These High, Green Hills

by Jan Karon

  “Velma,” Percy called to his wife, “th‘ Father’ll have th’ special! Coffee’s on th‘ house.”

  “What, ah, is the special?” he inquired.

  “Grilled horned toad on a bed of fresh mustard greens,” said Percy, looking solemn.

  “Give me a side of salsa with that,” replied the rector.

  Percy doubled over with laughter, slapping his leg. Clearly, the week that Percy and Velma had spent in Hawaii last summer was still working wonders with the proprietor’s sense of humor.

  “You got lost in a dern cave?” Dooley yelled into the phone.

  “Totally!” Where Dooley Barlowe was concerned, only the bald truth would do. “Completely!”

  “Totally, completely lost? Man!”

  “Want to do it sometime?”

  “What? Get lost in a cave? No way.”

  “You don’t know what you’re missing,” he said.

  “Did ol‘ Cynthia get scared?”

  “Terrified.”

  Dooley cackled. “Did you get scared?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think it scared th‘ poop outta you, is what I think.”

  “You hit the nail on the head, buddy.”

  Dooley Barlowe sounded as if he were rolling on the floor. Maybe, just maybe, hearing Dooley laugh was the payoff for that miserable experience.

  A dollar off a horned toad that turned out to be tuna salad, and a ripping good laugh out of Dooley Barlowe....

  So far, so good, for a couple of hours spent stumbling around in the dark.

  When he arrived home at five-thirty, he thought he had never smelled such a seductive aroma in his life, though ‘something in his stomach was definitely off.

  “Leg of lamb!” exclaimed Cynthia.

  “Man!” Sometimes there was nothing else to do but quote Dooley Barlowe.

  “And glazed carrots, and roasted potatoes with rosemary.”

  “The very gates of heaven.”

  “Dearest,” she said, putting her arms around his neck, “there’s something different about you....”

  “What? Exhaustion, maybe, from only four hours of sleep.”

  She kissed his chin. “No. Something deeper. I don’t know what it is.”

  “Something good, I fondly hope.”

  “Yes. Very good. I can’t put my finger on it, exactly. Oh. I forgot—and a salad with oranges and scallions, and your favorite dressing.”

  “But why all this?”

  “Because you were so brave when we were lost in that horrible cave.”

  The payoff was definitely improving. He brushed her hair back and kissed her forehead. “It wasn’t so horrible.”

  “Timothy ...”

  “OK,” he said, “I was scared out of my wits.”

  She laughed. “I knew that!”

  “You did not.”

  “Did so.”

  “Did not.”

  “Are y‘uns havin’ a fuss?” Uncle Billy peered through the screen door.

  “Not yet,” said the rector. “Come in and sit!”

  “I cain’t. I dragged m‘self down here t’ give you m‘ tithe, as Rose is on to me akeepin’ it in th‘ newspapers. She’s done gone through a big stack alookin’ for it, don’t you know. It’s a scandal what a man with a little cash money has t‘ put up with, ain’t it?”

  “I don’t have a clue, Uncle Billy. I never had much cash money.”

  “I hear you’n th‘ missus was lost in a cave. I got lost in a cave when I was a boy. Hit’s somethin’ you don’t never forget. Them red Inyuns that roamed these mountains, they knowed caves like th‘ back of their hands, but th’ white feller cain’t hardly go a step without broad daylight in ‘is face.”

  “That’s a fact,” he said.

  “I hear your dog pulled you out, or y‘uns might’ve been in there’til Christmas.”

  Barnabas, who was lying under the kitchen table, thumped his tail on the floor.

  “He’s the man of the hour, all right,” said the rector, stepping outside. “They say he led them straight to us, nearly a quarter of a mile in. We got to bed about three o‘clock this morning.”

  “I hope y‘uns didn’t drink no water while you was in there.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Oh, law, that cave water can send you high-steppin‘, don’t you know. It don’t hit you right off, might take a while, but let them cave germs git t’ workin‘, and first thing you know ...” The old man shook his head, grinning.

  “Uncle Billy, would you do us a favor?” Cynthia asked through the screen door.

  “If they was anybody I’d do a favor, hit’d be you ‘uns.”

