Salvation on Sand Mountain (13 page)

Aunt Daisy, the prophetess

J.L. Dyal, Charles McGlocklin, and Carl Porter

The legendary Punkin Brown (left)

“Spread the word! We’re coming down from the mountains!” Brother Bob Stanley

�� MELISSA SPRINGER

The laying on of hands

Charles and Aline McGlocklin

“We’d better put our house in order!” Charles McGlocklin, the End-Time Evangelist

Handler Rayford Dunn

Bobbie Sue Thompson and Billy Summerford

Dewey Chafin

Dozier Edmonds

The healing of Gracie McAllister

Aline McGlocklin

I can tell you the exact moment I decided to take a closer look at the binder. It was New Year’s Eve, 1992, at the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ in Kingston, Georgia. Brother Carl Porter’s church. We were attending an all-night watch service, complete with snake handling, Holy Communion, laying on of hands, and chicken and egg salad sandwiches in the basement after we’d washed each other’s feet.

We arrived in mid-service. The moment occurred when the music got cranked up, and the snakes started coming out of the boxes. Vicki had been to a snake-handling church before, but this was the first time we’d brought our daughters, Ashley, then seven, and Laura, then five. We normally took them everywhere we went, but I was a little nervous this time. Our daughters are resilient and adventuresome. I didn’t want to press them too much, though.

Laura, like my mother, is an artist. She took one look at Brother Junior McCormick dancing in front of the pulpit with
two rattlesnakes draped across his shoulders and decided to spend some time outside in the van, where she drew pictures of rattlesnakes and tambourines. Vicki and I took turns keeping her company. Ashley, though, was transfixed. It was a surprise to me. Physically, Ashley is a dead ringer for a Covington. She has the Covington long arms and the Covington chin. And like my father, she is a careful person — exact in her reckonings and stubborn in her defense of what she believes to be right. But she doesn’t like to be startled, and she has no use for loud noises or extravagant gestures. I was afraid a serpent-handling service would be more than she could handle. But when the music started, she looked up at me wide eyed and grinning, and in no time she was clapping her hands and stomping her feet. The snakes didn’t seem to faze her one bit. “Cool!” she exclaimed over the uproar. It was as though the shouting and the shrieking and the raw hillbilly music had been imprinted on her genes, like something deep within her she was remembering. I thought of this thing called cell memory. I thought of a part of her — an ancestor — resurrected, alive, caught by surprise.