The Blessed (35 page)

That night on the way to the bathhouse, Isaac told Brother Asa. “The hot weather is past.”

“Nay, there will be many more hot days. This is only a brief respite from the heat.” It was easy to tell Asa didn’t want to hear what Isaac was ready to say.

“I’m going.”

“Yea, I feared it so.” Asa stopped walking and stared straight ahead for a moment before he turned to smile at Isaac. “Where will you go?”

“To find her.” Isaac saw no reason to evade the truth.

“And if you don’t find her?”

“I will.”

Brother Asa reached over and touched Isaac’s arm. “Perhaps you will. But if you don’t, this door will stay open to you. You would make a good Shaker. If you could pick up your cross of living the celibate life.”

“Do you truly believe marrying is a sin?” Isaac watched his face closely as he answered.

“For me, it is,” Asa said. “I suppose you will have to depend on the Eternal Father to reveal what is sin for you.”

“He forgave me my sins before.”

“Then peace go with you, my brother. I will miss you.” Brother Asa kept smiling but his face was sad.

“And I you. I owe you my life.”

“Nay, only the good Lord gives and takes life. Owe him. Not me.”

Isaac grabbed the man in a quick hug and then, without another look at his face, turned and walked down the middle of the road through the village and on. He had come to the Shaker village with nothing and he left with nothing. Then he knew that wasn’t true. He’d come with a heart full of sorrow and was leaving with a heart lifted by forgiveness and love.

He caught a ride with a Dr. Wilson headed back to the nearby town. The doctor knew a farmer laid up with a broken leg who might have a horse he would trade for Isaac’s labor. But the man knew nothing about anybody in the Ebenezer community.

“That’s a good ways from here. I’m thinking Dr. Blacketer takes care of folks out there.” The doctor peered over at Isaac in the dusky evening light. “You have kin out that way who might take you in?”

“I knew a woman from there. She lived at Harmony Hill a spell a few months back.”

“But left.” Dr. Wilson chuckled a little. “And now you’re leaving. Guess I can make the right diagnosis on that one. It’s ever been a wonderment to me that those Shaker folk expect young folks like you to be able to turn off the God-given inclination for marrying and such.”

The farmer’s wife fixed him a bunk on the back porch with quilts enough to keep him warm in the dead of winter. Then while he and the farmer agreed on a deal for the horse, she fried up some eggs for his supper. She had a baby in a sling under her breast and another toddling around underfoot.

When she saw Isaac watching the little boy, she grinned and said, “That’s what you’re needing. The Shaker people might not tell you that, but I’m telling you. Ain’t that right, Jarvis?” She smiled at her husband.

“Just don’t go falling out of a hayloft and breaking your leg if you do,” he said with a laugh as he grabbed hold of his wife’s hand and held it up against his cheek a moment after she set Isaac’s plate of food in front of him.

It was two weeks before a rainy day gave Isaac the chance to get away from the farm and ride toward Ebenezer. It wasn’t hard to find the house beside the church where they had loaded up Brother Elwood and Lacey’s household things to take them to Harmony Hill. But when he knocked on the door, a short little man answered. Isaac didn’t know what he was expecting. Maybe Lacey to be sitting there on the porch waiting for him like it had just been yesterday that she’d ridden away from the Shaker village with her husband a corpse behind her in the bed of the wagon.

The little man looked him over. “Is there some way I can help you?” His voice sounded like it belonged in a man twice his size.

“I was looking for somebody who used to live here. Lacey Palmer. She was married to the preacher.”

“I’m the preacher now. Reverend Holman at your service.” His voice boomed out his name as he stuck his hand out toward Isaac. “And what’s your moniker?”

“Isaac Kingston.” After he let the man pump his hand up and down vigorously a few times, Isaac asked, “Do you know where Lacey’s living these days?”

“Lacey?” The man puckered up his mouth and frowned as he considered Isaac’s question. “I’ve heard the church people speak some about her. But I haven’t been here all that long. Seems like one of the women did tell me about this Lacey having family down in the western part of the state.”

“You know what town?”

“Paducah, I’m thinking. Yes, I’m almost sure that’s the town. Or maybe it was Owensboro. Either way a far piece from here, but not a bad trip on the river. I hear there’s a landing over at a Shaker village near here where you can get passage on a steamboat.” He spoke the words fast and then stepped out on the porch to peer at the sky. “Looks to be some weather coming up. Could be you should be moving on.”

Isaac stepped to the edge of the porch to look up. The sky was gray but he didn’t see any thunderclouds. Behind him the door snapped shut, and when he looked around the little man had disappeared back into the house.

