Fallen Angels Page 16

  “It's a code between me and my brother in case someone else gets a-hold of it. I didn't ask for a sermonette, Sister Myra. I can tell that you can read my writing Maybe Charlie will just have to figure it out, too. I don't have no more time for this. I'll have this whole business figured out real soon and won't have to put up with your mouth every time I need a little help.” He folded the letter and tucked it inside his coat pocket. She liked the control and held it over his head. “Fact is, it wouldn't hurt you none to give a man a little help without landing all over his business with your nasty little opinions.”

  “You think Miss Coulter is on to you?” Angel asked.

  “I do not.” He really could not tell either way.

  “She's been acting funny. I can't really say how, though.”

  “You never liked her because she has her life all orderly and happens to be quite pretty to boot. Fact is, women are always jealous of a lady who is both beautiful and smart.” Jeb practiced his text again, two Scriptures from John.

  “I say you're blind to Miss Coulter. Maybe she knows something. You notice how she never said a word again about our other school grades and such?”

  “I told her I made a call and found out your grades were destroyed by a fire,” Jeb told her.

  “You're nothing but a big nut if you think she'd believe that.” Angel lurched away from Willie, who had skipped a button and fastened her dress together until one buttonhole stood out, undone.

  “Fern Coulter is a decent woman, fair minded. And unsuspecting.” That fact left Jeb carrying a melancholy empathy for Fern. “You think she really; likes it here in Nazareth?”

  “How should I know?” Angel modeled in front of the mirror. One of the local women had loaned her a hat created for a woman of twenty.

  “She talks about cities a lot, it seems. How things are better in city schools, how she came here to try and help out. Something tells me she'd leave here in a heartbeat if the right offer came along.” Jeb turned Angel around and refastened her buttons.

  “You think you're the right offer, Jeb Nubey, you wrong as wrong can be,” said Angel.

  “Maybe I'm just what she's been waiting for. Willie, grab my Bible. I got to get this show moving before I up and forget everything altogether.” He took the Bible, opened it to the marked page and studied the underlined Scripture. He recognized an A, an M, and a smallcase e It would, not be long until he could fly with the big boys, score with a woman of superior intelligence.

  Angel seated herself back upon the farthest pew in the church, having found Fern Coulter entangled in too many threads of her life. She tucked herself one pew behind the thin-haired heads of the Wolvertons, although to mix with them, she said, was like social suicide.

  Women with babies on the breast sat in the, rear while the men, sat politely three rows ahead, Doris Jolly played a gentle, sleepy hymn that sounded like the sun going down. Jeb asked if she could pick up the pace with an anthem but she could not readily recall one.

  Evelene Whittington called from the second row for A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.

  Doris covered her mouth as if to say, “Where is my mind today?” She chorded the chorus while the pews’ empty spaces filled with the stragglers.

  “You think maybe we're having revival, like we hear about in other places?” Doris asked Jeb. But he was busy troubling over the name Nicodemus. He concluded that if he gave the man a nickname some might consider it a sacrilege. A word he learned meant wrong in the Big Man Upstairs's eyes. Nick, Nicko. Doris stared at him, expectant. “I'm sorry, Doris. Did you say something?”

  Doris hadn't removed her bright, Blue Jay hat. “I asked if you thought revival was coming. Or have you not noticed how the pews are filling up with more folk every week?”

  He had not noticed. Way back in the clouds of his memories he thought his momma might have said it a time or two—revival.

  Doris lifted her right arm and sang the words to the sacred hymn. The congregation followed her lead and sang, although most of the men moved their lips as though they might suffer a whipping if they didn't. So they sang with a faint undercurrent of melody, faintly sweet like old cedar.

  Jeb remained seated on the platform as had been his custom for the last few weeks. Doris did a fine job without him and it gave him a moment to massage away the headache that lodged itself above his right eye. Besides, he still had not learned the lyrics. And Doris's tendency to change up the song list every week only drove home the fact the minister did not know his hymns. So Jeb stared hard into the open Bible on his lap, giving the impression that he ascended to the pearly gates themselves.

