Whisper Town (12 page)

“They think I planned this?”

“I’m doing the best I can to try and smooth things over.” Will took a seat on the front pew. “I’m getting old, Jeb. My ticker’s
not so good these days. I been thinking that maybe you ought to get someone else to lead the deacon board.”

“Will, you can’t quit on me. I need you.”

“You’re the only minister I ever knew I considered my best friend, besides Freda, of course.”

“I turn down your resignation.”

“I thought you might. It was worth a shot.”

“It doesn’t look like I’m going to get any invitations to Sunday dinner, so it’s best I get these kids home to start a meal.”

“When are the ladies coming back from Oklahoma?”

“Fern couldn’t say. I told her to take all the time she needed.” He still regretted telling her that.

“You’re a special man, aren’t you?” Freda had come up behind Will. She laid her hands on her husband’s shoulders and massaged
his neck. “Will and I were just saying we never met no one like you, Reverend Nubey.”

“Freda, you’re a peach,” said Jeb.

“I’ll make you all dinner,” she said. “Nothing fancy, but we got lots of corn and hash put up.” Before Will could say anything,
she said, “Don’t look at me like that. I can fix Sunday dinner for my minister if I want.”

“I’ll hang behind for a bit so no one knows,” said Jeb.

“I’ll not have my pastor sneaking in the back door like he’s done something wrong,” said Freda. “You gather up your brood
and bring them on.”

“The woman’s said her piece,” said Will. “May as well do what she says.”

“I see the Arkansas border straight ahead, ladies,” said Fern.

Florence expressed her elation by breaking out a sack of sandwiches. “I liked to have never got to sleep last night. Even
with that nice innkeeper and her husband in the house, I kept hearing noises and imagining those no-good men hiding out under
the windows.”

Angel had lain awake, thinking of Mrs. Coulter’s house. It had a sense of order and her thoughts liked swimming through that
order and classiness. Jeb would call her vain. But Mrs. Coulter was a Christian woman who had kept up with many things and
arranged these things so beautifully that all Angel could think about was sitting inside that house and enjoying the orderliness
and good tastes of its matron. She thought of arranging those things so much that they became a part of the parsonage, replacing
the church castoffs of knitted doilies and other serviceable items. Mrs. Coulter had a way of arranging the possessions passed
down to her in a manner that made them seem new. She was a regular whiz at placement.

Fern had grown up in that house and it had not affected her in the same way it touched Angel, who wondered why fate had not
dropped her into that house instead of Fern, who did not appreciate elegance.

“Do we have to tell Jeb I ran over a man?” asked Fern. “It seems like a minor part of the trip, considering all we’ve done.”

Florence let out a laugh.

“You’re going to tell him, aren’t you, Florence?”

“What do you take me for, Miss Coulter? A regular snitch?”

Angel inspected the pistol again for ammunition and slid it under the seat. “I won’t tell him if you won’t,” she said.

“The last thing I need is Jeb holding it over my head.”

“The next time you go home to Oklahoma, you can ask me to be your companion, if you want,” said Angel.

“That’s real benevolence, Angel. I know how bored you must have been poking around in my family’s big old home. I always felt
like I was growing up in a museum.”

“Ladies, it’s Sunday,” said Florence.

“With all that’s happened, it slipped right past me, Florence. You want to read something from the Psalms?” asked Fern.

Florence read as they traveled across the border and down toward Texarkana. They said a prayer for Jeb and the children. The
sun came out. They were glad for the passing of night.

Jeb and Will walked down a path toward the Honeysacks’ pond. Lucky and Myrtle had both fallen asleep on the sofa after dinner.
Freda ran the men off to allow the children to rest.

“I’m wondering if I’ve missed out on something, Will.”

“Missed out on hearing from the Almighty?”

“Last time I checked, I’m supposed to serve and love others. Just when did love get outlawed?”

“You got me on that count.”

“Maybe I’m not doing what God wants. You think this is his way of getting rid of me?”

“Now who’s quitting?”

“I mean it. You think God wants me to quit?”

“If Reverend Gracie were still here, what would he do?”

“He’d tell me that I shouldn’t lay down the plow. How long do I stay, though, when so many want me gone?”

