Where Mercy Flows Read Online Free

wood-framed troughs filled with dirt. “Look here.” At that he pushed
     up his sleeve, thrust his arm into the soil and pulled up a writhing fistful of purplish-red worms.
    “Worms!” TJ was impressed. “Can I hold them?”
    My father placed them tenderly on his little palm and then looked at me like a boy himself. “What do you think, Sam? Do you
     want to hold some too?”
    “I’ll pass.”
    Then he went into a long, boring scenario about how to build a worm bed and how you use a mixture of peat moss and manure,
     at which point I made TJ dump his handful back in the box.
    “You don’t have any animals. Where do you get the manure?”
    “From the Duncans’ Appaloosa Ranch. Chester gives me all I need. Of course, it has to be aged beyond the heating stage and
     the urine’s got to be leached out. Then you just have pure manure.”
    “Pure manure,” I said. “Uh-huh.” I thought to ask about Chester’s son, Donnie, but something caused me to hold my tongue.
    “What do they eat, Grandpa?”
    The Judge reached for the bucket at my feet. “See that oatmeal you didn’t finish?” TJ peered into the mess of scraps until
     he recognized his breakfast and then nodded. “That’s their favorite. Now, I’m going to need your help, son.” He set TJ on
     a turned-over washtub and passed him the pail. “Okay, dump it on in there.”
    They dug and dumped and smoothed out the soil, while I sat on a stool observing the man I used to know as my father.
    Actually, I can’t say that I ever knew him. The Judge’s mind had always been a mysterious universe to me. There seemed to
     be no question he could not answer, which was good if you were too lazy to look something up in the encyclopedia but bad if
     you wanted to blast through your homework and get on to more worthwhile things. A simple question about the length of the
     Panama Canal would inevitably turn into a dissertation on the history and politics of its construction. Worse yet, after the
     unwelcome barrage of information, my father had a habit of asking questions back. “So, what do you think? Should the U.S.
     have agreed to return ownership and control to the Panamanians?” I never had a clue.
    My sister didn’t freeze up like I did. She would screw up her face thoughtfully and then blurt out an opinion with no sign
     of fear that her answer might be idiotic. Of course, it never was. Probably because she actually paid attention to what he
     had said.
    The Judge’s opinions were as solid as boulders and God help the man or child who stood in their path when they rolled. As
     a teenager I was crushed by them. Flattened out like Wile E. Coyote, only I didn’t spring back so fast. My policy now, and
     believe me I had given the subject much thought, was to avoid any subjects deeper than the weather. So far we were doing just
     fine.
    I watched him touch my son and wondered if the Judge might have softened up a bit over the years. I could only hope.
    In the courtroom the Judge’s words had been known to bring hardened attorneys to the brink of tears. He didn’t put up with
     any high-sounding verbosity, and anyone who spent time in his presence left either loving him or hating him. There was no
     in-between.
    When I was old enough, I became aware that my classmates, most of whom had never met the Judge, had an opinion of him, which
     they had inherited from their parents. Regina Wiggins said my father was a “mean, horrible man” and told some kids on the
     playground that he beat me and that was why I always had bruises on my legs. I didn’t know about that rumor until about a
     year later. The day I found out, I ambushed her on her way home from the bus stop. I ran ahead to where she always took a
     shortcut through the woods and hid in the salal bushes with a stick. She never knew what hit her. She ran home screaming and
     babbling and the next day told everyone that a crazy man had attacked her, but I set them straight. I told them that her