Читать книгу Songs for a Mockingbird - Bonnie Compton Hanson - Страница 14

There in the middle of the highway, still holding tightly to her daughter, Melinda began to sob uncontrollably. It was all over. God could have saved them, but He didn’t. And now it was too late. Why, God, why?

Just then Amber squeezed out of her arms again and bolted away. As suddenly, she stopped. “Oh, Mommy!” she cried in awe. “Look!”

Jeremy climbed out of the ditch. “Oh, wow! You were right, Mommy. God does keep His promises.” Pointing, “See—it’s Noah’s Ark!”

As Melinda pulled herself up, she did indeed see Noah’s Ark—or as near a substitute as she ever expected to see on a balmy night in Iowa. There on one side of the two-lane highway, ablaze with light, sat an ancient school bus. But instead of traditional yellow, this one was hand-painted all over in bright rainbow colors, with flowers and animals and angels, plus Bible verses in English and Spanish. And the words “Noah’s Ark—Halleluia!” splashed boldly across the hood. The rack on top was piled high with crates of vegetables, strawberries, and chickens, plus stacks of fully-packed garbage bags.

People poured out the open bus door, running straight toward her. “Excuse me, ma’am,” came a man’s voice in a deep Southern accent, “didn’t mean to scare y’all none. But is you’ns all right?”

She breathed a sigh of relief. No one at the compound spoke like that. They’d been rescued, after all! “My ankle—” she gasped.

Strong but gentle arms started to lift her up. “Here, Pete, help me git the lady off to the side afore a vehicle comes along.” To a plump, silver-haired woman just getting off the bus he said, “Silvia, darlin’, can you corral that purty little gal over there?”

“No!” Amber protested. “I want my kitty!”

“All right, all right.” To a younger woman he said, “SueAnn, catch that cat for her, will ya? Quick, I see headlights coming!”

Jeremy and Shannon rushed over in sudden alarm. “Who are you?” Melinda’s son demanded of the tall, thin older man in overalls with a deep tan and thick, snow-white hair under an old baseball cap. Voice quivering, “And where are you taking my Mommy?”

“Now, now, child, don’t worry your pretty little head. Name’s Noah Anderson, owner of this here bus. Glad to meet you. This here’s my son Pete. We’s all farmers, and right now we’re trying to help your Mommy. Don’t want some car running over her, do you?”

Once they all made it safely to the side of the road, he added, “Lord-a-mercy, but it’s pretty late for you folks to be out here a-traipsing along. Barefoot, too—sopping wet, and injured? I can’t believe it! Do you live around these parts? Or did your car break down? Or have some kind of accident? Look, we’uns is on our way to Big Bend City for the Saturday morning Farmer’s Market. We’ll be a-stopping off overnight at Sunshine State Park near the county line—the parking lot there is safe.” Grinning, “Price is right, too, since it’s free. They’s got a pay phone there to call the Sheriff about your car, if you want.”

His son was a carbon copy of his father, except his hair and eyes were dark. Pete added, “Then before daybreak, we’ll head on to Big Bend City. The Farmer’s Market’s on River Street, just before the toll bridge over Bounty River. Can we drop you off anywhere between here and there? Or would you like to spend the night at the park with us and go on into town tomorrow?”

“Big Bend’s got some good auto shops, if you need one,” his wife added. “We always use Ted’s shop. Ted Perkins is the best. He’s got tow trucks, too. But he’s closed this time of night; everything is. Lots of stores and churches and motels in Big Bend. Even a junior college and a Rescue Mission. That’s where the bags up on top of our bus are headed—clothes we’ve collected for the Mission from our church.”

Noah nodded. “Of course, if you’re from around here, y’all already know all that. Meanwhile, if you’re hungry, I think my old lady’s got some leftover tortillas in the back of the bus that might taste pretty good to them young’uns of yours. Whady’all think?”

Shannon looked puzzled. “Tor-tillies? Is that real food?”

But it sounded marvelous to Melinda. Wiping her tears, “God bless you all!” she gulped. “Thank God for sending you! Thank God, thank God! We’ll-uh—look into a tow truck for our car tomorrow.” Another lie. Dear God, when could she stop being afraid? When could she stop lying?

Jeremy stared at these strangers and the bus. “Yes, sir,” he decided soberly, “God must’ve sent you. ‘Cause the devil wouldn’t be writing Jesus’ name all over a bus, now would he?”

A few minutes later Melinda, her children, Shannon, and the mewling new pet managed to find a place inside the well-packed bus, along with piles of quilts and pillows, toys, boxes of beauty shop supplies, more fully-stuffed garbage bags, and who knew what else. Plus Mr. Anderson, the driver who was already revving up his engine and pulling back out onto the pavement, and his family.

Immediately Pete’s wife SueAnn pulled out towels to dry everyone off. Next she opened Noah’s first aid kit, with elastic bandages for Melinda’s sprained ankle, and antibiotic salve and a roll of clean gauze for poor Shannon’s hand. Plus ice packs for both. After all wounds were cared for, everyone introduced themselves. Melinda, her foot propped up on a picnic cooler, had a hard time keeping it all straight. Mr. Anderson (“Noah to my friends, ma’am”) had left the Kentucky mountains years ago after service in the U.S. Army, headed for golden California. But when his old jalopy died in Iowa, he decided to join some migrant workers there until he’d earned enough to repair his car. He never left. For one of those workers was shy, dark-eyed Silvia Martinez, newly arrived from Mexico.

