III
Jasper watched them drive away.
Tanner had promised to return in an hour or so, but Jasper had urged them to take their time. He might be hobbled and a little beat-up, but he’d long since learned how to take care of himself. And frankly, a little privacy would be nice after the last few days.
It had been good to see Mitch again. Casey, too, though he had the sense that she could be a handful when she chose to be. While Mitch had been enthusing about a friend’s birthday party he’d be attending later ( Laser tag! And go-karts! ), she’d been peeking out the window at her mom and Tanner while trying to pretend she wasn’t spying. He’d acted like he didn’t notice, particularly since he wasn’t above doing a little observing himself. The awkward way they’d interacted in the hospital and at the cabin on Thursday had made it painfully obvious that they were crazy about each other. They just needed a gentle push to finally act on it. He shook his head, thinking, Young people make things so complicated…
Alone at last in the cabin, he put on his reading glasses and opened the old Bible, just as he had earlier that morning. He’d had Tanner retrieve it from the box in the work shed, and he thumbed the pages, recalling that Job was the first of the Poetic Books, right before Psalms.
It was a story that had confused him when he was younger; later, it struck too close to home for Jasper to want to revisit. In the Christian version of the story, after all, God marvels to the Devil about Job’s faith; the Devil counters that Job is only pious because God has blessed him with wealth, health, and a wonderful family. To prove the integrity of Job’s faith, God gives the Devil permission to take it all away. Job loses his crops and flocks, his family is killed, and then Job is afflicted with boils all over his body.
However, as Jasper reread the story, he realized he’d forgotten about the ending. He stared out the window to contemplate it, then startled. Sitting up straight, he whipped off his reading glasses and peered even closer.
“I’ll be darned,” he said out loud.
There, at the edge of his property where it bordered the Uwharrie, stood the white deer.
From a distance, it resembled a creature of the spirit world, so white it appeared to glow. Jasper blinked once, then blinked again, making sure he wasn’t imagining it. He came to me, he thought. He’s really here. He watched, spellbound, as the deer casually turned his head, first in one direction, then the other. The deer, he marveled, was a majestic specimen, a mature buck with heavily muscled haunches and large, symmetrical antlers. Even from a distance, Jasper could sense his intelligence, which had no doubt kept him alive in a world filled with people who wanted nothing more than to kill him, simply because he was beautiful.
Jasper watched as one of the buck’s ears twitched; a moment later, he ambled onto Jasper’s property. His movements were graceful and unrushed, and he finally stopped when he reached the gravesite under the tree. The white deer turned to stare in Jasper’s direction.
Jasper felt his throat tighten as he felt the weight of the family he’d lost, and the joy of the family he’d recently found. If he were counting miracles, the appearance of the white deer was the second one in a week, and he was seized with the sudden certainty that the white deer had presaged Tanner’s arrival. And God, he suddenly understood then, had never abandoned him. God brought Tanner into his life, blessing him just as He’d blessed Job with a new family, after so much had been lost. As he pondered that revelation, the deer snorted before turning and walking away, eventually vanishing into the Uwharrie as though it had never been there at all.
Jasper’s eyes welled with tears. He let them come, feeling a sense of peace he hadn’t known in decades. When the tears finally stopped, he bowed his head to offer the most powerful prayer that he knew.
“Thank you, God,” he whispered. “Thank you.”