by Rilla Askew
Misty Dawn was crying now as hard as the baby, whose wails had increased in volume and hysteria right along with Sweet’s rant. Juanito was awkwardly trying to pat Misty’s shoulder. Sweet stood trembling, panting a little, knowing her anger was as much at her dead sister as her self-centered niece. She’d said the same things to Gaylene when she came home from Oregon years ago and took Misty. The same things, and worse. Sweet looked up to see the preacher standing in the doorway. He met her eyes a moment before silently withdrawing. She sank down on the low table. She felt like throwing up. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. Three times she said it, even though she knew Misty couldn’t hear over the child’s wails. Not that it would make any difference if she did hear, because Sweet couldn’t unsay the words. Misty Dawn would never forget them. And the preacher—he’d seen her acting like that. Dear Lord help me, she prayed. Help me be better. The baby kept crying.
Wiping her face on her sleeve, Sweet got to her feet. She didn’t look at the kids when she told them to please stay in the nursery, she’d be back in a minute. There was no time now to wait for a tow to get Juanito’s truck out. Claudie Ott would be on the phone the minute she got home. Sweet would just have to go ask the preacher for his car keys. If they got caught, she’d tell the cops she stole the car. Maybe that might keep Brother Oren from getting charged with harboring and transporting at least. Sweet’s limbs were moving in slow motion, like she was crawling underwater, when she needed so badly to hurry, she really did, because she needed to get this done and get back to the house before Carl Albert woke up.
She walked across Fellowship Hall in a watery dream, reached for the push bar on the glass door, saw then, at the side of the parsonage carport, her coatless, hatless son, in his yellow T-shirt, yawning next to the preacher, who stood in the driveway talking to Arvin Holloway. Sweet’s dreamlike stupor vanished in a sudden rush. The sheriff’s cruiser was parked behind Brother Oren’s Toyota, red and blue lights stuttering. Sweet tried to read the preacher’s face. She looked helplessly at her shivering son. What was Carl Albert doing with the sheriff? And what was the sheriff doing at the church?
A big F-250 pickup pulling a stock trailer stopped on the street. Then two more cars stopped. Townspeople wanting to know what was going on. And, oh Lord, here came Claudie Ott tottering along the icy sidewalk from the front door of the church. She went right up to the sheriff, talking excitedly, bobbing her head at the glass doors to Fellowship Hall, where Sweet stood. Sweet didn’t wait to see more—she dashed back across the room and around the corner into the nursery, slammed shut the nursery door.
“Sanctuary,” Oren Dudley repeated. Miss Ott’s filmy blue eyes peered up at him. The sheriff stood massaging the side of his nose. Carl Albert tugged on his sleeve. “Brother Oren, I’m cold!”
“Say what?” the sheriff said again.
“Sanctuary. We decided to offer . . . or that is I . . . the church fellowship . . . well, I did plan to do a prayer walk. With the deacons, of course. Welcome the stranger, the Lord said.”
“Sweet Kirkendall ain’t a stranger.”
“Well, no.”
“It’s something fishy, Arvin,” Claudie Ott said. “You mark my words.”
“Claudia!” Ida Coley came picking her way between the slick spots along the front walk. “What are you doing out here without a coat?”
“Well! I looked out the window on my way to the ladies’ room! And what do you think I spied but the sheriff’s car!”
“You’re gonna freeze a twig.”
“I’m fine, Ida. Listen here. Arvin’s hunting Georgia Kirkendall, now what do you think of that?”
“Morning, Sheriff,” Ida Coley said. She gave a meaningful look to Claudie Ott, but the woman’s lip was unbuttoned; there was no shutting her up now.
“I told him, I said she’s right there—” Claudie stubbed a thumb toward the glass doors. “Right inside the church nursery with her sister Gaylene’s oldest daughter and that precious little girl and”—she lowered her voice as if whispering a bad word—“a Mexican man.” Edna Martin and Alice Stalcup came carefully along the walk from the sanctuary. Vicki Dudley arrived from the other direction, the parsonage front door. Carl Albert tugged the preacher’s sleeve again. “Can I go see my mom?”
In the street Floyd Ollie got out of his truck and stepped across the drainage ditch to come find out what was what. Colton Springer and his little pregnant girlfriend got out of their car; Tommy Joe Holbird got out of his. Phyllis Wentworth walked over from her house across the street. Somebody must have phoned the deacons, because Clyde Herrington and T. C. Blankenship both pulled up, and within minutes a good-sized crowd had gathered in the patch of yard between the parsonage and the First Baptist Church. With each new arrival, Claudie Ott repeated her observations, never failing to finish in a hushed whisper: a Mexican man!
“Brother Oren,” Carl Albert said, “I wanna go see my mom.”
