Pray for Us Sinners

by Marilyn L. R. Hall

  Because if Papa knew what she was planning, she’d probably never get out of the house again, for sad to say, Papa didn’t much like Jack Nash any more. Truth be told, he cursed every time he spoke his name and opined time and again, “That boy is a big disappointment to me!” And when he was talking to Brother and didn’t see any womenfolk around, he said a lot worse things. That was how Rose heard the rumors in the first place while she was in the hayshed reading and trying to get some privacy away from her little brothers. Brother and Papa had come in from the fields to work on something in the barn. The hay was stored in a little lean-to shed at the back of the barn, and Rose liked to dig herself a kind of nest on the far side where she could settle down and day-dream to her heart’s content—and read over and over the books that Clair Louise had left behind. Years and years ago, before Rose was even born, there was a well-to-do aunt of her Mama named Aunt Isobel of Natchez—long dead now, who favored Claire Louise and sent her all kind of story books. Some of them were fairy tales that Claire didn’t especially approve of so she hadn’t taken them with her when she married. And because Rose’s sisters weren’t readers, Rose kind of considered they belonged to her now and she’d read them all, again and again, over the years.

  On this particular day, she hadn’t paid the menfolk any mind until she heard Jack’s name mentioned and then her ears stood up like Papa’s hounds did when the screen door opened. Brother’s voice had a peculiar sly note, an edge that brought to Rose’s mind the gossipy women who cackled and whispered their tall stories to each other after Sunday evening church meetings.

  “Well, I reckon one thing’s certain. Ol’ Jack‘ll be lucky if he lives to see twenty-five. Somebody’s bound to shoot him one of these days.” Brother was the one doing the talking. Papa didn’t say anything.

  “Just night before last somebody caught him in a compromisin’ position with Jasper Moore’s old lady. I cain’t recall her name just now, but she’s Ruthie Moore’s step-momma, and Ruthie and Jack been messin’ ‘round since grade school.” Brother snickered, and Rose could imagine the sly look on his face when he glanced over to see if Papa was properly incensed.

  And he was. He snorted in disgust. “No!” he said and clicked his tongue.

  “Sure as Christmas!” Brother continued gleefully, and Rose scowled. “You was always jealous a’ Jack,” she thought, “ever since you was in grade school and Jack was so pop’lar and you never even had one sweetheart!”

  And Brother kept laughing and talking. “The latest tale is that he’s got four or five sets of mommas and daughters scattered around the county so he don’t have so far to go to change…” and the nasty word he used shocked Rose so badly she gasped and so doing, sucked in a goodly amount of hay dust and then couldn’t stop choking and coughing. That was when she started preparing to die because death would surely be her fate for having eavesdropped on Papa’s personal and private conversation. Miraculously though, they didn’t even notice. They were both too absorbed with their slandering!

  And Brother just couldn’t stop laughing, though Rose knew Papa wouldn’t regard it as funny. “You ought not take so much pleasure in a man’s sinfulness, Brother,” he said sternly. “Nor in the ruination of our womenfolk.”

  But Brother roared with hilarity. “Our womenfolk?” he sputtered. “You reckon he’s ever bedded your old floozy cousin, Hester Goode? I’ve heard you tell some stories on her yourself, Pa.”

  Papa’s voice sounded grim “It was wrong of me to speak disparagingly of our blood kin, Brother, and you ought not remind me I done it.” But then he lowered his voice and there was a chuckle in it. “Still I don’t reckon that boy’s had any trouble findin’ women up to now and he’d have to be damn hard up to go after Hester!”

  Rose was stunned. To hear Papa make lightly of any kind of sin was so shocking that she bolted upright in the hay and bumped her head against the wall. Surely they would find her out that time. But there was another miracle and she was spared death a second time that afternoon.

  And Brother just went right on talking once his laughter had subsided.

  “I heared he’s messin’ with bootleg too.”

