Kandude and Morton spent the night at the modest Blackgum Inn near Smyrna. The next day, they drove up into the hills, following the directions from the Tent Revival poster. They took narrow, meandering blacktop roads, finally turning off onto a dirt road that led to a large sunlit glade. A weatherbeaten old circus tent big enough to hold perhaps several hundred people had been erected in the middle of the glade. Forty or fifty rusty old cars and trucks were already parked there.
In front of the tent were signs announcing the service at 6 P.M. with a black and white picture of an older gentleman in a suit with the name Reverend Jonathan Bedwards. Another sign had a Bible verse:
Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
—Luke 10:19
People were gathered into knots around some of the vehicles or sitting on blankets, many with picnic baskets. The people, young and old, were mostly dressed in shabby clothes and many did not look well fed. Quite a few of the men looked a bit rough. Most of the people had bad teeth and not many of them. A lot of the older and even middle-aged folks appeared crippled or unwell. However, they talked and laughed together and seemed to be having a fine summer afternoon. For some reason, the scene reminded Kandude vaguely of something from a book set in the Great Depression.
A tall thin fellow, surrounded by two or three generations of family, was cooking hot dogs on a cheap charcoal grill. Seeing Kandude and Morton wandering about at loose ends, he waved them over and welcomed them to hot dogs, generic potato chips from a big bag labeled “potato chips,” and cans of Mountain Dew and Diet Coke from a beat-up Styrofoam cooler. The family group was reserved; save for the friendly griller, the men watched the strangers with suspicion. But they warmed up when Kandude picked up a football and started throwing long spirals to the kids and allowing the younger ones to try to tackle him, which more than half a dozen of them could not do until Kandude dramatically collapsed under their combined weight. A couple of the men joined in passing the pigskin.
The afternoon faded, and in time Reverend Jonathan Bedwards, wearing a clean but old-fashioned suit, came out with his pleasant looking gray-haired wife and two sons, and, smiling warmly, waved all the brothers and sisters to the service. He gently shook hands with every person who entered the tent, greeting many by name.
Inside the tent, rows of old wooden folding chairs were set out facing a simple wooden platform. A pair of large, battered wooden boxes flanked the platform. A heavy chrome billet microphone on a stand was hooked up to a single large box speaker on the floor. There were no television screens. Behind the wooden platform, a large banner was suspended from the tent canopy showing a large figure with a corpulent visage and wearing a feathery orange headdress, crucified in the likeness of Jesus. An American flag served as a loin cloth in the dramatic image. Kandude and Morton exchanged dumbstruck glances at the bizarre depiction.
As the crowd began filtering in, a band featuring an upright piano, a fiddle, an electric guitar with a stand speaker, a fiddle, and a mandolin struck up some twangy music that was wholly unfamiliar to Kandude. So far, there was no sign of Cardoshia/Zipporah.
The kindly looking Reverend Bedwards approached the microphone. He pointed out to the crowd with both hands, index fingers extended, sweeping left to right, and right to left. “Brothers and sisters in Christ,” he growled. “You are sinners.” He waited 15 seconds before continuing. “And God is angry. His anger is thunder and lightning. His wrath is molten lava surging from the mouth of a volcano. And you, sinners, like all natural men, are held in the hand of the dreadfully provoked God over the fiery pit of hell whose scorching embrace you richly deserve, and into which you shall almost surely be cast. When the thin thread of your sinful lives is cut, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, His hand shall pitch you into the gaping maw to burn forever in the sulfurous flames. Hell is a place of perpetual punishment; a place of eternal torment; a place of infinite agony; a place of everlasting despair.”
The Reverend’s voice ascended, sonorous, rhythmic, sing-songing. “I can hear the howling of Satan’s territorial spirit-demons and can see their snarling hellhounds stalking your sinful spirits right here in this holy place tonight. They will seize you in their slavering jaws and deliver you to the raging inferno.”
The crowd began to sway, groan and weep.
The Reverend continued: “The End Time is nigh. The signs are all around us. You must embrace the Covenant of the Lord. You must repent your wickedness, the forgiveness of which is made possible only by the crucifixion of the Lord. You must be sherpas on the expedition to ascend the Seven Mountains. You must be foot-soldiers in the war against Babylon. Only by these gossamer threads of salvation, held by the hand of God and existing only by his will, may you avert the journey to perdition.”
