These High, Green Hills (21 page)

He was thirty miles out of Mitford when, without warning, his engine quit.

He managed to steer his car onto the shoulder of the road, where it sat at the edge of a ditch. He tried the ignition several times, to the sound of nothing but a click. The engine, the battery, whatever, was as dead as a doornail.

“Blast!”

Agitated, he got out of the car and looked up and down the road. He had thoroughly enjoyed the eight years he traveled by foot. Not once had he been forced to put up with the aggravation and expense of car trouble.

He saw a house situated at the end of a pasture. In the other direction, some kind of low building set back from the road, with a sign out front.

He walked toward it quickly, feeling the cold sting of the clear spring morning. Seven-fifteen. He had three and a half hours or so to drive the network of time-saving back roads that led to Dooley’s school.

The sign had rusted, but was still readable.

If he could get to a phone and call Lew Boyd, Lew could call and ask Cynthia to follow Lew’s tow truck. He could use her car, though he’d definitely be late.

He didn’t see anybody when he opened the door. “Hello!” he shouted.

Silence.

“Hello! Anybody here?”

He spied a phone on a table. Knowing Lew’s number by heart, he dialed it. Busy.

Dadgum it, if Lew Boyd was sitting around playing checkers this time of morning ...

He glanced out the window and saw somebody tinkering with a little plane on the grass landing strip.

He dialed Lew again. Still busy.

One problem. If Lew called Cynthia, what could she do, after all? And what a rotten thing it would be to have her drive a half hour from home on a morning when every moment was vital to her.

He’d stick it out for Lew, however.

Still busy.

He paced the floor. If Mule Skinner drove out to loan him his car, how would Mule get home? He certainly couldn’t ask the man to drive all the way to Dooley’s school and back, as if he had nothing better to do.

Ron Malcolm! He didn’t know how Ron could help, but Ron had a solution for everything. Wilma’s voice on the machine said, “We’re out of town. If you’re Tommy, Rachel, or Nell, please call us in Boca Raton at—”

He hung up, took a dollar from his billfold, and laid it next to the phone.

“Mornin‘,” said a man coming in the door. He wiped his hands on a rag.

“Good morning. I just made a phone call to Mitford. I left a dollar on the table.”

“Can I help you?”

“I wish you could. My car broke down. I think the engine quit.”

“Could be a timing belt,” said the man, still wiping. “Maybe your ignition switch.”

“Could you take a look at it?”

“I’m not much good around automobiles. Coffee?”

Outside, he heard a car screech onto the gravel and park near the door.

“No, thanks. I’ve got to be at my boy’s school in Virginia at eleven o‘clock, come hell or high water.”

Omer Cunningham strode in, wearing a leather flying jacket and a grin. “Hey, Preacher, I thought I seen your car out there. You here to charter or take lessons?”

“Omer!” He felt like a man in a foreign country who sees a face from home. “My car broke down and I’ve got to get to Virginia, Dooley’s singing in a concert, and Lew Boyd won’t answer the blasted phone, and ... can you drive me into town? I could pick up my wife’s car.” This would put him at the school a little past noon. He felt sick with regret.

“Where you goin‘ in Virginia?”

“White Chapel, and running late.”

“I’ll fly you,” said Omer.

“Oh, I don’t think—”

“When you got to be there?”

“Eleven o‘clock.”

“It’s goin‘ on eight. You’ll never make it runnin’ home t‘ Mitford.”

He felt the blood drain from his face.
Lord, if this is an answer to prayer, I don’t believe I can take You up on it.

“I’ve flew in and out of White Chapel many’s th‘ time. We could borrow a pickup at the airstrip and whip you over to that fancy school in ten minutes. I know where it’s at.”

“You could?”

“I’ll take you in m‘ little rag-wing tail dragger!” Omer’s face lit up like a Christmas tree.

“Your ... what?”

“Rag-wing tail dragger. She’s a honey, a little J-3 Cub. Fabric stretched over a few tubes of steel, wheel under th‘ tail. You don’t see ’em much anymore.”

Fabric stretched over a few tubes ... ?

“Better built than anything out there today. Get your plunder, and let’s go. You’ll be there ten-thirty sharp, with time to spare.”

“Is, ah, your pilot’s license current?”

“Omer’s license is always current,” said the man, grinning.

