Out to Canaan

by Jan Karon

  “Man! What’s that terrific smell?” He sniffed the air, homing in on the oven.

  “Esther’s orange marmalade cake! Vanita Bentley gave me a bootleg copy of her recipe. She ran off dozens on her husband’s Xerox.”

  “Where’s your conscience, Kavanagh?”

  “Don’t worry, this is legal. I called Esther and she gave me permission to use it. Have at it! she said.”

  “Oh, well,” he sighed, feeling diabetic and out of the loop.

  “You can have the tiniest sliver, dearest. I’m sure your food exchange will allow it.”

  If she only knew. “Harley!” he called down the basement stairs. “Want to run to the highway?”

  “Yessir, Rev’rend, I do, I’m about t’ gag on this book about that feller hoardin’ ’is gold.”

  He heard Dooley and Barnabas clambering down from above. “Where’re you going?” asked Dooley.

  “To the store. Want to come?”

  “Sure. Can I drive?”

  “Well . . .”

  “You said I could when I came home for Christmas.”

  “Right. Consider it done, then!” Perfect timing! It was just getting dark, and hardly a soul would be out on a cold Yuletide eve.

  Harley came up the stairs, wearing a fleece-lined jacket that he’d found, good as new, at the Bane. “I was hopin’ f’r a excuse t’ lay that book down. It ain’t even got a picture in it!”

  Barnabas stood in the fray, wagging his tail and hoping to be invited, as the doorbell gave a sharp blast.

  “I’ll get it!” said the rector, hurrying along the hall.

  It was Buck Leeper, standing in the pale glow of the porch light.

  “I got as far as Alabama and turned around,” he said. “I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Lion and Lamb

  Buck was shaking as they went into the study. Though the rector knew it wasn’t from the cold, he asked him to sit by the fire.

  There was a long silence as Buck waited for the trembling to pass; he sat with his head down, looking at the floor. The rector remembered the times of his own trembling, when his very teeth chattered as from ague.

  “Does Pauline know you’re back in Mitford?”

  “No. I came for . . . I came for this.” He looked up. “I didn’t want to come back.”

  “I know.”

  “It was sucking the life out of me all the way. I was driving into Huntsville when I knew I couldn’t keep going . . . .”

  He was shaking again, and closed his eyes. Father Tim could see a muscle flexing in his jaw.

  “God a’mighty,” said Buck.

  Father Tim looked at him, praying. The man who had controlled some of the biggest construction jobs in the Southeast and some of the most powerful machinery in the business couldn’t, at this moment, control the shaking.

  “I pulled into an Arby’s parkin’ lot and sat in the car and tried to pray. The only thing that came was somethin’ I’d heard all those years in my grandaddy’s church.” Buck looked into the fire. “I said, Thy will be done.”

  “That’s the prayer that never fails.”

  The clock ticked.

  “He can be for your life what the foundation is for a building.”

  Buck met his gaze. “I want to do whatever it takes, Father.”

  “In the beginning, it takes only a simple prayer. Some think it’s too simple, but if you pray it with your heart, it can change everything. Will you pray it with me?”

  “I don’t know if I can live up to . . . whatever.”

  “You can’t, of course. No one can be completely good. The point is to surrender it all to him, all the garbage, all the possibilities. All.”

  “What will happen when . . . I pray this prayer?”

  “You mean what will happen now, tonight, in this room?”

  “Yes.”

  “Something extraordinary could happen. Or it could be so subtle, so gradual, you’ll never know the exact moment He comes in.”

  “Right,” said Buck, whispering.

  The rector held out his hand to a man he’d come to love, and they stood before the fire and bowed their heads.

  “Thank You, God, for loving me . . .”

  “Thank You, God . . .” Buck hesitated and went on, “for loving me.”

  “ . . . and for sending Your Son to die for my sins. I sincerely repent of my sins, and receive Christ as my personal savior.”

  The superintendent repeated the words slowly, carefully.

  “Now, as Your child, I turn my entire life over to You.”

  “ . . . as Your child,” said Buck, weeping quietly, “I turn my entire life over to You.”

  “Amen.”

  “Amen.”

