In His Place: A Modern-Day Challenge for Readers of In His Steps

by Harry C. Griffith

  “I didn’t want to worry you about last night. Philip Treadway and I made a pact to keep an eye on Connie Wooten’s trailer for a couple of nights, hoping this thing will blow over. Last night was my night.”

  “What?” Jayne looked at me as though she saw a stranger. “What happened?”

  “Nothing. All was quiet, and I did have a lot of time for thinking and praying.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t like this. You’ve had no training in handling violence. You’re supposed to counsel and comfort those who are facing disappointment and danger, not get in the middle of it.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “I don’t see myself getting into a dangerous situation. Philip and I are thinking that one of us being there would keep the bad guys from doing anything. They won’t want to be caught doing whatever they have in mind.” I tried to say these things as though I really believed them, but I was far from sure that I did. Who knows what these guys might do?

  “You don’t sound very convincing.” A frown of deep concern came on her face. She sat on the edge of the bed.

  I scooted over for her. “The plan is that if either of us sees that something is about to happen, we call in reinforcements. Neither of us plans to be a hero.” Again, I was feeling something very different within myself from the story I was trying to sell Jayne. And of course, she didn’t buy it.

  Between gritted teeth, she looked me straight in the eyes and said, “You’ve got to get her police protection.”

  “I’ve tried, and it didn’t work. The police chief is the uncle of the ringleader of this trouble, and he wants Connie gone from Belvedere as much as the nephew does. Philip and I will be careful. We know our limitations.

  “Besides, for me it was just last night and it’s over. Today I have the awkward challenge of preparing a sermon for tomorrow. Will the service begin with an announcement that we are leaving, and what kind of an announcement will it be? That’s my panic of the day.”

  “You make that sound almost as dangerous as your guard duty last night.”

  “Kinda feels like it.” I gave her a half-smile and took another sip of coffee.

  When I got to the office, Betty Ferguson, who always came in on Saturday mornings, sat at her desk with a red nose and weepy eyes. “I can’t believe you’re leaving. What are we going to do without you?”

  “Probably find someone better.” I shrugged, trying to make light of the situation. But there was no consoling her. “How did you find out?”

  “Ann Boronski called me. She’s devastated.”

  “I know. She and others came by and prayed with us yesterday evening.”

  “You’re going to fight this, aren’t you?” A determined look grew on her face. “Surely you aren’t going to cave in and abandon all of us who think you’re the best thing that ever happened to this church. Clifton Stoner has done a lot for Incarnation, but he has no right to dictate who will be our spiritual leader, and we both know that he’s the one who’s behind this. You’ve been here fifteen years. If you leave like this, it will split this church wide open.”

  Betty was going full steam now, and there was no stopping her.

  I shifted my stance. “What are you suggesting?”

  “We could mount a phone and e-mail campaign. Not you, but those of us who don’t want you to leave. The phone here is going to be ringing soon enough. Things like this can’t be kept quiet in a town like Belvedere.”

  I had grave misgivings about starting a fight within the church. It was Saturday morning, and nothing would be official until tomorrow.

  “Let’s wait. Maybe things will remain quiet today. Let’s just put this in the Lord’s hands and see what happens. If there is no uproar about the announcement tomorrow, it may mean that my time here should come to an end.”

  She pounded the desk. “That’s not going to happen. I’ll start my own uproar if no one else does!”

  I held a hand up to calm her. “I’ll put it another way. You’re an employee of the church, not an employee of mine. You owe it to the elected authorities of the church to be loyal in your role as secretary. Put your personal views aside today. As to phone calls and e-mails and such, respond that Clifton Stoner is the chairman of the board of the church and you have heard nothing from him. Plead ignorance. After today what you do is up to you. But again, I would caution you not to take steps that could split the church.”

  She didn’t like that advice, but she ultimately seemed to accept it.

  With that crisis behind me, I sat at my desk coming to grips with a sermon. However, my first priority was to call Philip Treadway and report to him on my Friday night adventure, or lack thereof, at Sunnyside Trailer Park. He took it all matter-of-factly and promised to be on patrol that evening. He said he had talked with the sheriff, who was disgusted with Clyde Matthews’s apparent inaction in the situation. He said he’d get in touch with the state folks to see what they think we should do and assured me that his guys were available if needed.

  With that taken care of, I plunged into the unknown by way of my sermon preparation. I decided, after prayer, to use the Scriptures normally appointed for that Sunday and preach on them just as though it were any other Sunday. Fortunately, I was able to get caught up in my work sufficiently to put my other problems behind me.

  Chapter 34

  Saturday evening started out on a peaceful note. We had family supper together and avoided talking about the crisis we faced.

  After the meal, Brandon watched television and Hannah walked Skeeter then joined Brandon in the family room. Jayne and I sat at the kitchen table while I told her how I planned to handle the sermon. In the back of my mind, however, loomed Philip Treadway. Is he at the trailer park? Is anything happening there? Will I be getting a telephone call?

  It had been dark outside for perhaps an hour when the phone rang.

  Philip, panic in his voice. “Better get here, and get here fast. I couldn’t get away from the store when I wanted to and have just gotten here. All hell is breaking loose. They plan to burn her out, and things have already started.”

