Authors: Philip Gulley
F
ebruary blew in with a snowstorm, twelve inches of snow with gale winds, drifting shut the country roads, snapping the power lines, and closing down the schools in a dozen counties. Asa and Jessie Peacock had driven south to Florida to visit his aunt and were stuck in the warmth and sunshine, trying to make the best of it. Asa had been glued to the weather channel, watching a red radar blob park itself over Harmony. He’d phoned Sam, who’d mentioned they’d lost their electrical power. “Miriam and Ellis lost power at their house too. You may still have it out at your place, I don’t know.”
Asa fretted for an entire day before Jessie suggested he phone their home.
“Why would I do that? There’s no one there to talk to.”
“If our answering machine picks up, you’ll know we have electricity,” she explained. “Then you can stop worrying.”
He dialed their number and listened as their phone rang. Eight, nine, ten, eleven, he counted silently. “When does the machine pick up?” he yelled into the other room to Jessie.
“Sixth ring.”
“Oh Lord,” he cried out, pacing back and forth across his aunt’s living room. “If we lost our power, then we lost our heat. Now the pipes’ll bust and flood the place.”
“Does that mean we’ll have to buy new carpet?” Jessie asked.
“I suppose so.”
“Good, I never have liked that carpet.”
Back in Harmony, Dale Hinshaw was staring out his front window. “Just look at that sidewalk. Gonna be a sheet of ice if we don’t get it cleaned off and salted.”
“I told you I can do it,” Dolores said.
“You think I’m gonna let a woman shovel my sidewalk? I’d never hear the end of it.” He watched glumly as the snow fell. “Wonder why Sam hasn’t stopped by to do it. These ministers nowadays sure aren’t much for serving.”
“Maybe if you treated him a little kinder, he’d have done it,” Dolores snapped. Being cooped up with Dale for four days had taken a toll on her patience.
Their phone rang before Dale had a chance to take her down a peg or two with a Scripture verse. Dolores crossed the living room and answered the phone in the kitchen.
“Who is it?” Dale yelled from his perch by the window.
She held up her finger to shush him, which of course had no effect. “If that’s Sam, tell him to get over here with some salt and get this walk cleaned up.”
“We’re looking forward to meeting you,” Dolores said after a few minutes. “Next Tuesday then, at eleven o’clock, at our home. And why don’t you plan on having lunch with us. Okay. We’ll see you then. Bye-bye now.”
Dale walked into kitchen as she hung up the phone. “He can’t get here ’til next Tuesday? Heck, it’ll all be melted by then. The elders are gonna hear about this.”
“That wasn’t Sam.”
“Then who was it?”
“A Mrs. Betty Bartley.”
“Humph, never heard of her,” Dale said with a dismissive snort. “I suppose she wants to sell us something.”
“Not exactly. She’s the widow of the man who gave you his heart. She wants to meet you. So I invited her here next Tuesday.”
“Oh, well. That’s different.” Dale rubbed the scar across his chest. “Be nice to meet her. I wonder where she lives.”
“Up in the city. Her husband died in a car wreck. A woman in Ohio got his corneas, a man in Illinois got his liver, and you got his heart. A bunch of different people got his skin,” Dolores said with a slight shiver. “Anyway, she wants to meet the recipients, and we’re at the top of the list.”
“How old was he?” Dale asked.
“Forty-two.”
“What do you know about that! No wonder I feel so good.”
Dale spent the rest of the afternoon at the kitchen table studying actuarial tables he had left over from when he’d sold life insurance. “As near as I can figure,” he announced just before supper, “with a forty-two-year-old heart—wait, was he a smoker?”
“I don’t know. It didn’t seem right to ask.”
“He probably wasn’t, or they would haven’t taken his heart in the first place.” He scribbled a few more figures, then poked the pencil point against the paper with a confident jab. “Looks like I’ll reach ninety-eight.” He leaned back in his chair with a satisfied smile on his face. “You know what the Word says, ‘The fear of the Lord prolongs life, but the years of the wicked will be short.’”
“I wouldn’t point that out to Mrs. Bartley if I were you,” Dolores suggested. “She might not like you implying her husband was wicked.”
“Wonder what he did to make the Lord so mad?”
“Maybe he didn’t do anything to make the Lord mad. Maybe he just had an accident.”
“Not a sparrow falls to the ground that the Lord doesn’t know it,” Dale intoned. “He must’ve really honked God off. Whatever it was, I hope it isn’t catching.”
The next few days were warmer, the steely clouds lifted, and by Friday the Hinshaws were stir-crazy and went to the Kroger for groceries, passing by the meetinghouse on the way.
