by Judith Pella
“I’d rather be lost, Ben, than steeped in the sanctimonious mire you are in.”
Benjamin opened his mouth in angry retort, then suddenly realized he himself was close to falling into sin with an anger he knew was only partly righteous. He choked back the words he’d been about to utter and slowly turned and left the horse enclosure. Before he got far, he turned back.
“You are welcome to bide the night here, Haden, then I think it would be best if you left.”
“I’ll not bide even the night where I am not truly welcome.” Haden picked up the bridle and slipped it back on the chestnut. “Tell the children and Rebekah . . . tell them whatever pleases you.”
Benjamin felt the sudden weight of his guilt. Haden was a sinner and a heathen, but though Benjamin didn’t like to admit it, his brother was a decent man. And once he had been Benjamin’s best friend. That friendship had been Benjamin’s most difficult sacrifice for his faith.
“Haden . . .” The words came hard, but Benjamin knew they had to be said. “I misspoke. I am sorry.”
“Guess we both got a little hot under the collar.” Haden dropped his hand from the bridle.
“I’d be pleased if you stayed on a bit.”
CHAPTER
21
THE PEACE BETWEEN THE TWO brothers held for three days. Benjamin was certain it was only because he made a concerted effort to be tolerant. But it all finally collapsed when Haden interfered in a matter regarding Benjamin’s parenting.
Micah was totally taken with his uncle. He dogged his every step, clung to his every word. It was the kind of unabashed admiration any father would have had a right to envy, but Benjamin told himself his subsequent actions had nothing to do with that.
They were hauling logs to finish the stable for the horses. By their good fortune, the previous occupant apparently had intended to complete the same task or perhaps to make an addition to the cabin. As a result, there was a good supply of logs cut, stripped, and ready for the job. They just needed to be brought up to the building site. It was hard work, especially for the now thirteen-year-old boy, but he proved a great help. Haden praised him frequently. Benjamin took his brother to task a couple of times for spoiling the boy. Micah was doing what was expected of him, and it would make him lazy if he thought he deserved praise each time he did a job. Haden disagreed.
But that was not the problem that finally split the brothers, though it was no doubt a catalyst.
On the third day of their labors, they had worked all day building the fourth wall to the stable, taking time out only for dinner and a few water breaks. Around three in the afternoon, all the logs were in place, thanks in large part to Haden’s experience in building log structures and his valuable suggestions for the tricky process of attaching the new logs to the ones already there. The cracks needed to be grouted, the door opening cut out, and the door built. Benjamin was eager to continue. It was October, and he could feel winter pressing upon them. He thought they could get the door built before dark. It was a simple square structure and would not need to be as sound as a cabin door.
Wiping an arm over his sweaty brow, Haden offered another suggestion. “Let’s quit for the day and take a swim in the creek. I’m about all in anyway.”
“Yeah!” Micah agreed heartily.
“Time is slipping away,” Benjamin countered. “It looks like another rain will come soon. I would like to see the horses properly sheltered.”
“We’ll get an early start in the morning,” Haden said.
“There’s at least three or four more hours of daylight.”
“Benjamin, you are a slave driver.” Haden spoke only partly in jest. “We been working our tails off for two days, and by golly, I’m gonna have myself a swim.”
“I’ve asked you before not to curse, Haden.” Benjamin spoke through clenched teeth.
“ ‘By golly’ isn’t cursing. Quit being such a stickler!”
“That’s a destructive philosophy. If I allow a small evil to take root, it will only breed more until I can no longer discern between right and wrong.”
“You mean evils like this?” Haden then let forth with a stream of such ripe curses it made Benjamin redden with shock.
“I have been as patient with you as any would expect a man to be.” Benjamin stared hard at Haden, all the more so to cover his embarrassment.
“I don’t give a hang about you, Ben. I’m going for a swim.”
“Me too!” piped in Micah, whom Benjamin had nearly forgotten about.
“You will stay and finish working,” Benjamin shot at his son. The minute the words were out, Benjamin knew a line had been drawn, a challenge declared.
“Don’t punish the boy because of me,” Haden said.
“I am not. There is still work to be done, and Micah has learned to finish what he starts.”
“But, Papa, please let me go swimming with Uncle Haden.” Micah’s tone was respectful, imploring.
“You will do as I say.” Benjamin’s tone was as unbending as iron.
“Come on, Micah, let’s go.” Haden’s tone was a dare and a temptation. Benjamin thought Satan must have sounded like that in the Garden of Eden.
Poor Micah looked between the two men—the one he adored and the one he feared. Benjamin knew which man he was, and he knew that a single word of permission from him might have changed everything. But teaching discipline was more important than being liked or adored. Micah would thank him for it one day when he was a man.
“Micah, come here and help me with this log.” Benjamin met the eyes of both his son and his brother with a steady gaze. It had become more than merely a case of teaching discipline. Now it was a matter of obedience.
“I’m gonna go swimming.” Micah defied his father, then glanced at Haden for approbation. When Haden nodded, the boy raced off into the woods.
