Angels Stirring

by Tammy Huffman

About the Author: Tammy Huffman works as a reporter for a hometown newspaper. She has had three short stories and one poem published in the past year. Her family includes Jonas, Sharon Rose and Bella.

Excerpt

“Rev. Mort is in a ditch,” Vincent had his head stuck in the ice box. He was looking for elderberry jam. That man could never find anything. “He’s in a ditch on the bluff passed out drunk as a skunk on Bandelier moonshine. I’ll guaran-dang-tee-it.”

“Rev. Mort best be dead, paralyzed or in a coma, for his own sake,” Laurel said. She held a stone crock in the bend of her arm. She whipped pancake batter into a terrible froth. Then she slapped it into a frying pan. “If he’s going to miss baptizing Mary Rose it had best be because of some honest disaster. Like galloping pneumonia. Or a tree falling on his head. Or a busted leg from a horse kick. If I find out he’s passed out drunk, well—” Laurel’s lips set in a line solid as ruby-red granite.

Rev. Mort had promised to baptize the neighbor girl Mary Rose Bandelier this very Sunday after church at Hickory Grove Pond. It was all planned out. Laurel would fetch the girl and get her scrubbed up. (That Bandelier bunch wasn’t about to go near soap.)  She’d drive her to the church and then the baptism. She’d already fixed a fried chicken dinner for the picnic afterward, with mashed potatoes and gravy, corn on the cob, blackberry cobbler, and homemade ice cream. 

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