Marrying Stone (21 page)

"What's all this stuff?"

The question came from behind her and Meggie whirled in guilty surprise to see Roe standing in the clearing staring at the housewares and foodstuff with confusion.

Meggie was dumbstruck for one long moment. She didn't know what to answer. These were the first words he had spoken to her since the awful moment that they had jumped the Marrying Stone. Shame, guilt, and embarrassment all vied for prominence in her thoughts.

"What is all of this doing out here?" Roe asked once again.

Tears sprang to Meggie's eyes, but bravely she pushed them back. In a breathy rush of explanation she answered, "We've been pounded!"

"Pounded?"

He looked at her curiously. Meggie opened her mouth to explain, but found the words wouldn't come. With a little squeaky noise of humiliation, she turned and ran into the house.

"Meggie!"

She heard Roe calling out her name, but she neither stopped nor slowed her step.

Finally reaching the sanctuary of the cabin, she found no safety there. Her father and brother were both up now, scratching and yawning, and looked at her curiously as she came running in through the door.

She stared at them for a moment, her expression one of a frightened rabbit cornered by a pack of dogs.

"Meggie, what's going on?"

She heard Roe's voice again, closer now. He was coming to the cabin. Defeated, Meggie sat heavily in one of the cane-bottom chairs at the table and hid her face in her hands.

She heard, rather than saw, Roe step across the threshold.

"What's a-going on this morning?" her father asked, his voice still cranky with sleep.

"There's a turkey and a bunch of food stacked up next to the clothesline pole," Roe said. "Meggie says we've been 'pounded,' whatever that means."

Jesse's expression was puzzled. Onery grinned broadly and laughed loudly. "Lord Almighy, Roe. You and my Meggie-gal are in it deep now."

"In what deep?"

"In marriage deep. Them is weddin' presents, Farley. The folks on the mountain are a-settin' you up in housekeeping."

Roe stared at Meggie. His look was accusing.

"We are
not
married!" he stated emphatically.

Onery was still laughing. "You're preaching to the converted, Roe. I know you ain't married and you know you ain't married, but these folks, they's thinking that you are. I guess it's up to you and Meggie to make 'em start to thinking differently."

Roe sputtered and cursed under his breath at the necessity, but angry words changed nothing. Not only would these Ozarkers not help him with his work, now they thought that he was married to one of their own.

Onery was right, of course. It was up to the couple in question to make their kinship, or lack of it, understood. And they quickly got that opportunity. Meggie had barely scraped the remains of undercooked eggs, hard, heavy biscuits, and scorched bacon from the table before Pastor Jay came to call,

"I wanted to be the first to come out and congratulate the young couple," the preacher said as he made himself comfortable at the table.

Meggie heated up what was left over of the morning's coffee and Jesse and his father made a hasty exit, leaving Roe and Meggie to face the man of God alone.

"I'm so glad that you've come, Pastor Jay," Roe said to the old man. "There seems to be a very mistaken impression among some members of the community and Miss Best and I want to correct that impression as quickly as possible."

The preacher smiled at Roe and nodded before taking a drink of the near boiling liquid that Meggie had set before him.

"Miss Best and I," Roe continued, "jumped from the Marrying Stone because we were attempting to escape from a skunk. There was no intent to anything further."

Again the preacher nodded.

"We don't consider ourselves married. And we don't want anyone else to think of us that way either."

"I'm very glad to hear that," Pastor Jay answered. He smiled warmly at Meggie and reached across the table to pat her hand. "I believe your coffee is improving, Margaret May. I remember when I'd have to run out of the door to spit a mouthful out in the grass."

Meggie flushed.

Pastor Jay turned his attention back to Roe. "Yes, I'm right glad to hear that you don't consider yourselves married."

Roe sighed audibly with relief and gave Meggie a confident grin.

"We're going to need your help, Pastor Jay, to convince the rest of the people in this community."

The pastor chuckled lightly. "It won't take that much convincing. Why, I've been preaching for twenty years that just jumping off the Stone ain't enough anymore. The world's a-changing and the Lord expects us to keep up with the times. A couple these days has got to make vows in the church and have their wedding prayed over just like folks in the rest of the country do. Just 'cause we've been blessed with the Marrying Stone, don't mean we can take the gift for granted."

Meggie and Roe exchanged a puzzled glance. Meggie cleared her throat and spoke up.

"That's what we think, too, Pastor Jay. We think that for a wedding to be a wedding, it has to be in church. Nothing less than that really counts."

"That's wonderful," the preacher answered. "I'm delighted with you both. And don't worry about the folks here on the mountain. You aren't the first to marry in the church as well as jumping the Stone and I think that it's a tradition that is going to really catch hold. How soon do you think you'll want your church nuptials to occur? I can read the banns tomorrow at the service if you're set."

"What?" Roe and Meggie asked in unison.

