Prairie Storm

by Catherine Palmer

  Now she would never walk alone again. Feeling the weight of the little hymnal in her pocket, Lily reached for the book. It was too dark to see, but still she opened it, fingering pages filled with words she knew so well. How odd that she had been brought up to know Christ, and yet she had never given herself to him—until now. She began to sing softly.

  “My faith looks up to Thee,

  Thou Lamb of Calvary,

  Savior divine!

  Now hear me while I pray,

  Take all my guilt away,

  O let me from this day

  Be wholly thine!

  “While life’s dark maze I tread,

  And griefs around me spread,

  Be Thou my guide;

  Bid darkness turn to day,

  Wipe sorrow’s tears away,

  Nor let me ever stray

  From Thee aside.”

  “I don’t think I’m cut out for the pastor’s job.” Elijah sat beside Ben Hanks on a bench near the Bluestem. Despite heavy storm clouds hanging on the horizon, the Independence Day fish fry had gone off without a hitch. Many in the community had come down to the water’s edge to eat and have fellowship. Though Eli had been asked to join a game of horseshoes, he didn’t have the heart for it.

  “I wouldn’t agree with that,” Ben said. “Folks are still talkin’ about the way you sat up with the Rippetos and their sick baby. I think everybody’s glad you came to Hope.”

  “I should have gone to China.”

  “I bet you don’t even know where China is, Brother Elijah.”

  “I sure do. It’s over there on the other side of the world.”

  Ben took a bite of batter-fried bass and chewed in silence. Finally he shook his head. “What do you want to go all the way over there for anyhow, Preacher?”

  “The Chinese people need to know about Christ.”

  Ben considered this. “I reckon they do. Somebody ought to go tell ’em the Good News. But what makes you think that ‘somebody’ is you? There’s plenty of folks right here in Hope who don’t know the gospel either. And we need you to help us guide our town in the right direction. There’s a rumor afoot about that opera house they’re puttin’ up down the way. Somebody heard those folks are plannin’ to bring in whisky.”

  Elijah plucked a stem of grass and stuck it in his mouth. That’s not all they’re bringing in, he thought. Every time he considered the prospect of a brothel at the edge of town, his gut churned. Half the time he caught himself cooking up ways to demolish the infernal den of iniquity. The other half of the time, he was preaching imaginary sermons that would drop Beatrice and the rest of those wild-living sinners to their knees in repentance before almighty God.

  And he knew he couldn’t do either. If he preached against the opera house too strongly, he might incite the townsfolk to do something ill advised—like burning it down. That would be just as great a sin as the wickedness taking place inside the building.

  In fact, this very afternoon he had led the short worship service with a message on the glory of the Lord—and he was disgusted with himself over it. He had spoken not a single brimstone-laden word about brothels or saloons. He hadn’t even extended an invitation to confess sin and be saved. It was just a simple talk about the beauty of the nation—words so lukewarm they would never convict anyone.

  “Mr. Jack is thinkin’ about starting up a Sunday school,” Ben said. “He figures the town ought to get the children off to a good beginnin’ in life. They can learn the Bible stories and maybe a little readin’ and cipherin’, too. And Mr. Seth wants to have a fund-raisin’ so’s we can put a steeple on the church roof. How about that? A real steeple—and maybe a bell. Wouldn’t that be dandy?”

  Eli nodded. “It’d be nice, all right.”

  “Miz Rosie said if we can find us a teacher willing to move to town, we could start a regular school inside the church buildin’. And there’s folks talkin’ of formin’ a cemetery committee. Now that you built us such a nice graveyard, Brother Elijah, why, we want to keep it mowed and maybe even plant some flowers.”

  “There’s not anybody buried in it yet, Ben.”

  “That don’t matter.”

  “What matters is that I’m no good at leading folks to Christ. Not after they get to know me. It’s one thing to preach a sermon to a bunch of strangers and then move on. But here in Hope, people can see I’m just a regular fellow. I don’t have much book learning, and I’m not trained to preach. I’m just an old cowhand, Ben.”

  “Nobody expects you to be God.”

