One Shenandoah Winter (17 page)

“Fears
attack
us. They grant our memories such power, such force, that we feel we are being assaulted both by the past
and
by the present. We have so many experiences of fear. So many uncertainties of life. So many impossibilities, so much we cannot see our way through. So many things we cannot handle on our own. So many burdens from our past, which crowd up whenever we encounter problems in the present. So many fears of the unknowns still ahead.

“How does a person come through these things intact? How does a person heal the past wounds? How does he prepare for the future? The answer, my friends, lies in accepting that alone we cannot. Alone we will fail. Though we might win in one instant, though our strength could be enough for one moment, in the end we will be brought down in failure. We will fade, we will pass on, alone, desolate, defeated. Alone, there is no answer.

“But today we are here because we know that we are
not
alone. Our gathering is a divinely inspired assembly, and in our joining we declare this to be holy ground. The very moment is holy. We are not here by chance or choice. God has created a moment of appointment with Him. We call this holy encounter the Sabbath worship. The intent is that here in this moment, our lives will be touched by the Word, by the Truth. We therefore ask for the Spirit to reach into this gathering and have an impact upon this worship, upon this moment, and upon our lives. We ask to be enriched with the power to raise us above our fears, to give us a healing from our past, and bring us to eternal victory.”

The request for internal enrichment had not been answered then, at least not that Nathan could tell. But now, as he drove through this misty valley sheltered by frost-covered hills, he felt a shielding so strong it granted him the freedom to look without pain at himself and his life. It was a remarkable experience, a liberating force.

When he arrived at Connie's house he stopped in the street, for the gravel drive was filled by a wrecker cranking up the front of Poppa Joe's truck. He got out and walked over to where Connie stood standing alongside, tears streaming down her face.

She looked up at him and whimpered, “It feels like everything good in my life is just fading away.”

“Now don't you worry none, Miss Connie,” the mechanic called over. “Morning, Doc.”

“Good morning.” The mechanic was a man Nathan knew vaguely from church. On the wrecker's grease-streaked door was the name of Allen Motors, the Ford dealership owned by the mayor. “What's the matter with the truck?”

“Reckon it ain't nothing but age, Doc. And it ain't nothing we haven't done over before.” He stopped the grinding winch and started back toward his door. “We'll have the old lady right as rain soon enough, Miss Connie. You'll see.”

Connie watched him climb up in the cab, then stared forlornly at the ancient truck and asked, “But for how long?”

It was the most natural thing in the world to settle his arm on her shoulders and steer her back inside the house. Nathan stopped where the trellis reached out and enfolded the top of the banister. Tiny champagne roses hung dried and frozen upon the winter-clad vine. Great windows emerged from the blooms like happy faces dressed in sweet-scented veils. “Have I ever told you how much I like this house?”

The statement was enough to give her sadness pause. “Not that I recollect.”

“It's very feminine. Which is a strange thing to say about a house of brick and stone. Is it old?”

“Not hardly.” Connie paused on the top step to wipe her cheeks. “About fifteen years ago the county bought what was left of our family's bottom land to straighten the state road. I used the money to build this place.”

The roof was angled over three ledges like a Dutch barn. The second floor windows emerged from porticos broad enough to permit space for bright yellow latticed shutters. The trellis and its heavy layer of flowers opened around the same yellow shutters for each of the great downstairs windows. “You did a fine job.”

“I got the idea from a picture in a magazine. It's sort of copied after a cottage in the French countryside.” She looked around, taking strength from the home and the morning. “I guess I was being silly over that old truck, wasn't I?”

“Not at all.” Nathan still held on to her arm. He liked the way it felt, grasping this strong yet feminine lady. “It's perfectly natural. Don't be too hard on yourself.”

“Right. Why bother, when so many others are willing to be hard for you.” But the attempt at joking fell as flat as her sigh. Connie turned around and said, “Poppa Joe's been asking for you.”

This was not good. “Is he in pain?”

“Not that you'd know. But then, he's never been one for complaining.”

Together they passed through the living room. Connie had collected crystal-bearing rocks from different places along the Appalachian Trail, and set them so sunlight entered the tall windows and turned the ceiling into a collection of rainbows. But not today. The gray mist gathered around the windows, and even an hour after sunrise she still needed the lamps.

The hallway had long since become crowded with all the odors of the seriously ill. Nathan found the familiar scents oddly jarring here, in this home with its veil of blooming flowers and its quiet orderliness. Even in winter, when the earth was frozen and the sky quiet, the odors here seemed a violation of this woman's determined strength.

As he walked down the back hall a voice called feebly, “That you, son?”

“Good morning, Poppa Joe.” He entered the back bedroom, his eyes adjusting swiftly to the gloomy light. Recently the old man had become sensitive to anything but the dimmest illumination. “How are you feeling?”

“Right poorly.”

The quiet admission brought a startled frown to Connie's face. Nathan could well understand. The old man never complained. Never. Even as the illness devoured his strength like locusts going through a field of ripened corn, even as his flesh wasted away until his skin lay flaccid upon his frame, Poppa Joe refused to complain.

Connie dropped down beside the bed. “What's the matter? Why didn't you say something?”

“Oh, it ain't my body, gal. I'm not any worse today than yesterday.” And it seemed true, for his voice still held its quiet strength. And his eyes remained unglazed. This was one of the high points of Poppa Joe's day, when the medication that saw him through the night had worn off, and the pain had not yet set in. He and Nathan would sit a while, perhaps talking, more often just sharing the morning quiet.

