The Best Christian Short Stories

by Brett Lott

  The master took the cut across Killakeet that led to the lighthouse, meeting along the way Queenie O'Neal, the proprietress of the Hammerhead Hotel in the little settlement known as Whalebone City. He sadly apprised Queenie of the contents of the telegram, which, he knew, was tantamount to telling everyone on the island. By the time the master knocked on Keeper Jack's door and handed the telegram over, a mob was already charging down the beach toward the keeper's house.

  With a cat curling around his legs, Keeper Jack stood on his pizer beneath the shadow of the great lighthouse and read the telegram with practically the whole of the island's population gathered in his yard. To discover that Josh had been killed on some Godless Pacific island or drowned in a patch of tropical sea was more than most folks thought the old man could stand. But stand he did, straight and proud. He read the telegram again, this time aloud so all could hear, then invited the folks in for coffee and sweet potato biscuits, and many took him up on it. After a biscuit well slathered with fresh butter from the keeper's cow, Queenie pierced the parlor with a great sigh, stopping all conversation. "Who's going to break this to Dosie?" was all she wanted to know.

  "It's my place to do it," Keeper Jack answered quietly, and no one saw fit to argue with him.

  "Poor Dosie," the master lamented, tears dribbling into his whiskers, and no one argued with him, either.

  Later it was, some two hours later after his last guest had gone, that the keeper rode old Thunder down the beach to Dosie's cottage, finding her in her riding clothes leaning against a pizer post, a mug of fresh-brewed coffee in her hand, her big blue eyes placidly studying the white-crested sea. Wind chimes tinkled in the gentle breeze. A calico cat slept on the banister, its tail covering its eyes. As if occupied by ghosts, the rockers on the pizer moved in the gentle breeze. Dosie smiled at the sight of the keeper who looked so much like Josh, but when he climbed off Thunder, the expression on his face caused her smile to vanish.

  "Is he dead?" she asked, straight away.

  "Gone missing and thought dead," Keeper Jack answered, his hand on her gate.

  "Did they say where?"

  "The South Pacific is all they wrote."

  Dosie gave that some thought. "Lots of islands out there," she concluded. "And Josh is an island boy."

  The keeper took off his service cap and turned it in his hands. "Dosie, honey, men don't go missing in those waters and turn up too often."

  "Our Josh isn't just any man, Keeper," Dosie replied, though the last words came out a bit choked. A tear trickled down her cheek. Defiantly, she wiped it away with the rim of her mug, then drank her coffee down in a single gulp. She nodded to the keeper and went inside, closing the door gently but firmly behind her.

  Keeper Jack, knowing the kind of woman Dosie was, that consoling hugs and platitudes weren't her style, turned around and wearily climbed back on Thunder.

  Just then, he saw Herman Guthrie, Dosie's "fetch and carry boy," walking barefoot along the sand dunes with a string of fish over his shoulder. He waited until Herman came alongside and told him what had happened. "You need to watch out extra special for your Missus," the keeper added. "At least for a little while."

  "Oh, sir, I'm sorry to hear about Captain Josh, but don't you worry about my Missus," Herman replied, though he was trembling and tears curved through his freckles. Embarrassed, he used his white sailor's cap to wipe his nose. "I'll cook her up a pan of these sea trout for supper and fix some sassafras tea before bedtime so's she can sleep."

  "You're a blessing to her, Herman," the keeper answered, then rode back to the lighthouse. The sun was sinking fast behind the land and it was nearly past time for him to light the light, to warn the ships at sea of the deadly shoals of the Outer Banks. Keeping the ships safe was what the Thurlows had always done. "But, Lord, who keeps the Thurlows safe?" Keeper Jack asked aloud as he climbed the two hundred and sixty-six steps of the black iron staircase that spiraled like a Nautilus's chamber within the inner wall of the high tower. He stopped on the third landing to read the brass plaque his father had placed there, inscribed as it was with the words from the old hymn, "Let the Lower Lights Be Burning:"

  Brightly beams our Father's mercy

  From his lighthouse evermore;

  But to us He gives the keeping

  Of the lights along the shore.

