Earthly Vows (16 page)

“One, two, three, four, and no more,” said Ida May.

Angel ran after Thorne across the lawn, holding her shoes out front. “You can’t run barefoot, Thorne! There’s nettles in the
grass.”

Thorne ran directly across the pasturelike grass straight into a nettle pile. She howled and jumped on one foot, holding the
other foot in the air. Angel scooped her into her arms and carried her to the fence between Claudia’s place and Mrs. Abercrombie’s.
She plopped Thorne onto a flat-topped fence post. Thorne bared her teeth while Angel pulled out every tiny nettle from her
pink foot. She slid ankle stockings onto her feet and then strapped on the shoes.

“They’re hot!” said Thorne.

Angel clasped the buckles on the shoes and then plopped her on the ground. Her wrist slid against the fence post. She picked
up a splinter and it stung all the way to the vein. John yelled from the front porch for Angel to come and get him. He was
afraid always that Mrs. Abercrombie’s milk cow would jump the fence and trample him to death. His daddy had made him afraid,
according to Claudia, to make him obedient. Angel turned her back to John.

Claudia stored away the extra milk they bought on the bus ride and the leftover chicken and the bread and then took to her
bed, ailing from a sick headache. Angel wanted John to go and climb in bed with his mother. He followed Angel around like
a stray. She sat flat on her bottom in the grass and began to work at the splinter. John’s wailing subsided and the screen
door slammed hard behind him.

Mrs. Abercrombie carted out the leftovers from her and her son’s dinner and raked it into a bucket. She yelled for her son,
Edwin, to empty the slop bucket.

The splinter went deep, but left a good dark bit hanging out. Angel dug at the tip until a clear liquid came out of her skin
alongside the splinter. The Abercrombies’ back door squeaked open. Angel slumped onto her belly. The grass around the fence
post was tall tickle grass, yellowing from the drought. She parted it to look through at the Abercrombies’ son. She thought
she saw him before, but decided she didn’t know him. He was grown and not a youth, but not old. Angel snaked backward onto
her knees and then turned around to sit back against the fence post. She licked her arm and cleaned up the faint pink trickle
from the splinter wound.

Edwin carried the bucket out to the distant hog pen and then back.

Angel closed her eyes. Miz Abigail had taken them all to church Sunday morning. She liked the choir best. Miz Abigail sang
one of the songs louder than the others, and then all afternoon, Angel could not shake it, as hard as she tried. She pursed
her lips and whistled what part she recollected.

Footsteps on the tickle grass drew near, crackling beneath two large Abercrombie boots.

Angel whistled again.

“You bringing omens, girl,” said Edwin Abercrombie.

Angel leaned away from the fence post to get a look at him. He wore a pair of black riding boots, steel-toed. “I don’t know
nothing about no omens,” she said.

“A whistling woman and a crowing hen always come to no good end.” He laughed, showing off a missing upper tooth in the back
of his mouth.

Nothing about him was funny. She returned to her perch slumped against the fence post. The sun was finally going down behind
Mrs. Abercrombie’s house.

“You Claudia Drake’s sister?”

Angel tried to think of anything to say that might slightly offend him enough to make him leave. Without Jeb around, she was
out of practice. Instead, she sighed. The hot wind kicked up again, blowing dust across the yard. She shielded her eyes with
her arms.

“Maybe you can talk some sense into her,” he said. “I been telling her that man of hers ain’t coming back.”

Angel roused from her slumped posture and said, “It’s her business.”

“I been trying to get her to go out for drinks on Saturday night, for laughs is all. You ought to tell her to go. I’ll bet
you’re smarter than Claudia. You’re prettier, that’s for sure. I’ll bet she hates that.”

Claudia came out onto the porch. “Angel, is Ed bothering you?”

Angel got up and ambled across the yard, meeting Claudia on the porch. She turned and stared down Edwin, feeling the power
of her sister close by.

Edwin dropped the slop bucket and crossed his arms. He never took his eyes off them.

“You stay away from Edwin Abercrombie,” said Claudia. It was whispered so only Angel heard. “He’s mine. I’ve waited long enough
for Bo.”

Nazareth was quiet and black as coffee. Only the backroom light from Will Honeysack’s grocery interrupted the monotony of
darkness down the row of shops and the jailhouse. As they turned into town, the bank window reflected the headlights. Jeb
geared down to keep from hitting a stray cat, which had taken up with Faith Bottoms at the Clip and Curl. A paperboy knelt
on the walk in front of Honeysack’s, bundling newspapers for the morning sales, six hours away. Ida May roused from Willie’s
lap, where she had curled up to doze, to say, “I’ve got a headache,” and then fell back to sleep.

