Late October! Geneva’s favorite month, when the autumn trees flamed with a delicious and rowdy self-exhibitionism against the blue heavens. In turn, the sky tried its best to upstage the trees. This was the first day she felt up to a ride, and despite the admonitions from Wayne, Joe, Rachel, and nearly everyone else, she was determined to get away by herself at least one last time before the chill wind blew away the gold in the trees and blew in the leaden winter sky.
She rode carefully, not in any hurry, and favoring the still-tender wound down the back of her thigh. She knew she could not go far, but she did not have far to go. Jacob’s Mountain was only two miles away, and she would not even break into a trot. She had plenty of time for travel, for thought, for space to begin to heal her wounds.
Her mother had nursed her during her convalescence; even now Geneva felt guilty as she thought of how she was supposed to have been helping Rachel with her babies, but had instead become a big baby herself. She was not only not doing her job, but also taking her mother’s time so she could not be with Rachel’s family, either. But no one had complained, and Geneva had to admit it had felt good to be in the bosom of her parents again: indulged, pampered, petted. She had not told her mother or her father about Howard Knight, nor had she mentioned him to Rachel again after the night he came to her room and told her he could not love her. Yet, she didn’t give up hope, not until later.
She shook herself and drew her thoughts away, toward the blue sky and the rocky outcropping that marked the final ascent to Jacob’s Mountain. What she hoped to find there she did not know, but she knew she wanted to feel loved, completely, unconditionally loved, and she had heard that Love lived there. Of course, her mother and her father loved her, and her sister did, too, and maybe Howard Graves, maybe… and maybe Jimmy Lee, and well, yes, maybe John. She took a moment to add them up. She wondered if there were any other of the men in her past who had once professed to love her whom she could still count in the litany. But no matter how many, still, it was not enough. On this bright day, and all the days that stretched behind her, for as long as she could remember, she had wanted more. She wanted to know what it felt like to be overwhelmed with Love that would never end.
She rode resolutely, aware that there would be no one on top of Jacob’s Mountain to meet her, to sweep her up in his arms and begin the beginning of a storybook romance. Maybe a miracle would happen. Maybe Someone would come. Maybe she would find Something. Maybe her spirit would quicken with the glory of this day, and she would face the rest of her life imbued with greater joy and purpose. Maybe. She had only hope left. Idly, she caressed a memory and nursed the most pitiful of fantasies that she could undo the past. Silly girl. Don’t think about it. Think about something more hopeful, more pleasant.
She was lying in the porch swing, and she felt a disarming sense of déjà vu as she felt the shadow pass over her and pause. She had the sense of being in that place before, and the sun had come in at just the same angle, turning him into a ghost of sparkling light. She could barely see his face, but she could tell it was John by the width of his shoulders and the certain way he cocked his head to the side and the way the curls of his hair seemed to go translucent in the light. For a moment, she had forgotten all as she sighed and stretched and tried to ease her leg off the pillow so he could sit beside her on the porch swing.
“No, don’t bother. Stay comfortable. I’ll just sit here on the floor,” he said, settling down with his back against the wall at her head.
She felt a little groggy. “I guess I dozed off.”
“You deserve the rest. Feeling better?”
He had asked her that before. When? This was an almost perfect replay in the cool afternoon, with the halo of light around his head. How long before had it been that she had seen him just like that and had walked across the flower-laden meadow with him and wished that he would love her? But there was a difference. There was joy before, and laughter. Now there was a desolate yearning in her breast that made her wince when she stared at his bright, light-infused face.
She did not answer, but looked out at the piercing sky and the trees that were deepening into fall. September! She had not seen Howard for two weeks. She wanted to die, she had been telling herself. What use was it to have her senses if they only reminded her of her loss?
He put his hand on the swing and pushed it lightly, and when she closed her eyes and felt the coolness in the motion, he began: “I wanted to come see you at your mother’s house, but Rachel told me you weren’t up for visitors. I thought I’d give you a chance to recover a little more before I brought on the brass bands.”
“I’ll live, I guess,” she said, answering his first question.
