Light of Logan

by Regina Smeltzer

  Ruth stared at Betsy. “Chip’s adopted?”

  “We can’t have children, and God provided Chip. I forget he’s not my own flesh and blood.”

  “You pray for his birth mother?”

  “I do. Can you imagine the courage it took to give such a precious gift? I pray that God will bless her and send her good things.”

  “Does Nate know Chip is adopted?” Nate seemed attached to Chip, as though the boy were from honest genes, and not created by lust and sin. But then, not all adopted children were conceived by deceit and lies as her daughter had been.

  “Of course he does. Chet and Nate have been friends forever. Nate was the best man at our wedding.” Betsy laughed. “Nate adores Chip. I guess he sees Chip as the blessing he is. God makes good happen from bad.”

  “Would you ever want to meet the birth mother?” Ruth held her breath. Was there a chance that someday she would be able to see her daughter?

  “I don’t know.” Betsy furrowed her brow. “I guess I haven’t given it much thought. I suppose eventually Chip might want to meet his biological mother. I hope, when the time comes, I’ll be gracious enough to accept that. But right now, I want him all to myself.”

  “What about the birth father?”

  Betsy looked at Ruth. Finally, she reached across the table and gripped Ruth’s hand. “Something you want to tell me?”

  “No, I was curious…I just…” Betsy’s expression was like an open door to soul-sharing. Tears welled in Ruth’s eyes. She had never told anyone. “I had a daughter and gave her up for adoption.”

  Betsy slid closer to Ruth and wrapped an arm around her. “That must have been awful for you. And here I am blabbering away. I’m so sorry.”

  “If Nate finds out…”

  “Nate is so in love with you.”

  Ruth stiffened. Betsy was wrong. “Nate is in love with who he thinks I am: the perfect virtuous woman. He loves his church and everything in his life has to meet that standard. I don’t.” Given time, even without her history, Nate would discover her imperfections and move on. Even so, Ruth’s heart rate picked up when Betsy said Nate loved her. What had Nate told them about her?

  Feet thumped down the stairs. “Chip’s ready for a good-night kiss from Mommy.” Chet looked at the women. “Leave you two alone, and you look like you killed the dragon.”

  Betsy squeezed Ruth’s shoulder. “Maybe we did. I’ll be right back.”

  Ruth stood. “I need to go.”

  “It’s dark. Let me get Chip settled and I’ll drive you home.”

  “I can walk. It’s not very far.”

  “Chet, make sure she doesn’t leave before I get back downstairs.”

  “Aye, aye, matey.” He turned to Ruth. “Want some water?”

  “No, thanks.” She stood. “Tell Betsy—”

  “Oh, no, you don’t!” Chet held up his hands. “You heard her. If you aren’t here when she comes down those stairs, I’m in the doghouse, and we don’t have one. It’ll be me at the mercy of those mosquitoes out there.” Chet headed to the kitchen.

  Ruth sat back down at the dining room table. Her confession would pass from Betsy to Chet and then what? Would Chet tell Nate? Chet and Nate were best friends, after all. No way to undo what was done. But now she knew that her daughter would be better off if she kept her distance. She could only hope that Joe’s threat of interfering was nothing but hot air steaming out of an angry head.

  Betsy’s footsteps were so light on the stairs that Ruth barely heard them. Betsy kissed Chet on the cheek before she turned to Ruth. “Ready?”

  Their two houses were only six blocks apart, but the well-tended neighborhood gradually transformed into an area of silent neglect.

  “Betsy, I hope you won’t tell Nate.”

  “He needs to know, but I won’t tell him.”

  Ruth stared ahead. “I’ll tell him.” And then their relationship would be over.

  “Don’t sell Nate short. He has high moral standards, but he is capable of great empathy.”

  Ruth wasn’t sure this empathy would extend to her, but she kept silent.

  “Nate has taken a beating lately with the closing of his church.” Betsy looked both ways before turning left at the stop sign. “His church is his life, and now he feels like a man set adrift without a purpose.”

