Small Town Girl

by Ann H. Gabhart

  Kate looked right at Evie. “So? I don’t see what you’re trying to tell me.”

  Evie leaned closer until her face was only inches from Kate’s. “I’m trying to say that now you need to help my sister, Kate Merritt. Stop being so hardheaded and do something.”

  Kate didn’t back away from Evie. “I can’t do anything. I don’t know where he is.”

  “Then find out!” Evie said, as though that would be the easiest thing in the world to do.

  “He doesn’t want me to find out.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “If he did, he’d write. If not to me, then to Lorena.” She sank back down on the bed. Evie sat down beside her. “He hasn’t written to Mike, has he?”

  “You know I’d tell you if he had. I don’t think he’s forgiven Mike for telling you to stay away from him.”

  “Mike was just trying to protect me.”

  “I know. Be your big brother after we got married. But he should have known better. Love can’t be ordered. It comes, and when it does, it gets its claws in you and won’t let go.”

  “I’ll get over him,” Kate said. “People get over broken hearts all the time.”

  “But why do you think you should get over him? He loves you too. I saw the way he looked at you. You don’t want to get over that kind of love. You want to grab it and hold it tight.”

  “That’s what Fern told me.”

  “Fern?” Evie frowned. “I don’t know why in the world you’d listen to anything she said, but you do need to listen to me. Don’t throw away love.”

  “Mama said that,” Kate said.

  Evie put her hand up to her forehead. “So what did Lorena say?”

  “That Tanner told her to tell me if I ever felt like eloping, to come find him.”

  “And do you feel like eloping?”

  “It’s an idea, but doesn’t that take a guy with a ladder and an upstairs window?” A bubble of laughter rose up in Kate and popped out.

  “You’re absolutely nuts. It’s Rosey Corner. It drives everybody nuts.” Evie fell back on the bed, laughing.

  Days had gone by since Evie had told her she was nuts. Kate was ready to agree with her. She felt a little crazy because she was beginning to believe that if Jay were right there in front of her asking her to elope, she would. Without a minute’s hesitation.

  If only she knew where he was. If only she knew he was safe. She stopped walking and looked up at the sky, as though hoping to find answers in the fluffy white clouds.

  “Kate! Kate!” Lorena shouted as she ran up the road toward her with Scout on her heels. She was waving a letter in the air over her head. From the joy exploding off her face, Kate had no doubt who it was from. And suddenly she felt like dancing.

  35

  Jay liked getting Mrs. Franklin’s cookies and notes, but until he wrote to Birdie, he’d never come looking for mail with his throat tight and his hands sweaty with anxious anticipation. Birdie would write. He had no doubt about that, and when she wrote, she’d say something about Kate. That was what was making his heart do a stutter step inside him whenever they passed out the mail.

  Every morning when he got up, he tried to figure out how long it took letters to wind their way up to Kentucky and then back down to Georgia. Days? Weeks? He’d think about how many days had passed since he’d posted the letter to Birdie. He’d think about her reading what he’d written and showing it to Kate. He tried to always imagine them both smiling while they read about him jumping out of airplanes. Then he’d think about Birdie writing and maybe Kate writing too. He hoped she’d think it was her patriotic duty. But she’d never written the hayseed who’d gone off to the Navy. At least, he didn’t think so.

  It might have been good if she had. Things had gone pretty sour for their soldiers in that part of the war. The hayseed kid might even now be a prisoner of the Japanese Army. Or dead.

  That was it. Death was looking over all their shoulders. They might not have much time to make things right. He might not have enough time. The rumor was going around that they were going to be sent overseas to a new camp to practice jumps in an area more like the war zones. Not that any of the enlisted men really knew. It was all just whispers in the wind that might be true or might be nothing but empty air.

  Whether this rumor turned out to be true or not didn’t matter. It would happen sooner, he thought, than later, and he didn’t want to be on a ship going overseas with the letter here and him there. A letter that might have sweet words. Dear Tanner. Kate told me to tell you she loves you.

