Miracle at St. Anna (Movie Tie-in) by James McBride Page A

inside the church.”
    Hector took the lead and Train went last, carrying the kid, who lay limp against him, tiny as a chicken in his arms.
    The church lay beyond a village composed of several houses dug into a dark mountain beside a road that curved along a beautiful sloping ridge. They crawled along the underside of the ridge, sticking close to the dirt road, cut through the woods to bypass the village, and came upon another dirt trail that led to the church. They followed the tiny trail past a small graveyard. Farther up, the road widened and curved again, and they could see, at the very top of the ridge, the church bell tower and a few pastel-colored houses dotting the distant hills behind it. It was a good place to build a church, Bishop thought. If he were really holy and wanted to build a church, he’d build a church here, too. He had just been about to build a new church back in Kansas City when he got drafted. It was the story of his life, that just before he made a big score, his luck ran out. He’d served six months at Parch-man Penitentiary in Louisiana under the name of Mason June for fraud and theft, breaking rocks on a chain gang and sleeping with his teeth on edge after winning cigarettes at poker from the other inmates, big, stupid men like Train—tough, grizzled cotton pickers with long arms and short brains who liked his smooth talk and easy-handed way of dealing cards, finding his funny stories about the white man an ease from the burden of their own tortured, boring existences, which promised no future other than long nights of pining after whores and country women, who promised only a dull life and more plowing. He got into preaching afterward. It was a lot easier than fleecing cardplayers in jook joints, where share-croppers in overalls often found courage at the bottom of a bottle of suds once they figured he’d duped them. Besides, the big-city pimps were moving in and crowding his business, and when they pulled out their pistols, they touched the trigger and told the hammer to hurry. The Bible was an easy study, with lots of extra poontang and chicken dinners thrown in. He had actually grown up in church back in Louisiana, but watching his deacon father punch his mother out every Saturday night, then pray to high holy heaven on Sunday mornings, robbed him of any illusions about God’s work. If God’s around, he’s a loser, Bishop thought, and I’m gonna play him. He spent his last fourteen dollars on a bus ticket to Kansas City and set up shop in front of an abandoned plumbing supply store downtown, serving free lemonade on hot July afternoons and preaching like a madman to tired housekeepers and old gardeners who wandered past on their way home from work: Put down them heavy pots and pans and come to God, he said. Put down that heavy sack and come over here, ’cause Somebody Special wants you. And He don’t have no anger. He don’t know no pain. He don’t give no orders. He’s a pain-getting-rid-of-er. That’s His job. To get rid of your pain faster than this lemonade can go down your little red lane. Why? Ain’t no why! He ain’t got to explain Hisself! He’ll hurl your enemies down to low stones like he hurled Satan outta heaven, ’cause He’s mighty. He’s the baddest kitty kat in the firmament! He got the mojo and the sayso. He knows truth. He knows justice. He knows your pain. And He will heal your pain right now, for free, if you just trust in Him. Ain’t no cost to it! Ain’t no buy-now-pay-later to this. You ain’t rentin’ no couches here! God-don’t-want-your-money-tainted-by-the-filth-of-man’s-sinful-touch and you can take your money home and put it under your mattress where it belongs, ’cause I don’t want it, I want your soul! You got an appointment to keep, and I’m the secretary! I’m here to tell you that Jesus is coming! The train’s leaving the station,