Benjamin started forward, but he was blocked by Haden’s imposing figure, which was as tall as his own and as broad, with the added edge of years of the toughened life of an adventurer.
Benjamin’s hands, clenched into fists at his sides, were shaking. He could barely speak for the fury coursing through him. “You’ve gone too far, Haden,” he seethed.
“No, Ben, you have gone too far. Your religion has made you into a tyrant. You’ve become the image of our father!” It was clear his words were not meant as a compliment. He continued. “Your boy fears you, your wife despises you, your poor little girl doesn’t know what to think of her papa. God only knows what will become of the baby and the one on the way.”
“Don’t you dare tell me how to run my family!” Benjamin’s voice shook in time with his hands. “You are a selfish, miserable, godless wretch!”
“And you are a selfish, miserable, godly wretch!”
“I should have made you go that first night,” Benjamin fumed. “Micah would never have defied me so if he hadn’t believed you would back him up. At any rate, I will correct that mistake now. Get out, Haden! Don’t bother coming back.”
Haden was gone within an hour. Benjamin did not watch him go but rather went to the clearing in the woods that had come to be his private place of prayer. Only he didn’t pray. He just sat on the stump and seethed in his anger. He imagined Rebekah and Micah and Isabel were shedding many tears over the departure of Haden. For himself, he would shed no tears, and he staunchly ignored the ache in his heart. In the most secret part of his being, he adored his brother, too. But he knew that emotion must be displeasing to God.
Shortly after he heard Haden’s horse ride off, Benjamin left his place of retreat—or hiding?—and set out to deal with the problem Haden had caused.
Micah was in the cabin. His hair was wet. He had been swimming.
“Come with me, Micah,” Benjamin ordered as he took the rawhide strap from the hook.
With head tucked low between his shoulders, Micah followed. He well knew the purpose of the strap, for he’d felt its sting many times. Several paces behind the cabin, Benjamin stopped and told Mic
ah to lower his trousers and bend over a large rock there.
“Do you know why you are being punished?” Benjamin gripped the strap, dreading what he must do.
“ ’Cause I went swimming,” Micah replied. Was there yet a hint of defiance in his tone?
“I think you know better than that, boy.” Benjamin’s knuckles whitened. “Recite Proverbs one, verses seven to ten.”
“I don’t remember it.”
“You remember it.” He required Micah to quote the verses every time he was disciplined.
With trembling voice, Micah began, “ ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction. My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck. My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.’ ” The boy paused, then twisted his head around so as to see his father. “But Papa, Haden is my uncle. He’s not a sinner.”
“You know better, boy. He is Satan disguised as an angel of light, bent on enticing the innocent into destruction. Be grateful you have a father who cares enough to set you back upon the path of righteousness.” Benjamin raised the strap.
The first strike was paltry indeed, and Benjamin told himself he must not care about Micah as much as he thought. His love for his son was best expressed in the passion of his discipline. Thus, he felt he proved himself when the next blow made a red welt on Micah’s skin. After ten such blows, the boy’s bottom was a mass of red stripes. He would have difficulty sitting for some time. Through it all, Micah did not cry. When it was over, he rose stoically and stood straight, though a bit shakily, until Benjamin excused him. Benjamin could see a hard glint in the boy’s eyes, a glint that little resembled repentance. Not knowing what else to do, Benjamin let him go.
Benjamin returned to his place of prayer, fell on his knees, and prayed for his brother and his son. His heart ached for them as he cried out to God to spare them eternal oblivion. Why couldn’t they see they were wrong and their rebellion destructive? He prayed that their eyes be opened, so they could see the light of Jesus and have the kind of relationship with God that Benjamin himself enjoyed.
PART THREE
MARCH 1835
CHAPTER
22
LIZ WISHED SHE WOULD HAVE attended church more when she’d had the opportunity. She had never attended when she was a girl growing up with her father, and since the Hearnes only went for appearance’s sake at election time, she had not been expected to do otherwise. During the time of her marriage she had been able to find many acceptable excuses for staying away.
Now because of who she was and what she did, she would not have been received in any church. She had to satisfy herself with getting away from Maurice’s cabin to a little hideaway among the rocks and brush about a quarter of a mile away. With Mae and the other girls watching Hannah, Liz was able to steal only about an hour a week to read the little New Testament Rebekah had given her.
So far she had read up to the gospel called St. John. She knew it was a gospel because it read at the beginning, The Gospel according to St. John. She had no idea what a gospel was, and peeking ahead, she saw only the first four sections were gospels. After that they were called epistles, whatever that was!
She understood so little, yet wanted to understand it all!
Rebekah had been right when she suggested Liz not judge Christ by people. Christ was not at all like the Hearnes or Rebekah Sinclair’s husband or any of the churchgoers Liz had encountered in her life. Not that all had been bad or unkind. Rebekah Sinclair certainly wasn’t. Rowena Cowley attended church, and she had been kind to Liz. Even the slave Hattie, who had spoken of Jesus as if she knew Him, had been decent to her.