The event loomed up again in her mind, even now.
“I know I was stupid.”
“I wouldn’t call it stupid. I’d say you were pretty brave. Depends on how you look at it.”
“It was stupid. I never think about consequences. I never think beyond what I’m thinking at any given moment.”
“That doesn’t make you stupid. It makes you you. I’d say it’s just part of your charm. If everybody was cautious and thought through the consequences, life would be pretty dull.”
She smiled as genuinely as she could. “Thanks. But what do you know? You were stupid, too. Galloping right toward that boar.”
He was not put off. “Again, depends on how you look at it. I thought it through for about a twentieth of a millisecond. Live in a world without Geneva or not. That was a no-brainer.”
“Exactly what you had. No brain. So what have you been up to?”
“Waiting for you to get back. Doing some thinking. Pretty hard with no brain, but that’s never stopped me before.”
She did not want to hear what he had been thinking about. She felt certain his thoughts had involved her, and she was too tired to be involved in anything. And she did not want to see his eyes. If she saw that awful yearning again, no matter how fleetingly, she feared she would be too reminded of her loss. She closed her eyes against him.
He was silent a long time, but at length, he said, “Remember when I went to New Orleans?”
She had forgotten. Not a month before, she had wished he would ask her to go with him. Now she was afraid he would ask her. She nodded without looking at him.
“Well, while I was there, I was asked to help with a project in Ethiopia. I told you about my breeding program—more milk from cows who get very little water?”
“Yes. I remember.”
“Well, there’s a group wants to try it out. The drought has been going on for years, and everyone is starving. They can’t keep livestock alive long enough to breed, hardly. These people think we might be able to improve living conditions if we can introduce these cows there. I’d go down for a few months and get them started, then go back a couple of times a year to help refine the processes.”
“I see.”
“Anyway, I thought I’d go.” He had paused, with feeling. “It’s a really good project. I guess I think I could make a difference.”
Something touched her memory then, and she remembered how good he was. “You make a difference everywhere you go.”
After a silence, he said, “I’ll take that as a compliment. And maybe a bit of hope.”
She did not look at him, but she spoke to him softly. “You’re a decent person, John. More than decent, and I wish you every happiness. Go, and God be with you. Make a difference.” It was hard to keep back the tears, although she did not know why she wanted to cry. She also could feel his distress, but she did not know how to comfort him. She needed too much comforting herself.
“If I go, will you be here when I come back?”
“I wish I could know the answer to that. Right now I don’t feel much like going anywhere.”
“I know. Otherwise I might have asked you to go with me.” He faced her silence. “Of course, that’s a stupid idea. There aren’t too many fun things to do in the Ethiopian countryside, except wish for rain and see all the misery.”
“Yeah. It’s nicer here.”
“Or maybe in DC?” He said it so softly she barely heard him.
She smiled. He still thought Howard Graves was his rival. What would he say if he knew of her feelings for a hillbilly miner who sang about tears and stars falling from the edge of the world? “I doubt it. I’ve decided I’m not built for the city.”
When he had absorbed this, he moved to his feet. “Good. I have to leave tomorrow.” He touched her face until she looked at him. “I want you to know this was a hard decision. I mean, I have no claim on you, but I wish I did, and I only want to know that I won’t be sorry for having gone, now, of all times. Can I write to you? I won’t have access to a phone very often.”
He was a good man. She never wanted to hurt him. “I may not write back much.”
Shrugging, he replied, “I read A Tale of Two Cities four times. I bet your letters will be even more compelling. One or two a day will be plenty. And just get well. When I come back, I want to see the old Geneva we all know and love so well.” With that, he touched her face again and kissed her lips lightly, then he was gone into that dazzling sun. The meadow and the light seemed to swallow him as he strode away. Feeling the tears squeezing out between her lids, she let herself become lost in a moment of total self pity.
Again, she shook the painful thoughts away and muttered a strong reprimand to herself. This was not making her any happier. Think about the trees and the late flowers. Look, there’s a turk’s cap still blooming, and there, she could see clumps of wild ginger. Just breathe and don’t think about anything. Just look and be glad to be alive. Something good will happen.
