Read Online To Make My Bread by Grace Lumpkin - Free Book Online Page A

s’ soft,” Bonnie said again. John saw that she had tears coming in her eyes. He straightened up from rubbing his face against Georgy’s nose. If Bonnie cried he had to be a man. They together could do no less than Abraham who said, “Here am I” to the Lord. He could hear himself saying “Here am I” on top of Thunderhead, and the Lord would feel that John was a man after his own heart, and the Lord would bless them and all their kin.
    At the divide over Thunderhead where the trail crossed they stopped to gather stones and build an altar. They built it up slowly. Just above them at the left was the peak of Thunder-head. Now it was half covered with some clouds. They might have gone up into the clouds but the cleared place at the divide was better for a fire, and it was almost the top. Bonnie could not remember whether the Bible had said Abraham went right to the top of the mountain or to a cleared place. The brush was too thick on the peak for a fire, that was certain. Thunderhead had no bald spot, nor a rocky top as some mountains had.
    â€œThere was a ram,” Bonnie said when they were nearly through building the altar, “caught in a thicket.” She looked for a thicket. No laurel grew close by and the blackberry vines were below in the valley. Perhaps they had come up too far, too far away from the thickets. Yet it had to be on a mountain.
    â€œMaybe the Lord’s in that cloud,” John said. The clouds had come down over the divide. They had become blacker and made a solemn darkness around the top of Thunderhead. The altar of rocks was already high—high enough. It sloped up. On the top they piled the splinters crossways with some dry leaves underneath.
    John kept looking at the clouds. “Do you think,” he whispered to Bonnie, “he’s forgotten us?” His voice now was frightened and mysterious.
    â€œNo,” Bonnie said. Her voice was low and mysterious, too, as if she was already in the presence of the Lord. “We needn’t hurry too fast. Maybe he can’t see us yet.”
    They had forgotten a cord with which to tie up the sacrifice. John broke one of the strings that held up his jeans. Georgy squirmed in rebellion at having his feet tied together. Finally they had him there. He lay on the wood, helpless. And his eyes reproached them. His nose that sniffed so cheerfully when he was happy was quite still. Bonnie stood on one side of the altar and John sat on a rock beyond it. The knife lay on the ground between them, and by it the heavy red flame at the end of the stick of fat lightwood sent up a jet of sooty smoke toward the sooty clouds. But no voice came from the clouds telling them to look for the ram.
    â€œMaybe,” John whispered, “we’ve got to start before He comes.”
    Bonnie nodded, but she did not make a move to take up the knife. It lay between them, hatefully waiting for one of them to pick it up and plunge it into Georgy’s heart. They could see where the heart was. It was beating in and out in his belly that was turned sideways on the altar.
    If the Lord did come He might be just a second late. So much could happen in that second. The knife would be outside, touching the skin of Georgy’s belly and with a push of the hand it would be inside. In that second between if the Lord did not come He would be too late. Perhaps they were not favored by the Lord like Abraham. Perhaps the Lord wanted them to sacrifice—to go the whole way. It came over John that if they went on the Lord would surely make them sacrifice. He was a jealous God and they loved Georgy. He was a jealous God.
    Suddenly John got up. Bonnie gave a whimpering cry and turned away her head. But John took the puppy in his arms.
    â€œWe ain’t a-going to do it. We ain’t a-going to do it,” he cried shrilly. He took the knife from the ground and began cutting the cords from Georgy’s feet.
    â€œLook, Bonnie. We