These High, Green Hills

by Jan Karon

  “Percy’ll give you a dish of prunes,” said Mule. Mule looked at the rector and dropped his voice. “Did you see who came in behind you?”

  “Who?”

  “Officer Lynwood. She’s sittin‘ at th’ counter.”

  “Aha.”

  Mule whistled. “Man ...”

  “Man what?”

  “What makes J.C. think he can handle that? She’s packin‘ a nine-millimeter.”

  The rector laughed.

  “Yogurt and dry toast won’t hack that, in my opinion.”

  “J.C.’s not interested in your opinion.”

  “No kidding. What’s your boy doin‘ this summer?”

  “He’s going to Meadowgate to help Hal Owen.”

  “I thought you were planning some big surprise camping trip, just you and him.”

  “I was planning that, but I’ve recently had enough surprise camping, thank you.”

  “There’s J.C. comin‘ in. Well, I’ll be ... he nodded to her like he never saw her before in his life.”

  “That’s standard.”

  “It is?”

  “When you’re in love, sometimes you act like you don’t know the other person.”

  “Is that a fact? I never acted like that. Did you?”

  “Over and over again,” said the rector.

  “Why?”

  “Beats me.”

  “Whoa, he’s sittin‘ down right next to her. But he’s not even lookin’ her way.”

  “That’s a sure sign.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of something serious.”

  A long silence ensued while Mule peered toward the counter.

  “Seems like he’d at least step back here and speak to his friends. After all, we’ve been meetin‘ in this booth for fifteen years. Maybe he’s just chewin’ the fat with Percy, maybe he’ll walk on back in a minute or two. Dadgum. Percy just handed him a cup of coffee and some silverware. I can’t believe it—th‘ blame fool is goin’ to eat at the counter.”

  “He’s outta here,” said the rector.

  “What’ll y‘all have?” asked Velma.

  “Who cares?” sighed Mule, looking despondent.

  It took innumerable phone calls and the repeated qualifier that he was clergy. When he finally received a return call from the social services investigator, he felt as if he’d gotten through to the Pentagon.

  “According to all we can learn, it’s true that Lacey Turner doesn’t live in the Creek community. One neighbor said West Virginia, another said Tennessee. No one came to the door at the Turner house. We left a note for the family to contact us, but we don’t have much hope of that happening.”

  “The girl is living there. I know it for a fact.”

  “We’ve had a confidential source on the Creek for some years, but she’s gone to a county nursing home. Until we can locate another source of reliable information, we’re forced to deal with the information at hand.”

  “You’ve got to do something. I’m telling you, this is an urgent situation.”

  “We can go in with a law enforcement officer, but that puts a different cast on it. The Creek shuts up like a clam when they see a uniform.... They shot three deputies in there in the last twelve, thirteen years. I don’t think that’s the way to go.”

  “What is the way to go?” He regretted the coldness in his voice.

  “We could use a court order. That gets us inside the house to check, and might at least produce the girl.”

  “What would you do with the girl if you found her?”

  “If things are like you say, she’d be removed from the home. But first we’d do a medical exam, check for any evidence of abuse.”

  “Removed from the home to where?”

  “We’d look for a suitable relative, and if that didn’t work—foster care.”

  “What excuse would you use for the court order?” he asked.

  “The truth. A complaint of child abuse.”

  “What if you can’t find the girl?”

  “We’re required by law to try and substantiate your report. Ideally, we substantiate it by locating the abuse victim and doing a medical exam. If we can’t find her, we can use your report as substantiation, along with another witness who’s seen her bruises. In this case, that could be your wife.”

  “Then?”

  “Then it’s turned over to the district attorney’s office. They’ll do a complete and thorough search to locate Lacey.”

  He felt shaken.

  “You need to know,” said the investigator, “that she probably doesn’t want to leave the home. It may be a violent situation, but it’s a known situation. However, a minor doesn’t have the right to refuse help, and we’d be required to take her out of there.”

  “The mother ... she’s an invalid. If Lacey leaves ...”