  That was the letter he saw in his dreams. When several days passed with nothing except a box of homemade fudge from Mrs. Franklin, Jay got worried that something might have happened to Birdie. That another time she’d forgotten to check the road and had run in front of a car. Or that she’d gotten sick or that . . . He made himself stop. The kid would write. Probably already had written.

  The letter came on a Tuesday. They were going out to do a jump that night. They’d done a couple of night jumps. A whole different feel, coming down through the dark sky, having no idea what was rushing up toward him on the ground. Once he’d clipped that tree the sergeant had warned him about, but he hadn’t gotten hung up in it. He liked the day jumps better, but it wasn’t hard to figure that if a man was going to drop in behind enemy lines, it would be better to do it in the dark. A paratrooper floating down through the air under a big billowing marker would make an easy target for enemy sharpshooters.

  So he didn’t have much time before he had to report back to duty. When he unfolded the notebook paper, he had to smile at the sight of Birdie’s little-girl handwriting.

  Hello, Tanner,

  How are you? I’m fine. We were excited to get your letter. I showed it to Kate first and she thought it was great that you wrote me. I even let Scout sniff it and his tail almost wagged off. Kate said he must have known it was from you.

  We were all surprised to hear that you’d been jumping out of airplanes. That sounds like fun. Kate thought so too. Evie would have shivered and said you must have lost your mind if she’d been here. But she’s in Arizona where Mike is in the Army. Everybody is talking about being in the Army. Even Sammy. That makes Tori sad. And us too. They’re getting married before he goes. Kate is going to be her maid of honor like she was for Evie. Kate says she guesses I’m next, but I tell her I don’t think so. Boys are all yucky. Not you or Mike, but boys my age.

  Mama says to tell you she’ll send brown sugar cookies, but she doesn’t think a pie would make it in the mail. Might give you food poisoning or something. So I’ll just keep eating your extra slice. Daddy says to let him know if you want any books to read and he’ll send them to you. Graham says that next time you come to Rosey Corner you better not leave without saying something to him. Poe’s not doing too good right now. Graham has to help him up and down the steps. Kate says she doesn’t know what Graham will do when Poe can’t make it anymore, but Mama says Graham is pretty tough and he’ll be all right.

  Kate says I shouldn’t try to tell you everything in one letter. But don’t worry. I’ll write again soon. Daddy says soldiers need letters from home.

  Your friend forever,

  Birdie XO XO

  P.S. I forgot to tell you what Aunt Hattie said. She said to tell you that the best friend a soldier can have is Jesus and that she’s praying you’ve took hold of his hand. Me and Aunt Hattie want everybody to know about Jesus. Especially people in our family like you. You came to Thanksgiving dinner so you’re the same as family. And don’t try to say you’re not, because you are. Kate says so too. And that’s that!!!

  He read over the letter again, letting his eyes dwell on the mention of Kate. She thought it was great that he’d written Birdie. She thought he was the same as family because he’d eaten with them on Thanksgiving. That was about all. Not much. Not enough. Maybe after the jump tonight, he’d write Birdie again. He could write Kate too. He could write I still hear the music and remember the d
ances, my beautiful Kate. Do you?

  First the jump. He stuffed Birdie’s letter in his pocket. It wasn’t a love letter, but it was a letter from Rosey Corner. From home. That’s what Birdie said at the end. That soldiers needed letters from home and that he was family. He wanted to pull the letter out and read those words again, but Sarge was yelling. No time for anything but going.

  They queued up the same as they did every jump. The routine was becoming automatic. Jay checked the back equipment of the man in front of him. Artie Persons. Behind him Harold Whitt checked Jay’s and then they waited for the signal to begin leaping out into the darkness. Harold started whispering the Twenty-third Psalm the way he did before every jump.

  “The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul.”

