The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig

covered with straw, in the event that any of the worshippers were so stricken with spirit that they would need to get down and roll around. The hopeful three of us found the lee side of a big tent pole and clustered there.
    "The Bible!" Brother Jubal was shouting as he brandished that item. "I ask you, brothers and sisters, the one question that shall be asked at the gates of salvation: what use have you made of this powerful book? If you can only answer that you have held it over your head to stop a nosebleed—well, then, I'll tell you, friends, you are in everlasting trouble."
    As he restlessly paced and stopped and pivoted, I kept trying to think who Brother Jubal reminded me of. When he spun into profile in one of his pirouettes with the Bible, I figured it out: although not so old and not so paunchy, he was a spitting image of William Jennings Bryan, whom Father would have voted for in every presidential election forever and practically did. Same Roman brow, same coal-chunk eyes. Similar undertaker suit and scrawny tie. I would say Brother Jubal outdid W.J.B. in acrobatic ability, though. On the balls of his feet for as long as we had been watching, abruptly he was across that platform in a flash, pulling up just short of a small table with a pitcher and a glass on it, as he trumpeted: "From homing to burying, cradle to grave, the Bible is your only ticket out of Hell!" Toby had timidly slipped his hand in mine, something he hadn't done in a long while.
    Pausing there to deposit the Good Book—somehow his pause seemed as loud as his preachment, and the congregation didn't lose any of its sway—Brother Jubal picked up the pitcher and glass and poured.
    Damon whispered in my ear: "I bet you it's panther piss." Whether or not the pitcher held that notorious local brand of moonshine, Brother Jubal resorted to it for a good, long swig.
    Swiping the back of his hand across his mouth in a manly way, the sweating preacher seemed to be suddenly reminded of something.
    "Our hymn! We have not yet lifted our voices," although he certainly had. As one, the crowd snapped the song sheets in their hands taut.
    Disappointed as the three of us were that the preaching had not yet led to any holy rolling, we always liked music. Damon gave the other two of us a grin and tapped his toe like a square-dance fiddler, and Toby giggled. Then Brother Jubal's voice all but swept our hair back again, as he led off the singing in a roaring bass:
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Let us fight the holy fight

On the wild Montana bench—
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    Here the congregation chorused in:
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Lord, oh Lord, lend us might!
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    "Paul, look, there's—"
    "Toby, shhh, I'm trying to listen."
    In operatic fashion, Brother Jubal swelled his chest and sang on:
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With a coyote for a bugler

And
the Big Ditch for a trench—
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    "Damon, Paul—"
    "Toby, it can wait until this is over."
    Damon took the more direct approach of lightly squeezing Toby's lips together like a duck's bill, a reminder we used on each other when someone was gabbing too much.
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Lord—
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    Toby managed to get himself undamped from Damon's fingers.
    "B-b-but, over there—"
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—oh Lord—
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    Damon and I at last looked over to where our pesky brother was pointing, at the back of the tent across from us. To a raw-boned pair of figures whose shaggy heads stuck out over everybody else's bowed ones. Brose Turley and Eddie.
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—lend us might!
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    The sight of them took all the fooling around out of Damon, and the power of thought out of me. Brose Turley had the music up almost to his nose, gnashing away in some semblance to singing. For his part, Eddie didn't seem to be paying much attention to the song sheet. Gawking around the tent in bored fashion, it was only a matter of time before he spotted us, and he did so now. He blinked and looked again, and it was still us. We could see him whispering urgently into his father's ear, even automatically clutching the