  “If she’s a mentally competent adult, she has a right to choose between leaving or staying. The odds are, she won’t leave.”

  He was silent.

  “There’s something you ought to know, Father. In cases like this, there are very few happy endings.”

  “What,” he asked, “is the bottom line here?”

  “You did what the law requires you to do—you reported it. Bottom line, we have to do what the law requires us to do, which is try and locate the girl. We’ll pursue a few other avenues, and if those fail, we’ll use your report as substantiation—and the DA’s office steps in.”

  He hung up the phone, distraught. If they found Lacey, they would take her away from her mother, which would be devastating to both. If Lacey managed to hide, God knows what her father might do to retaliate for the investigation.

  He felt a weight unlike anything he’d known in years.

  Who was he to cause more breakage in lives already broken?

  He turned left at Winnie Ivey’s cottage and headed along the creek to visit his old friend.

  Homeless Hobbes knew the Creek community like the back of his hand—didn’t he live on the edge of it, and feed half the neighborhood every Wednesday night from his big soup pot?

  As he approached the minuscule house on the bank of Little Mitford Creek, he saw Homeless sitting on the front step reading, and Barkless trying unsuccessfully to bark.

  “I’m seein‘ things,” said Homeless, dropping the book and rubbing his eyes. “It’s a vision of John th’ Baptist, or is it one of th‘ old prophets wanderin’ th‘ wilderness? Where you been?”

  “Married, my friend, married. The days fly by, and the first thing you know ...”

  “You’ve fell off to a total stranger. Come and get you some lemonade before you have a heat stroke.”

  He followed Homeless and Barkless into the house, which, even with its thin walls, seemed sweetly cool inside the oven of summer.

  He saw that his friend, who often boasted of owning only one pair of britches, was clad in a fine pair of corduroy trousers with leather braces.

  “Homeless, you’re looking natty.”

  “Found these in th‘ Dumpster off Kildale Road, same as Miss Rose Watson used to plunder when she could hitch a ride that way. These come from a widder woman whose husband kicked. They say she didn’t give a plugged nickel for th’ fella, jus’ loaded all he had in her yard man’s pickup an‘ sent it out to Kildale. I was standin’ there like I knowed he was comin.‘ There was a watch in th’ pocket of these britches. I sold it to Avis Packard for sixty dollars and give th‘ rest of th’ stuff away.”

  “Well done!”

  “Have a seat right here,” said his host, offering the only chair in the house. “That money paid for a crib mattress and blankets for Sis Thompson’s granbaby. It was sleepin‘ on sacks.” Homeless eyed his braces ruefully. “I don’t know if I’ll keep this getup or not. I might get stuck on m’self.”

  After thoroughly sniffing the rector’s shoes and pants, Barkless leaped into the rector’s lap and settled down contentedly.

  “Ain’t he a sight?” Homeless said. “That’s th‘ most comf
ort a man could ever want, rolled up in nine pounds of brown an’ white spots. How’s ol‘ Barnabas? I hear he bailed you out of that cave.”

  “He did, and deserves a medal for it. My advice is, stay out of holes in the side of a hill.”

  “I ain’t foolin‘ with nothin’ I can’t go in standin‘ up.”

  The rector rubbed the dog’s ears. “I wanted to ask you about that night at camp meeting....”

  “The night so many got saved? To my way of thinkin‘, it was somethin’ only a few see in a lifetime.”

  “There was a young girl....”

  “Lace Turner.”

  “Tell me everything you know about her.”

  “Hard life, that ‘un. They live across th’ creek and up th‘ hill, I’m kind of divided from that hardscrabble section, but I hear this ’n that. She’s smart, and can read like a son of a gun. She’s got a quick hand, too, with stealin’. Her daddy beats her bad, and her mama’s an invalid. Last news was, Lace picked up and went to live somewhere else.”

  “She’s still living at home. We want to help get her out of there if we can.

