Fallen Angels

by Patricia Hickman

  “I got him a lawyer myself. Paid his bail. My word is good in that county. Lem's got a good chance of having the charges dropped.” Leon Hampton sat on the bench as though the weight of the past week sat itself upon his chest. “I gave Hank everything.” He put his face in his hands and sobbed.

  Jeb walked out of the cell and knelt on one knee at Leon's feet. He held Hank's daddy while he cried.

  Hampton took Jeb's extended hand. “You're a good man, Jeb Nubey.”

  Jeb liked the sound of that.

  Will Honeysack sat on a stool in the corner of his store. Whoever tried to swap small talk with him received either no response or such a weak reply they turned and went back to their shopping.

  “Will, you got to snap out of this fog. People are starting to talk,” said Freda. She took off her apron and left it on the counter.

  The bell rang. She glanced at the storefront. Then she turned around complete. “Deputy Maynard? Reverend— I mean, Mr. Nubey.”

  “I'm here on official business, Mrs. Honeysack. Is your husband about this afternoon?”

  Will came off the bench. “I don't have anything to say. Everything's been said that can be said.”

  Jeb politely nodded at Maynard and then stepped out front. “Will, the murder charges have been dropped against me. I wanted you to be one of the first to know. I'm not guilty.”

  “I knew you couldn't murder nobody. But you're not Philemon Gracie. That's a fact, is it not?” Will asked.

  “Mr. Honeysack, you being the head deacon, Reverend Gracie asked me to drop by and ask if you'd consider dropping charges of fraud against Mr. Nubey. If not, I will take him right back to that cell.”

  Freda, with her back to Jeb, either mouthed something to Will, or he simply read her face after three decades of marriage. “I'd rather our new minister make that decision. I don't know why he sent you over here.”

  “Because I want to ask you myself to forgive me.” Jeb reached out and touched Will on the arm. “I set out to see Fern, but what with you being right here across the street, I figured I owed it to you to drop by here first. If you don't want the charges dropped against me, Will, then I want to take my punishment. Whatever it takes to earn your forgiveness. I realize it's too late to earn your respect.”

  Freda cried. She walked around the counter to remove herself from wifely influence.

  “When I saw them take you away in those handcuffs, it seemed like we were the wrongdoers. Something about it was just wrong.” Will studied the matter, staring at his open palms as the weight and measure of the matter.

  “The wrongdoing was mine, Will. If you forgive me, I will work here in Nazareth and earn back your friendship. If you want justice, I will try to earn your respect from behind bars. Either way, I have found something worth living for.”

  Will's face cleared. He stood tall. “Jeb Nubey, you are my friend, just the way you always were.” Will extended his hand.

  Jeb embraced the grocer and head deacon of Church in the Dell.

  Freda cried some more and went for the phone. She muttered something about calling the Whittingtons and even Horace Mills.

  Maynard held up his hands, open stars, and said, “I'll be back to my business, folks. Mr. Nubey, if there's anything thing I can do to help you settle in to Nazareth—or be on your way—let me know. Just keep it honest, this go-round.”

  “I've got to find Angel, Willie, and Ida May. If you can give me back my truck keys, Maynard, I'd like to ask that they be released into my care.”

  “Kind of unusual. But I'll talk to the social worker and see what can be worked out.” Maynard turned to leave.

  “Social worker?” asked Jeb.

  Maynard told him, “The Nubey children are a government matter now. Whether or not they've been picked up from the Whittingtons’ place, I couldn't tell you, Mr. Nubey.”

  Jeb took his truck keys from Maynard. “Will, Freda, I'll never forget what you've done for me.” He shook Will's hand.

  Freda rolled the top down on a sack of something. “Mr. Nubey, here's some licorice whips for the children. It's their favorite.” She had not stopped crying.

  Jeb kissed Freda's cheek. “Looks like a little rain moving in. I'll run over to Woolworth's and see about the children.”

  Will saw him to the door. He followed Jeb out and, so the missus wouldn't hear, said, “I saw that social worker over there this morning. I hate to say it, but I think they've taken those kids away.”

