"I'm laughing because you're just beginning to find out what the Lord is all about. And I've felt my faith slipping away from me ever since I first met you. Our place got flooded and most of the chickens got drowned, and the kitchen garden got washed away. That was part of my punishment for beginning to doubt.

But I can't stop doubting. I went up there twice, you know.

Everything is so rich and fine. All you people live so good. And right in the middle of all that religion, all those big chimes and singing and preaching, my little girl is being screwed by a preacher older than her daddy. I just can't keep my faith up in the front of my mind anymore. I pray and the words don't come right. I read the Book and parts don't make the same sense they used to. We send in money and I wonder for what. I keep wondering why God would want to reach His flock through a place like the Meadows Center. If He does, then He really doesn't care much about His people."

"Just tell me what it used to feel like to you, to have faith."

"I can't tell you exactly. It's a kind of knowing. It's such a great big sureness about things. You know the Lord is watching over you. You feel a kind of warmth and glow of His presence. Sometimes it's so wonderful you can't take a breath deep enough. It makes you want to live your life the best way you can and then you can be certain of your reward in heaven.

But I've been losing it. It's been going away from me, Joe Deets.

Like in a drifting boat, looking back up the river where you've been, where it was so nice."

"Maybe all I've got is some kind of brain tumor giving me flashes of light."

She reached quickly and touched the back of his hand.

"I.

shouldn't hate you like I do. I'm sorry. I was a sinner too. I was a real mess. It was just luck I ever landed on my feet, and found jGod."

"Can you remember what it felt like? Was it some kind of sudden thing, Annalee?"

"I walked down the aisle to the preacher man feeling foolish every step. I went down to the altar rail because my friends were going down there. I thought I would go through the motions and I knew they didn't mean anything at all. The preacher man looked into my eyes and he was looking right on through them, right down into my black heart. He put his hand on my head and he told me my soul was in great pain because it felt lost forever. If I would give myself to God I would be healed forever. And I did and I was. I mean, I thought I was. I thought I was, right up until recent."

"Can you pray for me?"

"I'll try."

"I mean here and now."

"Now? I don't know. I don't know if I'm worthy to pray for anybody. Last Sunday she was close up on the screen again, singing, looking so beautiful it could have broke my heart. And I watched her, thinking about you and her, and about how I could feel everything slipping away from me. I don't think I can pray for your soul."

"There's nobody else who can, Annalee. Try. Please."

She seemed ready to decline. There were two deep frown lines between her brows. Her lips were compressed. And then her face changed. He could think of it only as a calmness, a look of peace and of rest. She nodded.

They bowed their heads.

"Lord God, please forgive me for what has been happening to me lately. I've been trying to hold on, but it's been getting away from me. It's like a big door shutting, real slow. It's half closed now, and nothing I can do to stop it moving. I don't know if You can help me, and I would appreciate it if You would, but this man here, Joseph Deets, he has been leading a mean and sorry life and he has just now started to feel Your presence, and he is scared. He is scared sick all the way through and he needs to find his way to You somehow. He's probably more than halfway through his life and it has all turned to ashes for him, and he is beginning to learn he has been the pawn of Satan, and his soul will roast in the roaring fires of hell forevermore. He thinks he can find his way to You through me, but he should have found somebody who's in closer touch lately than I am. I need You, but he's more needy than me, and if You can show him the way, I would surely appreciate it. Amen."

When he lifted his head and opened his eyes, the tears ran down his face.

"I... I just..."

"Hush now," Annalee said.

"Hush up." She handed him a tissue from her purse.

"Everything is okay."

"For you to do that means... so much."

"What did it cost me? Three minutes out of my life."

"Speaking of cost, I told you on the phone I'd pay the plane fare. Here."

"That's more than it was. Like twice more."

"Please take it. Buy something for Doreen. I promise on my word of honor that after we split up she'll be okay. I've got some other things to... to mend also. I don't know why the tears. It's not like me at all. I've felt so strange lately. I thought I had the world figured out. But it isn't the way I thought it was."

She put the money away.

"Thank you. If I helped, I'm glad.

But it's hard to believe I did. Funny, you being right in the middle of things up there, and being ordained and all, and never realizing God was watching you every minute, waiting for you to come around."

"I'll walk you over there."

"If you don't mind, I'd just as soon you wouldn't. Lots of people from down our way come up here a lot. It would just make me more nervous than I am already." She slid out and stood up and looked down at him.

"Good luck to you anyway.

I'm going to try not to think about you with hate anymore. I think I'm more like ashamed for you."

"So we both are. Okay. And thanks."

He watched her leave and watched her come by the window on her way out to the sidewalk. She had a sturdy and determined walk, just like her daughter, chin high, head and shoulders back. He blew his nose. It had worked. He had been in the light for a little longer this time. And he was going to have to learn how to make it happen by himself. And then his life would begin to have some kind of meaning that he could not even guess at. And he could not imagine what kind of man he was going to become. All he was sure of was that he would be nothing like the man who sat here.

He studied the bus schedule and decided he had time to walk to the bus station. But he would have to walk slowly, because of the heat.

Roy Owen phoned Peggy Moon from Hartford in the early afternoon of Friday, August twenty-sixth. She took it at the little office switchboard, leaning back in the battered old oak swivel chair, smiling with pleasure.

"How's it going?" he asked.

"Let me see. Thunderstorms this morning but they didn't last long. Cooled the air and now it's back where it was, unbearable. What else, let me see. Three rooms rented already. Lots of people coming down here with their kids before school starts again. Fred is prowling around, spraying for roaches. I've been catching up on the books. And I've been missing you something terrible."

"And I miss you, and the heat and the bug sounds."

"I almost forgot. Somebody shot at Moses and missed.

People think it was because somebody believes he was the one killed Lindy. The deputies are keeping an eye on him and on his place. What's with your kid?"

"Janie is okay. She's happy to have me back, I think. But it is a little hard to tell. She's playing the whole scene very mellow and laid back. I think she's being somebody on television, but I can't figure out who."

"Hug her a lot."

"I try, but she scuffles. Elbows and knees. She resists hugging like you wouldn't believe."