Fern’s head lay pressed against the glass. She slept a good hour, both her hands curled in her lap. The engagement ring caught
a bit of moon, scattering a dusting of light particles inside the car. Jeb passed the library, where he once kissed Fern and
gave her the ring out front. He remembered her standing in the snow.

She blew out a breath, as though she were entering the deepest sleep. The moon had a circle of white. Fern did not so much
as flutter a lash. No amount of money would make him wake her yet, not with the ring of the moon casting a light on them both.

Tomorrow she would go to the Stanton School and do up her classroom for the fall. The principal would respect her and say
how he wished he could pay her more. She would blush and say it was enough. The teacher across the hall would split a box
of chalk with her and she would act as though it were all she needed. She would wear a pair of practical flats like the other
teachers and no one would think of her as one of Francis Coulter’s crazy girls.

Bringing her home was a wedding gift. He finally figured out the distance between Ardmore and Nazareth. Plenty of miles to
rebuild a life. She was more like him now. Nothing wrong with that, a touch of wildness about her. She wasn’t so prim. Why
did he think she was? Had he wanted her to be so different from him? Not in the least.

Nothing wrong with that.

“Jeb, are we home?” Fern asked in a whisper.

Jeb stroked her engagement hand and said, “Best you get ready. I’ll drop you off at your door.”

She leaned across the seat and touched Jeb’s face. “You look tired,” she said. “I should have driven part of the way. I must
have gone out like a drunkard.”

He drove them out of downtown and past Long’s Pond.

Fern took a gander at the moon. “You’re quiet.”

The car turned down the snaking drive to her house. He helped her take her suitcases inside, the store sacks full of bric-a-brac
and whatnot, all things she and Donna raked up in Oklahoma City. “That’s a big haul,” he said.

“I buy too much when I’m with Donna.” She wrapped her arms around him, clasping her hands at the back of his neck. Jeb kissed
her. She let go of him and said, “You’re not yourself.” He kissed her again, longer, and pulled her close to him. That felt
right. “I must be tired,” he said.

She flipped on the lamp near the window and then looked into his eyes. She invited him to drop by the school after his morning
rounds. He said he wanted to. She bought it and he told her good night.

Behind Stanton School, a few leaves had turned on one of the thick maples. The locals said autumn would not come because of
the drought, but that the leaves would most likely brown up and drop off. Autumn needed to come soon. The drought had taken
nearly all of the life out of the land. The air would cool. Nothing could stop the cooling down of the land, summer’s passing
on, not even a drought. He yearned for winter, to chop wood and fill the potbellied stove. The kindling box stood dry. The
drought had done some good. Not all was lost.

He could not see Fern through the classroom window.

The truck was cold and slow to start after sitting idle for all of his days away in Oklahoma. Jeb lifted the hood and tinkered
with the engine. Fern would sweep out her room. He checked the radiator for water. The teachers would swap stories out in
the hall. Jeb cleaned out the floor of the cab. He should have done that before coming to see her. He could not think of why
he hurried off to the school before doing his errands. Will Honeysack left a note on his door. He had to go and check on a
sick woman in the hollow, Tilly Churchill. Fern was a day behind the other teachers. She needed more time to count books up
in the attic, boxes coated with black dust, books moved down in September only to be packed back up when it was time to plant
the spring crops.

He pulled out his pocket watch and checked the time. Willie was home with Ida May now. He had to keep a closer watch with
Angel gone. Fern had not glanced out her window yet because she had so much to do; everyone in Stanton School counted on her
for so many things. They were allowed to need her and depend on her. He gunned the truck and left for the hollow.

He passed Ivey Long, who would not give up his horse and buggy. Ivey whistled long and high and snapped his whip in the air.
It annoyed Jeb. Ivey was behind on things. Not even his grown kids could talk sense into him, get him to accept change. He’d
bet Ivey had not been out of town in three decades, but that was true of most people of Nazareth.

Tilly Churchill was wrapped up in a blanket, sweating out a fever in a front-porch rocker. Jeb said, “You’d do better to toss
off that blanket.” He took it off her, even though she complained. “I’m going inside, Miz Churchill, to get you a ladle of
water.” Before she protested, he slipped inside. He found the water pail full and the ladle on the hook in the kitchen. The
tin ladle was cold and he filled it to the brim and took her a drink. He made her sip.

She said, “You’re awfully bossy today, Reverend. You and that schoolteacher in a feud?”

He gave her another drink, said a prayer over her, and then headed for his truck. “There’s no one in a feud, Miz Churchill.
Fern and I are getting married in December. We’re happy as anybody has a right to be.”

“You forgot to tell your face then.”

He headed into town for a newspaper. He could go for a cup of Beulah’s coffee at the diner, a quiet spot where a man could
think.