Nazareth's Song (13 page)

“Let’s go,” was all he said.

“See you at school tomorrow, Beck,” Angel said. She watched Jeb walk back down toward Honeysack’s with Ida May holding his hand before she grabbed Willie and retrieved their books from the back of Beck’s truck bed. “Jeb has no right to talk to me like I’m two,” she said to Willie.

“I like Jeb. He treats us better than our own daddy,” said Willie. He ran and left her to complain alone.

10

T
orches glowed all around the backyard of the Mills’s estate. Ancient cherries towered like elder statesmen with drooping beards plucked of all summer foliage. Jeb sat beneath a nearly roofless gazebo, pruned of its seasonal covering of ivy, and watched the sun set. Before the crowd wandered out to intrude on his oasis, he listened to the wind. Like the usher of autumn, it started at the back of the woods behind the estate and surged through the trees, making great oceanic sounds as though the sea had found its way through bough and brush. But the cherries and the ivy-entangled oaks guarded the grounds and kept the wind outside the garden’s gates.

He watched the back door for any sign of Fern. He had heard that Winona had been asked by her banker cousin Oz to invite the schoolteacher.

Two water gardens—one to his left and the other a distance behind him—brought a quiet kind of music to the private grounds. The liquid patter mingled well with the women’s talk from inside the kitchen. It seemed a shame to pluck a tune from the banjo, but he had promised one song to Winona. His fingers felt cold around the neck. She waited at the rear door, finishing a conversation she had started with one of the kitchen girls. Seeing him tuning under the tree, she joined him. Jeb twanged the first string and tightened it until it rang true and then tuned the others.

“You did bring your banjo. Can you play anything besides hymns, or is that all you’re allowed to play?”

“Been so long since I played anything, I can’t say as I remember what I did know. There’s a song about a river in heaven I like,” said Jeb.

“A hymn on the banjo. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard anything but jazz music on the banjo.”

Jeb plucked a tune he had learned in Texas, a song that had the Hot Springs musicians gathered on the lawn turning to listen.

“That’s no hymn.”

“Sure it is.” He changed the words to fit a psalm and then sang it to her. One of the fiddlers and the guitar player from Hot Springs, unable to resist, joined in.

Three young women waved at Winona from the backyard porch. She yelled, “Come and listen.” So they walked across the lawn in their Sears and Roebuck party dresses. Jeb’s fingers were warmed by now, so he segued into another song. When he finished, Winona clapped and asked him to keep playing.

Jeb played two more tunes and then laid aside the banjo, nodding his thanks to his impromptu bandmembers. The sun had disappeared and put the torches to work, yellowing faces like the opening games in Rome.

“We’ll have to let the musician have his supper, I guess,” said Winona. By now most of the party had spilled out into the gardens. The fiddler and guitar player rejoined the band from Hot Springs and helped set up on the lawn. They played in the final light of evening. Although the air was brisk, several older couples began to dance a waltz that had soft bluegrass undertones.

“I don’t guess preachers can dance,” Winona said to Jeb.

He considered her offer. “Best I don’t.” He noticed her dress had come to fit her straight from the box.

She introduced Jeb to her three friends, all girls from campus about to graduate, like Winona, but unsure what they would do with their learning. Two had become engaged and showed their rings to the other two. They tried to entice Winona aside. She gave them an excuse and joined Jeb again.

“You look cold. You want to go inside?” he asked.

“The music’s not so great, is it?”

“Nothing wrong with it.” He alluded to her bare shoulders. Her dress had an off-the-shoulder cape sleeve. “You look a little chilled, is all.”

“The advertisement promised I’d look like a Hollywood star. Instead, all I look is cold. Mother’s got the food prepared. Had to hire two extra girls to make it all. I guess it’s safe to go back inside.” She rose, pulling him with her, holding on to his arm with both hands.

Jeb followed her into the house.

Somebody had started a fire in the den’s fireplace. A group of guests from Church in the Dell sipped punch as red as forest berries by the fire. Winona led Jeb to the buffet table. Four large stuffed hens, legs covered with white paper boots, decorated each table like cancan girls. In between the meat platters were more platters filled with roasted vegetables and large green bowls full of potatoes. Winona handed Jeb a plate.

