He had me. What could I say? Well, Del, you are quite the ugly one, you know. And you’re also uncouth, lazy, a slob, you talk nasty, and well, let’s face it, you’re just a generally unsavory character. Honestly, can you blame them for mistaking you for a thug?
Nope, that wouldn’t work.
“I guess it was the timing, Del. You came to the door at just about the same time the vandalism occurred at the church.” I paused, frantically thinking how I could avoid having our town sued out of existence. “And don’t forget the ladies saw you talking to one of the men in the snow.”
“So what? I was complaining about the stinkin’ weather and those ... those ... women that sent me out in it! ’Specially that young one there ... that ... ”
“Watch it, Del. The young one’s my wife.”
He paused only briefly. “Yeah, well, I don’t care. She sent me out in that rotten blizzard to shovel and bring in wood. Aren’t there laws against that? Don’t you have any control over her? You’re the man. Put her in her place. Teach her who’s the boss.”
I stared at him for a few seconds. “You’re not married, are you, Del?”
I sent Bristol home to get some sleep and took the first watch. Pastor Parry volunteered to stay with me, and we passed the time by talking shop, comparing spiritual experiences, and watching our prisoners scrub down the walls and doors of the church. What they couldn’t remove with soap and water, they sanded. It took them a few hours—we untied only one at a time—but eventually the paint disappeared. Pastor Parry told them it was good for their souls; I basically told them to keep their mouths shut and put some muscle into it. I guess some pastors are nicer than others. Just because I didn’t want to stash them in the tunnel didn’t mean I didn’t hold the last few hours against them. Forgiveness would come, but I was still smarting from hearing that evil voice informing me he had Melanie.
Later that night I spent a lot of time alternately thanking God for His help and begging His forgiveness. I found I needed the latter just as much as I’d needed His assistance during the entire ordeal. As always, He answered my prayer and by morning my grudge had dissipated and I found myself wondering if the men I’d spent a lot of energy beating up the night before knew the Lord. Not likely. And then I wondered how the residents of Road’s End could remedy that.
Chapter Forty-One
Emma took a seat in one of the chairs in the living room. After Benjamin, Reno, Jackson, and the other two men were subdued and everyone ate and congratulated themselves and each other on jobs well done, the women congregated in the living room. They picked up chicken feathers blasted into every corner by Dewey’s gunplay and commiserated with Ruby over the demise of her funeral hat. Then they sat down and turned to Emma.
“Emma, what happened?” Melanie asked. “After he hauled us all upstairs, I mean.”
Emma shrugged. “Not much. I was in the pantry looking for matches when I heard that bully talking to you and the rest of the ladies. I just stayed put until I thought you were all upstairs then went outdoors looking for the men. I stumbled upon Hugh and Bristol out in the front yard.”
Winnie opened her eyes wide. “You went outdoors by yourself?”
“Well, I have been outdoors before, you know. Even by myself on occasion.” Emma gave Melanie a sly grin. “Besides, we were all outdoors just a little while before that, remember? Dragging Mr. Jackson around and blowing up cars and fighting off camels, if I recall.”
“Well, yes, of course, but by yourself?” Hazel said. “With who knows who out there lurking and just waiting to pop an old lady with his piece?”
Emma burst out laughing then reached over and patted Hazel’s hand. “Sorry, Hazel, that just sounded funny coming from such a nice lady as you, and a pastor’s wife to boot. I didn’t think you folks knew about stuff like that.”
Hazel cocked her head and peered at Emma. “What do you mean ‘you folks’?”
“You know, Christians. Love thy neighbor and all that stuff?”
“Well, I do love my neighbors, but that doesn’t make me blind to what goes on around me, now does it?”
Emma sighed. “I didn’t mean to start anything, Hazel. I …”
It was Hazel’s turn to pat Emma’s hand. “No, no, dear. I know what you meant. Just kidding around with you. Yes, I suppose my interest in crime-busting shows seems a little odd, being married to a man of the cloth and all, but sometimes it’s just nice to see the bad guys get what they’ve got coming to them in this world.” She looked around at the other women. “You know?”
