Fallen Angels (31 page)

Fern and Ida May conversed on the front pew. Ida May laid her head in Fern's lap. “I don't want to leave.” She said it twice.

“Of course you're not leaving. Church hasn't even started,” said Fern.

Jeb had rehearsed how to reveal to Fern the worst of his life in less than ten faltering seconds. Each time held ended up stretching it out into a hard-luck, story that might at least draw sympathy. The fact that she did not look sympathetic at this morning, but rather a little starchy, threw the whole speech off.

“Fern, whatever happens today, know that to me you are the fairest lily of all.”

She laughed. “That is what makes me laugh. How you look so serious and then say sensitive things like that.”

He didn't bat an eyelash.

“As long as you aren't embarrassed with that silly confession I made,” said Fern. “There I was asking you not to rush things, then I haul off and spill out who-knows-what. It was just the power of the moon.”

“I don't remember a confession,” said Jeb.

She lifted so only he could hear. “The one about not being alone with you.”

Jeb laughed nervously.

“Everyone is looking at us,” she whispered.

He saw a corner of his confession sticking out, one corner curled up and pointing at him. Her throaty laugh and the way she brought her hand to her mouth demonstrated that she took him to be florid of speech when in fact he spoke put of desperation.

Florence and Greta hooked up with Freda Honeysack and left, Greta with a face full of guilt and Florence the problem-solver.

Every step Jeb took toward the lectern weighed heavier than the last. The organ keys jarred him. Doris played a lively tune, something like a barroom melody set to religious poetry. “Communion Sunday, Doris. A more somber hymn, perhaps?” he suggested.

Doris ran her fingers down the keyboard. A sacred melody, familiar and customary for such days, quietened the talkative. Her voice lifted across the hat-adorned heads and everyone stood.
Oh sacred head now wounded …

The bottoms of Jeb's feet prickled as though someone held him over the yawning mouth of a canyon. He went through a series of motions, first laying his notes on the lectern, then pulling out the confession, laying it on top. Finally, he decided it better to at least deliver the message and feed the Lord's flock before he landed the glancing blow.

Deputy Maynard and his wife, Nebula, slipped in and took a seat on the last pew. George looked a bit apologetic about his appearance. He still wore the official trappings of a town deputy, as though he had just come from the jailhouse.

Jeb's chest was a cage, iron clad and doorless, making it difficult to breathe. He wanted to beg forgiveness of every person who walked through the door.
Forgive me. I am a fraud—a big ol’ phony. It is the fault of no one but myself.

The singing lifted like cherubim, rising above the chapel joists, above even the country hills of Nazareth.

He moved off the platform while Doris led the music, but he did not remember leaving the lectern at all. For every stanza, he embraced a member, held on to them, and said, “God loves you.” He felt as though he lifted out of a shell and watched his pathetic self try to squeeze approval out of the last unsuspecting dupe. Nothing good had come out of him.

A gentle hand movement made him look. Doris needed her cue to end the round of chorus. Her old fingers needed a rest.

Jeb glanced at her with a look of apology and returned to the lectern.

He heard the slamming of automobile doors. The ladies’ communion rescue committee had returned. The opening: prayer sounded hollow to him, as did the sanctuary when he spoke.

The church doors opened a hair but not fully.

“When we are sick and visit a doctor, we know that by seeking out the best doctor we have a better chance of getting well. We can look on that doctor's wall and see how he got his education. However, it is not only the paper on the wall that is important to us, but the knowledge the man has gained. His education is very important to our sense of well being.” Jeb tucked his notes away, into the Bible. “It is not always so simple to know the difference between a real man of God or a fraud. Christ chose twelve disciples, yet the one who lacked sincerity was the very man that placed the Son of God in the hands of the enemy. Christ allowed it because when the wicked are brought out into the light, God's power is fully shown. But if we allow a big put-on to replace God's genuine instrument, the church flounders.” Jeb thought of something that he had read. “A lack of sight without God's eyeglasses gives us a defective view. We see what we want to see instead of what is true. If it smells religious, we idly agree, and then invoke heaven's name.”

Clovis Wolverton nodded. In his lap was a burlap sack, a fresh poultry offering for the preacher.

Fern's gaze had dropped as though she mused inwardly.

