These High, Green Hills (60 page)

“He’ll call ‘em off,” she said. “You ready?”

“Ready.” An outright lie.

“Lord, if it ain’t Lace,” said Harley Welch, grinning. They were in the trailer with the door slammed behind them and three dogs pounding on it like jackhammers. He was breathing hard.

“You won’t have t‘ feed them dogs f’r a couple of days,” said Lace.

Harley shook his hand, still grinning. If there was a tooth in Harley’s head, the rector didn’t see it. He instantly liked this whiskered man whose eyes revealed genuine kindness.

“You ‘uns come in. Th’ boy’s sleepin‘ an’ I’m jis’ havin‘ me a little snack.” Harley held up a spoon.

The rector saw a cracked green vinyl sofa with an open food can sitting on one of the cushions. A lamp with a bare light bulb illuminated the corner of the room, and newspapers were taped over the windows.

“You ‘uns want a bite?”

“I done eat,” said Lace.

“Me, too,” said the rector.

“I like y‘r hat.” Harley pointed to his head. “Ol’ Lace has a hat jis’ like it, ‘cept I think your’n’s in worser shape.”

Lace sat on the arm of the sofa. “We come t‘ git Poobaw. Pauline’s still half burned up in th’ hospital.”

“Yeah,” said Harley, “an‘ th’ law’s done got ‘er man.”

There was some good news in this world, the rector thought.

“Better wake ‘im up and git ’im started,” she said. “Are they any of ‘is clothes over here?”

“Ain’t but what he had on,” said Harley, still grinning. He picked up the can and rattled the spoon around in it. “Boys, if them beans didn’t walk right out of there.” He looked at the rector and said mischievously, “OI‘ dump rat got ’em.”

“Oh, hush, Harley, they ain’t any rats in here. Rats stay as far away from you as they can git.”

He cackled. “Ain’t she a bird? I knowed ‘er since she was knee high to a duck. Lace, your pap’s done left, he raked ever’thing out and hauled it off.”

Father Tim saw her face, and thought he could not bear to see another hurting soul in this world.

“Took y‘r brother with ’im.” Harley laughed. “Good riddance t‘ bad rubbish.”

“There’s ol‘ Poobaw,” she said. The boy came into the room, rubbing his eyes.

“Hey,” he murmured sleepily, smiling up at her.

Hey, yourself, he almost said, feeling his heart swell with a nameless joy.

They were down the bank. They were across the creek. They were walking over the little bridge.

There was Winnie Ivey’s small cottage, with the glow of a lamp in the window. And above them sailed a great orb of moon that washed the whole scene with a silvery light.

He felt the boy’s hand in his and saw Lace walking ahead of them, her shoulders squared under the old coat she’d worn again for tonight.

He felt touched by something that, in all his years as a priest, he had never known and, for the moment, didn’t even wish to understand or define.

“Cynthia,” he said, coming through the back door, “there’s someone I’d like you to meet....”

The boy walked in, blinking in the bright light of the kitchen.

“Poobaw Barlowe!” the rector said.

If he thought he was thrilled, it was nothing compared to what he saw expressed in the face of his jubilant wife.

“Pauline, there’s someone here to see you.”

He backed out the door as Poobaw went in.

“Mama?” said the boy, and ran to her bed.

He was closing the door as he saw Poobaw lift his hand and tenderly pat the right side of his mother’s beaming face.

“Dooley,” he shouted, hailing him between the Meadowgate farmhouse and the barn, “there’s someone here to see you. They’re waiting on the porch!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

FIELDS OF BROOM SEDGE turned overnight into lakes of gold, and the scented vines of Lady’s Mantle crept into hedges everywhere, as the sun moved and the light changed, and the brisk, clean days grew shorter.

“You always say this is the best fall we’ve ever had,” Dora Pugh scolded a customer at the hardware. “How can every year be the best?”

Avis Packard put up a banner, Percy Mosely at last took his down, and the Collar Button was having its annual fall sale. The latter encouraged the rector to make a few purchases for Dooley Barlowe, now back at school, which included three pairs of khakis, four pairs of socks, and a couple of handkerchiefs that Dooley would never use for their intended purpose.

Pauline Barlowe was two hours away in a burn therapy center, Lace Turner was enrolled in seventh grade at Mitford School, and Poobaw—living with his grandfather, Russell Jacks, at the home of practical nurse Betty Craig—was enrolled in fourth grade.

Louella was pushing along with Winnie Ivey, Scott Murphy had moved into the cottage on the creek with Luke, Lizzie, a bed, three chairs, and a wok, and J. C. Hogan had, only days ago, announced his news.

“I thought for a while there,” said Mule,“ that we’d have to do it for you—like that feller with th‘ big nose.”

“Do what for me, and what big nose?” asked J.C.

“You know ... ” Mule looked to the rector for help.

“Cyrano de Bergerac. He proposed to Roxane as proxy for Christian de Neuvillette.”

“Never heard of him. Anyway, I pulled it it off myself, thank you.”

“How’d you feel about proposing?” Mule asked.

“I threw up right after.”

“I bet that was attractive. How’d you do it?”

“Just bent over the toilet and up it came.”

“That,” said Mule, “is not what I was askin‘. How did you propose? I hope you didn’t do one of those dumb tricks like put th’ ring in a piece of cake.”

J.C. looked surprised. “How’d you know? I was over at her place and she’d baked a cake for my birthday and while she was in the kitchen, I mashed the ring down in her piece—in the icing part.”

“What if she’d bitten into it?” asked the rector.

“What if she’d swallowed it?” asked the Realtor.

J.C. mopped his face with a handkerchief. “Bein‘ a working woman, she eats fast, and before you know it, she was bearin’ down on that ring pretty hard, so I looked over and said, ‘What in the dickens is that in your cake?’ and she said, ‘Well, I never, it’s a ring.’ ”

“Then what did you say?” asked Mule.

“Y‘all are worse’n a bunch of old women.”

“It’s true,” admitted the rector.

“I said, ‘Want to do it?’ and she said, ‘OK.’ ”

Mule rolled his eyes. “
Want to do it
? You said
that
?”

“If it was good enough for Officer Adele Lynwood,” snapped J.C., “it ought to be good enough for you, buddyroe.”

Mule peered across the table. “Did you get down on your knees or anything?”

“Are you kidding me?”

“So you proposed on your birthday!” exclaimed the rector.

“Right.”

“That’s what I did, you know.”

Mule cackled. “You don’t mean it. I didn’t know that. I declare.”

“It’s a dadblame epidemic,” said the editor, grinning.

Velma skidded up to the booth and glared at J.C. “OK, what’ll you have, and don’t take all day.”

The rector and the Realtor looked expectantly at J.C. “Low-fat yogurt and grapefruit juice ... ”

“Here we go again,” sighed Mule.

“With a side of sausage and grits,” said the editor.