By now almost all the congregation were waving their hands in the air and swaying, dancing, sobbing, and chanting the name of the Lord. Reverend Bedwards continued. “Let us ever heed the admonitions of the Apostles: Sister Aimee Semple. Reverend AJ Tomlinson. Sister Shari Falconer.”
The crowd shouted hosannas at the names of the Prophets. They were now laughing, wailing, and gyrating in a frenzy of woeful ecstasy. “As we invoke the names of our Prophets and Apostles, I must name another,” pronounced the Reverend gravely. “I must speak to you about a moral imperative of our time, second only to your personal covenant with the Lord. God so loved the world, that he gave us his newly begotten son. I say unto you that it is our duty – it is your duty – to pray and vote for The Second Son, our President for Life, True President Tantor von Pyubengrabbler. Only through this elective sacrament can we guarantee dominion in this our Christian Nation.”
A woman who had been whirling and sobbing suddenly broke out loudly in a strange ululation in a language Kandude and Morton had never heard. Morton, a man of significant linguistic erudition, shook his head. The congregants, joining the Reverend, turned to the speaker, rapt, and held their upraised hands toward her.
“Tantorstan pisvo talibannity gobly bamblo koku floogubly braxo trumpizidioto quatzly talwingo,” uttered the woman. She repeated these unintelligible words over and over until she fell backwards to the sawdust covered ground.
Reverend Bedwards leaped down to the floor over the fallen woman, and with a blessing to her fevered forehead exclaimed, “Slain in the spirit is your servant. The truth of the Holy Spirit is certainly embedded in her heavenly tongue though we mortal sinners may not comprehend it.” Many hands raised the inspired woman and placed her gently on a chair.
“Brothers and sisters,” said the Reverend to the hushed assembly, “now is the time for a demonstration of true faith in the Lord.” He gestured toward an opening in the tent behind the band, and through that opening walked Cardoshia.
Kandude gasped with both shock and joy to see his beloved. She was in a long plain dress with a white lacey cap on her head. She wore no makeup. Contrary to her native vibrancy, her eyes were dark and downcast, and she appeared subdued and remote. She looked much older than she had just a few weeks ago. She walked slowly to the middle of the platform
Reverend Bedwards’ two sons opened the large, well-worn boxes at either side of the platform, and each took out intertwined bundles of several large, writhing snakes, handling them with practiced and fearless ease.
“Sister Zipporah is new to our ministry,” announced the Reverend, “yet she manifests a sweetness of the spirit and a true faith in the Lord.”
On the platform, Cardoshia held her arms outstretched in a crucifixion pose, mimicking the banner behind her, as the brothers draped the snakes around her neck and arms. The band struck up another twangy tune. Sister Zipporah closed her eyes and began to shake and gyrate, heedless of her serpentine vestments, as the congregation joined, humming, praying and dancing along in sympathetic rhythm.
Kandude started to lunge toward the platform, but Morton restrained him. “If you disrupt this, you only increase the danger,” Morton said. “This seems crazy to us, but these folks do this all the time. It is best to defer to their native expertise. Let us approach the Reverend and let him know that you are her friend.” They carefully sidled up to Reverend Bedwards and Kandude touched him on the elbow.
“Sister Zipporah – Cardoshia – is my beloved friend from childhood, Reverend,” whispered Kandude. “We have crossed the country in search of her.”
The Reverend eyes widened in surprise. “Bless the Lord,” he said. “Sister Zipporah has become dear to us in a short time, but she is surely something of a lost soul. It is a miracle that the Lord has brought you to her. Do not worry. She is safe in her faith in the Holy Spirit, and we will reunite you in short order.”
The snakes were passed around to the other transported celebrants as they made their viperous testaments of faith. Fortunately, no one was bitten. The service wound down and the band led the congregants in “The Old Rugged Church” and “How Great is Our God.”
The Reverend summoned Sister Zipporah/Cardoshia and pulled Kandude toward her in hushed expectation. Zipporah/Cardoshia raised her eyes, looked at Kandude, but showed no sign recognition, even when Kandude softly called her name. Kandude stood there uncertainly. The Reverend and his wife tenderly sat Sister Zipporah/Cardoshia at the end of a large wooden table that their sons had carried into the room.
“She seems to have that condition that soldiers get after returning from war, young man,” said the Reverend. We have seen this among our own boys when they return to the hills from the service. You and your friend must join us for a small gathering, and we will see if the light might dawn in her eyes.”
A group of perhaps fifteen or twenty members of the congregation gathered around the table, which was soon laden with peach cobbler, lattice top apple pie, homemade cookies, pineapple upside down cake, orange Jello, cider and coffee.