  22

  Maynard told us you'd likely drop by to see the children,” said Evelene. Her eyes showed she was still peeved with him and her fingers kept twining as though she'd rather be in the back of the store unbundling socks than talking to him.

  “If you all will consider having me, I'd like to stay on in Nazareth and find some work,” said Jeb. The store looked pretty to him, all the bonnets and laces a mite more pleasing than staring through the bars at Rabbit and Carl.

  “Not too many jobs in Nazareth.” Evelene reorganized a rack of spools by color.

  “I've asked Maynard to help me get custody of the Welby children. They don't have anyone and it may as wed be me.”

  “You know the children are not here, don't you?” she asked.

  “I was hoping I could still find them here.”

  “The social worker left with them not fifteen minutes ago. Am I telling it right, Floyd?” she asked her husband. “I was at the jailhouse when it all happened.”

  “That youngest has been upset ever since they took you from the church,” said Floyd.

  “Ida May is easy to cry.” Jeb headed for the door. “If you could just tell me where they were headed, I'll catch up with them. I'm not letting them put the kids in a home.”

  “They aren't in a home, Mr. Nubey,” said Evelene.

  Jeb hesitated between the welcome rug and the outdoor mat

  “Fern Coulter asked for them. The government much prefers a teacher over an orphanage for homeless children.” Evelene took the broom from Floyd.

  “You telling me the kids are with Fern?”

  “That's what I'm telling you,” said Evelene. “Goodbye, Mr. Nubey.”

  Charlie met him out on the street. “Remember me?”

  “Charlie, I need you to go with me. I've got some matters to settle. I'd explain on the way.”

  “There is a place for men who have no home, Charlie,” Jeb said as they drove. “It is with their God and under the good graces of a woman. For God, a man can die. For a woman, he has reason to live.”

  “Fern's a good cook?” asked Charlie.

  “That is a debatable matter. But nonetheless, she is Fern. When I say to you, Charlie, this angel has come down from the clouds and turned this old boy inside out, know that I am a man undone.”

  “Nobody back home would believe what I'm hearing.” Charlie's gaze indicated he set eyes on Jeb as he would a stranger. “This Fern has you horn-swoggled. That is a dangerous place to be. Best you weigh the matter, Brother. Selma and I, we have us an understanding.”

  “Fern is not ordinary, Charlie. What we, have is like twin hearts, two souls, interlocked,” said Jeb.

  Charlie rolled up his window to take the chill out of the cab. “I thought you said she hates you.”

  “I'm purty sure she does.” Jeb parked the truck at the end of Long's Lane.

  “This must be her place. Say, it has a fine pond. You catch some fish out of it, I guess.”

  Jeb pondered how he should pull into her drive. If he walked up the road, then he could come up on her porch quiet-like and give him time to figure out what he should say.

  “Can't quite see her house from here. You going to drive on in or what?” asked Charlie.

  “I'm thinking on it.”

  “Maybe I should stay here in the truck. Is she prone to ranting? I hate it when they do that.” Charlie inspected the pond again.

  “I'm driving in. She's seen me on foot too many times. Man's got to come up to a woman's doorstep with some dignity.” Th
e Model-T lurched and then died before completing the turn.

  Charlie told him, “Maybe you ought to walk.”

  Up Long's Lane, the tree limbs were partially bare, gray bowed and reaching, scarcely possessing the languishing threads of summer garments before the first snow. No bouquet at his disposal, Jeb approached Fern's cottage with the same nothing he had carried on his back into Nazareth. Beyond the cottage stepping-stones, a single spire of color dipped in the breeze at the edge of the meadow. Jeb plucked it, a red flaming cardinal flower not bitten by frost. He carried that last flower of summer to Fern's doorstep Inside, he beard Angel and Willie squabbling in a sibling battle.

  Hé rapped the knocker against her door.

  Angel saw him first She stood in Fern's open doorway without a thing to say.

  “I guess you're stunned to see me,” said Jeb.