Angel was crying, until her bony shoulders shook, until an older woman behind her touched her lightly on the back to hand her a handkerchief.

“Christ told us not to worry about the bad seed sown among us. I want you to remember this today. God has his own way of separating the good from the imitation.”

The doors came open. Autumn sunlight, so bright that the forms standing in the light appeared as radiant beings, blinded Jeb. He held his hand up to catch the glare.

“Fraud! Liar!”

“You'll hang for this!”

“Charlatan, that's what you are!”

Jeb recognized the voices. Florence, Greta, and Freda accused him.

A man plainly costumed in a modest dark coat and pants walked past Jeb's accusers. On his flanks were three children, two older girls and a young boy the spitting image of his daddy. The oldest girl wore copper spectacles and held a Bible at her chest. All three of the offspring followed their father in composed obedience, their heads poised and scarcely lifting, as though floating on his train. Every one of them looked as though they had been cut from a big-city newspaper—black garments, stiff white collars, and the snappy walk of young scholars. Four people chiseled from marble, a cultured bunch with refinement coached into the pores of their lily-white skin.

Jeb stepped away from the lectern. He knew who they were.

Angel buried her face against Fern. Fern shook her head, angry at the: outbursts of the obviously insane. Jeb kept his eyes on the floor and said softly, “This is your pulpit, sir. It has missed you.”

Philemon Gracie did not take the platform, but made a half tarn and addressed the congregation. “I've listened outside your portals to this man. You have listened to his words, no doubt.” He addressed Jeb. “Wise words from a tongue so unpracticed.”

Horace Mills rose, both hands, lifted, staring accusingly at Jeb. “Wait one minute. If you are not who you've pretended to be these last few months, I demand you tell us today. God help your soul!”

“Jeb Nubey is my name.”

Fern looked slapped.

Maynard sat back as though kicked in the head. Then he held onto the pew in front of him, squeezed his pear-shaped body past Nebula, and stepped out into the aisle. He yanked a set of handcuffs from his belt loop. “This is a bad dream.”

Clovis Wolverton brought his bowed back erect. “Say it ain't so, Reverend.” He addressed Jeb, looking through the real minister as though he had never walked down the aisle.

“Arrest him, Maynard!” Mills joined the deputy in the aisle.

“Going to be a lynching!” Floyd Whittington pushed out of his pew.

“No, you can't!” Alma Wolverton lifted, as if her meatless bones were pulled upward by a thin string. “He's a man of God. I can testify on that count! Tell ‘em, Reverend!”

Philemon Gracie crossed his arms, long fingers pink against the thin white cotton cuffs. His middle daughter moved next to him and pulled her father's arm around her neck.

“Calm yourselves!” Jeb could hot be heard above the shouting.

A faint rapping noise added to the clamor, persisted like a metronome until, in the stillness of an interlude, it was finally the only audible sound. The minister lifted his walking stick into the air and then brought it down once more to me floor in front of him. “Mr. Nubey has something to say. As your minister, as your new pastor, could I beg you for a crumb of mercy? Let's hear him out as civil people ought to do.”

Unnoticed, Fern picked up her handbag, meandered through the men in the aisle, and left the building.

Jeb covered his eyes until his tongue had moistened enough to speak. “I wanted to tell you all today. I am the fake they say I am. I regret that I took more time than I should have to tell you.”

Maynard dangled his cuffs from two fingers as though they were an exhibit. “You're wanted by the law, might I add. For murder.”

“What Deputy Maynard says is true. Everything is explainable, but I don't want to explain it. Because to takeon the life of another man is enough crime in God's eyes. I'm tired of defending my actions. I am a guilty man.” He held out his wrists, fingers clenched. “The fact is, I lied. If I get off on one count, then by God's hand, I'm still justly hanged.”

“What kind of shenanigans is this man trying to pull?” asked Mills.

“God is our ultimate judge, Mr. Nubey,” said Gracie. “You have learned a lot in my pulpit. For we are all guilty of something.”

Gracie turned and addressed the others. “It is the Lord's grace that allows us to slip around in the shadows undetected, kind of a blissful folly. But it is a higher mercy that stops us in our tracks and makes us accountable. Even if fallaciously accused of one thing, then justifiably we are punished for the transgressions of a lifetime.”

“But he's a guilty man,” said Maynard.