“Would you look at that,” Dale said. “Sam didn’t even shovel the church’s sidewalk. What are we paying that man to do?”
“I thought the church had hired Uly Grant’s boy to do that,” Dolores said.
“No, I called him and told him not to do it, that we had a pastor who was perfectly able-bodied and there was no sense in paying someone else to do it.”
He shook his head, mystified by Sam’s indolence. “I just don’t understand that man. We pay him twenty-five thousand dollars a year to work one hour a week, let him take a week off in the summer, give him a hundred dollars at Christmas, and he can’t bring himself to shovel a little snow.”
He pulled to a stop in front of the meetinghouse. “I got half a mind to clean it off myself. Maybe that’ll shame him a little, watching an older man do his work.”
Dolores thought of stopping him, but after a week of listening to him rant, the possibility of widowhood seemed pleasant. “I’ll wait right here,” she said.
He stormed from their car and marched into the meetinghouse, past a startled Frank, into Sam’s office. “I see the front walk’s not been cleaned.”
Sam looked up from his computer. “I wouldn’t know. I use the back door. Billy Grant’s supposed to shovel the front.”
“Well, he was, but I told him not to, that we could do it ourselves.”
“Thank you for volunteering, Dale. The shovel’s in the front closet beside the water heater. You might want to put some salt down once you get it cleaned. Billy was going to bring salt pellets from the hardware store, but now that you’ve fired him, I suppose you’ll have to get some.”
Sam turned back to his computer.
“What about my heart?” Dale asked. “You want a man in my condition out there shoveling snow? I could die.”
“Think how kindly the Lord would look upon you if you died while serving the Kingdom.”
Dale hadn’t thought of that. A snow-shoveling martyr for the Lord. He liked the ring of it.
“You’re really going to let him shovel the walk?” Frank asked after Dale left the office.
“Best-case scenario, he shovels the walk so we don’t have to. Worst-case scenario, he drops dead and I have to preach his funeral, but he won’t be around to pester us anymore.”
“I can see the Christmas spirit doesn’t last long around this place,” Frank said.
“First thing they teach you in seminary,” Sam said. “Don’t ever shovel the church sidewalk or mow the church yard, or you’ll be stuck with it the rest of your pastorate.”
“You want me to keep an eye on him, just in case?” Frank asked.
“Yeah, if he drops dead, drag him over to the Baptist church, so maybe their pastor will bury him.”
“What’s got you so on edge?”
Sam stood for a moment, looking out the window, a tired look crossing his face. “Oh, this Hodge thing. I guess Ellis punched Ralph on the nose on Christmas Day. Miriam is on the verge of booting him out to the barn to live. She wants to resign from the elders. Says she has too much on her plate.”
“I always thought they got along real good,” Frank said. “They seem close. Guess you never know about some folks. That’s what I like about this job. You get all the poop on people.”
“There is that,” Sam said. “But I’d just as soon not know some things.”
Outside, Dale was scooping the snow from the walk.
“Suppose we ought to help him?” Frank asked.
“Probably so,” Sam said, walking over to the coat tree and pulling on his jacket.
With three of them working, it only took fifteen minutes. Then Sam walked the two blocks to Grant’s Hardware, rehired Billy Grant, and purchased a bag of salt.
He finished broadcasting the salt just as the noon fire whistle sounded. He checked his watch, moved it forward two minutes, then stowed the shovels in the front closet.
“What’s for lunch?” Frank asked.
“Doesn’t much matter to me.”
“How about the Legal Grounds? Today is grilled cheese day.”
And with that they were off.
Deena glanced up from the grill as they walked through the door. “Hi, Sam. Hey, Frank.”
“Hi, Deena,” they said in unison.
“A grilled cheese with tomato soup today,” she said. “Or a tuna salad wrap with a fruit cup.” They both grimaced.
“Grilled cheese with a Coke.” Sam said.
“Same here, except for coffee,” Frank added.
They sat at the table next to the window, to watch the passersby. Across the room, Miss Rudy looked up from her book and smiled.
Frank rose to his feet. “Hello, Miss Rudy. How are you?”
“I am well, thank you, Franklin, and how are you?”
Frank blushed. “Just fine,” he said, then sat back down.
“Franklin?” Sam said, stifling a laugh.
“Oh, hush up. You know it wouldn’t hurt for you to treat me with a little more dignity.”
“I’m sorry, Franklin, I wasn’t aware you felt that way. I’ll try harder, Franklin.”
“So how’s married life?” Sam asked Deena when she brought them their sandwiches.
