Fallen Angels by Patricia Hickman

single mouse in a cornfield. The girls added almost no weight to the load. Jeb glanced at the family picnic again. Down on the bank, a hound bayed and loped after a rabbit while the sky cooled behind a cloud two hours past noon. He flicked the mule's ear, which caused the beast in torn to stamp, shake the harness, and then move ahead.
    “I think the best thing for Sunday is Moses,” said Angel.
    Jeb grunted, “What do you mean?”
    “He's this guy that did a lot with nothing. That's what we're trying to do with you.”
    “You'd look pretty floating under the bridge with pennies on your eyes.”
    “Well, actually, think of Moses floating along the water in a little basket. That ain't the worst way to start with him.” Angel flipped back and forth between the pages of Evelene's Bible.
    “He was dead with pennies on his eyes?” Jeb asked.
    “You have to start listening. First, he was a baby floating down the river some place; I don't know where but I'll look it up. This is tiresome. I'll bet my granny is watching me over a cloud and laughing.”
    “You give her good reason.”
    “She always wanted me to know the Bible stories, now here I am teaching them to you,” said Angel.
    “Kind of like the blind leading the blind, you mean?” said Jeb.
    Angel told him, “So first Moses was a baby in the bushes.”
    “I thought he was in the water.”
    “The bushes in the water. Jeb, you ever been serious with a girl?” Angel asked.
    “I don't discuss my personal business with children. It sounds like you got the whole Moses story confused and can't get back on track, is what I'm hearing.”
    Angel dropped her shoulders back and clasped her hands atop the Scriptures. “I don't want to know nothing personal. Just if you ever got serious with a girl.”
    “I never said the word ‘marriage.’ “ Jeb could not quite decipher her language, but he had found all females possessed a code he could never break. Angel was just another in a long line of them.
    “Was she an older person?” Angel slid one hand under the Bible and closed it altogether.
    “Older than me?” asked Jeb.
    Willie lifted from his perch beneath the wagon seat. ”She means older than her. Don't you get it at all, Jeb?”
    “Shut up, stupid! You stay out of my business,” said Angel.
    “You know how you got names for different people, Jeb. Like you call Ida May ‘Littlest’ and stuff like that?” Willie stood and insinuated himself between Angel and Jeb.
    Jeb nodded.
    “Angel has a name for you, too. She give it to you back in Camden.”
    “Never mind,” said Jeb.
    “I said, shut up, Willie!” Angel turned away, her skirts rustling softly, her cheeks bright like persimmons in the fall.
    “Willie, go find your seat again,” said Jeb.
    “Sweet Eyes,” said Willie. He turned, satisfied at having saved the tidbit of gossip for just the perfect moment, delivering it like a sucker punch.
    Jeb prodded the mule that had slowed. “That's not so critical,” he said. “Kind of has a ring to it.”
    Angel's right hand came up and covered the left side of her face. She remained in that position all the way back to the Church in the Dell parsonage.
    Jeb reined the mule to a halt, allowed a Model-T to pass, and was about to turn into the lane that led to the parsonage when he saw the deputy sheriff's vehicle through the trees.
    “It's the cops, Jeb! You think they're coming after you, that they know who you are?” Willie asked.
    “I'm not sticking around long enough to find out.” Jeb pulled back on the reins. The mule made a backwards step.
    “Looky, it's that nice Mr. Honeyman,” said Ida May.
    “Maybe they just bringing the cops around to help you find your truck, Jeb,” said Angel. “Reckon?”
    Honeysack moved between two pine trees, stooped down, and shaded his brow with one hand. He pointed and the deputy turned around and acknowledged he saw Jeb, too.
    “You're not going to get away whipping this old mule,” said Angel. “May as