  He didn’t know how long they stood before the fire, embracing as brothers—two men from Mississippi; two men who had never known the kindness of earthly fathers; two men who had determined to put their lives into the hands of yet another Father, one believing—and one hoping—that He was kindness, Itself.

  In the kitchen, Cynthia said, “You won’t believe this! Look!”

  She pointed under the kitchen table, where Barnabas and Violet were sleeping together. The white cat was curled against the black mass of the dog’s fur, against his chest, against the healing wound.

  Father Tim sank to his knees, astounded, peering under the table with unbelieving eyes.

  “It’s a miracle,” Cynthia told Buck. “They’ve been mortal enemies for years. You can’t imagine how he’s chased her, and how she’s despised him.”

  Barnabas opened one eye and peered at the rector, then closed it.

  “The lion shall lie down with the lamb!” crowed Cynthia.

  “Merry Christmas, one and all!” whooped the rector.

  “Merry Christmas!” exclaimed his wife.

  “Right,” said Buck. “You, too.”

  “I thought you’d never get finished.” Dooley came up the basement steps with Harley. “Hey, Buck, I thought you’d left for Mississippi. How’s it goin’?”

  “Real good, what are you up to?”

  Dooley pulled a pair of gloves out of his jacket pocket. “I’m drivin’ to the store! Let’s bust out of here, I’m ready.”

  “Settin’ on high idle, is what he is,” said Harley.

  They trooped to the garage and pushed the button that opened the automatic door. It rose slowly, like a stage curtain, on a scene that stopped them in their tracks.

  “Snow!” Dooley shouted.

  It was swirling down in large, thick flakes and already lay like a frosting of sugar on the silent lawn.

  “Maybe you’d better let me drive,” said the rector.

  “I can drive in snow! Besides, I won’t go fast, I’ll go really slow.”

  “I don’t reckon they’s any cows out plunderin’ around in this, Rev’rend.”

  Buck and Harley climbed into the backseat, and he slid in beside Dooley. “This isn’t Harley’s truck, buddy, so there’s no clutch. Remember to keep your left foot—”

  “I know how,” said Dooley.

  As they turned right on Main Street, there they were, on every lamppost—angels formed of sparkling lights, keeping watch over the snow-covered streets.

  “By jing,” said Harley, “hit’s another world!”

  “Glorious!” said the rector. The Buick seemed to be floating through a wonderland, lighter than air. He turned the radio to his favorite music station. Hark the herald angels . . .

  “Buck, where are you staying?”

  “I’ll bunk in with one of my crew for a couple days, then head back. Emil’s got me on a big job in Texas startin’ January.”

  “Why don’t you bunk in with us? Harley, would you let Buck use your sofa bed? Cynthia’s using the guest room as a gift-wrapping station.”

  “Hit’d be a treat. I sleep s’ far down th’ hall, I don’t reckon I’d keep you awake with m’ snorin’.”

  “And you’ll have brunch
with us tomorrow, if that suits.”

  “I’d like that,” said Buck. “Thank you.”

  Dooley braked at the corner. “Let’s ride by Mama’s, want to?”

  “I’ll go anywhere you ’uns say,” declared Harley.

  “We’ll just ride by and honk th’ horn,” said Dooley, “then let’s ride by some more places before we go to the store, OK?”

  The rector grinned. “Whatever you say, buddy. You’re driving.”

  Dooley turned left at the corner and made a right into the alley. Pauline’s small house, nestled into a grove of laurels, was a cheerful sight, with the lights of a tree sparkling behind its front windows and the snow swirling like moths around the porch light.

  Dooley hammered on the horn, and the rector cranked his window down as Pauline, Poo, and Jessie appeared at the door.

  “Look, Mama, I’m drivin’!”

  “Dooley! Father! Can you come in?” She peered at the rear window, but was unable to see anyone in the darkened backseat.

  “We’re on a mission to the store, but we’ll see you tomorrow. Merry Christmas! Stay warm!”

  “Merry Christmas, Mama, Jessie, Poo! See you tomorrow!”

  “Merry Christmas! We’re bakin’ the ham you sent, Father, be careful, Dooley!”

  “Merry Christmas, Mr. Tim!”

