"Doggoned eighteen-wheelers!" I swore and jerked the wheel of the truck to the right, then when it run off the road, back to the left, hard. Too hard. The old truck shot all the way across the road, bounced into and right back out of a ditch, then plowed through Miss Ida"s white wooden pasture fence. When it was over, the truck"s b.u.mper was resting against the corn silo.

I just sat and waited, cursing the eighteen-wheeler. He didn"t even stop. I heard noises after a while, and a Mossy Creek police car pulled up. Mutt Bottoms jumped out and ran to my open window.

"You hurt, Mr. Brady?"

"No." Hurt, I thought, hurt was a bullet that cut through your shoulder so quick that you didn"t know you"d been shot until the hole it left turned into fire that burned like the blaze from a fat lighter. But even that kind of hurt ain"t nowhere as bad as the kind that sucks up a man"s life force and makes him wait to die.

I focused on the skinny deputy wearing a police cap bigger than his head. "I"m not hurt, Mutt, but I reckon Miss Ida"s fence might need some fixing. I"ll take care of it. Just stand back and let me get outta here."

I tried to goose the old truck into moving. The wheels spun in the soft dirt. "Come on, buddy. You got me in here, now you get me out before Miss Ida comes with her shotgun."

"Mr. Brady," the deputy said, "I don"t think you"d better back the truck out. You know you"re not supposed to be driving. Chief Royden told you the last time you ran somebody off the road that you weren"t goin" to be allowed to drive anymore. He"s gonna take your license for sure."

It"s hard to take a person seriously when his name is Mutt. I had business in town, and his job was to help the citizens of Mossy Creek. "Son, the only person I run off the road is me, and I"m drivin" in a pasture. Ain"t n.o.body gonna keep me from havin" breakfast with Ellie like I do every morning. So you just get in front of this truck and help me shove it away from this silo."

We both pushed, but the truck refused to move. Half an hour later, a tow truck was hauling the old truck to the barn, and I was being hauled into the police station like a prisoner. Chief Royden took my license and gave me what my daddy would have called a dressing down.

"No more driving, Mr. Brady. I don"t want you to hurt yourself or anybody else."

I didn"t argue; it wouldn"t have done me any good. Amos Royden wasn"t much like his daddy, Battle, who woulda let me off and come over to take me fishin", later. "Your daddy is spinnin" in his grave, boy," I said. Amos just looked at me, and I felt kinda sorry for my words. But I didn"t take them back.

From the police station, I walked up Main Street and then onto North Bigelow, to the nursing home. Thank G.o.d, it was only a little ways. n.o.body saw me, but the whole town would know my problem soon enough. When I got to Magnolia Manor, I found Ellie lying in her bed staring at nothing. Like she did most of the time.

"Morning, pretty girl." I picked up her limp hand and leaned forward to kiss her forehead. Her face was turned away from me so that I couldn"t see the contorted expression that drew the corner of her mouth into a permanent frown, from her last stroke. But then I never saw what was, only what used to be-a smile that had warmed my heart for fifty years.

"Sorry I"m late, hon. Got held up at Miss Ida"s for a while. I"m glad you waited breakfast for me. Let"s see what we got."

She didn"t respond. I didn"t expect her to. It had been almost a year since she"d recognized me. But that didn"t matter. I knew who she was. She was my wife.

I turned away from her and uncovered the dishes on the breakfast tray. Everything was cold, thanks to my little side trip through Ida"s pasture.

The nurses" aides didn"t pay any attention to me as I carried Ellie"s tray back to their break room. Squinting at the numbers on a microwave, I punched the pad and waited while the food warmed. Operating a microwave was something I"d learned for Ellie"s sake, so she wouldn"t have to eat cold food. I didn"t have to see the numbers to do that. The numbers didn"t matter anyway. I just had to pay attention to how long it ran before I opened the door.

"Mr. Brady," one of the nurses" aides said, "you know you"re not supposed to be in here."

"Neither is Ellie," I said. "But she is."

Back in her room, I raised the bed so I could spoon food into her mouth. Some days, she swallowed obediently. Today, she didn"t. Only once did she move, and that was to look past me and into the hall. I thought at first she was looking for someone, but then I saw the blinking lights in the recreation room.

