Out to Canaan (150 page)

“What're we going to do?” asked Dooley, pulling on his own pair of gloves.

He looked at the shed. Blast if it wasn't bigger than he'd thought. “We're going to start at the top,” he said, as if he knew what he was talking about.

He had removed the rolled asphalt with a clawhammer, pulled off the roofboards, dismantled the rafters, torn off the sideboards with Dooley's help, then pulled nails from the corners of the rotten framework, and shoved what was left into the grass.

Running with sweat, he and Dooley had taken turns driving the rusty nails back and pulling them out of every stick and board so they could be used for winter firewood.

Dooley dropped the nails into a bucket.

“Wouldn't want t' be steppin' on one of them,” said Russell, who was supervising.

They paused only briefly, to sit on the porch and devour a
steaming portion of chicken pie, hot from Betty's oven, and guzzle a quart of tea that was sweet enough to send him to the emergency room.

Betty apologized. “Hot as it is, your supper ought to be somethin' cold, like chicken salad, but you men are workin' hard, and chicken salad won't stick to your ribs.”

“Amen!”

“I want you to come and get your kindlin' off that pile all winter long, you hear?”

“I'll do it.”

After they ate, he and Dooley and Poo carried and stacked and heaved and hauled, until it was nearly nine o'clock, and dark setting in.

“You've about killed me,” grumbled Dooley.

“I've done sweated a bucket,” said Poo.

“I'm give out jis' watchin',” sighed Russell.

As for himself, the rector felt oddly liberated. All that pulling up and yanking off and tearing down and pushing over had been good for him, somehow, creating an exhaustion completely different from the labors surrounding his life as a cleric.

And what better reward than to sit and look across the twilit yard at the mound of wood neatly stacked along the fence, with two boys beside him who had helped make it happen?

Dooley was inspecting Poo's new, if used, bicycle, Russell had shuffled off to bed, and Betty had gone in to watch TV. He sat alone with Pauline.

He didn't see any reason to beat around the bush. “We need to talk about Jessie.”

There was a long silence.

“I can do it,” she said.

“I need to know everything you can possibly tell me, and the name of the cousin who took her and where you think they might be, and the names of any of your cousin's relatives—everything.”

He heard the absolute firmness in his voice and knew this was how it would have to be.

As she talked, he took notes on a piece of paper he had folded and put in his shirt pocket. Afterward, he sat back in the rocker.

“If we find Jessie, can you take care of her?”

“Yes!” she said, and now he heard the firmness in her own voice. “I think about it all the time, how I want to rent a little house and have a tree at Christmas. We never had a tree at Christmas . . . maybe once.”

His mind went instantly to all that furniture collecting dust at Fernbank. He and Dooley would load up a truck and . . . But he was putting the cart before the horse.

“There's something we need to look at, Pauline.”

“Is it about the drinking?”

“Yes.”

“I don't crave it anymore.”

“Alcohol is a tough call. Very tough. Do you want help?”

“No,” she said. “I want to do this myself. With God's help.”

“If you ever want or need help, you've got to have the guts to ask for it. For your sake, for the kids' sake. Can you do that?”

Betty switched the porch light on, and he saw Pauline's face as she turned and looked at him. “Yes,” she said.

“Didn't want y'all to be setting out there in the dark,” said Betty, going back to her room.

They were silent again. He heard Poo laughing, and faint snatches of music and applause from Betty's TV.

“There's something you need to know,” she told him.

He waited.

“I won't make trouble, I won't try to make Dooley come and live with us. He's doing so well . . . you've done so much . . .

“If he wants to, he can come and stay with us anytime he's home, but I want you to be the one who . . . the one who watches over him.”

She was giving her boy away again. But this time, he fervently hoped and prayed, it was for all the right reasons.

He kissed her on the cheek as he came into the bedroom.

“Kavanagh . . .” he said, feeling spent.

“Hello, dearest,” she said, looking worn.

After he showered, they crawled into bed on their respective sides and were snoring in tandem by ten o'clock.

“Emma, that program on your computer, that thing that helped you find Albert Wilcox . . .”

“What about it?”

“I'd like you to search for these names. I've written down the states I think they could be in.”

“Hah!” she said, looking smug. “I knew you'd get to liking computers sooner or later.”

Some days were like this. One phone call after another, nonstop.

“Father? Emil Kettner. We met when Buck Leeper—”

“Of course, Emil. Great to hear your voice.” Emil Kettner owned the construction company that employed Buck Leeper as their star superintendent.

“I have good news for you, I think, if the timing works for Lord's Chapel.”

“Shoot.”

“The big job we thought we had fell through, and to tell the truth, I think it's for the best—as far as Buck's concerned. He needs a break, but he'd want to be working, all the same. I wondered if we could send him out to you for the attic job.”

He was floored. This was the best news he'd had since . . .

“The way he described it, it sounds like six months, tops. I hate to send him on a job that small, I know you understand, but it's the kind of job he'd find . . . reviving, though he'd never admit it.”

“We'd be thrilled to have Buck back in Mitford. We'll look after him, I promise.”

“You looked after him before, and it worked wonders. There's been a real change in him, but he still works too hard, too fast, and too much. You won't hear many bosses complaining about that.”

They laughed.

“The money's in place if we can keep on budget,” said the rector.

“That's what Buck's all about, if you remember.”

“I do! Well, I can't say enough for your timing, Emil. Our Sunday
School enrollment is mushrooming, I've had three baptisms this month, and the month's hardly begun. When can we expect to see Buck?”

“A week, maybe ten days. And we can't give him much support on this project, he'll be rounding up locals to do the job. How does that sound?”

“Terrific. The carved millwork in the Hope House chapel is locally done. We've got good people in the area.”

“Well, then, Father, I'll be looking in on the project like I did last time. Until then.”

“Emil. Thanks.”

He'd asked for Buck Leeper to do the attic job, never really believing it could happen, only hoping.

And—bingo.

“Father? Buck Leeper.”