“Then how did he father a child?”
“It beats the heck out of me, but I don’t see how he could call in a lightning strike either.”
“So you believe he works miracles. Is that right, Buford?”
“Yessir, I do. Everybody does, but now I believe that the widows are part of it, too.”
“You think they’re on some kind of team? If that’s so, then what do the widows do?”
“I don’t have a clue, sir. It’s just a theory.”
“A theory? How’s this for a theory? The widows work the miracles and Vernon’s just a cipher. Did you ever think of that?”
“No sir, but it wouldn’t make any difference. Miracles are miracles.”
“So they are, Buford, and mistakes are mistakes. Is there any chance that you could’ve made a mistake here?”
“It’s possible, sir, but I doubt that all three of their RVs would be registered in the same weird town if I had.”
After a pause, Clem said, “In the same what? Would you repeat that?”
“All three of the widows’ RVs are licensed in Graham County, Arizona, so I made the usual inquiries. They’re registered to a single post office address in a small town called Eden, Arizona, about fifty miles northeast of Tucson.”
“Excuse me. Did you say Eden?”
“Yeah. Pretty weird, huh?”
“Maybe, maybe not. It could be one of those blue-hair retirement communities. Arizona’s full of ’em.”
“I don’t care what kind of community it is; I’m catching a plane out of Lincoln tomorrow morning. I’ll go door to door if I have to, but I’ll have complete files on the widows by Friday afternoon or my name isn’t Buford P. Pickett.”
“Friday? That’s too goddamned late. Cancel your flights.”
“But …”
“I’ll send the G200 down to get you. John Smith will call with the details.”
“You’re … You’re flying me to Tucson in the bank jet?”
“If I get a good report, I might even fly you back. Is that all you’ve got?”
“Yessir. Thank you, sir.”
“You do interesting work, Buford; wacky, but interesting. Have some more good news by seven tomorrow night.”
“Your time or my time? I’ll be two hours behind you.”
“Split the difference. Make it eight p.m. my time, and don’t be late.”
“I won’t disappoint you, sir.”
A few minutes later, my Fiancé in Perpetuity called my son-in-law. “The NBP jet lands at Beatrice muni at five forty-five a.m. tomorrow, John. Make sure Buford gets to the plane on time, and then I want you to baby-sit him on a day trip to Tucson. You should be home by midnight.”
“Consider it done, sir. May I ask what the mission is?”
“I’d rather not say, but I suppose I’m gonna have to deal with your goddamned scruples sooner or later. Have you heard of the three widows who are staying at the Come Again?”
“Everybody has. They’re friends of Mr. Moore’s.”
“Buford came up with an interesting theory about their identities, but he has to go to Arizona to finish his investigation. Do you have a moral conflict with that?”
“Yessir, I do.”
“I figured as much, but we have a deal, John: I called off the research into Vernon’s background; you returned to work. I’m keeping my end; I expect you to keep yours.”
“This mission is not within the spirit of our agreement, sir; not by a country mile.”
“Spirit my ass, John. This is a goddamned business deal. Buford is going to Arizona with you or without you. Here’s a quiz: will you be able to help Saint Vernon more by staying behind and looking for a job, or by going along as a valued employee of the Tucker Trust?”
John replied, “I’ll keep my word, sir.”
Chapter 23
THE PLANET MINUTIA
MR. MOORE AND THE WIDOWS were nowhere to be found when I got home that evening, so I turned down his bed and put a note on the dresser about the sunrise service and the big dinner at the River House. Then I took the back stairs down to the kitchen and got a chicken pot pie out to thaw.
My special cell phone rang the second I opened the freezer door. At least it was Loretta instead of Hail Mary, but she was bouncing off the walls like a maternal Super Ball. We had to sift through every single second of the widows’ visit, from Laverne hiding under her bed, to the discussion of her gift, to “Auntie” Marion’s warning and their whispery farewells.
