Revenge at the Rodeo

by Gilbert, Morris

  Sixkiller grunted, and when Megan came down the walk in the skimpy suit, Dani teased, “There’s a scientific name for bulging eyeballs, Luke. Wish I knew it, ‘cause you have a bad case of it.”

  Sixkiller gave her a scowl, then nodded at Megan. “It looks great, Megan. This puritan here said it was too immoral for her.”

  Megan laughed and seemed to appreciate his admiring look. She had a good figure. Shaking her hair with one hand, she challenged him, “Let’s race.”

  Sixkiller got up, then asked, “Are you a good swimmer?”

  “Intercollegiate freestyle champion.” She nodded. “Let’s go.”

  She beat Sixkiller even more decisively than Dani had, and when they got back to the towel, Dani explained, “He’s been sick.”

  Sixkiller grumped, “Back in the good old days, women had enough sense to let men beat them. Now you’ve given me an inferiority complex.”

  “You don’t have a complex, Luke.” Dani winked at Megan. “You’re really inferior!”

  They lay in the sun, joking and swimming from time to time. It was pleasant and the tension eased away from all three of them. Finally Megan began talking about her book, but she said almost at once, “This thing about Thomas’s horse—I don’t know how to think about it. The rodeo is violent, but it’s a—” she tried to find a word, then finally shrugged her shoulders. “I guess I’d call it a clean violence. Breaking the legs of a horse gives me goose bumps.”

  “The Creep is getting everybody to understand he’s serious,” Luke nodded. “I’d guess he’ll start putting the screws on tighter.”

  “Got any ideas, Megan?” Dani asked.

  “I’m no detective. But Clay Dixon would be a natural. He hates Clint, and he’s mean enough to do just about anything.”

  “But not too bright,” Luke objected quickly. “It takes a pretty shrewd operator to put all this thing together. How does he actually get the money? In the mail? That’d be easy for someone to trace.”

  Dani told him how Ruth delivered her payment, then Megan chimed in, “It’s always a drop—or so I gather. Ruby paid off, and it was just about like what Ruth did. Same thing with Bake Dempsey. He’s been hit pretty hard.”

  “How’d you find out about Bake?” Dani inquired.

  “Oh, we’ve gone out a few times. Not too difficult to get a guy to talking.”

  “I’ve got lots to tell,” Luke noted. “But my lips are sealed.” He gave Megan a careful look. “Now if you’d like to try to worm my secret out of me . . . ?”

  The two women laughed, and Dani stood up. “I’m going to wash my hair.”

  “You riding tomorrow?” Megan asked.

  “No. Not until Monday.”

  “What will you do all day tomorrow? It’s Sunday.”

  “What I always do. Go to church.”

  Megan gave her a straight glance, then asked, “Mind if I go with you?”

  “Sure. We’ll have breakfast, then go.”

  As Dani walked away, Sixkiller remarked, “Better not wear that suit to church. I don’t think these Texas Baptists are liberated enough for that.”

  “Why don’t you come along?” Megan demanded. “You need it.”

  Sixkiller grinned at her, then sobered. “All right, Megan.”

  Megan looked toward where Dani was vanishing between two buildings. “Know what, Luke? I’m not much for church.”

  “Didn’t think so.”

  “No, but I’ve got to find out if Dani Ross is real.” She turned her eyes on him, saying slowly, “I’ve known lots of women, Luke—but I need to find one who’s real! I can’t figure out if she’s really as good as she seems or if it’s all a big act.”

  9

  A Visit to Church

  * * *

  I’m not sure I can go through with this.”

  Megan Carr halted suddenly, staring at the small white church set back off the road under a cluster of small oak trees. “You two go on.”

  “Nothing doing,” Luke Sixkiller insisted, taking her arm firmly. “This was your idea.”

  “You can’t drag her into the church, Luke,” Dani pointed out.

  “Sure I can!”

  Megan glared at the burly Sixkiller, but the humor of the thing got the best of her, and she allowed a smile to touch her lips. “Oh, all right! You can let go of me, Luke. I won’t run away.”

  Dani glanced at her two companions, noting that Luke seemed almost as ill at ease as Megan. She had been surprised when the two of them showed up at breakfast, but now she smiled, teasing, “It’s no worse than a root canal. Come on.”

  Leading them up to the small white building, she stepped inside the foyer, and the three of them were met by a tanned, silver-haired man who smiled and greeted them, “Good to see you. I’ve got three fine seats close to the front.”

  He led them into the auditorium, which was almost filled, and as they took their seats, Megan muttered under her breath, “I’d just as soon be in the bleachers.” Settling down between Dani and Luke, she looked around cautiously, taking in the simplicity of the church, which was as plain as a Shaker meeting hall. The walls were bare, broken by tall, opaque windows, and the pews were of oak, worn smooth by much use. A platform spanned the entire width of the building, occupied by musical instruments, including piano, keyboard, drums, and several guitars.

