The Visitation (11 page)

BY THE TIME
Nevin Sorrel got back to the widow Macon’s ranch he was an hour late and carrying a whole new order of groceries, paid for out of his own pocket. Being late didn’t worry him too much. Mrs. Macon would scold him about it, but she would tolerate it. Losing four sacks of groceries while sleeping was another matter. Mrs. Macon was wealthy, quirky, and very particular about her cash flow.

As he turned the golden brown pickup off the highway and through the ranch gate, he tried to concoct an explanation. A mechanical breakdown wouldn’t work. This was the late Cephus Macon’s truck, an immaculate Dodge with extended cab, custom running boards, and chrome-plated exhaust stacks, always kept in top condition by the widow out of respect for her husband’s memory. He could say he met an old friend, got to talking, and lost track of time, but that would sound irresponsible. A flat tire? No, that would mean exchanging one of the good tires for the spare, and that was too much trouble.

He rehearsed some other excuses as he drove the mile-long driveway to the sprawling ranch house atop the rise, but none of them played out very well. By the time he eased the big rig into Mrs. Macon’s four-car garage, he settled for no explanation at all. He was late, he was sorry, that was it. He’d bring in the groceries, apologize, and duck if he had to.

He grabbed two sacks from the back of the truck, knocked on the rear entry door, then cracked it open. “Mrs. Macon? I’m back.”

Her voice came from the kitchen. “Where have you been?”

He hurried through the laundry room and into the kitchen, a gorgeous, expansive facility with a virtual warehouse of cupboard and counter space and a vast wall of windows offering a panorama of the Macon ranch lands. The moment he saw the widow sitting at the enormous breakfast table, the first excuse he rejected didn’t seem so outlandish. “You’ll never guess what happened! The alternator belt broke and I had one awful time—”

“You don’t have to explain,” she said gently. She was a small woman in her late sixties, with a trim figure and white hair tucked into a comb atop her head. She was sipping her afternoon drink of blended fruit juice—a blend that was supposed to include the strawberries she’d needed but he’d lost, bought all over again, and delivered late. He couldn’t be sure, but the pink color of her drink sure looked like she’d found some strawberries. As she took another sip and looked out the windows, the expression on her face did not seem harsh, as he expected. It actually seemed peaceful. He began to breathe easier. “Uh, well, I got the groceries. I’ll bring the rest in.”

She gave him a puzzled look. “What did you do? Buy them again?”

It was tough trying to look innocent while feeling so cornered.

“Uh . . . no, I got the groceries. I got ’em in the truck.”

She set her glass down and looked at him with her head slightly tilted, her fingers drumming her chin. “They’re already in the house.”

His mind went blank. “Ma’am?”

“My strawberries, my oranges, my strawberry nonfat yogurt, the porkchops, the flour and my Knox for Nails, all of it. You got it all the first time.”

“The first time?”

“Yes, before you decided to take a snooze by the side of the road, remember?” She went to the double-wide refrigerator and swung the door open. “Here are all the perishables, safe and sound, no thanks to you.”

It took a few seconds for Nevin to conclude that whatever cover story he’d concocted had already failed. “I, uh, I didn’t want to get into an accident, you know, go off the road in Mr. Macon’s truck.”

“You might try sleeping at night,” she responded briskly. “Lucky for me, someone happened by and saw you sleeping in the truck with my perishables sitting in the back, out in the sun, about to go bad.”

So he’d been caught. Worse than that: snitched on. “Who?”

She went to the windows and pointed. “My new hired hand.”

What?
Pain and jealousy twisted around inside him, and Nevin hurried to the window.

“He came to the front door with all four sacks in his arms and told me where he’d found you parked, snoring away while my yogurt sat in the sun. He’s very sweet and conscientious.”

Nevin saw the big John Deere tractor emerging from behind the horse barn, pulling a trailer of hay. “What’s he doin’ on my tractor?”

She cleared her throat. “On
my
tractor,” she corrected. “He’s transferring hay to the other barn.”

“That was my job!”

“You were sleeping, Nevin!”

He looked at her with horror in his eyes and a wrenching pain in his stomach. “You’re giving him my job?”

