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Turtle came flying up the road, dust billowing out of the tire wells, reminding us again of the drought that never seemed to end. It hadn’t rained in six weeks and everything, save Danni’s garden (which is watered from a spring that runs along our property), was drooping, seeking some kind of moisture from the heavens. He stopped the truck and Joshua, our youngest, ran from the volleyball game and jumped in Turtle’s arms. Joshua is eight, full of himself and one of those folks who never meets a stranger. I’ve always said that when he grows up, he’ll either be an actor, a politician or a preacher – all three require the same skills – and Joshua has them in spades. Turtle thinks Joshua hung the moon. Joshua thinks Turtle’s the only adult that he’s met that hasn’t grown up yet. I agree.

When they got to the bottom of the porch steps, Turtle set Joshua down on the ground and told him to run along and play; that he had some talking to do with Danni and me. Josh wasn’t thrilled about this, but Danni shushed him and sent him back with the other two kids.

“Evenin’ Danni”, Turtle said as he climbed the three steps up. “Hot day isn’t it.” It was more statement than question.

“Yes. I certainly hope that we get rain soon. Everything is drying up and dying”, Danni replied. “Can I get you something to drink, Eugene?”

“Yes ma’am. I’d love to have some of your ice tea if you got some and if it wouldn’t be too much trouble,” Turtle asked.

“Of course, Eugene, have a seat here with Jack. I’ll be back in a minute”, Danni said as she stood up, sweeping the remains of bean strings from her lap. She went into the house and Turtle sat down in the rocker on the other side of me.

“Jack, I got somethin’ to tell you and Danni, and I don’t exactly know how to do it. So when she comes back out, I’m just gonna dump it on you”, Turtle was always so eloquent.

I didn’t press him, though my curiosity was certainly up, and we watched the kids and talked about how big they were getting until Danni came back out with a tall glass of iced tea for Turtle and two tea cake cookies. Nothing for me – Danni’s got me on a diet and the only sweets I get is when I sneak off to the store. Of course, you’ve got to be careful even then, because the clerk at the store will rat you out and Danni will hear about my sneaking off before I get back home. I’m 45 years old and sometimes I still feel like a kid, having to sneak away and worry about getting caught. No wonder men in middle age go crazy.

“Danni, Turtle’s got something to tell us” I said, hoping against hope that he hadn’t gone and fallen in love again.

“Danni, Jack, I have decided to change my ways and give up cussin’ and hell-raisin’ and loafin’!”

“Eugene, I think that’s wonderful!” Danni exclaimed, wonder and joy in her voice. “And what brought all this about?” Danni’s been trying to convert Turtle every since we moved back to Rosemary from Atlanta in 1980. I’ve told her to leave him alone, but once she gets her mind set, the best thing to do is to just get out of the way.

“Well, you know that new preacher down at Rosemary Baptist?”

“Yes, we know him, Turtle. That’s where we go to church”, I answered.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot. Well, me and him went fishin’ ta other day”.

“You what?”, I asked, thoroughly puzzled. I myself had asked our new preacher, well not exactly new, but six months is still new in Rosemary, if he wanted to go fishing. He had told me that he would like to, but he had to spend his time fishing for men, not fishes. I had put him down as one of your typical too-full-of-themselves preachers and had let it go.

“Yeah, I was down at the feed store ‘bout three weeks ago. In came Preacher Hardy. Everybody hushed and just kind of watched him. Then he walked up to me, stuck out his hand and said ‘You are Eugene Wallace. I’m John Hardy and I want you to take me fishing’. Well you could’a heard a pin drop. I didn’t know who he knew who I was – we’d never been interduced. And of course, I couldn’t say no, not there in front of those idjuts in the feed store. So I told him ‘Sure, Preacher! When you wanna go?’ And he said ‘How about tomorrow morning?’ So I took him.”

“Where’d you go, Turtle?,” I asked, still puzzled about the preacher’s duplicity and the entire scene at the feed store.

“Well, I picked him up at 4:30 – you ever known a preacher to get outta bed at 4:30 in the mornin’?” Turtle replied, not stopping long enough for me or Danni to answer. “So I pull up in the driveway at the parsonage and he’s standin’ in the driveway, rod and bag in hand and dressed in overhauls!”

“You sure you’re talkin’ about the same Preacher John Hardy that preaches at the Baptist Church?”, I asked. Hardy had been, for the six months we’d known him, almost too formal and reserved. More than a few of the members of the Rosemary Baptist Church wondered if he wouldn’t be more comfortable as an Episcopalian, one of God’s truly frozen people.

