The Dionne Warwick tune faded into a James Taylor song: Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone . . . The guitar’s sound registered something familiar inside him, the gentle strum, the relaxed rhythm. He hummed just to hum, a hum sounding nothing like the melody, really, not trying to match it at all. When he became head deacon after Papa died, he considered that to be one of his main duties, to lead the congregation in song. But his father’s songs were different from his: He felt his songs to be more of fried fish, cornbread and . . . a bit of corn liquor. Papa’s songs felt like harvest in October, sweat in August, a little sorrow, a little mild, well-tempered joy. For a while he let it worry him, and he’d sit up late in the evening studying on it. Not that his singing wont hard like his papa’s, but because, in the end, he didn’t grow up to be more like him, just like him, and that was a hard thing for him to settle square with himself, for in a strange way he was glad.

Thomas Cross was a solemn man. His eyes—Zeke could still see them—were like a wild animal’s. Seemed like he could pull more stuff through his eyes than most folk do. He didn’t look at you, he looked inside you, saw everything, and it was casual for him. But you came away with the feeling that you had no secrets from this man, cause he done looked into the very place where you locked your stinkingest secrets, and the bad thing was, you never knew if he approved of what he saw, despised it, loved it . . . you just never knew with that man. Never. And he could scare me to death. You’d be doing something—chopping wood, mending a fence, slopping hogs—and turn around and he’d be there, sitting and peering right into your mind, reading your thoughts, I’d swear, like the devil or something . . . Once or twice I remember I let out a holler, he scared me so. But he was like that. Quiet as a Indian. Didn’t talk much, always sneaking . . . well, really, there won’t no sneak to it, it’s just that he moved so quick and fast; you turn, he’d be there; you blink, he’d be gone. Horace would sometimes ask me about Papa and I couldn’t fix on nothing to say about him, except he was a big, strong, hardworking, Christian man, who walked in the way of righteousness, but now I reckon I’d tell him about them eyes of his and the way he moved and the way I wanted to be just like him . . . then. Yes, indeed. I would imitate him—his way of standing, his walk, his talk, trying to make my voice deep and booming. Wonder if he ever noticed.