“Yes, we do know, Hazel.” Sadie turned to Emma. “Christians don’t live in a bubble, Emma. We exist in this sinful world just like everyone else does.” She pointed a bony finger at Emma. “Something you haven’t been doing for the past seventy years, I might add.”
A hot flush rose up Emma’s neck and into her face. She said nothing, just looked down at her hands clasped tightly in her lap. They were dotted with age spots, mapped with veins. They’d once been strong and capable, hands worthy of the hard work she required of them. She traced the jagged scar on the top of her left hand with her forefinger and remembered nearly chopping off her thumb on a fall day many years ago. When had she gotten so old? When had she stopped living in this world and started creating her own?
The day I killed Rachel.
Someone placed a hand on her shoulder, and Emma looked up. Melanie was smiling at her. “That’s all in the past now, isn’t it, Emma? From this point on you’re going to start living among your friends and neighbors.” Melanie paused and looked around at the other women. “Isn’t that right, ladies? We’re going to welcome Emma into our hearts and homes from now on, and we’re going to do our best to make up for all the lost years she spent alone in that big house.” She looked at each one in turn.
One by one, the women nodded and murmured their agreement. Emma thought they sounded a little reluctant, and she didn’t much blame them.
She didn’t know if they’d want her around either. But Melanie meant well, and she couldn’t let her down; she had plenty to apologize to Melanie about as it was. So she smiled and said, “Thank you, Melanie.” She nodded to the group of women sitting around her. “Ladies.”
“But you’ve got some explainin’ to do, Emma River.” That was Sadie, ever the peacemaker. “You ignored us as much as we ignored you. Why, you were always up and leavin’ town to go gallivanting around the world. Too good for us, you thought. Too good for the likes of Road’s Enders.”
Melanie groaned. “Sadie, don’t …”
Emma put her hand on Melanie’s, which was still resting on her shoulder. “No, it’s all right. I do have some explaining to do.” She took a deep breath. “I can’t expect these people to accept me after all these years without knowing a little bit more about me.” And my sister. “But that’ll have to wait for another day, all right? I’m sure everyone else is as tired as I am.” That was her cue to them that she would take her leave.
Emma groaned as she climbed the stairs, undressed, and crawled into bed after all the commotion died down. She wasn’t as young as she used to be. But then, who was? She was drained emotionally, physically, mentally. Every ounce of determination she’d dredged from the depths of her weary and discouraged soul during the last few hours had been swallowed up by just surviving. How could something like this happen in tiny Road’s End, Virginia, the epitome of small-town America, where history was made during both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, where friends and neighbors lived their peaceful, albeit cranky, lives in relative obscurity? Was this what the world was like outside the walls of Rivermanse or beyond the haven of her cabin at River’s Bluff? Well, if so, they could have it. She didn’t want anything to do with it.
But that wasn’t true. She was a part of this town, like it or not, and the last few hours had shown her things about her neighbors she’d never known before, or rather, had never taken the time to know. Had she only imagined their hatred? Could her relationship with them be a
s much her fault as theirs? The back of her head throbbed; the pain crept up her neck and cradled her skull like a vise. She massaged her neck and closed her eyes. She had some thinking to do.
Not only had the last couple of days opened her eyes, it seemed to have done the same with the people she thought hated her.
Emma slept fitfully that night, dreaming of biting winds and fiery skies tinged with despair. Sadness and terror took turns smothering her with childhood images. She thrashed and watched in horror as Rachel waved her arms and cried, begging for another chance, then slipped away into the flames or down a dark passageway—or worst of all—down a never-ending staircase. Over and over, Emma strained to reach her, thrusting her arms into the fire or running down the dark passageway after the vanishing girl—searching, screaming, sobbing. But her legs wouldn’t move; she may as well have been trying to run through mud up to her knees. Her arms refused to stretch far enough no matter how hard she tried, and though her throat burned with the intensity of her screams, all was silent.