  Ezekial Hipps, who wore a plaid shirt with his overalls, and then a corresponding necktie, opened the rear door and offered the incoming deputy sheriff a funeral parlor fan. The sheriff refused the fan and fixed his eyes on the front of the church, his eyes like shooting gallery ducks, until he fastened a bead on Jeb. It was the same officer who had waited for Jeb at the parsonage the day he stopped at Marvelous Crossing. He ignored Ezekial's friendly graces and declined the only empty seat on the back row. Instead, he stationed himself next to the back door, a sentry.

  Fern, although she had made it her objective every Sunday to see that Ida May and Willie made it to the front row fifteen minutes before Doris struck the first chord, ears washed and socks turned down, was nearly invisible. Five rows to the left, her small yellow hat nodded slightly in time to the music. Willie sat with Ida May alone on the front row.

  Jeb knew Doris had softened the music to allow him the timing to take his place behind the lectern But many thoughts came to him, of Fern filling in too many, puzzle pieces, contacting the sheriff. He would not give Angel the satisfaction of saying she might be right about Fern. But what if she had only invited him to her home to question him? Fern was a garden spider and he the insignificant little fly. Doris hit the last key. Someone punctuated it with a hallelujah. Jeb could not recall the text from John. He said the first thought that came to him, “I think revival is coming.”

  Doris sat back down on the organ seat. She hit a few well-laid chords.

  He said it again.

  Something stirred through the rows of faces; mothers lifted their heads from nursing infants. Jeb saw how the word stimulated and impassioned the church people. “Revival!” he said and his voice tremored.

  “I think I feel something,” said an old man who barely stood and then fell back in his seat.

  “But before revival, you have to be born again.” He hoped the name would spill out of him, so he began the sentence, “A man came to Jesus asking about being born again. That man—”

  Florence Bernard clasped her hands together, ecstasy filling her senses and said, “Nicodemus “Nicodemus!” Jeb repeated happily. It seemed God played pinch-hitter with his morning message. “Before revival you must be born again. It is in this Book and no other.”

  The deputy sheriff had steady, watchful eyes, as though waiting for a prod in the chest to bring him out like a snake from his hole.

  Fern's face lifted through the parting of many heads, an emerging snow lily. Her eyes were comfortably blue in the natural chapel light. She turned and gave a slight three-fingered wave to the cop. Jeb pieced one and one together and figured out the lay of things—Fern had found him out and told that deputy. Jeb wanted to slap her for her expression of pure innocence instead of that of a traitor.

  “Born again, from treachery,” he said, staring right at her. “Born again, from deceit.”

  Florence's expression faded, like her thoughts had turned inward, found a target, and fired.

  Jeb wondered if Mr. Bernard had awakened some place from his Saturday night binge and right then felt a poke from hell.

  Fern rolled a stick of gum into a snail and popped it into her mouth. Flippant, Jeb thought. Right there in my face and flippant. He could grab her by those luscious curls and give her a shake. The cottage on the lake, it could have been his and theirs together. Reverend and Mrs.

 
He found his original thought, the idea that he had drummed up about how to conclude the query from Nicodemus to Christ. But a new idea congealed, a quick getaway through the door just beyond the American flag. He had never roused the church to a fever-pitch, but it seemed he could.

  The deputy sheriff checked his watch.

  “Brothers and sisters, I charge you on this day to choose who you will follow. If it be Christ, then come to your feet!”

  Florence Bernard was the first lone apostle. But two more women joined her. The men were nudged by righteous females in churchy hats. Finally, he had his gauntlet.

  “Now all across this room, join hands in an affirmation of faith. That's right, stretch out across that aisle and join hands with the person next to you.” Jeb came out from behind the lectern. The deputy sheriff had disappeared, but just through the partially open door Jeb saw a ring of smoke float by.

  “Pray like you've never prayed. Like if you were Nicodemus and Christ was before you.”