“These are elders of our congregation who have worshipped with us for many years. Some of the oldest go back to my father’s time,” said Reverend Bedwards. He introduced Kandude and Morton to the elders and explained their quest. The elders murmured greetings and offered blessings to Sister Zipporah/Cardoshia.
“Sister Zipporah has clearly been through some sort of ordeal, although we are sparse on the details,” the Reverend related. “We travel a circuit from Kentucky to West Texas, as did my father before us, and were invited to give a service at an isolated ranch some distance from Abilene.”
“Squire Kannon of the Freemen Ranch!” exclaimed Kandude.
“Ah – the very one,” said the Reverend. “The Squire was respectful and well-schooled in Scriptures but seemed anxious to bring on the End Times himself instead of leaving the exact date to the Lord. He granted us a generous tithe.”
After this narrative, Zipporah/Cardoshia began to stir.
“You have a remarkable tradition and enjoy great loyalty, Reverend,” said Morton. “But I confess to being somewhat confused. You preach the most severe consequences for sin, and you and your congregation manifest deep civility and respect for your fellow human beings. And yet you style ex-President TvP a veritable divine son of God, when he is in fact a paragon of duplicity, a felon, and a rapist. And unlike you and the fine people gathered here, he is a man of boundless greed and great cruelty.”
“But,” stammered Kandude, a bit taken aback by Morton’s candor, “one must agree that he is also a hero of capitalism and an engine of prosperity.”
Morton glared a bit at this mitigation, but the Reverend was unperturbed.
“Young gentlemen,” he said quietly. “The ways of the Lord are mysterious. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts,’ saith the Lord. We have heard these accusations of naivete and hypocrisy. But President TvP stands up for and protects our Christian ways. He defends us against the Antichrists. People that we trust assure that he is there for us.”
Reverend Bedwards spoke further. “The secularists, elites, and intellectuals express disdain for our faith and way of life. They use the term ‘hillbilly’ as an insult and a joke. They deride our Biblical beliefs and practices as primitive, compared to their own sophisticated brands of belief – and disbelief.”
“They think we are poor. And we are. We work for a few dollars a day as pickers, day laborers, junkmen, cooks, dishwashers, housekeepers and handymen when we can find work at all. We work stony little farms to put something on the table.”
“They think we are ignorant. And we are. I have no fancy Doctor of Divinity. Most of this good congregation are lucky if they made it past eighth grade. But we study and honor the word of the Lord. We read our newspapers and pamphlets and share the Good News with those who can’t read so well.”
“They think we are stupid. We are not. We have our remembered library of lore and wisdom, our kinship maps, arts and crafts, music, knowledge of the hills and all that lives in them, our language, and our layers of tradition.”
“They think we are lazy. We are not. We work to survive and keep our people whole every day, doggedly if not well. We dug coal out of these hills for generations, most of the time for little money and all of the time at the expense of our health. We bend our backs and carry our water, doing so as best we can for those who cannot.”
“Life in the hills is hard and beautiful. It is full of poverty. But it is also full of riches, though not the kind hoarded by the wealthy. We have a plague of drugs, delivered here from other places, that is a cancer on our people. And we do our best to treat the cancer. We fear for our children. We fear for our future. We fear for our way of life. But we will never give up on life, faith and family.”
“City folk mock us and our religion. But this religion belongs to us and has been with us for generations. It is a deep part of our way of being in the world. It holds us together in the face of many forces that would tear us apart. It is ours.”
The gathering was quiet except for a few Amens.
Kandude said, “We are honored and humbled to be with you and appreciate your hospitality. We are grateful for your rescue and care of our dear Cardoshia. We have learned much by visiting with you and are the better for it.”
Kandude saw no value in sharing what he had learned about ex-President TvP from Professor Doctor Westmannischer from what seemed so long ago.
During this last, Cardoshia had been staring at Kandude. Suddenly she stood, her eyes clear. “Kandude! How did you find me?” she cried. They embraced. The Reverend, his family, and the elders raised their hands in holy blessing at her miraculous recovery.
Kandude, Cardoshia, and Morton decided to leave that very hour, anxious to exchange news, to discover the fate of the Old Woman, and to contact Tanemahuta. The Reverend and his family hugged Cardoshia and blessed all three on their journey.
As they left the tent, Kandude discreetly put a thousand dollars of his dwindling travel funds into the beat-up old collection box. A collection box that had not once been mentioned during the tent meeting.