“I hate that change comes too slowly.”

“What if nothing ever changes, Will? What if sixty years from now, love is still being rejected? Or what if eighty years from
now, people still can’t sit by others in church who don’t look like them or talk like them?”

“God wouldn’t let it go that long, would he?” Will asked.

“Surely not,” said Jeb.

“We all sat with our feet under the same table today.”

“Let it start with us, Will.”

“So be it, my friend.”

“I’m ready for coffee. I wonder what those women are doing right now? Probably talking about us.”

“Flat tire. I can’t believe it.” Fern examined the blown tire.

Angel was kind of glad. It would slow them down. She wasn’t in the mood to hear Willie and Ida May’s fighting and Myrtle’s
midnight tantrums. The trip to Oklahoma was making her feel like a regular person, not what some had made her out to be.

“Law, girl, I couldn’t change a tire if you held a gun on me,” said Florence.

“I can change a tire, ladies. I can’t sew on a button, but growing up with brothers had its advantages. Angel, you help me
with this spare.”

“I watched my uncle change a tire once. How hard can it be?” Angel took off her coat and laid it on the car seat.

“The most help I can be is to make us up a supper,” said Florence.

“That’s a good idea. I’m starving.” Fern pulled out the tire tools from under the rear seat.

Angel crouched next to Fern and helped her jack up the car. It took both of them pressing up and down on the lever to get
it moving. After a half hour they were both exhausted.

“Let’s don’t stop now. We’re almost there,” said Fern.

“Fern, can I ask you about Jeb?”

“Go ahead.”

“Do you love him?”

“He knows I love him. Here, you hold these, whatever these things are called that hold the tire on.”

“Enough to marry him?”

Fern scratched her forehead. It left a streak of grease above her brow. She turned and nodded at Angel and then showed her
the ring.

Angel stared, stunned. “He didn’t tell me.” She ran and asked Florence for a handkerchief and then brought it back to Fern.
“I figured Jeb might have trouble getting a wife the way things are now. I guess he’s lucky to have you.”

“How you mean?”

“He’s got so many kids. Most women want their own children.”

“If Jeb wants me, I’ll take him with all of his baggage from the past, all the Welby children in the world, and a baby on
top of that. Help me squeeze this thing off the axle hub.” The tire popped off and thudded to the road.

“I won’t tell him you told me, if you don’t want me to.”

“I don’t mind who knows. You should know.” Fern and Angel lifted the spare and shoved it into place. A car loaded with college
boys pulled up beside them.

Angel got up and found one of them smiling at her.

“You look sweet as berries, girl, even with grease on your chin,” he said.

She wiped her chin. Before she could come up with a wisecrack, she gave the situation a thought and said, “We’re not so great
at fixing a tire. It seems that maybe one of you might be better.” She smiled and the young man smiled back and clambered
out of the car.

“Men show up just when all of the real work is over. Ever notice that?” asked Fern.

Angel smiled at the young men. “We thank you for stopping, fellers,” she said.

The other boys piled out of the car and took the tools from the ladies. Angel asked them about college as though she would
be attending soon.

Florence passed out the last of their food.

J
EB LAID A DRESS ACROSS THE BED, WHERE
Lucky had slept the last two nights. It was from the church rag bag, a cotton dress the color of faded persimmons. She had
worn a dress on Sunday that bagged on her thin frame. She showed up looking like some girl dropped along the highway between
Arkansas and Texas for whom no one would ever return.

Fern might be a better judge of girls’ dresses, but when he pulled the dress out of the sack, it looked like something a girl
like Lucky might appreciate.

Girl like Lucky.

The cotton hand-me-down needed a good pressing.

“Reverend, you need me for something? Willie said you called for me.” Lucky had a clean diaper slung over her shoulder. “He
took his sister off to school already.”

“Ladies sometimes give us things at the church. I never know what to do with these things.”

“You saying that dress is for me?”

“If you don’t like it, you don’t have to wear it.”

She threw her arms around him. “You a good man, like I been saying.”

He pulled away from her. She smelled of sweat and smoke. When she smiled, her teeth looked as though they could use a good
cleaning. “You smell of snuff.”