  Sammy and Kenny, thought the rector. He hoped he would live to see the day . . .

  Dooley put the Buick in low gear and glided off.

  “Burn rubber!” yelled Poo.

  At the end of the alley, Buck leaned forward, urgent. “Father, I can’t . . . I’d like to go back and see Pauline and the kids. Do you think it would be all right?”

  Dooley spoke at once. “I think it would.”

  “Go,” said the rector.

  In the side mirror, he saw Buck running along the alley, running toward the light that spilled onto the snow from the house in the laurels.

  “The last time we had snow at Christmas, we burned the furniture, remember that?” he asked, as Dooley turned onto Main Street. It was, in fact, the blizzard the media had called the Storm of the Century.

  Dooley cackled. “We were bustin’ up that ol’ chair and throwin’ it in th’ fireplace, and fryin’ baloney . . .”

  “Those were the good old days,” sighed the rector, who certainly hadn’t thought so at the time.

  Dashing through the snow . . .

  He was losing track of time, happy out here in this strange and magical land where hardly a soul marred the snow with footprints, where Dooley sang along with the radio, and Harley looked as wide-eyed as a child . . . .

  And there was Fernbank, ablaze with lights through the leafless winter trees, crowning the hill with some marvelous presence he’d never seen before. He wanted suddenly to see it up close, feel its warmth, discover whether it was real, after all, or a fanciful dream come to please him at Christmas.

  “Want to run by Jenny’s?” he asked. “It’s on the way to the store.”

  “Nope,” said Dooley. “Let’s go by Lace’s.”

  “Excellent! Then we can run over to Fernbank while we’re at it.”

  “And by Tommy’s! He’ll hate my guts.”

  “Anywhere you want to run, Harley?”

  “No, sir, I’ve done run to where I want t’ go, hit’s right here with you ’uns.”

  They should have brought presents—fruitcakes, candy, tangerines! He was wanting to hand something out, give something away, make someone’s face light up . . .

  Bells on bobtail ring, making spirits bright, what fun it is to ride and sing a sleighing song tonight! Hey! . . .

  They honked the horn in the Harper driveway and shouted their season’s greetings, then drove up the long, winding lane to Fernbank, where he would have been contented merely to sit in the car and look at its lighted rooms with a candle in every window.

  They circled around to the front steps and honked, as Andrew and Anna came to the door and opened it and waved, calling out felicitations of their own. “Don’t mention this to Rodney Underwood!” he said to the couple on the porch.

  Andrew laughed. “Our lips are sealed! Joyeux noël!”

  “Ciao!” cried Anna. “Come soon again!”

  They eased down the Fernbank drive and saw the town lying at the foot of the steep hill like a make-believe village under a tree. There was the huge fir at Town Hall with its ropes of colored lights, and the glittering ribbon of Main Street, and the shining houses.

  An English writer, coincidentally named Mitford, had said it so well, he could recite it like a schoolboy.

  She had called her village “a world of our own, close-packed and insulated like . . . bees in a hive or sheep in a fold or nuns in a convent or sailors in a ship, where we know everyone, and are authorized to hope that everyone feels an interest in us.”

  Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere . . .

  After a stop by Tommy’s and then by Hattie Cloer’s, they headed home.

  “Harley, want to have a cup of tea with us before tonight’s service?”

  “No, sir, Rev’rend, I’m tryin’ t’ fool with a batch of fudge brownies to bring upstairs tomorrow.”

  Temptation on every side, and no hope for it.

  “Say, Dad, want to watch a video before church? Tommy loaned me his VCR. It’s a baseball movie, you’ll like it.”

  If there were a tax on joy on this night of nights, he’d be dead broke.

  “Consider it done!” he said.

  He sat clutching the pint of cream in a bag, feeling they’d gone forth and captured some valuable trophy or prize, as they rode slowly between the ranks of angels on high and turned onto their trackless street.

  About the Author

  Jan Karon, who lives in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, was an award-winning advertising executive before following her dream of writing books. She is the author of three previous Mitford novels, At Home in Mitford, A Light in the Window, and These High, Green Hills, all available from Penguin. At Home in Mitford was named an ABBY Honor Book by the American Booksellers Association.

