Orchard of Hope (22 page)

“I don’t think I could walk down a church aisle.”

“Once you say the prayer and mean it, the Lord will give you strength to do whatever needs to be done.”

“‘For I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.’”

“Paul in his letter to the Philippians,” David said with a nod.

“I’ve been thinking maybe I’ve been getting strengthened up enough to make it up the steps to my apartment. I think it’s time.” Wes smiled a little at David. “Now that I can make my own coffee.”

“You need more than coffee,” David said.

“Wieners aren’t hard to cook. I can get me a hook and hang a bucket on my crutches to carry things in. And Jo can run errands for me. She needs to work off some of her guilt anyhow.”

David looked at Wes and didn’t know what to say. He was afraid to let Wes go back to the apartment, afraid he’d sink too low to remember the hedge of their love back here at the house. “How about you wait until we get the rods out of your cast? Or even better, until after Jocie’s birthday. She’s been looking forward to you being here to watch her blow out her candles. That’s not but a couple of weeks away.”

“You can bring me back for that.”

David thought fast. “Tell you what. Let’s make a couple of trial runs. I’ve been thinking about seeing if you’d go to the office with me sometime to look at the press. It was doing some mighty creaking last Tuesday.”

Wes sat up a little straighter and said, “Did you oil it like I told you to?”

“I did, but it’s still creaking. I think it’s a one-man press. It needs you to look at it.”

Wes smiled. “Well, I guess I could ride along if you think I can get in the car.”

“You’ll fit with no problem. Everything about you has shrunk since you came home.”

“Then I guess we could try it this morning. If you’re sure I won’t be getting in Cupid’s way and keeping you away from walking with your girl.”

“I’m not sure we can call her
my
girl yet.”

“If you don’t mind, she won’t mind,” Wes said. “You can lay money on that.”

“I think you probably need to have at least one date before you can claim couple status.” David stared down at the coffee in his cup and tried to think of a way to change the subject.

“Some people just get blown right through the dating stage to something else.”

“That might be a good way to describe me and Leigh. Something else.” David looked up at Wes and laughed.

Wes smiled back as he said, “Why don’t you ask her out tonight?”

“When would I study my sermon?”

“Leigh would probably let you practice on her. And I’m betting you already have it all blocked out anyway. What are you preaching on? Love for your neighbor? No matter what color they happen to be?”

“I’ve been thinking on it, but how’d you guess?”

“Your editorial in this week’s
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. You was preaching some in it.”

“You think so? I was trying not to, but sometimes it’s hard not to preach a little when you see things going bad.” David took a sip of his coffee. It was cold.

“Are things going bad in Hollyhill?”

“I don’t know, Wes. Things seem peaceful enough. Mrs. Hearndon’s been back to church once with her children and a few more people didn’t bother moving to the other side of the church. Jocie said there weren’t any fights at the high school, and the little kids don’t seem to even notice anything’s different at the elementary school. And we’ve only gotten a couple of letters complaining about me putting the article about Mrs. Rowlett being the best teacher in the county on the front page. At least one of the best.”

“So what’s bothering you, David?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m just worried it’s the calm before the storm.”

“There don’t have to be a storm. Maybe it’s just time for Hollyhill to give up its old ways and move into the twentieth century since we’re done past halfway to the next one. Skin color shouldn’t make a difference in where a person goes to school. Or buys a farm.”

“It’s the farm that has me a little worried. I think the schools being desegregated isn’t going to be a problem. But the Hearndons, that’s a different matter.”

“Why’s that?” Wes asked.

“Harvey McMurtry, you know he’s the one who sold them the place. Anyway, he says he’s been hearing rumors about the Klan getting active around here.”

“That ain’t good news.” Wes frowned and shook his head a little as he looked at David. “I got invited to a Klan meeting, conclave, whatever they call it, once.”

“Really?” David was surprised.

“I was down in Mississippi and I guess the fellow I was working for thought I looked like a good old boy. I was curious so I went.”

“What happened?”

“I didn’t stay long enough to find out. Five minutes was all it took for me to know I was in the wrong place. I waited till nobody was paying me any attention. Then I slipped away, got on my motorcycle, and didn’t stop till I was a couple of hundred miles away.”

“What did they do?”

“I don’t know that it was what they did, but more what they became when they all got together and put on their pointy hats. It was like they sort of joined together and became some kind of monster with a hundred heads.” Wes shivered a little at the thought. “One thing sure, they had a mighty attraction to fire. Had this huge bonfire that looked like it might have burned down the whole state if the wind had got up.”

“I can’t see that kind of thing happening in Holly County,” David said, but even as he said it he thought it was more hope speaking than sureness. “Our people wouldn’t do that kind of thing.”

“People can surprise you. Those people down there surprised me. Of course it wasn’t all local folks. The guy I worked for said men came in from all over the state when they had those meetings or whatever they were.”

“But did they do anything besides talk?” David asked.

“Beats me. I didn’t stay around long enough to hear the talk. I might have done some foolish things in my life, but I ain’t no fool. I took one look around and got a real bad feeling that maybe my invitation didn’t have a thing to do with me joining the club and a lot more to do with me being a beatnik on a motorcycle and somebody they might be wanting to practice their hate on.”

David looked down at his coffee as if he might see the future in its dark liquid. “That’s a kind of hate we don’t need in Holly County. I’m praying what Mr. Harvey heard was just rumors and nothing more.”

“Well, that’s a prayer I can join in with you without a problem,” Wes said. “Not that the good Lord above has any reason to listen to me the way he does you.”

“He listens,” David said. “He hears every prayer.”

“Then maybe your sermons both in the
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and the pulpit will do the trick.”

“We can only hope so. And pray so.”

