Heart of a Shepherd (7 page)

“Is he in the Society of Friends?”

I nod, but I'm impressed already. He's a lot quicker on the uptake than your average priest. Most people don't know Friends is the right word for Quakers. We both look out the window to see Grandpa sitting at the picnic table with a thermos of coffee and the morning sun on his back as he sets out letters, a
journal, and a pen with the care of a surgeon. It's not fair that there isn't another Quaker for a hundred miles for him to pray with, so he writes to three different Quaker pastors every week, and they write to him.

We hear cars in the gravel lot, so Father and I head to the sacristy to get ready for Mass. Just as I am about to close the sacristy door, Mrs. Hobbs comes in to warm up the piano. I can tell it's her because I think she dips her entire wardrobe in lilac perfume.

My heart sinks a little when I see her, because she has an opera-high voice that is so thin it makes you think of starving stray cats. Before Dad's unit left for Iraq, Paco's dad used to lead the singing. He has a deep, round voice. To be fair, it is the sort of voice that makes you think of beer and polka, but people can sing along to that sort of voice—which, in my opinion, is the whole point of having someone to lead the songs in the first place.

I listen to Mrs. Hobbs play as families shuffle in and find their seats. I take the white altar boy alb out of the closet, pull it on over my clothes, and check the mirror to be sure it hangs evenly all the way to the floor. I stand up a little straighter, like my dad and brothers do when they're in uniform. Half a dozen thick white
cords with a knot on each end hang on the back of the closet door. I pick the shortest one and make a belt of it, with the extra rope hanging down on the right side of the robe. Back when I was starting out and Frank was still in eighth grade, he showed me how to do the right kind of knot, and we served together on the altar for the whole summer. Now I do it alone. Paco and I trade off every other Sunday.

Father Ziegler stands at the other closet and puts on an alb and rope like me, but he puts a stole over the top, the purple one for Lent. It's two minutes to nine, so I get out the tall brass candlelighter and slide a half inch of wick out of the holder. Father fishes a lighter out of his pocket, which is weird because he doesn't smell like a smoker. We get the wick lit, and I carry it out to light the altar candles. I take a quick look. Paco and Rosita are sitting in the front row with all their aunts and uncles. Their
abuelo
and
abuela
sit by the window, holding hands, and they have two whole rows of cousins. Ernesto is sitting in the back with the three other shepherds that work in the valley. I think one of those guys is his cousin and the other two are from his home village. They lean their heads together to share the Spanish missal that Ernesto brings with him every Sunday.

“Are they ready?” Father asks when I come back into the sacristy with the candlelighter.

“Yup.”

For a second I think he's just going to dash out there and dive into it, but then he leans back on the closet door, closes his eyes, and bows his head. I'm going to like this one, I can tell—not too bossy or fussy, but he looks like the type to pay attention to the important stuff.

Mrs. Hobbs starts the opening hymn, and Father Ziegler and I go to the back of the church. Everyone stands up, and I lead Father up the center aisle, carrying the cross and walking like a soldier. When we get to the front of the church, I put the cross in its holder and Father Ziegler kisses the altar. I bring him the book and hold it up for the opening blessing. I don't know why he needs it. I know all the words by heart already.

I love the rhythm of the Mass, and being there at exactly the right time with the book for Father to read the blessing, or the water for washing, or the chalice and paten in exactly the right place on the altar. The people sit and kneel and stand, and then, at the holiest moment, when Father holds the bread and wine up to heaven, I ring one small bell. There is a hush while that moment echoes off the walls of this place, just like it
has for centuries all over the world. No matter what happens to Dad or the ranch, the Mass is always going to be the same.

After the opening blessing, Mrs. Hobbs launches into the Gloria a full two octaves above human range. Somewhere there are dogs getting spiritual edification from this. The rest of us are just bumbling along in search of a key. Fortunately, she trails off and doesn't repeat the chorus. Mary Gail steps up quick for the first reading just in case Mrs. Hobbs decides to launch into another verse.

