Bachelor's Puzzle

by Judith Pella

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he railed.

  “I was just . . . I wanted to—”

  But at that moment he let his foot drop to the floor with more force than it could take, and he cried out again, this time with curses.

  Ellie’s face turned red.

  “What’s going on in there?” Dad said, coming back into the house.

  “I’m afraid I’m’m not a very good nurse,” Ellie said in a shaky voice. She was close to tears. She had so wanted to offer comfort and solace to the distraught minister but was only making matters worse.

  “No!” Reverend L ocklin cut in quickly. “You’re doing fine. I . . . I just forgot myself.”

  “I know you’re having a hard time, William,” Dad said, “but I do ask that you have a care with your speech. My daughter is of a delicate nature, you know.”

  “I am so sorry. Please forgive me!” The reverend was definitely awake now.

  “Of course,” Ellie said. I n a steadier voice, she added, “Why don’t we try this again? It will burn a little,I’m afraid.”

  Wryly, ReverendL ocklin said, “I already found that out, didn’t I?” He offered a smile with his words to allay her distress.

  Then, to further display his cooperation he dipped his foot into the basin without any guidance from her. The soap surely burned terribly in the deep cuts, but he made not another sound. She washed away the dried blood and the dirt that had crusted on the wounds when he had been barefoot immediately after the fire started. Glancing up at him once, she saw his eyes were closed, his teeth clenched.

  “I hope there’s no more glass in there,” she said. As gingerly as she could, she probed the cut with her fingers just to make sure at least large pieces of glass were gone.

  “You know, it actually feels better,” he said.

  “You are just being brave.”

  “I’m hardly that, as you could tell before.”

  “You were taken by surprise.”

  They were quiet while she tenderly washed his foot. I n the kitchen she heard her father rattle about.

  “Found some fresh eggs in the hen house,” he said. “Anyone else hungry?”

  “I’m starved,” Ellie said.

  “I can’t decide if I’m tired or hungry,” the reverend said.

  “Well,I say you should have a good meal and then sleep for two days,” suggested Dad.

  “I think I could do just that—” He stopped suddenly and frowned.

  Ellie thought she’d pressed too hard on his foot and stopped.

  “I forgot—today is Sunday.”

  “No one will expect you at church today,” Dad said.

  “This has been hard for everyone,” Reverend L ocklin said. “Maybe they’ll need to get together. Maybe . . . well, maybe I do, too . . .”

  “No one was planning on church,” Dad said. “But . . .I guess we can get the word out if you truly want to meet.I ’ll fetch Georgie. He’d love to be useful by rounding up the folks.”

  “I’ll finish fixing breakfast,” offered Ellie, “while you go after Georgie.It’ll be ready when you return.”

  Dad appeared relieved to hear that. Ellie knew he would have been willing to pitch in and help in the kitchen since Mama was gone, but he had very little expertise in cooking. Ellie couldn’t remember the last time she saw her father cook. I t must have been when Georgie was born. He did wrap a loaf of bread from yesterday and a hunk of cheese in a napkin to take to the boys watching the Copeland house.

  A few minutes after her father left, Ellie lifted her hands from the basin and, drying them on the towel, said, “I’ve done as much as I can for now, but it would be good to soak a bit longer. I’ll get it bandaged once I get breakfast going.”

  Ellie sliced up some salt pork and set it in a skillet on the stove. When it was sizzling nicely, she put in some sliced potatoes. Once as she worked she glanced toward the reverend and found him staring at her. She smiled and he smiled back but did not take his eyes off her. That made her self-conscious, but she was competent in the kitchen, so it didn’t hurt her performance at all. Finally, when the potatoes were cooking, she returned to her “patient.”

  “Let’s get you bandaged up, shall we?”

  He lifted his foot from the water, and she dried it with the towel. As she did so, she carefully examined it. She saw no more bits of glass and hoped that since it had bled quite a lot, it had washed itself out. The foot was swollen, and the cut on the bottom of the arch was deep and quite red around the edges.

