In This Mountain (23 page)

“That’s Poo, he’s eleven,” said Buck, keeping his voice casual. “His school picture, he made an A in geography, I never even knew where Idaho was when I was in school. This is him with his new bat, he can hit a softball all th’ way to Tennessee…. An’ this is him on his bike….”

Buck breathed deeply, as if he’d held his breath for a long time. “And this is Jessie…her last school picture…she’s ten.”

Father Tim felt the hard knot in his throat; this was a type of miracle and he was standing in the midst of it. He pointed to a picture of Dooley and Cynthia sitting on the front steps of the yellow house. “This is Dooley,” he said, “he’s nineteen.”

Father Tim watched Sammy Barlowe resist the depth and power of his feelings. Sammy was doing what Dooley had always done, hardening his face into a mask, a stone; only his eyes betrayed the depth of his longing to examine the images spread before him.

Sammy stepped back from the rock. “You’uns better git out of here. When my p-paw sees you hangin’ around, you’ll be skinned.”

Buck grinned. “It’d take a while to skin me. He prob’ly don’t have time to complete th’ job.”

Father Tim realized his adrenaline had been pumping hard all morning; exhaustion was sweeping through him in a wave. His vision suddenly blurred, then cleared. In that moment, the exhaustion vanished, taking his headache with it.

“Ahh,” he said aloud, amazed and grateful. The place where they stood became abruptly vivid; he hadn’t looked about him until now. It was wondrously cool in this light-and-shade-dappled copse; indeed, they were standing in a garden.

“Lady slipper!” said Father Tim. “And by heaven, look there! Jack-in-the-pulpit.” Though the blossom had gone, he recognized the leaves.

“Stay on th’ path!” commanded the boy. “W-watch where you’re steppin’.”

“Of course. I’m sorry. And there’s trillium, a whole grove! Is the bloom white or pink?”

Sammy hesitated a long moment. “W-w-white,” he said.

Father Tim heard water rushing along the nearby riverbed, the first time he’d heard it since they crossed the bridge “These lovely things surely didn’t grow here in the same patch?”

“I dug some in th’ woods over yonder.”

In a space hardly bigger than Cynthia’s workroom, and carpeted with black loam and leaf mold, was a remarkable variety of wild plants—tall ferns with furred fiddleheads, a colony of silvery Dutchman’s-pipe that lit the woods floor like small candles, a grove of mayapple….

Father Tim squatted down and peered beneath the leaves of a plant where rows of onyx berries hung like necklaces.

“Solomon’s seal?” he asked, looking up at Sammy.

“It’s common,” said Sammy. “Not diff’rent like some of th’ others, but it g-grows good and gives cover to th’ jacks.”

“And these pink lady slippers,” said Father Tim. “I’ve never seen so many in one place.”

“They was already growin’ in here, in a bunch, it give me th’ idea to”—Sammy glanced around—“d-do this.”

“Is that a yellow slipper over there?”

“Yeah, they’s five kinds of slipper. This is th’ only yeller I ever found. They’s a yeller an’ white, too, but Lon Burtie says it don’t grow excep’ out West som’ers.”

“What a blessing to see all this,” said Father Tim, smiling up at the boy. “A blessing.” Sammy’s grandfather, Russell Jacks, had been the finest gardener Lord’s Chapel had ever hired…. “I believe the slipperis in the orchid family.” He was feeling like a new man, light of spirit, the headache vanished.

“Lon Burtie was in a jungle in Nam where he seen plenty of orchids. He says they’s two million kinds of orchids.”

“And that purplish leaf? Let’s see, I can’t think of the name…”

“Galax. I didn’t dig that, it was already g-growin’ over there, but I’ve got t’ take s-some of it out, it’s forceful.”

Father Tim squatted for a moment more, then stood, his knees creaking like rusted gates. Something had just happened in here, quite a lot had happened….

“This is a private place, isn’t it, Sammy?”

The boy lowered his eyes and shrugged.

“Thanks for letting us come in.”

“Yeah,” said Buck, clearing his throat. “Thanks.”

“Let me say that last ’un back t’ make sure I learned it right.”

“Take your time,” said the trucker, who had just ordered apple pie à la mode. “This is a easy run, nothin’ perishable like last week when I was haulin’ cantaloupes to Pennsylvania.”

Uncle Billy cleared his throat. “Woman went to th’ new doc, don’t you know, he was s’ young he was hardly a-shavin’. Wellsir, she was in there a couple of minutes when all at once’t she busted out a-hollerin’ an’ run down th’ hall.”

Uncle Billy paused.

“You got it,” said the trucker. “Keep goin’.”

