Chasing Charity (25 page)

The odor Nash warned of rose like a specter from the wagon bed, becoming unbearable when the wind died down. Emmy began to lose faith in her prayer, convinced even divine intervention couldn’t lessen the effect of that powerful stench on a sour stomach.

She leaned toward Buddy and stared. “Are you all right, Mr. Pierce?” Though she whispered, the woman riding up front glanced back with a troubled expression.

Buddy nodded grimly without opening his eyes. “I’ll be fine.”

The tremor in his voice belied his confident answer. Emmy settled down and prepared for a difficult ride.

Nash had introduced the young man as Benjamin, the woman as Miss Lucille. They seemed to be decent people, especially the mother, though her son rode stiffly on the seat and said little. Emmy wondered if he felt uncomfortable about his decision to put her in the rear.

While the right thing to do for Miss Lucille’s sake, it took courage on Benjamin’s part, especially when the locals stopped to glare as they made their way down the street. Emmy made a point to smile and wave as she passed. It served to take the edge off their collective indignation, but only a bit, and no one in the wagon relaxed until they were well out of town.

Emmy heard Miss Lucille let go of a deep sigh. Nash, too, exhaled loudly and grinned, and Jerry’s good-natured smile returned.

Nash sat up straighter and broke the silence. “Whoo-ee! We going home, and I sure is glad. I seen the big city now and don’t care much for it. Ain’t no fit way to live, all that coming and going and everybody a stranger. I expect old Nash gon’ stay put from now on.”

He tilted his chin and looked up at Benjamin. “Son, you folks from around here?”

“No, suh,” Benjamin answered without looking back.

Miss Lucille turned in the seat, her lovely face set in a serene smile. “We come to Houston by way of Louisiana, Mr. Nash. After Benjamin’s papa, God rest him, went to be with the Lord.”

Nash lifted his battered hat. “Sure sorry, ma’am.”

She bit her bottom lip and nodded. “He’s in a better place now, but thank you kindly. So anyways, when Benjamin heard them oil companies was hiring folks in Texas, he figured they’d be plenty of work for a man with a strong back.” She patted her son’s shoulder. “My Benny here is one of the strongest men around.”

Emmy considered the empty wagon bed. “Where are your belongings, Miss Lucille?”

Nash cleared his throat and pressed his elbow against Emmy’s ribs.

Miss Lucille gave him a tender glance. “That’s all right, Mr. Nash. I don’t mind.”

When her dark eyes returned to Emmy, humiliation swam in their brown depths. Emmy felt like she’d been caught in the woman’s underwear drawer. “Sorry, ma’am.”

“Don’t fret, child. You meant no harm. The truth is, we own the clothes on our backs, a few things in that bag under the seat, and little else. Took selling everything we had to buy us this wagon. Benny got a good deal on it, though, down at the stockyards.”

Emmy and Nash exchanged knowing looks. Miss Lucille smiled and pulled a square of cloth from her waistband, handing it back to Emmy. “Here, baby. Hold this against your nose; it’ll help some. It’s what I do when there ain’t no breeze to take the edge off.” She laughed. “You wouldn’t think so, but you get used to it after a while.”

Emmy reached for the cloth, handing it down to Buddy instead. “Thank you, ma’am, but if you don’t mind, I think he needs it more.”

Buddy took the tattered fabric from Emmy’s hand then nodded weakly toward the flask strapped to Nash’s side. “You think I could have a sip of that water?”

Nash bent to hand it over. “Why sure, Mistah Pierce. Help yourself.”

Buddy pushed himself to a sitting position. He drank deeply, wiping his mouth with the cloth when he was done. Passing the flask to Nash, he took in his surroundings as if aware of them for the first time. “What time you reckon it is?”

Nash dipped his head at the sun, still low in the sky. “It’s early yet.”

Buddy nodded. “I think we’ll make it in plenty of time, don’t you?”

“Don’t know about plenty, but yes, suh, we gon’ make it.”

Buddy took one more look around, then pressed the rag to his face and hunkered down. The motion of the wagon soon lulled him to sleep. Whether from the cloth, the water, or fervent prayers on his behalf, Buddy did look some better. The color had returned to his face, and he looked peaceful at rest. Beside him Jerry dozed sitting upright, while his head lolled about in a comical fashion.

