The Waking Bell

by Jackie Weger

  The Waking Bell

  Jerri Hines and Jackie Weger

  The Waking Bell

  Copyright© 2021 by Jerri Hines

  ISBN: 9781955642040

  www.WrittenMusings.com

  This is a fictional work. All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are solely the concepts and products of the author’s imagination or are used to create a fictitious story and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form by any means, without the prior permission in writing, except in the case of brief quotations, reviews, and articles.

  For any other permission, please visit www.WrittenMusings.com for contact links.

  Contents

  The Waking Bell

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Jackie Weger

  Jerri Hines

  “What is to give light must endure burning.” ― Molly Guptill Manning, When Books Went to War: The Stories That Helped Us Win World War II

  Chapter 1

  August 1943

  Sin was in the thick August air. It seemed to me that it oozed from all who had come to proclaim the goodness of the Lord. Beneath the revival tent swirled lust, greed, and envy. Wickedness oozed from their sweaty pores and shone in their eyes.

  I drew in a long deep breath and smelled a mixture of cheap perfume, Cashmere Bouquet talcum powder, and Wild Root hair cream made more pungent by the chicken workers from Pritchard’s Pride who hadn’t scraped their boots.

  “Do not be carried away by all sorts of strange teachings! Do not cling to idols! Beware of God’s wrath! Sinners will suffer. Oh, ye heathens, listen to my words! Repent sayeth the Lord God Almighty! Retreat from the fiery gates of Hell and damnation!”

  Spontaneous shouts of amen and hallelujah broke out. Stooped and gaunt, Brother Errol Mise smiled.

  Brother Mise had been coming to Oak Flatt near mind five years accompanied with his entourage of music and ministers. He had come to save the damned, which as much as I surmised, was everyone in the tent.

  The old man stood on a makeshift pulpit, high above the straw-filled ground lined with wooden benches, and rallied against fornicators, blasphemers, and sodomites. His voice radiated through me, tugging at my guilt for the sins I had committed and needed to repent.

  Four years ago, when I had been fifteen, I submitted myself to the Lord and had been baptized the next day, washing away my sin and reserving my mansion in the sky. Yet, every year I returned to the revival with the same concern for my soul. Not that I had done anything like Brother Mise was ranting about, or at least not that I was aware of, but his words pierced a fear for my immortal soul.

  He preached vehemently of lust and where it led. Of greed and how it sucked the soul out of your life. Of God’s wrath and how it sought vengeance upon sinners. Sinners will be cast down into the inferno of Hell!

  The tent was crowded. People came from near and wide for the meeting, as far away as Hanging Limb and Vine Ridge. Those who had gas coupons came in trucks and coupes, others by horse or mule-drawn wagons. No matter the means, they came.

  Oak Flatt was a small Appalachian Mountain town with less than seven hundred residents, but it doubled in size during the revival. Situated in a hollow, the community sat along Oak Creek. The place didn’t get many visitors except at revival time.

  I never minded what others found isolating and backward. At least that’s what my cousin Dodie said about our town. I reckoned Dodie would know since she had gone off to college. I, on the other hand, had been pulled out of school when I was ten.

  Dodie had told me once that people called me simple-minded because I don’t speak much. It was a polite way of saying that people around here thought I was a simpleton. To be honest, Dodie didn’t have to tell me. I heard the whispers behind my back.

  At the thought, I consciously straightened up and thrust out my chin, giving an appearance of lady-like dignity. I had been practicing dignity ever since Ginny Rose made me aware of it.

  “Dignity has its uses, Cady Blue,” Ginny Rose had said. There had been no pity in her voice, no scorn, only blunt honesty. “Dignity is real. You can feel it crawl up your spine when someone says something mean to you, but dignity has its pitfalls. Once lost, it is difficult to recover.”

  “Can I hide the bells behind it?” I had asked.

  “Especially the bells,” Ginny Rose had said.

  Ginny Rose was my grandmother by birth, my daddy’s mother. But my granddaddy, Mr. Boyd Reeves, refused to claim me. He had disowned Daddy for marrying Momma. Goldie told me many times that the Reeves considered Momma’s family nothing more than white trash.

  For that matter, the Reeves thought any mountain people were white trash, well below the Reeves, who were well respected in town. Mr. Reeves was president of First Tennessee Heritage Bank.

  Ginny Rose had a soft spot for me despite her husband’s repulsion for my momma. A few years back, Ginny Rose contracted tuberculosis. The poor thing lost half a lung and had to stay in the sanitarium for almost a year. When she came home, she asked me to become her companion.

  I couldn’t afford to turn down the position and enjoyed the job most days. Ginny Rose had taken it upon herself to school me, declaring there wasn’t nothing wrong with my mind.

  “You aren’t slow, girl,” Ginny Rose had said. “Was that fire what took your tongue away for a spell.”

  The fire had killed my daddy and made him a hero in the county. Daddy had died rescuing me from our house when it went up in a blaze. I had no memory of it, having only been four at the time, but it was said that I didn’t say a word afterward for nearly two years.

  Eventually, my voice returned, but I was left with these bells in my head. They come at the most inopportune times. Moreover, I have no control of them.