“Wellsir, a doc that was a good bit older took off after ’er, said, ‘What’s th’ problem?’ an’ she told ’im. Th’ ol’ doc went back to th’ young doc, said, ‘What’s th’ dadjing matter with you? Miz Perry is sixty-five a-goin’ on sixty-six with four growed chil’ren and seven grans—an’ you told ’er she was a-goin’ t’ have a
young ’un
?”

“New doc grinned, don’t you know, said, ‘Cured ’er hiccups, didn’t it?’”

Uncle Billy knew when a joke hadn’t gone over, and this one hadn’t gone over—not even with the person he’d gotten it from in the first place.

The trucker gazed thoughtfully at his reflection in the chrome napkin dispenser. “Seem like it was funny when I heard it th’ first time, but now it might be what you call…” He shrugged.

“Flat,” said Uncle Billy, feeling the same way himself.

“I’d advise you to axe it,” said the trucker, digging into his apple pie. “Start off with your two guys on a bench, slide in with your cabdriver joke, and land you a one-two punch with th’ ol’ maids.”

Uncle Billy wished he had some kind of guarantee this particular lineup would work.

As families around Mitford waked and stirred, more than a few wondered what last night’s violent storm might have done to the valley corn crop. Second only in importance to the town’s Independence Day parade was the season’s first delivery of Silver Queen corn, expected to arrive any moment at The Local.

After hearing a weather bulletin, Neese Simmons and his wife and four children had picked corn until two o’clock in the morning before the storm broke over the valley at three a.m. Working by torch and flashlight, they loaded their hasty harvest in the farm truck and backed it into the barn in the nick of time. From three until seven, the storm dumped five inches of precipitation into the valley below Mitford, washing out large crops of potatoes, cantaloupes, and strawberries, all destined for sale at The Local. This devastation caused the Simmons family to worry whether their prayers for rain had been too fervent. Neese told his wife, Vada, that he would make a point of discussing it with their preacher to see whether any of the blame for crop loss might, in fact, lie squarely on the shoulders of the Simmonses.

“Hush an’ go to sleep,” she said, patting his hand. “Th’ Lord knows what He’s doin’.”

“Will you ride up with me t’morrow?” he asked.

“If I’m not too give out,” she said.

On the way to the airport, Father Tim passed Neese and Vada Simmons driving into Mitford as he and Cynthia drove out. Both parties threw up a hand in greeting.

“There’s our corn,” said Father Tim. It would be a big day in Mitford. By one o’clock, every ear would be emptied from the bins on Main Street, and by six o’clock, the lot of it would be boiling on village stoves, his own included.

But his wife wouldn’t be here to enjoy it with him. For two weeks, she would be touring the world—and he was the one who’d encouraged her to do it.

The truth was, she needed a chance to relish the fruits of her labors, to see the rapt faces of the children for whom she’d written and painted with such passion for so many years. And there was a further truth, one they hadn’t talked about, one that he’d hidden in his heart so carefully he hardly knew it himself—he needed time.

Time for what? To somehow get his act together, to work on his essays, and pitch in with George and Harley to build bookcases in the hallway and maybe a cabinet for her illustrations. Just a little time, that’s all he needed, and he would once again be himself.

For weeks on end, he’d been a swimmer sinking to the pond bottom, with his brave wife struggling to pull him ashore. He’d been a heaviness to her, though she’d never said it; indeed, she may not even have known it. But he’d known it, for he’d seen it in her face and heard it in her voice. If he were half the man he’d like to be, they’d be driving to the airport on their way to Venice or Tuscany, or one of those other places she might love to go…even their honeymoon cottage in Maine, for heaven’s sake. But he was not that man, and there was no use thinking he would one day become that man. He was the worst bump on a log ever given breath.

He swallowed until the knot in his throat disappeared. “I’m not going to cry,” he said, taking her hand.

The tears were streaming down her cheeks, though they were scarcely beyond the town limits.

“Thank you, dearest. I’m so sorry I’ll miss your sermons.”

“Rats in a poke!” he said, quoting one of her favorite epithets.

“You’ve heard me preach a hundred times and I hope you’ll hear me preach a hundred more. I’ll save you my notes…if I use any.”

She looked at him, smiling. “Promise me something.”

“Anything,” he said.

“Don’t put butter on your corn.”

No butter on his corn!

“Use olive oil, it’s better for your health.”

“No rest for th’ wicked,” he sighed.

She squeezed his hand and laughed through the tears. “An’ th’ righteous don’t need none!”