“A preacher in our midst. Tell Uncle to hide the booze.” Oz Mills, Winona’s cousin from Hope, picked up a plate, turned it upside down to read the label, and then greeted his cousin.

“You’re back in town,” said Jeb. He had first met Oz at a church picnic, and then again downtown before his less-than-inspiring debacle as a charlatan. There was no love lost between the two—Oz had been dating Fern when Jeb hit town.

“I heard you were still here,” said Oz.

“Reverend’s got a knack for music, Oz,” said Winona. “You ought to hear him play.”

“Did you bring anyone along, Nubey, or are you stag?” asked Oz.

“I hear Fern might come.” Jeb did not want to imply he had committed to a date with Oz’s pretty cousin. That would be untrue and leave him without options. He wanted all options open with Fern in the house. He reached for a hot roll and could have sworn he saw two schoolteachers wrap food in napkins and stash it in their handbags. The word around town, that anyone who could do so finagled an invitation to the Mills party for the free eats, might be true.

Oz didn’t comment any further except to say, “You two look like you’d make a good couple. Nice touch with the hair, Winona.” He excused himself to wait near the front door.

“I’m sorry for my cousin, Reverend. Oz was a good boy when his momma was alive. That stepmother of his lets him get away with murder.”

“He has a thing for Fern.”

“He’ll never get her.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Fern doesn’t know what she wants.”

“I once thought I knew what she wanted.”

“You don’t. No one knows. Especially not Fern.”

Mrs. Mills kept the platters filled all night even as she complained that Horace had limited her hiring of servants due to the Depression. One of the girls—Mrs. Mills called her Joyous—who was hired from south of town, managed to keep the candles lit and the punch bowl filled, even though Horace had told her to be stingy with the rum in the second bowl.

Jeb stood by the wall chatting with several acquaintances while Winona spoke with her school friends. Through the window, he saw four youths creep across the lawn, having come through the woods and over the south garden gate. They wandered past several guests, who glanced at the boys under the miserly glow of lanterns then returned to dancing and eating. One boy looked something like Beck Hopper, but Jeb decided he’d imagined it.

He crossed the sitting room and went into the kitchen. Joyous was complaining to the other servant, Thea, that Mr. Mills was making it impossible to keep food out for everyone with his stingy rules. She finished making a sandwich from a bread roll and ham and stuck it in a bag for later. Then she said, “Did you hear a knock, or am I imaginin’ things?”

Before Thea could go to the back door, Jeb said, “I’ll answer.” It was a heavy oak door, painted the color of milk, including the metal around the knob and hinges. He opened it to find the four youths staring at him from the dark. “You boys need to move on down the street,” he said.

“We heard there was food here, mister. You got a handout?” The tallest boy, lean faced with long wrists hanging out of his too-short sleeves, begged while the others stayed back in the shadows. Even with the shadow of twilight graying his face, his eyes had a begging look about them. Hunger no longer coupled with embarrassment.

“We can’t give them a thing, Reverend. Mrs. Mills is keeping an eye on us, and she’ll know if food is missing.” Joyous stepped into the doorway and glanced out at who might be listening.

“You’re that minister from the Church in the Dell, ain’t you?” said the lanky boy.

“You boys go on and don’t be bothering the preacher,” said Thea.

Jeb’s plate was filled and he thought of handing it to the boy. He opened the screen to get a better look at the youngest one. When he did, the youth moved farther into the shadows. “Let me see your face,” he said. When the boy evaded him, he asked, “What’s wrong with your brother?”

“He ain’t our brother,” said the tall, lanky boy. He bowed his head, suddenly evasive.

The other two moved aside to let the youngest come forward. But he turned and ran behind the cherry trees.

Jeb handed his plate to the tall boy. He took two steps after the boy until his toe tripped against the bottom step. He righted himself. “I know you, don’t I?” he yelled.

“Don’t let Mrs. Mills see you givin’ away her food,” said Joyous. “You boys take what’s on Reverend’s plate and hurry on out of here. Reverend, you all right? You need anything?”

The other three boys followed the first, loping like calves after their momma. Jeb could not say for certain that any but one of them were Hoppers; only one Hopper, besides the boy’s mother, had ever set foot inside the church. He watched the blackened glen, the sway of treetops in the wind the only movement. The nerve it took Beck Hopper to show up at the banker’s party made Jeb wonder about his good sense—that or his guts. He’d have to watch Angel more closely. That kind of guts might beget dangerous ideas in a young girl.