“Oh, we’ll see.” She cocked her head and gave him a motherly look. “
He
didn’t lie to me.”

“But I paid for ’em! I paid for the second load out of my own pocket!”

She waved her hand, not wanting to discuss it. “Give me time to think it over, Nevin. Take the day off. We’ll just see how everything works out.”

Before turning on his heels and getting out of there, Nevin took a long, careful look at the man he knew he would hate. The fellow was young, with black hair and a beard, dark skin, blue jeans, long-sleeved shirt, and gloves, now looking his way and giving him a friendly, gloating smile and a little wave.

LATER THAT AFTERNOON
, with just a few hours of daylight left, Norman Dillard stepped out of his motel office and checked the sky. There were a few clouds up there still, drifting like small islands in a vast sea of blue and getting smaller and scarcer by the hour. The cloud watching at Antioch Mission might be ending soon. He removed his thick glasses and rubbed his eyes, resigning himself to the idea that he should get up to the church to see what was going on. He didn’t want to. He was not a man of faith, and Praise the Lord types got on his nerves, especially women having Hallelujah conniptions. But he was supposed to be the knowledgeable guide who could answer questions and speak local facts, and that meant he had to see the sights for himself. It was business, pure and simple.

He drove the few short blocks and pulled into the church parking lot to find about two dozen people gathered there, necks craned skyward, cameras ready.
Hoo boy. Here we go.

“Ooooh, it’s Mr. Dillard!” a woman shouted. He winced. He could hear her shrill voice through his closed car windows.

Dee Baylor and Blanche Davis were right there to greet him as he stepped out of his car.

“Norman! Praise the Lord!” Dee gushed, giving him a bear hug he wasn’t expecting and couldn’t wait to get out of. “We were praying you’d come!”

“Just came to check things out,” he said limply.

“Are you ready to see Jesus?” Blanche asked, pulling out some Polaroid snapshots. He tilted his head back so he could see the photos through his bifocals. “See here? He’s looking toward the east.”

“Uh, which way is east—I mean, in the picture?”

Blanche tilted the picture this way and that and finally decided, “This way. Now you can see his nose. Right there.”

“Mm-hm.” His agreement was less than enthusiastic.

“You can believe, Norman,” Dee said reassuringly. “Just put your doubt aside and you’ll be amazed at what you’ll discover.”

He shied away, turning his attention—and hopefully theirs— to one lonely cloud passing over. “So . . . you’re the facilitators, right? Just how does one go about this? You know, what do you have to do?”

“Just yield to the Spirit,” Dee told him. “Let God open your eyes and speak through his creation.”

“The firmament showeth his handiwork,” Blanche added.

Norman walked toward the front of the parking lot where people were standing about in couples and clusters, some singing softly, some praying, some counting rosary beads, all of them watching that one cloud approaching. He came upon the elderly couple who first discovered the face of the Lord in the hedge outside his office. They were sitting in folding lawn chairs with their heads resting back on inflatable neck pillows. She pointed. “Here comes another cloud, Melvin!” Her husband did not respond, but appeared to be praying. Then Norman heard a short little snore.

The married couple and the brother-in-law from Yakima quietly began to sing “How Great Thou Art,” and others picked up the tune. Behind Norman, a rotund man with a Seahawks cap sang the words in a clear tenor voice, holding his small wife close to his side. To Norman’s left, two couples he recognized as local residents added harmony as they sat on lawn chairs in the back of a pickup. To his right, a Hispanic family of parents, grandparents, and children huddled together on the church lawn, singing when they knew the words and humming when they didn’t. Norman had to admit it sounded good, and as he stood in the middle of the music and watched the solitary cloud passing overhead, it even felt good. This was a nice place to be. It was sweet, peaceful, and enjoyable. It would be easy to send people up here who were inclined toward this sort of thing.

Definitely good for business
.

Norman removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. It had been a long day and he was getting tired.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Dee Baylor. “How are your eyes, Norman?”

“Oh, about as bad as usual,” he answered. He’d never been very happy about his poor eyesight and the thick glasses he had to wear.

“This is a place where God speaks through the eyes. I think he wants to heal you.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Hey, come on, now. I really think he does.”