23

It wasn’t so hard getting Wes in the car this time. Not only had the cast shrunk thanks to the whittling he’d been doing on it, but Wes had shrunk himself. The foot of his cast was still jammed against the car door, but Wes didn’t appear to be in as much discomfort as he had been on the ride home from the hospital. Once the car door was shut and the engine started, it was only a five-minute ride to the newspaper office. Wes assured David a man could stand anything that long.

Jocie had begged to go with them, but Aunt Love wouldn’t let her. Said it was too good an opportunity to do some cleaning without having to worry about disturbing Wes.

“It’s too hot to clean,” Jocie had protested.

“It’s not one bit hotter here than it will be at the newspaper office,” Aunt Love said. “And houses need cleaning whether it’s hot or cold.”

“I can clean tomorrow while Wes sits out on the porch.”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday,” Aunt Love reminded her.

Jocie looked ready to cry. “Please, can’t I do it next week?”

“Never put off till tomorrow what can be done today,” Aunt Love insisted.

“That’s not in the Bible, is it?” Jocie said, looking at David.

David had wanted to let her come with them, but he couldn’t go against Aunt Love. “Maybe not in those exact words,” he said. “But Aunt Love is right that we shouldn’t put off our chores. After you do what Aunt Love wants, you can ride your bike to town.”

“But it takes forever to clean. I’ll probably have to dust and everything, and then who knows if I can even get my bike tires to stay pumped up long enough to get to town.”

David had helped Jocie bend her bike wheel back out after her wreck with Noah and patch the tubes again, but the old bike was still in bad shape. “Well, give it a try. It’ll probably make it to town one more time, and then we’ll see about those new tubes soon.”

“You’ve been saying that for a month,” Jocie said.

“I know. I’m sorry.” David kept putting off buying the tubes because there was a brand-new bike hidden in the back of Sanders Hardware Store just waiting for Jocie’s birthday to get here. Leigh had come up with the idea after she’d taken Jocie shopping for school clothes over in Grundy and had caught her admiring the new bikes in the Sears Roebuck store. So Leigh had gotten some people to pool their money to buy Jocie a bike. Zella had even pitched in a couple of dollars, and Miss Sally at church had slipped David five dollars to give toward the surprise birthday gift.

David was almost to the cemetery on the edge of town when Wes said, “Why don’t we take a little tour of the town?”

“You want to ride around Hollyhill?”

“Why not? My leg’s not hurting over much, and it might be good to see what’s been going on besides everybody’s grass turning brown.”

“It is dry.”

“Even out at the park? Maybe that’s where we should start the tour.”

“The park? What in the world are you up to, Wes?” David looked at Wes in his rearview mirror.

“Well, the truth is, David, I’m feeling some guilty keeping you from maybe getting to walk with the girl this morning. It’s not so late now, and she might not have gone so early seeing as how it’s Saturday. We could just buzz through there and see if maybe she’s hanging around waiting for you to show.”

“She won’t be there this late. It’s already almost nine and getting too hot to walk.”

“You could be right, but it won’t take but a couple of minutes to drive out that way to see.”

“Are you joining in on this matchmaking stuff?”

“Not me,” Wes said. “I just hate for the girl to be disappointed if she’s out there walking slow, waiting for you to show up. I feel like I owe her something for the times she came to see me in the hospital. She brought cookies a couple of times, you know.”

“I know, and I also know I’m too old for her,” David said even as he turned onto Broadway to go out to the park instead of heading down Main.

“Age is all in your head. Me, I’m too old for her. You, you just feel old ’cause you’re about to be a granddaddy, but forty whatever you are ain’t all that old. You could start in and have a whole new family.”

“Are you trying to make me have a heart attack? I’ve got more family than I can handle now.”

“Didn’t you say the Lord would give you strength for whatever he wanted you to do?”

“Now you’ve got the Lord matchmaking?” David glanced up at Wes in the rearview mirror again.

Wes was smiling. “There’s folks that say some matches are made in heaven.”

“You must have been reading some of Zella’s books.”

“Most all books have a little romance in them. Even the Bible.”

“Okay. Just remember I’m only doing this to humor you,” David said as he turned in to the park. “Besides, some softball team will probably be out there practicing this morning to beat the heat.”

“Naw. They’ll be playing this afternoon. They don’t care if it’s hot, but if you’re needing an excuse for cruising the park, you can set your camera up on the dashboard and act like you’re out here to take some pictures.”

“Or I can just say I had to humor a crazy old man in my backseat.”

“Wouldn’t bother me none,” Wes said. “You can print it in the paper if you want. Won’t be no kind of news flash or anything. The folks around here have thought I was crazy ever since I showed up in Hollyhill.”

David drove past the swimming pool where Missy Hawkins, the lifeguard, was dipping bugs out of the water to get ready for the onslaught of swimmers at noon. On around the gravel road, the baseball field was deserted. No ballplayers. Nobody walking around its edges for exercise. “Nobody here,” David said.

“You sure?” Wes raised up and peered over the seat out the windshield. “Well, looky there. I think I see somebody over there on the bleachers. Looks to me like maybe whoever it is might be just sitting there waiting for somebody to show up and offer her a ride home.”

Leigh could hardly believe it when she saw the car raising dust on the road back to the ball field. She’d told herself she was just resting a little while in the shade before she walked on back to her apartment and started getting ready to go visit her parents. She’d told herself she needed a few minutes of quiet out where the birds were singing to put her in a better mood before she had to go listen to her mother telling her how she was doing everything wrong. Especially how foolish she was to be making eyes at a preacher. But what she’d really been doing was sitting there wishing that preacher had come to walk with her. She’d been almost positive David would show up here at the park this morning.