“Not a very friendly preacher,” Isaac muttered as he went down the steps off the porch and then led his horse over toward the church. He wondered if they’d buried Brother Elwood in the graveyard. If so, that would prove Lacey had been back here at least long enough to do the burying and somebody might know for sure where she’d gone. He’d follow her. As soon as he found a way to make money to buy his passage on the steamboat.

It wasn’t hard to find the new graves. Grass hadn’t grown on them in the heat of the summer, and they were covered with weeds. Mostly dandelions. There were two. One a little grave at the back of the cemetery, but it was for a boy of six. J
AMES
C
RUTCHER.
B
ELOVED
S
ON OF
H
AROLD AND
S
ADIE
C
RUTCHER.
According to the date chiseled there, the boy had died just days before Brother Elwood. The graves all had fine markers with the names plain to read. Brother Elwood’s name was on the same stone as his first wife’s. R
EV.
E
LWOOD
P
ALMER.
A
M
AN OF
G
OD.
Isaac ran his fingers over the words, feeling the rough surface of the stone.

“Did you know the preacher?” A man came out from behind the church and lifted himself up over the wooden fence at the back of the graveyard. He was a heavyset man. Not fat, just thick through the middle. Like a barrel. He was smiling like a man welcoming somebody into their house. A better welcome than Isaac had gotten from the preacher next door for sure.

“Not well, but I knew him.” The image of the man’s desperate face came to him, but he pushed it away with the same prayer Brother Elwood had said before he fell. “May the Lord have mercy on his soul.”

“Amen,” the man beside him said. He talked slow as though measuring each word before speaking it. “He was my preacher here at Ebenezer since I can remember. And now I take care of his grave.” He waved his hand around. “I take care of all the graves.”

“I’m sure the church people appreciate it.”

“They do.” The man leaned over and yanked up a hogweed from close to the tombstone. When he stood up he said, “My name’s Reuben.”

“I’m Isaac.” First names seemed enough with Reuben.

Reuben gave him a long look. “You one of them Shaker men? You ain’t wearing the clothes, but you remind me some of the men I saw over there. The way your hair’s cut and all.”

Isaac ran his hand through the hair lapping his collar. He should have borrowed the farmer’s wife’s scissors. “I used to be,” he told Reuben. “Not anymore.”

“Neither is the preacher.” He stared down at the grave at their feet. “Not anymore.”

Isaac wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he just kept quiet and waited for Reuben to be ready to talk again. They both looked up when they heard a horse galloping away from the house next door. “Wonder where’s he going in such a hurry?” Isaac said more to himself than to Reuben.

But Reuben smiled a little. “Courting, I expect. He’s been real sweet on Miss Lacey ever since the church called him to preach. Guess he thinks she knows how to be a preacher’s wife since she’s already had practice.”

“Lacey?” Isaac stared at Reuben. “I thought she’d gone off to Paducah or somewhere.”

“Paducah? That ain’t anywhere near here, is it?” He didn’t wait for Isaac to answer him. “Miss Lacey ain’t off nowhere. She’s right down the road a ways with Miss Sadie Rose. But she walks up here some to help me keep the weeds down around the stones. But she don’t want me to pull the dandelion weeds off’n Preacher Palmer’s grave so the grass can come on. I ain’t exactly figured out why, but she and little Rachel seem to favor those little yellow flowers.”

Isaac only half listened to him going on about the dandelions as he looked off down the road where the unfriendly preacher’s horse had disappeared. He interrupted Reuben talking about how he thought Lacey brought dandelion puffs to blow over the grave.

“I’d count it a favor if you could tell me how to get to Miss Sadie Rose’s house, Reuben.”

35

Lacey was surprised to look up from hanging clothes out on the line to see the Reverend Holman riding up all in a lather like the church house was on fire. He’d been showing up more and more, but he generally waited till the afternoon when she could set aside her chores for a spell. Rachel, who had been handing her the clothespins, eased around behind Lacey when she saw who was coming. Even his peppermint sticks hadn’t been enough to make her warm up to him. She would lick the peppermint but keep a wary eye on the little man all the time he was around. Something of the same kind of inner wary eye Lacey kept pinning on him.

Without Lacey saying the first favorable word, half the people at church thought it was a given that she would marry the little man as soon as a decent mourning period passed. Lacey was thinking she might mourn poor Preacher Palmer a few years at the least. But then she’d see how it was crowding Sadie Rose for her and Rachel to keep living there. The boys were taking turns sleeping on the back porch now and it wasn’t going to be many weeks until winter was going to push them back indoors. There might be worse things than stepping back into her place as the wife of the Ebenezer church’s pastor. There might be.

She pulled in a deep breath and pushed a smile across her face as the little preacher slid off his horse and hustled over toward her.

