For all the worry he’d caused in the home he walked away from, all the justifiable tears and anger, his movements across the countryside by rail and by foot had attracted little in the way of attention from those who may have seen him. A tall man, eyes drawn to the ground, carrying no bag or rifle, and sleeping in barns, ditches, and a house or two. By appearance, a man stripped of luck, cuffs frayed and cheeks unshaved, stopping finally in this river town where for several weeks he’d hired himself out to a merchant who was building a warehouse down along the shore. Nights, he’d been sleeping in a small, unpainted church. He rose now from the maple pew he’d been using for a bed, rolled his blanket, gathered his few possibles, and walked up the aisle. He passed by the altar and knocked at the door of the room where the parson prayed in the morning, early, before the sun.
The old man was sitting next to a bookcase, oil lamp burning on the table beside him.
“I wanted to thank you for letting me sleep here. It’s been comfortable.”
“You’re no burden to me,” the parson said. “Are you moving on, then?”
“I am.”
“You never said where you’re from.”
“It’s been my opinion that people don’t harbor what you’d call any real concern for those not kin to them.”
“Where are you from?” the parson asked. “If you don’t mind.”
“Nowhere that you would know about.”
The parson smiled, a hundred wrinkles claiming his face. “Is the idea to be gone from there? Or to go someplace?”
“I like to think I’m going someplace.”
“It would seem, then, you’re looking for something.”
“Or somebody, yes.”
The parson turned down the flame of his lamp as the sky outside the window lightened. He cleared his throat. “As pastors go, I likely haven’t been a good one. The words people need to hear have been hard for me to come by.” He gestured toward the sanctuary. “It’s my fear that those who sit out there on Sunday mornings often leave unsatisfied—unless they’ve fallen asleep, in which case they go off rested at least. But I will say this. I have a clear notion that my prayers reach heaven, and in that respect I am fortunate. More to the point, of late I have found myself praying for you.”
Ulysses laughed. “I’ll take all the prayers you’ve got, though I ask that you spare me your sacraments.”
A rooster crowed in the distance. “I can hardly give you Communion against your will, can I?” the parson said.
“Nor baptize me all over again, thank God for that. Another dunking might just be enough to do me in.”
The parson rubbed a palm over his bald skull. “I have to say that’s an odd complaint. Afterwards, one normally feels purged. Lighter on the feet.”
“It had the opposite effect on me, no offense intended. Sent me searching for a remedy, is what it did.”
The old man drummed his fingers on the side table. He frowned. “Remedy? Forgiveness is free, of course. You know that, surely. God is no merchant selling his wares.”
“I understand. Tell me, though—are the sins we commit against God alone?”
The parson shook his head. “No, but it’s to God that we answer for our mortal souls.”
“With respect, sir,” Ulysses said, “I believe we have more to answer for than just our mortal souls.”
Frowning, the parson leaned back and stared off into the corner. He lifted a hand as the other took his leave.