  “Now that is serious, Boy—he’s real apt to get hisself shot, foolin’ around with moonshine.”

  Rose glowered and sensed defeat. Papa didn’t hold with alcohol even when it was legal so that part about finished all hope of ever getting his permission to marry Jack Nash. “Papa ain’t never gonna let me marry no moonshiner!” She was certain of that. But then she brightened. “I guess I just have to run off with him and do it.” And thus her future was decided.

  “You prob’ly don’t remember” Papa was saying, “but Jack’s granddaddy was a woman chaser all his life. If the truth were told, there prob’ly ain’t but a few famblies in these parts that don’t have a Nash bastard in some closet or other.”

  Brother, who had been silent for a while, whistled—”I know of a few of ‘em myself, Pa.”

  But Papa seemed not to have heard him. “I guess the boy comes by it natur’l. It’s a real sorry shame though.” And then he sighed so loudly Rose heard it from her hiding place, and said for the millionth time, “That boy is sure a big disappointment to me.”

  As the summer progressed, those rumors had blown about like cottonwood silk and every time she heard one it was worse than the one before it. They were gonna shoot him … or lynch him … and the one that really scared her … some husband over by Natchez was getting together a posse to come and castrate him. Rose was a farm girl and even though her Papa was protective, she knew what that word meant and it froze the blood in her veins. Time was running out. She had to get to him somehow. And that was what made the dusty road in the middle of the fields her next to the last hope. Her hopes were always “next to the last” because she didn’t intend ever to give up hope altogether—no matter what! Jack rode his horse down this road often, and if he would just ride through there today, she had a plan that would drive him right into her waiting arms. Time was running out. If that man from Natchez got to him before she did, there wouldn’t be any reason to keep daydreaming about Jack Nash! Heaven help him!

  So she watched the sky get bluer and bluer as the day moved into late afternoon and then late afternoon started down toward sunset and twilight came on. The shadows got longer and longer, and the dusty gray road turned purple, and pretty soon all the color was gone from the sky and she could barely see the road at all. Bright stars twinkled in the black dome above her head but she didn’t look up to see them. Her hope was gone! She’d tramped back and forth and up and down that miserable dirt lane until her feet hurt and her head ached and she was too depressed to remember or even care what her perfect plan had been. Filled with despair, she flung herself down to sit in the dust in the middle of the road, pulled her knees up to her chest, buried her head in her hands and started to sniffle. If she was the type, she thought, she could really feel sorry for herself. Hers was a wasted life. There’d never been anything else of importance in it except Jack Nash and she had never wanted anything more or longer then she wanted him, and now, when she was finally of an age to get some good out of him … some crazy jealous husband was going to ruin him. And it was all his own jack-ass-stupid fault! Why couldn’t he have waited for her to grow up? For Rose knew positively that she was the only woman on earth to love him the way he was meant to be loved. She knew without a doubt that her love was created by God only for Jack, and if she never got to share it with him, it would just shrivel up like a raisin and fall down dead into the sand. And so would she!

  Being so deep in thought and with her head down on her knees like that she didn’t notice the rabbit dart through the brush at the edge of the road and when it passed her close enough to stir the air against her bare legs she was so startled she cried out and thrust herself straight up in the air—and as a quirky fate would have it, directly under the nose of that wild black mare who reared and twisted and bucked until she’d tossed her hapless rider, saddle and
all, into the ditch.

  It all happened so quickly that Rose couldn’t put it all together in her head, and so she just stood there staring into the dark, calling on Jesus under her breath, while the pounding of the horse’s hooves (which she hadn’t heard at all coming at her) and its terrified screaming whinny grew faint in the distance.

  Then from the ditch to her left came the sound of hard breathing and a voice so righteous and condemning she thought it might be God himself, except that she couldn’t imagine God using that kind of language.

  “You crazy sonofabitch—are you tryin’ to kill me?”

