Feast for Thieves (27 page)

I breathed a big sigh of relief at those words and shook his hand right back. Then he pointed to the door and said “git.” It was near lunchtime, Halligan had other business to attend to, so I stopped in for eating at the café just by myself, then drove back to the parsonage in the Chevy. Halligan insisted I continue using the parsonage as my residence until my trial was over and the sentencing finished.

I chewed on one more thing. After he’d shaken my hand, he’d mentioned how the night previous the deacon board had held a special meeting to determine my status as church employee. Deputy Roy was all for firing me outright. A few church members had
talked to the sheriff earlier in the day and recommended me be placed on “administrative leave,” whatever that meant. The three old ladies who hated me wanted me strung up and lynched. But Sheriff Barker had put his fist on the table at the deacon meeting and said this was America—where a man was innocent until proven guilty. That meant I still had my job as reverend until the trial—and to spread the word.

The parsonage was exactly as I’d left it. The loaded Springfield was still under my bed, and blood was still on my floor from where Crazy Ake walloped me. It was Monday afternoon, so I wandered around the place, then went outside to the awning and cranked out a few sets of overhang pull-ups. I hiked out to the pine stand and cut firewood for the rest of the afternoon, drove into town for dinner, then went back to the parsonage and slept heavy.

The next morning, the regular deacon meeting was canceled, seeing how the board had just met, so I drove to the café for breakfast, then came back to the church. Parked sideways in the gravel was a dusty 1934 Plymouth, the world’s lowest priced car, so I knew Mert was inside the church office, undoubtedly wondering if I’d show. I strode inside to say hello for our meeting. She was doing the attendance charts, same as always, and she looked up as I walked in.

“You’re late,” she said.

I gave her a half smile and sat down. “Maybe you were wondering if I still worked here at all.”

“I heard. Although I ain’t sure you ever worked much around here even before this last commotion of yours.” She stifled a smirk, went back to the charts as if I wasn’t there, then added under her breath, “I’m doing the attendance by myself today. You best get straightaway to your other duties while your job is still paying for your meals.”

“Well, that’s not a bad idea,” I said, then leaned back in a chair and looked at the church secretary. “How’s the charts look anyway?”

I surmised the answer already. Attendance was down a mite. I’d been in church last Sunday and sat in the back row. Bobbie had preached a real barn burner in my absence, and most folks were there except a few of the fellas I’d worked so hard to bring in, which I’d need to follow up on as soon as possible. I reckoned it might take a few more fights down at the tavern.

Emma Hackathorn and her children weren’t there neither. Folks was saying Emma was sick, but I knew better. The sheriff had moved them all over to his house until Crazy Ake was found. He didn’t want her children talking in public about Sunny yet, for fear of her safety. So it was better for them to all stay at his home for a spell. Gummer was coming by every morning and escorting Emma and the little ones to her day’s work at the mercantile. The sheriff himself walked the older children to and from school.

Mert stayed intent on her work and kept her head down. She paused mid-chart only to say, “You best start today by visiting my husband. Clay told me this morning he wants you to come around as soon as possible. He wonders how his truck is doing.”

“Is that so?”

“He thinks it needs a new engine. He wants to make sure you’ve got enough cash to keep it running until it dies.”

That was a curious thing for Mert to say. Gummer was charged with keeping all vehicles associated with the church running, and Mert knew that.

“When did you say he wants me to come over?” I asked.

Mert looked up. “Right away. He ain’t feeling well this morning, so you best be quick.” She wore that curious expression again, and I knew something else was churning in the woman’s mind.

I climbed in Clay Cahoon’s old Chevy and drove east on the Lost Truck road, passing over Highway 2, and kept heading east. Mert and Clay’s place was a hundred-acre dirt farm about two
miles out of town. A hundred acres was tiny for Texas standards, but it kept them eating when Clay felt well enough to work the fields.

When I drove up the gravel road heading into the place, all looked quiet. The house looked snug enough, although it needed a new coat of paint. A loose shutter swung in the breeze.

