Pete turned around to find Nelle staring at him, hands on hips, lips tensed in a frown.
“I’m sorry, Nelle.”
“You better watch out for her, Pete. She’s up to no good. I can taste it.”
“Stop that, Nelle. She got lucky and had a good horse, that’s all. Mingo gave a good run. You know it.”
“Tammy doesn’t like to lose, Pete. That’s what I know. Firsthand.”
A gloom settled over the local folks and marked the end of the Fourth Annual Jubilee on a disquieting note with Miss Ruby’s filly, Lizzie, the favored to win, falling sick – suspiciously – along with the newcomer’s sweet mare Nutmeg. Buck Riley made it clear that his family would never return to the rigged race, an accusation that stung the reverend and volunteers. Pete’s horse Mingo, narrowly defeated by Tall Oaks interlopers, both horse and rider, left him feeling responsible for the whole calamity. The usual sense of fun, pleasure, and satisfaction at the conclusion of the jubilee festivities had changed. People just wanted to leave.
Families strolled slowly to their cars and trucks while volunteers quietly packed up leftover goods and dismantled tables and displays. Sweating horses drank gallons of cool water from troughs that Pete had placed in the shade, while their handlers silently removed saddles and gathered up gear. Horse trailers stood ready to transport equine passengers back to home fields and familiar pastures.
The Cajun music ended on a slow, lonely melody lamenting lost love. Even the small band of musicians appeared subdued as they put away their instruments. The high white clouds had thickened and darkened casting a gray pall over the field and church grounds. The day was over. For weary parents, tired children, and exhausted horses, the time had come to go home.
Not quite yet for Pete, however. He needed to see Miss Ruby before she left and headed back to the main grounds next to the church hoping to find her.
“How’s she doing, Junie?” he asked, relieved to see Junie still tending Lizzie on her reins, knowing Miss Ruby would not be far away.
“Hey, Pete. Better. I kept her walking. Granny said to keep up a good pace so I been doing that. She said don’t feed her nothin’ and don’t let her eat no grass. Granny gave her some medicine, too. She helped the cowboy’s mare and finally got her up and walking. They already left. He’s going to take her to his vet back home. Ain’t this the damnest thing, Pete,” he said, shaking his head and stroking Lizzie’s neck. “I heard you lost. That’s a damn shame.”
“Should have been you, Junie. That’s the shame. We thought you and Lizzie would take it.”
“Yeah, I know. Me, too. Granny says there’s always next year. I’m just glad Lizzie is still here.”
“Me, too,” Pete said, giving Lizzie a rub on her forehead. “Where’s Miss Ruby? I need to talk to her.”
“Over with the reverend inside,” he said, pointing to the church.
Pete pushed his weight against the heavy wooden door and slowly stepped inside to find Reverend Dunn, Miss Ruby, and police chief Beau Boudreaux huddled on the back pews in deep conversation. All three turned at the sound of the creaking door and stream of light that illuminated Pete’s figure as he entered.
“That you, Pete? Come on in,” Miss Ruby said. “We got some trouble here.”
“Yes, ma’am. We do,” Pete responded as he took a seat next to Reverend Dunn. “I’m worried about our horses.”
Reverend Dunn chimed in, “I’m worried about a thief!”
Chief Boudreaux responded, “I’m worried about things happening in threes. Mon Dieu!”
“Well, Beau,” Miss Ruby said, affectionately using his first name in her grandmotherly way that gave her privileges, in spite of his title as Chief of Police. The bayou wild boy Beau was another that she had watched over and raised up, “I’m worried about all of it and afraid of more that’s coming. What are we going to do about it? Where is your Cajun intuition leading you now?”
“Locks. We should start with locks,” the chief responded authoritatively, lassoing back his adulthood. Miss Ruby always saw the boy in him first, which made him self-conscious in his hard won professional career.
Beau Boudreaux had parlayed a tumultuous, unsupervised life into a respectable and upstanding place in his community. Most had believed Beau would wind up behind bars. Miss Ruby knew better and she wanted to help give him the keys. He was smart, ambitious, brave, and fearless but lacked support and direction. Miss Ruby gave what he lacked with no strings attached except for one: don’t break the law.