  Then, even in the middle of her panic, Rose’s heart jumped with joy as it tended to do at the sound of Jack Nash’s voice. But almost instantly the joy evaporated. She was the “sonofabitch” he was talking about! If Jack Nash was still lying in the ditch it meant he was not altogether undamaged and seeing as how it was her fault he was there, her name would probably be a curse to him throughout eternity. Not only had she brought him to the humiliation of lying helpless and dependent on his assailant; worse even than that she had driven his beloved mare right over the edge into madness. Wild Honey probably wouldn’t stop running till she got to the Atlantic Ocean and drowned just like those pigs Jesus sent the demons into.

  “I got a rifle aimed square at your head” Jack said. “Move over here slow and easy so I can get a look at you.” But Rose stayed where she was. It was too dark to see her and she reasoned if she didn’t say anything he’d never know it was her.

  “Who the hell are you? Who put you up to this?” But she didn’t know how to communicate without talking so she couldn’t answer him.

  “Well, shit then, it don’t matter who you are” Rose could hear him struggling and thrashing about raising a big cloud of dust that drifted across the road. But his efforts appeared useless, “Shit! Just get over here and help me out of this ditch. I think my damn leg is broke” And then he reminded her, “And keep in mind I got a rifle trained on you.”

  Rose thought that if she took off real fast down the road the dark would swallow her and like as not his bullets would miss her or anyway do less damage so she took a cautious step or two in that direction. But her love for him wouldn’t let her go.

  While she was deciding, he hollered at her again. “If I have to get back on the road on my own, I swear to God, I’m gonna hunt you down and hang you!”

  And that decided her. Carefully, Rose made her way back to where his voice was coming from. She could see the dark hulk of him lying among the weeds, but she couldn’t make out his face so she felt pretty confident she would remain nameless. And that notion exhilarated her. She would be Jack Nash’s guardian angel and it would be her secret. He would never know!

  “Shit,” he said incredulously when she got close enough. “You ain’t nothin’ but a kid! Who put you up to this?” After a while, when she didn’t answer, he snorted and waved his arm to motion her closer. “Okay, don’t tell me. I don’t give a damn who you are, just get this saddle off my legs so I can get on my feet.”

  Rose bent down and got her hands on the saddle but then she was close enough for him to get a hand on her and in a stunned voice he said, “You ain’t no kid! You’re that sassy little red-headed Saylor girl!”

  Horrified, Rose forgot her plan to be silent—jerked straight up and backed off. “I plum well know who I am” she flared.

  “I reckon you do, little girl!” he snorted and reached toward her.” Just get this damn saddle off me and you can be on your way.” A cracking in his voice told her that he was in physical pain.

  Rose felt sincere compassion for the man, and terrible regret, but she stood her ground and tried to explain. “It was a accident,” she said contritely. “A ra—somethin’ ran ‘cross the road and scared me.” She thought it best not to admit it was only a rabbit. “And I was thinkin’ so hard, I didn’t hear you comin’.”

  “What’s a little girl like you got to think so hard on?” he queried, and she knew he meant to be nice but having him call her “a little girl” lit her temper. Still, she had sense enough to keep her mouth shut this time and she went ahead and hunkered down to tug at the saddle. Jack was trying to help her but it didn’t much matter—because where he was pinned the ditch just happened to slope away at a sharp angle so that his chest and head were downhill from his hips and legs with the saddle on them. All that pulling and scraping was hard on his leg, which was bent at an unnatural angle and caught underneath it—as was a lot of the rest of his lower parts, and he’d grunt and clench his teeth now and then trying not to let her know how much she was hurting him. Rose was not exactly frail, but she was small and not especially athletic and the knowledge that her efforts were hurting him, made her start to cry.

  “O sweet Jesus,” she said as she struggled with it. “I just cain’t do this!” But then all of a sudden it was lifted and moved aside and Jack was praising her accomplishment, though his voice sounded cranky. She figured that was from the pain her efforts had wrought.