Then he would stir, or grimace slightly, and Nathan knew that the tentacles of discomfort were spreading. After he had sent the old man off again into a dull-eyed comfort zone, Nathan found himself spending the entire day looking forward to the next few minutes when he and the old man would sit together that afternoon, alert and listening to all that went unsaid.

Connie seemed to release herself from the chains of tension. Now that she was sure he was not suffering, she allowed herself to glance at her watch. “I'm already late for work. Dawn promised to be back here in half an hour, Poppa Joe.”

“I'll stay until she arrives,” Nathan assured her, and settled into the chair by the bed.

Connie looked down at him, and for a single instant allowed her own veils to fall. Her gaze was full of shattered dreams, until they too fell away to expose a heart full of longing. And something more. But all she said was a whispered, “Thank you.”

She leaned over to kiss her uncle's forehead. Poppa Joe responded with a murmured, “Take care, daughter.”

After she had gone, they sat there in the silence. It was Poppa Joe's natural state and was becoming increasingly comfortable to Nathan. Every once in a while he would glance over. The old man lay there, all but gone save for the light in his eyes and the rasping strength in that voice.

But today, somehow, the silence was not enough. Nathan cleared his throat and said, “Sitting here with you, I feel a remarkable sense of refuge.”

Poppa Joe strained to turn his head so that the gaze could lock in on him. “I'm comforted to hear that.”

“It's crazy. I've spent all my life fighting cancer. The enemy. That's how I've always thought of it. And yet here I am, sitting helpless, watching you die, and I feel comfortable.” He shook his head. “I must be crazy.”

“Don't sound that way to me.” The old man weakly cleared his throat. Nathan had come to know the sound and the message, and reached for the frosted pitcher of ice water. He poured a glass and held the straw to Poppa Joe's mouth, then set the glass back down. Poppa Joe went on, “You recollect us talking about how folks used to call the local doc the Gatekeeper?”

“I remember.”

“Well, sometimes a man's task is to accept God's will. Hard thing to do when our will is different. But a strong man, now, he learns to accept what he can't change.”

“My whole life has been spent pushing back the borders of death.”

“That's good, son. But a man's days are measured. Sooner or later, he's gonna face that door. The question then is, will there be folks there to help give his passage dignity?”

Nathan found himself having difficulty swallowing. “You're the one with dignity, Poppa Joe. You give it to everybody around you.”

The old man did not respond for a long moment. Finally he went on. “Been laying here thinking for quite a spell. Found myself able to look on up ahead. The door's right there in front of me. Ain't able to hear the Lord call my name yet, but I know He will. Yessir, He surely will. And soon.”

In the gaunt face with its bones punched upward like stones in a wind-carved cliff, the eyes burned bright as spotlights. “Got myself in a muddle, son. Think maybe you could help me?”

“If I can.”

“I been laying here wishing there was some way to make my passage mean something.”

“I'm not sure I follow you.”

“Just wish I could carry something with me. A parcel of good I could take with me up to the high place and set down there before the throne.” He held Nathan with a gaze as powerful as a vise. “Something worthy to give my Maker. And I got myself the feeling you're the only one who can help me do it.”

Nathan felt the words merge in his heart with those spoken by the pastor. He wanted to object that he had little to offer anyone here on earth, much less to a God he was only now coming to think might exist at all.

But before he could form the words, Poppa Joe halted him with a grimace. Instantly Nathan reached for the bottle and the syringe. That twitch of the face was Poppa Joe's only signal that the pain was growing intolerable. Nathan inserted the needle into the vein, pressed down the plunger, and watched as the gaze dimmed and the eyes closed. Then he sat there, listening to Poppa Joe's weakened breathing, and pondered on what the old man had just said.

Nineteen

T
he voice, when it came, seemed to bring Nathan out of an open-eyed slumber. “Are you gonna sit there all day?”

Nathan raised his gaze to where Dawn stood standing in the doorway. “How long have you been there?”

“Oh, hours and hours.” She smiled at him, her head cocked so that the blonde hair spilled over one shoulder. “You know what? You looked like Poppa Joe just then.”

“It must be the gloom.” He glanced over at the bed. The old man was resting peacefully. Nathan pushed himself to his feet. He had been sitting in one position so long his legs tingled. “I better be getting off.”

“I mean it, you had that same look he gets when he stares off into space and the whole world just fades away.” Dawn looked past him to the bed, and her smile turned sad. Nathan watched her face and saw how she was busy putting all she said into the past tense. “Don't know what I'm gonna do without Poppa Joe Wilkes.” She drew a broken breath. “This town ain't gonna be the same without him around.”

He nodded, and felt the need to speak, to force her to begin preparations.
Gatekeeper.
“It won't be long now, Dawn.”

The words coursed through her with trembling force. She gave a tiny nod.

Nathan set a hand on her shoulder, as easy as he had with Connie, then walked out of the room and down the hall and into the gray-clad day. As he climbed into the car and started the motor, he thought he heard Poppa Joe's voice again, speaking of yet another mystery. No matter what his logical mind might say, Nathan felt as though the man had settled an obligation upon his heart.

That afternoon Connie was watching a state crew dig a hole alongside the county road when Brian Blackstone's car pulled over and stopped. Connie stepped away from the men and their machinery and met him as he opened his door. “Don't tell me the church has lost its water too.”

“Not so far as I'm aware.” He smiled at her. “How are you, Connie?”

“Coping.” She stared back at the hole in the ground. “I never thought I'd be glad for a problem with the water lines, but right now anything that gets me out of the office is a blessing.”