“That is what I'm trying to say,” said Jeb. “Fern? Where is Fem? Will someone find her? I need Fern.”

“What made you think you could make a laughing stock of the whole town?” asked Mills.

“He saved me from the rock piles!” Clovis wailed. “Glory hallelujah, from hell and despair!”

“God saved you, Clovis,” said Jeb. “Not me.”

Alma Wolverton dropped her face in her hands and wept.

“Christ is our redemption, don't you see, Clovis? Look at me, a fugitive with not a lick of sense. But you all, the life you bring to this little town, you made me want to be a better man. I used to spend my spare time dunking of ways to separate a man from his pocketbook so I could have a little gin and some smokes to roll on Saturday night.” By now, Jeb stood in the center aisle, Evelene Whittington's Bible open-faced in his hands. He faced the banker, Mills. “But here I was in a place called Nazareth, staying up all night learning ABC's with Ida May and reading from this Good Book.” He took a step toward Evelene and handed the Bible back to her. “I never thought I'd be much account, and to you all, I'm not. But I have been lifted up. I can see above my former self. You can hang me by the throat but I will go willingly if I know these things: ‘But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.’ Clovis, that is good news for you and me. That means that once we were far away from God and how we have been brought near to him by that thing he did with nails and wood.”

“I have been redeemed. Halleluyer, Reverend!” said Clovis.

Jeb extended his hands. “Maynard, do your worst. I am a ready prisoner.”

Mills stepped aside to let the deputy cuff Jeb.

“Mr. Nubey, I will see you again. We've much to discuss,” said Reverend Gracie.

Doris Jolly cried and followed behind Jeb all the way to the church door. “I'll pray for you, Reverend. Don't you give up now. God don't shine to no quitter.”

“I'm not a reverend, Doris. Just a man who has to get back up.”

Once out in the churchyard, Maynard pulled manacles and chains from the back of his automobile. Horace Mills assisted with shackling Jeb Nubey, the murderer.

The space normally filled by Fern's Chevy Coup was nothing but a tacky set of tire tracks on the grass.

Will Honeysack lingered three yards away in the shade of the tree where Jeb had shared pie with Fern. He turned his back when Jeb was driven from the church. He placed his head against the tree trunk, forehead against the back of his hand. Then the head deacon cried.

Carl and Rabbit called out to Jeb from the cell next to him. The sun descended and from the darkening cell they mimicked him. “Beloved children, come unto me and I will give you lies from the bottom of my dirty old heart,” said Carl.

Rabbit laughed and cried out, “Amen, y'all”

Carl pressed his face through the bars. “I believe it was you, Parson, who had it in mind to let a certain couple of honorable gentlemen take the rap for your little homicidal blunder, up in yon Texarkana. Memory serves me correctly, that is.”

“I confessed, boys, You want more than that, get a lawyer.”

“Confessed after the gen-awin preacher come rollin’ into town,” said Carl.

“You better thank God you didn't get put in our cell, Nubey. Maybe you would-a woke up behind the pearlys you been preachin’ about,” said Rabbit. He slammed the ball of his hand against the bars.

“Mercy sakes, Brother Rabbit. Forgiveness is in order. After all, it was the good parson here who accommodated our modest venture with the use of his fine automobile.”

Rabbit fell onto the cot and laughed.

Through the bars to the outside, Jeb watched head-lights here and then gone move across the jailhouse wall as vehicles turned the corner on Front Street. Maynard clipped across the parking lot, the heels of his shoes popping. The jailhouse keys jangled from his belt.

“Deputy Maynard, please, you've got to help Angel and the other two find their daddy.”

“Don't you have enough to worry with, Nubey?” The sun disappeared right behind the deputy's head.

“I'm not what's important, George.”

“Look, Nubey. I had Evelene Whittington do what you asked. She tried to call some of the neighbors in Show Hill. She finally got a fillin’ station attendant to answer the phone. The only number she could dig up in Snow Hill.”

“It's a small place. Filling station will do,” said Jeb.

“Lemuel Welby, he packed up and left town months ago when the itinerants all headed west. Took his brother with him and never left trace of where they headed off to.” Maynard checked his watch. “Ain't no place left for those three kids to go but to a home. I don't know much about them, but the sheriff up in Hope, he said he knows of a place.”