Hill Country Christmas

Delia was sure Mrs. Calhoun was right, but she didn’t want to encourage the woman to linger, so she remained silent as they reached the low, crumbling rock wall that separated the parsonage yard from the road.

“Thank you for your kindness, Mrs. Calhoun. I’ll be fine,” Delia said as she stepped onto the flower-bordered pathway that led up to the white frame house. “I’ll see you later.”

The preacher’s wife took the hint after giving Delia one last look of concern.

“All right, if you’re certain you don’t want someone to sit with you,” Mrs. Calhoun said uncertainly, but then she started walking briskly back in the direction they had come, as if afraid the other mourners would devour everything on the tables before she got back to them. She paused only long enough to call back over her shoulder, “Pastor Calhoun and I will be quiet as mice when we return, in case you’re still napping. Get some rest, dear.”

Delia was sure she wouldn’t so much as close her eyes, but at least she had freed herself from the suffocating, if well-meant, sympathy.

She was awakened sometime during the night by Reverend Calhoun’s sonorous snoring coming from her grandpa’s former room down the hall. Padding quietly to the kitchen at the back of the one-story frame house, she found that her visitors had been as good as their word and had left her a delicious supper of fried chicken, biscuits and pralines from the funeral dinner. She ate, and then waited for dawn, praying some answers about her future would arrive with the sun.

“I don’t feel right about leaving so soon,” Mrs. Calhoun fretted two days later, after they had break-fasted on eggs Delia had collected from her grandpa’s—she still thought of them as her grandpa’s—hens. “Why, this girl is a bereaved orphan! It isn’t decent to leave her like this, Mr. Calhoun!”

“I’m not actually an orphan, Mrs. Calhoun,” Delia informed her. “My father is traveling in the west. I’m sure he’ll be home one of these days soon.” She’d said these words so many times before. “If he’d known about Grandpa’s illness, he’d have been home already, I’m sure,” she added, hoping it sounded like she believed what she was saying.

Mrs. Calhoun, who’d been in the act of levering her bulk up from the chair, turned to her. “Now dear, I know that must be a comforting thought, but your neighbor, Mrs. Purvis, told me you and your grandpa had heard nothing from your father since he left! I’ll pray he returns home, but don’t you think he would have done so already if he was going to?” Her voice was so pityingly compassionate that Delia wanted to grind her teeth.

“Papa will be home someday,” she said. “I know he will. After Mama died, he got itchy feet, as Grandpa called it.”

“He could’ve gone to fight alongside our boys in gray,” Mrs. Calhoun said, disapproval plain on her face.

Delia didn’t bother to tell her that if her father had been inclined to be a soldier at all, he probably would’ve worn blue. Feelings about the War Between the States still ran high in these parts.

“He said he’d gotten married so young that he’d never had the chance to see the West. He promised he was going to be home just as soon as he struck it rich.”

She hated the way her voice quavered as she remembered the hurt she had felt as she watched him ride off seven years ago. Why was I not enough for you, Papa?

Mrs. Calhoun tsk-tsked. “‘For the love of money is the root of all evil,’” she quoted sententiously. She looked as if she was going to say something more.

“If I have not charity, love profiteth me nothing,” the old preacher paraphrased, giving his wife a quelling look before turning to Delia. “I pray your faith will soon be rewarded, child.”

Delia tried to assume a carefree expression. “I’ll be fine, Mr. and Mrs. Calhoun. Really, I will. If I need anything, the Purvises said just to ask.”

She wished the preacher and his wife had gone yesterday, but since yesterday was Sunday, Pastor Calhoun felt an obligation to conduct the regular worship service at the Llano Crossing Church. Who knew how long it would be before the town would have another preacher?

It had seemed so strange—wrong, even—for someone else to be standing in the pulpit in her grandpa’s place, speaking about God. Reverend Calhoun wasn’t a bad preacher, and he certainly knew his Bible, but he didn’t have Delia’s grandfather’s dry humor. Nor did he place his pocket watch on the pulpit as Reverend McKinney had done so he’d know when it was time to close. It had taken several pointed looks from a deacon before Reverend Calhoun had ceased his flow of oratory and said the benediction.

Afterward, of course, Mrs. Calhoun hadn’t felt right about traveling on the Sabbath, so Delia had been obliged to endure the woman’s well-meant but stifling clucking over her and insistence that she knew best what Delia ought to be doing at every moment for the rest of that endless day.

“Mrs. Calhoun, if we leave now we’ll be home before supper,” Preacher Calhoun said now, laying his napkin aside and rising from the table. “Miss Delia has assured us she will write if she needs anything, or better yet, have someone ride with her up the road to Mason for a long visit, won’t you, my dear?”

Delia assured them she would.

“Perhaps I should just help Delia with these dishes.” Mrs. Calhoun fretted, waving a plump hand over the crumbs of toast and yellow flecks of egg that adorned the plates. “It’s not Christian to eat and dash off like that, Mr. Calhoun.”

The preacher raised eyes Heavenward as if asking for patience. “And then you’ll say it’s too close to dinnertime. No, Mrs. Calhoun, we are leaving this very minute. Delia won’t mind. Goodbye, Delia, and thank you for your hospitality in this trying time. Please know I’ll be praying for you every day.”

