Whippoorwill (28 page)

Just then the bride and groom came out of the house. As they paused beneath the porch, everyone’s attention turned to them. A small gasp of admiration rose from the assembled females. Sophie Hollis was wearing a pink dress with a complexion to match.

Truly a blushing bride.

Alfonso was strutting as he took his place before the preacher.

Eulis cleared his throat and Letty held her breath. It was time to begin.

“Do you, Sophie, take…”

“I do.” She giggled and cast a flirtatious eye toward her little banker.

“Not yet, my dear,” Alfonso cautioned with a whisper. “He’s not through saying his piece.”

Just the word “piece” made Sophie quiver inside. She sighed and squeezed her legs together as a reminder to stay calm, smiling over her nervous need.

“Reverend, pray continue,” Alfonso said loftily.

Eulis nodded, and did as he was asked.

Eulis’s voice rolled up and out of his throat in deep booming consonants, echoing from beneath the porch where the ceremony had commenced. But the mighty tone was not because he’d suddenly felt the call to preach. It was because he’d talked more in the past eight hours than he had in the last eight years and his throat was getting hoarse. He continued where he’d left off.

“…this man to be your awful wedded—”

“Lawful,” Letty hissed. “The word is lawful… lawful.”

Eulis glared and paused for effect. “Lawful wedded husband. To… a… hold all the time and to a… have forever. Even when you’re sick?”

Eulis paused at the end of this statement and nodded toward the blushing bride. Now it was time for Sophie’s answer, but the preacher had left something out that Alfonso felt needed mentioning. He smiled at Sophie and patted her arm and then leaned forward.

“What about obey?” Alfonso asked. “You didn’t say anything about obeying.”

Eulis sighed and wished them both to hell and back. What possible difference could the omission of one teeny little word possibly have? Then he looked at the pout on Sophie Hollis’ face and knew that the banker probably had a point.

“Of course, of course. I’m sorry. The trip was just so tiring, that I fear I’m not myself.” He cleared his throat and began again.

“Sophie Hollis… do you promise to obey this man in every way until death do you part?”

She’d been a little miffed at Alfonso’s interruption until the preacher had mentioned the word ‘death’. The memory of her dear Nardin’s untimely demise made her forget her irk. Of course she should obey. It was, after all, the mode of the day.

“I do. I do.”

Her gasp was tinged with just a hint of a sob. Alfonso squeezed her hand in a comforting manner and sent her into spasms of delight. She could hardly wait. For everything.

“And do you, Alfonso Worthy, take this woman to be your wife? Will you take care of her and all that’s hers forever until one of you dies?”

“With pleasure,” Alfonso said, thinking of Sophie’s womanly body, and then amended by adding, “I do, too.”

Eulis felt euphoric. He was getting to the good part and hadn’t messed up yet.

“Then by all that’s holy, I say you’re man and wife. And no man here should put it under.” Letty groaned. “Asunder. The word is
asunder
.”

But Eulis’s second faux pas didn’t matter. As far as everyone assumed, the two were now legally wed. The gleam of relief in Alfonso’s eyes matched the lust in Sophie’s. Each had gotten what they most desired.

A rousing cheer went up.

“Food and drinks inside,” Alfonso announced, and stepped back as the crowd surged forward.

Sophie shivered in her shoes and pressed her new husband’s arm against her breast as she held fast to him to keep from being swept off the porch. When he caught an arm around her waist to steady her, she knew that she’d done the right thing. One day she would even confess to him that she’d figured out who her secret admirer had been, but for now, she was just happy to call him husband.

When Eulis would have willingly joined in the celebration, Letty grabbed him by the arm and hauled him off the porch before he imbibed too much to finish the rest of what he must do.

“Come with me,” she hissed.

Eulis yanked his arm free and looked back at the house. “But what about the party?”

Letty pointed toward an old man who was sitting astride a horse just outside Sophie’s fence.

“You don’t have time for partying. You’re the preacher, remember? That old trapper has been waiting for you to get here and bury his partner.”

She wiggled her eyebrows and glared. It was enough of a reminder to Eulis about the need to cover up their own dirty deed that he quickly bolted off the porch. A vision of the real preacher bouncing down into that deepened hole came back with full force. The few inches of dirt he’d tossed over the man would not suffice long unless the real corpse was laid neatly on top and planted beneath six feet of territory dirt as planned.