A Christmas tree. Ellie had always loved Christmas. She used to start cooking fruitcakes right after Thanksgiving. People at Mossy Creek Mt. Gilead Methodist said n.o.body could make divinity candy like Ellie. And n.o.body loved decorating more than she did. She"d get on the phone with Hattie Almond over in Yonder, and they"d plan their bows and wreaths and garlands. Then every year she"d send me out to cut down a tree. "The ugliest one you can find," she"d say. "We"ll make it beautiful for Christmas." And she would. At least me and Ellie thought the crooked, scrawny trees were special. Once, our boy came home for Christmas when he was in college, took one look at our tree and bought us an artificial one. Ellie smiled and let him put it up. She didn"t want to spoil his pleasure, for he"d meant well. But the minute he left, heading back to the big city and his fancy friends, she took it down.

"Don"t fret, Ed. He just doesn"t understand that love doesn"t need perfection. It makes its own." She rescued our pitiful little tree from the trash heap and put it back up. "Every living thing becomes beautiful when it"s loved."

A lump filled my throat. Remembering always made me feel as if I was watching me and Ellie like we used to be. I can still remember the way I felt then. I never was much with words, but I loved my Ellie, and she knew it. The blinking lights on the tree in the recreation room blurred, and I went light-headed with memories.

Love doesn"t need perfection. It makes its own. Ellie believed that. If she hadn"t, she wouldn"t"ve of married me. The bullet that brought me home from the war left me as damaged on the inside as she was now.

"You like the tree, Ellie? Wait, I"ll move it, so you can see it better."

Over the nurses" objections, I went into the other room, unplugged the artificial tree and moved it closer to the open door.

When I went back to Ellie"s room, I said, "Doesn"t look much like one of ours, Ellie. Too perfect." I leaned down and whispered in her ear, "Say, I"m thinking, I could bring you a little tree for your room. Your decorations are still in the hall closet. You just say the word, and I"ll go get the ugliest one I can find."

Ellie didn"t answer. She clamped her mouth shut when I tried to slip one more spoonful of grits between her lips. She didn"t want anymore of her breakfast, so I finished off her food like I usually do, then put the tray in the hall.

When I came back in the room, Ellie"s eyes were closed. There was no point in hanging around. Our day was finished.

I waved at the nurses and went out the door, then remembered that I had no way to get home. Even if I had my truck, I had no license. And Chief Royden would make good on his threat to lock me up if I got in my old truck, again.

I stood on the sidewalk, then headed back toward the square. I walked into the police station with my head high. It came to me that Amos Royden had caused this problem, not me. By George, he could fix it.

"I got to have my truck, Chief," I said. "Ain"t no other way. I can"t desert Ellie."

"Mr. Brady, you don"t know how sorry I am about this," the chief said. "I"m going to try to work out some transportation for you. But for now the only truck I want to see you in is the Mossy Creek volunteer fire truck bringing Santa Claus to the tree lighting in the square."

"Not this year. Don"t feel much like playing Santa anymore. Find somebody else."

"You know we can"t do that. You"ve been Santa for thirty years. By appointment of every mayor. It"s official. If you want to resign, you"ll have to take it up with Miss Ida."

I swore under my breath.

Chief Royden looked at me with a thought in his eyes. "I"ll tell you what, Mr. Brady. You play Santa, and I"ll guarantee that you get to the nursing home every day. But you"re not to drive that truck again. Do you understand?"

I nodded. But what he didn"t understand was that it wasn"t me that didn"t understand. It was him. I"d be at Ellie"s side in the morning for breakfast-one way or another, whether he guaranteed it, or not. I"d think of something.

The chief put a hand on my shoulder as if I was an old man who needed support. "Come on, Mr. Brady. I"ll give you a ride home."

Once I got home, I let Possum in. I usually just sit at the little table in the kitchen by the cook stove, but the kitchen was for remembering. This time, I sat down in the old leather chair in front of the fireplace. Didn"t take long for me to decide a body can"t think when it"s too cold. So I built a fire that night. I can always look into a fire and think up a solution to any problem. Fire talks to people that way. But for the first time in my life, an answer didn"t come.