She half reclined in the same swing, her left leg propped up on a pillow, her right dangling on the floor and idly pushing so that she swung gently. She might have been comfortable, except for the cats lounging on her stomach and up under her chin. She pushed them away several times, but Petrarch especially would not take no for an answer.
Damn cats. She stepped out of her reverie to wonder where the kittens were. She had not seen them since she had moved back to Rachel’s house after her convalescence. Carefully, she avoided a low hanging branch in front of her face. The saddle creaked under her, and a bird sang among the flaming maple trees. For some reason, the singing pierced her heart with the sharpest of hurts.
That day, the day he came to say good-bye for good, the radio was tuned to a country station, and Crystal Gayle sang about heartbreak, and she let the words tumble her around until she felt dizzy with the hurt and the longing.
She moved slightly in the saddle and half closed her eyes, seeing herself in a cabin high in the mountains before the dying fire and gazing into the deep, liquid eyes of Howard Knight.
She remembered his scent and the way he touched her. She remembered how the passion had leapt up between them like a living thing and how he had lifted her to the black and silver sky and she had flung her arms wide to embrace freedom and ecstasy.
She had held and caressed the memory so often that it had been worn to a smooth, gleaming patina.
The music flooded her with bittersweet yearning until a glint of sunlight on a vehicle turning into the drive caught her eye, and she watched with a pounding heart as Howard’s old truck made its way toward her in slow motion. She heard the crunch of the gravel and the coursing of her blood. She held her breath and ran her fingers through her hair.
Yes, it was Howard. And Jimmy Lee was with him. Both of them got out of the truck, but Howard hung back while Jimmy Lee, with the aid of a crutch, made his way slowly toward her.
He was wearing a clean, starched white shirt, crisp black pants, and shining new shoes. Obviously, he had just gotten a haircut. His pink, bare ears and his face shone with scrubbing.
She winced when she remembered the plaster cast, then again at the memory of his paleness the morning she had bent over him and felt his body for injuries. Don’t think about it. See how still the afternoon is, how bright the sky.
Jimmy Lee looked at her, but Howard kept his eyes downcast. Geneva’s mouth went dry, and she swallowed, wishing her insides would stop lurching.
Lamentations jumped out of the back of the truck and tucked his head under Jimmy Lee’s free hand as the pale, thin man hobbled toward her. No one said anything for a moment, but Petrarch and Evangeline suddenly jumped up, backs raised, fur leaning backward up their necks.
Remembering, she almost smiled at the image of Lamentations growling and looking over his shoulder, his eyes rolling and showing their whites, and how Jimmy Lee had pleaded,
“Oh, hell, Lamentations! Please don’t start now!” But Lamentations growled louder, and when the cats jumped up and scattered in every direction, he cut loose on his poor stump of a tail. Jimmy Lee looked like he wanted to cry. Glancing miserably between Geneva and his dog, he made futile little clutching motions, trying to stop Lamentations’ fit. Finally, he gave the dog a light backhand slap, which stopped the canine in his tracks. Lamentations dropped to the ground, panting.
Then Jimmy Lee grinned, looking almost dapper, and addressed her, “Hidy, Miss Geneva. How ye feelin’? We come ta see ye,” he said, rather formally, as if the previous scene had not taken place, but his hands clutched one another, seeming to gain courage from one another. With an effort at dignity, he labored his way up the steps.
But Howard stood still in the driveway.
“Hello,” she smiled, feeling the hope surge through her. “Come on up. I’ll get us some lemonade.” Struggling to her feet, she pleaded. “Howard, come on up.”
He shook his head, looking at the ground and letting his shoulders sag. “No, ma’am. I gotta git. Uh… Jimmy Lee, he’s come ta court ye.”
At this, Jimmy Lee’s face flamed and he gave a short, embarrassed laugh. “Well, don’t spill the beans all over the place, Chap!” Rubbing his chin nervously, he added apologetically, “I jist come on to pay my respects. I ain’t seen ye since… since ye saved my life… fer the third time. And I jist…” The sentence trailed off lamely.