  “It must have been a angel come down and helped me,” she admitted modestly. And she really believed that was what had happened.

  Jack struggled to raise his upper body and took some time then to study his leg. It was plain he’d need help removing his boot but after one feeble pull, Rose refused to be a party to it. The pain it caused him made him moan something awful and she just couldn’t stand hearing that.

  “You’re gonna have to help me” he said, and by that time they’d both got used to the dark and could make out each other’s expressions.

  “No, I ain’t” she said, and she was thinking what if his bones were sticking through his skin and what if his foot came off with his boot.

  “I can’t do this by myself,” he said.

  “A doctor has to do it!” she said frostily and was about to walk out of the ditch and get back on the road, when she felt herself spun off her feet and dropped across his lap and then to her horror Jack Nash started to spank her. Spanking her on her behind with the palm of his hand just as though she was a baby and he was her papa!

  The humiliation of that was too awful to be borne and she struggled desperately to get out of his clutches. Pretty soon they were wrestling around there in the weeds like a couple of hound dogs.

  “You’re a mean man, Jack Nash!” she gasped, “And I’m glad you got throwed in the ditch!’

  Though she could hardly believe her ears, he started laughing then. “Well, so am I, Sugar. If it hadn’t happened I wouldn’t be getting all this huggin’ and lovin’ on.”

  Stunned by the implications of what he said, Rose pushed herself off him and slithered out of his reach. He was weakened by the laughter that shook him or she’d never have gotten loose.

  He had to struggle to catch his breath in the midst of all that hilarity and pain. “Now are you ready to do what I asked you?”

  “No!” She said wiping away angry tears, but then she decided she ought to explain why. “It hurts you too bad.”

  “Well, shit!” he growled. “What do you suggest I do with myself, then? Scratch out a big hole with my fingernails and fall in so you can bury me and forget all about our little encounter in the moonlight?”

  “Just don’t make me pull off your boot.”

  Jack snorted. “Okay. Have it your way” and then he told her to get to her feet. Once she was standing, he grabbed onto her and tried to stand up using her like a climbing post. She was indignant and pushed him away and started toward the road again. She had a notion just to walk off and leave him. Let him lie there in the ditch until he rotted and decayed back into the dirt he’d come out of. There really wasn’t much he could do about it if she decided to run off, she smirked.

  But then Jack’s voice reached out and took hold of her throat. “Get your useless damn butt back down here, you little pissant! You’re the reason I’m layin’ here in the weeds with a broke leg and my god-damn mare spooked off someplace in the next county. So you’re the one who’s gonna get
me outta this mess!”

  Well, she reasoned, in a dark panic, all he said was true—it was her fault. He could probably get her put in jail, or maybe even hung if she went off and left him to die. Cautiously, she returned to his side and immediately he grabbed onto her again. Only this time he made her bend down and got his arm around her neck which kind of made her nervous. But she straightened up as she was told and he sort of came up with her. As soon as he put some weight on his bad leg though, he went back down cursing and gasping. And Rose just kept praying. Jack Nash wasn’t a real big man, but he was near 6 foot tall with muscle. It was all she could do just to keep from collapsing under him, and the only thing that kept her on her feet was fear and dread. Regardless, in the end it was pretty much the same as with the boot, he got to his good foot, but the other one just dragged along the ground and there was no way she could haul him up and walk at the same time. Besides, she wondered what on earth was she going to do with him if she did get him back on the road? She sure couldn’t carry him all the way home.

  “Maybe I ought to run to my house and get us some help?” she suggested hopefully.”

  Jack loosed his grip on her and sank back on his good knee and she didn’t give him time to argue. As soon as she was what seemed to be a safe distance away and before she got out of earshot she turned and hollered at him. “You think you’re so smart, Jack Nash. When my Papa hears about you laying your hand on my backside, you’ll probably have to marry me!”