  A young mother broke through, her skinny toddler clinging to her dress. “Pray for me, Preacher!” She stretched her hand out to him.

  Jeb glanced at the platform exit “I will, Sister.” He took her hand, bowed his head, and mumbled a few words. Her hand inside of his pricked his heart. A trusting hand clasping a snake. He should slither away. Not utter prayers. The young mother opened her eyes. “Touch her, oh, LORD and revive her—”

  “Forgive me, LORD!” she said.

  It seemed he could not breathe.

  Jeb felt a jerk on his coattail. Angel had somehow pushed her way to me front. “What do you want?” He turned his back to the congregation.

  “That deputy sheriff has come around again asking for you,” she said.

  “I know. I have eyes.”

  “Something about your truck. I think maybe he found it for you. Just thought I'd better tell you,” said Angel.

  Jeb threw back his arms and raised his hands. “Praise be, praise be, we can all rejoice! We are redeemed.”

  Fern had a look of sincerity about her.

  The deputy sheriff, the same deputy pasting wanted posters around the county with Jeb's mug, stared at him. Not six inches from Jeb's face. “We might be on to something. Your truck have a dent in the right-hand fender beneath the headlamps?”

  Jeb considered how he might stomp the man that had put a dent in his brother Charlie's truck. “Not originally.”

  “How about a black covering across the back, like a lot of things is underneath?”

  Jeb nodded. “Sounds more like it. I hate they dented my fender. Where is it?”

  “We think two young crooks may have heisted it from you to use as a getaway truck. They up and robbed an old man's general store up near Pope County.” The officer read the details off of a telegram. “Knocked him out and left him for dead. But when they pulled a gun on him, the old man's wife bid out in a side room and watched them pull away. She gave a pretty good description of both of them and what sounds to be your truck.”

  “Knocked out an old man. Couple-a cowards is all they are,” said Jeb. “So they still have my truck is what you're saying.” He thought the deputy looked as though he still believed him.

  The deputy's shoulders lowered. “I'm afraid so. But every cop from here to Missouri is on the lookout. If they don't wreck it getting away, we'll try our best to recover your truck.”

  Most of the church people milled in small groups around the automobiles parked along the church lawn. Fern held the back of the arm Jeb recognized as the tailor's wife, Hazel Plummer. Her gout caused her to have to sit with her foot propped up behind the counter of Plummer's shop. On this day she'd wanted terribly to come and hear the new preacher so Fern had driven her to the church and sat with her several rows back.

  Jeb felt her distance could not have been for any other reason, not deceit nor any other pretense. She relaxed completely when she spoke to him, “Look who I brought!”

  The Wolvertons paraded to the old T-model held together by wire and hay bale rope. They always had a pilgrim look about them, traveling but seldom settling. The children from ages sixteen down to three wore shoes scarcely soled.

  Jeb thumped Horace Mills upon the shoulder of his serge jacket. “Those Wolvertons need help in the worst way, don't, they?”

  “It's a sad thing to see. You go inside their house and it has not a stick of furniture. Mr. Wolverton has knocked on every door in Nazareth looking for work.” Mills pulled a gold watch out of his trouser pocket. “Mrs. Mills doesn't like it when I keep her waiting. Sunday dinner to finish up when she gets home. I'll see you next Sunday, Reverend. Good message. Fiery. Keeps them happy, their troubles off themselves.”

  Jeb grabbed his Bible and the plate of cash collected during the offering. Before he handed the offering to Will Honeysack, he watched the Wolvertons leave. The same sick feeling that had come up like acid when he prayed for that young mother now gave him a different kind of ill feeling. He didn't know what to call it. Some strange or guilty religious melancholy. But he wasn't comfortable with it.

  “Up by five dollars,” said Will. “I'll make the deposit in the morning and drop by your pay tomorrow, Reverend.”

  “Brother Honeysack, I think maybe we should give a few dollars to the Wolvertons for shoes or a little food or I don't know.” Jeb watched the Wolvertons disappear into the dust. He'd said the first right thing he'd said all day.

