Out to Canaan (100 page)

Mighty fine car to be out on Tucker's Mill Road, he thought, glancing again at his watch. Maybe the train would be early.

The pickup truck didn't move so slowly. He saw the plume of dust through the trees, then saw the blue truck screech to a stop beside the black car. A man jumped out, walked around the front of the truck, and stood for a moment by the car. It appeared that he was handed something through the car window.

The driver quickly got back in the truck, gunned the motor, and drove away, leaving a cloud of dust to settle over everything in its wake.

He watched as the car backed onto a narrow turnout, reversed direction, and rolled almost silently along Tucker's Mill.

By George, there was the train; he heard its horn faintly in the distance. Around the track it came, breaking through the trees by the red barn . . .

That scene he had just witnessed—had there been something strangely unsettling about it?

 . . . then it huffed along the side of the open fields by the row of tiny houses and disappeared behind the trees.

He hadn't been able to tell from this vantage point what kind of car it was, but then, what difference did it make, anyway?

“Enough!” he said to his dog, and they bounded down the slope toward Baxter Park in the first drops of a misting rain.

Instead of turning into the park, he decided to run to the bottom of the hill and pop into Oxford Antiques. He'd inquire about Andrew and look for a present for Cynthia's birthday. He was barely getting in under the wire, considering that July 20 was two days hence.

Marcie Guthrie, Puny's mother-in-law and one of the mayor's five good-looking deluxe-size daughters, was reading a romance novel behind the cash register. “Father! Bring your dog in, but tell him to watch his tail!”

He tethered Barnabas to the leg of a heavy table. “Marcie, give me a few ideas for my wife's birthday, and I'll give you my eternal thanks.”

“Well! Goodness! Let's see.”

Cynthia was nearly as simple in her wants as he, thanks be to God. And she always seemed touchingly grateful when he gave her a gift.

“It must be something . . . wonderful,” he said.

“I've got it!” she exclaimed. “The very thing! Come over here.”

He trotted behind her to a gigantic walnut secretary with beveled glass doors. “There!” she said.

“Oh, no. That's far too large!”

“Not the secretary. The lap desk!”

Aha! Sitting next to the secretary on a Georgian buffet was a lap desk of exquisite proportions. That was it, all right, he knew it at once. A small lap desk with a pen drawer, a built-in inkstand, and a leather writing surface. Perfect!

He was afraid to ask.

“Four hundred and seventy-nine dollars!” she informed him. “It's not that old, just turn-of-the-century.”

“Ummm.”

“But for you, only four hundred. Andrew said whenever you come in to buy, to give you a special discount.”

“Done!” he said, feeling a combination of vast relief, excitement over such a find, and momentary guilt for shelling out four hundred bucks. “I'll bring you a check in the morning. Will you wrap it?”

“Of course, and look at this little drawer. Lined with old Chinese tea paper, and here's one of the original pen nibs.”

His guilt vanished at once.

“Have you heard about Andrew?” she asked.

“How is he, when is he coming home?”

“He doesn't know. It all sounds mysterious to me. He usually never stays away so long. But of course, it is his mama's hometown and he's probably visitin' cousins an' all . . . .”

“Probably. I seldom see him, but when he's not here, I miss him.”

“He's called twice to see how business is. He sounds . . . different.”

“Oh? How do you mean, different?”

“I mean, well, really
happy
or somethin'.”

“Cousins can do that for you,” he said, grinning. He suddenly realized he missed his own cousin, the only blood kin he had on the face of the earth. He'd call Walter tonight.

He put his hood up and sprinted along Main Street with his dog. May as well make one more stop, then head for home.

“Winnie?”

He parked Barnabas by the door and peered over the bakery counter.

“I'm comin'!” she said, breezing through the curtains that hid the bakery kitchen. “Father, I'm glad it's you!”

“I hear you got a bite!”

“Maybe a nibble, I don't know.”

“What's the scoop?”

“Well, this real estate agency wants to know everything, so I sent 'em all the information, but nobody's turned up to see it yet.”

“Terrific!” He didn't really think it was terrific, but what else could he say? “Who's the realtor?”

“Somebody named H. Tide Realty from—I forget, maybe Florida.”

Florida again. “How do you feel about it?”

“After waitin' for somebody to be interested, when this finally happened, it kind of . . .”

“Kind of what?”

“Made me sick.”

“I understand.”

“You do?”

“Definitely.”

She looked uncertain.

“You know we want you to stay. But if you decide to go, remember we'll stand behind that, too.”

Winnie looked relieved. “Good! I don't know why, but I always feel better when I talk to you.”

“Maybe it's the collar.”

“Have a napoleon!” she urged, in her usual burst of generosity.

“Get thee behind me, absolutely not. But tell you what—I've got a houseful, so bag me a dozen donuts, Dooley will love that, and Harley, too, and let's see, a dozen oatmeal cookies . . .”

“Low-fat!” she said.

“Great. Now, what about that pie on the right? The one with the lattice top?”

“Cherry!”

“My favorite. Box it up!” Spending four hundred dollars had made him feel so good, he was trying to do it all over again.

Rhody Davis's leg was being amputated today.

He was praying for her this morning at first light, soon after reading Blaise Pascal. A young man who lived in the seventeenth century knew what Rhody Davis and several others on his current prayer list needed more than anything else.

“There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person,” Pascal wrote. “And it can never be filled by any created thing. It can only be filled by God, made known through Jesus Christ.”

Pascal had dazzled Europe with his sophisticated mathematical equations when he was only sixteen, and written about the God-shaped vacuum when he wasn't much older.

Nearly every day of his priesthood, Father Tim had seen what happened when people tried filling that vacuum with any created thing. Pauline had tried to fill it with alcohol. Rhody Davis had tried to fill it with someone else's child . . . .

He closed his eyes and prayed for all those who turn to the created thing, expecting much and receiving nothing.

The talk on the street was that Mack Stroupe was responsible for hooking the Fernbank sale, which would do wonders for Mitford's economy. Not only would such an enterprise draw people from other parts of the country, maybe even the world, but a major part of the staff would be locals. All that landscaping, all that maintenance, all that ocean of roofing and plumbing—and all that money flowing into Mitford pockets.

According to several reports, Fernbank was already sold, it was a done deal.

Mack Stroupe was looking good.

He called the mayor's office.

“She's not in,” said the painfully shy Ernestine Ivory, who gave the mayor a hand two days a week.

“May I ask where she is?”

“Down at the school. She's doing a special program for the children.”

“Children can't vote,” he said.

“Yes, Father, that's true. But their parents can.”

Bingo. “Tell her I called.”