  She smoothed the balm-of-Gilead salve over the cut and then wrapped it with the new bandage.

  “How’d you get so good at everything you do?” he asked.

  “I guess my mother is a good teacher, and I enjoy this sort of thing—cooking and taking care of people.”

  “You’ll be a fine wife and mother one day.”

  Though her cheeks surely grew nearly as red as Reverend Locklin’s foot, she said sincerely, “I hope so.I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.”

  “I enjoyed watching you. I t’s been a long time since I’ve’ve witnessed such a domestic scene.”

  “You haven’t spent much time at your parents’ home, then?”

  Hesitating a moment, he shrugged and went on. “I ran away from home when I was twelve. My mother was okay, but my stepfather—” He shook his head. “Well,I don’t have to think of him anymore.”

  “You haven’t seen your mother since you were twelve?” Ellie asked, unable to hide her incredulity at such a thing.

  “She chose her husband over me, so what was the use?” His tone was bitter.

  “You’ve never forgiven them?”

  “That would be the Christian thing to do, wouldn’t it?”

  She thought that an odd thing for him to say. Then she smelled the potatoes and knew they needed tending before they burned. She wanted to return to their conversation, but just then Dad came home and the eggs had to be scrambled, and there wasn’t another opportunity. Since the reverend would be staying with them for a while, she determined to learn more about him.

  After breakfast Reverend L ocklin went up to the boys’ room to take a nap before the church service. When Dad went up an hour later to let him know it was time to get ready to go to church, the reverend was asleep so soundly he didn’t budge when Dad called. Dad said he didn’t have the heart to wake him.

  Ellie and her father went to the schoolhouse by themselves, and she was glad they did because nearly everyone in Maintown was there. Apparently ReverendL ocklin had been right about the need of the community to gather together in the face of two tragedies. Though few people liked Tom, the idea of one of their own being shot to death in their own backyard, so to speak, was unnerving. Then on the heels of this to have their beloved friends, the Copelands, who were among the original settlers of Maintown, lose everything in a fire was beyond shocking.

  Jane Donnelly and Mama were among the few absent, but Mama had sent Maggie with messages.

  Getting Dad and Ellie alone before the service began, Maggie reported, “Mrs. Donnelly is acting real strange. She refuses to leave the house for fear that she might miss Tommy, and Mama is afraid to leave her alone. Mrs. Stoddard is going to organize the Sewing Circle to take shifts staying with Mrs. Donnelly until things settle down.” To Dad she added, “Mama says you have to get a funeral for Tom organized as soon as possible ’cause there’s an inordinate amount of flies infesting the Donnelly barn, and it’s been pretty warm lately.”

  “In all the excitement I nearly forgot. L eave it to your mother to be practical,” he said.

  As chairman of the deacons, it fell to Dad to lead the service. He got the business out of the way first, announcing there would be a service for Tom Donnelly tomorrow morning. He requested volunteers to help with the grave digging after today’s church service. Usually such labors on Sunday were frowned upon, but all saw the expediency in this case.

  With that out of the way, Mrs. Renolds led the group in a few
hymns, after which Dad suggested they have an old-fashioned prayer meeting. Again, there was no argument. Everyone seemed to feel the need for prayer, especially in light of recent events, and offered a prayer as they felt led. They prayed for the Donnellys, especially for Jane, whom everyone loved. They prayed for the Copelands, who lost their home, and for the reverend, who had lost his home, too, and been injured, as well. They prayed for other needs in the community: for Mrs. Cook who was failing quickly from her illness; for Albert Stoddard, who was in bed at that very moment from exhaustion after fighting the fire. He’d been ill for some time and as a result had several months ago given up his position as chair of the deacons.

  Besides praying for all their needs, the folks also used the prayer time to praise God for their many blessings, of which the tragedies had made them more deeply aware.

