When We Were Saints Read online

  He stopped at the door and said to Nattie Lynn, "I want to thank you for what you have said to me. I feel even more strongly that what I'm doing is right." Then he remembered something Clare had told him and added, "It says in the Bible that we must seek first the Kingdom of Heaven, then everything else will follow. That's what I'm doing. Putting God first."

  "Child, don't you start preaching to me about the Bible. I know full well what's in that book. Maybe instead of reading and preaching from it, you ought to try to understand it better"

  "Yes, ma'am, that's exactly what I am going to do and what I hope my pilgrimage will help me with. So, if you'll excuse me, I'd better be going."

  Archie didn't wait for her to open the door He pulled it open himself and bounded down the steps toward his bike. He popped his helmet on his head, hopped on the bike, and raced down the drive, not even bothering to fasten his helmet strap until he had ridden far away from Nattie Lynn's house.

  Chapter 15

  ARCHIE HAD SET OUT for home, but then, realizing that it had to be close to time for Clare to get out of school, he decided to meet her there. He needed to see her. He knew that she could make him feel better again. He turned his bike around and rode back toward town.

  There were more tourists arriving in town every day. The large flower baskets had been hung on hooks from the antique lampposts that were set every twelve feet along the edge of the brick walkway in front of the shops on Main Street, signaling the early beginning of the tourist season. Archie barely noticed them, or the shoppers milling about, wandering in and out of the stores and eating corn dogs and ice-cream cones. His mind was still on his conversation with Nattie Lynn, thinking of all the things he should have said to her;

  How dare Nattie Lynn try to scare me by telling me Grandmama might die, he thought. What's wrong with the woman, anyway? And how dare she tell me she's ashamed of me.

  Archie couldn't pedal to the school fast enough. He wanted to see Clare's smile and the light in her eyes when she looked at him. He wanted her to touch him, hug him, even, and tell him that everything was okay; his grandmother would be all right. He tried to quiet his mind and feel God's presence, God's assurance that all was well and he was doing the right thing by staying up on his mountain and praying, but he couldn't do it. He felt too upset. Then he got angry at himself. It's stupid, he thought. It's stupid to be this upset. They were just words, that's all. Grandmama's going to be fine. I'm too emotional about everything all of a sudden. Some saint I am. I stink!

  Archie turned onto the long, steep road that led to the school, shifted into high gear and kept pedaling, his thoughts keeping pace with his spinning legs.

  I need to get away. I can't be a saint with people bugging me all the time. Phone calls. Notes. Visits. I can't wait any longer. I need that pilgrimage. I need Clare. She makes me feel ... She'll lead me to God. As long as I'm with Clare.

  Archie came to the bottom of the hill and turned onto School Street. He saw that the buses were pulling out and leaving. He dismounted and walked his bike onto the grass and watched the buses. Faces stared out at him as the buses passed, and some of them Archie recognized from church and baseball and other activities he had been involved with over the years. He turned away and walked his bike toward the school. It was a modern-looking building, long and flat on top. The land that surrounded the school was once a farm owned by a good friend of Archie's grandfather's. When the owner had died, his widow had sold the property to the town and the school was built. Before then children from the town had to travel twenty miles or more to attend the county school.

  From the start Archie's grandfather had predicted doom for the new building. He didn't believe in public education and he didn't like all the "foreigners," as he liked to call the newcomers, moving in and turning a quiet mountain village into a "rich man's playground with all of its fancy-shmancy shops." "If they want a city, why don't they go back to where they came from?" he said.

  The first school did burn down, and Silas Caswell cried out to all who would listen, "I told you so!" The fire marshal and the police never could find enough evidence to pin the blame for the fire on him, but everybody believed he'd done it, anyway, and Archie had always felt guilty by association.

  Archie wheeled his bicycle over to the bike racks, where a girl was crouching down and sorting through a pile of papers. She glanced up at him and then did a double take, looking him over. She stood up and backed away a little. "You looking for someone?" she asked.

