Francine Rivers

by Redeeming Love

  They set off just past dawn the next morning. As they came down out of the foothills, the grass was a brilliant green from the fall rains. Massive oak trees dotted the landscape. A stage came up the hill, horses in full gallop. Michael leaned protectively toward Angel as it roared past, splattering mud up as it went.

  As they reached the outskirts of Sacramento, Angel was amazed at what she saw. A year ago she had traveled through a swarming tent-and-clapboard settlement with the Duchess, Mai Ling, and Lucky. Now it was a booming metropolis with a look of permanence. Streets were thronged with wagons and men on foot. Some men looked prosperous in their suits while others appeared to have just arrived from the goldfields, packs and shovels on their hunched backs. There were even some women in dark linsey-woolsey dresses and woolen capes. A few had children with them.

  As Michael drove down a wide street, Angel saw a grand hotel front, two eateries, half a dozen saloons, a barber shop with men standing in line outside, and a real estate office. On the next block were a construction company and a haberdashery with a display of denim pants, heavy overcoats, and wide-brimmed hats. To Angel’s left stood a miner’s variety store, a theater, and an assayer’s office. On the other was a two-story building advertising bailing and barbed wire, nails and horse shoes. More mining supply shops and a seed store followed, flanked by a wagon-wheel and barrel warehouse. An apothecary advertising plasters had more than a dozen men lined up on the boardwalk.

  Another stage rolled by, kicking up more mud.

  “Paul said Joseph was down near the river,” Michael said, turning down another street. “Makes it easier for him to get his merchandise from the ships coming up the American from San Francisco.”

  Michael saw how the men noticed Angel all along the drive through town. She was a rare gem in a city of mud. They would stop and stare, some thinking to remove their hats despite the rain that had begun. Angel sat beside him, back straight, head up, completely unaware. Reaching back over the seat, Michael got the blanket. “Wrap yourself in this. It’ll keep you dry and warm.” She unbent enough to glance at him, but he saw the uneasiness in her expression as she put the blanket around her shoulders.

  Angel saw ships’ masts ahead of them. Michael turned up a street that ran along the river. Hochschild’s store, which was next door to a big saloon, was twice the size of his mercantile in Pair-a-Dice. The sign over the door boasted, “Everything under the sun.” Michael drove the wagon up front and set the brake. Jumping down, he came around and lifted Angel from the high seat, carrying her across the mud to the boardwalk.

  Two young men came out of the mercantile. They stopped talking when they saw her. Whipping their hats off, both stared like poleaxed mules, neither noticing Michael stomping the mud off his boots. When he glanced over, he smiled and took her arm. “If you gentlemen will excuse us.” They stammered apologies and moved out of the doorway.

  Spotting a Franklin stove near the back of the store, Angel told Michael she would get warm while he conducted his business. She glanced to where Joseph was, up a ladder, taking canned goods from a high shelf and dropping them to an assistant who boxed them for a waiting customer. She noticed the two young men come back inside the store as Michael wove his way past several tables displaying tools, household goods, jackets, and boots to reach the counter.

  “What sort of grocer are you? Not a potato in the place.”

  Joseph looked down with a start, then grinned broadly from his perch. “Michael!” He came down the ladder with quick agility and extended his hand. Ordering his assistant to finish the order, he took Michael aside. He glanced once in her direction and then looked again with obvious surprise. Michael turned and looked back at her with a smile and said something to Joseph as he winked at her.

  Looking away, she stood as close to the stove as she could. One of the young men came over to stand with her. She ignored him, but she could feel him staring at her. The other joined him. She drew her shawl more tightly around herself and gave them both a cold look, hoping they’d take the hint and leave her alone. They looked thin, their coats patched.

  “I’m Percy,” one said. He was smooth cheeked like the other, but his skin was darkly tanned. “I just got back from the Tuolumne. Sorry to be staring, ma’am, but it’s been a month of Sundays since I’ve seen a lady.” He nodded toward his companion. “This is my partner, Ferguson.”