Romance blossomed along with the strawberry plants. Later came marriage, citizenship for Silvia, and three children. After working and saving for many years, they were finally able to buy their own little piece of land and go into truck farming for themselves. “We call it ‘Noah’s Park,’” Pete explained, grinning.

His father laughed. “Yeah. It’s back down that-thar county road you’uns just passed, a few miles ‘tother side of that crazy Osborn place. Lordy, I sure wish Rev. Osborn’d clean up that dump. My kids used to call it ‘A Stinking Whale of a Garbage Pail’. Them guards at the gate’s none too friendly, either. Once forced my bus right off the road. Ruined a prime load of my strawberries, but they just laughed. Told me if I didn’t like it, to go back where I come from. You ever seen the place?”

Had she?!!!

“Funniest thing,” Pete added, “coming down that road tonight, just before the highway, we found a huge pile of bundles smack dab in the middle of the road, along with some bales of hay. We hit the brakes, or we would have crashed right into them. So we picked up everything we could, ‘cause we didn’t want anyone else to plow into them and have a wreck.”

“Would you believe it?” chimed in Pete’s wife. “Now, potatoes or ears of corn falling off trucks—even hubcaps— are common as grasshoppers around here. So are straw hats and gym shoes. But not bags full of brand-new clothes and quilts. All hand-sewn. No idea where they came from. But we didn’t want anything to happen to them. So we shook the hay and gravel off ‘em the best we could and piled them into the Ark along with everything else. The hay we pushed to the side of the road; I’m sure someone can use it.

“Anyway, Noah’ll take the packages to Sheriff Shelton’s office in Lincoln County tomorrow after the market closes. If no one claims them, the Rescue Mission can always use them. We’re going there, anyway, tomorrow to take all these clothes donated by our church. Honest, that’s what’s in those garbage bags you see. Not,” laughing, “real garbage!”

Melinda learned more facts along the way. Pete, the oldest, helped his father on the farm part-time, along with managing the Anderson Alley Used Car Lot in Big Bend. He and his wife SueAnn lived in Big Bend, where she taught elementary school, besides caring for lively seven-year-old Sean and five-year-old Brittany. Noah’s two grown daughters, Rosita and Lourdes, didn’t live on the farm anymore, either, but stayed in Big Bend with Silvia’s never-married sister, “Conchita” Martinez, hard-working owner of “Conchita’s Casa”—a small combination beauty salon and general store. Quiet, petite, twenty-two-year-old Rosita worked at The Gondola, a local Italian restaurant, and attended Big Bend Community College part time. Her younger sister Lourdes, nineteen—tall, gorgeous, and bubbly—was a nursing assistant at Mercy General Hospital.

Or at least that’s what Melinda thought they were all telling her, over the sound of a lively Christian radio station, the roar of the bus engine, complaints of sleepy chickens cooped up on the bus roof, gulps from everyone on bottles of water, and the giggles and shouted suggestions from Jeremy, Amber, Brittany, and Sean over what to name this new little kitty. The precious pet now safe in Noah’s Ark, just as they all were. Finally, by general consensus, “Miracle” won out. Holding up her bandaged hand, Shannon joined in the vote.

After a while they reached a large, well-lit sign announcing “Sunshine Roadside Park, State of Iowa.” With a smaller one adding, “Overnighters, please park in the back.” Soon they were all loudly and comfortably digging into an impromptu picnic of tortillas, beans, corn on the cob, and milk (pulled out of the cooler). The happy kitten got a saucerful too.

“My, look at the time!” SueAnn exclaimed. “We’ve got to get you children to bed if we’re going to pull out of here before daybreak tomorrow. Everyone grab a pillow and blanket out of the back and pick your own seat, no sharing.”

“Mommy, could we listen to the radio a little while first?” her young son asked. “Please? So we’ll have some music to go to sleep with?”

His mother looked at Melinda. “It’s the one we were listening to earlier—a Christian one. Do you mind?”

A Christian radio station. Mind? Until tonight, she hadn’t been able to hear one in years! “That would be wonderful.” The program they turned on seemed to explode with joy. Soon they were all singing along to some delightful praise songs, old and new. Except, of course, for Shannon and Jeremy and Amber, who had never heard any of the songs before—but were thrilled with the music, just the same.

Soon Pete turned the back inside lights down, and lowered the radio volume. Within minutes, the exhausted children slipped away into dreamland.

Suddenly static erupted on the radio. Followed by an announcement, “We interrupt this program for a special All Points Bulletin! The Lincoln County Sheriff ’s Department reports a kidnapping of three children, one boy and two girls, by their babysitter. The children are wards of the Rev. Harvey Osborn, head of the Osborn Christian Ministries compound near Cottontree. The babysitter, Melinda Currie, is reported to be mentally unstable and a pathological liar. She may pretend to be wounded. She may also be armed and dangerous. It’s believed she murdered her own husband. The woman and one of the girls have long blonde hair. The boy and other girl have dark hair. We have no vehicle information. We repeat: This is an APB. Anyone who sees this woman or these children should contact the nearest police or sheriff ’s department immediately!”

Melinda’s heart seemed to stop. Pete turned off the radio grimly, “All right, Miss, whoever you are. You owe us an explanation!” Noah’s smile had disappeared, as well. Pulling a long rifle out from under the driver’s seat, and setting it squarely on his lap, “And it better be good, ma’am, or I’m reporting you to the Park Ranger right now!”