  Archie saw Clare's bicycle still in a rack, so he nodded. "Yeah, Clare Simpson. Do you know her?"

  The girl followed Archie's gaze and said, "You mean the girl who owns this bike?"

  "Yes," he said, setting his own bike into the rack.

  A worried look flashed across the girl's face. "You mean Doris, right?"

  Archie blinked. "'Doris'?" Then he remembered Nattie Lynn calling her by that name, and he said, "Yeah, Doris. I call her Clare. She's a friend of mine."

  The girl smiled. "Join the crowd," she said. "Everyone loves Doris," and then glancing sideways a second, she looked back at Archie and her worried expression returned. "At least almost everybody," she added.

  "You know where she is?" Archie asked, beginning to feel anxious.

  "I think so," said the girl. She grabbed Archie by the arm and pulled him over to the edge of the building and pointed out toward the woods. "She's there, I think. She went with a couple of guys—John and Hal. They all looked friendly walking together down the hill, but I don't know. She's so trusting and all, and John and Hal, they're bad news. Of course Doris can..."

  Archie didn't let her finish. He took off running, and the girl called after him, "She's probably fine."

  As Archie got closer to the woods, he heard voices. He slowed down so that he could hear them, stopping just at the edge of the woods. Then he crept forward, searching ahead for Clare. He heard her voice.

  "I'm not afraid of you," she said. "God is with me, even here. God is with all three of us." He heard laughter and then Archie spotted her trying to get past two boys who grabbed her and pushed her back against a tree.

  "Are you wanting to hurt me?" Clare asked with surprise in her voice.

  Archie crept closer hoping to catch them by surprise. He could feel his anger rising.

  The shorter boy moved in on her. "You think Jesus is going to save you, sugar pie?"

  "I'm already saved," she said. "I think Jesus is going to save you. Even if you hurt me, he will love you."

  The taller boy said, "Yeah, but it's your lovin' we want." He leaned forward, placing his hands on either side of her against the tree.

  "I love you," Clare said, "but I don't love what you're doing."

  The taller boy took his hands from the tree and ran his fingers up her arm to her collar, Then he grabbed the collar,

  Archie saw the movement and charged the two boys, his fury exploding. "Get away from her!" he yelled. He came at the taller boy sideways and tackled him. They wrestled each other to the ground, and Archie scrambled on top of him. The shorter boy jumped on Archie's back and tried to pull him off. Archie went wild. He snapped his head back, butting the shorter boy in the face, making good contact with the boy's nose.

  The boy cried out and let go. "He broke my nose!"

  Archie could hear Clare talking to him, but her voice seemed far away and he couldn't hear what she was saying. He kept fighting the taller boy, trying to stay on top and punching him anywhere he could. "I'll kill you," he said to the boy, and he knew he meant it. He wanted to rip him apart.

  "Not if I kill you first," the boy said, struggling to throw Archie off of him.

  Archie had thought the shorter boy had left, but then he felt a kick in his back; the boy was still there. The kick enraged him. He grabbed the taller boy's throat and squeezed. "You touch me again and I'll kill him; I swear it," he said to the shorter boy. "I'll kill him. Get out of here! Now!"

  The taller boy was gasping for air and trying to speak,
clawing at Archie's arms, but Archie just gripped tighter choking the boy.

  "All right," the boy behind him said. "I'm going. Okay? I'm going."

  Archie kept his hold on the taller boy's throat and listened to the other boy's footsteps retreating. He heard Clare behind him praying, "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy." Her soft, calm voice sounded out of place there in the woods. He wanted to tear the boy apart. Her voice made no sense. Her words matched nothing inside him, no emotion he felt. The boy beneath him still struggled for air and again Clare spoke, "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy. Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy."

  Clare came forward and crouched next to Archie and the boy. Still praying she reached down and took Archie's hands, pulling them with gentle force from the boy's throat.