  Angel looked at Ferguson, and he blushed. She rubbed her arm, trying to ease the chill, and wished they would go away. She didn’t care who they were, where they came from, or what they had been doing. Her silence was meant to discourage them, but Percy took it as encouragement and talked about his home in Pennsylvania, the two sisters, three younger brothers, and mama and papa he had left behind.

  “I’ve been writing and telling them how good the land is,” he said. “They’re thinking of coming out and bringing Ferguson’s family with ‘em.”

  Michael was coming toward them, his expression inscrutable. Angel was afraid he might think she was drumming up business. He put his hand beneath her arm possessively but smiled. Percy introduced himself and Ferguson again. “Hope you don’t mind us talking to your wife, sir.”

  “Not at all, but I was about to offer you both some work helping me unload my wagon.” They accepted with alacrity, and Angel was relieved to see the back of them. She glanced up at Michael to judge his mood. He smiled. “They were harmless and lonely,” he said. “If they’d been looking at you like a piece of meat, I might have felt like busting some heads. But they weren’t, were they?”

  “No.” She gave a faint, mocking laugh. “One said it was a long time since he had seen a lady.”

  “Well, you are a married lady.” He nodded toward some tables. “Joseph has some cloth I want you to look over. Pick what you like.” He led her between tables stacked with mining gear and stopped at one piled high with bolts of cloth. “Enough for three dresses.” He went to help the boys unload.

  Thinking what Michael might like, she selected one of dark gray linsey-woolsey and another of brown. When he came back, he didn’t look pleased by her selections. “Just because Tess wore brown and black, doesn’t mean you have to.” He cast the bolts onto another table and yanked a bolt of light blue linsey-woolsey from the bottom. “This would suit you better.”

  “It’s more expensive.”

  “We can afford it.” He took out another bolt of light rust and a muted yellow plaid to match. Next he pulled out a forest green and a flower-patterned gingham. Joseph brought out two more bolts of flowered cotton. “I just got these. More on the way. I’m stocking up as I can. Husbands are bringing their wives and children now.” He nodded and smiled at her. “Hello, Angel. It’s a pleasure seeing you again. I’ve got a box of buttons, a bolt of white lawn, and two of red flannel, too, if you’re interested in taking a look.”

  “We are,” Michael said. “She needs wool stockings, boots, gloves, and a good coat.” Joseph went off to see to it. Michael took up a bolt of blue-and-white gingham. “What do you think of this for curtains?”

  “It would be pretty,” she said and watched him stack it with the other bolts of cloth. Joseph came back with the buttons and gave them to her to make selections. “How long will it take you to get us a stove?” Michael asked.

  “Got a shipment coming in anytime. Tell me how big a stove you want, and I’ll hold it for you.”

  Michael gave him the dimensions, and Angel put her hand on his arm. “Michael, it’s too big,” she whispered. “Besides, we’ve got the fireplace.”

  “A stove’s more efficient and doesn’t burn as much wood. It’ll keep the cabin warm through the night.”

  “But how much is it?”

  “Don’t argue with him, Angel. At the price he’s asking for his potatoes and carrots, he can afford a stove.”

  “As long as you don’t mark up your stoves the way you mark up your vegetables,” she retorted.

  The men laughed. “Maybe I ought to let my wife do the bargaining,” Mi
chael said. When he said he wanted a set of dishes, Angel went back to stand by the Franklin stove. If he meant to spend every penny he had to his name, it was none of her business.

  Joseph asked them to stay for supper and insisted they spend the night in his own quarters. It was the least he could do after emptying Michael’s coffers. “There’s not a hotel room to be had in the whole township, what with the men coming down out of the mountains to winter here,” Joseph said, ushering them upstairs. “Besides, it’s been a long time since you and I have had a conversation.” He slapped Michael on the back.