Liz supposed there must be something to all the church talk about going to hell, but thus far in her reading, hell didn’t seem to be a big part of religion—at least the kind that Christ seemed to practice. Love was the far bigger part, and tolerance and fairness. She was keeping a list on a piece of paper tucked into the Bible. On it she wrote questions she hoped one day to find answers to. She also wrote down her favorite parts. One was when Jesus told his followers the two greatest commandments. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart . . . mind . . . soul, and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
She had also been deeply moved by the story of the son who ran away from home, but when he returned after getting into all manner of trouble, his father received him in love. She felt that perhaps God might still receive her, even though she had defiled her body and sinned in a way that she knew could not possibly please God.
This very thing was confirmed to her as she began reading that day. She came to a story about Jesus speaking to a woman of Samaria, a land that Liz surmised was not looked upon highly by the Jews. But Jesus spoke to this despised woman, knowing she had done sins having nothing to do with her place of birth. She had been with men to whom she was not married.
The story could have been Liz’s own story. First, she had been despised because of the fate of her birth—her Negro blood, which she could do nothing about. Then she had been despised by the sins she supposed she could have done something about. She could have run away, accepted death, and risked the life of her child in order to remain pure.
Would Jesus speak to her, too, as He had the woman of Samaria? Was there a chance for Liz to have the peace and redemption He offered? She knew He would want her to turn from the life as one of Maurice Thomson’s soiled doves. Could she take that risk? Was she strong enough? And what about Hannah?
On that last question, Liz crumbled. She simply could not risk losing her child. Yet something told her that a God of love would not require such a horrible sacrifice of her. Perhaps He would provide another way.
Liz had never prayed before. She did so now, opening her heart in the best way she knew.
“Jesus, I’m not sure I know you well enough to talk to you, but if I don’t start talking, I don’t suppose I will ever get to know you. I’m certain I don’t know you well enough to make requests of you, but . . . I keep thinking of the lady at the well. I think you respected her because she wasn’t afraid to ask something of you even though you were a stranger. So I ask you now to help me find a way of escape for my child and for myself from this life I hate. I’ve no one else to ask, or I wouldn’t bother you. I am so alone. Please help me.”
Liz returned to the cabin and found Hannah sicker than ever. She had awakened that morning feeling slightly warm, and now she was burning up. The child needed medicine, perhaps even to be seen by a doctor.
Liz was rocking Hannah when a customer came for her. Mae took the man in hand. An hour later, Maurry came storming into the cabin.
“What’s this I hear about Mae taking your customers?” he yelled. He was drunk again. She could smell the alcohol from several feet away.
“Hannah has a fever. I couldn’t leave her.” Liz’s grip tightened on the child in her arms.
“I’ve been too lenient with you since we’ve come to Texas.” He stood towering over her, smugly aware that he represented a threat as ominous as his girth.
“Maurry”—she steadied her voice, not wanting to sound like she was begging, trying to be reasonable instead—“if I could get her some medicine, take her to a doctor, it would get her well once and for all. Then she’d not be a bother.”
“Medicine! A doctor! Do you know what that would cost? Maybe for a good horse I might do it, but not for some worthless pickaninny.”
“Please, Maurry. I’ll double my load. I’ll—”
“Oh, you’ll double your load all right, but to make up for your slack in the past. Give me the kid.”
“No!” Liz screamed. She jumped up and stumbled back away from Maurry. Was this then the answer to her prayer earlier?
“Fanny!” Maurice yelled. “Get in here!” Then to Liz he said, “I ain’t going to get rid of the kid yet. I got a soft heart, I do. But Fanny is goi
ng to take her until you begin performing up to your capabilities.”
“She needs doctoring. . . .”
“We’ll all be better off if she just dies of natural causes.”
“You animal! Then kill us both and get it over with!”
“You’re much too valuable for that. Now, I can take the kid gently, or I can take her roughly. What’s it to be?”
Liz had visions of Hannah being pulled and manhandled, screaming in terror, perhaps even having bones broken. And she knew her talk of death had been mere bravado. She could not stand by and watch her child’s death. She held the child out, not to Maurice but, with a defiant glare, to Fanny, who had just entered the cabin.
“Good girl.” Maurice sounded almost like a benevolent father. But the grin on his face held no benevolence, no warmth, only victory as he added, “Lyle will fill your time until your next customer arrives.”
Liz nodded, hating herself as much as she hated Maurice. But she kept busy with her work for the rest of the day. She survived by doing what Mae had taught her months ago—by keeping her mind concentrated on other things. Only now her thoughts were filled with plans for revenge, growing fiercer when she heard cries from Hannah, who had been taken to one of the new rooms. When she grew tired of imagining shooting Maurice with his big flintlock rifle, she thought of running away. She thought of being free with Hannah, of Hannah growing up to be a fine lady.
That brought her back to the reality of Hannah as she was now.
Would Hannah live long enough to fulfill Liz’s fantasies—or worse, would the child grow to take Liz’s place in this horrid life? The fear of that future for Hannah made Liz think more practically. She had to do something about Hannah now.
The plan that began forming in her mind was outrageous and would probably get them both killed, but at least it offered a slim chance, which was better than her present submission to Maurry that gave her no hope.