  An echo of the words whispered through Jay’s head. It was a comforting sound, the familiar words of the psalm. Harold claimed to need to say it in order to jump. He said he needed to think about the Lord holding his hand as he slung himself out into the air. Being beside him through the shadow of death. Watching out for him. That was the only way he could jump.

  Jay thought about Harold whispering the words of the psalm over and over. He couldn’t hear him now. The rush of the wind was too great. Then the sergeant tapped him to let him know his turn was up, and Jay grasped the edges of the door and stepped out into the black sky. Darkness wrapped around him like a velvet glove as he fell. Then the parachute popped open and the straps tightened and jerked him upright. Harold’s voice reciting the psalm was still sounding in his head even though Harold was above him and to the right.

  Birdie said Aunt Hattie was praying for him. That they all were. Maybe that meant Kate was too. But what had Mike told him a thousand times? A person had to say the prayer himself.

  “Dear God.” The rush of air grabbed the words out of his mouth and scattered them into the dark night. Soon he might be jumping behind enemy lines. He wanted to feel the Lord beside him as he started through that valley of the shadow of death. He wanted to believe like Mike and Perry and Harold did. The way Aunt Hattie said he needed to. But what was the prayer Mike said he was supposed to say? He couldn’t remember as he floated down through the sky.

  He bent his head a little to look at the ground. The night shrouded everything. Here and there were darker patches. Trees. To the south, unless he’d lost his directional sense, was the glint of water. Wouldn’t want to land in that and end up sinking under the weight of all the equipment he carried. His pack. His gun. Ammunition. But where to land? Not much in the way of wind drafts this night, but maybe enough to pull him off course. The clouds were thick and no moon pushed light through. He couldn’t see what was coming up toward him. All he had was hope for a safe landing.

  Mike had once told him that hope was something like faith, but that without faith, hope was empty of meaning. Empty, that’s what Jay had felt for a long time, and then Kate and Rosey Corner had changed him. He didn’t want to be empty. He wanted something to hold on to while he drifted through the darkness of possible death.

  “Please, Lord. I want to believe,” he whispered as the air slipped past him, feeling faster as the shadows on the ground came closer.

  He reached his hand out into the dark air and had the strangest sensation that he touched something. Not something, someone. What was that verse he’d found in the Bible Perry had given him? The one that sounded like it could be a paratrooper’s verse. Thou art there. In the heavens. In hell. Wherever he was, the Lord was promising to be there.

  Maybe faith was like a parachute in life, the thing that kept a man from smashing into the hard places that came to everyone, something to cushion the fall when things went wrong. Maybe faith meant giving himself over to the air around him and trusting that the Lord’s love was going to be there. Thou art there.

  Bits of another verse came to mind. Something about nothing separating a person from God’s love. He’d heard Mike preach on that back in Rosey Corner on one of the Sundays Jay had parked on a pew beside Kate. He wasn’t sure exactly how it went, but a few of the words scratched awake in his mind.

  Nothing, not death nor life, not tribulation, not things happening right now or things that were going to happen would get in the way of God loving a man who put his faith in him. Mike had read the verses in his preacher’s voice. Not angels either, but why angels would want to get in the way of God’s love, Jay hadn’t understood. Then there were the principalities. That word had stuck because Birdie had liked the way it sounded and let it slide off her tongue over and over as they walked back to the house for Sunday dinner. Maybe he should try to find that verse in Perry’s Bible.

  Then again, what had he, Jay Tanner, ever done to be worthy of love? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. But in spite of knowing that, he felt the love awakening in his heart in answer to his prayer. He couldn’t explain it, but arms of love were cradling him as he fell, accepting him the way he was. He suddenly felt lighter than air, like he might drift back up instead of keep falling. A good feeling. A joyous feeling. He looked up at the parachute floating above him, holding him up. A parachute of faith.