Father Tim hobbled to his car, his knees nearly giving out. When he reached for his jacket, he saw that his hand was visibly shaking.

He couldn’t do this.

His aversion to flying had kept him stuck to Mitford like moss on a log for fourteen years—except for that witless sojourn to New York, which his heart had forced him to make, and the long-ago jaunt to write the paper on C. S. Lewis. As for the trip across the pond to Ireland, that had been his bishop’s idea. He had flown six interminable hours with his jaw set like a stone.

The little yellow plane looked like a toy sitting on the green airstrip. While merely walking to it was a problem, climbing into the thing was worse. His knees were Silly Putty, his breathing labored, his palms drenched.

Omer settled in and pulled on a cap. “I don’t reckon you’d want t‘ fly with th’ doors off?”

“I don’t ... reckon so.”

“Yessir,” said Omer, displaying a mouthful of teeth the size of piano keys, “flyin‘ my little tail dragger is th’ most fun you can have with y‘r clothes on.”

“Hang tight!” yelled Omer.

He felt as if he were lashed to a jackhammer as they tore along the grass strip for what seemed an eternity.

At last the little plane nosed up, up, up into the blue. His stomach crawled under his lung cage. Perspiration dampened his forehead like summer fog. The racking vibration in the cockpit bounced his glasses on his nose.

Flying with Omer Cunningham, he suspected, was aviation’s equivalent of eating Rose Watson’s cooking. Wasn’t he the guy who, years ago, flew so low over a pasture that he soured the milk in a farmer’s cows? The farmer had sued—and won.

Omer leaned toward him and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Beautiful day for flyin‘, ain’t it?”

He ran his tongue around the inside of his teeth, to make sure he wasn’t losing any. “Yes, indeed!” he yelled back.

He regretted even the few strawberries he’d eaten for breakfast.
Lord, please don’t let me make a mess of this man’s airplane
.

Clearly, he was gaining a whole new perspective on St. Paul’s admonition to pray without ceasing.

“Dooley, this is Mr. Omer Cunningham, my pilot.”

“Your
pilot
?”

“He flew me up here.”

“You
flew
?”

He held his thumb and forefinger about three inches apart. “In a little yellow plane about this big.”

“Man!”

He shook Dooley’s hand. “You were great, son. Words fail me. It was a thrilling experience.”

“Real good,” said Omer, with feeling.

While Omer smoked a cigarette by the pickup truck, he and Dooley walked to the school green and sat under a tree.

“I’m glad you could come. I wish ol‘ Cynthia could’ve come.”

He handed over the samples from the First Annual Primrose Tea. “She sent you a box of stuff that will melt in your mouth.”

“I want t‘ open it now.”

“Go to it.”

Dooley opened the box, popped an entire lemon square into his mouth, and reached for a cookie.

“Chew before you swallow is my advice.”

He looked at the place where Dooley’s cowlick used to spout up like a geyser, and wondered how it had mysteriously vanished. He looked at his tennis shoes, which were size eleven, and the long legs, which had grown longer just since Thanksgiving.

It seemed only yesterday that he’d been chosen as the one to take the boy in, and already Dooley was gone—growing up, finding his own way. Why did time seem so short, so fleeting?

“How’re you doing, buddy?”

“All right.”

“Really and truly?”

“Yep.”

“No kidding?”

“Yep.”

“You going to make it up here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re sticking with it?”

“Yep.”

“That concert was as fine as anything I’ve heard anywhere. A lot of hard work in that.”

“Yes, sir.”

He put his arm around the boy. “I love you, pal.”

“Looky here,” said Omer, walking over to the tree. “Don’t you want me t‘ take th’ boy up for a little spin?”

“Well ...”

“Man!” said Dooley, jumping to his feet.

Walking to the office to get the headmaster’s permission, he reflected that there was a full lunch, two lemon squares, and three cookies in that boy. He was thrilled there was only one passenger seat in the little plane, which meant he’d be forced to stick it out on the ground during this particular joy ride.

When they dropped Dooley back at school, he hugged him, and got a good, hard hug in return.

That was worth the trip right there, he thought, choking up.

“
Boneswar, Messure!
” Dooley yelled after him.

They vibrated toward Mitford, having altered their return course so Omer could give his passenger an aerial view of the rectory.