  “I don’t remember any drums in the church my grandmother took me to,” Luke noted, with an interested look at the stage. “Looks about like a rock stage.” Then he peered carefully at the musicians and shook his head. “But those aren’t rockers. Not enough hair, and they have clear eyes.”

  The worship service began without any announcement. A dozen or so young people came to stand behind microphones, and a red-haired young man playing the keyboard hit a note, then sang in a clear tenor voice:

  Bless the name of Jesus,

  Praise the name of Jesus,

  Sing unto the king of Israel.

  Bless the name of Jesus,

  Praise the name of Jesus,

  Sing unto the king of Israel.

  Then the chorus swelled into a grand anthem, filling the room as they sang:

  Glory, glory, glory to his name forever!

  Glory, glory, glory to his name!

  Megan felt awkward and out of place but was taking in the spontaneous quality of the worshipers. Her experience at church had been limited to formalistic and highly structured worship, and the obvious joy of the congregation caught her off guard. Not only the vigorous singing but the actions of the worshipers caught her attention. Many lifted their hands in an expression of thanksgiving; others clapped in time to the music, and the movement seemed to bring to the chorus an ineffable sense of joy and excitement.

  The singing continued for at least thirty minutes, with no direction or interruption, and both Megan and Luke lost their sense of awkwardness. From time to time, Megan stole a glance at Dani, noting the air of ease as Dani closed her eyes, lifted her hands, and sang in a strong contralto voice. Megan glanced at Sixkiller, the two of them isolated in the midst of the joyful singing, and he lifted one of his heavy black eyebrows as if to ask, Well, is this real or not?

  Megan had come partly out of curiosity and was accustomed to bringing her talents as an investigative reporter to bear on any situation. She was trained to stand outside of things, to weigh them objectively and without any emotional involvement. But as the singing went on, for some reason, she found herself unable to keep her distance from what was going on. Her firmest concept of religion was that it was a stern duty, an exercise that people went through, a rather unpleasant matter that had to be done, much like a trip to the dentist.

  But the faces and the singing and the obvious pleasure of the people in this service shook that long-standing belief to the foundation. Time and again her eyes would go to the singers, especially to the most unusual one. A young woman, no more than twenty, was singing with great joy. She would lift her hands, and with tears running down her cheeks could sti
ll smile with obvious joy. She had lustrous brown hair and a beautiful complexion—and she was blind.

  Megan, like many other people, had been plagued since childhood by a fear of blindness. There was no physiological basis for this fear, since she had perfect vision and had never experienced eye problems of any sort. Nevertheless, many bad dreams had plagued her, even past adolescence, and a shiver went over her at the sight of the young woman. During one of her worst bouts with the phobia she had vowed, I won’t live without sight! I’ll kill myself first!

  But there was such joy in the face of the young woman, that it was obvious that she had found something that made her handicap bearable—and even more than that, for when she sang a solo in a pure, clear voice, there was no doubt about the joy and happiness that were hers.

  Megan sat down when the worship service was concluded, disturbed as she seldom was. Her hands trembled, and she clasped them together tightly so that Dani could not see them. A tall man in his early thirties stepped to the platform, then turned to face the congregation. He had a pair of crackling blue eyes set in a craggy, bronzed face, and his hands were so large the Bible he held looked very small.

  Megan expected some sort of introduction, perhaps a joke to loosen the crowd up, but he ignored all that.

  “We have celebrated the Lord in praise and worship,” he told them with a smile. “Now we will go to his Word to find out why we worship and praise him. And this morning we will find such a cause in John’s Gospel, chapter four, verses five through nine.” Dani opened her Bible and laid it halfway over Megan’s lap so that they could both follow as the minister read:

  Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.) Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.

  The minister paused, looked out over the congregation, then bluntly stated, “Jesus made two bad mistakes—or so many of his contemporaries would have said. First, he spoke to a national enemy. The Jews hated Samaritans with a passion, so much that they would go miles out of their way to avoid passing through their country. Then he spoke to a woman—which no orthodox Jew would do. Women were, at that time, chattel to be used.” Looking over the congregation, he added, “We hear a lot about the feminist movement today, but to find out the truth about how women are treated, look at those parts of the world where the gospel of Jesus Christ is preached, and you will find that women are protected and cared for as precious and worthy of all respect. Then you go to the lands where Islam is strong, or Buddhism, or any other form of religion. What will you find? Women bought and sold, treated worse than animals, in many cases! But Jesus Christ honored women as no other leader before or since!”

  Megan straightened her back, and Dani stole a glimpse at her face, finding shock written on her features. Megan listened hard as the minister traced the Scriptures, giving instance after instance from both the Old Testament and the New of how women have always been specially favored by the God of the Bible. It was another blow at one of Megan’s theories, for she had swallowed the party line of the militant feminist leaders that Christianity and the Bible were the enemies of “true womanhood.”

