“Oh, yes, here's my wife's pie. Also, we filled up two bags of groceries for you and the children. But we got so many women around town that are concerned about your little ones. They know how we men don't cook.” He winked at Jeb. “I doubt you'll ever have to cook again.” Honeysack nodded at the others.
Everyone laughed and Jeb struggled to translate Angel's signals.
“I believe we've stunned the minister,” said Evelene. “I'll bet you didn't expect such a welcome.”
Angel spoke up. “No, ma'am. We normally don't get such help from the church. Mostly we just do for the Lord and then we just have to do for ourselves.” She turned heir back to Jeb.
“Can we eat? We had all our food stole yesterday and missed our supper,” said Willie.
“My sister is weak and she has to keep her bones strong,” said Angel. “She was a sickly baby.”
“Let's take you all out to the parsonage, then.” A woman whose hair was thick as steel wool drew Ida May close. “I'm Mellie. Your daddy never did tell us all your names. What is your name, baby girl?”
“Ida May. My momma's gone. This is Dud.”
Mellie had a high, tinkering laugh that caused her elbows to squeeze into her ribcage. “I know, poor thing. I'll be your momma, your grandmomma, your auntie, or whatever else you need.” She walked outside with Ida May, all the While calling her “Idy May.”
Mr. Honeysack walked with the grinning Willie outside and the rest of the congregation followed them. “Church in the Dell was built in Millwood Holler back twenty year ago when the land was bought from the Millwoods—”
“Angel,” Jeb yanked on her sleeve.
She waved at Evelene. “We better go, Daddy. They're going to show us the parsonage.” Angel widened her eyes and stretched her mouth to form a frown that made her look frozen.
“We'll be right there,” said Jeb. He waited until the one called Evelene ambled twenty paces away from them and then walked down the back steps outside with a skipping kind, of walk, like an old woman spring-dosed.
Angel blurted, “I told you I'd have everything solved, Jeb Nubey. You just keep quiet and keep your head about you and we'll have us a meal ticket for a day or two until we figure what we should do next.”
“They think I'm a preacher! You don't see nothing wrong with that?”
“I watched the preacher back at Snow Hill. They talk seldom and when they do, they just say things like ‘Bless you, child. God love you and keep you.’ Stuff like that.”
“They called me Reverend Gracie. What if this man they been waiting on shows up today? Here: I don't have my truck, my gun, or my hat to make my getaway. I'll be trapped in some hick town jail with three runaways and nothing to show for it except a piece of old Mrs. Honeybaker's pie.”
“Honeysack. You got to be good at names. That is a fact.” Angel opened the rear door of the church. “Look at that, will you? We was not a hop and a skip from that house last night. Here we were holed up on hard old pews. I'm, eating my fill then I'm sleeping on a cloud tonight. My own bed. I never had one to myself.”
“You don't hear a thing I'm telling you. We can't stay. They're looking for a real widowed minister and his three, well-behaved children. We don't fit the bill.”
“You ain't got nothing to your name, not a cent, and here you are complaining about what the Lord done give you. Me, I'm thanking him for all He has done.” Angel kneeled on the lawn. She brought her hands together at her chin and closed her eyes.
“Get yourself up. Don't be making a spectacle like that,” said Jeb.
“Oh, Evelene, would you look at that sweet angel!” Mellie, who still held Ida May's hand, turned red around her plum-shaped cheeks. “Praying right here on the lawn and thanking Jesus. Yes, Lord, we all thank you for your blessings.” Mellie pulled a white cotton handkerchief from out of her bosom. In front of her, she made an invisible bow shape with the scarf, waving it in the breeze like a ship's signal. “And for little Idy May.”
“Sweet Lord, Reverend!” said Evelene. “You've done well with your ducklings in spite of not having a wife around. If you can get a young one to bow her knee to God, you'll have no worries with her when she's grown. I have to say, though, they all in need of some womanly grooming. You don't mind if we take them out to the washtub, do you?” Evelene grabbed Willie by the shoulders.
“Tell her no, Jeb,” said Angel. She came off of one knee.
“Thank you, Sister Whittington. This biggest one, she needs it the worst, I'm afraid.” Jeb bent and took Angel by the shoulders. “Bath time, Biggest.”
“I got some good-smelling stuff you'll like. What is your name, girl?” Evelene asked Angel.