Deena paused, blew a lock of hair from her forehead, and sighed. “When I see him, it’s good, but I don’t see him all that much. Today, for instance, he has the day off and is sitting at home while I’m here working.”
“Maybe you need to close the place down,” Sam suggested.
Underneath the table, Frank kicked Sam squarely on the shin. “He didn’t mean that, Deena. Did you, Sam?”
Deena laughed and patted Frank on the shoulder. “I’d miss Frank too much if I closed down.” She smiled at Frank, causing his heart to flutter. There are few things more beautiful than a Deena Morrison smile. “You certainly have been a faithful customer lately. You and Miss Rudy. Don’t know how I’d stay in business if it weren’t for you two eating lunch here every day.”
She pulled a rag from her apron pocket and swiped the table next to them. “Let me know if you need anything else,” she said before walking away.
“You and Miss Rudy, eh?” Sam asked. “Down here every day, eh? Why, Franklin, you are full of surprises.”
“Sam Gardner, has anyone ever told you that you have a big mouth?”
“Just my wife.”
“Well, she’s right,” Frank said, then chomped into his sandwich, clearly agitated.
“Yes, sir, that’s what I like about my job. You get all the poop on people,” Sam said. “And just so you know, I give a wedding discount to senior citizens.”
“The problem with you, Sam Gardner, is that you are ill-bred. Just because I stand up to greet someone doesn’t mean I want to get married.”
“Of course, it doesn’t, and I apologize,” Sam said. “Your love life is none of my business. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
“I ought to quit, take up golf, and leave you to take care of Dale Hinshaw all by yourself,” Frank grumbled. “It would serve you right for all the trouble you’ve caused me. I was supposed to have a nice retirement, with lots of time to do what I wanted. Now I’m stuck with you, making peanuts, havin’ to do all your scut work. What I was thinking?”
And so their lunch went, bickering back and forth, the customary wintertime conversation of most people in Harmony when the ravages of weather forced them indoors, where they irritated one another to no end, rubbing their edges raw.
Over at the Kroger, Dale and Dolores were squabbling over what to feed their visitor the next Tuesday. At the Hodge home, Miriam and Ellis ate their lunch in a gloomy silence. And back at the Legal Grounds, Deena looked wistfully out the window toward her home while Miss Rudy glanced up from her book, studying the line of Frank’s jaw, how it ended in his thick thatch of unruly hair. Bachelor hair. There are secrets in this town that weigh heavily, like snow on winter roofs.
T
he snow left as quickly as it had come. A rare southern wind blew the clouds away, the sun made its first appearance in a week, and by eleven o’clock the needle on the large thermometer nailed to the side of Dale Hinshaw’s garage had swung clockwise to sixty-two degrees. Snow was falling off the roofs in large, wet clumps, spilling down the necks of unsuspecting persons as they left their homes for their Saturday errands.
Ellis Hodge couldn’t remember the last time the temperature had varied so greatly in the space of a day, but had recalled reading something about it and spent several hours poring over past issues of
The Farmer’s Almanac
in intense research.
“Here it is. I knew it was in here somewhere,” he said, reading aloud, even though Miriam and Amanda had gone for a walk and he was the only one at home. “Sioux City, Iowa, May 16, 1997. Thirty-three degrees in the morning, and ninety-one degrees that afternoon. I’ll be darned. Just think of that.”
He bent the corner of the page so he could show it to Miriam and Amanda when they returned, hoping it might ease the strain they’d been living under since he’d popped Ralph in the nose. Amanda had barely spoken to him since, and Miriam had been feeding him soup from a can.
Back in town, Bob Miles was seated at his desk in the
Herald
building. Inspired by the weather, he was pecking out an editorial about global warming. That’ll bring the kooks out of the woodwork, he thought to himself. Bob has reached that liberating age when he no longer cares what others think of him.
Just the week before, Eunice Muldock had canceled Harvey’s weekly advertisement. At her behest, Bob had attended the monthly meeting of the Red Hat Society, taken their picture, and pasted it on the front page of the paper underneath the headline
Old Bats in Red Hats.
Infuriating people, Bob had learned over the years, was the only way of ensuring he wasn’t invited to attend every meeting in town. A year or two would pass, memories would fade, and he’d have to insult some people all over again.
He finished typing his editorial and placed it in the basket of articles to be included in the next edition, on top of a letter from Dale Hinshaw, in which Dale, alarmed by Satan’s inroads among the youth of Harmony, had urged “God-fearing Christians to march on the devil’s camp and set the captives free!”
Like most of Dale’s letters, it rambled. He began by taking a swing at Darwin, then took a poke at rap musicians and civil libertarians, suggesting some people had gotten a little carried away with the First Amendment and maybe it was time to crack down, maybe imprison a few people, lest Satan steal away more of their youth.
