Heaven Sent (Small Town Swains)

by Pamela Morsi

  Hannah blushed with embarrassment. She quickly began assuring Myrtie that she had too much to do and that it would not be possible for her to go, when Henry Lee cut into her explanation.

  "Of course Hannah will go," he told them. "It wouldn't be very much fun to go on a trip and leave my bride at home."

  Hannah blushed at his words. Henry Lee made it sound like a wedding trip and she was sure it wasn't that, or maybe it was. She wondered if he had decided to forgive her for the trick and make her his wife in fact. A tiny flutter of anxiety and excitement skittered through her mid-section. She hoped that it was true, and that he would finish the wonderful journey that he had started last night.

  The talk around the table about the upcoming trip continued, but Hannah didn't have a word to add. She was lost in daydreams. She imagined being beside Henry Lee on a train around strangers. Everyone who saw them would know they were husband and wife and none would guess how it had happened. They would all think that the handsome man beside her had married her for love. She suddenly realized how badly she wished that it were true. Involuntarily, a sigh escaped her lips. All eyes turned in her direction.

  “Well, Henry Lee," her father said, "it seems we are boring your bride with our conversation."

  "Oh no," Hannah insisted, "I was just woolgathering a bit." She felt Henry Lee's eyes upon her, questioning and curious.

  "What kind of wood are you thinking to use?" Farnam asked him. "You think pine or maybe oak?"

  Henry Lee chewed slowly. "I truly haven't decided," he finally answered. "I sure like the look of walnut, but it'll take a lot of wood. I might use walnut for the places that get the wear and a soft wood like pine or spruce for the underpinnings. It really depends on what size you want, I guess."

  "What about the size?" the older man asked. "We just want what fits comfortably in the church."

  "That's not what I mean," Henry Lee explained. "Do you want five long benches, where you get in and out on the sides. Or more like the big city churches, ten short benches, five on each side, with the aisle running straight down the middle."

  "Which do you think?" the preacher asked him.

  "Well," he answered thoughtfully, "five long benches would be the quickest, cheapest, and the most practical."

  He glanced over at Hannah to see her reaction. "But the aisle up the center would sure be prettier. It would make a person feel welcome the minute he stepped in the door."

  "Oh Papa!" Myrtie exclaimed, "you've got to have an aisle down the center for weddings. You can't have the bride just walk down one side of the church!"

  The reverend smiled at his youngest daughter indulgently. "We could do all the weddings like your sister's. Just move the benches out altogether, let everybody stand, and the bride can walk wherever she pleases."

  "Oh Papa, you're impossible," Myrtie complained.

  "I think your daughters are right," Violet said. "It will look more like a church with an aisle up the center. And it will be easier for the sinners to make their way down to the front. I think you should consider it."

  The preacher ran a hand through his hair thoughtfully for a moment.

  "How much more do you think it will cost?" he asked Henry Lee.

  Henry Lee considered for a bit, glancing over at Hannah again as if weighing a decision concerning her.

  "How long you been preaching here, Brother Farnam?" he asked.

  "About five years," he answered. "What does that have to do with it?"

  "Well, Reverend, I'm a little bit behind on my tithe. I'm thinking that the cost of the pews for the new church might begin to catch me up a bit."

  Henry Lee glanced over at Hannah for her approval and saw that she was both very surprised and pleased.

  "Now, Henry Lee," Hannah's father replied shaking his head. "I couldn't let you do that, it's too much."

  Henry Lee felt a lump of cold dread settling in his stomach. To be refused his offer of charity would be unbelievably humiliating.

  "Couldn't or wouldn't?" Henry Lee asked him. "I want to do it, Reverend, unless you don't think the fruits of my labor are acceptable in God's house."

  It was a direct challenge to his father-in-law. Like Cain, Henry Lee was presenting his offering. Would the preacher think that money earned making and selling whiskey was unfit to be used to adorn the church?