His house was not a tomb nor a crypt, after all. The very light may have gone from it, but Puny Bradshaw Guthrie, his appointed guardian and watchdog, was doing her mightiest to make it shine. Dooley was coming to lunch and they were having a feast fit for royals—nay, for the heavenly hosts.

“Alleluia!” he declared to Puny, who wiped her face with her apron as she stood at the stove. Not even the air-conditioning could spare them from the furnace produced by roiling steam, sizzling grease, and the divine tumult of preparation in general.

Their house help, a.k.a. his nonlegally adopted daughter, was frying chicken, making potato salad with scallions, bacon, and sour cream, cooking fresh cranberries with shavings of ginger root and orange peel, simmering a pot of creamed corn, deviling eggs with homemade mayonnaise, and rolling out biscuits on the countertop. A pitcher of sweet tea stood at the ready, covered with one end of a tea towel; his grandmother’s heavy glass pitcher, filled with unsweetened tea, was covered by the other end. A three-layer coconut cake, set square in the center of the kitchen island, reigned over the room next to a small vase of early, apple-green hydrangea blossoms.

Excited as a child, he went to the downstairs powder room and tested his sugar.

The banquet being prepared for Dooley Barlowe had none of the criminal restrictions required by the diabetic. Thus, lunch would be filled with land mines that he must circumnavigate as best he could. Even so, a man could die with happiness on a day like this and have nothing at all to regret.

He’d discussed it in detail with Cynthia, and they’d agreed: Go straight to the point—but only after the cake.

“So, what do you think?”

“Good!” said Dooley, looking up and grinning. “Really good. The icing’s great.”

“Tell Puny.”

“Yes, sir, I will.”

“Remember when you first came to bunk with me, and Puny dunked you in the tub?”

Dooley grinned. “I remember.”

“She had to chase you around the house a time or two.”

“I chased her back.”

Father Tim laughed, aware that simply watching Dooley eat cake today would be among his happiest memories.

Dooley licked the icing off his fork. “I’d like to stay with you and Cynthia next summer.”

Something like joy surged in him. “We’d love nothing better, but be warned—it’s pretty dull around here.”

“That’s OK.”

It seemed eons since Dooley had lived in their house, clattered up and down the stairs, sat at their table. They were silent for a moment.

“How are things at Meadowgate? Still wanting to be a vet?”

“Yes, sir!” The acclamation was immediate and fervent. “We did a uterine torsion procedure on a llama yesterday.”

“A llama!”

“There’s a llama farm in Wilson Creek.”

“What’s a uterine torsion procedure?”

“Sometimes a llama, even a cow, will have a twisted, or torsed, uterus. That means the fetus can’t pass through the birth canal. Doc Owen says most fetuses are in the left horn of the uterus—”

“Left horn?”

“The lamoid uterus has two horns. Doc Owen says most u.t.’s are twisted in a clockwise direction, so the left horn flips over the right horn. It’s really hard on the llama, and we had to work fast, so Doc Owen decided to do a plank in the flank.”

“A what?”

“We used a two-by-five board, put it into the flank of the llama, and Doc Owen told me to kneel on the plank, right over the flank area. Then we used ropes looped around the front and hind legs and rolled her over. See, what we wanted to do is hold the fetus and uterus in place with the plank and roll her to kind of catch up to the uterus. That solved the whole thing.”

“It did?”

“Yes, sir. Her cria is really beautiful.”

He was stunned by this piece of completely incomprehensible information. Dooley Barlowe must be a genius.

“You’re a genius!” he said, gushing, proud, moved.

“No, I ain’t, I mean aren’t.” Dooley turned red. “Doc Owen is.”

He didn’t know when such seeming nonsense had made him so happy. “I’m so proud of you I could bust!”

Dooley studied the geranium in a pot on the table.

“So how’s the social life out there in the sticks?”

He loved to see his boy grin from ear to ear.

“Not bad, I take it.”

“No, sir.”

“Aha.”

“I’m going out with Reba Sanders.”

“Really? Who is Reba Sanders?”

“A girl.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Her dad’s a farmer, they have four hundred head of cattle. Angus crossed with Hereford. Her mom teaches fifth grade.”

Maybe he should tell Dooley that the Harpers were coming home in a couple of days—wouldn’t he like to know how Lace liked the Oregon Trail? Probably not.

Dooley hammered down on the remainder of his cake. “She’s cool.”

“Reba?”

“Yes, sir. The Jeep needs some work. Hal thinks it’s the carburetor.”

“After lunch, we’ll run over to the station and let Harley take a look. Why don’t you take a look with him? It’s good to know what’s going on with your vehicle.” He was a fine one to talk; he’d never peered under a car hood in his life, except to scratch his head momentarily before slamming the thing down again.

