Fallen Angels (28 page)

There was that name again. He had to tell her now, if for no other reason than to hear her say his name, even if spoken as a cuss.

“Daddy says that I seem to talk about nothing but ‘that Nazareth preacher.’ What does that tell you?”

He held the confession for a moment. “What did you say about me?”

“That you're intelligent, educated, and a funny guy. I didn't say mysterious, but you're kind of that, too.”

“You said I'm funny?”

“And that you are good to your children. Best of all, you love God.”

Lightning struck. “I do love God, Fern. That is why I have to talk to you. It's about that fraud thing I talked about this morning.”

“Pure genius, but more than that, humility. Philemon, I want you to help me find it for myself. I want your kind of humility. I'm afraid I've been coasting along in my faith myself. I covet your fire.” She placed a kiss right at the corner of his mouth.

“Likewise,” he said. Then he blurted, “I'm not the one to help you, Fern. I am a fake.” He finally said it.

“That does it. I'm cooking you a whole platter of pork chops and a chocolate cake,” she said.

“All right. But after dinner, we have got to talk,” he said.

After dinner, the sun went down and Jeb had no way of knowing that Fern had decided that they should make out. She walked him down the back way from the parsonage to the stream where he remembered his first recollection of lust for her—the first morning she had stepped out of the clouds. He could have simply walked her out the front way like a decent individual, said his peace, and slipped out of town. On foot, of course. There were many deterrents.

“Philemon, you have to know that I am in trouble when it comes to you. Tomorrow, I'm going to ask Josie to be sure that she is with me from now on when you are around. I'll tell her everything. That I cannot be alone with you. But for tonight, I have to tell you that I want you. Alone. If that makes sense. I know you think I'm an awful person.”

Jeb watched her as she knelt at the water's edge and looked at her own face. Her shoulders had slackened and she no longer looked like the woman who could swing from a tree and pound a ruler while whipping up a pan of biscuits. Fern looked lost to him. Kneeling beside her, he brought her to her feet. He had to hold her, for her sake. Her mouth met his.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Jeb decided he needed to interject an appropriate comment into the throes of passion, “I love you.”

“I knew it. Somehow, I—I needed to tell my mother that I thought you might be serious. Then I worried I had spoken out of turn.”

“I'd rather not talk about it anymore,” said Jeb. He kissed Fern and it came to him that he might be willing to go to jail for such a kiss. “I'm never leaving Nazareth,” he told her. “You have to understand that now. I can't.”

“I know. Neither can I,” she said.

“We'll just both have to stay here then.” He could not let go of Fern, not even if he had to go to jail for it. She possessed him as surely as Christ himself.

Now he just had to come clean about all the rest. Tomorrow perhaps.

18

J
eb dreamed of lying inside a bird's nest, naked. He felt sick inside and out. Sick of being himself. No means to lift him from his naked state, to cover him. No way of getting off the rocky crag where eagles belonged. Not Jeb Nubey.

Then he woke up.

He wiped wetness from his eyes. The mist on his lashes had formed in the night, the dew of frustration.

It came to him in the darkness that the option of climbing out altogether, out of the land of vultures and cliffs, and finding a peaceable dwelling place had come from the loins of another man's desire. He had only smelled that dream while peering over the shoulders of all those worldmakers. What jolted him awake in the night was a whisper that trickled into his soul—the understanding that he had hit the black bottom of the world.

Fern still did not know the truth.

He got up to read the newspaper. Parts of it lay scattered on the sofa, the other pages sloppily mislaid. The urge to run for a fresh newspaper made him restless. He possessed no fast escape into town. With restless bullets zinging up his spine, he walked outside and slammed open the screen door to sit on the porch. But instead of sitting, he walked down the steps, his bare feet scarcely touching the October cold grass—islands of weed in the dirt. His eyes searched out everything in the night: the dead-end motionlessness of the church yard, the invisibility of the croaking toads, and a glisten, a silver twinkle, of chrome that flickered from the road.

Then he heard the engine idling. Before he could approach it, a figure appeared. Deputy George Maynard waved him onto the road.

“Evening, Deputy. You're out late,” said Jeb.