  "Amen," Keeper Jack said and felt strengthened. Near the top of the lighthouse, the stairs led to the watch room and the keeper went inside and poured kerosene into the holding tank, then pumped it tight with air. A dozen more steps higher took him to the lantern room where the great lens sat like a massive glass beehive. He lit the kerosene-soaked mantle, then released a clockwork mechanism. Ponderously, the heavy glass structure began to turn on chariot wheels along a circular track, sending shafts of light flashing across the sea like spokes on a fiery wheel. Ships passing by would be safe as long as they heeded the warning, and as long as the keeper kept the light no matter what else might be happening in his life, including the death of a son.

  Keeper Jack walked out on the parapet and looked down the beach toward Dosie's cottage. There was a lamp in the window, a single lamp, and that was all. "Poor Dosie," he said into the wind, which impishly snatched his words away, flinging them into the night across the pounding sea.

  A day passed, then another and another. No more telegrams arrived. The government had stated the situation and what else, after all, was there to be said? Josh Thurlow was missing, thought to be dead, and there was a war to be fought and that was an end to it.

  Dosie was a member of the auxiliary Coast Guard Beach Patrol, which meant she and Genie routinely rode up and down the beach, looking for German U-boats and saboteurs. Often alongside was Bosun Rex Stewart and his horse, Jubal Early.

  One day, a pleasant sunlit day, nothing had been seen during the entire patrol except the grumbling ocean and an occasional seagull. At the beginning of the war, the Germans had been busy along the Outer Banks, but lately, all had been quiet. Rex was nearly asleep in the saddle when Dosie abruptly announced, "I can't go on."

  Startled, Rex jerked erect. "You're turning around? But we got another mile to go."

  Dosie replied with a sigh. "Oh Rex, it isn't the patrol I'm talking about. It's me. I can't go on like this."

  "Like what?" Rex asked, completely mystified.

  "This. Living, you might say," Dosie answered, and her tone was miserable. "I came to this island to find myself and start a new life, and I guess I did. But now with Josh gone . . ." She shook her head, unable to finish the thought.

  "So what are you going to do?" Rex fretted.

  "I don't know. I just know I can't go on like this much longer." And then she would say no more.

  Rex worried over her words for a night, then carried the gist of the conversation to Queenie O'Neal, whom he found in her kitchen, cooking breakfast for the fishermen down from Hatteras and Ocracoke and up from Beaufort who had arrived to take advantage of the recent run of menhaden off Killakeet's shores.

  After Rex told her what Dosie had said, Queenie threw her hands to her mouth, then spoke between her fingers. "That don't sound good, Rex, not good at all." Then she lowered her hands and wiped them nervously on her apron while frowning in thought.

  "What are we going to do?" Rex asked.

  Queenie reached a conclusion. "I'll talk to the women," she said.

  Rex looked relieved, and was. In fact, as far as he was concerned, the matter was resolved. A few hours later, Queenie gathered the women in her parlor and, over yaupon tea and corn bread, they all put their heads together. Most favored sending someone, such as a fisherman's widow of which there were more than a few, to give Dosie a good talking-to, but then Herman showed up with more disturbing news. "That's what came out of her mouth, all you ma'ams," Herman said, finishing up. "She said she was going to get her affairs in order. And she asked me if I would like Genie for my very own, that is if I thought I could care for her."

  Queenie and the ladies o
f Killakeet were shocked at this development. "I believe I'd best have a word with the preacher," Queenie announced, and all agreed it was for the best.

  Preacher Hemphill was a tall, spindly young man with bad knees and a humped back, a little nervous with his hands, and from way out west somewhere, maybe Alabama. He stood bowed over in the sand outside his church while Mrs. O'Neal related Dosie's situation. Preacher Hemphill searched his mind for a suitable piece of scripture but failed to find one. Stumped, he asked, "Has anyone ever killed hisself on Killakeet, Mrs. O'Neal?"

  "Not so we'd know, Preacher," Queenie answered after some thought. "There's so many good ways to get yourself killed here, what with the weather and the sea and leaky boats and all, people just kind of let it happen when it happens. But Dosie's a bit different. She ain't a Killakeeter by birth, you know, and she's only lived here full-time for a couple of years. There's still a bit of the landsman in her, and you know the strange ideas folks from over there tend to get, no disrespect meant in your direction, of course."