  Ellie had never felt such a strong bond with her friends and neighbors as she did now. And before she realized it, she was praying out loud, something she seldom had the nerve to do in such a large group.

  “Dear Lord, I want to thank you, too, for our pastor you so graciously sent to us. Somehow, no doubt through your wisdom, he knew we all needed this time in church today and made this gathering happen. And though he wanted more than any of us to be here, in the end he was too ill and tired to attend himself. I know he is here in spirit. Bless him now with peaceful rest and heal his injured foot.”

  She was a little shaky when she finished, but she felt good. The people of Maintown would not soon forget these last two days, and the thing they would remember most was the closeness they all felt in this moment.

  TWENTY - FIVE

  The last thing on earth Zack wanted to do was officiate at Tom Donnelly’s funeral. But he felt he owed it to the town and to Jane, as well, because he could not shake his personal sense of responsibility in Tom’s death. Just as everyone had assured him that the fight had been unavoidable, they now assured him he had no blame in the man’s death. But he knew what Tommy had told Maggie and thus knew the truth of the matter.

  The graveyard sat on a hill just east of the center of Main-town, conveniently adjacent to the property where the new church would be built. Thinking of the new church made Zack realize that among the losses from the fire was that money the board of deacons had given him to deposit in the bank. He’d worry about that later, however. Now he had to put Tom to rest, if that was possible.

  Ada had been successful in coaxing Jane Donnelly from her house for the service. The woman, whom Zack had thought attractive and younger looking than her age when he first met her, now looked haggard and old. Grief bore heavily upon her. Could she have so loved her meanspirited husband? Or was the grief for her missing son?

  Having lost all his books in the fire, Zack was forced to improvise the service. But he still remembered what he had memorized for the last Deer Island funeral, so he used that.

  There were about thirty folks in attendance. Zack noted that all the ladies of the Sewing Circle were there, most of their husbands, and a few others. He thought the turnout was more likely to support Jane rather than to honor her husband.

  “I didn’t know Tom Donnelly well,” Zack began, noting as he spoke a quiet stir among some of the folks. No doubt they were thinking his fists knew Tom well enough. He went on with the words he’d delivered in Deer I sland. “But God knew Tom and loved him, and so we must find comfort in that.” There was something else in that service about the deceased going to a better place, but Zack knew he couldn’t say that with a straight face where Tom was concerned.I nstead, he decided he’d better just cut it short. Mrs. Donnelly didn’t look as though she could stand for much more anyway.

  He concluded by quoting a Scripture he’d memorized for that earlier funeral, “ ‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble . . .’ ” Zack paused, because as he spoke, the words echoed in his head in such a way that for the first time he really heard them. Maybe it was because this sleepy little village was experiencing some serious troubles and they were demonstrating how very true those words were. Ellie had told him about the prayer meeting yesterday. She had praised him for making it happen and said that because of it the people had found God’s comfort. He wished he’d been there but then reminded himself that he did not deserve God’s comfort. God did not comfort fake ministers.

  Yet still he envied these people.

  “Reverend?” came Calvin’s quiet voice.

  Zack realized he’d been quiet for much too long. He continued with the recital of the Scripture, trying hard not to hear it but failing as the words reverberated in his own ears. “ ‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.’ ”

  Two months ago those words had been a rote blur of thereofs and therefores. Now they made uncanny sense.

  Somehow Zack managed to get through the rest of the service. He tried to speak words of comfort to Mrs. Donnelly afterward, but he knew his words were empty, hollow. Fortunately, she was anxious to leave, so he was spared further contact. Ada took her home, and everyone else dispersed. Usually after a funeral there would be a gathering in the bereaved one’s home, but there hadn’t been the time or the heart to prepare something.