“Morning, Reverend Holman. I hope nothing’s wrong.” He’d asked her a dozen times to call him Seth, but so far the word hadn’t crossed her lips. Just like with Preacher Palmer. She hadn’t ever been able to use his given name. Not with any kind of ease.

“Not at all. Not at all.” He sounded out of breath as he looked around and asked, “Where’s Miss Sadie Rose?”

“She’s in the kitchen. I can send Rachel to fetch her if you have need to talk to her.”

“No, no. It’s you I came to see, but I would be beholden for a drink of water if your little girl can bring me one. Fresh water out of the well. It’ll be cooler that way.”

Lacey sent Rachel off for the water and waited uneasily for the little man to speak his mind.

He took hold of Lacey’s arm. “Why don’t we go sit on the front porch? Out of the sun.”

Lacey looked at the basket of clothes on the ground and hesitated.

“I won’t keep you from your chores long.” He tightened his hold on her arm and turned her toward the house. “I’ve got something to ask you. Something important.”

What could she do but go with him?

She sat in one of the straight chairs Sadie Rose had on the porch. She wasn’t about to sit on the swing where he could settle down beside her. “Is there something at the church that needs doing?” she asked.

“There is,” he said solemnly. But he didn’t go on and say what. Instead he pulled one of the other chairs over to face hers. After he settled down in it, he leaned toward her until there wasn’t much more than a few inches between them. “You’re a woman of honor, Lacey, aren’t you?”

She hesitated, wondering where he was headed with his talk. “I try to do what’s right.”

He reached over and took one of her hands and rushed out his next words. “And if you made me a promise, you’d keep it, wouldn’t you? It wouldn’t be right to break a solemn vow.”

“I can’t recall promising you anything, Reverend Holman.” She eased back in her chair away from him.

“Not in so many words, but you’ve let me come courting. God called me to the ministry and to this church. His hand is in this. You’re being called to be my wife.” He leaned toward her until she could feel his breath on her face.

“Are you asking or telling?” Lacey slid her eyes to the side as though looking for a way out of a trap.

“There’s no escaping what the good Lord in his wisdom has ordained for us.”

“I don’t think I heard that calling,” Lacey said. “Not even the first time I was a preacher’s wife.”

“I’m a man of God. I have heard the calling.” His preaching voice boomed out. “For both of us. But if you want a proper proposal I’ll supply you one.” He slid off the chair, brushing against her lap as he knelt in front of her. “Lacey Palmer, will you marry me?”

She stared at him while her heart sank down in her stomach. It was amazing how quickly a person’s life could be thrown into a tangle.
Dear Father in heaven.
The words slipped through her mind, but then she couldn’t think of a single thing else to pray. She opened her mouth, but before she could speak, he jumped in front of her words.

“Don’t you want to be married, Lacey? To have a good father for little Rachel? To be loved?” He took hold of both of her hands.

She did want all those things. But not to this man any more than she’d sought them with Preacher Palmer. Words seemed to have deserted her mouth and her mind. She could only reach for the promise of the Scripture that said the Holy Spirit sent up prayers in groans and mumblings for her when she couldn’t grab hold of proper prayer words. Blessed. She was blessed. But that didn’t mean she would never have to do any hard thing again. She shut her eyes, unable to bear looking into the man’s face so full of determination to make her answer as he wished. As he claimed the Lord demanded. After all, he was a man of God.

Isaac’s face floated in front of her closed eyes.

Reverend Holman grasped her hands tighter and gave them both a shake as if waking her not very gently from a sleep. “You have to answer me, Lacey Palmer. If you don’t agree to marry me today, I may never ask you again.”

“I can’t marry yet. Not for at least a year.”

“You married Reverend Palmer before his wife was dead a year.” He pushed the words at her.

“But that didn’t make it right. A person can learn from past wrongs.”

“All right. Then make me a sacred promise that you will marry me next May.”

She didn’t want to open her eyes and look at him. She didn’t want to answer him.
Dear Father in heaven, help me.
She was so intent on her prayer she didn’t hear Rachel come out on the porch followed by Sadie Rose. She didn’t even hear the horse riding straight off the road across the yard to the porch. She did want to be loved. But not by the man holding her hands.

Rachel eased over beside her and laid her head on Lacey’s shoulder. Perhaps that was the Lord’s answer. Rachel. His blessing to her. Perhaps being the preacher’s wife was her payment in return. Miss Mona’s words echoed in her mind from some lesson learned long ago in the past.
My dear child, there is no payment great enough to buy us the Lord’s blessings. His grace is a free gift if we only reach for it. Remember your Scripture. “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.”

She was opening her eyes to refuse the man in the gentlest way possible when she heard her name. “Lacey.”