As Fern arrived, a clap of thunder pealed like someone had torn the clouds from the sky. She ran through the front door with her coat hanging off one shoulder and her handbag gaping open. Oz met her first and offered his help with the coat and purse. Jeb felt about twelve, watching the two of them shoot the breeze and waiting for a way to step in and draw Fern’s attention away from Oz. He turned and realized Winona had appeared with a full cup of punch, no rum. She held it out to him. “Looks as though we’re going to get that rain we’ve been needing,” she said.

“I don’t want any more punch.” He declined the punch without looking at her, his sights still on Fern, who dripped on the Millses’ doormat and yet looked so Hollywood about it, like the storm had followed her into the room to herald her arrival. She ran her fingers through her hair and with the other free hand was led away and out of sight by Oz.

It came to Jeb that he might have slighted Winona, but by the time he turned back to thank her for the punch, she had vanished. The sitting room filled up with the couples and the musicians who had stumbled inside to dodge the storm. Mrs. Mills ran around the room handing out towels to the damp guests from a bundle carried by Joyous.

Winona returned and replaced a platter on the buffet table, but she either averted her eyes or saw straight through Jeb, distracted by a chore that bored her. So he worked his way through the crowd and around two tall Ming vases in the entry to see if Fern might be looking for him. On the other side of the house he came upon a long banquet hall with white painted floors. The musicians had toweled off their instruments to set up in the far alcove and prepare for the next set. Horace gave them a list of song requests and then waved for Jeb to join him. At the first piano chord, he could see Oz Mills move behind a group of women, swaying in a slow dance. He spun Fern slowly around and then back. Her skirt was red and twirled like a parasol in the hands of some Japanese geisha. Jeb joined Horace next to the band and turned his back on Fern and Oz.

“Reverend, is there a song you’d like to hear? These boys know a little bit of everything,” said Horace. Jeb couldn’t think of anything; he was too busy trying not to watch Fern and Oz.

When the song finished, Fern saw Jeb. She left Oz but he followed her. “I didn’t see you,” she said to Jeb.

Jeb couldn’t tell if that mattered to her. “You can dance,” he said, “better than most.”

Oz greeted his uncle.

“I haven’t seen the missus or Winona in a while. I’d best go see what they’re up to,” said Horace.

“Reverend, you going to take a turn on the dance floor?” Oz asked.

Jeb wanted to take the man’s clammy banker’s hands, peel them off Fern’s delicate arm, and take her for a spin himself. Instead he turned his attention back to Horace.

“I’d rather sit and visit. I haven’t eaten,” said Fern. “There’s a table. We can sit if you’d like,” she said to Jeb.

“I’ll get you something,” Jeb said.

When he returned with the food for her, he saw that Oz had taken the only available seat next to her. “Thanks for warming my chair, Oz.”

“I’ll pull you up another.” Oz fetched another chair.

“Your cousin looks lonely, Oz. Maybe you should offer her a dance.” Jeb waved at Winona on the other side of the room with her uncle.

Fern clasped her hands over her plate. “Or we could invite Winona to our table.”

Jeb said, “Winona is coming our way.”

“I’m still dripping wet,” said Fern.

Jeb stood and gave his chair to Winona. He dragged another to the table and sat closer to Fern, resting his banjo against the window frame. He hadn’t been there long before Horace reappeared.

“Reverend, there’s someone I want you to meet.” Horace rested his hands on Winona’s shoulders. “If you dear folks can part with our minister for a minute or two.”

Jeb pushed away from the table and excused himself. He followed Horace into a library. Amy Mills had decorated the room with red-papered walls and red rugs. Several men smoked cigars next to the bookcases in the corner of the room.

“Boys, I’d like you to meet our minister of Church in the Dell. Reverend, this is Jonathan Steele, Morris Lepinski, and Jefferson Watts. Steele and Lepinski are railroad men. Watts owns several timber operations in Texas, from Houston down to Texarkana.”

Jeb shook the hand of each man.

“We’ve put together a few land deals in the past. These boys are interested in buying up some of the land through Nazareth.”