  "Is it so wrong to tax the churches?” Perhaps it was the darkness that made the question easier to ask. “People in Logan just want equality. Businesses are taxed, and families are taxed. Why not churches?”

  “Churches are nonprofit. All the money collected goes back into the church’s ministry. I suppose someone smarter than I figured out it was the right thing to do.”

  Ruth glanced at Betsy, unsure if she should share the minutia of information stored in her head. Maybe if Betsy understood the truth… “The tradition of exempting churches from tax isn’t something new. It began centuries ago. Times have changed but our practices haven’t.”

  “Centuries ago? I thought it was a more current law.”

  “Since Constantine, the emperor of Rome, became a Christian back in 300 AD or something.”

  Betsy chuckled. “You are a veritable encyclopedia of information.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. You learn all of that, while I learn nursery rhymes and the best way to potty train.”

  “You sell toothpaste and ant spray, too!” Ruth said, attempting to lighten the mood.

  “True. And razors to handsome men.” Betsy glanced across the seat to Ruth.

  Not Nate again… “According to some Washington analyst, the government is losing between $300 and $500 billion dollars a year by not taxing property that belongs to churches.”

  “Ruth, you really don’t want to tax churches, do you?”

  “I don’t see churches making that much difference in the world.”

  A choking laugh spit from Betsy’s mouth. “You can’t be serious?”

  “I think I am.” When had she become so confrontational?

  Another stop sign and a left turn. “Since the churches have closed, looting is rampant, vandalism is a hobby, and I saw in the paper that contributions to United Way are seriously down for the year.”

  “What does crime and donations have to do with the church?”

  “The church has been stripped of it’s ministry to spread the Word. People look at the locks on the doors and equate that with putting limits on God.” In the light from the dashboard, Betsy’s eyes seemed to glow with energy. “God isn’t in the building. The building is just where we go when we want to worship together. Remember how crowded it was last Sunday at the Sparks?”

  Ruth did remember. Her mind clouded as she thought of the bloodbath that followed. All over taxes.

  The car’s headlights cut a cone of color in the darkness. They had left the streetlights behind, as well as the relative safety of the middle-class neighborhood. A couple of dark-clothed figures stood on the side of the road. Betsy pushed the door locks. The metallic click gave reassurance against the unknown, even though the figures were well behind them now.

  “I read that Oklahoma gave a tax-exempt status to a satanic church,” Ruth mumbled.

  A dark basketball-sized mass smashed against the windshield.

  Betsy jerked the steering wheel to the left.

  Ruth threw her hand against the side of the car. Her head jerked forward. The beams from the headlights threw patterns across the moving landscape until Ruth wasn’t sure what was solid and what was nothing more than air. Her teeth rattled.

  The car’s tires scraped against the left curb. With another twist of the wheel, they were flying across the road, over the right curb, and into a bush.

  Betsy’s hands remained fixed to the wheel. “What in the world?” With huge eyes, she looked at Ruth.

  Ruth’s heart pounded. “I think it was a bat.” Her hand fell to her side. She shook all over.

  “That was no bat. It was a crow!”

  “At nig
ht?”

  “Look,” Betsy whispered.

  The car’s headlights illuminated the yard, and from the windshield, Ruth saw half a dozen crows lined up on the grass, like a group of warriors ready to attack. “What are they doing?” Chills ran up Ruth’s spine. “Their echo-location must be really messed up.”

  “Crows don’t have echo-location.”

  Ruth stared at the crows. Her brain reeled. There was something she was missing, but she couldn’t think beyond the crows and their beady black eyes.

  “Look where we are.” Betsy’s words were little more than a breath.

  So intent on convincing Betsy of the error in her thinking, Ruth hadn’t kept track of their progress. That and the darkness…

  “Maybe I should call Chet.” Betsy continued to stare out the window.

  The car was in Ruth’s own yard.