“Sorry for creeping around, Reverend. I didn't want to alarm your children so I parked up on the road. I was hoping to find you up and here you are. I've been fishing up around Marvelous Crossing. You'll never guess what I just found.” He continued to lead Jeb to the ancient truck he drove for unofficial business.

Jeb followed, puzzled and still not convinced that he was awake.

“May be your truck parked right down in the woody part just behind the lake. I need you to come and ID the thing. Will your youngens be all right?”

Jeb nodded and climbed into his cab.

Maynard pulled down onto the dirt road that surrounded Marvelous Crossing with his lights off. The two of them walked with nothing but the moon for a light. Maynard put his finger to his lips then led Jeb into the thicket and crouched while he pointed. Someone had parked an automobile, near to undetectable, behind a copse of cedar. A ray of moon refracted light off the fender. Jeb stepped into the darkest shade of the trees and, still as a fox, waited for the sound of an idling engine or a closing door.

The wood sat undisturbed, so Jeb and Maynard moved like cats through the quiet of the brush hidden behind the tree trunks until they could see the vehicle up close. Jeb could hear his own breath and a noise as gentle as a cooling motor. A popping sound. He held his breath and saw a thing almost beatific beneath the awning of stars. The Model T truck had returned to him—Charlie's truck with all of his own goods duly consumed. The two thieves slept, one man curled up on the front seat and the other, the tall shaven-head blond youth, asleep in the truck bed. Both his feet stuck out the back with the butt of Jeb's rifle protruding beside his bone-thin legs.

“I've never seen two such fools,” said Maynard. “All but laid theyselves down at our feet.”

Wisdom told Jeb not to react when he saw the busted front grill. Instead of mauling the nearest thief, he held his breath and got himself a better look at the situation. Maynard followed right behind him. His heart the loudest thing about him, he crossed the road behind the truck. He slid the rifle up and away from the youth in the empty truck bed, felt a bit of resistance, and then jerked until the youth babbled and then fell back to sleep. Jeb opened the door and the driver fell out onto the road. Jeb aimed the rifle into the thief's sleepy eyes and said. “I'm the only one between you and God. It's a tight spot for you. You need to consider the outcome to the best of your ability.” It sounded good for a man who couldn't kill … again. “Get your buddy up. This deputy here wants to talk to you. So do I.”

Nebula Maynard turned up the lantern wick for her husband. George examined the ropes tied around the ankles and wrists of Jeb's prisoners. “For a preacher, you got a talent for rope tying, Reverend Gracie. Truth be told, I never seen such tying. Not in my lifetime.”

Jeb had aided George in dragging both men from the truck bed. Nebula poured him a second cup of coffee, occasionally pulling the scarf forward over the rollers in her hair, a self-conscious gesture brought on by the unexpected appearance of early-morning company. Every time she touched the hairpins, she said, “I know I look a mess.”

“You don't act like no preacher,” said the man who had fallen out of the truck.

“This'n is Carl Beaumont,” said George. He read the boys’ statistics off the FBI file. “He's the tall one with the scar.” He toed Carl Beaumont. “That'd be you.”

“They know your name, Carl,” said the bony, shaven youth. “What we going to do?”

“Shut up, Rabbit!” Carl would have belted the boy if he had not had both hands tied at his back.

“This younger feller is Duke ‘Rabbit’ Johnson, wanted for three counts of automobile theft. Both wanted for armed robbery and murder. Cold-blooded.”

Nebula made a sound like good plumbing awaiting the first flush of water.

George backed away. “Either one of you give me a bit of trouble and I'll blow your heads plumb off.”

“No trouble from me, Deputy,” said Carl.

“What made you two fools stop dead in the same town as the man you stole it from?” asked George.

“It was that church spire, distant-like it was,” said Rabbit. “It shined like a beacon in the sundown and I told Carl it was a sign.”

“I said shut up and I mean right this instant!” Carl bellowed.

Rabbit jerked like Carl had slapped him too much but he could not stop jabbering. “So we stopped, tuckered and feeling all peaceful for once, parked on yonder lake.” He batted his eyes and flinched. “You know it's true, Carl.”

“I guess you can take your truck, Reverend. Take yourself home if you want. I'll call the state police out here first thing. They'll have a few questions, but minor things. If you don't mind.”