His heart was full, and so was the boy’s. He sensed the quiet happiness between them; yet he was about to change all that. Surely it couldn’t hurt to postpone his announcement a few minutes—let the boy’s meal digest, for heaven’s sake.

“So. Tell me more about Reba.”

“Tall.”

Lace was tall, if he was looking for tall.

Dooley thought a moment. “Her hair’s kind of brown—or maybe blond.”

“Good. Anything else?”

“Umm. I can’t think of anything.”

Getting quality information out of Dooley Barlowe was right up there with squeezing blood from a turnip.

“What are her interests?”

“Motorcycles.”

“Motorcycles.” What could he possibly say to that? He pushed ahead. “In…what
way
, exactly, is she interested in motorcycles?”

“She rebuilds sport bikes to make money for college next year. Right now she’s working on a Suzuki GSXR 1100. When she gets through, it’ll do a hundred and sixty, just like it came out of the crate.” Dooley looked at his empty cake plate. “Man! I’m killed!”

“I’m only half killed, but we’d both better hug Puny’s neck.”

Dooley cackled. “I ain’t huggin’ her neck.”

“I like it when you say
ain’t.
”

“I can’t believe you said that. You used to hate it when I said ain’t.”

“I know. I only like it because you never say it anymore.”

“Let’s go see Harley, we can take ol’ Barnabas.”

His stomach was literally churning over what he’d just learned about Reba Sanders. While he had dreaded delivering a blow to Dooley, Dooley had delivered one to him.
A hundred and sixty miles an hour?
Nonetheless, he couldn’t put it off any longer.

“I have something to tell you, son. We found Sammy.”

Dooley’s fork clattered to the table and bounced to the floor.

“He’s living with your father, he’s blind in one eye and has lost part of his hearing.” Why had he said that, what did it have to do with anything? Perhaps it would make Clyde Barlowe seem less threatening.

“Who’s blind?” Dooley asked, hoarse.

“Your father.”

“He’s not my father!” Dooley shouted.

He would not tack to the left or the right, he would sail directly into the storm. “They’re living about twelve miles east of Holding. Buck and I have seen Sammy and talked with him. He’s fine, he looks a lot like you, he wants to see his brothers and little sister.” Sammy hadn’t said that, but Father Tim had read it clearly in his eyes; thus it wasn’t a lie. “I thought we could talk about it, work out how you’d like to handle it.”

Dooley turned from the table and faced the stove, stricken.

The boy’s conflicts would have to do primarily with his father, but Father Tim remembered a lesser issue: Dooley had said he would find Sammy and Kenny, he would do something that would be miraculous, magical. Instead, it had been done for him. He wished Dooley could have found his brother, but it had been ordained otherwise—Sammy had been found by a Frenchwoman who, as an infant, had been deserted by her own father.

The very thought made him pace the study like something caged. He was itching to preach a sermon, but he knew better.

At six-thirty, he called Meadowgate Farm and was relieved that Dooley answered.

“Hey, buddy.”

“Hey back.”

“Are you wearing a helmet?”

“Right now?”

“When you ride a motorcycle.”

“Yeah.”

“Every time, no excuses?” He knew country roads, and the lure of breaking a few rules.

“Yes, sir,” Dooley said over a burst of background laughter.

“Good. I’m counting on it.” He paused to let that pronouncement sink in.

“Don’t worry,” said Dooley.

Music to his ears. “Is Meadowgate having a party?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Reba came over for supper, we’re having spaghetti. Miz Owen says tell you thanks for what you sent. Got to go.”

I give him into Your hands, Lord
, he prayed as he hung up.
Send

Your angels with him, to keep him from every harm.
He pondered a moment.
And bless him, please, with wisdom and discretion in all that he does, through Christ our Lord, Amen.

While he was at it, he figured he’d better pray for Reba Sanders, too.

At seven o’clock, he was rustling up a partial reprise of lunch, and found he wasn’t even remotely tempted by the sweetened tea; thank heaven he’d learned a little sense in this life. For safety’s sake, he’d packed Dooley off to Meadowgate with the rest of the cake.

“Preacher?”

Startled, he turned around from the kitchen island to see Uncle Billy peering through the screen door. “Are you’un’s havin’ y’r supper?”

“Getting ready to, Uncle Billy. Come in here and have it with me.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” said the old man.

Father Tim was shocked to see his friend—some inner illumination had gone from him, like sap tapped from a tree. “How did you get way down here?”

“Harley seen me a-comin’ down th’ street an’ picked me up. I like t’ never climbed in ’is truck, hit seemed tall as th’ Wesley bank buildin’. I’d as soon walked.”