  Eli considered that for a moment. It was true that he himself could not save a single soul. That was God’s business—and in Bible times, God had used some of the most low-down, ornery fellows to do his mighty work. But look at what a mess Eli had made of his talk with Lily Nolan the other night. He cared about that woman so much, but he had only blurted a bunch of outright nonsense and then stormed away. If he couldn’t lead Lily to the Lord, who could he lead?

  “Take Miz Lily,” Ben said. “Now there’s one fine lady. I reckon she knows you about as well as anybody does, Brother Elijah, and she don’t seem to mind you a bit. She’s been comin’ to the church services real regular, and of late, she’s always singin’ hymns out of that little book of yours. You made a difference in her life. Look at her over there right now showin’ off that baby to all the women folk. Anybody would think Sam was her own young’un. Why don’t you make things right with the woman and marry her?”

  Eli studied Lily as she stood at the water’s edge. Her laughter, musical and light, drifted up the bank. She had pulled her hair into a loose bun at her crown, and it gleamed like a golden halo. Since that night on the road, he had managed to avoid her, but just the sight of her now made his insides hurt.

  “I’m not going to marry Lily Nolan,” he told Ben. “And I wish you and everybody else would stay out of my business.”

  Ben fingered a transparent fish bone out of his mouth and tossed it to the ground. A flicker of lightning in the distance led quickly to a low growl of thunder. “Gonna rain,” Ben said. “Sure am glad my mama’s in Topeka with my big brother. She’d have hung the washin’ on the line and took it down again fifty times today already. Mercy, I miss that God-fearin’ old woman.”

  “I’m sorry I was sharp with you,” Eli said. “You’re not the first who has told me what to do with my life.”

  “It’s all right. I know you’re in a pickle. You think God’s tellin’ you to go to China, when it’s clear as daylight to everybody else that he brung you to Hope to do his work right here. And I know you’re fit to be tied over Miz Lily. I don’t understand what’s keepin’ the two of you apart when we can all see you belong together.”

  “She’s not a Christian, Ben,” Eli said. “I can’t marry a woman who doesn’t serve my God. I won’t do it.”

  Ben set his tin plate on the ground and nodded in understanding. “I reckon that explains it then. Miz Lily come home late the other night after Mr. Jack’s weddin’, and she told Eva she’d been out talkin’ to you on the road. Did you say somethin’ to her?”

  “I made it clear we couldn’t be anything but friends, that’s all.”

  “She must have took it pretty good, because you ought to see her the past couple of days. She’s a new woman, Brother Elijah. It’s like a load come right off her back. She’s been chipper as a jaybird—singin’ and talkin’ and scurryin’ around till Eva can hardly keep up with her. Maybe you tellin’ her where things stood eased her mind so she could get to feelin’ better. Look at her right now, climbin’ up onto the table to sing. Don’t she look a sight?”

  Eli groaned. He had asked Lily to perform from the hymnal, but he hadn’t really had much hope she would do it. Now how was he going to sit through this? He couldn’t, that was all. He just couldn’t do it. Grabbing his Bible, he jumped to his feet and headed for the church. With the storm blowing up, he needed to make sure the shutters were latched and that he’d put away the tools for painting the cemete
ry fence.

  As he stepped inside the stuffy building, he could hear Lily’s voice lifted in song. She had chosen one of his favorite hymns, “My Faith Looks Up to Thee.” Elijah’s own mama had sung it to him while he sat on her lap, and he could almost feel her warm arms around him. Almost, but not quite.

  Eli quickly fastened the shutters and tried not to think about how lonely he felt all of a sudden. He’d never been lonely on the range. All he’d had out there was a bunch of cowboys and some cattle, but they’d been company enough. Here in the middle of a busy town with people coming and going all around him, he felt a sharp sense of longing.

  He’d go find Samuel. That’s what he’d do. With Lily spending most of the time with the baby each day, Eli had been free to work on the church and tend to the needs of his flock. But he’d hardly seen the boy except at night, and now the notion of cuddling the little fellow seemed like the best plan he’d thought up in days.