  Zack rode back to the Newcomb house, unable to get those words from his mind. “God is our refuge . . .” I t was probably because he had just lost his home, or refuge, so to speak. Yet deep down he knew that wasn’t entirely the case. Until coming to Maintown he could barely recall ever having a refuge. The last time had been when he was eight. That’s when his father had died. L eon Hartley had been out in a blizzard trying to round up some cows that had gotten loose. He had caught cold and developed a lung infection. Within a week he was dead. Zack barely remembered his father. The little he knew was that he was a quiet man who worked hard. He usually left to go work in the fields before Zack woke up. Then more often than not, Zack was asleep before his father came home. He remembered, too, that because they were so poor, his father was gone a lot working for hire on other farms, often far away. Zack had no picture in his mind of what his father looked like, though his mother often said Zack favored him greatly.

  Within six months of his father’s death, his mother, out of desperation, married the first man to come along—the stepfather. There was no refuge for Zack after that. The stepfather’s children came first. There were three of them—an older boy and girl, and a boy a year younger than Zack. They got served first at the table, and Zack got what was left, usually a few scraps. They got the new clothes; Zack got the hand-me-downs. When they did something bad, Zack got blamed, and he got the whipping. His mother never interceded because she so feared being left alone. By the time he was nine, he tried to run away but was dragged back. He ran away at ten and was dragged back again. By then he realized he was too young and needed to wait until he was older and smarter or until he could stand it no longer, which happened to be when he turned twelve. They didn’t catch him that time. They didn’t drag him back. His stepfather probably thought Zack was finally old enough to make it on his own and didn’t even bother looking for him. Zack would never know. He didn’t look back—ever.

  Then followed twelve years of moving from place to place to place. Always moving. No wonder he was growing attached to Maintown. He’d already been here two months, longer than any place since San Francisco, and he’d been there only a few weeks, during which time he had not let himself get attached. He’d made no lasting friendships.

  He had no idea why it was different here in Maintown. Maybe if he had come as Zack Hartley, he would have remained as detached as always, but something had happened to him when he had slipped into William L ocklin’s skin. Pretending to be the minister had somehow forced him to let down his guard.

  Regardless of how it had happened, he knew this place had becom
e more of a refuge than any other place he’d been in his life. That’s why he was still here when he should have run long ago, like when Mrs. Briggs had first approached him about the wedding, or when he’d beat up Tom Donnelly, or when he’d kissed two innocent sisters.I t was stupid and foolish and dangerous to stay. He should run. He’d already hurt the Donnellys, and he knew he would hurt the Newcombs before he was through. Yet . . .

  Riding into the Newcomb yard after the funeral gave him such an odd feeling of belonging that turning away from it would be like stepping from light into darkness again. And he had not the will for it just then.

  The next few days were doubtless the best Zack had ever experienced. He was made to feel a part of the Newcomb family. With Boyd gone back to work at the lumber camp, Zack shared the boys’ room with Georgie, just like an older brother. But his favorite time was sitting around the table with the family for meals. There was always the buzz of congenial conversation. Zack remembered mealtimes at his home as a child—they had been silent, grim. His stepfather began the meal saying grace, a long, solemn prayer that Zack closed out of his mind by thinking of other things. The children were not permitted to speak unless spoken to, but the adults were not much interested in their children’s lives, so they seldom addressed them.L ikewise, Zack’s mother and stepfather appeared little interested in each other, seldom speaking.

  The Newcombs had much to say to one another, inconsequential stuff for the most part, but even Georgie’s adventure tales of catching a big fish or winning a game of marbles on the playground were listened to raptly. The women talked as much as the men and were taken seriously. Calvin may have been bored listening to Ada talk about a new quilt pattern she’d found in the latest Godey’s, but he never showed it.

  When Zack had first arrived in Maintown, his initial impression of the Newcomb family was that Ada “ruled the roost.” But he saw now that Calvin, in a quiet way, was clearly the head of the family. The man just didn’t seem to feel that he had to lord it over his clan in order to prove himself.