“Jimmy Lee cain’t drive with that leg,” offered Howard. “I jist run him on over to sit with ye a little. I’ll be back direckly. Hour or so.” He looked so miserable, Geneva longed to rush down the steps and throw her arms around him, but she stood frozen, willing him to come to her. Jimmy Lee made his way to the porch swing to perch on the edge; the foot encased in plaster rested awkwardly on the floor. Lamentations tried to scramble up beside him, but he pushed the dog back down.
“Naw. Yew set down right here. Yew cain’t take up the lady’s seat.” Lamentations sat, his whole body pressed closely against Jimmy Lee’s good leg, his miserable stump thumping against the floor. Quivering slightly, he tried to press himself closer, casting his mournful eyes up into the face of his master.
“Howard, please stay awhile. I… never got a chance to thank you for what you did for me. You saved my life.”
“Naw. John done that.”
“Hell, Chap, yew shot the hog!” interjected Jimmy Lee. “Right between the eyes at a hunnert feet!” He turned excitedly to her. “They tole me all about it. Right between the eyes! From a runnin’ horse!” He was as proud as if he had made the shot himself.
“Don’t matter. Fergit it,” said Howard evenly. He shifted his weight and glanced at Geneva before he let his eyes rove over the horizon.
“It does matter, Howard,” she said pointedly, “and I can’t forget it. Any of it. Won’t you stay?” She blinked back tears and pleaded with her eyes, but he would not look at her. At last, he moved forward a step, then thrust his hand into his jacket pocket. “I fergot. Ye left this. I figured I’d git it back to ye,” and stepping forward, he laid his closed fist on the porch rail and opened it carefully, palm down. Then he backed off and walked briskly to his truck. “I’ll be back direckly, Jimmy Lee. Ya’ll have a nice visit.” Springing into the wreck of a vehicle, he turned in the drive and drove away without looking at her again.
Fairhope gave a little shudder and flipped his tail across his back, bringing Geneva back to the bright October day and to the rhythm of the briskly stepping Morgan. She reached inside her shirt and held the lavaliere suspended on a chain around her neck, remembering again how she had made her way to the porch rail. Walking was still painful then, but she had felt nothing except a dull ache in her soul as she reached for the offering Howard had laid there.
When she picked up the heavy object, she knew she had never seen it, yet she recognized it immediately: It was a comet, made of solid gold, his gold, no doubt (or perhaps hers, the gold she had snatched out of the foaming water on that day of delirium), and layered over with various shades of red, yellow, and orange enamel. About the length of her little finger, the small globe with its multi-hued tail seemed to streak across the palm of her hand even as she held it. She held it aloft by the gold chain and looked at it closely. Engraved along the side was her Cherokee name, the one he had given her.
“One Who Strikes Fire in the Soul.” As she beheld this thing of beauty, she heard his voice in the moment of her misery and her shame, “A man can love a shooting star, but that don’t mean he can take it to his heart and make it a part of him.” And as she listened again for his voice, she searched for a moment of hope in this magnificent gift, but all she could find was his anguish and her own rejection. This was his purging, his goodbye. This was the moment he could lay One Who Strikes Fire in the Soul to rest and begin to mourn her loss. Before long, the healing would smooth over his hurts, and he would be free of her forever.
Or, could it be an offering of love? Could he be asking her to accept his gift as a token of what she meant to him? What did she mean to him? Something he could not hold to his heart, something he could never make his own. She tried to find hope in the moment, but it had vanished as hastily as he had driven away. Perhaps, if he had been wearing the object… but he had not worn it. It had held no warmth from his body. He had kept it casually in his outer jacket pocket, as if he claimed no ownership. She knew then, even as he drove away that already he was feeling the first tremulous freedom, the beginnings of catharsis. She was something from which he needed to flee to save himself.
Slowly, she turned and made her way back to the porch swing. Despite her profound sadness, she tried to smile at Jimmy Lee as she settled beside him. “Well, Jimmy Lee, we are a pair, aren’t we? This front porch looks like a rest home for accident victims, or maybe war heroes. What do you think?”