“This is Angel,” said Jeb. “Angel, kindly go here with Mrs. Evelene. Mind your manners while you're at it.”
“This is one I'm not worried about, Reverend Gracie. I hope you don't think I'm bein’ too fussy. I never had nothing but boys. I love making over girls. You know, Angel, your name fits you to a T.”
“I don't need no help bathing.” Angel made a wide arc around Evelene.
“Please, let old Ev fix you up, curl your hair. I have a dress once belonged to one of my nieces. Pretty white collar. Petticoat.”
“I'm not one for petticoats, Mrs. Whittington, if you don't mind. I guess you know the first thing I have to do is get my sister, Ida May, fed. After that, I'll go out later and wash myself.”
“Ida May's inside eating. Why Mellie, she done fixed her up a plate of chicken and a glass of milk. I can tell you been having to care for your little sister. Now you got us to help.”
Jeb watched as Evelene, with her long, plump arms, wrestled Angel into a tight clutch. Evelene laughed in a pleased manner and her eyes squinted. She looked pretty and giddy all at the same time.
“Angel, you know you got all your nice things stole. You let Mrs. Evelene fix you up with some of her pretty things.”
Jeb saw Angel's antipathy for him coming out of her eyes—sharp blades. She lifted her face, and smoothed her hair. “Where's the washtub, Mrs. Whittington?”
“Reverend, have another helping of bread.” Mr. Honeysack joined Jeb in the kitchen of the parsonage. “Now, Horace Mills—that's the banker—he's got a wagon that's old, but he'll sell it to you and let you pay it off as you go—don't want to owe him too much, though, if you catch my meaning. See if he'll throw in his mule and I'll guarantee you'll have some wheels that will get you where you want to go around Nazareth. When the deputy sheriff comes around again, we'll put him on the trail of those outlaws that stole your track. In the meantime, you can have a means of visiting the folks around town that go to Church in the Dell. Our last preacher, he was a visiting fool. Never took a lot of stock in much else, though, like bringing in new people. Course we don't get many new folks, not like in Hot Springs. He seemed satisfied with things as is. But that suits us fine here in Nazareth. Now, this being Tuesday, you reckon you'll be settled in enough to preach us a good one on Sunday?”
The fried chicken tasted like the first time Jeb had ever tasted it. He took another bite of bread. It collapsed, almost as airy as cotton candy from the Texarkana Fall Carnival. “Sunday?”
“We been without good preaching for going on a year. That's why, when you showed up early, we was past ecstatic.”
“Early?”
“We wasn't expecting you for months. When Evelene showed up at the church building this morning to check for storm damage and found you all safe inside, she ran and told all of us about it. We'd like to have a big picnic, if that's all right with you. Maybe Sunday after your preaching, we'll have us a dinner on the grounds. More fried chicken than you've ever seen.”
“We'll aim for Sunday, then.” Jeb thought about the mule and Wagon, about how far he might travel before the Church in the Dell posse caught up with him.
Evelene drove Angel to her place. The two of them returned with a box that rattled with bottles and lotions. Petticoat netting draped from one side over Evelene's arm.
Three women in a matron's circle poured well water over Angel's head. Jeb could only see the crown of her head through the fried-chicken-stuffed female bodies. They lifted her and wrapped her in a blanket while the sun warmed them just outside of the shaded spire of the church. Evelene pulled the flouncy dress over Angel's head while the other two combed her hair out and helped her slip into stockings and a pair of leather shoes.
Angel looked up and saw Jeb, his smugness evident. She lifted her forearm and smelled the borrowed toilet water—essence of lilacs and honeysuckle. All at once, her hair was auburn silk, her nose and cheeks rubbed to a sheen. She pulled away from Evelene and twirled. The skirt billowed and for a moment in time, in the sun, Angel's name fit her.
”Now, I left you all plenty to eat. Then there's the pantry full of everything you need to get you started. I feel awful about you all getting robbed just as you was pulling into town.” Mrs. Honeysack had shown up just before sundown with an evening meal. “This pot of beans will probably last you more than a day or two. It's full of ham. That corn on the cob's right out of a field just outside of town and they grow the best corn around. Sweet as nectar. Sweet and good by itself if you run low on butter or salt.”
Jeb thanked Freda Honeysack for the eleventh time. “We thank you for your generosity, ma'am. Your pie is good eats. We had that this afternoon.”
