Feast for Thieves (36 page)

Emma Hackathorn heard it in the mercantile. Her engagement to Gummer Lopez was in place, and their knot-tying ceremony was set for early June. Her children were excited to receive their new daddy into their home, and so was Sunny. My daughter was back living with the Hackathorns, back where she belonged—at least for now. It wasn’t as hard as we all thought for me to regain full and legal custody from Sally Jo Chicory, which I’d done as soon as possible.

Cisco and Augusta Wayman heard the bell sounding at the Pine Oak Café. They were both back in the place they loved so much, both cooking up a storm. Cisco had his bad spells on occasion, but whenever he did he went upstairs to his bedroom and lay down, and the spells passed within an hour or two. He was still a sad man in many ways—and I didn’t try to stop him none for feeling the depth of what he felt. The man would undoubtedly grieve for his lost son for the rest of his days, and that was doubtless the way things should be. The grief had become part of Cisco Wayman, it had. He felt it in a strong and powerful way, a different way, yes, than what his wife felt, but remindful of a different time and place, of a better world where young men grew up strong and proud and were never called to fight the world’s wars of horror.

They heard the bell over at the Sugar House Tavern. Ava-Louise heard it upstairs in the brothel, and Luna-Mae heard it behind the bar where she worked. Every Sunday I saw them sitting in church. They were both making strides, they were. Still working their old businesses, but coming along nonetheless in their spiritual journeys. Both gals were learning more about the ways of a fisherman from Nazareth, a man born as a babe in a straw ox manger, a man who could change their lives if they let him. A man who’d changed mine.

Deuce Gibbons heard it at his house and shop south of town. He quit working odd jobs for Oris Floyd and began his own construction company to take advantage of all the additional building
projects going on in the area. He enjoyed his time on the deacon board and seldom visited the Sugar House anymore, except when a good fight was expected to break out.

The widow Mert Cahoon heard the bell over at her new apartment in town. In addition to her secretary duties, she was still selling her canning and quilts. Still working her mail route, and still driving the school bus. And she was still secretary of the church. That was for certain. Most days when I saw her at the office she greeted me with a smile. Right after she told me I was late—and late again!—that is.

They heard the bell at the new casino and tavern and hotel and restaurant. The monstrosity was nearly built and set to open next October. Oh, they had their supporters and their detractors. On one hand, folks said change was good for business. On the other, folks said a business like that was nothing needed in this state. But the monstrosity was happening like it or not, and there was no way of stopping it, and that made Mayor Oris Floyd exceptionally happy, which worked out to everyone’s advantage all around.

They heard the bell at the jailhouse where Deputy Roy was still convinced I was an evil influence on the town.

They heard it at the laundry mat and lumberyard.

They heard it at the livery and feed store, and Oris Floyd could even hear it far up at his house northeast of town.

I rang that bell and I felt at home. This was my job, my calling, and I finished ringing the bell just as the sheriff showed up.

“You ready for this, Rowdy?” he said.

“I am.”

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go face the day of your reckoning.”

Well, in the evening after the day of my trial, they held a party for me at the Pine Oak Café so the town’s folks could stop
by and say hello, shake hands all around, and celebrate the verdict. My trial was exceedingly short—far shorter than expected—and when the gavel fell, my sentencing was done right on the spot, and it turned out to be a grand total of one year’s probation. That was it.

There was no question of my guilt—at least to a few of those charges. They could have put me in the chair and set it to fry, or at least thrown me away for thirty years, but after all the evidence from the facts and witnesses got legally sorted through, all I received in the end was the Texas State judicial system’s equivalent of a slap on the wrist. Now it may have been due to the extenuating circumstances surrounding the first crime, or because I was an unwilling accomplice for the second crime, or because I was the fella who returned the stolen money from both bank jobs, but I reckon I’ll never ascertain why my judge proved so lenient. When a man receives such mercy, I suspect there’s far more that goes on behind the scenes than can ever be told.

Augusta Wayman cooked up a real buffet spread for the party. She held nothing back and the theme was all the food folks in Texas like to eat. The first table was laden with appetizers. There were armadillo eggs and beef tacos, black bean dip and broiled brunch grapefruit. There were thick cheese enchilada puffs and a big bowl of smoky cocktail links with corn dip. Another bowl contained spicy marinated shrimp flown in that morning from the Gulf coast, and another bowl held mushroom rolls. And that was just for starters.

Another table was solely devoted to beef main courses. There was beef chili and cowboy brisket and flank steak with pineapple salsa. Next to that sat a platter of grilled flank steaks and alongside of that was a plate of tamale-and-frito-pie, and there were barbecued spareribs and barbecued burgers and then came the chicken.

Oh, there were barbecue wings and hot-and-spicy wings and chicken and dumplings and turkey potpie. There was skillet chicken
and lime chicken burritos and honey barbecue baked chicken and plain old fried chicken and hash. There were salsas and pickles, relishes and salads, sauces and marinades, and soups and stews. After that came dessert.

