Gordon Makimmon indifferently regarded the clamor. The process of “getting religion” was familiar, commonplace. He saw Tol’able sitting on a back bench; with a mutual gesture the two men rose and left the tent.
“I had to bring m’wife,” Tol’able explained; “did you see her sitting on the platform? She’s one of the main grievers. I got some good licker in the wagon—better have a comforter.”
They walked down to a dusty, two-seated surrey, where, from under a horse blanket, Tol’able produced a small jug. He wiped the mouth on his sleeve and passed it to Gordon; then held the gurgling vessel to his open throat. “There was some hell raised last night,” he proceeded; “a man from up back had his head busted with a stone, and a drunken looney shot through the women’s tent: an old girl hollered out they had Goddy right in there among ’em.”
“They were shooting a while back,” Gordon observed indifferently. “Have you seen Buck Simmons here?”
“No, I hain’t. He wouldn’t be here noways.”
Gordon preserved a discreet silence in regard to his source of assurance of Buckley’s presence at the camp meeting.
“Have another drink, Gord.”
The services were temporarily suspended, and the throng emptied from the tent. A renewed sanity clothed them—girls drew into squares of giggling defense against the verbal sallies of robustly-witted young men. Women collected their offspring, gathering in circles about opened boxes of lunch: a multitude of papers and box lids littered the ground. A hot, steaming odor, analogous to coffee, rose from the crowded counter. A prodigious amount of raw whiskey was consumed among the vehicles by the stream and mud-coated willows.
Gordon slowly made his way through the throng, in search of Meta Beggs; perhaps, after all, she had decided not to come; he might easily miss her in that mob. It was not clear in his mind what he would do if he saw her. She would be with Buckley Simmons, and there was a well recognized course of propriety for such occasions: he would be expected merely to greet in passing a girl accompanying another man. Any other proceeding would be met with instant resentment. And Buckley Simmons, Gordon knew, must still nurse a secret antagonism toward him. However, he had disposed of Buckley in the past ... if necessary he could do so again.
At the entrance to the service tent the organist, his countenance still livid in the sunlight, blew a throaty summons on a cornet, and the crowd slowly trailed back within. In the thinning groups Gordon saw the school-teacher, clad in a bright blue skirt and a hat with a stiff, blue feather. She was at Buckley’s side, consuming a slice of cake with delicate, precise motions of her hand, and greeting with patent abstraction his solicitous attentions.