Anne Brisden

Even then he never stopped reading his Bible.

Abraham took good care of me after my mother ran off with a white fella.

My father had been white too.

A cattle worker passing through town, heading west.

He'd stayed long enough to woo my mother back to his hotel room one night and send her home pregnant.

When her belly got too big to hide under a dress, Abraham said he'd let her stay in the house as long as she promised to get down on her hands and knees every night.

Dulcy didn't have much choice in those days.

If a pregnant black girl didn't have a roof over her head and someone decent to speak for her, she'd have her baby whipped away as soon as it was born.

My mother knew as much and kept her promise until I started crawling around on the floor and making demands of her that she wasn't interested in meeting.

At that point, she got the wonders and eventually she traveled far enough that she didn't bother finding her way back home.

For a while, I reckon my father had to be an albino because I was the fairest skinned black fella in town and I could have easily passed for white.

Abraham tried steering me on the right path, but as soon as I was old enough, I drifted out to the lake, to the ruins of the Christian mission.

I quickly learned to love the drink and smell of a girl's skin after it had been dipped in water and wine.

Abraham left the house to me after his death.

It wasn't much of a prize, but it was enough to impress Carol, a farmer's daughter who knew all about the value of private property.

I met her during a brief period of sobriety, a time when I went around town in a clean white shirt and talked about reviving Abraham's dream of a church of his own.

I'd even dressed this up for Carol in an effort to get her into Abraham's old brass bed.

And I swore to him as he lay dying that I would build his church.

Well, he looked up at me with that wrinkled old face of his and he said, I know you can do it, Luke.

You're a strong boy.