Arvin Holloway was pacing back and forth beside his cruiser with his fist on his pistol, trying to make up his mind whether to call for reinforcements or just take the suspects in himself. He was convinced the Mexican man was the same one the Brown kid had been seen with; he knew he was close on the trail now, and this whole drama was soon to be finished, starring himself as arresting officer and hero—but you never knew what you were walking into in this sort of a blind situation. How well armed they might be, or how desperate. Might be a drug lord of some kind, or a loco, you just had no way of knowing.
Oren Dudley put his arm around his wife and asked her quietly to go back inside the house. “What’s this all about?” she whispered. “Well,” he said, “it’s a long story. Take Carl with you. I’ll be in in a minute.” She could hear their two little ones screaming gigantically in the living room. She couldn’t tell if they were playing or half killing each other, but she felt like she ought to go see. “Come on, Carl,” she said, and, glancing back over her shoulder several times, she walked away with her hand on the boy’s head.
The sheriff, having decided that it would be better to take a chance on getting shot and still garner the glory than to pussyfoot around until OSBI or some other agency showed up, started along the angled walk toward Fellowship Hall. Oren Dudley loped around in front of him and blocked his path. Holloway stood frowning. “You wouldn’t be obstructing a peace officer in the lawful execution of his sworn duty, would you, Preacher?”
“No, sir,” Oren Dudley said. Holloway started around him, but the preacher did a little sidestep and blocked his path again.
“What the blazes do you think you’re doing?”
“Well,” the preacher said. Despite the chilly weather, he could feel his forehead popping out with sweat. He’d prayed the whole night long, had searched Scripture till daybreak, flipping back and forth between his Concordance and the verses. No word for immigrant in King James, of course, or the New Revised Standard, either; he’d had to look under stranger and alien, also sojourner, and very sorely he had tried, for the sake of his family, he’d really tried to find verses to support doing the opposite of what he was getting ready to do, but unfortunately, on the treatment of aliens, the Bible was just pretty clear: “ ‘But the alien that dwells with you,’ ” Oren rattled off quickly, “ ‘shall be as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself,’ Leviticus nineteen, verse thirty-four.”
“What the—” The sheriff started around the other side, but Oren Dudley sidestepped again.
“ ‘Vex no
t a stranger, nor oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt,’ Exodus twenty-two, verse twenty-one.”
“Get out of my way, Preacher.”
“ ‘Do not oppress an alien,’ ” the preacher said, unconcerned about mixing translations, “ ‘for you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens,’ Exodus twenty-three, verse nine.”
Arvin Holloway pushed forward. “I’m warning you, man.”
Eyes closed, combing over a few damp strands of hair with his fingers, Oren Dudley quoted on: “ ‘And to the strangers that sojourn among you, which shall beget children among you: they shall be unto you as born in the country,’ Ezekiel forty-seven, verse twenty-two.”
The sheriff was stymied; his hand twitched on his pistol grip. You couldn’t just shoot a blamed Bible-spouting Baptist preacher for standing in your path. Not in front of this many witnesses. He turned to look behind. More people had gathered.
“ ‘One law shall be to him that is homeborn,’ ” the preacher droned on, “ ‘and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you,’ Exodus twelve—”
“I got no concerns about strangers and sojourners, Preacher! It’s Sweet Kirkendall I mean to talk to.”
“Well,” the preacher said. “You want to tell me what that’s about?”
“Hell no, I don’t want to tell you what it’s about!” Holloway shouted, but he quickly checked himself. Not good policy to cuss a preacher. “This is official Latimer County Sheriff’s Department business, Oren. I’ll thank you to step aside.”
“Can’t do that, Mr. Holloway.”
“I’m not here to arrest nobody, damn it. I’m here to conduct an investigation.”
“Into what?”
“The disappearance of Dustin Brown, what the hell do you think!”
“Dusty’s not here, Sheriff. I promise you.”
“I ain’t said he was, did I say that?”
“ ‘I was a stranger,” the preacher answered, “ ‘and ye took me in,’ Matthew twenty-five, thirty-five.”
“Get out of my way!” The sheriff’s pistol was in his hand, pointing skyward—force of habit, he later told himself, but the gesture did not sit well with Clyde Herrington and some of the others gathered in the yard: “Here, Sheriff, what do you think you’re doing!” “Arvin Albert Holloway, you put that away!” “You can’t draw down on a preacher!”
“I ain’t drawed on nobody! Y’all stay out of this!” Reholstering his pistol, Holloway turned and stomped back through the crowd to his cruiser, reached in for his radio.