  The upstairs apartment was well furnished and comfortable. “I bought everything for next to nothing. Fellow from the East came sailing in loaded to the beam with Chippendale and fancy sofas, thinking he was going to outfit the new millionaires in their mansions. He also had a ton of mosquito netting and enough Panama hats to last the population along the isthmus a decade.” He welcomed them into a neat parlor that overlooked the river. A Mexican cook served a savory meal of roast beef and potatoes on elegant china. Joseph poured a fine imported tea for them. Even the knives, forks, and spoons were silver.

  Joseph did most of the talking. “I think I’ve just about convinced my family to leave New York and come west. Mama said the only way she’ll agree is if I’ll take a wife.”

  Michael grinned across the table at him. “Did you tell her to bring you one?”

  “I didn’t have to. She already had one picked out and packed up, ready to come west.”

  Dinner finished, Joseph poured coffee. The two men talked politics and religion. Neither agreed with the other’s viewpoint, but the conversation continued amicably unabated. She was drowsy. She didn’t care that California had become a state or that mining companies were taking over the gold country or that Joseph insisted Jesus was a prophet and not the Messiah he was waiting for. She didn’t care if the river was rising with the rain. She didn’t care if a shovel cost three hundred dollars while a new plow cost seventy.

  “We’ve put Angel to sleep,” Joseph observed, adding another log to the fire. “The second bedroom is right through that door.” Joseph watched Michael lift his wife tenderly and carry her in. He swirled the coffee in his cup and finished it. He had been watching Angel since spotting her by his Franklin stove. She was one of those rare beauties that caught a man’s breath no matter how many times he had seen her before.

  When Michael came back in and sat down, Joseph smiled. “I’ll never forget the look on your face the first time you saw her. I thought you were crazy when I heard you married her.” Good men were often destroyed by obsessions with fallen women, and he had worried about Michael. Joseph had never known a more mismatched pair. A saint and a sinner. “You seem pretty much the same.”

  Michael laughed and took up his cup. “Did you expect me to change?”

  “I expected her to feast on your heart.”

  Michael’s smile altered, hinting at pain. “She does,” he said and tipped his cup.

  “She’s changed,” Joseph said. She didn’t have the glow of a woman in love. There was no sparkle in her eyes or flush to her cheeks. But there was something different about her. “I can’t put my finger on it exactly. But she doesn’t look as hard as I remember.”

  “She never was hard. It was pretense.”

  Joseph didn’t argue, but he remembered well the beautiful soiled dove who walked Main Street every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. He had come out to watch her like all the others, enraptured by her pale, perfect beauty. But she was hard all right, hard as granite. Michael was just seeing her through the eyes of a man who loved her far more deeply than a woman like her deserved. But then, maybe it was Michael’s kind of loving that was changing her. God knew Angel would never have come across a man like Michael before. Not in her trade. He would be something new to her. Joseph laughed silently at himself.

  Michael had been something new to him, too. He was one of those rare men who lived what he believed, not once in a while, but every hour of every day, even when the going wasn’t easy. As gentle a man as he was, as tender as was his heart, there was nothing weak about Michael Hosea. He was the strongest-minded man Joseph had ever met. A man like Noah. A man like the shepherd-king, David. A man after God’s own heart.

  Joseph prayed Angel wouldn’t rip that heart out of him and leave him destroyed for the rest of the human race.

  So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.

  JESUS, MATTHEW 7 : 12

  Wagon loaded with their purchases, Michael and Angel started for home early the next morning. Michael made a stop at the seed store and purchased what he needed for spring planting. On the way through town, he stopped again at a small building. He came around the wagon and lifted her down. Angel hadn’t realized he intended to go to church until he was almost to the door and she heard singing. She pulled her hand from his and shook her head. “You go ahead. I’ll wait out here.”

