Father Sullivan Series

By Sarah Rebecca Kelly

Shortly after the lively arrival of J.D. Trotter's team of rewriters; being of sound mind and good humor, who knew the score, they crawled out of their sleeping bags, shared the bathroom mirror, and promptly went job hunting. The woman at the employment office tried to set them up selling Avon door to door. But Shermintine turned up her nose at such an unlikely prospect.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sarah Rebecca Kelly
• Release date: Aug 29, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466187672

Sarah Rebecca Kelly

Award winning author, Sarah Rebecca Kelly, was born between old fashioned Kansas and the toughest part of Texas, in the Panhandle of Oklahoma. Her specialty is ‘no tears’ animal stories. She now lives in Arizona with her adorable husband, Jake, along with a loveable bunch of “mutts” and the smartest cats ever collected in one place. Sarah is known for her close relationship with Jesus and her children and many grandchildren revel in her special love.

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FATHER SULLIVAN

Book I, II, III

Published by Sarah Rebecca Kelly on Smashwords

Copyright © 2002 by Sarah Rebecca Kelly

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FATHER SULLIVAN

AND THE

EDUCATION OF LITTLE BEAR

Chapter I

It had been several weeks since the forest fire had destroyed Cedar Springs and cut an 80 year old retired priest off from the nearest community. Father Sullivan lived about two miles down a rutted trail from the main road that led several more miles to the ruins of that laid waste village. Its total population of at least 600 souls and all of the animals had been successfully evacuated. There were no recorded deaths or serious injuries. The road to recovery seemed to point south toward one of the larger cities. Nobody in his right mind wanted to rebuild a house that would look out on the blackness of a mountain called Old Smoky… at the skeleton tree stumps left behind by the blazing furnace. After the last of the Forest Service Fire Fighters had rumbled away two weeks ago, the priest begin to feel isolated, seated on the steps of the porch, gazing out at his own preserved Kentucky blue grass lawn. It was as though he was the last of the Mohicans, sheltered quite a ways from the ashes. Even St. Andrew's Catholic Church, where the priest there, an acquaintance of Sullivan's, had hugged each and every one of his beloved flock, at the close of the service, was a thing of the past. Now, full of regret, the old man wished he had made the effort to attend Mass more frequently. Nevertheless, age had simplified his Christian faith a little. The time was early afternoon about 3:30, his usual nap time, since he did his best work at night, but he was not in the mood to rest. He was out of sorts and lonely.

He tried to comfort himself by imagining the Holy Spirit, wearing an exquisite white gown with sandals on His feet. Sullivan's hearing was not all that good. So he failed to hear much of a rustling noise through the nearby woods. When he opened his eyes and put on his glasses to make sure, there stood a huge, black dog, with a baby crawling on the grass. The baby surprised Father Sullivan, but he expected someone-- anyone-- to come looking for them soon.

While they waited he invited both of his visitors to come inside. Without much thought, he picked up the baby. The dirty little thing acted happy. He was certainly glad it wasn't crying. As the unexpected situation was assessed, he realized that the infant demanded immediate attention; a bath worse, than it and the dog also, needed to be fed. In slow motion that took a couple of hours for Father to accomplish. Somehow he managed to perform both chores. The dog watched every move the old man made, showing the tip of her tongue, with an air of approval. Although, it was fairly clear she was withholding a lot of information. There was a certain look in those black, beady eyes. Father took a pair of scissors to a soft, flannel bed sheet and made some diapers the old fashioned way. He put one of his own white t-shirts on the baby for a night gown. To mention it had come as a mild shock for him to realize it was a little girl baby, probably no more than six months old, would have put it gently. She was in fairly good condition, except for the filth, well worn shoes and a few scratches, which meant she hadn't been out in the wilderness with the dog for very long. Before the stars of evening settled in, the dog and the baby fell fast asleep together on a thick pallet in front of the screen door. So when someone came looking for them they would be in plain sight.

June 18, 2007, seemed endless. Sullivan was too old to spend much time on his knees in prayer these long summer nights. Nevertheless, the dog had a calming effect on him, sprawled protectively close to the baby. He blessed his guests and thanked the Lord for all of his personal blessings: mostly the sturdy house, his computer letter writing ministry; and, the modern dishwasher, microwave oven, and the matched set washer and dryer, which made his daily life easy, simply because he didn't know what else to do; and, to praise God was his habit.

*****

A crazy thing had happened for him several years ago. While he had still been a practicing priest at St. Matthew's, in a hateful, mosquito bitten town in Texas, he had felt called upon to befriend a drunken, homeless woman who was among the most hated of all. On his regular visitation route, he would stop at Big Burger's and pick up a fast food package for her. Wilma Tusley especially liked chocolate milkshakes, almost as much as she liked her cheap, brown bag of wine. On a late October night, his usual bail her out of jail for disturbing the peace, which didn't take much; she showed him two scraps of paper. It took nearly a week to sober her up enough to slip her in ahead of the local news to cash in an over twenty million dollars lottery ticket.

At the bank she divided the financial transaction with him. That's when, at the age of 75, he made arrangements to retire. And at the age of 45, Wilma Tusley decided to go back to work. She flew far away from her present decay of circumstances to put the rotten past behind her. Then she opened up an abandoned pet rescue for homeless cats and dogs, called St. Mary's Lodge, in Los Angeles, on the beach. They kept still about their new found independence and still kept in touch with each other. Her latest letter was in his hand at the moment.

Dear Sully,

Thank you for your prayers. Yesterday we got a good home for that little mutt that I thought was too old to pass on. But I was so mistaken. An elderly gentleman made him pick of the litter. They are a match made in heaven. Love ya, lots, Willie.

There was more to the letter but that was the gist of it. Father Sullivan had already written to his favorite pen-pal about how frightening the Cedar Springs forest fire had been for miles around. He had even written to her about how guilty he felt that his property, as far as the eye could see, had been spared from any sign of destruction. Tonight he wrote about the two strays that were sleeping at his door.

Chapter 2

During the past week, there had been no other visitors, looking for the lost dog and her infant, nobody-- absolutely nobody-- not a sign of hide nor hair, except the unusual pair of first arrivals who had slipped up on him. By June 25th Father Sullivan was praying for a rainy day. June was the hottest month of the year. He desperately needed a cool, over cast day for a safe journey into the big city of Dansburg for supplies. He did not want to leave the kids, as he had begun to think of them, alone in a hot camper shell on the back of his pickup truck. The baby needed a more nourishing formula than oatmeal and evaporated can milk. Although neither the black, four legged nurse maid nor the hairless, bare bottom pup, found reason to complained about what was served to them. They both slurped like animals from their bowls. For the life of him, Sullivan couldn't keep a diaper on that kid. At the slightest scent of dampness the dog pulled it off. Surely such a noble, well trained care giver deserved the best in dog food. Every thought or plan of action led to a seesaw change of mind. For every positive there was a negative.

Thursday's plan was a perfect example: The old man would simply wait until his guests were sleeping late at night. Then he would sneak out the kitchen door, and make a speedy, fifty mile trip into an