Bob reread the letter and sighed. What he wouldn’t give for a thoughtful letter to the editor.
At that moment, Dale Hinshaw was seated at his kitchen table, pen in hand, drawing a sketch. “I tell you what, Dolores, this could be even bigger than the Scripture eggs. Here’s what we do. We rent us a crane and haul it over to the football field at the high school and we get someone who loves the Lord and has a heart for young people and we heft them up in the air maybe fifty feet or so and then cut the rope and let ’em fall to the ground.”
“And what would be the purpose of this?” Dolores asked.
“Shows the kids how Satan promises to lift you up, but lets you down every time. See, we paint the word
Satan
right on the crane and they see that and get the message.”
“Who did you have in mind to drop to their death?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe somebody who was gettin’ set to die anyway. Maybe Alice Stout. She’s sorta slippin’. Might be doing her a favor.”
“Don’t you think her children would object?” Dolores asked.
“Now why would they do that? You think how much that nursing home is costing them. Besides, this way it’s over with quick and she’s eating at the heavenly banquet before we’re even back to our cars.”
“Why don’t we think about this some more before we mention it to anybody,” Dolores suggested.
Dale snorted. That was the problem with Christians nowadays: they were utterly lacking in conviction. Time was, Christians would have been happy to jump to their deaths, back in the olden days, when people loved the Lord.
He went to bed early that night, worn to a nub from worrying about Satan. He could scarcely wait until Tuesday. He lay still, the covers pulled up to his chin, thinking of Mrs. Betty Bartley and her husband’s heart beating inside him. He thought of the crane and where he could rent it, then contemplated buying one and taking it on the road from school to school across the country, leading youth from their wayward path. He wondered if that was why the Lord had spared him. Then, for the briefest of moments, he wondered if maybe the Lord wanted him to fall from the crane. No, he didn’t think so. He was a general in the Lord’s army, after all, not a foot soldier.
He and Dolores skipped Sunday school the next morning. Sam had been leading a discussion on social issues, for crying out loud, blathering on about helping the poor and capital punishment and whatnot.
“What in the heydiddle does any of that have to do with Jesus?” he asked Dolores.
During worship, when Sam asked if there were any prayer concerns, Dale mentioned that the Lord might be leading him to a new work, but he wasn’t sure. He was praying about it, and would others join him in prayer? Without waiting to see if they were willing, he launched into a prayer beseeching the Lord to do first one thing and then another, calling God’s attention to things He no doubt would have missed, were Dale not around to point them out. “And Lord, we know that sometimes you call us to go the extra measure, maybe even ask some of us to give our lives for your sake. So if you’re needing any of us to die here in the next couple of months, I just hope whoever it is will do it without complaining.” He glanced over at Alice Stout, seated in the fourth row, her mind skipping in a groove like a broken record.
Maybe I’m being too subtle, he thought.
They spent the next two days cleaning their home in anticipation of Mrs. Bartley’s arrival. True to her word, she pulled in their driveway at eleven o’clock. They watched as she alighted from a Volvo station wagon, a youngish-going-on-early-middle-aged woman, attractive in a competent sort of way.
“She’s not wearing black,” Dale observed. “Aren’t widows supposed to wear black for a year?”
“I think they’ve changed the rules,” Dolores said. “Just black to the funeral and that’s all.”
Their discussion was cut short by the sound of their doorbell. The Doxology reverberated throughout their small home. Dale sang along, as was his custom, while Dolores opened the door to greet Mrs. Bartley.
“Call me Betty,” she said, shaking hands with Dolores, while glancing at Dale, who at that moment was praising Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
“Dale Hinshaw here,” he said, foregoing the “Amen” and thumping his chest with a flourish.
Dolores ushered them into the living room, where they sat across from one another.
“Care for a Scripture cookie?” Dale asked. “They’re like fortune cookies, but they have the Word in them instead.”
“Why, uh, yes, thank you,” Betty Bartley said, reaching for a cookie.
“Tell us all about your husband,” Dolores said. “I’m sure he was a wonderful man to want to donate his organs.”
Betty Bartley’s chin began to tremble. “He was wonderful. He was so…” She paused to compose herself. “So gentle, so kind. He cared so much about other people.”
“What did he do?” Dale asked.
“He was an attorney. He worked for a law firm doing their pro bono work. Took all the cases no one else wanted. Mostly helping poor people.”
“Funny you should say that,” Dale said. “I never really cared for lawyer shows on TV, but ever since the transplant, I watch ’em all the time. Remember, Dolores, I was talking about that just the other day.” He turned to Betty Bartley. “Do you like watching lawyer shows?”
