THE HAND OF GOD

PART NINE:

When she came back in, her arms loaded with the wood, he was still lying like that, his back to the room. Deliberately she dropped the wood on the floor so that it clattered. He didn't jump, didn't move, so she knew that not only had he not been sleeping, he'd been very aware of her coming in. With her foot, she pushed several scattered branches back into the loose pile.

"You going to hide behind that black jacket all day, Benjamin?" she asked, going to sit in the chair across the room.

He ignored her. "That dirty black jacket," she added, "with the mud all down its front?"
He remained turned toward the wall. "Not to mention that muddy shirt and muddy vest. Nor even the muddy pants."

With a little grunting sound, he rolled over, fixing her with one cocked eyebrow. "There's askin', LizzieBess, and then there's gettin'. You sure you want to get?"

She stared at him, puzzled, so he sat up and began to unbutton his vest, not taking his eyes off her. Then he unbuttoned his shirt so that he sat there with 3 layers open at the front, revealing the top of his white longjohns. With a twist of his torso, he shrugged out of all three at once, jacket, vest, and shirt, laying them across his lap.

"You want me outta my pants, LizzieBess, you gotta come and get me out."  One corner of his mouth curved up. "'Cause as much as certain parts of me want out, they just ain't comin' less'n you give a tug."  His mouth curved more. "On my cuffs, I mean."  Damn the woman. Why should he try and keep himself so in check when she kept talking about undressing him?

But she blushed quite scarlet and began to stammer, "I...I didn't...didn't mean...," stood and, heading blindly for the door, tripped over a wayward branch, falling hard to her knees. She stayed there, her hair hanging forward so he couldn't see her face, could only see that she was trembling.

"Jesus, Elizabeth!" he cried, swiveling to the side of the pallet. As soon as his right foot touched the floor, pain shot up his leg, but he rolled onto his knees, reaching out for her. He pushed at her hair, trying to see her face, but she turned her head away. "LizzieBess?"  He suddenly felt like he'd deliberately kicked a kitten. It was not a feeling he was used to experiencing with people. It rocked something in him and he was aware of his boot slipping off the edge of that high plank he always walked upon. He bit his lip, trying to regain his usual sense of balance.

She sat back, pulling her knees up, wrapping her arms around them, her hair still over her face. Like a damn turtle, he thought, never having had a woman behave like this in his presence before. His hand moved out to touch her skirt, but he pulled it back.

"You ain't been around men much, have you, LizzieBess?"

She moved her head without revealing her face. "Not like you," she murmured.

"No bastards, eh?" he said, trying for a bit of lightness.

She remained motionless for a long moment, then lifted her head, brushing her hair back. Her large dark eyes met his and he could see that she'd gathered up every bit of courage she had and sent it to her eyes so she could do that. He smiled slightly, admiring it.

"I'm a nun, Benjamin," she said simply.

His smile disappeared and he blinked, his mouth dropping open a bit. Not much in this world took him aback. This did. He rolled onto his hip, staring at her silently, running his fingers through his own hair that had come forward. He stared at her a long time, the tip of his tongue tracing around the outline of his open mouth. Then he stuck his lower jaw out a bit, shook his head, and muttered, "Well, I'll be damned!"

They remained seated, just staring across the small space of dirt floor between them, he adjusting to what she had just told him, she adjusting to the fact that she had told him when she'd not intended to.

Finally he wiped a palm across his chin. "It makes even less sense, then, Elizabeth, that you're out here like this."

"No," she said quietly, "that's why it makes sense."

"Nuns," he continued, "ain't they supposed to stay in convents?" He looked around the room. "Don't look much like a convent to me."

"It's not a convent, Benjamin." She paused, looked into the fire a moment. "It's a cave."

He moved his lips in and out a bit, keeping the tips of his teeth tightly together. "You a bear?"

"I thought you were the bear, a grizzly come down for a drink, remember?"

"What's a nun want with a cave? You hibernatin'?"

"I'm trying to find something I lost."

He cocked an eyebrow again, waiting, asking his question with his eyes.

"Myself," she whispered.

"How'd you done go and lose yourself, Elizabeth?"

She rested her forehead on her knees again. Silent.

"LizzieBess?"

She lifted her head. "In Maryland. I...."

"Tell me," he urged, his voice deep, very low.

"I...I'm not sure I can...."

"Somethin' bad happen out in Maryland?"

She nodded, mute.

"Elizabeth, I'm just travelin' through. You know that. I got nobody to pass anything on to even

if I was of a mind. Which I'm not."

"Father Confessor, are you?"

"Somethin' like that." He grinned slightly, amused by the concept.

Still she didn't continue, so he prodded. "Anybody know you're out here? Anybody know where you've got yourself to at all?"

"Father O'Brien," she nodded.