  “You’ll have to get her mama out before you’ll get her out, is my guess. Her daddy’s threatened to hurt her mama if Lace talks to anybody about what’s goin‘ on.”

  “Tell me about her father.”

  “Name’s Cate—he’s bad business, people cut a wide circle around ‘im. I’ve seen ’im a time or two, and that’s enough for me. You don’t mix a hair trigger temper with rotgut alcohol.”

  “Job?”

  “Off an‘ on, I take it. Worked on that new bridge over th’ Shantee River, but that’s been built a good while.”

  “I believe there’s a brother.”

  “Jess. Eighteen, twenty years old. His elevator don’t go all th‘ way to th’ top, th‘ way I see it.”

  The rector pondered this as he stroked the dog’s ears. “What did the camp meeting do to the Creek? Have any lives been changed?”

  “Oh, they have. Sis Thompson’s one of‘em. Sis had a mouth on ’er like you’d never want to hear. She didn’t drink, but she was mean and carried a knife. Sis ain’t th‘ same woman, I can vouch for that. Th’ Lord’s give her as tender a heart as you’ll ever see.”

  “Anybody else?”

  “Slap Jones. There’s a changed man. Slap runs me to town to pick up what your grocery throws out, carries me around to th‘ Dumpsters, helps run soup to th’ sick. I read th‘ Bible to ’im now and again, he’s comin‘ along in th’ Lord.” Homeless paused and looked at the rector. “Slap did time for killin‘ his brother.”

  “You need somebody back here, a young Absalom Greer.”

  “Yessir, we do. Sometimes a changed life stays changed, sometimes it falls right back into meanness. Meanness is awful easy to fall back into, as I recollect.”

  “I don’t know what to do, Homeless. Mitford clergy is uneasy about coming in here; it’s out of our police jurisdiction, it’s a whole other school district and a different social services department....”

  “I’d go to preachin‘ myself, but th’ Lord won’t call me.”

  “He’s already called you. You’ve got a ministry.”

  “Th‘ way I see it, soup ain’t much of a ministry.”

  “That may be the first thing we ever disagreed on. In truth, I disagree strongly.”

  “Have some lemonade, then, and we’ll square off about it,” said Homeless, sounding his rasping laugh.

  He opened the door of the ancient refrigerator and removed an ice tray. “You were askin‘ about changed lives. Another one comes to mind is Pauline Barlowe. Boys, there was as bad a case of alcohol as you’d ever want to see. An’ I ought to know, as I was a five-star sot for thirty years.”

  “Pauline ... ?”

  “Barlowe. Right good-lookin‘ woman, got a young ’un, moved up there a while back with some low-down jack-leg that uses th‘ butt end of a shotgun to keep ’er in line.”

  He felt sick to his stomach.

  “She was one that jumped out an‘ prayed with Brother Greer. She’s turned around since then, kind of an inspiration to some folks, I hear. Time will tell.”

  Homeless continued to talk, but the rector couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying.

  Pauline Barlowe was Dooley’s missing mother.

  There was still no breeze in the warm June night, except for the steady flow of air coming from their bedside fan.

  “What are we going to do?” he asked, suffering.

  “I don’t feel we should do anything at all. She left Dooley in the care of his grandfather, and there, in a sense, he remains. Through you, through us, his grandfather is taking care of him. She hasn’t come forward to change that. It’s a precarious time in Dooley’s life—look how he’s growing, Timothy. Yes, he hurt us, but consider why—he wants to spend the summer learning more about what may be his life’s work.

  “Think of it! A boy who came to you in ragged overalls, with no knowledge that anyone could even have a life’s work ...”

  He took her hand.

  “She may not know he’s here. And there’s no reason for him to know she’s there. No reason at all,” she said with feeling. “Put this out of your mind. We’ll pray that his mother is healing, as Dooley is healing. Leave it alone. Let God handle it.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “I needed to hear that.”

  But what if Pauline Barlowe came for Dooley and demanded him back?

  Even in the close, humid heat, he felt a sudden chill.

