Pray for Us Sinners

by Marilyn L. R. Hall

  And Jack was so happy! He loved doing whatever it was he did and wearing one of his perfectly ironed white shirts and a suit to work. He loved buying her things, especially extravagant little trinkets and jewelry she didn’t really need; he loved having a car to drive her around in and showing her off when they went out. And most of all he loved being able to hand Mary Jean the rent money on the first of every month and still keep a big roll of bills in his pocket.

  Oh yes indeed! God was good to them! Rose felt like throwing open the window and shouting “Hallelujah!” Even the dreary gray skies of winter couldn’t bring her down!

  There was going to be a baby! A little boy, maybe … she hoped … who would look just like his Daddy. Another Jack Nash for her to love and cherish! The joy in her heart just had to find an outlet and pretty soon she’d be dancing around the room praising God and thanking him for all her blessings. Now that the baby had become real to her she couldn’t wait to tell Jack about him. To see the look of wonder on his face. And then the happiness and pride that would fill his beautiful eyes. She could hardly imagine how proud he would be. Jack Nash, a daddy! Finally!

  But he didn’t come home.

  As she lay alone in their bed that night the tears began again and she let them flow for a time. It felt good to give in to self-pity and be sad for a change; giving Jack “the what for,” blaming him and yelling at him in her imagination. But that didn’t last long—as she hollered at him, in her mind’s eye he repented and embraced her and before she knew it he was making love to her. She opened her eyes in wonder. “Rose Sharon,” she admonished herself, “you are really hopeless.” And so she lay there, her cheeks still wet with tears, smiling to herself and marveling at the depth of her love for her husband and at the happiness that swelled her heart with just a thought of him.

  How had she ever won him? What had she ever done to deserve such happiness? It was always a wonder to her that she had won the love of the one and only man she ever wanted. Her earliest memories were of him. And God had given him to her! To honor and obey … to have and to hold … to love forever! For Rose knew even death would not part them. And now they had truly become one and made a baby together and that bound them even stronger.

  “O my sweet Jack!” she turned toward his side and hugged his pillow against her body. “Come home, Jack. Please hurry home.”

  While she caressed his pillow her mind wandered backward again to the first time she saw him after that disaster on the field road, while his leg was still encased in plaster...

  April 1927

  It was the next Friday, almost a week later. She was walking home from school and as was her custom, lagging far behind her brothers. She tended to meander, head thrown back, chin stuck out, voice raised in a lusty tune with her molasses-can lunch-pail swinging on her arm. But today her concentration was focused on some hawks drifting in circles above the field to her left. The sky was cloudless and the air was still. And the strangest thing! She wasn’t even thinking about HIM! For probably the first time in her life, too. When suddenly… there he was, right beside her. She thought her song must have covered the sound of the mare’s hooves. But she hadn’t heard her that other time either so maybe that fiendish beast meant to sneak up on her.

  Surprise, delight, excitement, dread, panic, and finally embarrassment followed one another in rapid succession across her brain while he reined in his horse and trotted along with her. There was a strange grin on his face, and she wasn’t sure she felt safe being alone with him.

  With her eyes squinted against the western sun, she studied his face.

  He bore her scrutiny with grace. “Good afternoon, Rosy” he said and he even tipped his hat to her.

  Still studying , she nodded. “Same to you, Mister Nash.”

  Jack frowned at her and then he looked up at the sky and rolled his eyes. “Mister Nash?” he echoed in an incredulous voice. “Do you see my daddy out here somewhere?” Then he gave her a grave stare. “You can still call me ‘Mister Nash’ after our frolicsome little romp out there in the moonlight the other night?”

  With a shrug, she corrected him. “There wasn’t no moon,” and then quickly asked, “What would you have me call you?”