  "Well, I could go talk to her, and get her to pray with me some and such," Preacher Hemphill suggested. "But I'm not sure what I'd say except suicide is a sin."

  "She surely knows it's a sin, Preacher," Queenie replied, as tartly as she dared to a man of God. "Only maybe she's come to a point where she don't care. Romance is a powerful thing and it can cloud judgment."

  Preacher Hemphill nodded gravely. "Then you should pray, Mrs. O'Neal, pray for poor Dosie and pray for guidance. That's all that can be done."

  Taking the preacher's advice, Queenie walked to the dunes just east of the Coast Guard station. It was a lonely spot, with nothing there but sand and the sea and the everlasting breeze. Queenie bowed her head and said a few words, then sensed someone had joined her. When she opened her eyes, she saw standing in the sea oats a pelican. Queenie recognized him at once. It was the ancient and legendary pelican everybody called Purdy. Queenie's grandfather had told tales about Purdy, and so had his father and his father's father. For as long as anyone could remember, Purdy had showed up on the island when and where he wanted to, seemed to impart some silent wisdom, then disappeared. It was easy to imagine why some people said God sent messages through him.

  "So, Purdy," Queenie said, pondering the snowy white bird who regarded her with quizzical eyes, "what do you think about poor Dosie?"

  Purdy turned away, then hunkered down on the soft sand, made pink by the sun struggling through the clouds, and Queenie thought surely he'd gone to sleep until he suddenly shook his feathers and raised his wings. Then he looked at her and closed one eye, giving Queenie the wink, and that was when she knew what had to be done. "Thank you, old thing," she said but it was to empty air since Purdy had vanished as quickly and quietly as he had come. "I wish you'd stop doing that," Queenie muttered, then went on to do what needed to be done.

  When Queenie got home, she woke up her husband who was taking a snooze on the parlor couch. "Pump, we're going to throw Dosie a party!" she yelled into his thin and unconscious face. Pump was so startled by the news he tripped over his boat-sized feet getting up and sprawled headfirst into a bronze umbrella stand. Queenie took no note of her husband's subsequent moaning. She was already off to give the women the glorious news.

  For the next few days, Dosie's party was the prime topic of conversation and activity on Killakeet. It was going to be the grandest party the island had ever known and it was for the best cause ever, to keep poor Dosie from doing herself in. But then the ferry master came to consult with Queenie. He had carried Dosie into Morehead City, he related, and then followed her to a lawyer's office. Taped to the lawyer's window, written on cardboard, was his specialty: Last Wills and Testaments cheerfully drawn. After that, a number of ominous events occurred. The weather turned gray and stormy, not particularly unusual, but there it was. A dolphin stranded itself near the lighthouse. A gull on the church steeple started to moan, then flung itself into the bell and died. Then the menhaden disappeared, just vanished as if a giant hand had scooped them all up. Although the dolphin was pushed back into the sea with no injury done, everybody agreed these omens meant time was running out for Dosie.

  The party was held on a Thursday eve and to celebrate it, the weather cleared and no more gulls moaned and died on the church steeple, and the dolphins stayed out in the ocean where they belonged. The menhaden, however, remained truculently absent so there was some trepidation that all was not resolved. As the sun set and the light began to flash at the tip of the lighthouse, the people gathered in front of Dosie's Delight and began to sing the old hymn Killakeeters had sung for ages:

  Abide with me! Fast falls the eventide;

  The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.

  When other helpers fail and comforts flee,

  Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!

  Dosie, dressed in a pale blue frock, an embroidered shawl, and white pumps—her Sunday clothes—came out on her pizer, listened to the singing with her head tilted and her eyes closed, then invited them in, everyone. Of course, Killakeet being a very small island, she had divined for days that a party was being planned in her honor, although she didn't know its purpose. In any case, she was prepared with a huge load of food on her table and after the other ladies added their own, it was groaning beneath the weight.