“Not at all,” said Jeb. He left the Maynards to keep vigil over Carl and Rabbit. By the time he made it back to the truck, the set of keys felt hot against his palm. The inside of the truck smelled rank, worse than when the migrant boys had piled in one night for a jaunt to the Biscuit and Bean. When the engine started, the gasoline meter read close to empty, the real reason the two robber boys had stopped so suddenly, perhaps, with the need to ration fuel an immediate concern.

Jeb drove past the road that wound round Ivey Long's pond and ended at Fern's porch. Tomorrow he might drive up and see if she would like a malted at Fidel's. He made the left turn that would take him straight through town. If Val Rodwyn came early to open Honeysack's, he would buy a paper off him just for the sake of feeling a part of humanity again. As he neared downtown Nazareth it came to him bright as the bulbs strung along Faith Bottoms’ Beauty Shop awning that he could leave town right this instant. George Maynard had no inkling of his real identity. No one else even knew of his waking up to find the truck parked so near to home. He could just tool away. Some fuel stolen from that gas can Honeysack kept on the rear steps of the store might get him to the next city. A day's work might get him to the next place and so on and so forth until he crossed Canada's border.

Or he could buy a paper off Val Rodwyn and take Fern tomorrow night for a malted.

Climbing naked from the nest out into the open world had its down side. He stopped just two blocks from Honeysack's store to weigh the matter. The engine rattled, jingled, and then coughed to a stop. He waited with the window down, listening to the quiet streets before dawn. Faith Bottoms might appear soon and put up a new sign advertising a sale on permanent waves. Floyd Whittington would pull Flying Racer wagons out onto the front walk so that boys would beg their daddies for the red, steeled beauties.

Another truck stopped short of Beulah's Café, one block away from Fidel's Drugstore. The headlights dimmed. The driver opened the truck door and stepped out. It was not his slightly bowed and thin frame but the furtive creep of his step that caught Jeb's attention. The man pulled the brim of his hat down across his brow. Jeb recognized the tattered felt hat. The weighty rock that Clovis Wolverton snugged against his skeletal ribs with his right hand made him lean to the right.

Jeb lifted his door latch just as he had done to cause Carl Beaumont to tumble onto the street. He slipped out of the truck and remained in the dark protection of the Main Street elms.

Clovis ran and stood in the shadow of awning over Fidel's doorway. He drew back to hurl the rock through the glass.

“Clovis, wait,” said Jeb.

Jeb startled Clovis and threw him off balance. He dropped the rock and turned to run.

“It's me, Clovis. Reverend Gracie.” He kept his eyes on the man. It worked to keep him in place. In a kind of hush, he said, “You can't do that and get away with it.”

Clovis's eyes had the kind of kicked dog look Jeb had seen in the faces of the men forced to live off along the railroad tracks. “Reverend! I guess you think I'm shameful,” he said.

“I think you almost were. Beulah will be opening the café soon. Let me buy you the first cup of her coffee. It will do us both some good.” Jeb extended his hand to see if Clovis might take it.

Clovis brought his arm to his face and cried.

“It's all right, Clovis. We all hatch plans in our minds that we shouldn't do.” He let out a sigh, like his own confession had been too long in the brine. “But when we don't go through with bad schemes, that's when manhood starts to grow on us.” Jeb put his arm around the father of the six youngens who lay in bed with empty stomachs. “You ought to let others help you out. Better than jail.”

“I never met no preacher like you, Reverend,” said Clovis between sobs.

“I'll grant you that's true. Look, the light just came on in the café. We're in luck,” said Jeb. He beckoned Beulah until she came to the door and let them inside.

“Coffee, gentlemen?” she said.

“Coffee, breakfast. Give this man anything he wants.” Jeb invited Clovis to enter ahead of him.

Jeb felt the slipping-away sensation leave him due to the fact that he had lost the momentum to imagine himself on the run by daylight.

The sun rose like a golden mum pinned to the pocket of the Ouachita Mountains.

Fern had driven into town to pick up a few things from the grocers’. She couldn't hide her elation. “You're up early, Philemon.”

“Just doing a little shopping while the children sleep. I got my track back.”

“Congratulations.”

Her smile had a powerful warming effect on Jeb. “I'll see you later on. Best I finish this shopping—it's for Clovis.” He touched her hand and pointed to Clovis, who sat inside the café nursing another cup of coffee.