I had two duties as Loretta’s best friend, which you men might want to record for future reference. First off, I had to listen, which means paying attention and not interrupting. Second, I was obliged to pick one of two roles: either to play the sympathizer, which is always appreciated; or to be the dispassionate analyst, which is riskier. In the end, I chose option three: diversion. “Where was Mr. Moore while all the folderol was going on?”
“He was visiting petitioners, the rat. Casey Jaworski called around noon. Vern stopped at her place for tea.”
“He did? How did that work out?”
“Well, they’re not buying flood insurance, that’s for sure. Rick went out for lottery tickets after Vern left.”
“Lottery tickets? My dear Lord. That can’t be good.”
“Billie Cater called in, too.”
“Oh, dear. What did she say?”
“Vern spent most of the time asking about crop yields and land values.”
“Crop yields? Land values? Why would he care about that?”
“I have no idea, Wilma. Call Billie yourself; call Casey, too.”
“Thanks, but I’m not calling anybody. Then they’ll have my secret number and it’ll be like opening the door to one of those bridal gown sales. Every woman in the county will come rushing through. That reminds me: Clem wants to have a dinner party for Mr. Moore and the widows tomorrow night. You and Calvin are invited. Laverne, too.”
“A dinner party? At the River House? I’ll need to check with Cal. He’s not real comfortable around Vern yet, and the widows’ stock didn’t exactly skyrocket today either.”
“Maybe so, but do you think for a minute that he’ll turn Clement down?”
“Okay, but don’t expect to see Laverne. For the time being, I’d like to keep her as far away from the widows as possible. I don’t want her reading any minds either. Who knows what she might see?”
That’s when I got the first real inkling of what Loretta faced for the next umpty-ump years. A woman’s peace of mind depends upon the privacy of her thoughts. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to raise a child who could read them at any time.
I shuddered and closed the phone, then I looked down at my pot pie and was reminded that a watched pot won’t boil and a watched pot pie won’t thaw. Since I had only my own mouth to feed and there was nothing else I needed to fix for dinner, I decided to check my e-mail for the first time in two days.
Good Lord in heaven! I had an awful lot of e-mail, and there wasn’t a complaint against the widows in the bunch. Mr. Moore, on the other hand, had raised a few hackles here and there. I found a return e-mail from Clara at the very bottom of the screen, and it turned out to be the bombshell of the afternoon, twice over. Besides agreeing to meet with Hail Mary, she asked if she could hitch a ride to Rev. Hooper’s sunrise service with Mr. Moore and me.
As far as I know, recluses don’t receive guests, and they don’t go to church either. That’s why they’re called recluses.
DOTTIE HRNICEK GOT a call from Pokie Melhuse in the wee hours of the morning. As it turns out, Pokie had been burning the midnight oil at the county library with Tulip Orbison, the town librarian. Tulip, by the way, was born during World War II, but not in Ebb and not on this Earth. She was born on the Planet Minutia. The smaller an item is, the easier she can deal with it, especially fine print. She put on glasses in the crib, bifocals in the fifties, and trifocals the day after they were invented. She wears drab, ankle-length dresses with neck-high bodices
to the office, and her hair is usually in a bun and has a pencil or a pen sticking out of it.
Despite her sartorial idiosyncrasies, Tulip was married once, for five months. Her husband was one of the first American soldiers killed in Vietnam. After the war ended, she went over to the county courthouse and changed her name back to Orbison. To this day, she claims to be a second cousin to the late, great Roy, and she has memorized every one of his songs to prove it. If you’re ever at the grocery store and your hear somebody humming “Only the Lonely” a few aisles over, it’s likely Tulip.
Dottie was sound asleep when Pokie’s call came in, so Shelby picked up the phone. About two seconds later, she shook her partner and shouted, “Wake up, Dot!”
“Who the hell is it? The president? Have we been overrun by Communists?”
“Get a grip, girl. It’s Deputy Melhuse. She’s callin’ from the library.”
Dottie grabbed the phone. “It’s the middle of the damned night, Pokie! What in God’s name are you doing over there?”
