I’m parched from my dream about the devil, so I get up and sip water from the ladle in the bucket, standing at the window looking out upon the valley. Good folks and sinners scratch out a life here in Baines Creek, but the devil works overtime, so my work as a preacher will never be done.
I leave the warmth of the house and head out to my workshop to busy my hands and think on my memory.
Pharrell Moody was the teaching moment forty-six years back that confirmed my call to serve God. What nine-year-old boy would not be changed for good at the power of God’s words that cast out the devil and sent him back to hell? It was one thing for me to want to serve the Almighty, Powerful God. It was entirely another to believe I was worthy of the calling. I still have moments when I think God might smite me for my nerve to call myself a preacher and step into the giant shoes worn by my daddy and granddaddy.
Some days I can’t believe God entrusted souls to my care. I doubt my strength. I doubt the Lord’s plan. That I live in the peaks and valleys of the oldest mountains on earth is a metaphor that never eludes me. The golden and the dank days, and the string of in-betweens meander like an old goat trail—my old goat trail.
“Brother, you out there?” Prudence calls flat-voiced from the back porch and stands in the shadows as usual, arms folded across her chest. Washed sheets hang under the eaves and sway in a chilly breeze.
I wave out the window over my workbench, then hold up five fingers to let her know I need five minutes. The screen door slaps shut, and I sand more wooden toys. When the cold comes in earnest, Christmas won’t be far behind, and these gifts must be ready. I turn wood scraps into trucks and dolls and bears, and the stack of toys grows. I write the child’s name on the bottom of each toy so they know they’re special. For now, here at the end of August when the seasons change, I don’t feel much pressure, so I tinker in my shop more than work.
Unlike Daddy and Granddaddy’s good fortune, I never found my life’s companion and have settled into a routine with my spinster sister, Prudence, twelve years my junior. Despite a kind upbringing and a decent education, she came into the world with a sour disposition that taints the sunniest of days. She’s a martyr who wears poverty intentionally, even though we can afford adequate clothes and proper shoes with attached soles. Prudence takes sacrifice to unwieldy heights.
I choose to believe her heart has some good, though there’s little proof except her devotion to me. To everyone else, her words sting and her giving is stingy. She knows what we sow we reap, and her return can be pitiful. That doesn’t change her; Prudence lives in the shadows, and no amount of coaxing brings her spirit into the light.
I shake the sawdust off my carpenter’s apron, hang it on the nail, and head in to the kitchen for lunch. The kitchen smells good with a simmering skillet of rabbit stew, dense and lean, made from Jerome Biddle’s gift of two varying hares. We know to watch for random buckshot pellets that can crack a tooth.
On the pine table, crusty bread sits beside a large bowl of stew for me and a modest one for Prudence. She’s sliced an apple and left on the red skin. Against white flesh, the crimson looks decadent inside this plain place with hardly a speck of color, except for the fancy green woodstove Mama got as a surprise long ago. I used to pick wildflowers to bring cheer indoors. Prudence would turn right around and throw them out. Said, “If God wanted flowers in a jar, He’d a planted em there.”
We bow our heads to pray, then eat.
“The new teacher comes tomorrow,” I say between spooning stew and sopping bread. “The one who answered my letter and our prayers.”
Prudence nods.
“You going to meet her, take her to the cabin, and get her settled?”
She nods again.
“I think this one’s a keeper, don’t you?”
Prudence puts down her spoon and places her hands in her lap, as if ordered to stop eating. “No. She’s old. Won’t last.”
“Old? She’s not young, but she’s close to my age, for heaven’s sake! And what gives you the idea before you meet her that she’ll quit on us?” I feel my bushy eyebrows spike up in a question.
“Why you think this one’s different, Brother?” Her brows naturally crease into a frown. “She’s the same as the others cause she come from the valley, all uppity…cept she’s old. Like you.”
I sigh. This would have been a good place for some levity about my age, but Prudence doesn’t tease. I’ve got to preach a burial tomorrow or I’d meet Miss Kathleen Shaw and see her settled in myself. I’ve read her papers the Asheville education office sent, and it’s true she’s fifty-one and might not get around as well as these mountains require, but she has exceptional teaching experience.
I’m drawn unabashedly to a mind that works well, and my limited library helps only so much. There’s no one within two days’ walk who enjoys dissecting issues of the world and politics. For that reason, I venture into the valley once a year for convention to soak up conversation. On this mountain I often reel in my words for fear I’ll offend a limited soul.
We’ve scared off more teachers than the law should allow. The last two teachers were young and full of the wrong kind of hope. They barely knew the classics and didn’t get my jokes. They were too young for this remote post. When the last one left after the teacher’s cottage burned down, I wrote a letter to the school board to explain why we need a teacher with experience. An ethical and morally strong individual, one up for a challenge. Miss Kathleen Shaw answered my letter.
Now, I worry. What good will we be to her? These cloistered families don’t easily welcome jaspers. I worry Miss Shaw may not understand my people’s shyness and see only their inadequacies. I’ve studied her letter of introduction and can read little between the lines except that she’s taught at fine institutions. Sadly, I fear Prudence might be right: Miss Shaw may not last long if she’s infirm or set in her ways. That will be a loss for our children and their future. It’ll be a loss of wishful thinking for me.
We’re running out of options.
? ? ?
When I was eighteen, Daddy walked me up to Rooster’s Ridge. He was strong enough that day and determined to walk, though cancer crumbled his edges. It was a slow trek that morning on the familiar trail, but we made it to the top. A cool breeze lifted his damp hair and dried the sweat on his pasty face while the kind sun hid behind clouds to make the light more tolerable. I stood next to him and realized I was taller, or else he’d shrunk; Daddy usually made five feet seven feel like full stature.
That day he held on to a gnarled dogwood tree and said, “Eli, I never had regrets about the path or place I’ve chosen to live my destiny. Your granddaddy didn’t either, and we were lucky. Up here is a little world, and you’ve got a big curiosity. You think a lot in that head of yours. If you aim to follow in my footsteps—”
“I do!”
“—then you have to go explore before you can settle here and know peace.”