  I grabbed my jacket and headed for the front door with no explanation to Jayne and the children but that I had an emergency.

  Even children can sense moments of panic. Brandon and Hannah realized something was wrong when the call came on my cell phone, jumped from where they were sitting, and began to pound me with questions.

  “What’s wrong?” Hannah pleaded.

  “Can’t talk. Got to go.”

  “Dad, let me come with you.” Brandon’s voice sounded firm, but his eyes begged like a child’s.

  “No way, son.”

  “Please.” He desperately grabbed my arm.

  “No, no, no!” I shouted as I jerked myself away from him and ran to the truck.

  My last sight before speeding away was my son, so seemingly unconcerned about anyone other than himself, slumped in defeat at the door because his father would not let him share in a crisis he didn’t understand but in which he sincerely wanted to help.

  As I drove, I placed my calls, including the one to Clifton Stoner.

  “Clifton, it’s Steve Long. I know how you feel about Connie Wooten, but a gang of hotheads is ready to burn her out of her trailer, whether she stays in it or not. You’re the only person in town they will listen to. Please come.”

  “I’ll be there.” Surprisingly, Stoner’s reply sounded subdued.

  Approaching the trailer park a few minutes later, I saw Philip had parked on the road just outside the entrance and was standing by his car. I pulled in behind him. Before I could get out of the truck, Philip hurried to meet me. Connie Wooten stood in horror at her front door, staring at her tormentors, who had lit torches and waved them in the air.

  Philip briefed me on what had happened. “It’s Mike Troutman and some of his goons. They’ve splashed the front of the Wooten trailer with gasoline and have tried to talk her into leaving, telling her they are going to burn her house down. She has said she can’t
leave because there is no place for her to go. She pleaded with them to leave her alone. They’ve just lit their torches.”

  “What do we do?” I tried to steady my voice though my body trembled—whether from fear or fury I wasn’t quite sure.

  Philip sighed deeply. “Wait until we have some help and hope nothing happens in the meantime. I’ve made my phone calls, including to the sheriff, Don Jones, but it will take him or his guys some time to get here from Davisville.”

  Though I was furious, I was frankly scared stiff. Several owners of trailers surrounding Connie’s huddled at their front doors or wandered out toward the road, but they were clearly afraid to do anything themselves. I guess they could see how easy it would be for their trailers to be set on fire as well.

  The smell of gasoline filled the air. One toss of a torch and Connie’s trailer could go up in flames. Fortunately, Mike Troutman’s crowd wanted to scare Connie out of the trailer before torching it. But they were filled with beer and bloodlust, and anything could happen in a moment.

  “Get out of there, you stupid woman, before we burn you up in that pile of trash where you live.”

  “You’re the bride of Satan, and we don’t need your kind around here.”

  “You’ve caused us enough trouble. We don’t want you in our town. We don’t ever want to see you again.”

  “Burn, baby, burn,” one wild-eyed drunk shouted.

  The threats continued for several minutes as Troutman’s gang swung their torches back and forth in the air, some of them with a torch in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other. In a shaky, pleading voice, Connie Wooten stood her ground. “Where do you expect me to go?” Her voice began to crack, though. “I’d leave if I could. Please go away and leave me alone.”

  My heart broke for this poor woman. She had lost everything except her meager trailer home, and now they were threatening to take even that from her. Worse still, in a reckless moment she could lose not only her home but her life.

  I wanted to do something. I had to do something. Why me? I was the weakest limb on the tree. Where were the police? I knew the answer to that. Where was the volunteer fire department? We had forgotten to put them on the call list. Where was anyone but me to step into this situation and do something?

  “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”

  It was like an out-of-body experience. I couldn’t believe I was the one who suddenly ran into Connie’s front yard. It was like I watched someone else do it. But I heard myself shout at Troutman and his cohorts, “Stop, guys! This is the wrong thing to do. If you kill this woman, you’ll have murder on your hands. Walk away from this and it’s over. Go ahead with it and you’ll spend the rest of your lives in prison.”

  But by this time they were drunk with power. One of them apparently recognized me. “Get out of the way, preacher, or we’ll burn your butt along with hers.”

  Then it happened. A torch sailed through the air. As if in slow motion, I watched it arc toward the trailer. Thrown with hate-filled force, the burning torch bounced off the trailer onto the ground. But of course the ground had been saturated with gasoline.

  As I think back on it, I don’t know how I did it. But the voice in my head repeated, “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” I ran, pulling my jacket off as I went. I arrived the moment the torch landed, threw my jacket over it, and stamped the fire out. Thank goodness the gas had not soaked the ground at that point.

  With a withering look at the guy who had thrown the torch, I immediately headed to the front door of Connie’s trailer, as Philip Treadway flanked me. We pushed our way into the trailer, and then I turned and shouted, “Have some sense, guys. If you toss any of those torches, you are going to kill three people. That’s first-degree murder, and you all will be guilty.”

  Philip coughed the words, “What are we doing, Steve? Those guys have been drinking and have mayhem on their minds…if they have any minds. Just one more senseless toss of a torch and we’re dead.”