  “Would you take the nice, fresh chocolate cake Esther brought today? We can’t touch a bite. We’d just have to throw it out.”

  “Oh, law!” said Uncle Billy, stricken at the thought. “Me an‘ Rose’ll be glad to take it off y’r hands if hit’ll help y‘uns out.”

  “Thanks be to God!” she said when Uncle Billy left with his foil-wrapped parcel. “If he hadn’t taken it, I would have eaten the whole thing! I would have absolutely stuffed it in my ears.”

  “Dodged a bullet,” he said, feeling his stomach wrench.

  She sat down suddenly in a kitchen chair.

  “What is it? You’re white as a bed sheet.”

  “I don’t know. Oh, dear. Oh, no!” She bounded from the chair and sprinted down the hall to the guest bathroom, clutching her stomach.

  His own stomach gave a loud, empathetic gurgle, signaling what he recognized as a dire emergency.

  “Cave germs!” he shouted, racing upstairs.

  Dog Rescues Rector and Wife

  Lost Fourteen Hours

  In Hidden Cave

  He peered at the latest edition of the Muse.

  That Cynthia Kavanagh looked terrific, even when smeared with mud from head to toe, was no surprise.

  As for himself, his face looked oddly like a turnip that had just been yanked from the ground. Worse yet, the photo of them staggering out of the cave was shot at such close range, he could see the whites of his own eyes. Not a pretty sight.

  The photo of Barnabas, on the other hand, was snapped from such a great distance that it appeared to be a ground squirrel that had led the rescue team.

  He fogged his glasses, wiped them on the lapel of his old burgundy bathrobe, and scanned the story.

  He had not said they found the fossil remains of a dinosaur, much less discovered a vase in a vault.

  And he certainly didn’t care for J.C.’s insinuation that all they’d done was sit around eating candy, waiting to be rescued.

  In any case, he made a mental note to pick up extra copies of the paper for Walter and Katherine, and one for Father Roland in Canada, all of whom were patently wrong to believe he led a rustic and uneventful life.

  The mayor called at five a.m. and asked him to hotfoot it to the hospital, where Puny’s labor was intense, and they were worried.

  He had barely skidded into the deserted hallway when Nurse Herman found him and steered him toward the delivery room.

  “I can’t go in there,” he said.

  “Why not?” demanded Nurse Herman. “Everybody else does. It’s the latest thing to watch the birth.”

  What could people be thinking, to stand around and watch babies being born, as if the whole affair were some daytime TV show? Didn’t they have anything else to do, like mow their lawns or work for a living?

  “Besides, th‘ mayor wants you to pray,” said Nurse Herman.

  He ran a finger around his collar, which suddenly seemed constricting. “I can do that standing in the hall!”

  Esther Cunningham opened the door and poked her head into the hallway. “There you are!” she snapped, as if he had taken hours to arrive. “One just popped out, it’s a girl, we’re on a roll.”

  Nurse Herman shoved him into the room, where he saw Joe Joe sitting by Puny, her sweat-drenched red hair spread over the pillow. Joe Joe’s mothe
r, Marcie Guthrie, stood across the room covering her face with her hands, but observing the proceedings through her fingers. At the sink, a nurse cleaned up a red-haired infant, who was crying lustily.

  “Bear down!” said Joe Joe.

  “Pray!” said the mayor.

  “Breathe!” said Dr. Wilson.

  “Oh, Lord!” said Marcie Guthrie.

  The mayor’s husband, Ray, leaned unsteadily on a chair, wearing a look of mortified horror.

  “Ray’s not up to this,” said the mayor, “but it’s the latest thing to do, and he likes to keep current.”

  The rector thought the whole event was closely akin to a political barbecue.

  “Here it comes!” shouted Esther.

  “Hallelujah!” whooped Marcie.

  “It’s a girl!” announced the doctor.

  “Catch him!” cried Nurse Herman, as the rector toppled toward the floor.

  “Sissy and Sassy?” he inquired.

  “It’s really Kaitlin and Kirsten,” said Puny, smiling hugely. “But we decided to call ‘em Sissy and Sassy.” She was holding one infant on either side. The whole lot had mops of red hair like he’d never seen before in his life.