  She leaned forward, her eyes fixed on the preacher, who was reading the story from his Bible in a more excited tone, his eyes flashing.

  Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? (John 4:10–11)

  “This woman was hungry for God, I think,” the minister stated. “But she took one look at Jesus and doubted that he could do anything for her. ‘The well is deep,’ she said, and I think she was talking about more than the well they stood beside. She was speaking, I believe, of the difficulties men and women have in getting to God. Then she said with doubt in her voice, ‘Thou hast nothing to draw with.’ In other words, this woman was saying something like, ‘There are thousands of priests. There’s a temple and many places of worship. None of these have ever helped me, and how can you, a poor man with no sign of any authority, do what they haven’t been able to do?’”

  The congregation sat listening intently, Megan noted, while not missing a word. Then the preacher looked out, and his eyes caught Megan’s, holding her gaze. “You may have asked the same question in a different form. The woman of Samaria asked, ‘How can you help me? I don’t see anything in you to make me trust!’ And you may have said, ‘Well, Christianity doesn’t work. My problems are so terrible that there’s nothing in religion for me!’ But in verses thirteen through fifteen we see that Jesus did have something to draw with:

  Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.

  “Do you see what has happened?” the minister demanded. “This woman suddenly realizes that her whole life has been dry and barren! No matter how many pleasures she indulged herself in, they never lasted! Pleasures never do. The next day she had to go back for more, and then more, and there was never anything that satisfied. So when she said, ‘Give me this water,’ she was saying, ‘I want something that will satisfy this thirsting in my soul! Something that I won’t lose but that will always be there!’”

  Then he spoke slowly, and it seemed to Megan that he was looking only at her, speaking only to her: “I think there are some in this house this morning who are feeling what the Samaritan woman felt so many centuries ago. Some who are tired of the shallow answers of the modern world, with its empty promises of fulfillment that never come to pass. And that’s who the gospel is for—those who long for peace of heart and peace of mind. But even though you long for this, you may do what this woman did. For with all her longings for peace and despite her hatred of the empty life that she led, she began to argue with Jesus! When Jesus said, ‘Go, call thy husband, and come hither,’ she said, ‘I have no husband.’”

  Again the room was quiet, and the pastor said, “She was lying, trying to cover up what she was. Ashamed to admit that she’d led a terrible life. Aren’t we all like this? For Jesus said, ‘Thou hast well said, I have no husband: For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband.’

  “Do you see what Jesus was doing? He was bringing this woman to the point where she could see herself as a failure. For God can do little with us as long as we think we are able to handle our own lives. Almost every great man and woman of record in the Scripture had to be broken before God could begin his great work. And we are no different, for the gospel is based on grace and free will. God will change you and give you this water of life—but he can only do it for those who will permit him to work in their lives. That’s the one thing God will not do for you—he will not override your will!

  “What was this woman lying about? The failures in her life—in this case a life spent in immoral conduct, a series of adulterous affairs. It’s easy to point a judgmental finger at her, for that sort of sin is easy to identify. But the Book of James says, ‘Whosoever shall keep the whole law, yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.’ God doesn’t have a list of ‘little sins’ as opposed to ‘big sins’—for when we break any of God’s laws, we’ve offended him, the Holy One of Israel.”

  For some time the sermon continued, and
Dani was intensely aware of the effect it was having on Megan. She prayed quietly for her and for Luke Sixkiller as well. Luke was listening intently, but his immobile face gave no sign of the sort of impact the sermon was having. But Dani had learned long ago not to be disappointed in the response of people to the gospel. She knew the message of God was like a seed—it took time to lie fallow before the fruit was seen.

  Finally, the minister said, “So this woman came to Jacob’s well on a very common, ordinary errand. But she encountered Jesus Christ—and when she gave herself to him, nothing could ever be quite so ordinary and common again.” He spoke of how she ran back to tell the people of her village about the man she had met at the well. “She said, ‘Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?’”

  He closed his Bible and stood there, a tall shape in the sunbeams that fell from the lofty windows. Finally he commented, “He told her all she did. Which means he accepted her, and we must believe from what the Scripture tells us, that she from that day drank of the water of life. That she found the peace and joy that we in this room sang of earlier.”

  He paused, then asserted, “Life is made up of two things—a crisis and a decision. Some of you are at the time of crisis. You’ve tried the world, and it hasn’t satisfied. You have looked at religion and said, ‘You have nothing to draw with—nothing that will give me peace of heart.’ But there is One who can do that, who loves you so much that he gave his life to bring this peace to you. That’s what the cross is about. Not a gold ornament you may wear around your neck—but an ugly instrument of death where Jesus bled his life away. As he gave his life, he cried out, ‘It is finished!’ What was finished? Humanity’s hopelessness was finished, for the death and resurrection of Jesus did the one thing for us that we could never achieve by our own efforts. The gospel of Jesus is that we can now believe on that One who died, and by that death we can find God. That is the decision you must now make. Will you all stand?”