“Sometimes I dip.”

“Girls ought not do that.”

“So why men do it and we can’t?”

“I don’t do that stuff no more. It’ll make your teeth go bad.”

“My daddy griped at me all the time about snuff and beer. My brother gives me both, if I ask for it.”

Her daddy had never come up before. “What’s your daddy’s name?”

“John Blessed. My mother’s name is Vera.”

“They serve God?”

“Big time. Daddy never sinned a day in his life.”

“That’s not true. I sin.”

“He don’t sin on the outside then.”

“I hear it’s worse on the inside.”

“You sound like Reverend Louie. Why you give me this dress?”

“For Sunday.”

“My clothes not good enough for your church?”

He said, while trying to watch the weight of his words, “This one’s better. Look, Lucky, arguing with me is not going to do
you any good.”

“You want me to look good for the white people, don’t you?”

“For yourself.”

“I ain’t your girl to show off.”

“Fine. Give me back the dress.”

“I want to try this on, if it’s all right.” She held up the dress.

Jeb backed out of the room.

“Belinda’s here. She giving Myrtle her feeding in your room.” Her brows lifted. She had remarked once already about Belinda’s
flirtations.

“My room? Thanks for the warning.”

Jeb bypassed his room and left the parsonage. He would spend the morning cleaning out the belfry and painting the steeple.
Near the east corner of the church, he spotted paint splatters on the lawn. It was odd for a painting project to be in progress
without his knowledge. He rounded the corner and saw the reason. Graffiti spelled out the message of the perpetrators:
NIGGER LOVERS DIE FOR THEIR SINS.

Phrases in gray and yellow were splattered over the front of the Church in the Dell. Even the church sign had been painted.
Jeb’s name had been covered over with another slur. A stick painting of a hangman’s noose depicted Jeb strung by the neck.

Floyd Whittington pulled into the church drive. He rolled down his window and said, “Your boy, Willie, flagged me down and
told me what had happened. I found him running down the road with his little sister running behind and crying. He’s afraid.”

“We can’t let them bully us, Floyd!”

“I’m afraid bullying may turn ugly. Let’s get some paint and get this covered up before prayer meeting.”

Floyd drove Jeb down to the Woolworth’s. Jeb waved down Deputy Maynard and reported the vandalism. George wrote down the details
and said he would go and look at the damage before they got back with the paint.

“George, there’s more to this than schoolboy pranks,” said Jeb.

“Reverend, I’ll do the best I can. The company you keep, though, ain’t helping matters. It’s hard for me to keep the peace,
what with you bringing up matters some folks have already settled in their minds.”

“George, I want a peaceful life the same as the next person. You know I didn’t ask for any of this trouble. The fact is that
we’ve got laws being violated.”

George didn’t respond.

“Who do you think did it?”

“Hard to say.” George excused himself.

Jeb watched George as he walked across the street, acknowledged the two young men standing outside the Woolworth’s, and turned
to head for Beulah’s. Jeb nodded toward the young men. “Floyd, is that Frank Pella and Wade Lepinsky outside your store?”

“It’s them. We can go in the back way, Reverend.” He held up his set of keys.

“I’d rather go through the front door, Floyd.” Jeb approached Pella and Lepinsky. “Morning, boys.”

The two of them talked with two young women. Neither of them spoke to Jeb.

“Morning, Reverend,” said one of the girls.

“Daisy, Laverne,” said Jeb.

“You girls ought to be careful about talking to characters,” said Pella. “You’ll get a bad name.”

Jeb glanced down and saw a splatter of yellow on the sole of Pella’s shoe. He lunged for him, but Floyd held him back. “Let’s
go inside, Reverend.”

“A fighting preacher? I’ll go a round if you want.” Pella made a fist.

“You’re headed for trouble, Frank,” said Jeb. “You can stop your foolishness and go the other way.”

“Go preach to your colored friends. I’ll take my sermons nice and white.”

Floyd led Jeb indoors, back to the aisle crowded with stacks of whitewash. He and Jeb counted out five cans. “No charge. I’ll
pick up the tab on this count, but you got to take it out the back way. You’ve got more than enough to cover up the damage.”