  At night when they come, they frighten me and rob me of sleep. In the waking hours, I hear them coming, a faint sound in the back of my head. My hands sweat; my breathing quickens. Over time, I have learned how to hide them when the attacks come, but the panic is hard to disguise.

  It shows in my eyes.

  The bells were the reason the town thought me slow-witted.

  Most times, I avoided large gatherings, but here the music calmed my nerves and the bells receded. I loved to hear the voices sing in an exaltation of the spirit. Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before.

  In the front pew, a lovely contralto voice soared above all others. There was a lost, haunting pain in her tone which drew my attention. So touching, goose bumps erupted along my arms as I recognized who it was.

  Bessie Lou Williams lived a couple of miles up the mountain from my home. The woman was only a few months older than me. I had heard that only last week, Bessie Lou had taken her month-old baby to Fairview and left him there because his head was too big, and he wouldn’t eat much.

  Bessie Lou had trouble in the birthing. Goldie had been called up there to help and came back feeling bad. Goldie said that the baby didn’t look right, more like an
alien from Mars.

  I felt bad. Just the thought of Fairview frightened me. When I misbehaved, Goldie would threaten to take me there. Nobody ever came back from the place. Not old men like Foster Cato who tried to chop up his wife with an ax. Not women, like crazy Miss Vicky, who took off all her clothes right in the middle of Oak Flatt.

  Poor Bessie Lou wouldn’t be seeing her boy again.

  Bessie Lou’s voice faltered as the organ paused, transitioning into another rousing spiritual, Onward to Victory. A tad off-key, music filled the tent. Most sang loudly as if God were hard of hearing, but I felt my spirit strengthen on every verse.

  A new evangelist stepped onto the pulpit. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. My throat closed, and I found I could only stare at the most beautiful man I had ever seen. The kerosene lantern swung back and forth on a hitch above his head, radiating an aura of soft gold pooling about him.

  He was like an angel who had descended from heaven. He had thick and wavy golden hair, piercing blue eyes, and teeth that glistened in the light. His voice flowed like colors, smooth as liquid gold, blazing up to red, pitching yellows, lowering to the deep indigo of night.

  I was mesmerized with his majesty and found myself on the edge of the bench. I couldn’t break the spell he had cast on me.

  He shouted, “All ye pure and heavy laden enter into the light of God! Come into his love!”

  Caught up in the spirit, I leaped to my feet and shouted, “Hallelujah!”

  His brilliant blue eyes fell on me. The look took my breath away, and I felt the whole of my body shiver. I swear that with just his gaze, he had discovered everything about me: that he knew I wore Ginny Rose’s discarded dress, that I was an orphan, that I didn’t like boiled cabbage, and that I heard the bells.

  Slowly, I sat back down, thankful the collection basket had begun to go around. Feeling like all eyes were on me, I suffered a monstrous anxiety. My fingers trembled so that I fumbled with the knot in the corner of my handkerchief. Taking a deep breath, I freed the coin and dropped it shy-like with a penury clink atop the silver and copper.

  Directly after the collection, Jesus began to save. The best preaching came last. The preacher began. Sinner! Ye be God’s work! He welcomes his weary wand’ring child! Rejoice!

  Once more, every chord spewing from the out-of-tune organ warmed my senses. From the corner of my eye, I caught sight of the visitors from Germany, the prisoners of war who were seated on rows of benches outside the rolled-up sides of the tent. One couldn’t mistake them, dressed in their work pants and black shirt with P embroidered on their sleeves, chest, and back.

  I had almost forgotten. Not about the war but having the hated German prisoners living in a camp not far from Oak Flatt at Crossville. Before they arrived, it had been a heated subject in town. Not so much anymore.

  All the fears about having the camp so near had not materialized. Mostly, folks pretended the prisoners weren’t there, but when they did come around, they got their share of hate-filled looks and surreptitious glances.

  Surrounded by a barb-wired fence, the prisoners were kept at Crossville in whitewashed cabins in better shape than most of the houses on the mountain. Because of war, there was a shortage of men to work at the local chicken slaughter facility, Pritchard’s Pride. The prisoners were trucked to Oak Flatt to pluck chickens. They even got paid.

  I heard it had been Matthew Pritchard’s idea. I saw him sitting at the end of the bench with the prisoners he had brought. He would be a hard man to miss, tall, broad shoulders with intense grey eyes, and a strong jaw.

  Everyone in Oak Flatt knew of the Pritchards. They owned Pritchard’s Pride among other businesses and were the largest landowners in the county. Matt was the only son of John and Maude Pritchard. John Pritchard had died while Matt was in Europe, fighting the same people he now employed. Matt now ran the family business.

  Matt was a war hero. Two years before the U.S. joined the war effort, Matt had been on his honeymoon in England. When hostilities between England and Germany broke out while he was there, he volunteered for the Royal Canadian Air Force and served as their gunner until the U.S. entered the war. From there, he enlisted with the U.S. Air Force on a Boston Bomber. On their first bombing run over France, he was severely injured.

  After recovering, Matt returned home with citations of bravery and a prominent limp. He had become the talk of the town. He had done his family proud with his actions, brave and true.