  He bent toward her and snapped the reins against her arm. “Well, Miss Prissy ‘There wasn’t no moon’ Pants, I feel like we had a real intimate relationship started out there in the ditch and we ought to be at least on a first name basis, if not ‘honey pie’ and ‘darlin’”

  His voice sounded sincere but there were those wicked crinkly creases beside his mouth and an ornery glimmer in his blue eyes. So she narrowed her eyes at him and then turned her face forward. “Well, I sure ain’t ready for no ‘honey pies’ or ‘darlins’.” And she continued to meander slowly homeward though her heart was pounding and her knees were shaking and the field to her left had started to pitch in the wind.

  He didn’t say anything else but he kept crowding her toward the ditch with that ill-tempered mare of whom Rose suffered an awesomely unnatural fear; but she was determined not to show it to Jack Nash, who might be even crazier than his horse. For as much as she was attracted to his manliness she was not blind to his odd and exotic mindset and enough of his exploits had been bandied about to ensure her awareness of his lack of self-discipline and good sense.

  Finally he tired of the silence and snapped the rein at her arm again. “Why don’t you just climb up here with me, Rose Sharon, and we’ll have you safe and secure at home in just a couple a minutes?”

  That was the first time she ever heard him say her proper name and the sound of it on his tongue almost made her swoon. She was also surprised that he knew it, and wondered if he’d always known or if he’d asked around. Between that and the invitation to climb aboard Wild Honey, she couldn’t stop the shudder that shook her body and she turned her head to see if he had noticed.

  He was staring down at her with his mesmerizing eyes. “Well?’

  “No thank you” she said and shuddered again, that time because of her irrational refusal to what would very likely be the one and only invitation she would ever get from him.

  Jack breathed another exasperated sigh. “Well, shit, Miss Rose Sharon Saylor,” he said and pressed that old gray Stetson to his chest while he performed a most exaggerated bow. “I can’t get down and walk with you, because some scaredy-cat Miss Prissy Pants caused my horse to throw me and bust my damn leg!”

  Rose stopped walking then and turned to face him. He was still bending toward her with his hat pressed against his chest. The funny little crinkles and the glimmer were gone, though. Undoubtedly his mood had shifted. They stared at each other for a time, and she wished she could tell what was going on behind his eyes.

  At last she took a deep breath and jumped off the cliff. “My heart does belong to you, Jack Nash, if you want it or don’t—and I’m plum sorry and ashamed about your horse throwin’ you. I wish I could go back and change that but I cain’t, and I would be happy to ride up there with you but I’m scared plum to death,” she shuddered again, “of that horse. I sure never wanted you to know that, but standin’ here with you lookin’ at me, I just cain’t pertend anymore.” She wanted to go ahead and tell him she loved him, but her courage failed and her voice just faded away.

  Somewhere a dog was barking. Somewhere a mourning dove mourned. Somewhere to the north a train whistled at a crossing—but there on the road to Rose Saylor’s house, a heavy silence lay—a heavy, brooding silence.

  The man on the horse sat as if turned to stone. His hand still clutched the hat against his shirt and his body still bent slightly toward her. The only noticeable difference was that his mouth had fallen open.

  The girl in the road hadn’t changed either except that her focus moved down from his eyes to his dropped-open mouth. Maybe if she was really blessed, God would split the earth and she would fall in.

  Eons passed before time finally started to move again, and Jack’s mouth closed, his hand placed the hat back on
his head and his body sat tall in the saddle. He patted Honey’s neck absent-mindedly while his eyes searched the sky, the horizon, the cornfield, the road in front, and the road behind him. Then when he finally ran out of places to peer he looked at her again. Only this time the mirth in his eyes spilled over and his mouth began grinning and then laughing out loud. Petrified, Rose could only stare—stunned and horrified and humiliated, so naturally she started to cry. Flinging herself away from him she stomped off down the road. “You are a mean man, Jack Nash and you are as crazy as your horse!”