  He set the paint bucket and brush inside his back door, and then he walked down to the creek again. Lily was still singing, but Eli walked around the edge of the gathering and found the woven basket in which his son lay. The moment the child laid eyes on him, Sam’s small round face lit up with a toothless grin.

  “Hey, Sammy,” Eli said, kneeling by the basket. “How are you doing there, little Nubbin?”

  Slipping his hands under the baby, he savored the warm, living weight. Sam had grown. He was thriving. If God saw fit, this little boy would one day become a man. Eli settled Sam on his shoulder, patted his small, curved back, and stroked his fingers along the baby’s dark hair. It was going to be up to the father to see that the son turned out well.

  “You want to take a walk, Sammy?” Eli asked, rising. “Let’s go down to the edge of the creek and see if we can find any crawdads. We might even catch us a frog or two. You ever seen a tadpole?”

  Suddenly the baby gave a huge leap in Eli’s arms. Surprised, the preacher nearly lost his grip. As he struggled to settle Sam, he realized who had caused the child’s reaction.

  “Tadpoles?” Lily said, stepping up to join them. “Surely you’re not going to introduce this sweet, innocent child to tadpoles and crawdads.”

  Eli breathed up a quick prayer for help. If God had sent down fire from heaven and parted the Red Sea, surely he could perform another miracle now. Eli needed one. Badly.

  “I expected you to talk about the opera house in your sermon,” Lily said as they made their way to the creek. “I was surprised you didn’t mention it.”

  “This didn’t seem like the time or place,” he managed.

  “Are you resigned to it then?”

  He felt the steam rise up his spine and his heart rate increase at the mere mention of the opera house. “You might as well know, I will preach out against that place—and soon. I realize the folks running it are your friends, Lily, but drunkenness and adultery are sins. The Bible makes that real clear.”

  “I know it does,” she said softly.

  “I won’t stand by and watch this little town catch sin like a killing case of influenza. I’ve been in Hope long enough to see these people struggling against enough kinds of sin—greed, jealousy, covetousness, lies, and faithlessness. Why should I stand around and watch that opera house import a whole new form of evil?”

  “You shouldn’t.”

  “I’m the minister of the church,” he continued, “and it’s up to me to set an example. Either that or I’d better ride off to China and let the whole town burn down like Sodom and Gomorrah.”

  “I’d hate to see that.”

  Elijah knew he was walking faster now, but he couldn’t make himself slow down. With Lily Nolan, he had always been able to speak his mind. Somehow the woman drew his thoughts right out of his head. If he was planning to denounce her friends and their place of business, well, she had the right to know. Besides, it felt good to talk.

  “Seems to me there were two kinds of fellows in the Bible,” he said. “Pastors and prophets. Prophets didn’t tend flocks; they hollered out for God to send down justice. They called folks to repentance. They showed people their sins. I reckon I’m supposed to be a prophet. In my sermon today, I stayed away from what was really on my heart, and I feel sick about it. So even though you’re going over to that opera house to find work, Lily, I’ll be preaching out against you every Sunday.”

  “No, I’m not,” she murmured.

  “See, I never have been much good at pastoring,” he went on. “I get too het up. I have to preach the Word of God, and that means calling folks to look at their lives and make a change.” By now they were halfway to the grove of trees where he’d spoken with Lily the other night. Just the memory of his failure there made him sick inside. “I think I’m supposed to be a prophet, not a pastor, and that means—”

  “You’re supposed to be like Christ, Preacher-man,” Lily said.

  Eli stopped and looked at her. For the first time, her voice remained gentle when she accosted him. Standing in the road, she gave him a warm smile and lifted her eyebrows.

  “Isn’t that right?” she said. “Prophets and priests were God’s messengers before Christ came. After that, our job has been to emulate him.”

  “Emulate?”

  “Copy. And Christ is both prophet and priest, isn’t he? What’s wrong with shepherding a flock—and pouring God’s Word out to the sheep at the same time? Can’t you do both?”