Turns out I didn"t need one. Old Bart Smith came along the next morning, headed for Mossy Creek.

"Heard you were on foot, Ed."

"Yep. Back where I started as a boy-on foot. Well, that"s not exactly true. Back then, I had a mule."

"Get in," Bart said with a grin that showed the vacant s.p.a.ce where his front tooth used to be before he knocked it out chopping firewood.

"I remember that mule," he said as I climbed into the cab of his truck. "Remember the day you rode it up the front steps of the old high school, down the hall, and out the back door? Said you were through with school, joining the army to save the world."

"That"s what I thought."

"Your Pa thought different though, didn"t he? Sent you back to school the next day without the mule. As I remember, you spent the rest of the year on foot."

"I did. But you"ve given me an idea. Maybe I"ll just buy myself a mule. No law says you have to have a driver"s license to ride a mule."

"True," Bart agreed. "But the mules you get nowadays are a stubborn bunch. n.o.body rides them. You might start out for the nursing home and end up in North Carolinaor you might end up with your head broke before you even get outta the yard."

"Then I"ll just walk to town."

The next morning, I was reconsidering the mule when Adele Clearwater"s big blue Caddy came rumbling up the drive.

"You"re up early, Adele," I studied her suspiciously. "If you"ve come to talk me into going to some meeting over at the Baptist Church, I"ll tell you again. I"m a Presbyterian. Always been a Presbyterian, and I reckon I"ll go to my Maker that way."

Adele was scrawny but righteous. She pretty much meddled in everybody"s business, her and her Mossy Creek Ethics Society. She"d nearly sunk young Jayne Reynolds"s business last month, and I was still aggravated with her over that foolishness. She frowned at me. "Mr. Brady, I"ve got a back seat full of pies for the Christmas Festival, and I thought if you could help me deliver them to the church, I could drop you off at the nursing home while I"m setting up the booths. Then we could ride back together. I could really use the help. And I have an extra pie for you."

For Ellie, I"d ride with Adele. The possibility of being given a pie didn"t sway me, even if my mouth did water at the smell of apples and cinnamon.

On Tuesday, it was Jamie Green-my rural route postman-in my driveway at the crack of dawn. Jamie"s not called the postman anymore; now he"s a rural letter carrier. When I saw him, I put on my coat and went out on the front porch.

"Get in, Mr. Brady. I got a special delivery for Magnolia Manor. You can sit with Ellie, and I"ll pick you up when you"re done." He took a look at me, frowned and added, "Thought you might want to get your beard and your whiskers trimmed before the tree lighting ceremony."

"Don"t think so. Not sure I"m playing Santa Claus this year. Still thinkin" on it. But I"ll take you up on the ride."

My Wednesday driver was a surprise. Casey Blackshear was sitting in her specially outfitted van, honking her horn. "Mr. Brady, I"m on my way to the library with some kittens for story time. I wonder if you"d help me out."

I frowned. "Help you out, how? Unless you"re reading the Farmer"s Bulletin to those kids, I"m not likely to do you any good."

She laughed. The sound was musical, catching in the wind like bells, and for a minute, I thought I heard Ellie again, laughing like a girl. When Ellie laughed, even the birds listened.

"No, Mr. Brady. I can handle the reading. What I need help with is the basket of kittens in the back. I plan a theme every week, and today it"s stories about cats. The children love it when I bring animals-though I"m not sure the library staff is as enthusiastic."

The girl had a happy smile, and she never asked for an ounce of pity about her circ.u.mstances. When I saw an orange and white kitten climb across her shoulder, I decided she could use my help.

"Oh, all right," I said, and went "round to the other side. The kittens had escaped from their box and were having a town meeting in the middle of the van. Corralling them was about as easy as it had been convincing Ellie to marry me after the war. But I was determined, still am. And finally, they were boxed up, and we were ready for travel.

It wasn"t until we got to the library that I learned Casey had a real cat carrier in the back, hidden behind her wheelchair. Casey Blackshear was a smart one, all right. She"d come prepared to deal with an ornery old man.

"Next week, we"re reading Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer," she said.

"A basket of kittens is one thing," I said, "but I"m not rounding up reindeer back here."

She said she was just joking about the reindeer, but she"d pick me up bright and early.