Emmy felt herself drifting off as well, until Miss Lucille began to hum a haunting melody. Her lovely warble didn’t startle Emmy awake but rather the familiar hymn. She’d heard it many times, and not just at Sunday service. Aunt Bert, Charity, even Mama sang it often, though never with the depth of emotion she heard in Miss Lucille’s rich voice.

Nash closed his eyes, nodding slowly up and down, and then leaned his head against the seat and took up the words.

“‘Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.’”

His deep baritone rumbled in Emmy’s chest, sending a chill through her body and raising the hairs at the nape of her neck. Miss Lucille harmonized with Nash in a high, clear voice, and even Benjamin joined in. Their blended voices became an angel chorus as their song swelled about her.

“‘I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.’”

Emmy had never paid any mind to the lyrics before, despite the many times she’d heard them. She closed her eyes and listened, attuned to them for the first time. They rolled over her like the warm, salty surf on a Galveston beach, each wave heavy with import just for her, each word filled with meaning, like a precious gift discovered. They filled her with peace and an unfamiliar emotion that lifted and thrilled her in ways her trysts with Daniel never had. She raised her face to the sun, surrendering the whole of her being to the overwhelming feeling, allowing it to carry her away.

“Miss Emmy?”

She opened one eye. Nash stared down at her, and she smiled at his worried frown. Still warmed by the joy bubbling inside, she leaned toward him and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Do you believe in God?”

His eyes widened. “You know I do.”

“No, I mean really believe that God exists. That He’s not just something to say grace to or an excuse to pass the offering plate. Do you think He’s actually out there somewhere ... listening when we talk?”

Nash sat up straight and narrowed his eyes. “Girl, what’s got you pondering such things? It ain’t like you.”

“Because I believe it, Nash. I really do.” She cut her eyes up at him. “Don’t you dare laugh.”

He shook his head. “I ain’t doing no laughing.”

Benjamin and Miss Lucille still crooned just over Emmy’s head. They had switched to a spiritual, singing now about crossing the Jordan, the two of them oblivious to anything else.

Emmy glanced to see if Buddy and Jerry were still asleep then scooted closer to Nash and lowered her voice even more. “Do you remember the day I crawled out the window in my nightdress?”

Nash rolled his eyes toward heaven. “How am I gon’ forget that day?”

She placed a finger to his lips to shush him. Shifting around in front of him, she continued. “Something happened to me out there in those woods. Something so bad I wanted to die from the hurt and shame.”

Suspicion erased the grin from Nash’s face. “That Clark boy spoiled you, didn’t he? Jus’ like I figured.” Murderous rage seethed in his eyes.

“No! Not that way. And keep your voice down.” After a quick look around, she continued. “What Daniel did, he did to my heart, to my soul.” The bitter taste of his name drained the joyful warmth from her heart.

“He spoiled me, all right, but with cruel words and callous indifference. The worst part is, I helped him do it. When I realized how he tricked me, used me, I was so ashamed. I hid out in the brush and prayed for the ground to swallow me whole and a fat oak tree to fall in behind me. I never wanted to draw another breath.”

Nash averted his eyes. “You ain’t got to tell me none of this.”

“Yes, I do. Daniel made it look like I chased him, wooed him away from Charity. I promise you on Mama’s life it was the other way around. Everywhere I turned, he was there. He made sport of it. He’d catch Charity not looking and wink at me or sidle up and whisper things he shouldn’t. Once he caught me alone in the kitchen and kissed me full on the mouth. He worked me that way for weeks, until he had the blood boiling in my veins.”

Nash frowned and shook his finger in her face. “Hush now. You don’t s’posed be saying such things.”

“It’s just the truth. Everyone blamed me—Mama, Charity, Aunt Bert. Even Daniel acted like he never said he loved me. Oh, Nash, I hated him so!”

Nash shifted his gaze to something over her shoulder. He grimaced and his brows shot up. “You want to be lowering your voice. You got all these folks watching you.”

Emmy realized with a start that Benjamin and Miss Lucille had stopped singing and were staring over their shoulders at her. She whirled to find Buddy raised up on one elbow and Jerry watching, bleary-eyed and openmouthed.

“Go ahead and look, all of you!” she shouted at their blurring faces. “See if I care. I’ve been gawked at all my life.”

Buddy closed his eyes and settled down. Jerry cleared his throat and turned over.