“You know when my husband, Will, read your letters to all of us, you sounded a bit, well, formal, in your writing. But now that I meet you, why I'd say you're just like anybody you'd meet. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but it's really a good thing. But you just never know. Some people are quite different in person than they are when they write. I guess it's ‘cause We're taught formal writing but we talk like our ma and pa.”
Jeb closed the door inch by inch as she backed out of the entrance. He watched her go, parceling out advice as she went, telling him where he could buy this or that and where the extra set of keys to the parsonage was kept hidden. When she finally climbed inside her husband's Ford, Mr. Honeysack waved from the driver's seat and hollered, “We're going to leave you good folks in peace.” He made a delicate attempt to silence his wife, but her Words were finally and only drowned out by Mr. Honeysack's engine.
“I'm satisfied as two ticks. How am I ever going to eat another bite? Long as I five I never saw people who could eat so much. You ever seen a dress like this unless it was on the movie screen, Ida May?” Angel fell back on the sofa. The petticoat inflated and then fell around her knees. “I feel like Miss Stanwyck.”
“They give me these trousers. The legs are kind of short, but they nice,” said Willie. “Ida May looks like she's wearing a doll's dress.”
Ida May counted the polka dots on her skirt. “I like it.”
“They're gone. Finally!” Jeb snatched up the clean set of clothes Mrs. Whittington had pressed and laid on the end table. “I'm out of this place. I'll take only as much food as I can put in one sack. The rest, you all can take. You kids are in good hands. If these folks don't talk you into a stupor, they'll love you to death. I don't need no more lovin’ to death.” Jeb calculated that if he hiked through the woods following the roads, he might be two towns away by morning.
“You're leaving? But why?” Angel parted the tulle and peered through the netting at Jeb.
“Didn't you hear the way that Honeyfat lady is already piecing together how I don't sound like my letters? She keeps putting two and two together like that and she'll have us figgered for cons in a jiffy.” Jeb raked all of the leftovers into a tin plate. “I'll eat this later tonight. Dog, these women can cook!”
“Mrs. Honeysack likes us. You listen to anything she says and you'll know we got us a goldmine in this church business. Didn't you see Barbara Stanwyck in
The Miracle Worker?
There that poor woman's daddy was kicked out of his church and died of a broken heart. Next thing you know, she's dressing like a girl from California, all diamonds and furs and preaching for the Lord. They's money to be had, Jeb Nubey, in God's work. You let me give you all the hows and how-tos on this religion business and we'll make us a wad and then split town—split everything. Fifty-fifty. We go our way. You go yours. You think that sheriff is going to come looking for you when folks is bowing to you and three kids is calling you Daddy?”
“Ain't you afraid of nothing, Biggest? Like, being struck by lightning for one thing. Another thing, you aiding a murderer, don't that bother you none? That you might get thrown into the pokey?”
“I know that last night nothing came together for me, for us. Now everything is fitting like a puzzle come together and you want to throw it away. You know what I'm holding here in my hand?”
Jeb counted sacks of sugar and flour.
“This here is a letter. I got it a while ago from Mrs. Honeysack who brought us the mail. It is addressed by Reverend Gracie, namely you. They thought your letter arrived late and just gave it back to us—that right there is a sign. This letter from Reverend Gracie says he is months from being here in Nazareth. We're safe, Jeb. We got us a hiding place, a lunch ticket, and you even got income. You know about income, don't you? Folks is giving us things like we're the royal family. Never in my life have I ever heard tell of such things. I know you got the con in you and can smell pay dirt when you strike it. You run off in the night and that deputy sheriff, he'll find you and you'll be out breaking rocks—in chains. You stay here and you'll have these people eating out of your hand.”
Jeb dwelled on everything she said. “Then I got to put up with you.”
“I'll keep looking for Claudia. You got my word. I don't want to be tied to you neither.”
“We have to keep calling him Daddy?” asked Willie. Angel waited for Jeb to answer.
“Not only you going to call me Daddy, you going to do what I say.” Jeb put back the flour and sugar in the homemade pantry cabinet.
“What we do is our own business—you ain't the boss! Let's just get things straight.”
“You take your brother and sister and that frilly dress off to your beds. I need some time to think.”
“Or some time to drink,” said Angel.