Pocketful of Pearls (2 page)

Sheba, her darling and the solitary joy of her life, murmured sleepily when she let herself into the part of the barn they
used as a chicken coop. She caressed the hen’s feathers, enough to comfort but not enough to wake her completely.

The truth was she didn’t care where the vagrant was. Nobody would think to look for her here.

She settled onto the plastic lawn chair she kept near the roosts, and Sheba and the other chickens fluffed their feathers
and went back to sleep. As far as they were concerned, she was one of them. She let the undemanding acceptance of the birds
and their soft, reassuring murmurs calm her as she sat in the dark.

Until, behind the bales of hay, somebody snored.

She leaped to her feet and snatched the flashlight from the niche near the door where she kept it. The snores didn’t miss
a beat as she played the narrow beam over the sleeping form of the vagrant on the other side, curled in the hay like a calf.

He had moved into her space, the only place that was utterly hers on the whole planet.

Now what was she supposed to do?

Shake him awake and order him off the property? He might be dangerous if he were wakened suddenly, and no one knew she was
out here. Not only that, they were two miles from town. There was nothing out here but the river and the mountains and the
cold March wind. Their nearest neighbors were worldly people, unlikely to provide a haven for a homeless man.

Dinah realized with an uncomfortable start that the Traynells were just as unlikely to do so. It gave her pause. What did
it say about God’s chosen people that they would sooner brush this man off the back porch with a broom than give him a place
to sleep? Because of the way he looked, she had automatically assumed he was reaping the fruit of a wicked life, and had judged
him without thinking. What did it say about her that she had so little compassion, that she saw him as a problem to hide rather
than a human being in need?

The poor man deserved his rest in a place that, thanks to a hideously expensive building contractor, was airtight and warm.

She backed away as quietly as she could and got an old blanket out of the tack room no one used anymore. Gently, she shook
it out and laid it on the thin form. Slipping out of the barn, she went around to the back, the side that faced Mount Ayres.

She’d come to a pretty pass when simple compassion became an act of rebellion. But she refused to send that man out into the
night just because of the raised eyebrows of a flock of old crows. It was just a fact that the Elect looked inward in doing
their charity, following the Shepherds’ advice about keeping themselves separate from the world. In it but not of it. There
were plenty of worldly churches to take care of worldly people, so God’s chosen took care of their own.

Maybe this sleeping man was dangerous. Maybe he was a lazy, dishonest person whose own actions had brought him to this. But
at least for tonight, his fate was up to her. Right or wrong, she could take control of something for once, could make a decision
and act on it, and no one would be the wiser.

With that thought, she tucked her skirts between her aching knees, bent over, and stuck her finger down her throat. Soundlessly,
neatly, she purged herself into the bucket that stood against the wall.

M
ATTHEW NICHOLAS, PHD,
assistant professor of English, author of two books, voted most popular lecturer of 2001 by the students of the University
of California campus where he’d once taught, opened one eye and found himself nose to beak with a chicken.

The bird made a sound like water bubbling in a pipe, as if to acknowledge that he was awake, and turned its back on him.

How appropriate.

Matthew moved his head. The cramped muscles in his neck screamed, and the rough edge of the blanket scratched his cheek.

Blanket?

Fully awake now, he sat up and pushed an ancient wool blanket—gray with a red stripe, smelling faintly of horse—off his shoulders.
He was allergic to wool, but that didn’t make him less grateful for it. He was in no position to be fussy. He’d discovered,
in the seventeen days since his ancient Volvo had given up the ghost a hundred miles north, that simple human kindness was
a commodity more often found in books than in reality.

Admittedly, he deserved it from no one. Which made it even more surprising when he found it.

He folded the blanket carefully and placed it on a crossbeam where hopefully the chickens that seemed to overrun the barn
would not sit on it and leave a deposit. Having never been this close to chickens before, he stood for a few moments and watched
them.

The only thing he knew about poultry was that they pecked and had an order. Looking at the crowd milling around the nearby
metal feeder, he could see the first fact was true. There were more outside. He could hear them talking. Crooning, to be more
specific.