“Yep, in overhauls! So he climbs in my old pickup truck and we drive the three hours it takes to get us over the mountains and up on the Tuck. The whole way he don’t say twenty words. I figure he’s sleepin’, but ever time I look over at him, he’s lookin’ out the winder. I’m thinkin’ that this man’s weird. He don’t ask for nothin’ – just sits there sippin’ coffee from a thermos he brought himself. And when we get to Dillsboro, he buys breakfast for the both of us. When’s the last time you seen a preacher pay for anything?”

The story was getting in the surreal stages now. I was going to have to get to know this Preacher Hardy a whole lot better.

“Well we get on the river about nine. Preacher’s gotta get his license and I gotta get more smokes. We park up at Bill Purdey’s place and I ask the preacher if he wants to fish together or if he wants to fish alone. He say’s it’s okay if we split up. So I leave him, only I don’t really leave him, I walk downstream a bit and sit and watch him, where’s he can’t see me. First, I watch him rig up his rod – one of those new plastic things, not my style, but you can tell it’s a good ‘un. I’m too far away to tell what kind of fly he was fishin’, just then. Later he told me it was some soft hackle thing he’d tied himself. Man, that guy can cast and mend. His first two or three casts looked like it’d been awhile since he threw a rod, but then he caught his rhythm and he was tossin’ line like Clinton tossin’ lies. I watched him catch three, all good ‘uns, and then I said to myself ‘Shoot, he’s gonna be okay’, and I went on and fished myself”.

“That’s great Eugene”, Danni said, both of us waiting for the story to continue.

“So, at lunch time, I went back upstream and we met at Jones’ ford. We ate and then I kind of leaned back like I like to and meant to take a nap. But the preacher looked at me and asked ‘Eugene, do you have any corn with you?’ Now, I figured, the truth had finally come out – the preacher was a corn slinger. So I told him no and that I didn’t appreciate him insultin’ me like that. He just laughed and said ‘No, No, Eugene….I don’t mean that kind of corn! I mean the kind you drink!’ Man, you coulda picked me up and mopped the ground with me. I didn’t know how to answer him! If I said “Yeah”, he’d probably preach me a sermon. If I said “No”, I’d be a liar and I ain’t told a lie, except to my ex-wives, in a long time. So I decided to tell him the truth and I reached into my backpack and pulled out a bottle of that stuff that the McIntyres make up in Loudon County.”

“You didn’t! Eugene Wallace! What were you thinking?!?!”, Danni demanded. I was too taken aback to say anything.

“I know, but I ain’t no liar, least not to anybody I ain’t married to. So I pull out the bottle, the preacher takes it, shakes it, looks for bubbles, and then takes a long snort. I was ready for the Judgment Day, I tell you. Then he tells me that while he don’t condone drinkin’ to excess, he does believe a little bit ever now and then is good for the soul. I ain’t never in my life heard no Baptist preacher say such about whiskey. Now them Primitives drink wine, but they don’t mess with no whiskey!”

“Turtle, you’re kidding aren’t you?”, I asked, barely recovered from the shock.

“No I ain’t kiddin’! The man drank McIntyre’s mash like it was spring water! Then he asked me why I didn’t go to church.”

“So what’d you tell him,” Danni asked.

“I told him I ain’t never had much use for preachers. I told him that I know my Bible pretty well and there ain’t nowhere in there where it says I gotta go to church. Well, he told me that I was right, but that he’d certainly consider it a personal favor if I’d go to his church. So I told him I’d go. Then he said he wanted to fish some more. I sat there and watched him toss Light Cahills and he handled the cross-currents down there next to the football hole like nobody I ever saw, including you, Jack. He caught more fish in that hole than I ever have. Then at two, he asked if we could go back home. I said sure and we loaded up and started back. He even offered to buy gas!”

“You don’t say!”

“I do say. On the way back, he asked a bunch of questions. And when we got to the top of the gap at Standin’ Indian, I stopped the truck and we talked for two hours about how I’d missed the mark and how I wanted to do better. So tomorrow afternoon, the preacher has agreed to baptize me down at the Creek Place. Told him I didn’t want no dunkin’ in no swimmin’ pool or church baptistry, but that I wanted it to be in a stream where trout live. Figured if I was gonna die to earthly things, it ought to be in cold water. He agreed.”

“So you’re really going to do this thing?”, I asked, unsure of the whole story I'd heard, happy for Turtle in a way, but puzzled by it all: a preacher who drinks and fishes and wears overalls and who pays his own way. Will wonders never cease?

“Jack, shut up!”, Danni fussed. “Eugene, I think this is wonderful! We will be there!”

“Oh yeah, I wouldn’t miss it for the world” I said, then winced when Danni elbowed me.

(to be continued)