jerked one of her hands up over her head and busted Mr. Thompson right on the lip. He let her go and raised his hand and touched his mouth to see if there was blood coming out. Mama got down on her knees and started pulling all them people off Stump, and he sat up as quick as he could and she hugged him to her and rocked him back and forth and all those men just sat there on the floor and stared at Mama and Stump like they didn’t know what to think. Mr. Thompson looked down at Mama, and then he whipped his head around and his big, yellow eyeballs looked right through that little crack like he was staring straight at me.
    I figured everybody in the church’d heard me holler out for Mama, and when I leaned back to drop myself down I felt somebody behind me and they put their hand over my mouth and pulled me backward out of the window. I reached out for the window ledge, and I felt a chunk of that old wood break off in my hand. Whoever it was behind me tackled me, and we fell back into the high grass. The sun hit me right in the eyes, and I couldn’t see and I was crying and I couldn’t catch my breath because somebody’d put their hand over my mouth and it was keeping out all the air. Then it felt like something heavy was resting on my chest. I closed my eyes and tried to scream, but then, when I opened them, I saw it was Joe Bill sitting on top of me.
    â€œBe quiet, Jess,” he said. “Be quiet.” I tried to roll over on my stomach so I could get up and run, but he wouldn’t get off me. “Be quiet, Jess,” he said again. “They’re just trying to help him.” I was scared to death, and I was crying so hard that I couldn’t even breathe. I laid there fighting with him on top of me, and before I knew it I was up and running for the trees.
    I ran all the way across the field and into the woods, and I kept