To be more specific still, someone was crooning to them.

Cautiously, unsure whether to expect the young woman in the black dress or some fresh threat, he peered out the door he estimated
opened closest to the voice.

“Pretty birds. Good morning, my darlings. There’s my good girls. You eat lots and stay fat and healthy, my pretty birds. Pretty
birds.”

The woman’s voice was hypnotic. No wonder the birds were clustering fearlessly around her feet, busy at a second metal feeder.
Except for the black-and-white one on her shoulder that was busy demolishing some vegetable delicacy cupped in her hand.

It was a scene straight out of
Witness
or a
National Geographic
special on nineteenth-century cultures living anachronistically in modern times. She was dressed in unrelieved black, even
to the bulky lumber jacket she wore, and her brown hair was twisted up in a bun from which it appeared curls and wisps were
trying to escape. But there was no white cap on that hair, and from what he’d seen of the kitchen behind her the night before,
no shortage of modern electric appliances, either.

So, she wasn’t Amish. Was she Mennonite? Hutterite? Doukhobor? Some other rural sect about which even
National Geographic
knew nothing?

It didn’t matter what she was. What mattered was this was the same woman who had answered the door. Who had lost her father.
Who had fed him.

“Good morning,” he said, and she looked up.

For a moment fear stamped lines on her face that hadn’t been there when she’d been singing to the chickens. Then she seemed
to realize who he was, and the lines smoothed away. She stood a little straighter, and the bird on her shoulder adjusted its
grip.

“They seem very happy,” he went on, when she didn’t speak. “I’ve never been close to chickens. One woke me up just now.”

“That was probably Schatzi,” she said. Her voice was low and sweet and wary. “You were sleeping where she likes to lay.”

“Do I have you to thank for the blanket?”

She said nothing. Instead, she tucked her skirts behind her knees and squatted. When she held one arm out, the black-and-white
hen sidestepped down her sleeve like a tightrope walker and hopped to the ground.

“I apologize for using your barn without permission,” he said. “It was inexcusable of me, but I—”

“It’s all right.” She stood and shook her dress out. “We’re the last place on this road. You didn’t look like you would have
made it far.”

“No. Thank you again for the supper.”

“When was the last time you had proper food?” She pulled the flannel shirt she wore closer around her, though the weak sun
was warm.

He thought for a moment. “Wednesday?”

“This is Saturday.”

“Yes.”

Most people would have asked him what he thought he was doing, wandering the roads looking like a derelict, and starving in
the bargain. But she just gazed at him, bundled in her ugly black, as though to ask would be getting more personal than she
wanted.

For which he could hardly blame her.

“You’re going to need breakfast before you go,” she said at last.

An odd feeling fluttered in his chest. Gratitude? Humiliation? Whatever it was, it hurt.

“No. Thank you, but you’ve done far more than I have a right to expect. Please don’t trouble yourself.”

“It’s no trouble. Biscuits and eggs, that’s all. I’m making them anyway. My aunt and uncle are still here. And Phinehas.”

He had no idea whether Phinehas was a man or a rooster. “No, I can’t.”

“Of course you can,” she said briskly. She picked up a bowl containing eggs in more shades than he would have thought possible—green,
blue, brown, buff. “You’re going to fall over where you stand. Don’t let false pride get in the way of being sensible.”

A little on the curt side, maybe, but correct.

Matthew watched her latch the gate to the chicken yard behind her and walk across the graveled expanse between the house and
the barn. When the back door closed, he looked around.

The black-and-white hen cocked her head and regarded him with a beady eye. Then she bent and pecked at his shoelace, yanking
at it as if it were a worm. He bent and retied the lace, and the hen scuttled out of the way.