“I think, Miss, Geneva, that yew are about the purtiest thang I ever slapped my eyes on.”
She would not cry, but she allowed herself the indulgence of opening her palm and looking down at the shooting star in her hand and wishing with all her strength that the man would turn around and come back to her. The sun streamed in warm and soft. Jimmy Lee let his adoring eyes rest full on her face, while Laminations lifted his mournful face toward Jimmy Lee, wagged his stump, and wriggled closer to his master.
She was approaching the last rise before the grassy bald broke out of the trees, and she gave Fairhope his head as she scanned the horizon to watch how the sun turned the long grass soft and golden. A breeze picked up the moment she found herself in the open, and with a start, she realized she was there. Jacob’s Mountain, where Love lived. Where, at one time, she had entertained the fantasy that she would meet The One who would be her all, her past, her future, her dreams and her reality. She thought maybe she should hear music, like the soundtrack of a movie, but all she heard was the empty wind as it rifled through the grass and swirled around her with desolate whisperings.
The sky was still glorious, and far below, she could see the reds and golds of the trees undulating across the hills. It was so lovely, and so empty. There was nothing here but herself and her sorrow and her longing. Slowly, she dismounted, and dropping the reins so Fairhope could graze, she limped to a boulder and sat, turning her face to the sun as it slipped down into the field of grass. The grass looked like wheat, with fuzzy little tops that glowed in the afternoon light. It made her think of a sea of twinkling lights stretching up a long meadow and melting into the blue sky. Before long, the warmth and the wind made her sleepy. Pulling her knees up under her chin, she laid her cheek on her hand and closed her eyes, feeling the sun and watching the red spirals dance behind her eyelids.
When she opened them again, she saw him coming toward her with a halting gait, but smiling as if he knew she needed comforting. She remained perfectly still until he came all the way to her, far closer than he had ever been before, close enough that she could have touched him if she had reached out her hand. She lifted her head. “Hello, Holy Miracle.”
He smiled with his eyes and with his cheeks, rosy and round above the snowy beard. “Hello, girlie. I see yer ahopin’ fer Love to come and abide in ye?”
He knew all, this wise old man who had roamed the mountains for a lifetime and more, healing all that he touched. Geneva let her mute gaze tell him what he wanted to know.
He straightened and drank in the view all around him. “Hit’s been awhile since I been here. I like the view from this side the best.” He stopped and looked farther into the horizon. “But I reckon this’ll be the last autumn I kin stand here and listen to the angels still invisible. Lord tells me this winter I’ll see ‘em with my real eyes, and lookin’ back, what I see now will be like I wuz alookin’ through muddy waters.”
“You mean, you expect to die?” The thought startled and saddened her. How could this piece of her history, one of the few sureties of her life, die?
“There ain’t no dyin’, girlie, only a little sleep, and then the rushin’ upward to the light of the Lamb, where the chaff shall be burned away, and the gold will be refined to be fit.”
She could not believe it. He had been a part of her for as long as she could remember. He had given her the joy of healed wings flying to freedom. Now, he looked no different than the day he had first revealed himself to her, when she was nine years old and lay watching the trout flit among the bright shadows of the maidenhair ferns.
“How old are you, Holy Miracle?” she asked with the unconscious curiosity of a child.
His eyes grew round with pleasure. “Old,” he answered, and he seemed to have to struggle to contain his delight. That was all he needed to say. He was as old as the rock upon which she sat. He was as eternal as spring. He had been born with the very rising of this mountain. And now he had spun out his life and waited to meet his Creator.
He moved a little closer, and his eyes softened. “I see ye still got that thistle in yer soul. Don’t ye reckon it’s time ta be agittin’ rid of it?”
She felt weary. “What do you mean? A thistle?”
“Why, the pain, in yer soul, the one that’s amakin’ ye long fer what ye ain’t got.”
“You mean Howard?”