She knew the voice at once, but even after her eyes flew open and she was staring at him still astride his horse she wasn’t sure he was really there. An answer to those prayers she’d been unable to voice.

Isaac’s heart jumped up in his throat when he saw the little man kneeling so close in front of Lacey on the porch. He was afraid he was too late. Afraid she had already given her heart to another. Another preacher.

He almost rode past without stopping. There was no need upsetting her world or opening his heart to more pain than was already there, but then he remembered how the preacher had lied to him about knowing Lacey. With intent to send him on a fool’s errand. He turned his horse’s head into the yard.

Her eyes were closed tight as she listened to the man but nothing about her face or her rigid posture suggested happiness. The child came over to lean against Lacey and still she kept her eyes closed. Another woman, older than Lacey, came out the door and watched him ride his horse right up to her porch but without any indication of surprise. Instead it was as if she’d been expecting him and now was glad to see him there.

When Isaac spoke Lacey’s name, the little preacher spun around on his knees to glare at him.

Isaac kept his eyes on Lacey’s face. “You don’t have to promise him anything.”

Lacey gently pulled her hands away from the preacher and eased to the side away from him to stand up and look back at Isaac. “And I have not,” she said clearly. “It is good to see you, Isaac.”

“And you still here in Ebenezer instead of Paducah.” He shot a look over at the preacher.

“Paducah?” She sounded puzzled.

“Reverend Holman told me that was where you might be.”

The little man clambered to his feet and said stoutly, “I never said she was. I said she had family there. Not once did I lie. Not once.”

“There are many ways to lie,” she said softly. “To ourselves may be the worst way of all.”

“I’ve never done that either,” the preacher said.

She looked away from Isaac, then to the other man. “You did if you thought I could ever love you. It wasn’t a lie I was prepared to live. Not again.”

“Well.” The man sounded irate over her words. “You won’t find me on my knees asking you again. I’ll leave you to your just deserts.”

Lacey hardly seemed to notice the man’s jabbering as he picked up his hat and stomped down the steps off the porch.

The woman at the door called out to him. “Good day, Reverend. You come back now, you hear. Harold will be glad to see you anytime.”

Nobody spoke again until the man was out of sight on his horse. There was a feeling of communication on the porch that didn’t seem to need words. Isaac got down off his horse and tied the reins to the porch post. Then he climbed up to stand beside Lacey. She reached out and took his hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Sadie Rose, this is Isaac,” she said as she glanced over at the other woman. “Isaac Kingston. He tried to keep Preacher Palmer from falling off the Shaker house, but he couldn’t.” She looked back at Isaac.

“May the Lord have mercy on his soul,” Isaac said. “That’s the last thing he said. Right before he jerked his arm away from me. He feared he was going to make me fall too. I didn’t turn him loose.”

“I know you didn’t,” Lacey said. “It wasn’t you or me. He had torments we knew nothing about.” She put her arm around Rachel and pulled her close for a moment.

The woman she’d called Sadie Rose stepped across the porch to take Rachel’s hand and lead her back in the house. “Let’s go find your Maddie doll. I think she may need a new dress.”

The little girl started away and then turned back to grab Isaac’s waist in a quick hug. “Thank you for trying to save my papa.”

Lacey watched her follow the woman into the house. “I’ve never seen her do anything like that before.” She turned her eyes back to Isaac. “But it is thanks I give you as well.”

“I saw his grave. Reuben says you sow dandelion seeds on it of a purpose.”

Lacey laughed. A good sound that was better than the Shakers’ voices when they said the angels were singing through them. “It’s a bother to him, but he’s patient with me,” she said. “We could sit on the porch, but that wouldn’t get the basket of clothes I deserted out back on the line. If you want, we can talk while I work.”

He followed her around the house. “It looks some like rain.”

“But look there.” She pointed up toward the sky. “There’s a bit of blue. The sunshine may sneak through it. Or if it rains, the clothes will get another rinsing.”

She picked up a boy’s shirt and a couple of clothespins.

“Brother Asa told me the Shakers came up with those.” Isaac pointed at the clothespin. “He said they’re always inventing something to make work easier.”

She looked at the clothespin a minute and then pushed it down over the shirt and the line. “So have you left them?”

“Two weeks ago. I promised Brother Asa I’d stay through the hot weather.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It seemed the right thing to do at the time.”

She picked up another shirt and Isaac reached down to hand her a clothespin.

“But what I really wanted to do was come after you.”

“Why?” She kept her eyes fastened on the shirt she was pinning to the line. “You hardly know me.”

“I know you here.” He put one hand over his heart and reached with his other hand to wrap his fingers around her wrist. “Where it matters.”