I knocked on the door. Clay didn’t show, so I walked around to the barn and found it empty as well. No horses or cows. No sheep or goats or pigs. Not even a chicken. I’d never inquired of Mert exactly what she and Clay farmed, but their place looked downright deserted. The barn was bare of machinery and even low on tools and garden implements. I went back to the front door again and knocked.

This time Clay opened. He was stooped and hobbling with the help of two canes. “Come inside, Reverend. Sit,” he said with a grunt. “I heard you the first time you knocked but couldn’t get to the door in time.” He shuffled back to the davenport, sat heavily, and hooked a tube from an oxygen tank underneath his nose.

“How you feeling today, Clay?”

“Had better.” He motioned with his head to the kitchen. “Mert made a fresh pot this morning. Care for a cup?”

“Nah, I drank myself wet at the café this morning, but thanks. How’d your operation take?”

“That doctor was a horse’s behind.” Clay coughed and wiped his mouth with a handkerchief. He coughed again, and this time I noticed a streak of blood when he pulled away the cloth.

“Sorry to hear that.”

He held up his hand for me to shut up. He was breathing heavy. “Lemme cut to the chase, Rowdy. Got a question for you, and I need a straight answer. Promise you’ll level with me.” He looked my direction with expectancy in his eyes.

I looked at him closely. “Sir?”

“Before you were a reverend you spent time in the crowbar hotel, right? Not the Cut Eye jail, but an out-of-state jail? I ain’t
judging you. I just needs to know.”

“Yes sir, six months,” and I nodded without being sure where he was going with his questioning.

“Those prisons, the big ones, they got privies in the cells?”

“Sir?”

“A place for a man to turn over his wheelbarrow when he needs to go in a hurry.” Clay coughed again. “Bathrooms. I needs to know.”

I nodded. “There’s usually a commode in each cell, sir, yes.”

“And how much moon-floss do they give you in jail? As much as a man needs?”

I checked myself to make sure I understand his terminology then nodded. “Sir, I never ran short of toilet paper, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Clay’s chest shook with a long rattle of coughing. His ribs rose and fell and a pained furrow rose on his forehead. “Okay—that’s all good to know. Here’s why I called you here. My wife told you she stole the church scratch, didn’t she? Be truthful with me, Reverend. Did she?”

I nodded and kept my mouth shut to see where he was going with this.

Clay pursed his lips and said, “Well, I got some news to add to that.”

“Sir?”

“What my wife told you is wrong.”

“Sir?”

“I’ll spell it out for you—my wife is a liar.”

I squinted my eyes as a question.

“You heard me right, Reverend. My wife, Mert Cahoon, is the biggest liar in Cut Eye.” He looked me straight in the eye. “The full truth is that even though Mert Cahoon is a liar, Mert Cahoon is no thief.” He coughed so hard I thought he was nearly dead.

“You need a glass of water?” I asked. “I can get—”

“It was me who took that church money, Reverend! I stole it all! Not Mert. She didn’t steal a thing.” Another long string of coughing followed. “Mert only said what she said to protect me. The wife figured folks would go easier if they heard the money was stole by a gal.” He let loose with another long string of coughs.

I stood anyway and walked toward the kitchen, not sure where to land except to listen. He was speaking in those bare-bones sentences, letting loose all his secrets, and a deeper liberty was beginning to spill forth. I called over my shoulder, “I’m going to have that cup of coffee now, Clay. I’ll get you a glass of water while I’m at it.” I rummaged around in the cabinets and found a cup.

“No water. Get me coffee—” Clay yelled from the sitting room. “Two sugars and a cream.”