  No one would dispute the fact that times were tough. Most of the able-bodied men had gone off to fight in the war. Those left behind were left with rations and doing all they could to support the war effort.

  I realized, though, that Matt Pritchard bringing the POW prisoners to the revival had ruffled quite a few feathers in town. I had heard the complaints.

  People would say things like I wasn’t even there. They never seemed to give me mind. It was the way I was. I wasn’t one to say much, but I listened and learned. Goldie said it was my gift. I felt it was my curse.

  Matt had said that they needed redemption just as much as anyone else. More, some would say, I would add. Brother Mise agreed to let the Germans stay only if Pritchard extracted a promise from the prisoners that they wouldn’t pray at all. No one liked to think that while we were praying for our American sons to win the war that the Germans were praying for their own side.

  I, myself, wondered if the Germans prayed to God at all. It was most confusing, but Goldie had said, to be safe, we should pray to the American God. The thought made me grimace.

  Sometimes Goldie rattled off things she hadn’t a clue about. According to the Bible, there was only one true God—and they call me crazy.

  Lost in my thoughts, I hadn’t noticed the song ended and service was over until Dickie pushed into me. My younger brother seemed anxious to get to his friends. I let him pass to squeeze by Otis.

  The large burly man grunted but sucked in his stomach to allow Dickie his freedom. Glancing at my stepfather, I noticed his age had begun to show. His dark hair was streaked with gray, and telltale creases had formed around his eyes. He gave me a hard look and followed his son.

  I realized he wanted me to rush to ready our campsite. He would expect me to prepare the meal. He was not a patient man, especially with me. In fairness what man would have been thrilled to have been saddled with another man’s child after his wife died?

  Despite his gruffness, Otis had given me a roof over my head, or rather, his mother had. Goldie had insisted I not be thrown out after my mother passed. Goldie was not one to be questioned.

  Goldie had declared me family. So, family I was.

  I thought it strange that my blood kin thought differently.

  Glancing over my shoulder, I blushed when my eyes caught the new reverend. He was listening to one of the ladies who had cornered his attention. She would not be relinquishing her control of the dynamic orator in the near future. He gave me a broad smile and turned back to the woman, who had not slowed her speech in the least.

  I followed the crowd that poured from the tent into the fresh-scented night air. Above my head, a shining panoply of stars twinkled. Immediately, the men rolled a cigarette or bit tobacco off a hard plug. The women scurried to their campsites to see how cooking fires fared in their absence.

  On the side of the tent, I caught sight of a flock of children in their pretend innocence, speedily angled to see the Germans being herded into an olive-green army truck. Dickie brushed by me.

  Not thinking twice, I reached out and snatched him by the collar. “You’re not going over there to do any cat calling.”

  “Turn me loose,” Dickie cried. “You ain’t my boss.”

  “You need to tell Otis whatcha got planned.”

  He wriggled and flailed, trying every which way to get free. I sighed and wondered if I would be able to get him back to the table Otis had set up at the edge of the rye field without causing a scene.

  “By then, the Germans will be gone!” he cried.


  Dickie dug his heels into the soft earth. The force sent me forward. Losing my footing, Dickie broke free of my grasp.

  In a blink of an eye, visions of falling in front of everyone assaulted me, but out of nowhere, I felt strong arms catch my shoulders. Looking up, I came face to face with Matthew Pritchard.

  For a brief moment, his gray eyes met mine. Reminding myself to breathe, I found I could only stare at the handsome man. No one had ever touched me in that manner much less a man. No matter of its innocence, my insides swelled with a warmth new to me.

  He released his grip and took a step back. “Are you alright, ma’am?” He smiled, looking over at Dickie as the boy scampered over to his friends.

  Consciously, I pushed at my skirt to straighten the flowered blue dress and thrust out my chin. Reaching up, I felt my hat to make sure it was in place. I had a sudden desire to project that lady-like dignity.

  The man was no stranger. Before the war, he had been a regular visitor at Ginny Rose’s. He was best friends with Ginny Rose’s neighbor, Owen Jeffrey.

  Since Matt’s return three months ago, I had seen him around town a few times. Moreover, his wife had become the constant companion to Dodie long before his return.

  Dodie had met Moria in college and bragged that she had introduced the two. Dodie had even gone to London to accompany the woman home after Pritchard volunteered to stay and fight the Nazis.

  Feeling a warmth flooding to my cheeks, words choked in my throat. I nodded.

  Matt gave me a small smile and started toward the army truck, walking with his pronounced limp. “Take care…”

  Immediately, I felt deflated. He knew he had met me but couldn’t remember my name. He probably knew me as the simple-minded Reeves girl, but I wasn’t…that was I wasn’t simple-minded.

  “Cady Blue,” I finished for him. Looking down at his leg, I asked, “Does it hurt?”

  He gave me a little shrug. “Some days are worse than others.”

  An awkward silence ensued. Shuffling my feet, I felt the need to say something else. “Otis says that you’re a hero, signing up like you did over in Europe before we decided to hop into the war. He says that you did the right thing. Made Oak Flatt proud.”