  Reverend Bunch only had to think for an instant. It was his belief that God looked past the man that people see and saw straight to the heart. Somehow the reverend knew that Henry Lee's heart was in the right place.

  "Henry Lee, speaking for the whole community, we very gratefully accept your generous gift of time and money for our church."

  Chapter Nine

  The midmorning sun peeped into the cave where Henry Lee had located his still. The barrel of sweet mash he'd made in the sunshine behind the pigsty now sat next to the spring ready to be worked. Henry Lee was so familiar with the whiskey-making process that he didn't have to give it a lot of thought, but today he was unusually distracted.

  Since the discussion over Sunday dinner, he had continued to feel like a liar and a hypocrite. He knew now that he should have told her right away about what he did. He suspected that she would be angry at first, but she'd just need time to get over that. What she wouldn't get over was hearing it from somebody else after having made a fool of herself.

  He was very grateful that her father hadn't given him away. He'd always thought the preacher to be an honest and fair man, now he decided that he also excelled as a father-in-law.

  Thinking how fortunate he was in his choice of relatives, Henry Lee gently set the barrel on the washbench next to the spring. The sweet water, chilled from its hiding place in the ground, flowed out of the wall down into a sparkling little pool about the size of a small washtub. Then it seeped back into the ground beneath the pool, to reemerge near the base of the bluff where it joined the creek. It seemed tailor-made for the needs of a moonshiner and Henry Lee was more than happy to take advantage of it.

  He cautiously loosened the top of the barrel. The content, now fermented to a sugar, was a potent material. As he carefully lifted the lid he moved back away from the fumes. The aromatic substance gave him a headache when he worked with it, and he knew the concentrated effluvium in the barrel could be dangerous.

  The sickly sweet smell of the fermented mash permeated the cave. Henry Lee stepped out to the ledge area for some fresh air.

  Gazing down at his cabin, he saw Hannah outside gathering wood for the stove. He enjoyed just watching her. Even from this distance he could distinguish her purposeful stride. It seemed she never sauntered or rambled, she was always headed in some direction. Always busy making his house more of a home. He glanced down at his shirtfront and ran his hand along the sleeve. It was strange how she made his old work shirt look and feel better than some of his dress shirts. It was easy to tell that she took pride in the way she kept house, the way she cooked, the way she laundered the clothes, and her skill with a needle.

  He smiled thinking of what she had said on Sunday. At the time, he had been mostly concerned about her finding out about his moonshining, but now he was able to remember more of her words. That all work was important work. He was sure that she must believe it, as he watched her head into the cabin with an armload of wood for the stove. She worked practically every minute of every day without a sigh or complaint. Things needing doing, so she did them. She didn't expect a good life to be handed to her on a platter. She meant to build that life herself, brick by brick. He continued watching the house, as if he could see her inside, and he smiled to himself. Many times he'd felt pride in his own work, a sense of accomplishment at what he was able to do or his own. This sense of pride in someone else's work was a new emotion.

  While he watched the house, a trickle of sweat headed down the back of his neck and he swatted at it with his handkerchief. As hot as it was outside today, it must be intolerable in the house, cooking.

  Hannah was, at that moment, thinking almost t
he same thing. She piled the load of wood in the crate near the stove and wiped her brow.

  She should have set this all up outside, she realized, but she would have needed help moving the table and equipment and she hadn't wanted to bother Henry Lee. It wasn't that she thought he wouldn't want to help her. She just wanted to do things by herself, to show him how much she could accomplish without troubling him.

  The bushels of vegetables that he'd brought from Sandy Creek would have to be cooked and canned, so as not to spoil. Currently sitting on the stove was a huge caldron of black-eyed peas simmering in a little fat back and filling the air with fragrant steam. At the table, she was using a knife to scrape the kernels off the ears of corn. With a little luck, the corn would soon be meeting the same fate as the peas. Off to the side sat the jars and lids. She had started boiling them this morning, and now as they cooled, they awaited the contents bubbling on the stove.