  Michael smiled. “Give it a try. For me.” He took her hand again. When they went inside, her heart pounded so fast she thought she was choking on it. Several people glanced up and stared at her. She could feel heat pouring into her face as more people noticed their late arrival. Michael found space for them to sit.

  Angel clenched her hands in her lap and kept her head down. What was she doing in a church? A woman down the row leaned forward to look at her. Angel stared straight ahead. Another in the row in front looked back over her shoulder. The place seemed full of women—plain, hardworking women like those who had turned their backs on Mama. They would turn their backs on her, too, if they knew what she was.

  One dark-haired lady in a doe brown bonnet was studying her. Angel’s mouth went dry. Did they know already? Did she bear the mark on her forehead?

  The preacher was looking straight at her and talking about sin and damnation. Sweat broke out on her, and she felt cold. She was going to be sick.

  Everyone stood and started singing. She had never heard Michael sing before. He had a deep, rich voice, and he knew the words without the hymnal offered by the man next to him. He belonged here. He believed all this. Every word of it. She stared forward again and looked into the dark eyes of the preacher. He knows, just like Mama’s priest knew.

  She had to get out! When they all sat down again, that preacher would probably point straight at her and ask what she was doing in his church. In a panic, she pressed past all those down the row. “Let me by, please,” she said, frantic to get out. Everyone was staring at her now. One man grinned at her as she hurried toward the back door. She couldn’t get her breath. She leaned against the wagon and fought down the nausea.

  “Are you all right?” Michael said.

  She hadn’t expected him to follow her. “I’m fine,” she lied.

  “Would you just sit by me?”

  She turned and looked up at him. “No.”

  “You don’t have to take part in the service.”

  “The only way you’ll get me back inside that place is to drag me.”

  Michael studied her strained face. She hugged herself and glared up at him.

  “Amanda, I haven’t been in a church in months. I need the fellowship.”

  “I didn’t say you had to leave.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” she said and reached up to the wagon seat. Michael lifted her. She felt steadier at his touch. Regretting her harshness, she wanted to explain, but when she turned, he was already disappearing into the church. She felt bereft.

  They were singing again, loud enough to be heard clearly outside. “Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war.…” It was a war. A war against God and Michael and the whole world. Sometimes she wished she didn’t have to fight anymore. She wished she were back in the valley. She wished it were the way it had been in the beginning, just her and Michael. She wished Paul had stayed in the mountains. Maybe things would have worked then.

  Not for long. Sooner or later, the world comes charging in.

&
nbsp; You just don’t belong, Angel. You never will.

  When the service finally ended, others came out ahead of Michael. Every one of them looked straight at her where she sat on the wagon seat, waiting for him. Several women stopped to talk together in a small group. Were they talking about her? She kept watching the door for Michael. When he appeared, he was with the minister. They spoke for a few minutes and then shook hands. Michael came down the steps, and the dark-suited man looked at her.

  Her heart started pounding again. She could feel the sweat breaking out on her skin as Michael strode toward her. He stepped up, took the reins and set off without a word.

  “It didn’t even look like a real church,” she said as he drove down the hill toward the river road. “There was no priest.”

  “The Lord isn’t bound by denomination.”

  “My mother was Catholic. I didn’t say I was.”

  “So why’re you so afraid to be inside a church?”

  “I wasn’t afraid. It made me sick. All those hypocrites.”

  “You were scared to death.” He took her hand. “Your palms are still sweating.” She tried to pull her hand free, but his tightened. “If you’re convinced there’s no God, what are you afraid of?”

  “I don’t want any part of some great eye in the sky who’s waiting for a chance to squash me like a bug!”

  “God doesn’t condemn. He forgives.”

  She tore her hand free. “The way he forgave my mother?”

  He looked at her with that maddeningly quiet assurance. “Maybe she never forgave herself.”

  His words were like a blow. Angel stared straight ahead. What was the use where Michael was concerned? He didn’t understand anything. It was as though the poor fool had never even lived in this world.