  The preacher said the grace and everybody took up plates and began to eat. After the roast merganser, fried mullet, clams, and oysters with sides of biscuits and corn bread and messes of greens and navy beans had been eaten, there was celebratory fiddle-playing and rigorous dancing. Dosie happily swung arms with old Doc Folsom, the island's physician. She waltzed with Keeper Jack, sharing a silence.

  She did the Charleston with Pump O'Neal and clog-danced with Rex Stewart. Then, finally, after exhaustion had set well in, it was time for the speeches and the prayers and the praises to God, all made with heartfelt sincerity, all to tell Dosie how much she was beloved and not to be sad and all she should do was take her lumps as best she could like everybody else.

  Dosie seemed attentive and everybody was certain they had accomplished their mission. A few wandered off home but most settled down where they were, in the parlor or in the rockers on the pizer or out on the sand to take themselves a contented nap.

  It was morning when the people of Killakeet first got an inkling that their work was for naught. Dosie had made up her mind and nothing, including any number of speeches, prayers, and praises, was going to change her course. Herman woke and saw his missus come out of the kitchen and start up the stairs. For a reason he couldn't discern, he felt anxious. "Where are you going, Missus?" he asked, politely.

  "Upstairs, Herman," she said, which was fairly obvious.

  "What for?" Herman demanded because he didn't like the look in her eye.

  "Among my other intentions, I am going to get my pistol," she answered and went on.

  Herman found Queenie O'Neal sitting on the beach with her arm around Pump, who had his head on her shoulder, both admiring the ocean, remarkable in itself since they'd lived alongside that very same ocean for more than fifty years. Beside them sat the ferry master who'd recently showed up, wondering where everybody was. "Missus O'Neal!" Herman cried. "Dosie's gone upstairs to get her pistol and I reckon to put on her funerary clothes too!"

  Queenie yelled and jumped to her feet, leaving Pump to fall over. She charged into the parlor and let loose with a screech that got everybody awake. "Dosie's gone upstairs and she's got a gun!"

  There was a surge to the stairs, stopped by Dosie herself, who appeared at the top of it. She was wearing khaki breeches and riding boots and a blue denim shirt and her brown leather jacket. A canvas knapsack was slung over her shoulder. She was also carrying a big pistol, her father's somebody would later say. She stopped and looked at the crowd, then tucked the pistol in her belt.

  "I hoped to go quietly," she said, "but I should have known I couldn't get away with anything on this island."

  "Don't do it, Missus
!" Herman cried out. "I'd miss you something fierce if you did!"

  Dosie gave him an affectionate smile that made Herman's heart thump in his chest so hard he thought it would leap out. "And I'll miss you, too, Herman, but this is something I just have to do."

  "No, Dosie," Preacher Hemphill intoned. "You mustn't. I looked it up in scriptures. You are not your own. You are bought with a price. It means you got to stay alive, don't matter how much you hurt."

  "Pretty words, Preacher," Dosie answered, after a moment's frowning, "but they don't much apply to me."

  "Well, they do, honey," Keeper Jack said, "if you're going to fly off to heaven because of Josh." He just couldn't say the word suicide.

  "Is that what you all think I'm going to do?" She laughed, and shook her head. "I don't plan on going to heaven any time soon."

  "Then what are you going to do, dear?" Queenie asked.

  Dosie came down the rest of the stairs and went out on her pizer, the throng following. "I'm going to find Josh and bring him home," she said, simply and emphatically.

  There was a stunned silence for a long second. Finally, Keeper Jack said, "But Dosie, dear, he's on the other side of the world."

  "That's why he needs finding, Keeper," Dosie replied. "Now, everybody on Killakeet has things they have to do. Keeper, you have to light the light, and Pump, you have to run the Hammerhead Hotel, and Queenie, you have to keep everybody apprised of what's happening on the island. Doc, you got to sew folks up, and Rex, you got to patrol, and Preacher Hemphill, you got to preach. All the rest of you have to catch your fish and raise your children. But me? All I've got to do is make my beach glass and shells and shark's teeth into art and I've got the rest of my life to get that done. Right now, I'm going to take the time to find my man. Herman, saddle Genie for me. I'd like a last ride. Ferry Master, I'd appreciate a ride across Pamlico Sound. That's the first part of my journey."