There was but one dessert.

Augusta called it Peach-Lime Cornmeal Shortcake, and she described the ingredients in the same easygoing motion as she lay down plateful after plateful to all who came near. “Four cups fresh peaches—canned if it’s all you can muster.” She dabbed her forehead with the corner of a serving towel. “One tablespoon fresh lime juice. One cup cold heavy cream.” The shortcake flaked in all the right places, still warm from the oven. The peaches dripped over the side, serious in their syrup. Another layer of fruit followed underneath with cream so buttery everyone who ate it swore it came straight from the cow that morning. Another solid foundation of shortcake held it in place from the bottom up, and when I ate mine I cleaned my plate and sat back and loosened my belt. I’d arrived in the culinary sweet spot, and I didn’t want to ever leave.

As I patted my belly and wished I could fit in another piece, I reflected back on the trial, how more than twenty men from the town of Cut Eye testified on my behalf. They said that through my leadership and by the influence of the Word of God and the power of the Spirit, they’d become better men. More than fifteen gals testified on my behalf too, even the three elderly ladies from the church who insisted—under oath—that I was still preaching heresy. But they’d gotten accustomed to my strange ways of ministering and wanted me back in the pulpit as soon as possible, they did.

My year’s probation would need to be served in close proximity to a jailhouse and a lawman, insisted the judge. That meant each week I needed to check in with the jailhouse, and only with a lawman’s permission could I travel more than a hundred miles
away from my hometown. Halligan Barker stepped right up and volunteered to be my probation officer. We would keep right on meeting each week as part of my continued job functions, he explained to the judge.

Later, when I asked Halligan what my continued job function was going to be, he said, “Exactly what you’re doing now, of course. What’d you expect? It ain’t easy to hire a new preacher in Texas.”

At the party, Gummer called everyone together and announced that he had a gift for me. He knew all along I wasn’t going to fry, and so he’d been working on it in his spare time. It was parked right out in front, and he took me outside with the crowd of townsfolk following along behind.

Gummer’s gift was another DUKW. He had bought it cheap at a surplus auction, and the huge, green, six-wheel-drive vehicle was as ugly as the day was long and exactly like the other DUKW I drove—except for one thing. Gummer had sawed off the trailer hitch.

“So you cannot haul any more large German guns,” he said in his clipped accent, and everybody laughed at the trouble I’d seen.

Well, I didn’t want to travel more than a hundred miles away from Cut Eye anyway, even if I had the chance. Since I wasn’t going to jail for the rest of my life, that meant that Sunny could come and live with me at the parsonage if she wanted to.

Emma and Gummer and I worked out a plan. We agreed it was good for my daughter to be around other children, particularly if they were Hackathorns, so she’d eat breakfast with me and then spend the rest of each day with Emma and the gang while I worked. We’d eat dinner together again at the café, Sunny and me, and then she’d sleep each night in the front room in the parsonage, the one with the cots and crib in it. Although I was taking the
crib out and putting it in storage. For now, anyway. A man never knew what the future might hold forth.

Sunny liked that idea real fine, she told me, in words as clear as any child ever spoke. She was looking forward to beginning kindergarten in the fall. And on the evening I asked her about coming to live with me, she asked, “Why would I live with my uncle?” So I explained some things to her, enough for now. And when she found out I was her real daddy she hugged me tight for a long, long time.

EPILOGUE

E
arly one morning near the end of May 1947, two months after my trial, Bobbie and I drove in her jeep east along the Grayson-Gregg Road, which lies a couple miles south of town off of Highway 2.

The sun was not yet up and the road turns into gravel before long. Few folks ever travel this direction. I slowed the jeep to 20 and kept a sharp lookout for any deep ruts that were made in last spring’s heavy rainstorm, the storm that filled the river with rage and began the trajectory of my change from incorrigible paratrooper to country preacher, seemingly so long ago now.

Bobbie talked while I drove, and I gave the occasional grunt of affirmation. She chatted about nothing and everything—it seemed more monologue than conversation—and all the while she kept looking to her right, far away from me, southward out over the cool fields of prickly pear cacti that dot the rolling hills of the lower Edward Plateau.

Tucked in the back of the jeep was a picnic breakfast hand-packed the evening before and sent our direction with love from Augusta Wayman. It seemed everyone in town was urging me to strike the right mood and say something while I still had the chance, anything that might prompt Bobbie to change her mind about leaving. Course, they knew it was hopeless. They all knew Bobbie feared Jesus, and they were learning to respect the ways of a mysterious God, just like I was learning, particularly when God
seems to be directing two folks together or keeping them apart.

At mile thirty Bobbie whapped me with the back of her hand on my accelerator knee and nodded ahead toward the distance.