Reverend Dunn frowned and shook his head at the chief’s suggestion. “Locks? Our church doors have never been locked. It’s un-Christian. The Lord’s house should always be open to those in need, Chief Boudreaux. There must be a better way,” he insisted.
Miss Ruby agreed. “My store was locked up, same as I do every night. It ain’t the biggest or strongest lock I’ll grant you that. But locks can be broke. Mine was,” Miss Ruby said. “And it wasn’t money or fancy goods they took. None of that was even touched. It was my medicines from the back room. The ones I use for livestock. That’s what made the horses sick. On purpose.”
Pete added, “I don’t know how you lock up horses, if someone is out to hurt us there. Can’t do that. Lizzie and the cowboy’s mare were grazing in open pasture before the race started. Somebody picked those two for some reason. No idea how that could happen. They weren’t stabled together. We had plenty of folks from out of town in the fields and by the racetrack. But I didn’t see no one I thought was up to no good.”
Chief Boudreaux heard their concerns. “Well, whoever did this, they know the church and know Miss Ruby’s store and knew what to give them horses. “He’ll hit again.”
“Maybe it’s coincidence. A theft at church, stealing that old jar, and then the horses…I don’t know,” Reverend Dunn considered, skeptically. “Doesn’t seem to fit.”
“Maybe. But I don’t believe in coincidence. Just a hunch. I think it’s the same guy. I do know that bad things come in threes,” Chief Boudreaux said with confidence. “I need to think more on it. Reverend, you need to move where you keep the church money and Miss Ruby I’d relocate them medicines, too. Do that much for now. Leave the rest to me while I keep looking into it, but let me know if you see anything or anyone that makes you suspicous.”
Everyone nodded in unison. Small enough effort for prevention, they agreed.
“Beau, you need a haircut. Come on by and I’ll see to it,” Miss Ruby said, a caring smile lighting her face.
Beau blushed. “Yes, ma’am,” he answered dutifully. “I’ll come around soon.”
Pete chuckled and exchanged a knowing look with the police chief. They rolled their eyes together. No one escaped Miss Ruby say-so, no matter your station in life.
Their exchange was not lost on Miss Ruby and she turned her laser gaze on Pete. His shiny black hair touched the back of his collar.
“Oh! Gotta go,” Pete called out, “Nelle’s waiting. I’m late!”
He turned on his heels and darted toward the door.
He couldn’t get used to the silence. Every time he entered the trailer where he had lived for so many years with his grandfather it felt less like home without him there. The screen door squeaked on opening, slammed not quite shut behind him, as always. Papaw would remind him, relentlessly, to shut the door tight so the mosquitoes don’t get in. He heard his voice in his head, and pulled the screen door tight until the latch clicked. Okay, Papaw.
He had come to his trailer first before going to see Nelle. He brought Mingo home and put her in the pasture with his other animals to rest and graze. Hot Shot, his aging pony, almost completely blind, required more attention as his vision failed. Mr. Bill, Hot Shot’s loyal goat companion, was in the habit of eating Hot Shot’s feed, so it was hard for Pete to judge if Hot Shot ever got quite his share. Aside from his failing vision, Hot Shot was content and healthy and Mr. Bill never left his side, guiding him through the pasture with devotion.
Little more
than a week had passed since the funerals of his Papaw and Nelle’s grandfather. Still unable to fully grasp the reality of two old friends being buried on the same day, Pete struggled to accept the finality of their passing. His grandfather’s last cup of coffee still sat unwashed in the sink. His pipe and tobacco pouch lay beside the unemptied ashtray on the small table next to the lumpy couch where the worn sunken cushions defined Papaw’s tired frame. Pete sat beside it, still deferring to his grandfather’s presence.
Elmer Everheart spent his last few days glued to his spot, contentedly. For Pete, time was frozen on the last day his Papaw took a final breath. Even now, he waited for him to walk through the door and plop down on his sagging spot with a big, satisfied sigh. The smell of his sweet pipe tobacco mingled with the aroma of onion and garlic that had simmered for hours in the huge dented pot of purple hull peas that was always part of their Sunday meals together.