"He send you here?" 

"No, it was my idea."

"Here? A place like...this? Don't make sense." He stared at her intensely. "Why?"

"It was as alone as I could find."

"Pretty damn alone, that's for sure," he agreed. "Why'd you need alone so bad?"

"It seemed the best way to...."

"To?"

"Find me again."

"There you go, talkin' about yourself as if you was gone. Where'd you go, LizzieBess? Where could you possibly have gone that you'd think a place like this was the best place for you to come look?"  He was totally intrigued.

"It's a long story."

He smiled. "Ain't it always?"  He touched his own ankle. "I ain't goin' nowhere, LizzieBess."  Pressing down with his palms, he scootched back a bit so he could lean against the edge of the low bed.

"Fire's low," she said, getting up, taking the branch she'd tripped over and sticking it into the fading flames. She added a few more and remained standing, facing the fire, her back to him. 

He folded his hands on his lap, waiting. No woman, not even Velvet, had fascinated him quite like this one did. Velvet was special among her kind, the most special of any woman he'd come

to know in a saloon. Elizabeth here, though, she was different. Nothing like Velvet at all.  Those women came easy to him, all of them. A hand on a neck, a low voice near the hair, and they were his. Always. He was getting tired of easy, tired of usual. Lately he was tired of a lot of things. This last one he'd asked to go to Mexico with him. He told her later he hadn't meant it, but he had. At the moment he'd asked her, if she'd have said yes, he'd damn well have taken her. But she'd have bored him within the week. He knew that, too. When she said no, he'd pulled back, knowing she didn't have enough fiber in her being for more than an afternoon in the sack. What in hell was he looking for that he'd gone and asked her? He twiddled his thumbs slowly now, watching their movement. Change. That was it. He was looking for change.

His eyes moved to her back, long and straight under that god-awful jacket she had on. A nun, was she? That was about as different as you could get. He thought about Velvet again, comparing the two women. Velvet had killed four, maybe five, men in her time. Twice with a knife from her garter. Figure like an hour glass with enough female roundness on top threatening to bust out of her bodice that a man could never take his eyes off it. Deep voice
for a woman, throaty from too much smoke, too much whisky. Sharp as a tack, too. Knew how

to take a man for all he was worth. He could still hear her laugh, full and rich, still feel his hands on her hips as he followed her up the stairs. He liked her smarts, liked her guts, like the certain very female power that radiated from her. She was head and shoulders above any other woman like that he knew. Elizabeth here was a different category. He'd never really related to anyone like her before. Even the sea captain's daughter had been easy. This here in this room took a bit of working at. He liked that. He liked that she wasn't easy. Not in any way was she easy. He didn't like a woman who kept him waiting. Never had. But she stood there long minute after long minute, her back turned, silent, and he didn't mind the wait.

An ember crumbled, startling her. She jerked slightly, half-way turned. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"What you got to be sorry about, Liz...Elizabeth?"

She smiled wanly, her gaze turned inward. "A lot," she sighed. "Too much."

"How much?"  He wasn't going to let it drop.

"You don't want to know."

"If I didn't want to know, I'd tell you."

"Why, then, Benjamin? Why does it even matter to you?"

"It does. Leave it at that for now. Tell me about Maryland."

"Baltimore. I was born in Baltimore. My father was a financier who dealt with mostly shipping interests. He was a...busy...man. My mother, she was Irish.  When I was a girl, she read me everything available that Mother Seton had written."

"Mother Seton?"

"Elizabeth Ann Seton. I'm named Elizabeth Ann after her. She founded the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph's."

"Ah," he nodded, enlightened.

"Mother didn't think all that highly of marriage."  She looked away a moment. "I think she wanted to save me from it so she sent me to school in Emmitsburg. That's where Mother Seton's community went when they left Baltimore. Just 10 miles south of Gettysburg. It just seemed natural then that I should grow up and become part of the order."

Ben was listening intently. "This Mother Seton, did you know her, then?"

"She died back in '24, but she left so many writings I felt like I knew her. There was such a perfect sincerity about her faith and she just seemed always so all on fire with the love of God.

I wanted that. I wanted what she had."

"Did you get it?"

"Did I get it?" She closed her eyes tightly and he could see the flash of pain across her face.

"No, Benjamin," she whispered, opening them again. "Sometimes...sometimes it was just right there...almost...so close I thought I could reach out and lay hands on it. But when I tried to grab it, it was like water in my hands, slipping out between my fingers. But I stayed because...because I wanted it so."

"You stop wantin' it?"

"No, I never have."

"Then why are you not in Emmitsburg, Elizabeth Ann?"

She leaned forward, placing her left palm across her forehead then her right atop that and murmured something so softly he couldn't hear.

"What?"

"The baby, Benjamin. I left because of the baby."

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