  Angel threw herself against him. “Jeb! I knew you'd be back.”

  Jeb passed hugs around, but Angel never let go of his front coat pocket He asked kind of low, “Is Fern about?”

  “She don't want to see you,” said Ida May.

  He strained to see into the kitchen.

  “I'll try to get her to come out.” Angel left him outside on the porch. She yelled Fern's name twice before she got a reply.

  Fern carried school papers across the room. “You all have to do homework first, then we'll see about playing outside.” The papers were disorganized, so when she stopped cold, several papers fell to the parlor rug. She paused all of a sudden. “They let you out.” The words carne so slow he sounded like an idiot to himself. “I didn't kill Hank Hampton. I'm free.”

  “You just committed fraud, then. Lied. Wed, that changes everything.” She bent to pick up Willie and Ida May's scattered papers.

  “All that Texarkana mess's been dropped against me, Fern. I was hoping we could sit down so you can finally know the truth.”

  “You kids take this stuff into the kitchen. I'll let you shell some pecans for a pie.” She waited while Angel led the other two into the kitchen. “You're a free man. I'd think you'd be headed out of town then. Be about your business.”

  “I was hoping you might help me figure out my business,” said Jeb.

  “You're a grown man,” Her gaze indicated that he should figure it out on his own. She had made her way to the worktable and stared at nothing through the picture window.

  “I've been figuring some things out, Fern. Reverend Gracie and I had a talk, even though we haven't worked everything out. If he'll hear me out, I plan to ask him to let me apprentice.”

  “As what?”

  “A minister. Legitimate and legal, of course.”

  She came aright. It was the first time that she seemed to care an ounce about what he said. “Takes a lot of study.”

  “I'll be needing a good library. You know anyone who might Joan me some books?”

  She now sat at the table with her back to him. Jeb knew better than to rush her. The pictures she,’d had of him in her mental box of photos were nothing like him at all and to find that out meant she'd had to set fire to the whole lot. To Fern, he was a sad box of ash.

  “You left your truck parked out in the road, I guess you know,” she said.

  “My brother, Charlie, is here. He's working on it for me. He got another set of wheels, him and his wife, so he give me this one.” He couldn't remember if it was the first she had ever heard of Charlie.

  “Befqre you make some overnight decision, being a minister takes commitment, Phil—Jeb—”.When she Stopped, she had a look that said she did not know how much to say or what name to use when she said it.

  “All this is coming at you kind of fast” He decided he should have started with something smaller. If all she'd allow was his driving past at night to watch her through the Window, he should’ ve settled for that. “I don't want you to hate me, Fern.”

  She chose to watch Charlie drive the truck up the lane toward the cottage, as though she was waiting for any reason to end their talk. “I guess he's got your truck running. Lucky you.”

  “I don't know much about luck. Meeting you was luck. Meeting you as—as somebody else, that wasn't lucky. Nobody is more sorry than me for lying to you, But if it took that to get to know you, I'm not sorry about that.

  Fern leaned as if she had to cheek on the pecan shellers one more time.

  “You ought not to let me off the hook, I know better. But I'd like to pass you on the street and know you thought you could tip one of those hats of yours to me. Far as you're concerned, I guess you'd just like for me to disappear. But there's things that need tending to. I'd like to find my own place and take me Welbys off your hands. No need to leave them here. You got plenty to do. Angel's half grown and of a mind to keep Willie and Ida May close by. If she thinks she can find her family, I don't want to throw her out on the streets while she's trying. No reason to leave these kids out in the cold, what with this Depression hanging on.”

  At that moment, all breath left Fern. “You Want the children?” She asked it flat as hotcakes. But a feeling of some sort came into her face and then a little into her ‘words. “You're willing to go find a place to live, get a job, and be daddy to three children that aren't yours?”