She awoke with a jerk, gasping for air and choking on the words that refused to leave her throat but tormented her frenzied mind. Her heart spasmed and rammed against her ribcage, still pumping blood to fuel a hopeless pursuit.
Emma opened her eyes. It was dark and her fingers clawed at the sheet and grabbed the edge of the mattress. She tried to relax her hands, to calm her breathing, to steady her heart. She’d been falling down a staircase. Was she following Rachel, throwing herself after her? Was she feeling what her sister felt as she plunged to her death so long ago? Or was she dying herself, finally righting the wrong committed so many years before?
She lay there for several minutes and finally her breathing returned to normal. Her heartbeat slowed and the dream faded—as much as it ever did—and was replaced by the here and now. She was at The Inn at Road’s End. There had been a blizzard, some trouble with bad men who’d come to harm Bristol, and she and the others had gotten in the way. She stared at the ceiling, although she couldn’t see three inches beyond her nose, and let the fear melt away and reality seep back in. She wondered if her reality was any better than the fearful dreams that came to her night after night. One was as bad as the other. I don’t know if I’d rather be sleeping or awake. Or dead.
As she always did when she awoke in the night after one of her visits to hell, as she had come to think of those tortuous dreams, she closed her eyes and thought back to happier times. She was standing in the meadow at River’s Bluff. The tall grass rustled and swayed, its fresh scent borne on the light gusts of wind that teased at her hair and cooled her face. A symphony of chirping grasshoppers and humming bees vied for her attention with the crystalline trill and whistle of a meadowlark.
In the distance her tiny cabin lay snuggled in the grassy field. It overlooked a small river—a creek, really—that twisted its way down the side of the mountain, over outcroppings of rock and through the deep greens of ancient forest, then carved a channel through the grasslands before it flowed beneath the small bluff on which the cabin rested. The water splashed over a jumble of river rocks then meandered its way to parts unknown.
A string of smoke snaked its way to the sky from a sagging stone chimney that had seen better days. Time and weather had teamed up to fade the rough-hewn timbers to a dove gray; the mortar—mud, mostly—had crumbled away in spots and Emma spent hours shoving small stones and more mud into the cracks to keep the cold and bugs at bay. The roof was a hodge-podge of original cedar shingles and slabs of tin sheeting nailed over holes where weather and rot and time had eaten away at the wood. Inside the two-room house, a cast iron kettle of stew simmered on the hearth and an over-baked loaf of bread, poorly shaped and no doubt tough as nails, cooled on the wooden plank table. Sky-blue and white gingham curtains billowed in and out the four open windows—one each in the kitchen and bedroom that shared the back half of the house, and another two on either side of the thick wooden door that led directly into the living area in the front half.
She was on her way back from the edge of the grassy meadow where it met the tree line. She’d picked a few raspberries the birds and bears hadn’t found. But it was never the berries, anyway, that brought her across the field and to the fragrant pines and the green, leafy canopy of hardwoods that stood sentinel around it. The berries were just a bonus.
No, the real reason she traipsed through the tall grass that swayed and curtsied to the gaily-clad wildflowers like peasants greeting royalty was to feel a part of something greater than her—something natural and real. Something genuine. Something she wasn’t. Emma had little respect for the accomplishments of man, but nature’s endeavors never failed to surprise and impress her. The sun that healed, comforted, nurtured every living thing; the wind that scattered seeds, ushered the clouds across the sky, soothed her during the day and lulled her to sleep at night; even the dark clouds that drizzled rain and shrouded the mountains in mist—all were elements of something far greater than man could dream up on his own. It was to the bosom of the natural world, that all-encompassing giver and taker of life, to which all living things clung until, in its all-powerful sovereignty, it decided to cast them aside.