The least he could do was to find some chore to perform before she came back out and humbled him once again with food. He
might not be good for much, but he could clean up after chickens. Inside the barn, he found a wire brush and a rake standing
against one wall. He soon found out what the brush was for when he saw the layers of waste under the poles on which he supposed
they roosted. Some brisk elbow action took care of that, leaving him slightly out of breath and confirming that too many days
between meals could do serious damage to one’s physical condition. A plastic bucket that had once contained paint and now
contained what looked like vomit did duty as a trash receptacle, and what didn’t fit he raked into a pile.

He rested on the rake, panting. After days of hunger and rejection, it felt good to take control and do something constructive.
Even if it was only shoveling chicken manure.

“What are you doing?” The woman stood in the doorway, fists clenched, the light behind her outlining a shape that practically
shook with rage. “What are you doing with my bucket? And my birds?”

The rake tilted out of his hand and landed on the floor with a clatter. “I’m not doing anything with them. I’m—”

“Get away from there! How dare you?”

Matthew spread his dirty hands. “I wanted to do something to repay you for—”

It wasn’t rage, he saw as she stepped out of the glare. It was fear.

He was no good with rage. But he could do something about fear. After the last couple of months, he was well acquainted with
it.

He lowered his hands and moved away from the area she obviously considered hers alone. “I wanted to repay you for your kindness,”
he repeated quietly. “I don’t have anything but labor to give you, and I saw that you’d probably have to clean the roost area
before long, so I went ahead and did it.”

“The chickens are mine,” she choked. Her hands lay flat against the wall next to the door, not clenched now, but looking as
though they were holding her up. “Mine.”

Perhaps she was an only child, and not used to sharing.

“Of course they’re yours,” he said. “They’re beautiful birds. Well brought up. Even Schatzi was polite when she asked me to
move this morning.”

She regarded him for a moment. A smile fought briefly with the downturned corners of her mouth, and lost. “There’s a plate
outside, here,” she said. “A paper plate, with breakfast. Please take it and go.”

He nodded over his shoulder at the fallen rake and the overflowing bucket. “I’ll just pick up after myself.”

“No. I’ll do it. Good-bye.”

Matthew dusted off his right hand. “Let me introduce myself on my way out. I’m Matthew Nicholas, from Cornwall via California.
And I’m very grateful to you.”

She kept her gaze on his face until, awkwardly, he dropped his hand.

“Dinah,” she said at last. “Dinah Traynell from right here.”

He couldn’t tell if the quiet words held regret or resentment. It was none of his business anyway. His business was to move
on without further imposition on her time or kindness.

The plate of food was warm in his hands. With all the self-control he could muster, he restrained himself from wolfing it
down on the spot. “Do you mind if I eat this here?” he asked. “It’s difficult to eat and walk. I’ll go right away after I
do justice to it.”

She nodded and picked up the bucket and took it outside. As soon as she was out of sight, he sat on the nearest bale of hay
and practically inhaled the food. As fast as he chewed, he could still appreciate the flavor of fresh scrambled eggs containing
bits of red pepper and onion and warm biscuits with butter melting down their sides. He could not remember the last time he’d
tasted butter, much less a biscuit as fluffy as these. Months ago, possibly. In another life.

For a moment he considered not licking the plate, and then discarded that notion as ridiculous. He licked it with relish.

“I can get you seconds.” Dinah Traynell’s voice was dry as she set the bucket down and began to refill it from the pile he’d
made. She seemed to have recovered from whatever had upset her. Or perhaps he had reassured her by not invading the chickens’
area again and sitting in the plastic chair.

A flush burned into his cheeks. “No, that’s not necessary. I’m completely full.”

“It’s nice to see someone enjoy their food.”

Was she blind, or were the effects of homelessness not as obvious as he’d thought? “
Enjoy
is not the word. Every molecule I ingest now will take me a step further down the road before my appetite gets the better
of me again.”

“Before you get hungry, you mean.”

“Well, yes.” He had no doubt she thought he was pathetic, but she hid it well. Possibly a woman who dressed as she did was
used to feeling ridiculous and, as his students used to say, she could relate. “I suppose you’re wondering how I came to be
in this position?” he asked.