  “If they’re stupid enough to kill Connie, she isn’t going to die alone,” I boasted, more bluff than bravery.

  Connie pleaded with us, “You don’t need to do this.”

  But I knew I did and tried to silence her. As I looked out at Mike Troutman and his buddies, I detected murder still burned in their eyes. But I could also see cars coming into the trailer park in significant numbers. I prayed they were the ones Philip and I had called and not more troublemakers.

  The rage among the men seemed to increase rather than dissipate, either from the frustration of meeting opposition or too much drink. For a few moments, they were in a strange ebb and flow dance of death. They would say things to one another like, “We’d better get out of here while we can,” and start backing away and then contradict that with, “We came here to do a job—let’s do it,” and move back toward the trailer. In the course of this erratic behavior, their threats increased.

  “If you’re fool enough to stand by that witch, you deserve to burn with her,” one of the men shouted as they moved dangerously close to the fuel-soaked building, still waving their torches in the air.

  In truth, although I had talked big about dying with Connie, if they threw the torches, my real plan was for us to scramble out of the trailer once flames headed our way. But even that was an iffy proposition, and I hoped it wouldn’t come to it. But who were these people arriving in a caravan of cars?

  Several got out of their cars and surged toward the scene, Clifton Stoner in the lead. Boldly, he stepped between the torchbearers and the trailer and shouted, “Men, you know who I am and that I lost my wife in that shooting. I know how you feel. But what you’re doing won’t solve anything. Douse those torches and go home. This woman’s got enough of a burden to carry the rest of her life.”

  “Get out of there, Mr. Stoner.” Mike Troutman hurled the words at him defiantly. “You don’t need to be a part of this.”

  “But I am.” Stoner moved to the front door of the trailer. “You kill these people and you kill me, too.”

  While all of this played out, a continuing parade of vehicles swarmed into the trailer park, and more people spilled out of them and ran toward the chaotic scene at the Wooten trailer.

  If I wasn’t scared enough, this mad rush of so many others into the picture only heightened my fear. When mob rule takes over, anything can happen.

  But this mob did not shout vengeance. Miraculously, they were not shouting at all!

  These were not hotheads. These were the good people of Incarnation Church and other residents of Belvedere, and all of a sudden they surrounded Connie Wooten’s home as a protective barrier.

  With a sheepish grin, Clifton Stoner turned to us. “I made a few phone calls on my way here.”

  And as people around here say, “Bless their hearts, someone finally thought to call the volunteer fire department.” We could hear the fire engines blaring and the flashing lights of sheriff’s deputies.

  Troutman and his gang doused their torches and ran stumbling away.

  An epidemic of tears, hugs, and shouts broke out among the assembled crowd. They had each played a part in averting a major disaster, and they celebrated triumphantly. They were in no hurry to leave.

  Meanwhile, Connie Wooten was in the embarrassing predicament of being a sort of celebrity instead of public enemy number one. Several people from the crowd edged up to her front door to wish her well. Even Clifton Stoner mumbled some words of encouragement before accepting her thanks and prying himself away from the house to slip away.

  Over his shoulder, Clifton called to me, “Come by my home when you leave here, no matter how late.”

  Connie was especially grateful to Philip and me for taking our stand with her at the trailer door. She appeared, however, both emotionally and physically drained. I eased her back into the room, got her seated at the breakfast table, and under her guidance, brewed some coffee. Philip sat with her as they relived what happened.

  As the crowd began to dissi
pate, I went out and talked with the firemen. It didn’t take any encouragement from me for them to see what needed to be done. As best they could, they used their hoses to dilute the gasoline along the front of the trailer and sprayed the front of the trailer itself. Then some of the firemen, with consent from Connie, went into the backyard and hauled shovels full of dirt to spread around the front base of the house because there was no way to completely eliminate the presence and smell of the fuel.

  One fireman mentioned that he had found a jacket that appeared to have been used to snuff out a torch. I didn’t tell him it was mine.

  “It was totally ruined, of course,” he said as he held it up, demonstrating the obvious.

  I gave him a slight grin. “Thank God that it was the only victim tonight.”

  The sheriff’s deputies were busy talking with those still present, hearing the story of what had happened, and trying to get as many names of the perpetrators as they could. They questioned Connie at some length but with consideration for what she had been through. They, and we, made sure Connie was taken care of for the evening. Fred and Rosa, neighbors, insisted that if Connie did not come spend the night with them, they would stay with her.

  When Philip and I left around midnight, everything was quiet and peaceful.

  When we parted, I became a little emotional—almost in tears—as I thanked Philip once again for all his help and support. “You’re a real friend. I’ve never known anyone as totally reliable as you are, and I’m very grateful.”

  “Same here,” was the warm response.

  Chapter 35

  I made a quick call to Jayne that the crisis was over but I was headed to Clifton Stoner’s at his request. As I drove, I gave her an abbreviated sketch of what happened at the trailer park and Stoner’s surprising part in it.

  Clifton met me at the door when I arrived at his home. He had a wry grin on his face and immediately extended his hand in a friendly handshake.