“Lead me to him,” Eulis said.

Letty did as she was told.

***

Henry Wainwright held his breath as best he could. He and Parson were about to take their last trip together. And when it was over, Henry would be going on alone. The need for haste outweighed whatever lingering sorrow Henry had mustered. Old Elmer smelled to high heaven, and that was a fact.

By the time they got to the outskirts of town and entered the cemetery, Henry was plumb light-headed from lack of oxygen, and the preacher and the whore in the two-tone dress looked green. They passed right by James Dupree’s marker which prompted Letty to a fresh set of tears.

“Maybe you’d best tip him on in and begin covering him up,” she suggested, unwilling to think of Jim, and desperate to have the last of her sin buried as quick and as deep as possible. “The preacher here can talk while you shovel.”

Henry nodded. It sounded like a plan to him. Will the Bartender had promised to come to the burying, but it was obvious that he’d forgone his promise for the celebration taking place down at the newlyweds’ home. No one else had bothered to follow them out of town. Possibly because Elmer and Henry had been strangers to Lizard Flats. And possibly because Elmer Sutter stunk.

Henry untied the travois from the horse and pushed it to the edge of the hole that Eulis had dug yesterday. A quick film of tears covered his eyes as the buffalo robe and all that it held slid down into the grave.

Dust boiled up into Henry’s eyes as the body raked the sides of the hole, making them water even more. It was just as well that he couldn’t see. He might have wondered why old Elmer hadn’t settled as flat as he should have in his earthly resting place. The portly paunch of Reverend Randall Ward Howe was a hard hump upon which to rest. But it was of little importance in the scheme of the living still left on earth. Henry bent down, picked up the shovel, and started to scoop as the preacher began to speak.

“All in all, a man’s time on earth is short,” Eulis began.

Henry paused in the midst of his third shovel full of dirt and nodded in satisfaction. The words were big and deep, just like he’d expected to hear from a ‘real’ man of the cloth. Old Elmer would be proud to know that he’d kept his word.

Anxious that the funeral not become a public scene, Eulis felt the need to hurry. Someone might actually wonder why it was that the bereaved was doing his own burying when it was the place of the gravedigger, namely himself, who usually did the honors.

“Therefore it is only fitting that a man’s burying should also be the same. Ashes to ashes and uh… dirt to dirt.”

“Dust,” Letty hissed, and wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her dress. “It’s dust to dust.”

Eulis nodded. “So it is, little lady. So it is. It’s mighty dusty out here, at that.” And he proceeded to repeat the Twenty-third Psalm. It was the only thing out of the bible that he knew by heart.

Letty sobbed.

Henry gave the woman a kindly look. It was a nice touch to the solemnity of the situation. It was right nice of her to shed a few tears for a man she’d known only briefly in her bed.

Little did he know that she was shedding tears for her own deeds. The body lying beneath Parson Sutter would be forever hidden from the eyes of man, but it wasn’t them she was worried about. It was God. He saw everything and knew everything. And He knew that Leticia Murphy had been mad at Him for some time now, and after the incident with the preacher, had committed a grievous sin. It was for herself that she cried the most.

Within the hour, it was over. Eulis and Letty stood silent witnesses to the last thump of the shovel upon the hand-carved cross that Henry Wainwright planted at the head of the grave. Or maybe it was at the foot. After the bear and the time that had passed, it had been hard to decide which was heads and which was tails of what was left of old Elmer.

“There now. It’s done,” Henry said, and shoved the shovel into the ground for the next grave that would be dug.

He took off his hat, revealing a rim of yellow-white hair and a shiny spot of skin at the crown of his head that was encrusted with an accumulation of grime and scars.

“Elmer Sutter… you’ve been a good and true partner. I might even find myself missin’ your damned preachin’.” He sniffed and swiped at the tears and snot running down his lip. “Rest easy old pard. I reckon I’ll be seein’ you soon enough as it is.”

This time, Letty cried for the man who’d died, and not the one she’d killed. Even Eulis was hard-pressed to keep a straight face. When he died, he doubted a single man—or woman—would shed tears over his body. It was a soul-searching thought and one on which to end the occasion.