  A man could tell when the ground was ready to grab him. The air felt different. His nose picked up different smells and told him to prepare for impact. He held his arms tight against him and pointed his toes with his legs together. He didn’t know what he was about to hit. All was dark, but every jumper knew the ground didn’t soften up for anyone. He rolled on impact, did everything like he’d been trained to do. It was his bad fortune that he landed where a rock jutted up out of the ground and caught his foot. He tried to jerk his foot free, but it stayed caught as the force of the fall slung him forward. The snap of bone was loud in Jay’s ears and pain seared through his leg. Red flashed in front of his eyes as he grabbed at the dirt and rocks to stop his tumble. His foot pulled free, but the damage was done.

  Jay sat up and ran his hand down his lower left leg. There was an ominous bump right above his ankle. But maybe it wasn’t broken. After all, hadn’t the Lord been floating down through the air with him? Surely right after he reached for the Lord, he wouldn’t land in a pile of rocks and crack a bone. That wasn’t the way this stuff was supposed to work. Prayer was supposed to protect him, not slam him down. Then the words of the psalm Harold had been reciting came into his head. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. That didn’t say he wasn’t going to have to walk through the valley. Or land on rocks if that’s where he happened to come down.

  He thought of that widow woman in the Bible again. The one who’d thought the prophet had brought trouble down on her and her son. For a few seconds he felt like lying back on the ground and having a good laugh. He could almost see the Lord smiling in the darkness with him, enjoying the joke. Was that all it was? Nothing but a joke? But then he was probing the feeling in his heart and the bad landing hadn’t made it leak out. His leg hurt, but he liked the idea of the Lord sitting there in the dark with him, letting him know that the worst things could happen to a person whether his heart was filled up with faith or not.

  He heard the trucks coming and Sarge counting them off. Around him the other men were gathering up their parachutes and running toward the pickup place. Jay tried to stand up, do what he was trained to do. Gather his parachute and run toward the truck. His foot wouldn’t work. Pain shot through him, but he managed to get upright. No way was he going to be able to run anywhere without a crutch. He stood on one foot and pulled the parachute toward him. Every time his balance wavered and he had to touch down his left foot, it screamed at him.

  “Drop any good sticks in this rocky hole, Lord?” he said under his breath.

  Artie Persons, the man who jumped in front of him, ran by him. “You all right, Tanner?”

  “Landed on a rock. Maybe broke my leg.” Jay tried not to let the pain sound in his voice. “Wish I’d landed in that tree Sarge keeps warning me about.”<
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  Artie turned and ran back to Jay. “Mighta broke your neck then. Better settle for the leg.” He grabbed up the rest of Jay’s chute and shoved it at him. “You hold onto that and lean on me. Or I can just tell the medics where you are if you can’t make it.”

  “I can make it.” Jay grasped the chute with one arm and clasped the other arm around Artie’s shoulders. “Thanks.”

  “That’s what buddies are for. Good practice for the war zone. Wouldn’t want to desert a comrade there either.”

  “You might have to,” Jay said.

  “Could be. But I don’t think so.”

  They started toward the sound of Sarge barking out orders for the men to pick it up, run faster. Sarge was going to give him heck for landing on a rock. A man ought to see a rock glinting in the dark and twist away from it.

  With the noise at the trucks getting closer, Jay opened his mouth and surprised them both by asking, “You believe in God, Artie?”

  “’Course I believe in God, Tanner. I’m from Alabama. Ain’t nothing to do there but church. Anyway, what kind of heathen don’t believe in God?” Artie twisted his head to look over at Jay without slowing their pace. “You ain’t no heathen, are you?”

  Jay smiled in spite of the pain shooting up his leg. “Not that much of one. I’m from Rosey Corner, Kentucky. Plenty of churchgoing there too.”

  “Far enough south to know what’s what. That’s for sure,” Artie said.

  Then Sarge was in front of them, yelling about how slow they were moving and coming out with a few choice words when Jay admitted to his bad landing. “If I’ve told you boys once, I’ve told you a hundred times, you gotta roll when you hit. What was you doing, Tanner? Dreaming about some girl?”