Fiction Short Story

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Fiction Short Story

by Charles Langley

"Bible Billy" and the Big Ole Bear

"Boozin' Billy" Givens had been a powerful sinner in his day, but then age began slowing his legs so he couldn't outrun his pursuers and his rapidly enlarging pot belly cut considerably into his attraction to other men's women. There was only one thing for him to do. What aging scoundrels before him had been doing since time began. He turned to religion as a refuge.

Billy had never been a member of a recognized church and had no instructions in the ways of the cloth, but that didn't deter him. He had heard The Call, he said, and answered it by forming The Worldwide Universal Church of Christ and Crisis. The unstructured nature of the popular new faith attracted disgruntled members from legitimate parishes and his following increased with celerity. He referred to himself as "The Most Reverend Reverend Givens," but his followers called him "Bible Billy."

The linchpin of his doctrine became, "Thou shalt not kill." Billy believed in this during the days when so many other men wanted to do just that to him, and he now extended it to farm animals and to squirrels, rabbits, and possums. This reduced greatly the food chain that sustained him and his fellow (churchgoers), but they managed to subsist on catfish and sunnies from Scummy Pond and the produce from their wheat fields, cornfields, and family gardens.

As the membership grew, his title failed to please him, and he promoted himself to Bishop and called his domain his Bishopric. Hearing how this sounded in the tones of his less than erudite church people, he decided instead on Cardinal and his realm became the Holy C.

"Not so much after the Pope's helpers, as after that purty red bird that sings his heart out each Sunday morning in the maple tree outside the church," he explained. "The C in the Holy C stands for Church, Community and several other good things not necessarily related to religious matters."

Because of the lack of restrictions and regulations, each member brought in pet peeves or hard thought out discriminations.

With Bessie Beal it was alcohol.

"Corn whiskey is pure liquid sin," she would tell you. "It makes a man want to do things women hardly ever enjoy and then loosens his lips so he tells everybody about it. If I wasn't so afraid of toothache or snake bite, I wouldn't allow a dram of it in my house." Her fears must have been very strong, for she kept refilling the gallon jug that sat in the bottom of the wash-stand in her bedroom.

Ben Collie had another idea about whiskey.

"It's a sin to grind up good corn to make corn meal," he insisted. "And iffen the Good Lord had meant for us to eat roastin' ears, he wouldn't have made it so hard to do without your front teeth."

When asked how much corn his farm produced, Ben quickly said, "Bout ten gallons to an acre."

"Buffalo" Brill had furnished meat for the railroad crew when it built the line through town, and he had seen so much butchering that he embraced the order against killing for food. Still, he kept his buffalo gun cleaned and well oiled in a cradle above the mantlepiece.

They called Abraham Pitkins, "Honest Abe."

"I ain't never stole nothing in my whole life," he bragged.

He didn't have to steal. He had every tool in town hanging in his shop, borrowed and not returned to the rightful owners, who found it easier to "borrow back" whatever of their possessions they needed than to try to get them back for good.

Everyone adjusted to their chosen diet, and hardly anyone had to work more than the minimum, so the Holy C became a place of relaxation and contentment.

Then came Big Ole Bear.

Small brown bears were native to the area and caused very little harm, but Big Ole Bear was something else. He ambled down out of the hills and created havoc. Tall in stature, weighing as much as any three men, destruction followed in his wake. He tore the small ears of corn from their stalks before they were ready to eat, wallowed over or trampled down the gardens, and emptied Scummy Pond of all except tadpoles and minnows. They put up scarecrows, but B.O.B. leveled them with one giant swipe. Bells and firecrackers fazed him not at all. Famine was in sight and no solution could be seen.

"Just this once, lift the restriction," "Buffalo" Brill said. "I can down him with one shot."

"Bible Billy" refused to budge. He knew relaxing the one strict rule of the congregation would lead to challenges to any other edict that might be given.

"You want to spend eternity in hell-fire and damnation?" he asked. "We'll pray over it and find another way to get rid of him."

They prayed while Big Ole Bear grew bigger and more voracious. They prayed more, and he knocked down doors to get food in their houses.

"Our prayers aren't working," Brill decided, "because we're surrounded by mountains and the Lord can't hear us over them. What we have to do is get everybody in the church praying at the top of their voices. Put two strong men on the ropes to the bell tower to ring the bells loud enough to attract His attention."

"Everyone in the church?" "Bible Billy" asked.

"Everybody except me. I'll stay outside and watch for Big Ole Bear so I can tell you when to start."

Since everything else had failed, they put the plan in motion the next Sunday. On Brill's signal they raised their voices in earsplitting prayer. One man in the bell tower said Big Old Bear came over the hill, stretched to his greatest height, then fell forward on his face.

"Must have been heart failure, or an invisible stroke of lightning. Truly a miracle," the bell-ringer said.

They came out to find Brill with a team of mules, tipping the carcass of Big Old Bear into the quicksand of No Man's Land.

"Buffalo" Brill was the hero of the moment. His fellow parishioners surrounded his home, shouting his name. One went into his house to ask him a question.

"I can see why we had to pray so loud, but why that consarned caterwauling with the bells. I couldn't hear right for an hour afterwards."

"Why question something that worked?" Brill asked. "Sometimes you need a little noise to drown out the sound of the miracle." He leaned back in his chair, glanced at the buffalo gun cradled above the mantelpiece and smiled.

Copyright © 2004 Charles Langley

About the Author
Since returning to writing three years ago after a fifty-nine year hiatus, Charles Langley has written over one hundred short stories, poems, or articles for print magazines, ezines and books. Gannett Newspapers recently gave full-page, nationwide coverage to his time as a cub reporter at the Hauptmann trial in Flemington, NJ, in 1935.