  Singing softly as she worked, she thought about last summer when she'd done this with Violet and Myrtie. Canning had been both a trial and an adventure. She hadn't been sure about taking charge. It was obviously the job of her stepmother. But Violet had been as willing to take her orders and to follow her directions as Myrtie. When Violet had started to remove the jars from the scalding water and set them to dry, Hannah had stopped her.

  “You'll burn yourself," Hannah had told her, "let me do it, my hands are rougher than yours."

  Violet had laughed. "Gracious, Hannah," she'd said. "A woman ten years younger than me could not possibly have rougher hands." Hannah remembered, however, that Violet had smiled. She had been pleased by her step-daughter's accidental compliment.

  Hannah glanced down quickly at her own hands now. They were large, with long fingers and tidily kept short nails. There was no wedding band, she thought sadly, thinking of the tiny delicate ring that wouldn't go past her knuckle. She had never thought much about having pretty hands or wearing a ring. It had never seemed important. Somehow, now she thought it was. She recalled glancing up in church to catch Henry Lee looking at her hands. What had he thought? Was he still sorry that she forced him into marriage? Had he wished she were prettier?

  She blushed with pleasure as she thought back on the night he had come home drunk. She was still embarrassed and amazed at the feelings Henry Lee could invoke in her. She remembered the look on his face when he had exposed her breasts. She crossed her arms as if to shield herself from his eyes. She wondered why she had not felt the need to do so that night. Somehow it had seemed so wonderful to be exposed to him. She wanted him to see her. She wanted him to want her, to touch her again like he had that night.

  Her body was suddenly suffused with a quivering warmth that was part remembrance and part anticipation. She was tempted to give into the feeling, but quickly shook it off. She had work to do and no time for daydreaming, no matter how pleasant.

  Henry Lee worked steadily in the cave, breaking up the sweet mash with warmed spring water. It was very important to thin the mash thoroughly or it wouldn't ripen. The smell and the feel was reassuring. It seemed that this was to be an especially good batch, which pleased Henry Lee more than it should have. He had come to think of it as the "wedding whiskey" and somehow he thought having it turn out well would be a good omen for his marriage.

  When it was finally a consistency that met Henry Lee's expectations, he carefully smoothed it back into the barrel. It should not be packed tight, but with just enough room to breathe. Like a mother tucking in her little ones, he carefully sheltered the mash with two inches of rye malt to seal off the air. He covered the barrel and breathed a sigh of personal satisfaction. It would take several days for the sweet mash to sour. The sugar in the fermented corn would turn into alcohol and carbolic. Henry Lee knew that all that was needed now was patience. When the barrel began to sound like rain on the roof or side pork frying in the pan, it would be time to start it cooking.

  He was whistling as he left the cave. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw three riders approaching in the distance. Although he couldn't make out the faces, he could see that they were native, and that meant they'd come for whiskey. Henry Lee hurried, hoping that they would not state the nature of their business to Hannah before he could get there. He had to tell her himself; he couldn't let her hear it from someone else.

  Hannah had the corn cooking on the stove and had filled almost a dozen quart with black-eyed peas. The jars cooling on the sideboard with the lids carefully setting askew gave Hannah such a sense of purpose and accomplishment that she no longer minded the intense heat of the kitchen.

  She set aside a bowl of the black-eyed peas to feed Henry Lee his noon meal and had just begun to stir up a batch of cornbread when she heard the approach of horses outside. Thinking that it might be her father again, she left the cornbread makings and hurried out the door.

  Hannah was slightly startled to see three native men in the yard. She recovered herself quickly. She was not a fearful woman or easily intimidated. And she was, after all, living in the Indian Territory, right in the comer of the Creek Nation. She should expect to see native residents, although none had ever ventured into her yard at Plainview Church. As a preacher's daughter, she'd been taught that there is no such thing as a stranger, only potential converts.