  As one, the crows lifted into flight and were gone. Ruth swallowed. A couple moths flitted in the beam from the headlights. One hit against the window. The sound brought to mind the banging on her house. And the footsteps that followed her home from the library. She was a woman living alone, without a phone or car, in the least desirable section of town. Why, oh why, did she keep forgetting to buy that mace? And now, crows out after dark, lined up like warriors when they should be asleep in a tree somewhere.

  Ruth fumbled for the door handle. “I’ll be fine.”

  As she got out of the car, a shadow skittered between her house and the neighbor on the left. As quickly as she spotted the shadow, the darkness absorbed it. Ruth hesitated, afraid for the first time to enter her own home.

  ~*~

  Ruth locked the front door. With no light, inside or out, the living room lay in darkness. She knew the space by heart, every inch familiar. Tonight, the comfy home felt off in a way she couldn’t define.

  A scraping sound came from the left side of the house. Ruth sprinted to the lamp beside the couch and fumbled for the switch. The 60-watt bulb blazed to life and a muffled cry escaped her lips. A figure with wild eyes stared at her from outside the window. In the instant it took to realize the reflection was hers, she had jerked the thin curtains across the glass.

  The scraping came again, this time louder. Her mind screamed, telling her to hide. The sound of her labored breaths pounded against her ears.

  A different noise this time, harsher. Ruth clutched her throat, remembering the nights of window tapping. Her fear went to overdrive. Hands gripped the sides of her head. The knock repeated. “Hello. Is anyone home? This is the police.”

  Ruth listened. Feet shuffled outside her door. Mumbled voices. Pulling aside the curtain just enough to peer out, she saw two uniformed men. With her hands shaking, she struggled to unlatch the lock and open the door.

  What did the police want at her house? They should be next door busting a drug party or headed up the street where pimps kept their women. Ruth leaned against the wooden frame, struggling to keep from becoming part of the spinning floor.

  “Miss Ruth Cleveland?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Officer Gandy and this is Officer Hoover.

  Officer Gandy stood over six feet tall and carried an extra fifty pounds around his belt. Officer Hoover, still bearing the acne of youth, kept his gaze focused on the yard. Their cruiser was parked along the curb where she and Betsy had crashed just minutes ago.

  “Have you had any trouble here tonight?” Officer Gandy asked.

  “I just got in. I’ve been at a friend’s house.” She thought of the shadow that had flitted across the side of the house.

  “Mind if we look around outside?”

  Internal alarms sounded. “Just outside, right?” No way would she let them inside, even if they were police.

  The younger officer walked to the right, shining a flashlight into the bushes that reached toward the windows.

  The light filtering through her thin curtains and the open door, combined with the officer’s flashlight, lit the yard as far as the street. No feathered figures dotted the grass. Ruth squinted at the tree. Small branches crossed bigger ones; massive limbs blended with the trunk. Leaves hung limp in the still air, layering a lacy black pattern on the ones beneath. Everywhere: potential hiding places for crows waiting for the new day.

  “Don’t mean to scare you, ma’am, but we received a tip that some church members are targeted for a bit of vandalism tonight. You were on the list.”

  Ruth’s eyes widened. “Me? I don’t belong to any church.” Everyone knew she wasn’t a church member. The urge to laugh pressed hard on her already jangled nerves. She squeezed her lips tight. Only with effort did she keep from releasing hysterical laughter.

  “You were in attendance both Sundays at the homes that were damaged.”

  Her brows puckered. “So?”

  “Each Sunday, only one of the church houses has been attacked, and you were at both houses. In someone’s mind, that makes you a member.”

  Officer Gandy rubbed his chin. “Do you live here alone?”

  Should she answer?

  Shouting voices, male and angry, drifted from down the street. Car tires squealed. The officer glanced that direction and then back to Ruth. “Anywhere you can stay tonight?”

  A hard lump settled in her stomach. The officer was serious. “Not really.”

  A narrow beam of light appeared at the left side of the yard as the Officer Hoover rounded the corner. “Nothing,” the officer said and walked toward the parked cruiser.

