Part 3

Pocketful of Pearls
By Shelley Bates

(Page 3 of 3)

She pulled on a flannel work shirt with a quilted lining-the one she covered her dress with when she fed the chickens. It wasn't that she wanted to talk to the homeless man. He could be a prison escapee, or a burglar, or any one of the things that people became when God wasn't in control of their lives. But somehow she had the feeling he was too weak to burgle, and too malnourished to attack.

No, she just wanted to make sure he was no longer on the property. The last thing she needed was another man to deal with, with his needs and demands and authority laid over her like a suffocating blanket. She'd had twenty-four years of it, of being taught that women were created to serve God and others first and themselves last, and special women like herself were created to love. That didn't mean Dinah needed to take on the responsibility of another needy person. Her mother filled that department all on her own.

He wasn't in the yard. The gravel Dad had laid down last year crunched under her shoes. In the barn, the truck stood empty, too, though it would have made a comfortable place to sleep. What would they do with a practically new work truck now? It wasn't likely either she or her mother would be hauling firewood or feed or even the animal trailer, though they could if they had to.Maybe they could sell it. It might bring enough to pay for her tuition at the college.

College.A dream as far off as the Promised Land. At this rate it would take her forty years to get the rest of her two-year degree.

Sheba, her darling and the solitary joy of her life, murmured sleepily when she let herself into the part of the barn they used as a chicken coop. She caressed the hen's feathers, enough to comfort but not enough to wake her completely.

The truth was she didn't care where the vagrant was. Nobody would think to look for her here.

She settled onto the plastic lawn chair she kept near the roosts, and Sheba and the other chickens fluffed their feathers and went back to sleep. As far as they were concerned, she was one of them. She let the undemanding acceptance of the birds and their soft, reassuring murmurs calm her as she sat in the dark.

Until, behind the bales of hay, somebody snored. She leaped to her feet and snatched the flashlight from the niche near the door where she kept it. The snores didn't miss a beat as she played the narrow beam over the sleeping form of the vagrant on the other side, curled in the hay like a calf. He had moved into her space, the only place that was utterly hers on the whole planet.

Now what was she supposed to do?

Shake him awake and order him off the property? He might be dangerous if he were wakened suddenly, and no one knew she was out here. Not only that, they were two miles from town. There was nothing out here but the river and the mountains and the cold March wind. Their nearest neighbors were worldly people, unlikely to provide a haven for a homeless man.

Dinah realized with an uncomfortable start that the Traynells were just as unlikely to do so. It gave her pause. What did it say about God's chosen people that they would sooner brush this man off the back porch with a broom than give him a place to sleep? Because of the way he looked, she had automatically assumed he was reaping the fruit of a wicked life, and had judged him without thinking. What did it say about her that she had so little compassion, that she saw him as a problem to hide rather than a human being in need?

The poor man deserved his rest in a place that, thanks to a hideously expensive building contractor,was airtight and warm. She backed away as quietly as she could and got an old blanket out of the tack room no one used anymore. Gently, she shook it out and laid it on the thin form. Slipping out of the barn, she went around to the back, the side that faced Mount Ayres.

She'd come to a pretty pass when simple compassion became an act of rebellion. But she refused to send that man out into the night just because of the raised eyebrows of a flock of old crows. It was just a fact that the Elect looked inward in doing their charity, following the Shepherds' advice about keeping themselves separate from the world. In it but not of it. There were plenty of worldly churches to take care of worldly people, so God's chosen took care of their own.

Maybe this sleeping man was dangerous.Maybe he was a lazy, dishonest person whose own actions had brought him to this. But at least for tonight, his fate was up to her. Right or wrong, she could take control of something for once, could make a decision and act on it, and no one would be the wiser.

With that thought, she tucked her skirts between her aching knees, bent over, and stuck her finger down her throat. Soundlessly, neatly, she purged herself into the bucket that stood against the wall.

Copyright © 2005 by Shelley Bates

About the Author

Whether producing search warrants and making undercover phone calls as an admin for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or editing marketing material for the high-tech industry in Silicon Valley, Shelley Bates has found that everyone has a story. Most people have stopped telling her theirs in case she puts them in her books. Shelley holds an M.A. in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University in Pennsylvania. Grounds to Believe, her debut novel, won the 2005 RITA Award for Best Inspirational Novel of the Year from the Romance Writers of America. The sequel, Pocketful of Pearls, was a RITA Award finalist the following year. Between books, Shelley enjoys playing the piano and Celtic harp, making period costumes, and spoiling her flock of rescue chickens rotten.