I found an extra cup, poured his and poured mine, then opened the cupboards. There wasn’t any sugar. I opened the refrigerator. Wasn’t any cream. Wasn’t much of anything—no butter or eggs, lettuce or jam. I stood staring at the empty refrigerator. My mind swirled around what Clay had just said—around that as well as the empty fridge, then I took both cups of black coffee back to the sitting room and handed one cup to Clay. There was no side table to set the cup on, and I looked harder around the room. There was Clay’s chair and one other chair. That was it. No rug on the floor. No pictures on the wall. No wood near the fireplace. It’s funny what you don’t notice when you first walk in a place.

“Mr. Cahoon.” I looked him straight in the eyes. “How come you didn’t sell your truck too?”

“What you asking, boy?”

“You sold everything else, didn’t you?”

He nodded. “Well, I didn’t sell the truck because you needed it. Mert needed her car. You’re the minister at my church and you needed something to drive. Everything else we could live without. Reckoned it was the least I could do for the church.”

“But you got no food. Why didn’t you tell someone?”

He looked at me a long time, then cleared his throat and said, “Because we manage.”

“Do you?” My comeback was quick. “What’s going on with you two, anyway?”

He coughed, looked at the side wall, and sighed. “How old are you, Reverend? I know that’s a personal question to ask a man, but I’m curious.”

“I was born in 1921. This coming January I’ll turn twenty-six.”

“You seem much older than your years. You sure you ain’t older?”

I scratched my nose, thinking. “I reckon every man who’s been to war comes home an old soul. That’s what.”

He coughed again. “I figured as much. Me, I’ll be sixty-eight next month. And to answer your last question, my head feels these days all mixed up, Reverend, if you really must know. I guess it was ten years ago now when I first got sick. No, make that eleven. The first season we paid the doctor’s bills out of that year’s harvest. That year we got by. The second year Mert started driving the school bus in addition to her duties at the church. That year we got by, too. The third year we began to sell her canning. The fourth year she added the mail route. The fifth year we sold the sheep. The sixth year we sold the cow and the goat.” He looked me back in the eyes and coughed again. “We kept getting by.”

“And bills kept coming in.”

“That they did.” He coughed again. “A man stays hopeful for a lot of years. But it was Mert I worried about most. Those bills wouldn’t stop. I kept going to the doctor, and those bills kept piling up, and this year we looked around and saw we didn’t have no more to sell. Then Martha called Mert at the church and said the doctor had called about a prospect for this operation. That sounded so good to both of us. Mert said we’d afford it somehow but there was only one way, and I didn’t want to sell what she was proposing we sell. So I rolled the dice, thinking that would solve
all our problems if it worked. I could keep my land. Begin to farm again. Make some money. Pay back what I owed.” He coughed. “But it don’t matter now.”

“What exactly did Mert propose you sell?”

He coughed. “In the back room is a valise. Go get it.”

I rose from the chair, walked to the back room, spotted the valise, and brought it back to Mr. Cahoon. I set down the valise in front of Mr. Cahoon but he didn’t touch it.

“It’s all yours,” he said. “For the church, I mean. It’s all there—everything I stole plus interest. Count it and make sure.”

I opened the valise. Inside were bound bundles of hundred dollar bills.

“Fourteen thousand dollars,” he said. “Twelve thousand for what I stole. Plus two thousand extra for the trouble I put the church through.”

“I don’t understand, sir.”

He coughed. “Mert will stay in an apartment in town. I got enough extra to provide a bit for her, and she’ll do okay with all her jobs. Maybe she can drop the mail route. She’ll be okay.”

I stared at him, suddenly putting two and two together.

He saw the surprise on my face and he laughed, a long, sorrowful laugh. Then he coughed and wiped away the blood with the handkerchief. “Here I was all these years sitting on the very thing that would set us free from our troubles. A man such as me loves my land, but here I was holding on to my land and being hopeful at the expenditure of everything else. Even my integrity.” He coughed again.

“You sold your farm, Mr. Cahoon.”

“I don’t need any dirt where I’m going.”

“Where’s that exactly?”

He removed the oxygen tube from his nose, grabbed both canes, and struggled to his feet. “Drive me over to the sheriff’s, Rowdy.”