Too bad Indian Abel did not know Taylor Bowers, Noah thought. If Taylor had handled the business end of things, Indian Abel might have become a Cherokee chief worth writing about in history books.

The thought made Noah smile the smile that did not show.

“Tell you what,” Taylor said as they neared Bowerstown Road, “why don’t we drive on down to Hiawassee and get us something to eat? Treat’s on me, since I got some extra money to burn. There’s a little café down there that sets a good table. Got the best meat loaf I ever had.”

“Maybe another time,” Noah told him. “I guess I better not get caught in the rain.”

Taylor craned his neck to study the clouds. “You probably right,” he said. “I left some windows open at my house, and I’m in too good a mood to do any mopping, but I owe you a supper and I won’t forget it. Peavo and Moody’s always aggravating me over one thing or the other. This time, I got the best of them, and you were the one that did it.” He laughed suddenly, happily, slapped at the steering wheel of the car with the palm of his hand.

“Lord, I feel good,” he chirped.

The rain lashed against the house, thrown by a hard-blowing wind, causing an uneven drumming sound over the shingled roof. It caught in the mesh of the screen wire covering the windows and the mist that blew through the wire trickled in thin, wriggling rivulets down the glass, leaving the impression of slender, wet statues that had come to life and were trying to dance themselves free of the sticky surface of the panes.

To Eleanor, seeing water dancers on the windowpanes was the same as seeing faces in clouds, or in the grainy patterns of wood. As a child, she had tried to point out the figures to her sisters and to her parents, but they had not been able to see what she could see, and it had become a gentle, laughing ceremony in her family. At each rain, someone would go to a window and say, “Look, I see …” And they would say they could see Santa Claus or an elf or the Lone Ranger or someone they all knew from school or church or the community.

Eleanor’s faces, they had called them.

Her grandfather had seen the faces, though. One face, at least. Her grandfather had said he could see the face of Jesus. Three days before he died, during the last rain that would fall in his life, he had sent for Eleanor and he had pointed to the window and had said to her in a voice of joy, “Look, honey, there’s Jesus.” The smile on his face had been peaceful. “Jesus, coming for me,” he had added.

And maybe what her grandfather had said was true. Maybe he had seen Jesus.

If Jesus could show himself in clouds, he could surely show himself in rivulets of rain.