“I don’t watch much television,” she admitted.
“I don’t either,” Dale hastened to add. “Just during the winter when I can’t get outside. Mostly I watch Christian television. Have you seen Brother Lester’s program? He’s on the radio mainly, but every now and then he pops up on TV. We’re trying to get him here to preach a revival at our church.”
She thought for a moment. “I don’t think I’ve seen him.”
“You’d know it if you had. He’s only got the one leg. Leans toward the right.”
Don’t all of them, Betty Bartley thought, starting to wonder if her husband’s heart had been wasted.
“Tell us more about your husband,” Dolores said. “What were his hobbies? Where was he from?”
“He grew up on a farm in southern Illinois.”
“I grew up on a farm too,” Dale said. “Then sold insurance.”
“He liked to do woodworking,” Betty Bartley added.
“So do I,” Dale said. “I built that windmill in our front yard.”
“Oh, and he loved this country.” She leaned back in her chair, smiling at a pleasant memory. “He always talked about how blessed we were to live in America.”
“No finer place,” Dale said agreeably.
“He could recite the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights from memory. Every Fourth of July, we’d have a party and he’d stand up on our picnic table and say them both by heart. He said they were the finest documents ever written.”
Dale frowned slightly. “’Course the Bible’s up there too.”
“Oh, yes, he appreciated the Bible,” Betty Bartley added. “He especially liked the book of Proverbs.”
“And he belonged to a conversation club, he liked to fish, and he was a member of the American Civil Liberties Union. He was very passionate about our freedoms.”
Dale blanched. A trickle of sweat erupted near his hairline and coursed down his forehead. He opened his mouth to speak, but for the first time in his life, words failed him.
Dolores, noting his condition, changed the subject. “How many children do you have?”
“We didn’t have any children. We weren’t able. But we have three nephews and two nieces, and he was very close to them.”
“Aren’t they the folks who sued to get prayer out of school?” Dale asked.
“My nieces and nephews? No, they’re just children. They haven’t sued anyone.”
“No, the American Civil Liberties Union. They’re the ones who won’t let us put up the Ten Commandments?”
“That’s not true. You can put the Ten Commandments anywhere you wish, as long as it’s not on public property. And you can even put them there, so long as they’re part of a display with other historical documents,” Betty Bartley explained.
Dale felt his heart begin to thump, then skip a beat. He moaned, then fell back in his chair, nearly slumping to the floor. How could the Lord do this to him? After all he’d done for Him? Gave him the heart of a liberal! He wished he were dead.
“Dale, honey, are you all right?” Dolores asked, rising to her feet.
“The American Civil Liberties Union?” he croaked. “He belonged to the American Civil Liberties Union?”
“A card-carrying member for fifteen years,” Betty Bartley said proudly. “Even served on the board of the state chapter. You’ve got the heart of a patriot beating inside you, Mr. Hinshaw.”
This did little to ease Dale’s distress.
Lunch was not the pleasant affair they’d anticipated. A ghastly pall had descended over Dale, and he ate half-heartedly, picking at his food. Dolores, in an effort to revive the conversation, asked Betty Bartley more questions about her husband and was rewarded with another sordid revelation: Mr. Bartley counted among his ancestors numerous Unitarians.
Dale pushed his plate aside. Sweat rolled down his face, now streaked a fevered red. “I don’t feel so good. I think I’m gonna lay down.”
“Is it your stomach?” Dolores asked.
“Something just north of there,” he said glumly, rubbing his incision, which in the past hour had begun to itch something fierce.
Mrs. Betty Bartley excused herself to go visit a woman in Kokomo who’d gotten her husband’s skin.
As Dale lay on the couch, the sun shone through their thinly woven draperies, causing speckled shadows across his face, giving him the appearance of being struck with a fearsome pox.
“Get Sam over here,” he said, his voice weak and raspy. “I need him to pray for me before I cross over.”
Dolores called Sam at home, who promised to be there as soon as he could. She sat beside Dale on the couch, smoothing back his hair and wiping his brow.
He appeared to be breathing his last, as if his body were at war, a house divided against itself, soon to fall. “Better hurry,” he groaned. “I think they finally got me this time.”
“Who got you, honey? What do you mean?”
“The liberals. They’ve been after me for years. Looks like they finally succeeded. Who’d have thought it? Let my guard down for one moment, and they slipped a liberal heart in me just knowing I’d reject it.”
And with that, his body gave a great shudder, his eyes closed, and deep in his lungs a morbid rattle began to sound, like a viperous snake about to strike.