  “Then there’s Lace,” he said. Cut from the same rough bolt of cloth as Dooley Barlowe.

  Why had God sent her on Dooley’s very heels? Maybe he hadn’t gotten it right the first time and was being given another chance.

  He turned on his side and Cynthia drew close, putting her arm around him.

  “Mind your deacon, dearest, and go to sleep.”

  He tried to mind her, but couldn’t.

  He was sitting at his desk when the door opened and a tall, slender young man walked into the office.

  “Father Kavanagh? Scott Murphy.”

  He looked into the pleasant face of someone he might have known for years, but had never seen before in his life.

  “Come in, Scott! Have a seat.”

  Scott Murphy adjusted his glasses. “I hear you’re looking for a chaplain, sir, for Hope House. I’m here to say ... I believe I’m your man.”

  The rector stood and shook his hand, laughing. Scott Murphy had made that statement as if he believed it utterly.

  “I like that,” he said, sitting again. “Tell me why you think so.” This was certainly not going to be the morning he’d expected.

  “Well, Father, I’m willing to work hard, that’s the first thing. I would give myself freely—not to the job, but to the patients. I’ve got the background, but more than that, I like being with the elderly. I care about them very much.” The young man stopped and smiled.

  “Anything else?”

  Scott Murphy sat on the visitor’s bench. “No, sir. That’s it.”

  Disarmed. Caught off guard. It had a certain charm, after all. “Well, Scott, if that’s true, I want to hear more. Who sent you?”

  “I had a dream. It may be hard to believe, Father. All I can say is, you’ll have to go with me on this.”

  “I’ll go with you,” he said, intrigued. “Will you have a cup of coffee?”

  “No, sir. Coffee makes me jump.”

  “A sight I’d like to see sometime.”

  They laughed together easily.

  “Father, when I was nine years old, a terrible thing happened to us, to our family.” Scott took a deep breath and leaned against the wall behind the bench.

  “My father’s and mother’s parents were good friends. They lived in the same little town, Redwing, Kansas, not far from where we lived. My two sets of grandparents shared their garden produce and took a lot of their meals together, and went to the same church.

  “Every summer, I c
ould hardly wait for school to let out. I’d get on a bus to Redwing, and there I’d stay for three months, going back and forth from Granma and Granpa Murphy’s house to Granma and Granpa Lewis’s farm.

  “Being with them was a wonderful experience. There was love coming at me from all four directions, and all at the same time. It was as concentrated and direct as a laser beam.”

  Scott Murphy adjusted his glasses and grinned.

  “They took me to the zoo, they gave me a pony, they built me a tree house, they let me work my own garden—they did everything anybody could ever do to make a kid feel great about life in general.

  “But it wasn’t stuff like the pony or the tree house that made the difference, sir. What made the difference was their love. It had a force to it, and it stayed with me all the time. Looking back, I’d say it made me feel ... invincible.”

  The rector nodded.

  “One night, it was in the winter, all four of my grandparents piled into Granpa Murphy’s new Chevrolet Caprice and drove to the next town to see a Disney movie. Granma Murphy loved Walt Disney. On the way home ...”

  Scott lowered his eyes for a moment, then looked at Father Tim.

  “On the way home, they were hit head-on by a truck.”

  The bookshelf clock ticked against the brief silence.

  “Granma and Granpa Lewis were killed instantly, and so was Granpa Murphy. Granma Murphy was still alive when the ambulance reached the hospital, but she was in a deep coma.”

  Over the years, how many tales that went beyond bearing, even beyond repeating outside these walls, had been poured out in this one small room?

  “I can’t remember anything from then until I was about twelve or thirteen. There’s a blank there, like I was hit on the head and didn’t come to for a long time.

  “You might say that accident left no survivors. Mom and Dad ... we couldn’t seem to get over it, to go on.” Scott shook his head. “You’d think that all the love I felt from my grandparents would stay with me like some kind of armor plating. Instead, I felt it had been stripped away. Whatever they’d given me, I lost it.”