  Her voice came to him filtered through his own laughter and though he tried to stop he just couldn’t. Finally he and Honey started to trot down the road after her. When he rode beside her again he leaned far down and grabbed hold of her arm. She was fighting him until she realized her body was dangerously near the mad mare’s head so she let him lift her off her feet and drag her onto the saddle in front of him. Rose drew back as far as she could just in case Honey chose to reach her head around and take a hunk out of her and that placed her tightly against Jack’s chest but she was so frightened by the horse she didn’t notice his nearness until his laughter had subsided and his voice began to seep into her consciousness. It came from right above her ear and she was suddenly aware of the pressure of him and his arm around her. After that whatever he was saying didn’t seem to matter all that much. And the way he was holding her and the charming sweetness of his tone assured her she was in capable hands and exactly where she wanted to be all the rest of her life.

  Understanding and accepting that, Rose let herself relax and just melted into him, and when she did she felt a shiver of excitement pass from her body into his that made her go all weak and trembly again. And Jack Nash held her like that while Wild Honey, trotting solidly under them, brought her home.

  Jack left her at the side of the road near her house after planting a little kiss on her cheek at the last moment before he lifted her off Honey’s back. Truth be told, it was so unexpected and so brief that later, except for a burning that wouldn’t go away, she couldn’t be sure it hadn’t been all in her imagination. The only conversation she remembered was him asking her how old she was and her answering that she’d be fifteen—but she didn’t say when and he didn’t ask.

  But that he said he would see her again the next evening was real enough and that set her to floating about a foot off the ground, a sight that, miraculously, nobody noticed and that was just as well too, because Papa would never accept Jack Nash as a fit suitor for his daughter. Rose knew that whatever relationship she might have with Jack, it would have to be their secret. But that fact didn’t deter her in the least. Truth be told, the only problem in her life at that particular moment seemed to be that somewhere along the road home that afternoon, she had misplaced her lunch pail.

  And so it happened, that the darkly handsome blackguard, Jack Nash, the unprincipled rogue of the entire countryside who had been the ruin of countless women and girls—he who had scurried from bed to bed with the insatiable appetite of a depraved wastrel and who was the prime example of moral corruption shouted about amid hellfire and brimstone from pulpits and in revival tents all over the state lost his incentive, whatever it was that had driven him, and sowed his last wild oat!

  And the end had come out of nowhere and not altogether to his liking. He was still a month away from his 21st birthday, and had at least consciously no desire whatsoever to quit his wild and free existence to settle down, mate, and father children. Indeed, to his way of thinking, when he finally took the time to think about it, the only thing that could possibly have caused him to be so inclined, was one of those love-charms conjured up by that old herb-woman in Brewster’s Wood. There had been some who tried that. He was sure the Saylors were a superstitious lot, and in his rare unclouded moments he did entertain the notion she might have put a spell on him. When he was feeling otherwise, he really didn’t give a damn!

  And all the while, he was hugging and kissing her and working up to things Rose knew shouldn’t be allowed until after they stood before the preacher. It got so bad that evening in the hay shed she had to whack him a good one with her knee and the ensuing fuss he made was what drew Papa’s attention and led to that beating with the horsewhip.

  It was a long, sad time that followed that incident of course, because Jack just disappeared for a while. It was as if Brother had dropped him off the edge of the world that terrible evening instead of at the end of his Daddy’s lane. Nobody mentioned his name and Rose feared she’d never ever lay eyes on him again. And having been with him like she had, that was a fate worse than death to her. She didn’t know if he was afraid to show his face around because he was so terribly shamed by the whipping or if he just hated her so bad for letting her daddy catch them. Not knowing why or where he had gone was a cross she could hardly bear … and her prayers got desperate! There was no soothing her during those terrible months. She became like a thing possessed, brooding and aloof, or growling and hitting and biting. Her brothers and sisters walked large circles around her and even Mama, Papa and Grammaw Saylor avoided too close an encounter.

  Summer and Autumn 1927 to early spring 1928

  Wallowing in bitter resentment, Rose refused to lift a finger around the farm, and come September, she started her final year of grade school, still determined to earn her diploma and prove Claire Louise wrong in her cold-hearted estimation of Rose’s intelligence. That accomplishment being the only ambition in Rose’s life other than becoming Jack Nash’s legally wedded wife.