“That would be quite a trick.”

“Why don’t you just take those glasses off and see?”

“See what?”

“Go on, take them off.”

Well, it wouldn’t be good business to have Dee and the others mad at him. He removed his glasses and gave his eyes a little rub out of habit.

“Now just look at the sky, Norman, and let God speak to your eyes.”

He directed his gaze upward, but saw exactly what he expected: a vast, blue blur. If God was speaking, he was mumbling.

“What do you see?” Blanche asked.

“I see a blur.”

“NO!” Dee corrected. “You have to speak your healing. Say you can see.”

He looked at her. She looked better, he thought. “I beg your pardon?”

“Believe you can see, and you will.”

He looked at the sky again because he didn’t want to look at her. He was trying to think of a way out of this.

Blanche coached him, “Say you can see.”

He was incredulous. “Say
what?”

“Say, ‘I can see’.”

“I can see.”

“Say it until you believe it,” said Dee.

He laughed nervously. “Ladies, we could be here a long time.”

“We have all night.”

He fumbled, fumed, and finally put his glasses on. “Well, I’m sorry, I mean, I really do apologize, but I don’t have all night. I have to get back to the motel and run my business.”

“That’s all right. Baby steps, Norman.”

“One little step at a time,” said Blanche.

He smiled at them and hurried to his car before he said something unkind. Once he got the door closed and drove away, he did say it. And he believed it too. He kept on saying it and believing it all the way back to the motel, gesturing wildly, wagging his head, addressing his reflection in the rear view mirror. Those people up there were crazy! They were an embarrassment! Fanatics! He was amazed they were allowed to roam freely about the town. People were traveling from far and wide for this?

Yes, Norman, and staying in your motel
, he reminded himself. By the time he got back to his office, he’d taken some baby steps toward getting used to the whole idea.

MATT KILEY
had no intention of getting used to it. Monday morning, when I stopped in at his hardware store for some molly screws, he was still fuming about a visit he’d had from some crucifix watchers.

“I told ’em to spend some money or get out of here,” he said, propelling his wheelchair down the aisle where he stocked all his fasteners. He was still disgruntled. “If they can’t cope with it, that’s their problem. I cope with it because I have to and I’m not asking for any favors. What are you hanging, anyway?” Matt was a decorated Vietnam vet. He was proud of that, and I was proud of him. He still wore camouflage fatigues around the store when he felt like it, flew a flag over his front entrance, and kept a POW–MIA poster on the wall behind his cash register. I never found him overly rude or obnoxious, but he was crusty, no doubt about that. In his younger days he’d come out the winner in quite a few rib and nose breakers down at Judy’s—the other guy’s ribs and nose, not his. In Vietnam he’d dispatched his share of Vietcong and taken more than his share of risks for his buddies before a sniper put a bullet through his spine. Now, running his hardware store from his chair, he wasn’t bitter about the war or about his injury. He just didn’t like people fussing about it.

“Some more shelves in the bedroom,” I told him. “A lot of heavy stuff.”

“Got a stud finder?”

“No, but you can sell me one.”

“I’ll do that. Anchor to all the studs you can find. And here, these mollies’ll do the trick through the drywall.”

He pointed them out to me and I grabbed as many from the little drawer as I thought I would need. Matt had four employees to do most of the stocking and high reaching, but customers helped by Matt were often responsible for reaching any items Matt couldn’t. We headed up the aisle.

“They were all hot to trot. ‘Matt, you gotta come down to Our Lady’s so you can walk again!’” He abruptly turned left. “Stud finder. Magnetic or fancy?”

“Depends on how much they cost.”

He kept wheeling along, perfectly at home with every square inch of this place. “Like all I have to do is look up at that crucifix and believe, and that’ll do it. Trav, you know what it’s like. I’ve had crackpots before try to get me to walk.” He quickly added, “Well, not all of ’em were crackpots. You know what I mean.”

“Sure.”

“There’s just some people who can’t leave it alone, that’s all I’m saying.”

“I know what you mean.”

“Yeah, sure you do. You’ve been there.” He grabbed a stud finder off the tool rack. “These are fun. You slide it along the wall and watch the little lights come on.”