I liked her.

Thursday brought Robert Walker, Miss Ida"s son, who didn"t even offer an excuse for his presence. "Ready to go, Mr. Brady? Mother said to take you to see Miss Ellie and bring you over to Hamilton"s when you"re done. We"ve just gotten in a new Santa suit. She had it custom-made for you."

"I like my old one fine," I grumbled. "Now look, a ride is one thing, but what makes your mama think she can just run my life?"

"Mr. Brady, that"s between you and my mother. By the way, she wants to know if you"ll look at one of the muscadine vines you sold her. She hasn"t taken it out of the pot yet. She left it at the store for you to see. She says it looks spindly, and her new farmhand pruned it by mistake. She"s not sure it"ll make it through the winter."

"Well, I guess I could take a look at it," I said.

By lunchtime, I left Hamilton"s Department Store with a new jacket, a pair of trousers and a shirt. Payment, Miss Ida said, for pruning services on her grape vines. But I refused to look twice at the new Santa outfit Robert pulled out of a clothing bag. When Ida Hamilton Walker sets her mind to something, she gets it done, and I wasn"t about to get caught up in her scheme or anybody else"s. I know how things are in Mossy Creek.

Neighbors helped neighbors. People meddled. Young folks set their sights on a certain intended, for example, and pretty soon half the town would be playing matchmaker. Not that me and Ellie had needed any help, way back then. Course, I wasn"t planning on marrying n.o.body. Farming was too hard a life. I wanted to see the world.

That was before Ellie"s folks came to live in Mossy Creek that summer. Before we met at the old swimming hole behind the Hamilton House Inn. Before Ellie took my hand and told me she"d wait for me to get back from the war.

When I got home a few years later, I took a long look at myself in the mirror and grimaced. I was rail-thin and looked like I"d aged more than my time. And I"d seen things I still couldn"t get out of my dreams at night. Ellie said she loved me no matter what, and I was not getting out of marrying her even if my hair did have an extra part in it, courtesy of a German sniper. In the end she won out. We married. I started to farm, and we were happier than I ever hoped to be. But that was then, and this was now.

And now she was in a nursing home, and I was reduced to depending on others to get me to town. I gave myself a strong talking to. I"d stop being so disagreeable. If folks were going to help me, I"d try to help myself, too.

I lit a big fire in the fireplace of the main room. Possum woofed like he couldn"t remember what heat felt like. While the flames were licking at the logs, I gathered up the dirty clothes-everything I owned-and put a load in Ellie"s Kenmore machine. Once I decided to do something to make myself easier on the eyes, it made me think I ought to do something about the mess around me. I wondered where all the boxes along the wall had come from and knew Ellie would have a fit if she could see how I"d let things stack up. She"d always prided herself on a clean house. Dragging the boxes into the spare room got them out of sight "til I could do better.

By the time the heat got to circulating, I"d put some order to the place. At least it looked as if somebody lived there. Then came a real shower in a bathroom warm enough so"s I could wash my hair and my beard without worrying about giving myself pneumonia.

Over the next week, people continued to show up in my yard every morning. Folks who "just happened" to be going to town and stopped by to give me a ride. I didn"t much like it, but I didn"t argue. Human nature being what it is, I knew sooner or later Miss Ida and the chief"s taxi service would end. In the meantime, I fed Ellie and talked to her about Christmas. She never responded. But from time to time, she"d look at the tree in the recreation room across the hall.

The morning finally came when I was ready to leave, and there was no one outside my door. With only four days before the great tree lighting, everyone was too busy to remember me. I"d known this would happen, but I"d hoped it wouldn"t happen until I figured out how I was going to get back and forth to the nursing home on my own. I"d have to drive.

Except, as if it had taken Chief Royden"s orders personally, the old truck refused to crank. Sitting there in the cab, I rubbed my chapped, aching hands together and studied the sky. Snow was coming. I could feel it in my swollen knuckles. The weatherman wasn"t forecasting it. But I knew. Snow always fell on Bigelow County, even if no other town in North Georgia got weather. Mossy Creekites loved it. Everybody pitched in and turned the square into a palace of snowmen where younguns had s...o...b..ll fights and made snow angels. The merchants down in Bigelow would complain that the snow interfered with business and the tourists they tried so hard to attract. But a white Christmas would be welcome in Mossy Creek.