  “Which is, ah, Sissy and which is ... ?”

  “This,” said Puny, shrugging her right shoulder, “is Sissy. And this,” she said, shrugging her left shoulder, “is Sassy. You’ll get to know ‘em apart when they come to work with me.”

  “Take your time on that,” he said, meaning it. “No hurry. Why not take a month? Or take two—we can manage!”

  Puny looked at him, wide-eyed. “We’d never pay our bills if I laid out for a month or two! You know that bathroom we added on, our own self? It cost four thousand dollars, and that’s without a toilet! Lord only knows when we can git a toilet!”

  “Aha.”

  “They say you fainted when Sassy popped out!”

  “Went black,” he said, grinning. If Nurse Herman hadn’t snatched him up, he might have cracked his skull on the tile floor.

  “Don’t y‘all worry about a thing,” Puny assured him. “I’ll be back in two weeks, good as new.”

  He gazed at the new mother and her little brood, feeling a glad delight for the young woman who had taken over his home and his heart, all to his very great relief.

  “You’re the best, Puny Guthrie.”

  “I’ll bake you a cake of cornbread first thing,” she said, smiling happily.

  He had never bought a toilet before, but after some discussion about a wooden, plastic, or soft seat, and the new, economical tank capacity, he decided on a standard model and, to save the delivery fee, had it put in his trunk in two boxes and drove it to the Guthries’ little cottage, where, with no small difficulty, he wrestled the boxes out of the car and onto the porch, and assembled the thing on the spot with the aid of his auto repair kit.

  He couldn’t help but observe, as he drove away, that it had a certain panache sitting there.

  He sat up in bed and listened. Was it the wind? The shadows on the ceiling weren’t moving.

  In the hall, Barnabas growled.

  “What is it?” Cynthia asked.

  “I heard something.”

  She sat up with him.

  Someone was knocking at the door. Barnabas raced down the stairs and stood barking in the foyer.

  When he reached the foyer, he turned on the porch light, grabbed his dog by the collar, and opened the door.

  As long as he lived, he would never forget what he saw.

  It was a girl, he knew that from the long blond hair that fell over her shoulders, but she had been beaten so brutally that her face made little sense to him.

  “Good God!” he said.

  She fell toward him, and he saw the smear of blood in her hair.

  “Lace Turner,” she murmured.

  It was the girl who had jumped from the tree and landed at Absalom’s feet, the girl who had stolen the ferns and run.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Lace

  BARNABAS BARKED wildly as the girl leaned against Father Tim to steady herself. “I got t‘ lay down som’ers.”

  He gripped her arms and drew her into the hallway. “You’re OK,” he said, his heart thundering. “I’ve got you.”

  “Git that dog away from me.”

  Cynthia appeared on the stairs. “Who is it?”

  “It’s a girl. She’s badly hurt. Put Barnabas in the garage.”

  “Dear God!”

  “I’ll take her to the study.”

  Her knees gave way, and he moved to pick her up. “Don’t touch m‘ back!” she cried. “Git me laid down.” The look of appeal on her face was crucifying.

  “Put your arm over my shoulder,” he said. “I’ll help you walk.”

  “I cain’t. It pulls m‘ back.”

  Together, he and Cynthia eased her along the hall and into the study. “Quit ... jigglin‘ me,” Lacey murmured through bruised lips.

  As his wife hurriedly spread an old blanket over the sofa, he became aware of the strong scent of blood and body odor, and something unidentifiable that wrenched his stomach. He sensed that it was, somehow, the smell of violence itself.

  “Lay me down easy.”

  “Right. Easy does it.”

  She cursed as they helped her down. “Not on m‘ back!” she said. “On m’ side.”

  The blood on her arms had crusted, but fresh blood appeared to be coming from her head, staining her hair at the crown.

  “I’ll call Hoppy,” he said. “She needs a doctor.”

  “Don’t call no doctor!” yelled Lacey, trying to raise her head. “Don’t call no doctor, I don’t need no doctor—”

  “You’re badly hurt.”

  “I been hurt worser. I ain’t killed.”

  “You could be hurt internally.”

  “I ain’t, I know m‘self. If you call a doctor, I’m leavin’. Wash me off, git some salve on m‘ back.”