  Archie gave a deep sigh and let go. He climbed off the boy and stood up. A sharp pain shot through his back where he had been kicked. He stood over the boy, who had sat up and was coughing and spitting onto the ground. "Get out of here," Archie said, his voice low. "Go on. Get out of here!"

  The boy, still coughing and sniffing, scrambled to his feet and took off running. Archie grabbed Clare and held her tight. Clare kept praying the same thing over and over again: "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy." Archie said nothing. He just held on to her wrapping his trembling arms around her and squeezing her close to him.

  "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy," Clare said, her head lowered to his shoulders. Archie felt her warm breath and her words as if they were coming from his own chest. He took a deep breath and let it out. He lifted his eyes and stared up into the tops of the trees, looking for the sky.

  Chapter 16

  ARCHIE AND CLARE STEPPED out of the woods with their arms still wrapped around each other. Archie was limping. His knee had hit a rock when he'd fallen to the ground fighting. His back ached and his nose was bleeding. He hadn't even noticed the taller boy punching him.

  Clare asked him, "Are you all right? Maybe you need to rest for a minute." They were the first words besides the prayer that Clare had spoken.

  Archie stopped walking and turned to her. "What happened there, Clare? I mean how did you—how did that happen?"

  "They told me they want God in their lives. They said they want what I have." Clare looked at Archie. Her eyes were clear; she held him steady in her gaze. She wasn't shaking as Archie was; as a matter of fact, Archie realized, she looked calm, serene, even, as though she had only been out for a stroll through the woods and had torn her shirt on a branch.

  Her calm state annoyed Archie. He said, "And you believed them? They want what you have, all right. How could you go into the woods with them? Didn't your parents ever tell you to stay out of the woods with boys?"

  "I trust in the Lord," she said. "You have to trust, Francis."

  Archie shook his head. "Don't call me that. My name is Archie; what's yours, by the way?"

  "Clare," she said.

  Archie started walking toward the bike racks, and Clare joined him. "That's not what I heard," he said. "If you're Clare, then who is Doris?"

  "Doris is a name that I answer to because I have to; it is not who I am. I am Clare."

  Archie turned on her, "What's that supposed to mean? I want to know what's going on." He pointed toward the woods. "I almost killed a guy back there, and you stand here giving me all this peace and love and I-trust-in-the-Lord stuff. What would have happened if I hadn't come along? Huh? Would you just have let them hurt you? Is that what it means to trust in the Lord? Are we supposed to just let people attack us and not even defend ourselves?" Archie's hands were all over the place. He felt hysterical, and Clare's unperturbed expression made him feel even more so.

  "Yes," Clare answered.

  "Impossible!" he said, throwing his arms up.

  "All things are possible through God," Clare replied.

  "Shut up!" Archie turned and strode toward the bike racks. He knew he could never ever just let someone attack him. She was crazy. She had to be. It was suicide. He didn't have that kind of faith. He didn't know if he wanted that kind of faith. He reached the bike rack ahead of Clare and waited for her leaning against the rack with his arms crossed. He noticed he was breathing hard, and he tried to slow his breathing down, taking a couple of long, deep breaths and letting them out. When Clare reached him, he said, "So you trusted God to protect you back there, is that what you're saying? You just knew someone would come along and save you? Is that what you're saying?"

  "No, I didn't know if anyone would come along. We don't know really if they would have hurt me, either. My shirt tore when you tackled John. They might have listened to me and stopped, but that's not important. It's not that I trusted God to save me; it's that I trusted God to be there with me, no matter what happened. And with God there, I knew it didn't matter what happened—I would be all right."

  "You could have been killed!"

  "And still, God would be with me."

  "Clare! That's crazy." Archie felt exasperated.

  "Don't you see, they could never touch me or hurt me, not really. And anyway, I won't use violence, but I will protect myself."

  "Why protect yourself at all if God is there and you don't care what happens to your body?"

  "It is the will of God that I protect myself."

  "And maybe it's God's will that you fight them, too."