  She called out a pleasant "good morning" as the three men stopped to observe her. They were all of middle years, but the one who seemed to naturally take the position of leader was somewhat younger than the other two. Although they were big men, with their rounded faces and somewhat rotund bodies they did not seem at all menacing.

  They just sat on their horses and stared at Hannah for a few excruciating minutes as she became more and more uncomfortable. Finally the leader spoke up.

  "I want to see Watson."

  Hannah felt herself relax. Obviously the men were here on some purpose and not just wandering about, preying on unsuspecting households. She opened her mouth to tell them that he was working out in the fields somewhere, when suddenly Henry Lee emerged from among the trees.

  "Good morning!" he called out as he hurried to meet them. Hannah saw that he was very anxious to see the visitors and she assumed that they were friends.

  "It’s good to see you," Henry Lee told the visitors as he urged them to dismount. As they loosened the cinches on their saddles to give their horses a rest, Henry Lee shook the hand of the leader and spoke to him.

  "Harjo, I was wondering when you'd show up," Henry Lee said to the leader and then glanced back at Hannah. He needed to get these customers away from Hannah before they said something to give him away.

  "Come down and take a look at my hogs, they are better looking than any in the territory."

  If Harjo seemed a bit taken aback by the offer to view the hogs, he covered it admirably and motioned to the other two to follow as he walked with Henry Lee.

  As they moved away, Hannah couldn't help but notice the limping gait of the leader. On horseback he looked completely in control, but moving on his own two legs was obviously awkward and uncomfortable.

  Hannah felt an immediate surge of sympathy, followed by starry-eyed admiration for her husband. Again, he had surprised her. Most men were hesitant to socialize with the lame or afflicted, as if those "thorns of the flesh" might be contagious. Her husband, however, chose his friends where he would. Proudly, she acknowledged that he was a man of deep feeling and open mind.

  If only the people in the church realized what a fine man he was. She was sure the only reason he had not become a part of the church community in the past was because of his own modesty and his family background. He had been simply keeping his light under a bushel. She remembered only a short time ago she had considered him totally frivolous. It was obvious she and the rest of the community were going to have to dig a little deeper to discover what a fine Christian Henry Lee Watson was.

  Satisfied, Hannah returned to the kitchen. If Henry Lee had three friends visiting, she certainly wanted to offer more than just black-eyed peas and corn
bread. She resolutely commenced dinner preparations.

  As the men approached the pigsty, Henry Lee turned to Harjo. "So, how much whiskey are you looking to buy?"

  The leader looked at him with an amused question in his eyes. "Maybe I'm not here to buy whiskey. Maybe, I've come to look at your hogs, Whiskey Man."

  Henry Lee felt a flush stealing up his cheeks. One problem he had never suffered was shyness, but it was embarrassing to be caught in such a fouled-up concern.

  "I recently got married," Henry Lee stated, not quite able to look Harjo in the eye. "My wife is a very religious woman, a preacher's daughter." Henry Lee began to rush his words as if saying them more quickly would make them easier. "She doesn't know that I make whiskey, and probably wouldn't approve if she did."

  Harjo stared at Henry Lee as if he expected him to say more.

  “I would appreciate," Henry Lee said, "if you wouldn't say anything about whiskey around her. And please, don't call me Whiskey Man. I'm going to tell her myself, I just haven't got around to it yet."

  Harjo continued to remain totally still and to stare at Henry Lee for nearly a full minute, then he suddenly howled with laughter. Turning to the other two men he quickly translated Henry Lee's words into the Muscogee tongue and all three began laughing uproariously. Their laughter was contagious enough to bring a smile to Henry Lee's face, though he no longer found his situation particularly amusing.

  As Harjo took a short breathy break in his laughter he said to Henry Lee, "Whiskey Man, you have what all men want, a woman who believes the lies that you tell her."

  That brought fresh laughter to the group and even Henry Lee joined in half-heartedly, but he was bothered by the implication. He had lied to Hannah. She had lied to him also, but for good purpose, his conscience argued, to give a child a name. He had lied out of spite.