“Well now,” Eulis said, thumping the old trapper on the back. “It seems you’ve been a true friend to this man. Giving him a proper burial was a fine thing to do.”

“Oh hell,” Henry said, as he turned to catch his horse’s reins. “I didn’t bring him all this way just for a funeral. I brought him so that a real preacher could say the right words over his body. It’s what he always wanted. Now he can rest easy in heaven.”

With that, Henry Wainwright mounted and rode off. West out of Lizard Flats. Back toward the Rockies and his untended traps. He just hoped to hell that when he got there, the danged Indians hadn’t made off with them all.

Eulis couldn’t look at Letty, and Letty couldn’t find the words to say to make it right. Because of their deception, a man’s dying wish had not been fulfilled. And then Eulis had a thought.

“Well hell,” he said, and pulled at the brocade vest over his belly. “Maybe a real preacher didn’t say words over his body, but by God, he’s gonna spend eternity in the arms of one.”

Letty brightened. She hadn’t looked at it all that way.

“You’re right,” she said. “Come on. We’ve got to get back.”

“What for?” Eulis asked. “I done performed the wedding and buried the corpse. What else could possibly be left?”

Letty grabbed him by the arm and aimed him toward town. It only stood to reason there would be more who needed the services of a man of God. It didn’t occur to either of them that some might wonder why the town whore had taken it upon herself to be the escort for the preacher they’d waited so long to meet, and they were too busy trying to save their own hides to care.

***

Isaac Jessup sat on the bench in front of Matt Goslin’s general store, waiting patiently for the preacher to come back from the funeral on the hill outside of town. He knew the worthy reverend would be a busy man. He also knew that the preacher had already married some and buried another, but Isaac had his own urgent need for the man of the cloth.

He needed God to give a blessing on his one and only son. If he and Minna lost Baby Boy, she wouldn’t survive another burying. Truth was, he would lose her, too. And if he lost Minna, he might as well put a gun to his own head and do himself in while he was at it. Going on without her didn’t bear consideration.

While he watched for the preacher, Minna and Baby were inside the general store, marveling at the new-fangled goods that marked Lizard Flats as a place of unbelievable refinement. Even Isaac had been stunned to see real peaches in tin cans, and had been disbelieving of the marvel until Matt Goslin had opened a can right before their eyes and offered them all a bite.

Isaac leaned his head against the outer wall of the store and licked his lips. He could still taste the peach juice.

A horse neighed. He looked up. A man and a woman were walking down the sidewalk. Isaac took a deep breath and stood up. Although he’d never seen Reverend Randall Ward Howe in his life, he recognized the man by his clothing.

Just as Letty and Eulis thought they had things under control, a man stepped into their path.

“You’d be the preacher?”

It was more question than statement, but Eulis knew what the response demanded.

“Why, yes I am,” he said. “What can I do for you, my son?”

Isaac shifted his stance. He’d found the right man after all. The fellow even talked like a preacher.

“I reckon I’ll be needin’ you to baptize my boy,” he said shortly.

Eulis relaxed. Surely he could handle the naming of one small infant without causing a disaster.

“And where would the sweet child be?” Eulis asked kindly, hoping he sounded as fatherly as his position demanded.

Isaac turned toward the store. “Baby Boy! Minna! Come on out here! I found the preacher!”

Eulis gawked. He’d never heard a man shout that way at an infant in his life. His confusion increased when a strapping youth and a pretty woman came running from the store.

“Who are they?” Eulis asked, wondering where the baby was.

“That there’s my wife, Minna, and our son, Baby Boy.”

“But where is the child you want baptized?”

Letty elbowed him so hard he stumbled.

“That’s him, you dolt. She pointed at the tow-headed youngster at his father’s feet. “It’s got to be him. He called him Baby, remember?”

Eulis was sorely in need of a drink and an explanation. He didn’t get the drink, but he did get an explanation as Minna Jessup began to speak.

“We buried seven babies before this one here came along,” she said softly, and then combed her fingers through Baby Boy’s hair to smooth it down. “Isaac couldn’t bring hisself to name this one for fear of jinxin’ him, too. But Baby’s growed some, and he’s a mind to take a name, so we brought him along for you to give the blessing.”