“No, girlie. It ain’t a man, though a man will come fer ye. The Lord’s already got him picked out fer ye, and he’s jist awatin’ til yer ready, with a clean soul, to take him.
“Ah, I know yer needin’ Love, even though ye’ve had Love dancin’ all around ye since the day ye was borned. And yer mighty blessed. Ain’t many that yearns so fer the glory of God. Hit’s His Love yer alookin’ fer.”
“But how do I find that? Isn’t His Love always here, isn’t it supposed to live in us?”
“Oh, yes, but when ye git a thistle in yer soul, and ye leave it there, ye cain’t feel nothin’ but the pain of that, and it’s such a pretty hurt, ye don’t want to let it go, either.”
Geneva made no effort to hide her misery. “But how do I get rid of it?” She wished he would stop speaking so cryptically.
He reached toward her with the easiest and gentlest of motions, and laid his hand, warm, light, and dry as an autumn leaf upon her forehead, then he lifted his eyes. “Oh, Lord God, this child is aneedin’ yer Love, and she’s been asearchin’ and apainin’ fer a long time. Open up yer big heart, Lord, and send yer Love apourin’ into her. Let yer Spirit take over her whole self, cause ye made her in yer image, and she’s apinin’ fer yer glory. Oh, Lord God Almighty, in the name of Jesus, let her be Holy Ground.”
Geneva felt a little dazed, as if she had walked into a room where nothing seemed in the right place, and gravity held little sway. Then she felt her being, physical as well as spiritual, being filled and probed. At first, she was shamed because it seemed to her there was so little to plumb, and what was there was superficial and ugly. But before the shame came to light, the bottom of the shallows of her soul crumbled away like stale bread, and she felt the deeper avenues of herself opening, as if there were unexplored caverns to be searched and filled. Again, far into the depths of her soul, the bottom seemed to fall away, and there was more and more, until she felt bigger and deeper than she would have ever hoped or thought possible. All of her was huge, but the being—and it was a being, vast and terrible, and of absolute authority—continued to fill her, until she felt there was nothing left of herself, except small remnants shoved tightly in the corners. So filled was she that she was afraid to inhale, lest she should burst.
Her sense of shame remained, and she knew herself as a sinner who had wreaked harm and havoc, but soon this sense was overlaid with a welling joy so that she wanted to abandon self and let the joy suffuse more than just her heart and soul and body. There was more to her than she ever could begin to know. She extended backward and forward into time and space and possibilities. And as she expanded with the presence of this Being of awful power, she fully desired that the vestiges of her past hopes and fears and sins, which clung like noxious little cockleburs, would release and drop away. And still, the filling and expanding continued, and she did not know if she was in pain or ecstasy as she felt herself growing ever larger, surfeited with this awful, agonizing joy, this horrible pleasure.
Holy Miracle lifted his hand away, and smiling with the light behind his eyes, he looked at her with infinite patience and gentleness. “Yes, girlie, the Lord God Almighty loves you sure, and thistles don’t grow in no Holy ground. I’ll be aleavin’ ye now, but ye got yer life to live. Ye tell yer sister old Holy Miracle Jones has found his last and best healin’.”
And with that, he turned, and made his way back up the long hill through the undulating grass, ripe with sun and time. He seemed to take on the qualities of the softest of winds, barely rippling the grasses as he passed. Still stunned, but aware that the power in his hands was leaving her, this earth, for good, Geneva let the tears roll down her face. She fell off the rock and onto her knees in the grass, and lifting her arms high, she called out, “Oh, my Almighty God! Take it all away! Deliver me of all my pride!”
After that, there was no more time or circumstances or hope or pain. There was just the overwhelming sense that the illusion of Self had been stripped away, so that she was free to be pure light and joy and laughter. The rosy light poured into her from the edge of the sky and across the golden grass, and the wind whispered the sweetest of secrets, the answers to the most closely shrouded mysteries. She felt the laughter rise to her lips, and she stood, letting herself be wrapped up in this joy as she watched Holy Miracle Jones crest the hill into that rollicking gold light, and Geneva’s love streamed after him.