Light From Heaven (39 page)

“I can’t believe that you’ve lived with me for nearly eight years, and can say that with a straight face.”

“All right, then. But you handle it better.”

“You handle it just fine, Kavanagh. Our Lord, Himself, had to get away from the vagaries of life. We’ll explore the path next week. Let’s set aside some time just for that.”

“I’ll bring the picnic basket,” she said.

He felt his grin spreading. “And I’ll bring the blanket.”

After knocking on the door of her life-estate quarters at the back of the Greer general store, he inquired of the storekeeper.

“Miss Greer went out with a neighbor about an hour ago.”

“Then she’s still getting around! ”Thank God he hadn’t come too late.

“You bet.”

“Her cat?”

“Gone to glory, as she says. Eighteen years old, that cat was!”

“I’ll be darned. Well. Tim Kavanagh.”

“Judd Baker from California. Me an’ my wife, Cindy, bought this place a year ago, and decided to keep the Greer name. What do you think?”

He looked around. Definitely not the old store where he and Absalom had robbed the drink box and talked a blue streak; not the old store where he and Absalom had sat in the back rooms and eaten Miss Lottie’s mashed potatoes and lamb with homemade mint jelly; and certainly not the store where a young Absalom had seen the choir of angels ...

“Good! Oh, yes, very good. But ... ” He sighed without meaning to.

“But different,” said the storekeeper, nodding wisely.

Homeless Hobbes wasn’t at home, either.

His old confidant and one-man soup kitchen had relocated himself from a hut at the Creek to a small, white house by the side of a gravel road. A note of greeting was tacked on the wood surround of the screen door.

During his years as a priest, he’d gazed into countless pairs of eyes—some reflecting Christ’s own love; many more guarded, or angry and distrustful. He read in Robert Prichard’s eyes something he couldn’t absolutely define. But there was hunger, certainly. Pleading, yes. And a terrible grief that was wrenching to look upon.

He gestured toward the faded lettering above the grease-pit door: Prichard Enterprises. “This is yours, then? Well done!”

Robert took a rag from his pocket and used it before he shook the vicar’s hand.

“Thought I’d drop by and say hello. Beautiful country out here.” Across the road from the auto shop, he saw the great swell of mountains rolling away to the west.

“I wanted to say we’re glad to have you at Holy Trinity. Each and every one of our little handful is a blessing.”

The vicar watched Robert continue to wipe his hands on the rag, uncertain. A visit from a parson often threw people off kilter.

“I’d like to see your shop, if you have time to show it.”

“They ain’t much t’ see. I got a rack, a pit, no big deal.”

“Looks like a vending machine over there. May I treat you to a cold drink? It’s warming up today.”

“I got t’ git this Chevy van out of here by two o’clock. But yeah, that’d be OK.We can set over yonder.” Robert jerked a thumb toward a bench under a stand of scrub pine.

“Sounds good. What’ll you have?”

“Cheerwine.”

The machine produced a Cheerwine, then he punched a button for a diet drink—he’d learned his lesson well.

They walked across the worn asphalt to the bench, and sat down.There was an awkward silence; Robert looked at him, defensive.

“I didn’ do it, if that’s what y’re here about.”

He would risk something by digging in, but he’d prayed about it, and here was his opening, plain as day. “I want to tell you that I don’t believe you did it.”

A squirrel raced up the tree behind them. Robert didn’t respond to this declaration but toyed with his drink can.

“I ain’t never talked about it much; it scares people t’ think about it, ’pecially when they think I done it.”

“It took courage for you to come to Holy Trinity.”

“Yeah.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

A muscle moved in Robert’s jaw.

“Hit’s hard. Hit’s hard t’ talk about.”

“Let’s just visit, then.”

“Naw” Robert released his breath, as if he’d held it a long time. “I’ll tell you.

“Me’n Paw had fought twicet. Both times about money. He’d borry off of me, then not pay it back. Said he didn’t have no mem‘ry of borryin’ off of me. Th’ last time was five hundred dollars I’d saved f’r a truck, you cain’t hardly git t’ work up here if you ain’t got wheels.

