A New Song (45 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

He stepped into a large parlor that smelled of fireplace ashes and stale bacon, like country houses he remembered from his Mississippi childhood.

His glance took in an afghan-covered sofa, two worn reclining chairs, a television set on a rolling stand, and a bevy of family portraits lining the white beadboard walls. To his right, a stairway with a curved banister, and closed double doors to what was probably a dining room. The house had once been rather fine, if unpretentious, and he was glad for its refuge.

“Where’s your oilskins at, Father?” The captain spoke in a loud voice over the din of rain on the tin roof.

“I’m afraid I’m a mountain man, Captain, with nary an oilskin to my name.” He shucked out of his damp jacket and hung it on a peg by the door.

“Brother!” shouted his host. “Bring Father a dishrag, if ye don’t object.”

He thought Captain Larkin was as lively and quick as any Santa Claus, though he walked with a cane and had a distinct limp. The captain also possessed a combination of the pinkest cheeks and bluest eyes he had ever seen.

The old man hobbled to the sofa and straightened the afghan. “Come sit an’ make yourself to home. We’ll have ye dried off here in a little.”

The man who shuffled into the room looked exactly like the captain, yet his countenance was remarkably different; a scowl appeared permanently etched into his face as if by steel engraving. Light and darkness, observed Father Tim—fire and ice, north pole and south!

“This is Twin Brother,” said Captain Larkin. “Brother, this is th’ Father from down at St. John’s.”

“ ’Bout time you come,” said the old man, glowering at him. “We been lookin’ out for you since Brother fell four year ago, he could’ve killed hisself an’ it wouldn’ve mattered to you none.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t around then. I came to St. John’s in early July.”

“Four month ago,” said Brother, glaring at him through filmy eyes. He handed over a rag and Father Tim took it, mopping his head, face, and hands. He felt a chill go along his spine as the thunder crashed again, directly over the roof.

“Bad ’un,” said Captain Larkin, shaking his head.

 

“Will you join us, Brother Larkin?”

“No, sir, I’ll not!” snapped Brother, leaving the room. Opening one of the double doors, he turned and shouted, “I don’t abide with such foolishness.”

Father Tim closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and kept a moment of silence that amplified the sound of the lashing wind and rain. A single light bulb, hanging by a long cord from the ceiling, swayed slightly, causing shadows to dance across the pictures on the wall.

“Peace be to this house and to all who dwell in it. Graciously hear us, O Lord, Holy Father Almighty, everlasting God, and send thy holy angel from heaven to guard, cherish, protect, visit, and defend all who dwell here.”

Father Tim saw Brother peering at them from behind the door, as he poured wine from a small cruet into an equally small chalice.

Though he knew he might have stood, the captain chose to kneel. Grasping the arm of his recliner and going to his knees with considerable difficulty, he joined Father Tim in the Lord’s Prayer, then cupped his hands to receive the wafer.

“Lord,” the captain prayed from memory, “I’m not worthy that Thou should come under my roof, but speak th’ word only and my soul shall be healed.”

“The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for you, my brother.”

Tears flowed down the pink cheeks of Captain Larkin as he raised his hands to his mouth and took the wafer.

“The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for you, my brother.”

The captain drank and wiped his eyes on his shirtsleeve.

Laying his hands on the captain’s head, Father Tim prayed, “The blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be upon you and remain with you forever, amen.”

“Amen,” said the old captain.

Father Tim helped him to his feet and they embraced warmly. The tender spirit of this good man flowed out to him with the smell of liniment and unwashed scalp, of shaving talcum and clothes hung too long in a forgotten closet.

“The Lord be with you, Captain.”

“And with thy spirit,” replied the supplicant, beaming through his tears.

The wind suddenly roared down the chimney and huffed a shower of ashes into the room. He was in too deep with this storm. It didn’t appear to be passing over and seemed to be growing worse, moment by moment. Only a lunatic would go out in . . .

“Captain, may I use your phone?”

“We’ve not had one in a good while. Too much money for too little talkin’ is what Brother calls it.”

“Ahh.” He went to the front door and stood looking out, agonized. He couldn’t see his car or the truck parked in front of the porch, only a gray film as if a heavy curtain had been lowered. He shivered in his knit shirt.

The captain reached up and pulled the chain on the light bulb. “B’lieve I’ll just switch this off.”

In the odd twilight of the storm-darkened room, the old man eased himself into his recliner and sighed.

“Blowin’ a gale,” he said.

Father Tim thumped onto the sofa.

“My great-grandaddy come over from Englan’ in a little ship called
Rose of Sharon
. It broke up in a bad storm ’bout this time of year, and him an’ five other men was warshed up on Dor’ster. We speculate it was about where this road ends at, down past th’ church. Back in those days, th’ beaches was littered with shipwreck of ever’ stripe an’ color, an’ so they went to work and knocked together a little shack where they could look out for another ship an’ git picked up.”

“They wadn’t hardly nobody livin’ on these little islands back then ’cept Indians, there’s some as thinks it was part of Wanchese’s crowd. Story goes, my great-grandaddy wadn’t more’n twenty year old when he married a Indian woman off of Whitecap, had a head of hair down to her ankles. I been tol’ me’n Brother has th’ cheekbones and nose of a Indian, but I don’t know, I couldn’t say.”

“I built this house for my wife, Dora, back when I was runnin’ trawlers. Dora was nineteen year old when we moved in, an’ cheery as any angel out of heaven. Then, when we went down to Whitecap to keep th’ light, Brother moved in an’ managed things for me. When I quit keepin’ th’ light, I stayed on in Whitecap ’til Dora died, then come back to Dor’ster where I was born an’ raised at.”