Ellie always liked the snow, and though I grumbled, she knew I liked it, too. Except today. I was worried. Frustration had set in. The thing that had kept me going for the last year had been my breakfast with Ellie. Now it seemed that was about to stop, too.

Crawling out of the truck, I reached back for my work gloves. Neither police officers, trucks, nor the elements were going to stop me. When the chief first took my license, I"d toyed with walking up to the highway and hitching a ride. Today, by George, I would.

I put on my gloves, pulled the earflaps down from inside my winter cap and started around the end of the truck.

There was my answer, staring me in the face. The green John Deere tractor I had used to plow my fields. I hadn"t used it much in the last few years, but it was worth a try.

Minutes later, I"d fired up the old girl. We made it down the driveway and, finally, onto South Bigelow Road. I might not be able to drive my truck, but a farmer has always been able drive his tractor on the public road.

Some things ought not to ever change.

At the South Bigelow Bridge, I hit a patch of ice and went straight down the bank. Me and the tractor slid right into Mossy Creek. I woke up in a bed at the Mossy Creek Emergency Clinic wearing a skimpy hospital gown that left my hind-end bare. I said a few bad words about Dr. Champion. When I tried to move, I discovered how bad my right leg hurt. Gingerly, I twisted it and decided that being still was better.

On the other side of a curtain, I could hear Mutt Bottoms. "Chief, everybody in Mossy Creek knows that Mr. Brady is as blind as a bat. But this time it wasn"t his fault."

"Just like it wasn"t his fault that he took down Miss Ida"s fence and put a dent in her silo?"

"Ah, Chief, you have to understand. He wouldn"t"ve run into Miss Ida"s pasture if it hadn"t a-been for that eighteen-wheeler. Ought not to have been on South Bigelow going fast in the first place. Them big trucks just cause trouble."

"You got that right, Mutt," I growled, but somehow my voice wasn"t loud enough to attract anybody"s attention. If I hadn"t known I was talking, I wouldn"t have heard myself either.

"Mutt," the chief said patiently. Just the tone of his voice said he wasn"t going to listen to any excuses. "I"ve got a John Deere tractor in the creek and Ed Brady on the other side of that part.i.tion waiting to get a broken leg set." The chief hesitated. "And I"ve got the governor in Dwight Truman"s office at the chamber, threatening to raise h.e.l.l if I don"t drop charges against his driver."

"I feel like it was my fault, Chief. I was supposed to pick Mr. Brady up and bring him into town, but I got hung up by a wreck out on Trailhead. Then, on the way out to Ed"s place, I met him driving that tractor up the road as big as you please. He was almost to town, not going more than ten miles an hour. I turned my patrol car around and fell in behind him, figured I"d follow him the rest of the way. Then the governor"s big black Lincoln came up behind us, with the driver honking his horn like he was an ambulance on an emergency. He didn"t have to do that! Mr. Brady was just crossing the South Bigelow Bridge, and that Lincoln could have waited another minute. The governor"s driver zoomed around me and crowded up beside Mr. Brady"s tractor just as Mr. Brady was heading onto the bridge. You know how old and narrow the South Bigelow Bridge is. Mr. Brady got rattled, I think, and swung out too far-just trying not to get sideswiped. The next thing I knew, him and his tractor were down in the creek." Mutt snorted. "If you ask me, Chief, ought to have been the governor and his driver in the creek, not Mr. Brady."

"h.e.l.lo, boys." I heard Miss Ida"s voice. She sounded mad.

"You"ve been over to the chamber office to see the governor?" the chief asked.

"Oh, yes. I dropped in unannounced. I took Sue Ora Salter and her camera along with me." I could almost hear the sly smile in Miss Ida"s voice. "Sue Ora snapped a few shots of Ham shaking his fist at everybody. That quieted him down. She told him she"s picturing a headline that says, Governor"s Speeding Limousine Injures Elderly Farmer. Along with a lovely article describing how he was rushing to a meeting with Dwight. And why? Because our own Dwight Truman has agreed to serve as one of Ham"s key political organizers in this part of the mountains. The traitor."