  "Violence is never God's will. Hate is never God's will. You know that. You've said it yourself. You've felt it for yourself, God's love."

  "I don't know anymore. Right now I don't feel God's love at all."

  "That's because your anger is pushing God away."

  Archie stood up and yanked his bike from the rack. "Look, I don't want to talk about it anymore. Come on; I'll ride home with you."

  When Archie and Clare arrived at Clare's house, the house was empty.

  "Where's your father?" Archie asked.

  "At his shop. Haven't you seen his new shop?"

  Archie shook his head and peered into the kitchen. It was a small yellow room, with white fixtures and tall windows.

  "He has an herb shop. He's been very busy with it. It's between Barrett's Books and the Ski Chalet. Come on." Clare led him upstairs. "I'll get you cleaned up and give you some sweatpants to wear home."

  "Who buys herbs?" Archie asked, following her upstairs and noticing the clown paintings lining the stairwell wall.

  "They're medicinal. You know, instead of drugs."

  "Yeah, I know they're medicinal, but my grandmama just grows them." When he said the word grandmama, he felt his heart clench. He was furious with Nattie Lynn for making him worry about her.

  Clare led him to the bathroom, and Archie told her he could clean himself up, so Clare left him and went in search of the sweatpants.

  Archie looked at himself in the mirror. It had been a long time since he had seen his reflection, and he was shocked by what he saw. Besides the dried blood on his face, his eyes looked sunken into his head and his cheekbones poked out at sharp angles. "I look like van Gogh with freckles," he said. Then he leaned over the sink and washed his face and hands. He was careful washing the blood from beneath his nose, so as not to start the bleeding again. His back hurt when he bent over reminding him of the fight. He called out to Clare. "We need to call the cops, you know? Those guys can't get away with what they did." He dried his face and hands, and stepped out into the hallway.

  "It's all right, Francis," Clare said, her voice muffled. "You don't need to call the police."

  "Where are you?" Archie headed down the hallway in the direction of her voice.

  "Here, in my bedroom closet."

  Archie came to a room at the end of the hall. It had a high ceiling, like the rest of the house, and old wallpaper with a faded blue background and fat white flowers. There was a canopy bed with frilly white bedclothes on it and stuffed animals gathered on top. The shelves in the room were filled with books. Archie looked around, and Clare came out of the closet holding up a pair of sweatpants. "I think these will do," she said. "They
were always big on me." She tossed them to Archie.

  Archie caught them. "Nice room, but I thought we were going simple. You know, living like monks and giving up all our possessions?" Archie felt anger rising up in him again. Who was this Doris-Clare?

  Clare smiled and took Archie's hand, pulling him out into the hallway. "I'll show you my real room," she said. "That one's just for appearances—for while my mother's here. She's staying at the Vista View Inn down the road, but every time she comes over she checks my room and my closet and watches to see that I'm eating enough."

  Archie looked Clare over. She did look awfully thin, but then so did he.

  Clare led Archie to a door halfway down the hall. She opened it, and there were stairs leading up to an attic. She turned on the light, and they climbed the steps. The attic smelled of sweet wood and heat.

  "It's got to be a hundred degrees up here," Archie said, reaching the top step and looking around.

  "You get used to it," Clare said.

  A mattress covered with a white sheet lay on the floor in the center of the room. There was nothing else except at the far end of the attic, where Clare had set up an altar. She had a table with a crucifix set in a stand on it. Written in paint above it, on the ceiling of the attic, were the words Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. On the floor painted in front of a kneeler, were the words Be still and know that I am God. A bible lay on top of the kneeler.

  "You sleep up here?" Archie asked. The heat was suffocating. Sweat ran down his face. "It's like a sauna."

  Clare, too, was sweating, but her eyes were shining. "Yes, it is. And it's purifying to sweat. I purify my body and my soul up here."

  Archie wiped the sweat off his face with the pants Clare had tossed him. "It seems dangerous," Archie said, knowing he couldn't stand it. "I'd never get any sleep up here."