The stillness was paralyzing and mystifying at the same time. Pete felt him hovering close, a palpable enduring presence. He couldn’t bring himself to put away or rearrange things just yet. Papaw’s spirit lingered in his everyday places. His life continued to beat from inside the walls. Had it not been for the jubilee, Pete would have become a fixture, staring at the silence, and waiting for that which was so loved and lost to return. Jubilee and Nelle saved him. And, the eagle feather.
Pete had not slept in his own bedroom since the funeral. He was home every day to care for his animals and tend the garden, chores he kept up and was grateful to have that forced him outside and occupied him with his farm duties. Outside he could manage his grief well enough. His animals and garden depended on him. It was a way to carry on and not let Papaw down. The jubilee horse race had also taken up much of his time and suspended his grieving while he was on the church grounds. But in the evenings, just before sundown, he would go to Nelle’s place at the garage apartment behind her grandfather’s house. Neither of them could bear to be alone.
On this night, after the grueling day of the race and his crushing loss, after reeling from the incident of two horses under his care being drugged and sickened, after confronting the notion that a thief and malevolent somebody had entered their quiet and God-fearing community, he showered to scrub off the weighty burdens and calm his racing mind. As he reached for a clean shirt to look nice for Nelle, he saw it.
There it lay, placed in the center of his pillow as if it had floated down gently from the heavens and landed in the exact spot it was meant to reach. The eagle feather. Papaw’s eagle feather that had not moved from his grandfather’s bedroom since the day Pete knew memory.
Pete stopped, blinked in the dim light, and walked closer to his bed. Papaw. Is that you?
A light current of air brushed by his damp face. The feather lifted slightly with the motion. Pete felt it sure and true. Papaw was going now, and he would be okay.
Nelle had avoided going back inside Granddad’s main house since the day after the funeral. She had established her life some time ago in the garage apartment out back, and while it was less than fifty yards away, it constituted another world entirely. All hers. Christine and Granddad were a short walk away. The arrangement had worked perfectly for all of them for a very long time.
Drained by managing the burial arrangements, complicated by Papaw’s coinciding death and necessary last minute preparations for the jubilee, Nelle had put off going through his cluttered roll top desk to sort through house papers and search for his will. Christine had asked her to handle that part of his passing. She insisted it was too much for her. Nelle understood. Her younger sister was still in high school, and his devastating loss upended her life. He had made a real home for her, giving her the security and stability that she had always craved and never known.
Christine had moved out of the garage apartment into the big house with Granddad not long after their mother had run away with another man. He spoiled her at a time when she hungered for attention. Their mother was gone, father was in the state hospital, and big sister Nelle was busy with college and in love with Pete. Yet in spite of all the upheaval, Christine had blossomed in her grandfather’s care. Her youthful energy rebounded and gave him a lift and boost out of the void his own losses and disappointments had created. His tenderhearted gentle wisdom eased her apprehensions for the future and her boundless affection renewed contentment for him. She believed their evenings on the screened porch playing dominoes would never end. His toothless grin and big belly laugh made everything right in her world, no matter how grim circumstances appeared, but navigating the legal matters brought about by his death was beyond her emotional capabilities. She thought he would always be there to guide.
Christine had picked out his funeral clothes, the navy blue suit that had hung in the closet for years but looked brand new. She insisted he be buried wearing his sweat stained gray felt hat, which few people had ever seen him without, and made sure he had a fresh cigar resting between his thumb and finger. She put clean sheets on his bed, straightened his shoes in the bottom of his closet, and hung fresh towels in the bathroom. He would have liked this, she told herself. The unfinished dominoes game that lay spread out on the card table in the back porch stayed put for now, waiting for his next move. We aren’t done yet, Granddad.