“Drinking Baileys and talking on the hooter with a librarian in London, England. She’s been real helpful.”
“England? You’ve been on the phone to England? How much is that going to cost?”
“Take a pill, Dot. It was Tulip’s phone. We found some info on Lohengrin’s Children.”
“You did? No shit? What?”
“I’ll put the details in a report, but I thought you’d want the highlights tonight.”
“I’m sitting up in bed, Pokie. I’m cool, calm, and connected. Gimme what you’ve got.”
“Okay, here goes. Every reference we could find was between 1530 and 1649.”
Dottie put the phone on her thigh for a second so she could stick her pinkie in her ear and squiggle it around, then she picked up the phone again. “Would you repeat that?”
“Between 1530 and 1649.”
“You can’t dig up anything more recent, say in 1993?”
“Nope. We’ve been working backwards. Tulip says we’re starting to push the frontiers of documented history. We’re unlikely to find much of anything prior to 1500.”
“That’s a pity, Pokie! I was expecting you to trace Lohengrin’s Children back to the damned Crusades! What did you say you’ve been drinkin’?”
“Baileys Irish Cream, by coincidence.”
“By coincidence? What the hell does that mean?”
“You’re not going to believe it, Dot. You are not going to believe it. Mr. Moore is not like us. He is really, really, really not like us.”
In the background, Dottie could hear Tulip singing “Blue Angel,” another Roy Orbison tune.
Chapter 24
PROTESTANT DRAMA
THERE WAS A TIME in Hayes County when we had separate churches for the Baptists, the Episcopalians, the Methodists, and the Presbyterians, but they closed one by one in the fifties and sixties. The Lutherans still have a house unto themselves, but the rest of us Protestants share a nondenominational church and the reverend rotates every three years or so. During the drought, our congregation was led by an amiable Methodist minister from Minnesota named Sven Hooper. He was a blue-eyed, balding man with thick-rimmed glasses and a poor complexion who had found his calling in seminary school. Next to the Lord, he loved fried chicken, biscuits, and mashed potatoes with gravy, which he enjoyed at the house of a different divorcée almost every Sunday.
The church sits on a promontory overlooking Highway 4 and is otherwise bordered by corn and alfalfa fields, except during the drought, when it was surrounded by hardscrabble. It has white clapboard siding, a green composition roof that was recently patched, and a steeple with a bell that never rings. The rope just fell out of the belfry one day and nobody bothered to get a new one. Just about everything else is worn off or worn down, too. The pews were stained a dark color once, but they have bright shiny spots on them now where the worshippers put their buns. The carpets are frayed at the edges, the walls could use a fresh coat of paint, and the hymnals have seen better days, but none of that matters to my way of thinking because it all works well enough to praise the Lord. As I recall, He isn’t much for conspicuous consumption anyway.
The sun had begun to peek over the horizon when Mr. Moore pulled his blue Mustang into the parking lot with Clara and yours truly on board. It had been a long time since I had seen that many automobiles and pickup trucks at church, not to mention boxcar-sized motor homes, and it turned out to be a fair indication of the number of parishioners who had come to the service. After the usher, a curly-haired bean farmer named Willard Bouwen, had recovered from the shock of seeing Clara Tucker and Mr. Moore at the door, he escorted us to a pew three rows from the rear. From our vantage point, I could see the Widow Marion sitting next to Calvin, Loretta, and Laverne, the Widow Birdie beside Marta and Connie Kimball, and the Widow Eloise between Marie Delacroix and Pearline O’Connor. Hail Mary and Dottie were in the front row hobnobbing with the county supervisor, and red umbrellas were as numerous as pocketbooks. I guess Bebe’s plan had worked after all, after a fashion.