"Then again, you can wait until the planting's all done or some which time seems better to ye. I'm not opposed to you taking your time about the churching. Handfasting has been our way on the mountain for years. If I rushed every couple that ain't got around to being churched down the aisle, it'd look like a stampede."

"Pastor Jay, we don't wish to be married," Roe insisted.

The preacher nodded. "Yes, I expect you think it's unnecessary, but in years to come, you'll be glad that you did. I've known you both since you were just little tots hanging upon your mothers' skirts," the preacher said with a wistful remembrance of the past. "And it will be one of the greatest pleasures of my life to fonnally unite these two fine old mountain families in the bond of your wedlock."

"Pastor Jay—" Meggie began.

The preacher ignored her plea and patted Roe on the arm affectionately. "I know that your father don't hold much with preaching, son," the pastor said. "But I am right sure that he'll want to come to the house of God to see his boy united in matrimony."

"My father?"

"Yes, sir." Pastor Jay took a long, pleasurable swig of his coffee. "I've been trying to get Gid Weston back into the Lord's house for more years than I can count. If it takes a wedding to do it, then so be it."

Roe and Meggie exchanged an appalled expression. Roe shrugged helplessly.

"Pastor Jay," Meggie began. Quietly taking the old man's hand, she looked deep into the preacher's eyes, willing him to understand. "Gid Weston is not Roe's father."

The preacher was startled for a moment and then waved away her words. "That's just an untrue, unkind rumor, Margaret May. And I'm ashamed of you for believing it."

The pastor tutted with disapproval.

"I asked Sarah Weston that question right to her face twenty years ago and she swore on a stack of Bibles that there ain't never been no man for her but Gid."

Dumbfounded by the preacher's reply, Meggie was temporarily at a loss as to what more to say. She rallied as quickly as she could, knowing the importance of making the preacher understand. "I didn't mean that Gid's sons weren't his own, Pastor Jay," she said. "I meant that Roe is not one of Gid's sons."

The old man gave Roe a long look. "He don't much favor, does he?" The preacher shook his head once more. "Don't give it another thought, girlie. The boy bears Gid Weston's name, so it don't matter a whit what folks say or have said. His name's Weston, so he's a Weston. And your own younguns'll be the same, sure as a fiddler'll fetch up fawnch."

"His name is Farley."

"Come again?"

Meggie pointed at Roe and spoke louder. "His name is Farley."

"Is it?" The preacher looked across the table at Roe, momentarily perplexed. He put a trembling, brown-spotted hand to his brow as if deep in thought. Then after only a moment of concentration, the old man shook his head and smiled.

He offered his hand across the table to Roe. And Roe shook it as if the two were just now being introduced.

"I'm sorry, son," the preacher said with genuine warmth and honesty. "I get mixed up from time to time."

"It's all right, Pastor Jay," Roe told him, relief evident in his voice.

"I was thinking you were called Monroe Weston," he said. "But if your name's Farley, it's Farley. I got it now, and I'll remember next time."

"Thank you, Pastor."

Roe glanced over at Meggie and she smiled back. Pleased that at least they'd gotten a start on setting the preacher straight.

"Farley. Farley." He repeated the name as if trying it out on his tongue. "Farley Weston. Yes, I believe I can remember that now."

"IF THAT CRAZED old fool is the spiritual guidance of this community, I'd say Marrying Stone is in for a difficult day of reckoning!"

Roe's words were marked with as much self-derisive humor as anger and frustration, having spent the better part of a wasted two hours attempting to give Pastor Buford Jay a mild brush with reality.

"He's not a crazed old fool." Meggie felt obligated to defend the man. "He's just old and a little confused."

Roe carefully locked the wooden case for the Ediphone and carried it to the cabin doorway.

"Yes, I couldn't help but agree,
Mrs. Weston"
he said the name sarcastically. "The old man is a little confused. And I am getting off this mountain before I become as confused as he is."

"Where are you gonna go?" Meggie asked.

Roe shook his head. "I haven't an idea."

"You won't get very far in these hills without a mule."

The fact didn't require an acknowledgment, but Roe did give her a slight nod of agreement.

"Well, the least I can do is pack you some victuals and provisions," she said with a sigh as she headed toward the food safe.

"Please don't. I think I'd rather live on grass and berries than to eat more of your special kind of cooking."

Meggie turned on him in fury. "What a hateful thing to say! It's not my fault that skunk came up to the Marrying Stone. I'm not any happier about this than you are. My family has been nothing but generous to you since you came to this mountain. And now that there's trouble, I'm just letting you walk out and leave me the mess to straighten out. And you can't even be kind enough to keep from complaining about my cooking. I know I'm no cook. And you, J. Monroe Farley, are no prince!"

"And I thank God for that, for if I were, I'd undoubtedly not be able to leave this place alive!"

"You… you—"

"Tsk, tsk, children. Not twenty-four hours from your jump and you're already having a spat."