Mary Gail is Grandma's best friend. I love to listen to her read. She can put out the word of God with real conviction. If any of us are thinking about worshiping Babylonian gods like it says in Exodus, Mary Gail's tone of voice pretty much sets us straight.

Then we are in trouble again with the psalm. Father Ziegler stands up to read it, but he's only three words in when there's a bang from the piano and Mrs. Hobbs starts singing the psalm. It's an easy mistake to make. Some folks sing the psalm and some don't. Father sits back down, and everything goes fine until the Gospel. He gets up and goes to the lectern to read. He waits for us to sing the Alleluia first, but there isn't a note or a squawk from Mrs. Hobbs at the piano. She
has her back to us, so Father can't make eye contact to find out if a song is supposed to go there. So finally we just say the Alleluia and the awkward moment passes.

The preaching goes okay once you get used to the New York accent. Unfortunately after the preaching we are right back to the problem of when to sing and when not to sing. By the time we come to the final blessing, even the back of Mrs. Hobbs's head looks angry.

“Well, that went all right, except for the music,” Father Ziegler says as soon as we walk through the sacristy door at the end of Mass.

“Mrs. Hobbs looked pretty steamed to me,” I say, unknotting the rope around my alb.

“I'll talk to her,” Father says.

“I'd give her a few days to get over it.”

“It doesn't seem right to let bad feelings fester.”

I set the book of Scriptures back in the drawer and pull out the parish directory. “E-mail her.”

He thinks it over for a minute. “That might work.”

I shrug, pull off the alb, and hang it in the closet between the alb I used to wear when I was ten and the one I'll wear when I'm taller.

He takes off his stole and folds it in half. “You
seem to know a lot about the parish. Is there anything else I should know about?”

“Well …” I take the communion cup and plate to the sink and run hot water. “You know, a bunch of us are soldiers and veterans.” I stop myself before I say So don't say anything stupid about the war, but then I wonder if he would even get what I mean.

“Me too.” Father Ziegler slides the folded stole onto a hanger. He smiles at my look. “Surprise!”

I take a better look at him now and decide he's not as young as I thought. I rinse out the chalice and dry it.

“What branch?”

“Army—artillery. “

“Wow.”

“It was loud.”

He looks around the sacristy, and I wonder if he thinks washing the chalice and communion plate is his job, because some priests are funny about that. Maybe he's wondering if he can just leave the rest of the after-Mass jobs to me and go to the parish hall to have coffee and grown-up chat. I've never heard of a priest who didn't need a cup of coffee after Mass. This one starts looking through the cupboards. When he gets to the closet, he takes out the broom and starts to sweep, which I've never seen a priest do in my entire life.

“Gee, thanks, Father.” I'm about to tell him, You don't really have to do that, when he says, “No problem, glad to help. Thank you …” And then he pauses and I wonder if he thinks Brother is a dumb nickname.

“It's okay, really. Everyone calls me Brother.”

“Sorry. It's just that the people I call Brother are all really old Jesuits. What's your given name?”

“Ignatius,” I mumble into the sink.

“That's a great name,” he says, and not like he's making fun of me, either. “Saint Ignatius is the patron saint of every Jesuit priest in the world.”

“Yeah, but he's been dead for hundreds of years, hasn't he?”

“Good point. Probably not a great name to have in grade school, is it?”

“No,” I say in a huffier voice than I really mean to use. “Paco's dad used to call me Nacho when I was little, but I had to put a stop to that on account of—”

“The cheese?” Father Ziegler smiles. “That's tough. I got in a few fistfights over nicknames in grade school myself.”

“Really?”

It's hard to imagine him hitting anyone, but then it's hard to imagine him firing off artillery shells, which
must be why they have that saying about books and their covers.

“Yeah.” He goes back to the closet for the dustpan. “My mother named me Cornelius John.”

