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“As long as he don’t look at the string till dark.”
“I ain’t going to look at it no time. I don’t want the goddamn thing. Hey, what are you doing?”
“I’m putting it in your pocket for you.”
“I had my fill of this stuff.”
“Shut up and do like he says,” Billy Jo said.
Brother Samuel picked up the ball of hair. He took a kitchen match from his denims and scratched it across the sole of his work boot. He held the flame to the ball and waited for it to catch. A wisp of yellow-black smoke came up, and the sweet-rotten odor of burnt hair made the men draw back. He stood up and hurled the ball of flame into the air, where it burst apart in a myriad of fire. Pieces of burnt hair floated slowly to the ground.
“It’s over. I set him free,” Brother Samuel said.
Jeffry got up and walked across the clearing, his legs held close together.
“Where are you going?” Billy Jo said.
“To the goddamn latrine.”
The whistle blew for the lunch break to end. The men filed past the back of the pickup and dropped their plates and spoons into a cardboard box. Toussaint and Avery went back to work on the trench.
“Does that go on all the time?” Avery said.
“That’s the first time I seen him do any conjuring. He’s usually talking about the Word and soul-saving.”
“He stuck the snake’s fang right in the center of the cross.”
“I seen that done down home before. I knowed a man that did the same thing to get rid of a sickness. He said when he died he could pass on his powers, but it had to be to a woman. A man can only give them to a woman, and a woman only to a man.”
“He puts on a fine show.”
“He’s a good man. He don’t do nothing unless he thinks he can help somebody,” Toussaint said.
“He didn’t do much good for Jeffry. He’s still on latrine duty.”
Evans came over to watch the work. The width and length of the trench were dug out, and Avery had spaded the depth down to a foot. Evans chewed on a matchstick. He rolled it from one side of his mouth to the other with his tongue.
“We want it finished this afternoon,” he said. “Put in a little less talk and more work.”
“We was talking about this fellow Belial.”
“What?”
“This is the place where you can get the spirit run out of you, the camp latrine.”
“What the hell are you saying, Boudreaux?”
“You’re the only hack in camp with a conjuror on your gang.”
Avery threw a load of dirt to the side of the trench and didn’t look up.
“You got no sense. You could be smart and do easy time,” Evans said.
That would put you out of a job. You wouldn’t have nobody to lock up in the box.”
“You got a lot more years to pull. You ain’t going to make it.”
“Don’t put no money on it.”