“Thank you, Reverend Calhoun,” Delia said, keeping her eyes downcast lest his wife discern just how relieved she was that they were leaving. Having guests could be exhausting in the best of times. Now she was eager to be alone with her thoughts and not have the constant duty of being pleasant and hospitable.

She picked up the picnic basket she had packed with the remains of the ham, several slices of bread and some butter she’d wrapped in a cold, wet cloth, and she walked to the door before Mrs. Calhoun could think of any further reason to dally.

Chapter Two

Reverend Calhoun’s fondness for sweet tea had left Delia with only an inch or two of sugar in the bottom of the rose-sprigged china sugar bowl, she discovered when she sat down to drink her coffee.

Fortunately, the hens had provided eggs she could bring into town to sell at the general store, then buy sugar with some of the money Mr. Dean paid her, and have a few coins to put aside for another day. But what was she going to do when she needed a sizable sum? If the windmill broke and she had to have it repaired, for example? And she had assumed it might take some time for the town to find a new pastor. If the perfect candidate was available, Llano Crossing’s time without a preacher would be brief—leaving Delia without a home. She would have to be able to pay rent somewhere.

Her grandpa had never been a great one for saving, believing that the Lord would meet his needs, even if he gave his meager salary to any down-on-his-luck tramp who showed up at the door. The Lord had always come through, often in the guise of one of the church members who brought them a side of beef or a bushel of peaches. But she couldn’t count on that to continue, now that her grandpa had gone on to his heavenly reward.

The Lord helps those who help themselves, she reminded herself. She’d better look into getting a job while she was in town, so when the time came she could afford to put another roof over her head, even if it was just a room at Mrs. Mannheim’s boardinghouse. Perhaps Mr. Dean could use another clerk at the general store, or Mrs. Jackson might need an assistant cook at the hotel. If worst came to worst, she could offer to clean and cook for Mrs. Mannheim in exchange for her room and board, though she had heard the German widow was an exacting woman who preferred to do everything herself. Or she could write to Reverend Calhoun and have him check into employment opportunities in Mason, as he’d offered during his stay.

She hoped, however, that she wouldn’t have to leave Llano Crossing. She’d been living here ever since she was eleven, when her father had brought her here as his wife was dying.

Taking a minute to gaze at herself in the cracked mirror, which hung in her room, she made sure the bow of the black bonnet had even loops and her thick brown curly hair was still enclosed in a neat knot on the back of her neck. Black washed out her complexion, making her even paler than she was, but the walk to town ought to bring a little color to her cheeks. In the meantime, she pinched them then picked up her egg basket and went out the door.

Intent on her thoughts, eyes on the path before her, she almost opened the rusted gate into the horse standing in the shade of the oak tree at the roadside.

“Oh! I didn’t know anyone was there!” she said, her hand falling from the gate as she took a step back.

It was the stranger she’d seen yesterday, the one who’d asked directions into town.

He touched the brim of his hat once again. “Yes, ma’am, you did seem like your mind was elsewhere. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You…you didn’t,” she lied, though she knew it was plain as punch he had. He had changed since yesterday; if not for the fact that he was riding the same horse, she might not have recognized him. He had the same wintry gray-blue eyes, but he’d obviously used his evening at the hotel to bathe and shave and have his clothes laundered—or perhaps they were new ones, bought from the mercantile.

Delia was afraid she was staring.

“Can I…can I help you?” She was used to unknown people showing up at her grandpa’s door, looking for a handout, or perhaps just spiritual advice, but she didn’t want to tell this wolfish stranger she was alone here. “I’m afraid the reverend isn’t available right now….”

“I know. Are you Miss Delia Keller?”

She nodded, feeling her heart pounding in her ears. How had he known her name? What did he want?

“I heard about your grandpa’s unfortunate passing when I got to town,” the stranger said. “I reckon that was his funeral you were leaving yesterday. Had I known who you were, Miss Keller, I would have stopped to talk to you yesterday, not ridden on past.” His voice was deep, like the bottom of a slowly flowing Texas river.

Delia blinked. “Who…who are you?”

The man dismounted before he spoke and dropped the reins to the ground. The buckskin seemed used to this action and merely dropped his head to crop at the grass that grew lushly in the shade by the fence.

As the man turned back to her, she got a true measure of his height. Somehow he was even taller than he had seemed on horseback. He would have easily overtopped her grandpa, who had become stooped in his old age, and was probably taller than her father, whom she hadn’t seen since the top of her head reached only to his elbow. The stranger would probably have had to duck to enter her house—not that she was even thinking of inviting him in!

He seemed to sense her qualms, for he held his ground and removed his broad-brimmed hat, revealing a headful of raven-dark hair. “Miss Keller, my name’s Tucker—Jude Tucker—and the reason I’m here is that your father wanted me to come by and see you.”

She could hardly believe her ears, and her eagerness had her rushing forward as fast as she had been backing up. “My father? You know my father? Is he coming? When will he be here? Why didn’t he come with you? Oh, I knew he’d be back someday!”

A cloud seemed to pass over Tucker’s face, and he put out a hand, not to touch her but to stop the flow of her words.

“He…he’s not coming, Miss Keller. I’m sorry, I should have made that clear right off. I-I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you he’s dead.”