  “Are you mocking me?” He shifted the baby to his other shoulder, uncomfortable and more than a little confused at her words. “Go ahead and throw Bible verses and religious talk at me like you usually do. I don’t mind, Lily. I realize you know the Scriptures better than I do, and you’ve been to church a lot more years than I ever have. But it doesn’t matter. Ever since our talk the other night, I’ve been doing nothing but thinking and praying. And I’ve come to see that the only thing I can do is to walk in Christ’s footsteps. That’s all. Just follow him. So even if you make fun of me or I mess up a sermon or I give someone lousy advice, nothing matters but that I keep on following Christ the best I can.”

  By this time, they had come to the shelter of the trees beside the creek. Elijah realized he was patting the baby with such vigor that poor Sam had gotten himself a bad case of hiccups. Every time he “hicked,” his whole body wriggled, and every time he “upped,” out came a gurgle of white milk onto the shoulder of Eli’s black jacket.

  “Aw, confound it, Sam,” he said, balancing the baby in one arm while he searched his pockets for his handkerchief. “Don’t you know I borrowed this coat from Jack Cornwall? It’s his wedding jacket, and now it’s a mess, sure as shootin’. He’s liable to hog-tie and skin me, young’un. Where in tarnation is that handkerchief? Lily, would you …” He looked up to find the woman convulsed in giggles, her laughter poorly hidden behind her hand. “What’s so funny?”

  “Here, give me that baby, would you?” She held out her arms, and Sam eagerly went to her. “It’s you, silly. You’re so hopeless with babies.”

  “I am not.” He began wiping the wet spot on his shoulder. “What have you been feeding that boy anyhow? The smell is enough to gag a polecat. What am I supposed to tell Jack Cornwall? And would you quit that infernal cackling?”

  Lily leaned against a tree and laughed as though she’d never seen anything so funny. He took off the coat and hung it on a tree branch. There. Maybe it would rain soon.

  Looking out across the prairie, Eli felt his heart contract at the sight of the sickening green color of the sky. Though rain hadn’t begun to fall, the air felt as heavy as a damp dishrag. Lightning licked the horizon like a snake’s tongue. Purple and blue mingled with the pea-soup green, a livid bruising of the heavens.

  This was going to be worse than a heavy rain, Eli realized. There could be hail. Hail would mean crop damage right in the middle of summer. If the crops were ruined, there’d be no time for replanting before the onset of autumn. The farmers had barely made it through the past winter after last year’s grass
hopper plague. He ought to get back to the people. Back to his flock …

  “We’ve got to go, Lily,” he said. “The sky’s looking bad.”

  Sobering, she turned to look in the direction of the oncoming storm. “Oh, Elijah.” She took a step toward him. “The sky is green. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

  “We’d better find shelter before the hail hits.” He let out a breath. “You know, even though you were challenging me again, Lily, you were right. I’ve got to follow Christ’s example—and that means I’ll be both a prophet and a priest.”

  “Elijah,” she said, her hand on his arm to stop him. “Before we go, I need to talk to you. I want you to know I wasn’t mocking you earlier. I was trying to help you see how important you are to the town. The people need you. Truly they do—and they need you for the man you are, not some imaginary ideal of the perfect pastor.”

  A sudden gust of wind ripped Eli’s hat from his head and sent it rolling down the road. He started after it, but Lily tightened her grip on his arm. “Elijah,” she went on, “I want you to know what happened to me the other night. I’ve been waiting for the right time to speak. I want to tell you about my decision.”

  Eli watched his Stetson tumbling farther across the prairie, and he wanted to go after it. Not because he needed his hat, but because he didn’t want to hear Lily’s words. She would tell him about her plans to join her friend at the opera house, and that would tear her away from him completely.

  The way things were going right now, at least he could be near her sometimes. He could talk to her. He could listen to her beautiful voice. He could pretend he would be able to hold onto her forever, even though he knew she never would be truly his.

  “I’d better get my hat,” he said. “We’ll talk after the storm passes, Lily. I’ll walk over to Ben’s, and you and I can sit on the porch.”

  Disappointment clouded her eyes. “But I’d rather—”