  “Just stay inside and keep your doors locked. We’ll be making rounds all night, but if you need help, give us a call.” Officer Gandy touched the brim of his hat.

  She locked the door, regretting not mentioning the fact that she didn’t have a phone. If trouble came, well, it would just have to come. Disregarding the spinning electric use-meter outside, Ruth turned on every light. The sound of protesting wood reassured her as she pressed a kitchen chair under the front and back door knobs.

  She sat in the middle of her bed, pulled out the chain that hung around her neck and clutched the ring attached to it. The ring was the closest thing to a talisman that she owned, and right now, she needed all the comfort she could muster. Thoughts of the day she received the ring filtered through her aching mind.

  Something scraped on the side of the house. She jumped but recognized the sound as the branches from the overgrown shrubs rubbing the house. The wind must be picking up. Wrapped in the quilt, she tried to press her body into invisibility against the mattress.

  And she waited for the enemy or dawn, whichever came first.

  20

  Friday, June 28

  As Nate approached Ruth’s stoop, he grinned, anticipating her surprise at his early morning visit. He thumped his knuckles against the wood, and the door seemed to absorb the knock. Must have rot inside it. He could probably bust through the thing with his hands. Maybe the landlord would spring for a new door.

  The lock clicked and the door opened. Ruth, wet hair dangling around her shoulders, stood in front of him. “Nate, what are you doing here?”

  “I came to walk you to work.”

  Ruth shielded her eyes against the sun. “Why?” She gave him a wary look.

  “I don’t get to see you enough. You don’t have a phone or a computer. The only way I can be with you is if I show up. So here I am.”

  She looked him over, as though deciding on the credibility of his answer. She seemed wary of him, but he wasn’t sure why. The tension in her face eased.

  “Let me finish getting ready.”

  Five minutes later, they walked toward town.

  “I have something I wanted to tell you.” Nate grabbed her hand, and his heart warmed as he felt her fingers mold against his. With the sun at their backs, their bodies cast long shadows on the sidewalk, the silhouettes molding into one. Ruth remained strangely silent. A crow flittered from a tree, blinking in the morning sun.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “A little sleep deprived, th
at’s all.”

  He searched her face and tightened his fingers around her hand. Something had upset her. Her mouth resembled a line of hard marble. The last time they had been together was Sunday. Had Miss Hannah’s death affected her more than he thought? Ruth didn’t know the woman, but then, females tended to be more sensitive than guys. Or had he done something wrong? “Anything I can do to help?”

  Her laugh lacked humor, and he glanced at her, his concern growing.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to do that. Black humor: that’s what my mom calls it when I laugh at things that weren’t funny.”

  He struggled to understand. “You know I’m here for you, don’t you? If you ever need anything…”

  His heart ached as she glanced at him. Her hair with its flecks of shimmering red swung across her back as she walked. And those light brown eyes melted his heart. Without a doubt, he was in love. His heart gave a double-beat. She wasn’t a Christian yet, but she had a good heart, and given time…

  “So what did you want to tell me?”

  He tucked her hand under his arm and her body brushed against his. Joyous agony. “Remember I told you about wanting my own business?”

  “Yes.”

  “My boss is retiring and wants to sell his company to me. It will take a lot of money, but I’ve been saving for a while, and the bank is willing to give me a business loan.” Slowing his steps, he looked down at her. His voice turned husky. “My life is finally coming together. I only have one more thing to put in place.”

  They turned the corner toward the courthouse. He followed Ruth’s gaze across the street to the deserted church. Tufts of crabgrass sprouted in the yard. Black spray-painted windows mocked. A crow flew across the sidewalk. He had seen it before—the one with the scar. Ruth stumbled, and he tightened his hold on her arm.

  “Well, well. Look here.” Joe stood on the courthouse stairs and leaned against the railing as though the world was at his command.

  Ruth’s arm tightened under Nate’s forearm.

  “Hey, Joe.” His cousin meant trouble. “What are you doing out so early?” He glanced across the street.