Hallelujah Brother Brimstone

Hallelujah Brother Brimstone by BiUy C. Clark We was on mighty shaky ground and barely holding to what religion we had when he came to the church that night. Come busting through that front door, little beady eyes shining and said his name was Brother Brimstone Tate and that he had stopped to "gather in the strays." A little man, thin as a winter calf and a look of torment on his face like he was rasseling the devil himself. You'd a-thought that little feller was sucking in bolts of lightning for his voice rolled of thunder. And no one interrupted, not even Sister Crildy. For, brother when you're setting at the door of doom you don't get particular . Doom I mean like poor Brother Alfo Tilden—rest his soul. He'd led us up the Glory road for nigh on to twenty years, shucked us clean as a sourwood sprout, and got lost from among us a year to the day. Not a one among us not knowing his whereabouts or his whyabouts. Knowing too that it was his whyabouts that had doomed the lot of us. The devil had moved in and struck us like a blight. Brother Alfo Tilden had came to fill us all with fire and brimstone. Lord Sent. We followed him to the mouth of the hollow and built the church, extended a strong log bridge over the creek that split the hollow in half and joined the two. Left Brother Alfo free to walk up one side of the hollow and down the other peeling off sinners like shucks from an ear of corn. Not a kernel left unexposed on the ear of salvation. Amen. That is, except for Josh and Todd Bulswick. Two brothers that lived in the head of the hollow shackled and harnessed with sin like a team of devil horses. They were. Poor Brother Alfo, how long and hard he tried to harvest'em. Each Sunday meeting night Josh and Todd would stagger into the mouth of the hollow on their way home from Devil's Roost, a small settlement two mile away wicked and harbored in sin. Josh would be in the lead as usual and Todd staggering to keep up would call a halt before they crossed the bridge. Josh would be carrying a jug of moonshine in his hand and swaying from the shadows so Todd couldn 't see him too good. With the gall of Satan they'd edge up close to the front door of the church and using that little light we'd hung out for sinners Todd would break a twig from that oak tree beside the church and take a measurement on die amount of liquor left in the jug, quarreling all the while that a green twig wouldn't hold the true rim of whiskey and Josh quarreling back that Todd was tilting the jug forcing the whiskey to show higher on the twig. Once away from the light of the church and inside the dark tunnel of the hollow Todd would make claim that Josh was shouldering the shadows and nipping at the juice. Lord knows I'm an abstainer, brother, but if you had way to know Josh Bulswick you'd a-had reason to believe Todd had a point. Up the hollow they'd go with poor Brother Alfo following close behind preaching fire and damnation. Glory. When Josh and Todd stopped for nourishment Alfo would squat and offer prayer . Never really being sure whether or not he had lost the ghost. For sometimes under the light of the moon he'd see the tears drop from their eyes. But he never could be sure if it was pentance or a crying jag. It's a long time brother to struggle hand in hand witn the devil with no help from your church brothers. It had its workings on Brother Alfo. He lost weight and got thin. And fearing for Brother Alfo and wanting relief ourselves knowing 41 you had to go as one or not at all we voted one night to strike Josh and Todd from the roll of Cedar Hollow...