“I’ve been foolin’ with Canada geese a good while, now, ever’ fall I pay a neighbor to sow wheat an’ winter rye ’round my pond out yonder. This spring, we seen nests as had four to eight eggs apiece. . . .”

He bolted off the sofa. “Captain, I’ve got a wife and boy to get home to, I’m going to run on, it’s been a pleasure meeting you, I know how much they care for you at St. John’s, God bless you and keep you, I’ll be back before Christmas.”

The old man looked at him, dumbfounded. “You ain’t goin’ out in this, are ye?”

“Yes, sir, I am,” he said, running to snatch his damp jacket from the hook.

“Brother!” yelled the Captain. “Come an’ say goodbye to th’ Father, if ye don’t object.”

The dining room door opened, and Brother peered out, holding a jar of peanut butter with a spoon in it.

“The Lord bless you, Brother Larkin.”

The old man scowled at him. “Goin’ out in that, you’d do better to bless y’rself.”

 

As he tossed the drenched umbrella into the backseat and slammed the door, he spied the lasagna sitting on the floor behind the passenger seat. Dadgummit, he’d forgotten to give Ella her present. Cynthia had even tied a bow around the foil-covered dish.

He sat for a moment and considered running it in to the twins. Then, feeling the chill of his sodden clothes, he squelched the notion.

 

He passed what he thought was Ella’s house, but didn’t see a light. No, indeed, St. John’s organist was snug in her cottage with every plug pulled, as disconnected from civilization as any soul on the Arctic tundra.

A mile and a half to the highway . . .

With no yellow line to guide him, he kept his eyes strictly on the right side of the road, but there were long moments when the wipers were of no effect on the streaming windshield and he lost visibility entirely.

At the end of the gravel lane, he had a moment of sheer panic about pulling out to the highway. Pummeled by gusting sheets of wind and rain, he searched for headlights moving toward him from either direction, but saw nothing.

He eased onto the asphalt, praying.

Was this a hurricane? Surely not, or by now he’d be sitting upside down on the mainland in somebody’s tobacco field. Besides, he would have heard if a hurricane was predicted; this was merely a heavy storm with high winds, of which they’d seen more than a few since moving to these parts. The thought consoled him, but a subsequent thought of the sea, roiling and churning not far from the highway, gave his stomach a wrench.

In truth, he had no clue about what he should be doing. To cling on in Dorchester seemed wasteful of precious time, but to push ahead seemed potentially hazardous and plain stupid.

He would push ahead.

 

Twice, he was tempted to pull into what he thought was a service station, but he seemed to be developing a kind of sixth sense for driving in these conditions, a sense that he didn’t want to abandon too hastily.

He remembered what Louella said during their last visit. Something like, “You git in any trouble down there, jus’ remember Louella’s up here prayin’ for you.”

“Pray for me, Louella!” he shouted, finding comfort in the sound of his own voice.

On either side of the highway, trucks hunkered down like great beasts, waiting out the storm.

 

Easing south on what he estimated to be the last half of the coastal highway, the Mustang slammed into something unseen. It was a hard hit, and the motor died instantly.

His heart thundering, he leaped from the car and saw a tree limb fallen across both lanes. He pushed against the wind to get back in the car and switch on the emergency lights—he was a sitting duck out here—then, head down, he dived back into the squall to try to move the limb. Blast. The car had rolled over the limb before the motor died.

In the driver’s seat, he turned the key in the ignition. Nothing. Again. Nothing. Flooded.

He tried to think calmly. If he could lift the front of the car backward over the limb, he could then push the Mustang onto the side of the road, out of harm’s way. He had never lifted a car. . . .

He got out and walked to the right, checking the shoulder. But there was no shoulder; it was a drop-off to a creek, which was quickly rising to the roadway.

His glasses slid off his nose and he caught them and put them in his pocket, half blind. He was a desperate fool, the worst of fools. The rain was hammering him into the asphalt like a nail.

He saw it as he turned from the creek.

It was the lights of a truck bearing down in his lane.

His heart racing, he ran to the rear of the car and threw up both arms, waving frantically.
Dear Jesus, let him see my lights. . . .

But what if the driver didn’t see his lights? He could be chopped liver between the grille of a tractor-trailer and the bumper of his own car.

“Please!” he shouted over the roar and din of the rain.
“Please!”

He jumped out of the way as he heard the air brakes applied. The massive vehicle rolled to a stop only inches from the Mustang.

His legs were cooked macaroni, warm Jell-O, sponge cake as he walked to the driver’s side of the cab and looked up in utter despair.

The window eased down. “What’s your trouble?”

“Limb on the road, motor’s flooded.”

The driver climbed out of the cab in a flash, wearing an Indiana Jones hat with a chin strap, and a brim that instantly shed water like a downspout.

“I’ll take a look.” The driver bent into the rain and walked to the front of the car, squatted and peered underneath. “Goin’ to need a chain. Get in your car, I’m goin’ to haul you over th’ limb, then we’ll roll it off in Judd’s Creek.”

Sitting in the car, he heard the chain being attached to his rear bumper, and soon after felt the jerk as the big rig reversed its gears and rolled him backward over the limb. He pulled on the emergency brake and returned to the fray.

Together, they heaved, pushed, and rolled the sodden limb off the road and into the creek.

“Where you headed?” the driver shouted.

“Whitecap!”

“I’m runnin’ by Whitecap. Come on an’ follow me, but not too close or th’ spray’ll blind you. Just keep your eyes on my taillights and marker lights.”

“Done!”

“I’ll pull into that vacant lot by th’ Whitecap bridge.”