Now that was something Emma could put her faith in—the natural order of things. Nothing said or felt or heard by man, nothing created, produced, influenced or issued by human beings could be trusted. If there was one thing that life had taught Emma she could cling to, it was the undeniable realization that mankind had never—not once—improved upon what nature had wrought. Nor would it ever. Nothing conceived by humanity had ever been able to surpass—in years past, in the present, nor in times to come—what nature did so effortlessly and with such unerring precision. Of that Emma was convinced. There was little of any value that her father had ever imparted to her or her sister, but his claim that men were only as good as the worst one among them rang true.
Ironically, her father was the best example of his own claim that humanity was rotten to the core. He had things most men would cherish—a loving wife, two healthy daughters, a good home in a small town, the respect of his friends and neighbors. But that wasn’t enough for Thomas River. No, he craved riches beyond the wildest dreams of most men and the respect that was rightfully due to men far beneath his station in life—men who appreciated what they already had. He yearned for the kind of power enjoyed by a favored few; favored that is, by men just as ruthless, as uncaring, self-righteous, and all-knowing as he was.
Thomas River wasn’t a good man, but he was a successful one. And he claimed to have done it all without God. “Only weaklings need a so-called superior being to help them out in this life. It’s everybody for himself. I made me who I am—not some benevolent, all-powerful god who judges us by his almighty standards.”
Her father’s attitude had pained their mother, and when she was alone with the girls, she did her best to reverse his teachings. And that had worked, until their mother died and their father had all the more reason to rant and rave against those who believed in a Heavenly Father. Christians were hypocrites, he’d said. “If you want to find sinners, look no further than the church,” he crowed time and again. Without the efforts of their mother to dilute his ranting against God and Christianity, Thomas River’s pronouncement against the followers of Christ reigned supreme in the River home.
Despite his adamant disbelief in a Creator, their father couldn’t stamp out the girls’ love of all things natural. The world outside the walls of Rivermanse became the sanctuary their home should have been. Running through the grounds, climbing trees, splashing in the river, sneaking out to prance in the rain or gaze at the stars or explore a legendary tunnel were all escapes from the tyranny of Uncle George and Aunt Louanna. Outdoors they found acceptance among the squirrels and rabbits and birds, tolerance from the flowers and trees, excitement in the change of seasons that colored the landscape and painted their natural playroom from season to season. They found solace in the faithfulness of nature and learned to trust not what man said o
r did, but instead what the natural order of things provided.
River’s Bluff was where Emma could live that part of her life that died at Rivermanse. The only thing missing was her sister, who would’ve loved the simple life there. But an appalling turn of events warped what should have been a carefree existence into one of subterfuge and lies until a web of deceit smothered any trace of the young child she used to be. The choice had been hers. But what other choice did she have?
At River’s Bluff is where she did most of her writing. Both small volumes she’d had published over the years and many of the journals she kept were penned at the kitchen table in front of a warming fire or while sitting in the meadow surrounded by the sweet smells of the meadow grass and wildflowers and the peaceful hum and chitter of insects and birds. The silence and solitude of her surroundings, broken only by the whisper of the wind, the rustle of the tall grass, or the ping-thud, ping-thud of the rain on her patched roof, soothed her soul. It inspired her to put down on paper her deepest thoughts and to divulge the secrets she was compelled to hide from the rest of the world, and in particular, the residents of Road’s End.
Emma had lived a life of lies. She had existed in some strange netherworld between the deceit of her waking hours and the horror of her sleep.
Lord, help me.
Good grief, was that another prayer? Where on earth did that come from? Must be all those darned women and their unshakable faith. She shook her head and closed her eyes, hoping for a few hours of sleep minus the gunshots, kidnapping, and aggravated assault.
Chapter Forty-Two
Monday morning arrived in a blaze of sunshine, blue skies, and white landscape as far as the eye could see. Fortunately, so did Bristol. We sent Pastor Parry home to his wife, a good meal, and his warm bed, and I sat with Bristol while we ate the hot breakfast Mel brought over. I.B. and his men were untied long enough to eat and take a trip to the bathroom, then re-tied and plopped down on the floor against the wall.
Misstep (The Road's End Series Book 1) Page 23