  For all families

  who struggle to forgive

  and be forgiven

  “I will restore unto you

  the days the locusts

  have eaten . . .”

  Joel 2:25

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My warmest thanks to:

  Candace Freeland; Barry Setzer; Joe Edmisten; Carolyn McNeely; Dr. Margaret Federhart; Fr. Scott Oxford; Jerry Walsh; Blowing Rock BP; Crystal Coffey; Mary Lentz; Jane Hodges; Jim Atkinson; Derald West; Loonis McGlohan; Laura Watts; David Watts; Rev. Gale Cooper and my friends at St. John’s; Rev. Jim Trollinger and my friends at Jamestown United Methodist; Fr. Russell Johnson and my friends at St. Paul’s; Roald and Marjorie Carlson; W. David Holden; Alex Gabbard; Kay O’Neill; Dr. Richard Chestnutt; Everett Barrineau and all my friends on the Viking Penguin sales force; Aunt Wilma Argo; The Fellowship of Christ, The Saviour; Charles Davant, III; Posie Dauphine; Chuck Meltsner; Kenny Johnson; Fr. Richard Bass; Rev. Richard Holshouser; Christine Hillis; Danilo Ragogna; Dr. Rosemary Horowitz; Helen Horowitz; Susan Weinberg; Sarah Cole; and Tim Knight.

  Special thanks to Judy Burns; Jerry Torchia; Dan Blair, a national umpire staff member of the Amateur Softball Association; Flyin’ George Ronan of Free Spirit Aviation; Dr. Bunky Davant, Mitford’s attending physician; Tony diSanti, Mitford’s legal counsel; Alex Hallmark, Mitford’s tireless realtor; and all the wonderful readers and booksellers who are helping put the little town with the big heart on the map.

  CHAPTER ONE

  A Tea and a Half

  The indoor plants were among the first to venture outside and breathe the fresh, cold air of Mitford’s early spring.

  Eager for a dapple of sunlight, starved for the revival of mountain breezes, dozens of begonias and ferns, Easter lilies and Wandering Jews were set out, pot-bound and listless, on porches throughout the village.

  As the temperat
ure soared into the low fifties, Winnie Ivey thumped three begonias, a sullen gloxinia, and a Boston fern onto the back steps of the house on Lilac Road, where she was now living. Remembering the shamrock, which was covered with aphids, she fetched it from the kitchen and set it on the railing.

  “There!” she said, collecting a lungful of the sharp, pure air. “That ought to fix th’ lot of you.”

  When she opened the back door the following morning, she was stricken at the sight. The carefully wintered plants had been turned to mush by a stark raving freeze and minor snow that also wrenched any notion of early bloom from the lilac bushes.

  It was that blasted puzzle she’d worked until one o’clock in the morning, which caused her to forget last night’s weather news. There she’d sat like a moron, her feet turning to ice as the temperature plummeted, trying to figure out five letters across for a grove of trees.

  Racked with guilt, she consoled herself with the fact that it had, at least, been a chemical-free way to get rid of aphids.

  At the hardware, Dora Pugh shook her head and sighed. Betrayed by yesterday’s dazzling sunshine, she had done display windows with live baby chicks, wire garden fencing, seeds, and watering cans. Now she might as well haul the snow shovels back and do a final clearance on salt for driveways.

  Coot Hendrick collected his bet of five dollars and an RC Cola from Lew Boyd. “Ain’t th’ first time and won’t be th’ last you’ll see snow in May,” he said, grinning. Lew Boyd hated it when Coot grinned, showing his stubs for teeth. He mostly hated it that, concerning weather in Mitford, the skeptics, cynics, and pessimists were usually right.

  “Rats!” said Cynthia Kavanagh, who had left a wet scatter rug hanging over the rectory porch rail. Lifting it off the rail, she found it frozen as a popsicle and able to stand perfectly upright.

  Father Timothy Kavanagh, rector at the Chapel of our Lord and Savior, had never heard such moaning and groaning about spring’s tedious delay, and encountered it even in Happy Endings Bookstore, where, on yet another cold, overcast morning, he picked up a volume entitled Hummingbirds in the Garden.