Inside the nursery, Sweet stood with her back to the door. “If the sheriff tries to come in . . .” she started. Her voice trailed off. If Holloway tried to come in, what? She’d have to let him. What else could she do? She slumped against the door. Misty sat in the rocker with her daughter in her lap. Lucha was quiet now, curled against her mother’s chest, sucking her two fingers and staring solemn-eyed and suspicious at Sweet. Misty Dawn, on the other hand, hadn’t looked at her once since she’d slammed back into the room and told them the sheriff was outside, nor did Misty translate for her husband. How much Juanito understood, Sweet couldn’t tell—but enough to make those black eyes of his look mighty serious. Well, it was serious. A serious situation. She needed to know what was happening, but she didn’t dare go back out to the glass doors. Sweet glared at the poster-covered cinder-block wall opposite. Why would anybody in their right mind build a church nursery without windows? What if there was a fire or something? How stupid could people be? Well plenty stupid, she knew that. She’d been knowing that a long time. She turned around and opened the door a crack. A faint squeak of protest erupted from Misty Dawn behind her, but she heard no sound outside in the hall. Her senses told her there was nobody out there. She was almost one hundred percent sure of it. But what if she was wrong?
Snicking the door shut again, Sweet scanned the room. Not even a chair tall enough to prop against it. Well, except for the rocker. “Get up, Misty.” Her niece was looking at her now, frowning, but she gripped the baby more tightly and got to her feet. Sweet dragged the rocking chair over, tilted it back on its rockers and wedged the wooden edge of the top slat under the doorknob. This is beyond stupid, she told herself, but she could think of nothing better to do. Then she went over to the little kids’ table and sat.
“La migra?” Juanito asked softly.
“La policía,” Misty answered, then a few more words in Spanish, then: “Aunt Sweet, what are we going to do?” Her voice still held a faint note of resentment, but mostly she sounded scared. In her arms her daughter began to whimper. “She’s hungry.”
“I know.”
“What are we going to do?” Misty Dawn repeated.
“Let me think!” But Sweet could think of nothing to do, no action to take. “Wait and pray,” she said finally.
“You’re joking, right?”
“No.” Sweet bowed her head. “Dear Lord, we are really in a fix here. We need You to do something drastic, if it be Your will. We’d just ask that You send the sheriff away from this place, Lord, and also to please shut Claudie Ott’s mouth. We know that in You, Lord, all things are possible. Give us this day our daily bread, because the baby is hungry. And deliver us from evil. And we would just ask once again, Lord, that You—” Her voice caught. She cleared it. “ . . . bring Dusty home safe. In Jesus’ name, amen.”
“Amen,” Misty echoed. Sweet looked up to see Juanito finish crossing himself before he reached to take Lucha, who was still whimpering. A light tapping came at the nursery door, and all three adults jumped. The doorknob rattled, and whoever it was pushed against the door. The rocker held. But this wasn’t the kind of pounding and yelling Sweet expected from Arvin Holloway. “Who is it?” she called in a low voice.
“Me. Vicki. I need to talk to you.”
Sweet went over and stood by the door. “What’s going on out there?”
“It’s kind of a . . . standoff.”
“Between who?”
“That’s what I wanted to talk about. Can I come in?”
“Is Carl Albert with you?”
“No. He’s fine, though. He’s eating a sandwich.”
“This little girl here is hungry.”
“I’ll bring something over if I can.”
“If you can. What’s that mean?”
The doorknob rattled again. “I don’t like talking through the door, Georgia. It makes me have to talk too loud.”
Sweet cut her eyes at the kids. Misty Dawn shook her head no. Juanito stared back with a kind of wary expression. Well, but it was the preacher’s wife, after all. Sweet tugged the rocking chair out of the way, and Vicki Dudley hurried in.
“Who’s standing off who?” Sweet said, jamming the rocker back under the doorknob.
“I knew something was wrong,” Vicki said. “The whole ride home from Stigler.”
“Did Arvin say what he wants?” Then she caught sight of Vicki’s round pink face staring at Juanito. “Um, this is Juanito,” Sweet said. “And you met my niece, Misty.” She decided against trying to explain why Misty Dawn was wearing the preacher’s bathrobe. “And this is their little girl, Lucha.”
“I knew it was something,” Vicki said. “He told me he’d be in in a minute. When he didn’t come, I went to the bedroom to look out. He’s standing in front of Fellowship Hall with Clyde Herrington and T. C. Blankenship. They’re blocking the doors. Arvin Holloway is on the sidewalk with Rex Hendricks and Cecil Y
oung and a couple others, glaring fit to be tied. The rest of them are watching.”
“Rest of who?”
“I don’t know. Half the town. There’s probably fifty or sixty people.” Vicki’s eyes returned to Juanito holding his little girl. “I thought this was supposed to be about Dustin.”
“Well,” Sweet said. “Not entirely.”
“See? This is what happens. He won’t talk to me! I said what’s a pastor’s wife for? It’s my burden as much as yours! The whole way home from Stigler I kept asking.”
“I’m so sorry, Vicki. I didn’t know where else to turn.”
“But what is all this?”
As quickly and plainly as possible Sweet explained, and she thought she must be doing a better job today than yesterday evening with the preacher, because Vicki seemed to grasp it all at once. She sat down on the low table, nodding. “He’s welcoming the stranger.”
