Harvestman Lodge (84 page)

Authors: Cameron Judd

Her voice rang clear in the morning air, and never had the old hymn been better presented. When she was done, she nodded at the two clergymen shivering in the waist-deep water.

“Candidates for baptism, please join us in these waters,” Feely said, and motioned them down.

When Eli’s foot entered the river, he was surprised at how cold it was, but resisted the reflexive urge to pull his foot out again.

Curtis and Kendra didn’t do as well. Kendra drew in her breath and declared, “Oh!” and danced back onto the bank for a few seconds, during which time Curtis stepped into the river, gave a reactive whoop, and yelled, “Gall-dang, that’s cold!”

“Curtis!” Kendra said, frowning. “You can’t say ‘gall-dang’ at a baptism!”

“Sorry, sweety.” He flicked his eyes upward. “Sorry, Lord.”

Bracing against the chill, the three walked through the deepening water to where the shivering preachers stood waiting. The only sound for a few moments was the chattering of teeth, the distant song of a bird, and the clicking of Jake Lundy’s camera while he snapped away on the riverbank.

At the end of it all came hymns by the river and towels for the sodden. Don New went over to Melinda to thank her for her earlier solo. When she extended her hand to him, his eye was caught by the glitter of sunlight on her rings. He broke off in mid-sentence, staring at them.

“These came from ...”

“They were a gift to Eli, given to him to give to me,” Melinda said. “A gift from a friend who died. They were found inside a wall in the building where Eli and I work. It used to be a motel.”

“Yes,” said New, lifting Melinda’s hand to look at the rings even more closely, confirming his suspicion. “I know the place. The old Winona Court. I stayed there once. In my old days.” His expression became wistful and he patted her hand, touching the rings. “Yes. In my old days.” He smiled at Melinda and drifted away toward his car. Kendra Stokes moved toward Melinda, damp and shivering a little, but happy.

Some yards away, Curtis was talking to Eli. “That was some mighty chilly water,” he said.

“Amen, brother.”

Curtis looked over at Melinda and Kendra, who were talking now. “There’s something I just noticed today,” he said. “Your wife and mine look alike quite a bit, in the face. Kendra’s older, of course. You see it?”

Eli looked. Curtis was right.

“Why do you reckon that is?” Curtis asked. “Melinda looks more Kendra than she does Mrs. Buckingham. Seems like she’d look like her own mother ’stead of somebody else, don’t it?”

“Yeah, Curtis,” Eli replied. “It sure does. Just a mystery, I guess.”

“I guess.” Curtis shivered. “I’m going to my car now. This wind is nipping me pretty bad. Hey, didja hear the news? From Mr. Sadler?”

“Benton Sadler, you mean?”

“Yeah, yeah. Didja hear?”

“No.”

“He owns that old Harvestman Lodge building, and you know what? He’s giving it over to the rescue mission. It’s bigger than the place they got now, and they can do a lot with that extra space.”

“You know this for a fact?” Eli was making a fast transition from freshly-baptized professor of faith to local newsman again.

“He told me himself,” Curtis said. “I take a walk sometimes at work during my lunch break, and Mr. Sadler came riding up the road near me on that big motorcycle he rides. He stopped to talk to me. That’s when he told me.”

“Curtis, that’s wonderful news! The mission preachers will be over the moon!” Eli would call David Brecht at first opportunity and let him know. “Just wonderful all around.”

“I know. And the thing I like best is that he’s going to ask them to rename the place after the little girl. The one who got stole away and died. The Danielle Moody Memorial Rescue Mission. She actually was Rev. New’s granddaughter, y’know. He used to be named Moody.”

“Yeah. I know. Funny how things end up connected that you’d never have guessed at first.” Eli was looking again at the smiling and surprisingly similar faces of Kendra and Melinda as he said it. His own Melinda, who had been adopted. He wondered ...

“I’m going to my car now, Eli. I’m tired of shivering in this wind.”

“That’s a good idea, Curtis. I’m going to mine, too. No telling how long those women will talk.”

“Yeah.” Curtis put out his hand. “See you later, brother.”

“Later, Curtis.”

Curtis and Kendra were just about to drive away from the scene when Curtis noticed Donald New walking to his Volkswagen. Curtis pulled his own car up near New and rolled his window down.

“Thank you for what you done for us today, Brother Don,” he said. “It was mighty good of you to dunk us for Jesus like you did.”

“It was my pleasure, Curtis.”

“Y’know, Brother Don, I was just telling Kendra I don’t know that I’m anybody who could ever be of any use to the good Lord, dunked or not. I want to be, but look at me! I’m just an old nobody who spent most of his life selling pencils and dodging the shadows of telephone poles. I ain’t nothing no good to nobody, never have been. Half this county will always believe I’m Curtis-crazy no matter what I say or do. They ain’t going to take nothing about me seriously. I don’t think even the Lord above could get any usefulness out of me. No sir.”

Donald New put his hands on the car door and leaned in close enough to look Curtis in the eye as he spoke to him. Kendra was listening, too, intently.

“Listen to me, Curtis, and let me tell you something that I know for absolute fact to be true, if anything is. Everything in my life has taught it to me. It’s just this: Our Father above takes great delight in using His crookedest sticks to draw His straightest lines. Do you hear me? Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

Curtis glanced over at his wife, who was nodding and blinking back tears. She understood better than most. Curtis looked back at New.

“Yeah, preacher. Yeah. We understand. But are you really sure it’s true?”

“As sure as I am that the sun is in the sky, my friends.”

“Thank you, preacher.”

“God bless you, Curtis. And you too, Kendra,” New said.

“He already has, preacher. Time and time again.”

“Amen,” said Kendra.

Donald New straightened and backed away from the car, and waved as Curtis and his wife drove away into the beautiful countryside of Kincheloe County, heading toward Tylerville and home.

END

Cameron Judd

About the Author

Cameron Judd is an award-winning author and former newspaperman who has been a lifelong Tennessean. He is best known for his many works of western and frontier fiction, but with HARVESTMAN LODGE has moved into mystery/suspense fiction. In the newspaper field he is a winner and co-winner of the Malcolm Law Award for Investigative Reporting, and in 2005 was the winner of the East Tennessee Historical Society’s Wilma Dykeman Award for his historical fiction set in Tennessee. He is a three-time national finalist for the Western Writers of America Spur Award.

Cameron Judd has written nearly 60 novels, most of them westerns and historical novels, under his own name and several pen-names. His works include his “Tennessee Trilogy”:
THE OVERMOUNTAIN MEN, THE BORDER MEN, THE CANEBRAKE MEN
, and his Civil War trilogy:
THE SHADOW WARRIORS, THE PHANTOM LEGION
, and
SEASON OF RECKONING
. His more recent frontier novels include
COLTER’S PATH
and
THE LONG HUNT
. Other titles include
JERUSALEM CAMP, SNOW SKY, TIMBER CREEK, THE GLORY RIVER, THE QUEST OF BRADY KENTON, BRAZOS, KENTON’S CHALLENGE, and FIREFALL.