“No way!” I finish up with the plate and put the altar pieces in the safe, imagining the sorts of nicknames you could make out of Cornelius. All the ones I can think of are pretty insulting.

“You think I would make that up?”

“So what do your friends call you?”

“CJ.”

“CJ? Really?”

“Yeah.”

“That's a girl name.”

“You got a problem with that, punk?” he says, and bangs the dustpan empty against the side of the garbage can. “ ‘Cause if you do, you can just step outside and we'll settle it.”

For a minute there I think, Boy, the bishop really sent us a wacky one this time, but then I see he's kidding, so I laugh and say, “Okay, truce.”

“I've got a better idea,” he says. “You think of a cooler nickname for me and I'll think of one for you. Deal?”

“Deal.”

And then we go back into the church, because it's empty now. All the people are in the parish hall with the coffee cake and doughnuts. He takes the candles off the altar, and I fold up the purple altar cloth.

Usually, when I'm doing the after-Mass work, I'm thinking about the week ahead and wondering if Dad even gets to go to Mass. Probably not, because they only get a chaplain once a month, and he's a Baptist. So it's actually a nice change to be thinking of a name for Cornelius that isn't totally stupid. But when I get to the last job I start dawdling, because it's hard to think of one. Just when I think I can't go another minute without a frosted maple bar, I say “Conn,” and show Father Ziegler the cabinet where we hide the keys.

“Con?” He frowns a little and starts locking up the cupboards.

“Yeah, like Take the Conn, Lieutenant, and fire the torpedoes.”

“Oh,
Hunt for Red October”
He smiles. “Good book. Conn. I could get used to that.”

“Plus, it has a hint of artillery in it, and I think it's always a good idea to sound a little bit dangerous.”

He laughs and opens the back door of the sacristy, which goes to the parking lot.

“How about Natch for you?”

I try it on in my mind a couple times, and then I imagine how the boys at school would say it. But it sounds okay to me, and he was a good sport about the name I picked, so I say, “Yeah, perfect.”

We walk across the lot to the parish hall and he says, “Hey, Natch,” and then he nods back in the direction of the church. “You have a talent for that sort of thing, you know. Thanks.”

A
PRIL

“Color guard, advance,” our teacher says, and the two third graders bring the flag to the pole. It's their first time, so they are super serious. They unfold it slowly and clip it to the line. The rest of us, twenty-three in all, stand in a ring around the flagpole, lined up from little Colleen in kindergarten to Bud, three times her size, in eighth grade. I love flag ceremony in spring because there are still flowers on the weeds, and the wind isn't hot and dry yet. The color guard runs the flag all the way up and then lowers it to half-staff because a soldier from Oregon died three days ago. He's not someone from Dad's unit; still, I hate to see the flag snapping in the wind in the middle of the pole. We say the pledge and then have a moment of silence. I close my eyes and
whisper the names of the soldiers from our school that went to Iraq: four dads and a mom in the primary room, three in the upper-grade room. I say a double blessing for Paco and Rosita, because their folks are both in Dad's battalion.

We crowd up the schoolhouse steps. The little kids turn right into the primary room and the big kids turn left. On the way to class, Paco says, “Hey, Brother,” and he gives the secret sign, like he has every morning for the last eight months and twelve days, to say that there wasn't a visit from the rear detachment sergeant who makes the casualty calls to families. I give Rosita a little slug on the shoulder to say I've been praying for her folks.

But when we walk through the classroom door, it's all over, because there is a line down the middle of the room, and everyone has chosen a side. Naturally the girls all sit on one side of the room, the side with the computer lab. They look out on Highway 20, which goes from Boise to Burns. The boys sit on the piano side and look out on a thousand acres of government land. Actually, us boys don't look out the window. We survey the enemy. There are four of them and six of us, unless they form an alliance with the little girls over in
the primary room. And then we're in deep trouble, because a seven-year-old girl will follow her captain's orders and a seven-year-old boy just won't, so there isn't much point in diplomacy, near as I can tell.