  “Can you do that?” he asked his wife.

  “Yes,” she said, looking pale. “Get hot water and soap and clean rags—those old diapers I use to clean silver. And bring the peroxide—and the bandages.”

  “Done,” he said, going from the room, shaken.

  They sat in the study with a single lamp burning against the dark.

  Cynthia had bathed Lacey’s wounds and patiently worked the fibers of her shirt from the raw flesh on her back. She had cried out only once when the peroxide was swabbed into the swelling lesions, and said nothing as Cynthia applied an antibiotic ointment and bandages.

  He made a strong, dark tea with sugar and lemon, and Cynthia spooned it onto Lacey’s tongue, avoiding her swollen lips, then helped her lie again on her side, covered with a light blanket. She was silent, except for occasional sharp intakes of breath through her teeth.

  He looked at his wife, sitting on a footstool drawn close to the sofa, and saw the suffering in her own face. She was moved to tears or laughter with nearly anyone at all, being as open as a door to the feelings of others.

  “You’re safe here,” she told Lacey. “I want you to know that.”

  The girl nodded.

  “How did you come to us?”

  “Ol‘ Preacher Greer. I met ’im in th‘ road here lately. He said if I was ever to git bad hurt, run to th’ preacher in th‘ collar, he takes in young ’uns.”

  “Did you know,” asked the rector, “that the preacher in the collar was the same person you saw in the ferns?”

  “I tol‘ Preacher Greer I couldn’t run t’ you, you’d done caught me stealin‘. He said go on, anyway, he’ll he’p you.”

  “You were brave to come to a strange house in the night,” said Cynthia.

  “I was s’ skeered of Pap, it didn’t make no mind t‘ me where I hid at. Preacher Greer wouldn’t tell me wrong, so I come. Always before, I run t’ Widder Fox, but she went off to th‘ ol’ people’s home. You cain’t tell nobody I come here, or Pap’ll lick me worse’n this.”

  “Why did yo
ur pap lick you, Lacey?”

  “I don’t go by Lacey, I go by Lace.”

  “Lace, then,” said Cynthia. “Why did your pap lick you?”

  “ ‘Cause he was drunk and you cain’t say nothin’ to ‘im if he’s drunk. I knowed better, I should’ve hid under th’ house or som‘ers, but he come in th’ house s’ quick, I couldn’t do nothin‘. I quit diggin’ ferns and rhodos, is what it was, an‘ he seen m’ sack was empty. Two or three times, I repented of stealin‘ an’ quit, and ever‘ time, he licked me bad.

  “Me’n Jess is got t‘ dig twenty-five fern and sixteen rhodo a week when th’ weather’s good, and I ain’t dug my half n‘r nowhere near. So he said he was goin’ to knock m‘ teeth out to where I couldn’t eat nothin’, as I wadn’t doin‘ my part t’ earn nothin‘ t’ eat, then he took off ‘is belt and got me with th’ buckle. He was goin‘ to beat m’ head in, but I give ‘im m’ back or he’d of killed me.”

  “Your mother ... can’t she do something?”

  “M‘ mam’s got a blood ailment and cain’t git outta th’ bed. She lays there and hollers f‘r ’im t‘ quit, but he don’t.”

  His heart weighed in him like a stone. “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  “I ain’t eat, but I ain’t hungry, neither. M‘ head’s asplittin’.”

  “The capsules I gave you should help,” said Cynthia. “Lace—please let us take you to the doctor, we’ll pay for it, and there’s no need for your father to know—”

  “I ain’t goin‘ t’ no doctor—no way, nohow,” she said, and sucked in her breath.

  “The guest room ...” said the rector. “We could put her in bed so she can sleep.”

  “I cain’t sleep. I got t‘ git back by daylight.”

  “You mustn’t go back. You’re in no condition—”

  “I got t‘ feed m’ mam. She won’t eat a bite f‘r nobody but me. M’ pap, he’ll be sleepin‘, an’ Jess won’t do nothin‘. My mam’ll die ’ithout me, she said she would.”

  “I don’t think you should get up and go anywhere,” said Cynthia. “There must be someone who can take care of your mother while you—”