For all her attentiveness to essential tasks, she recoiled from attending to matters that lay buried somewhere in the mounds of paper stashed in the cubbies and drawers of his old roll top desk. He spent a good deal of time there every day, seated comfortably in his high-back swivel oak chair, engrossed in the part of his life that had little to do with her. She could still hear the squeak of the casters rolling on the hardwood floor when she lay in her room at night missing him. Nelle would figure it out, she reassured herself. She always did.
Nelle had been settled in his swivel chair since just before sundown. The late August sun cast a golden glow in his room, illuminating the dark wood floors and old oak furniture giving the masculine, unadorned bedroom a charming simplicity and old-time beauty Nelle had not noticed before. His roll top desk, with papers piled high and envelopes jutting out of small cubby holes, added to the ambiance like a museum exhibit captured in a snapshot of time. She pulled the chain on the green bankers lamp as the sun sunk below the horizon before the room went dark.
She could hear Christine’s light snoring over the whir of the tabletop fan in her room next to his. Granddad had no such amenity in his own room, insisting he never felt the need. Nelle supposed his body was conditioned to the heat as she wiped the bead of sweat from her brow, hoping the evening air would give her a little relief. Her brief time at the desk had not yielded anything important so far. She had sorted through old medical bills and newspaper clippings that covered West River’s paper mill legal battles years before. He had been a vocal advocate for improving the factory conditions and cleaning up the toxic waste the company had dumped into the river without any regulation since its beginning. Conditions had vastly improved since then. She had no idea why he had hung on to the old articles and records, but wasn’t about to throw anything out quite yet.
Her attention shifted as she heard the back screen door creak open and she recognized the light footsteps. Thank goodness, he’s here.
Pete entered the bedroom and kissed her gently on the top of her head. “I’m sorry I’m so late. I met up with Boudreaux, Reverend Dunn, and Miss Ruby after the race and had to get Mingo home and tend the animals. God. What a day. Do you have to do this now?” he asked, eyeing the piles of paper in front of her.
Nelle swiveled the chair to face him and rose to kiss him softly. She rested her head on his shoulder and he pulled her close.
“It’s enough for one day, Nelle. Let’s go now,” he said. “Turn off the light. It’ll all be here tomorrow. Where’s Christine?”
“Asleep. In her room. Exhausted like us.”
“I’m sorry you lost the race, Pete,” Nelle said, then hesitated. “Well, not so much you lost the race as you lost the race to her.”
He took Nelle’s hand and led her out of the bedroom through the backdoor. The evening air had diminished the heat and lifted the humidity. A crescent moon sat low on the horizon as the first evening stars twinkled in the indigo sky.
“You think they’re up there, Nelle?” he asked, gazing at the darkening sky.
“I think they’re with us, Pete. I think they’ll always be with us,” she answered.
They walked hand in hand to the garage apartment and went straight upstairs to her room. That night in bed, they held each other with a passion that had nothing to do with physical desire, but everything to do with love.
The Word of God Holy Ministries Church was packed on this blistering hot early Sunday morning. Reverend Dunn smiled through his sweaty flushed face at the congregation, obviously pleased by the unusually large turnout. He nodded approvingly at Nelle, Pete, and Christine who sat together in the second row. They were not regulars. He assumed they came to show their appreciation for his help and support not only for the jubilee festival, but also for the genuine and wholehearted assistance he gave to them during the emotional passing of their loved ones. He sincerely believed that God manifested through good works and kind acts and felt moved by the spirit to see their young faces seated in the house of the Lord again this morning.
“God is good!” he opened loudly in the cavernous sanctuary, his voice echoing off the rafters. He paused, giving his flock time to agree with nodding heads and murmurs of amen. “We might have lost two of our beloved community members recently, but know they sit here among us today and grace us with the blessings their righteous living has given us as example. Ralph Lyons and Elmer Everheart leave the legacy of God’s work through good intentions and bottomless love. Their grandchildren sit here with us today as reminders for us to carry on and go forward no matter the hardships or obstacles we encounter.” He looked directly at the three of them, who shifted slightly in the long pew, a bit self-conscious as people leaned forward and turned around to acknowledge them.
The Road to Home Page 7