  “Every family is on hard times. If we give it all back, we won't have the money to pay the church expenses.” Will flicked the ends of the money to assess the amount. “It's a shame everyone is having it so hard. We have an election coming up, though. Maybe things will change after November. Folks is worn out with Hoover's happy-chats.”

  Jeb had seen his share of packed Hoovervilles, people living like rats in scrap-lumber lean-tos.

  “I heard that a hundred men lined up along the streets of New York and Chicago selling apples. Too ashamed to outright beg. Then I look up and what did I see Saturday morning right on Front Street in our own town?”

  “Mr. Wolverton selling apples.” Jeb had seen it, too. I bought some from him.”

  “Pitiful sight. Better go. The missus is fixing a roast. The A&P had a sale on them.” Mills loosened his tie with the same hand that had just checked the offering plate.

  “This brook is where I came and talked to God when I first moved to Nazareth. I didn't know a soul here,” said Fern. She balanced on a rock midstream, her arms taking flight and then resting at her sides. Her hat and sweater dangled on a tree branch. “Church in the Dell was still without a shepherd, so I drove back here often what with it being so quiet. It is the best place in town for solitude.”

  Jeb mulled over the fact that he could reach out and assist her, but her surety did not call for a rescue and certainly not in a two-feet-deep stream. It just-left him pleased as punch to hear her yammering about anything but “the children, this” or “the children, that.”

  “I'll bet you get your best sermons out here. I would if I were you,” she said.

  Jeb might have figured a streambed the most unlikely place for a sermon. But coming out of her mouth, it sounded believable. “Most of the time I can't recall ten minutes later exactly what I said from the pulpit.”

  “Everything you preach makes good sense. This morning's message, it was a real dandy.” One hand went out and he took it to help her keep her balance.

  “I never saw you get so wound up like that. I could tell you really meant it.” Fern bent over the water as though she had just spotted her own face.

  “You could tell I meant it?” The only thing showing in her eyes was sincerity—she had complimented him. But then there was that thought of the Almighty at work, right in the middle of his sermon. It had come to him once before. “You like it here in Nazareth, Fern?”

  “I do. Don't you?” she asked.

  “No place like Nazareth. But you ever think about moving away?”

  A smile made her entire face lift.
Fern clearly read him through ways that weren't in no book. “Never crosses my mind.”

  He shook his head, of course, and agreed with her like he'd found a little piece of Eden in Nazareth. Why wouldn't he? It was his turn to say so. But the dogged niggling bothered him again, like he'd never told a lie ever. In Texas he would have been moving in, figuring out the next best move. But here in Nazareth as Reverend Gracie, the entire notion of giving this schoolteacher the very best part of his lips left him dumber than a hammer. All he could think to say was, “Roots is the best thing for growing children. Let those little feet sprout and take roots, Nazareth is the place to be.”

  13

  Outside Honeysack's Grocery, the Catholics from Hot Springs were collecting money for a church bell, a year-long project that every Saturday brought tables of lemon cakes and pumpkin bread and platters of watermelon slices arranged like Oriental fans on newspaper table coverings. The Catholics, like the Protestants, usually kept to their own kind. But for the collections they gathered from as far away as Hot Springs and rallied on Front Street with cauldrons and ringing bells, little bespectacled girls in blue sweaters singing songs for a penny.

  The sky blued magnificently, a cathedral ceiling for the gathering of downtowners on Sunday's eve. The front page of the Nazareth Gazette headlined Japan's forceful occupation of South Manchuria, a likely blunder on their part, next to a photograph of the prize sow at the county fair.

  Greta Patton counted six spools of thread—three white, two black, and bell-pepper green—onto the counter in front of Freda Honey sack. “My grandson says that not a one of the Wolvertons came to school this week and you know what that means.”

  “Careful. Someone might hear,” said Freda.

  “Shoeless and skipping school. That's what I say.” Greta pulled a paper of needles from the turnstile and added it to the purchase while a display of Country Club chili tempted her noose-tight budget.