Marching to Zion by Glickman Mary

Author:Glickman, Mary [Glickman, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Historical
ISBN: 9781480435629
Amazon: 1480435627
Barnesnoble: 1480435627
Goodreads: 17912858
Publisher: Open Road Media E-Riginal
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

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During the long walk to Memphis, Magnus Bailey resurrected everything he’d forgotten about artifice and the exploitation of human weakness. This was not the halfhearted attempt at restoration he’d made in the days after he’d left the barge or even the hasty effort he made as he approached the Stanton farm. He was dry now, and his purpose that of the zealot reborn. He recalled first the simple things, those basic skills in how to convince others to do what they least wanted. He practiced the various ways he could turn his head or hunch his shoulders to provoke the desired response to a leading question posed in just the right tone of voice. While he walked down dusty roads, thrusting his walking stick forward, pulling up his thoughtful self behind, he muttered stock phrases he’d not used in years, practiced the laughter of collusion, the sigh of feigned surprise. His lips and eyes danced along the rhythm of his murmurs. With fluid grace, his body made sudden pivots and his arms grand, bold gestures either to the left or the right, depending on which side he carried his suitcase that was packed with canned goods, a bit of dried meat courtesy of Mags Preacher McCallum Dunlap, and everything else he needed to keep his suit brushed, his shoes shined, and his hair tamed. Walking down the road, he looked like nothing so much as a well-groomed, hyperkinetic lunatic. A handful of automobiles and wagons passed. None offered him a ride.

It was half a year since the flood. The flood water had long drained from the streets of Memphis, but the damage was everywhere. Homes abandoned and rotting out dotted even affluent districts. Businesses owned by families established before the Chickasaws left were gone without a trace. Downtown corners were piled high with planks of wood placed when needed across the thoroughfares to facilitate travel on roads where the mud was still thick. The air was cold but the hard frost, always a random visitor in that town, had not yet come. Everywhere Magnus stopped to pass the time of day and catch the pulse of life, folk voiced a longing for freezing temperatures that the mud might get rock hard and ease their burdens. Oh yes, he’d respond solemnly, the hard frost will come. But to himself, he said: Lordy! Hard mud on the streets of Memphis? Crunchy, maybe, long about dawn in January. But hard? And then his heart cheered thinking if folk were that desperate, his pickings might be considerable.

So far they’d been anything but. He couldn’t understand what was wrong. Whenever he needed money in the past, it came to him like rust to iron. All he had to do was wait and keep his eyes open. Where his genius lay was in seizing whatever opportunity presented itself and wringing it dry of purpose. He wasn’t a visionary so much as an expeditor of the ideas of others. If you had something to sell, a problem to solve, an inside chance to coax into a sure thing, Magnus Bailey was your man.

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