Emmy burst into tears, and Nash drew her to his shoulder. She hid her face against the rough fabric of his shirt until Benjamin and Miss Lucille returned to their song. When she finally dared to peek, Buddy slept again and Jerry, his eyes squirming and lashes fluttering, pretended to.

Unable to rest until she knew Nash understood, she peered up at him. “I didn’t want to die because of what Daniel did to me,” she whispered. “It was because I saw the darkness of my own heart. Charity, who knew me best, somehow loved me most, yet I betrayed her. I shamed my folks and hurt my aunt Bert.” She swiped her nose with the side of her hand. “Even you, Nash. I’ve treated you just awful.”

Emmy watched his face for a reaction, any sign of ridicule. Instead, he pulled a discolored hankie from his pocket and pressed it into her hand, then waited for her to continue.

“I never wanted to listen when you all talked to me about sin. It made me feel funny inside, so I closed my ears to it. But that day I saw myself as a sinner. I talked to God for the first time in my life, and He heard me. I know it, because afterwards I didn’t hurt so bad and I didn’t want to die anymore.” She shook her head. “Oh, I’m making a mess of telling this.” She gripped his hand. “Something happened to me out in that thicket. Something real.”

Nash sat taller and grinned all over. If he’d been a dog, his tail would’ve been wagging.

She wanted to stop and ask what he found so funny, but her words spilled out too fast. “When I got to the house, I was so blind-afraid of Mama, I put it out of my mind, but when I woke up the next morning, I felt different. About Daniel, about myself, about everything.”

“And here’s the strangest part,” she said, poking his arm for emphasis. “A lie don’t set easy with me at all now. When we told Mama I was in the barn with Rebel instead of in the woods, I barely got the words past my lips.”

He laughed then, and she grinned along with him but quickly sobered. “The thing I did to Charity pressed me so hard I knew I had to see her, to beg her forgiveness. That’s where I was headed the morning I ran into Daniel in town, and ... well, you know the rest.”

Nash still beamed. “That explains what’s so different about you.” He snapped his fingers. “I knowed it had to be something.”

Annoyance tickled her brow. “I’m glad you understand it. Now explain it to me.”

“Don’t you see, child? You found religion. The real kind.”

The simple words sounded so important. So final.

“I found what?”

“You found Jesus, Miss Emmy.”

She shook her head a bit to let the words sink in. “I did? Are you sure?”

Nash laughed. “I reckon the truth is, you got still long enough for Him to find you.”

Emmy fell against the splintered board behind the seat, her attention glued to his face. “If what you say is true, what does it mean?”

“It means God always gon’ be your heavenly Father.”

Papa’s stern face came to mind, and Emmy had trouble imagining how that could be a good thing.

Nash tried again. “It means you been accepted into the family of God, and you gon’ go live in heaven someday.”

Heaven. That mysterious, illusive place Mama swore Emmy would never see if she didn’t mend her ways. The prospect of missing it hadn’t bothered her one fig. Mending her ways to live in a place she’d never understood required too much energy on her part, and she’d long ago abandoned all hope of ever seeing it. “What if I don’t want to go? Why do I need to live somewhere else? If God really cares to make Emily Dane happy, he can let me live on in Humble, Texas, for all eternity.”

Nash fell back and roared with laughter.

Emmy feigned a stern look but giggled despite herself. “Now look what you’ve gone and done. You woke Mr. Pierce again.”

Nash slapped his leg and crowed louder. “I cain’t help it. You something else, Miss Emmy, and that’s the truth. How you gon’ compare those rutted trails in Humble with streets of pure gold?”

She lifted her chin. “Unless I can bust them up and spend them, what good are they?”

Nash sobered and wiped his eyes on his shirtsleeve. “Jus’ what you gon’ buy with your busted-up streets? Ain’t nobody got nothing for sale to measure up with what’s waiting for you in heaven. Someday you’ll know that to be true.”

A smile sweetened Buddy’s face.

Emmy smiled in return, wondering how much he’d heard. “Go back to sleep, Mr. Pierce. There’s a long ride ahead of us yet. I’ll try harder to keep this thoughtless man quiet.”

Buddy nodded and turned over. The still-groggy Jerry settled his head onto his arm.

Emmy closed her eyes and leaned against the backboard, trying to imagine Humble’s trampled, muddy streets paved with gold. She decided it would be a shameful extravagance and sat up prepared to say so when the look on Nash’s face stopped her cold. “Gracious, what’s wrong?”