  “That's what I plan.” When she did not respond he waved at Charlie through the glass in a way that told him to sit tight “I'm going to speak with Ivey Long about that old house of his up near the schoolhouse. It needs some work. I'll exchange work for rent, if he's open to it. I'll let the kids know.” The sound of small fingers shelling pecans drew him to lean back and peer into the kitchen. Ida May shelled the best of the three, her fingers small and reaching into the broken shell to bring out the pecan prize. She showed one to Jeb, but then got pulled back out of the doorway.

  “You are a capable person, I'm not saying you're not. Work's scarce all over is all,” she said.

  That bit of warm coal from her caused him to confess, ?Whatever you think of me now, I'm glad I knew you Ferrn.”

  He turned to leave, then called for Angel who was hanging around the corner, listening to every word. “I'll be back for all of you kids as soon as I get us a house. Keep up with your studies and don't give Miss Coulter any lip.”

  Angel got up and stood in the door to watch him go.

  “You're leaving,” Fern said.

  Jeb noticed how her fingers clinched atop the table. “I'll try and not leave the children with you too long. I know you have your own burdens, what with teaching at the school and all.”

  “’The children can stay as long as is needed. You needn't hurry on account of me,” she said.

  Jeb backed out of the door.

  “We'll have plenty of food for dinner. You may as well join the children here tonight.”

  When her eyes—the eyes that once fed him admiration—failed to welcome mm along with her invitation, he said, “No need to fix a thing for me. I'll grab supper at the diner. Charlie and me need to catch up on things and—I wouldn't trouble you anyway.”

  “Always have more food than we need here.” She stared out the window, her arms folded against her chest. “Bring Charlie if you want.”

  “I've been enough of a bother.”

  Fern sighed inwardly She walked away from the front window. Her stance, elbows forward, chest caved in, made her look as though all of the stuffing were let out of her.

  “I'm glad I found you home, at least” He could, not look at her for a moment more without sensing the loathing he knew he saw when she looked at him. She was done with him. Jeb backed out of the door and closed it behind him. He walked down the path in streaming light and it felt warm upon his back, nothing like winter. He heard the screen door slam behind him. Afraid he might turn and find anyone but Fern watching him leave, he drew his sights on Charlie. The engine sparked. Charlie made a victory fist when he got the old truck humming again.

  That is when Jeb heard the deep voice, womanly and assured, the one he'd imagined before falling asleep on the hard jai
lhouse bed. The voice that sounded like the gulf winds blowing winter from the field.

  “I'll see you then, maybe later,” said Fem. She-waited on the path just beyond the porch, her shoulders wrapped in a white afghan.

  Jeb could not run toward her as much as his mind whipped him to do so. He could only open his mouth as though he tried to fill it with more words. He lacked too many of them in her presence, the good ones anyway.

  She brought heir hand to her mouth. With one finger she trapped tear before it fell.

  Philemon Gracie had set up more chairs around the front porch, a newly painted collection of ladder back chairs rescued from the ehurch storage shed. He was on his knees transplanting cedars from the woods to the front of the parsonage lawn. “So you want to be a minister, Mr. Nubey? What makes you dunk you can manage the study load and care for three children?”

  Jeb took the shovel and tossed dirt into the hole around the cedar roots. “How do you manage, Reverend?”

  “Not well, and I'm not earning a ministerial degree.

  “You've not experienced the kind of pastorate that has you up all night studying only to rise before sunup to help a widow mend a fence. Or if the eaves of the church give way and no one else can help you fix it because the corn's come in—and even with your help, there's no money to do it. Or how tired you get when over several days you sit up with a distraught husband while his wife of thirty years takes her last breath. These things you should know. But if you're of a mind to do it, I can contact my old professors and have the work sent to you. If I speak up as your mentor, the accountable partner for your education, you might complete the courses by night But that creates work for me.” A thin smile hinted that Jeb's calling might be an interesting venture. “A challenge for us both.” He poured dirt into the hole around the root “I'd have to know my work was for something/”

  “I'll not quit on you, if that's your worry,” said Jeb. He helped tamp down dirt.

  “Jeb, as I've said, you've a tough road ahead. There is no pay in being an apprentice. Little pay after.”