“I went over to he’p ’im dress out a deer, an’ had m’ good deer knife on me; I’d carved m’ initials on th’ handle, RP. After we skinned th’ deer—it was a young ’un an’ didn’t take too long—I laid m’ knife up on th’ shelf in th’ shed. Th’ shed was right by th’ house. Then we went in th’ house t’ git th’ washtub. We was goin’ t’ load th’ meat in it an’ carry it out to th’ smokehouse.

“Hit’d got t’ rainin’ pretty hard, an’ Paw told me t’ poke up th’ fire, an’ we set around f‘r a little while. Paw he was drinkin’, which was usual.

“I remember lookin’ out th’ winder an’ seen somebody walk past. I couldn’t see who it was f’r the rain, but it was a man wearin’ some kind of a hat. I said looks like they’s somebody out there, so ’e took ’is gun an’ went out an’ come back soaked to th’ skin, said they ain’t nobody out there, you’ve been a-drinkin.’

“I’d been drinkin’, but he’d been drinkin’ a lot worser. I said when’re you goin’ t’ pay back m’ money, he said they won’t nothin’ t’ pay back. He said he was m’ granpaw, he was blood, an’ blood don’t have t’ pay back. We got t’ hollerin’, an’ he hit me pretty hard with a iron skillet. I knowed if I didn’t git out of there, I’d knock ’is head off.”

Robert looked at the vicar. “So I run.

“I took off for th’ house. Then I remembered m’ knife layin’ up on th’ shelf; I’d give thirty dollars f’r that knife.”

Robert was folding his grease rag into a small square.

“Th’ rain had slacked off when I headed back, an’ when I got to th’ shed, I heard somebody holler, ‘Hush up talkin’.’ Plus a word I ain’t goin’ t’ say in front of a preacher.

“Then I heard Paw holler out, it was a sound you don’t never want t’ hear ag’in.

“Hit scared me s’ bad, I didn’t go in th’ shed, I run back home. Th’ next day, th’ phone started ringin’ at m’ mama’s house, people sayin’ Paw had been killed. I reckon I must be stupid, I never thought they’d come after me. Th’ sheriff an’ two men come about dinnertime. Whoever it was had used my knife, but th’ only fingerprints on it was mine.

“Th’ sheriff seen th’ place Paw hit me with th’ skillet; hit was black an’ blue an’ swole up bad. I was a goner from th’ minute they took me out of th’ house.

“I don’t mind tellin’ y’ that a time or two, I’d prayed for Paw t’ die. Many a night I laid awake hatin’ ‘is guts f’r how he treated ever’body But somehow ...” The muscle clenched in Robert’s jaw.

Father Tim waited.

“Somehow, I guess I ... kind of loved ’im.”

Robert put his head in his hand, weeping.

“If I‘d’ve went back in there instead of runnin’, I might could’ve saved ’im.”

If he, Timothy Kavanagh, had hung in with his father at the end, instead of running ...

He sat with Robert Prichard for what seemed a long time, praying silently. Then they got up and walked back to the shop.

“What about Fred who lives in the school bus?”

Robert frowned. “What about ’im?”

“Did he testify in court?”

“Said he heard me fightin’ with Paw.”

“How well did you know him?”

“I didn’t hardly know ‘im a’tall. He moved ‘is bus down in there a couple of months b’fore it all happened. I heard Paw mention ’is name a time or two; maybe I met ’im on th’ road, but I never knowed him t’ speak of.”

“Thank you for your trust, Robert. It means a lot to me. You’re faithfully in my prayers.”

“Thank y’.”

“And I want to say again that I believe you.”

“One or two does, maybe. Most don’t. I guess it don’t matter.”

“It matters,” said Father Tim. “It matters.”

“Father?”

He glanced at the clock: four a.m.

“Can you come?”

“I’m on my way.”

Though he’d been called out in the middle of the night only a dozen or so times in his priesthood, he resolutely adhered to a common practice of fire chiefs—he kept a shirt and pair of pants at the ready, and his shoes and socks by the bed.

He was entering the town limits when he realized he’d just blown past a Mitford police officer.

No need to be surprised, he thought, when he saw the blue light in his rearview mirror.

The officer stooped down to peer in the window. “You were haulin’.”

Clearly, Rodney Underwood had begun hiring people twelve years old and under.