  Her uselessness that year stuck out like a rowboat in a desert and she figured they might all gang up and kill her for being so lazy, but dying was about the only thing left to look forward to. Then, for some reason her family let her be, and the months piled up—Thanksgiving passed, Christmas came and went, and then a new year began and there was still no word of him. Jack Nash had been gone almost seven months and there still wasn’t anybody who would admit to knowing anything at all about him. He could be dead by now and likely he was—1927 was the summer Rose saw Grammaw Ida Belle just up and die one oppressively sultry August afternoon.

  What Rose did mostly during the winter of 1927 and early spring of 1928 was walk the field road, forward and back, watching the days pass from sunrise to sunset. Sometimes she’d sing sad songs and when she ran through all she knew by heart, she made up her own words and sang them to the tunes of the songs she knew. Sometimes she’d take a paper and pencil and go hide in the hay and write long love letters to Jack, which would end up breaking her heart because she knew he would never read them. It was also during that dismal season that Rose shot up three inches taller and developed a truly-curvy figure, along with some other more serious and uniquely-woman modifications.

  But it was most remarkable the way her family let her alone. She supposed it was because she had acted so ferociously at the start. They might have been scared she had got herself a devil, messing around with Jack, or become fixated on some other of their superstitious notions. It was a blessing to be let alone, though, so she didn’t do anything to try to change their minds. She was to learn later that Papa had feared she was with child and was so relieved when she wasn’t that he told the family to just let her be and not press her for anything till she got over being hurt. Papa figured he’d seen the last of Jack Nash anyway!

  April 13, 1928

  But fate knew different! And on April Friday the 13th, a month after her fourteenth birthday and just a few days before her graduation on Wednesday, he was back!

  Suddenly without any kind of warning there he was on the road beside her again. Only this time he was driving a car! Her relief was so overwhelming she thought she might swoon and she did get a mite dizzy and sag against the door when he opened it. But right away, he stepped out and got her in his arms and was kissing her and squeezing her. Eventually he loosened his grasp on her, leaned back against the car, and stood for a while, just grinning at her and telling her to “stand back” so he could get a go
od look at her, and oh my—did he ever look her over—up and down, and down and up! Then he said, “Dammit, Rose Sharon, you are a sight for sore eyes!” And then he reached for her hands and put both of them to his lips and kissed them a hundred times. “Shit, there ain’t nobody could have convinced me I’d ever miss anybody like I been missing you.”

  “Where did you go off too?” Rose’s pouty mouth got thin and tight when she asked that. “Nobody would talk about you.”

  But Jack just shook his head, and kept grinning, “Maybe I’ll tell you sometime.” And then he motioned her to get in the car and when she did he slid in after her.

  She settled herself and then started looking around at the car’s interior. “This is real nice, Jack. Is it yours?”

  “More or less” he grinned and the dimple lines in his cheeks got deeper. Then he stretched back in the seat and reached into the pocket of his trousers. “I’ve got a present for you.” And before she could take a good breath, he had grabbed her left hand and was sliding a ring on her third finger.

  “You and me are gettin’ married today, Rosy.” And then his cobalt blue eyes narrowed while he watched her face for a reaction to that statement.

  He was pleased to see she wasn’t repelled by it or even all that surprised, but she did seem to be stringing up a bunch of questions or conditions or something back there behind her eyes. “Well?” he asked, a little subdued by her lengthy silence.

  At last she nodded and her face broke into a wide grin. “I am real relieved to hear that is your intention, Jack Nash.”

  Within minutes they were in front of her house and she was sliding out of the car behind him and following him up the steps to the porch, through the screen door, and into the kitchen where they found Olivia Saylor dissecting two frying chickens for the midday meal. Several boy-children of differing ages cluttered the room and saturated it with a noisy chattering not unlike monkeys in a jungle to which Ollie seemed oblivious.