We hadn’t been seated for ten seconds before the folks in the pew in front of ours began to turn in our direction, then whisper in the ear of a person close to them. The whispering began to spread forward from pew to pew, like a wave. Lulu Tiller, the town veterinarian and a former Queen Bee, was sitting six or seven rows up on our side of the center aisle. When she heard the news, she stood up and turned to face us. As warmly as you can imagine, she said, “Welcome back, Clara, and you too, Mr. Moore.” Then she began to applaud, and another Circle girl got up, and her husband did, too. The next thing you knew, the entire congregation had come to their feet and they were clapping their hands for my two unusual lodgers: the one who couldn’t leave, and the one who couldn’t stay. It brought a tear to my eye, I have to say.
By the time Jenny McCallum played “Rock of Ages,” the pews were packed cheek-to-jowl, little children were sitting on their mothers’ laps, and young men were slouching against the wall the way they always do. As the last bar echoed across the multitude, Pastor Hooper appeared before the altar in his finest purple raiment. He held his arms up to the sky and said, “Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. Let us sing to the Lord.”
The first hymn was “A Brighter Dawn Is Breaking,” which gave me the impression that Pastor Hooper was aware of the time of day. After we had finished singing, he walked up and down the aisle welcoming parishioners by name, including Clara, which gave me the impression that he was up to date on the Tucker situation, too. Then he returned to the pulpit and addressed the congregation.
“This is day one hundred and twenty-one of the worst drought in three generations,” he declared as he opened his Bible. “We will not keep our light under a bushel; we have gathered together to pray for rain. Let’s begin with a scripture from the Epistle of James, chapter five, verse seven: ‘Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandmen waiteth for the fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive early and latter rain.’”
As the pastor closed his Bible, the strangest thing happened: Pearline O’Connor stood up, all by herself, with no warning whatsoever. Like a child in fifth grade, she raised her hand timidly and said, “Can I testify, father?”
“You’d like to testify?” the pastor asked from the pulpit. “It’s been years since anyone testified in my church. Of course you may.”
“The Scripture says we should be patient for the coming of the Lord. Isn’t that what you just said?”
“Yes, child, I did.”
“But what if a man says we don’t have to wait? What if a man says he can make it rain? Isn’t that a blasphemy?”
Everyone in the congregation leaned forward at once, as if the floor had been titled toward the altar, except for Mr. Moore. He sat back with a finger to his lips, as if he was contemplating the question himself.
“Do you believe that only God can make it rain, child?” the pastor asked.
<
br /> “Yes, I do.”
“Have you read your Numbers? Do you recall it?”
“Uh, not all of it.”
He paged to the front of his Bible. “I’m speaking of chapter twenty, when the children of Israel were lost in the desert. A few of them went to Moses on a particularly bad day and said, ‘Why have ye brought the congregation of the Lord into this wilderness, that we and our cattle should die?’ Does that sound familiar?”
Somewhere in the pews, a man remarked, “It sounds real familiar, Reverend.”
“It does, doesn’t it? But Moses was a conscientious leader, so he called up God. Allow me to read from verses seven and eight: ‘And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou, and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock, before their eyes; and it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock; so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink.’”
Pastor Hooper looked up and winked at Pearline. “Here’s the clincher: ‘And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice; and the water came out abundantly. And the congregation drank, and their beasts also.’
“So, who made the water pour from rock, child? Was it God, or was it Moses acting on His behalf?” When Pearl didn’t reply, he continued, “The Almighty says to judge not. But, if you absolutely must, then at least give the man a fair chance to smite the rock, with God’s blessing, of course. Shall we all pray for rain?”
Before the pastor could put in a word to the Lord on our behalf, Dinky Cater jumped up from his pew, holding a beet-red BlackBerry high in his left hand. “Praise God,” he shouted. “It’s raining in Minot! The weather service has raised the odds of rain to fifty percent for southeast Nebraska, come Saturday!”
For the second time that morning, the congregation stood and applauded. Mothers cried, men shook hands, little children jumped up and down, and everybody within arm’s reach touched Mr. Moore on his sleeve or his back. That was the happiest, most grateful bunch of people I have ever seen in the House of the Lord.
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