The week before he died, Dempsey had told him that God answered every prayer, but not always like folks expected. “Sometimes you just have to wait till it’s the right season to figure out you got the right answer after all.”
Chantry reckoned that was true. He remembered praying that he’d be able to keep Shadow, and he had, but not quite the way he’d thought it’d be. Like Mama. She’d said all things came to those who wait, and maybe that was true too. Somehow it seemed like it was saying the same thing. Maybe God answered prayers, after all. It was something to think about.
When he turned to leave the cemetery, he saw Chris Quinton not far away. He stood by the huge monument that marked his grandfather’s grave, new and ornate, a big piece of carved marble that Colin and Cara had erected in his honor. He walked over out of curiosity more than anything else.
Chris looked up and nodded. “Hey, Chantry.”
“Hey, Chris. How’s married life?”
“Good.” Chris smiled. “Damn good. Maybe one day I’ll live up to the person she thinks I am.”
“Maybe.”
Chris looked down at the grave. A low wrought iron fence made a square around the foot of the headstone. Nearby lay a new grave: Ted Quinton’s bones had been found in the backwash behind where the Hideaway once stood, and brought home to rest. Like a few others, men who’d been missing for generations. Found again, and brought home.
“He hurt a lot of people,” Chris said. “Did a lot of mean things.”
“Yeah. Guess we all do in a way.” Just not like Quinton had done. But he didn’t say that out loud. There wasn’t any need to, anyway.
“True, but most of us don’t do it on purpose.” Chris shook his head. “Sometimes I think I might end up like him.”
“You won’t. You’ve got Tansy to keep you straight.”
“And you’ve got Cinda.” Chris looked at him again. “Hope you don’t do anything to mess that up.”
“Is that a warning?”
“No. Friendly advice.”
He nodded. “I asked her to marry me and she said yes.”
Chris looked surprised, then grinned. “About damn time.”
“A season for everything.”
“Since you’ve gone into partnership with Doc Malone, I guess you’ll be staying in Cane Creek a while.”
“Looks that way.” He stuck his hands in his pockets, looked over the rolling hills of the cemetery where generations of Quintons lay beneath green grass and pink blooms of laurel trees. At the end of the cemetery, beyond a low stone fence, lay the “colored” section, segregated even in death. Things were changing, but not everything. Not all at once. Maybe some things would never change.
“Heard you’re building a house out on Liberty Road.”
Chantry looked back at Chris, nodded again. “Yeah. Dempsey left me his house, land, and about a dozen feral cats. Said he knew Tansy wouldn’t stay. I didn’t even know he owned it, but apparently he did. Cinda sold me the land across the street, too. Looks like I own all of Liberty Road now. Right up to the fields and woods.”
“So you’re going back to Sugarditch. Not a bad move, not since those developers decided to put in some new subdivisions to house employees that work in the casinos. I never thought Sugarditch would get a new name, Sugar Creek, or actually be a place where folks wanted to live.”
“Neither did I.”
“I heard Eleanor Rowan has sold her trailer and piece of land for a nice piece of change. Granddad would roll over in his grave.”
They both glanced involuntarily at the marble monument, maybe expecting it to tremble with the force of Bert Quinton’s rage at losing out. It stayed still, pointing to the sky. Chantry figured Quinton had gone in the other direction.
“Things have a way of sorting themselves out, I guess,” he said after a minute, and Chris nodded agreement. They stood there in silence for a few more minutes, then by silent consent, walked down the hill together toward the others.
Cinda met him at the low stone wall, and they all waited while Chris went to join Tansy still standing at her father’s grave. She’d brought a plant, and knelt down to put it among the wreaths and flowers crowded under the canopy. Even from where he stood, Chantry recognized the herb: tansy.
Just beyond the dispersing crowd, Herky Welch stood with Spot, not quite joining in, but come to pay his respects. Chantry saw him, and Herky grinned real big and waved, then wandered off toward home.
Chantry slid an arm around Cinda’s shoulders. She looked up at him and smiled. The air smelled soft and damp from the earlier rain, clean and fresh. A new beginning. It felt like home at last. Like he belonged. And that was something he hadn’t ever thought he’d feel. Yeah. Coming home was just being with the right person and didn’t have a lot to do with being in any one place.
“Let’s go home, Chantry,” Cinda said, and he nodded. Yeah. That sounded really good.
As they walked to their car, the sun broke free of the clouds and a gleaming arc shimmered in the sky, a misty red, blue, green and yellow. It soared over Cane Creek in a beautiful bow, from the river all the way to Sugarditch, where it seemed to end. And in the distance, he heard a dog bark, an excited bay like a Catahoula that had treed a coon or other critter.
He thought of Shadow and rainbows, and the way everything seemed to come full circle at times. For a man who’d chased rainbows all his life, it sure felt good to finally catch one. Mighty good.
The End
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About Virginia Brown
As a long-time resident of Mississippi, award-winning author Virginia Brown has lived in several different areas of the state, and finds the history, romance, and intrigue of the Deep South irresistible. Although having spent her childhood as a “military brat” living all over the U.S. and overseas, this award-winning author of nearly fifty novels is now happily settled in and drawing her favorite fictional characters from the wonderful, whimsical Southerners she has known and loved.
Visit her at virginiabrownauthor.com
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