“I wondered the same thing when you left,” I said, “because I suspected what you were thinking.”
“Aren’t we supposed to be so distinct from the world that people see it in how we behave? I don’t mean that we should go around preaching all the time to everyone. There can be just as much hypocrisy in that. We’re told to be a different kind of people, not by what we say but by how we live. Jesus said we’re—”
Suddenly Christopher stopped. He turned his head and glanced over at me.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I guess the preacher in me is bound to come out from time to time. I didn’t mean to carry on like that.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “And I didn’t mean to imply that we shouldn’t take things seriously. I hope you know by now that I am one hundred percent with you on that score. But what’s done is done, and we can’t go back and undo it now. God is bigger than this one evening.”
“You’re right,” he sighed. “I don’t suppose we can so easily stand in the way of his purposes. If God has designs on someone who may have been in that dining room with us tonight—be it Mr. Kemble or Robin O’Flaridy or anyone else—neither you nor I are going to thwart what he might be preparing to do in their lives. God is more sovereign than we usually give him credit for.”
“And there is Paul’s promise in Romans 8,” I added, “that all things will work for good when we give them to God. Even situations like tonight.”
“Exactly—how could I forget such a foundational truth? Forgive me, Father,” he added softly, and I knew he was no longer talking to me.
It was quiet a few seconds.
“You are a good balance for me, Corrie,” said Christopher. “I have the tendency to get so passionate that I lose sight of God’s sovereignty. I want so desperately to do his will in all things.”
“Perhaps we should give what happened over to him,” I suggested.
“Yes, you’re right. Would you pray, Corrie? I just feel the need to be quiet right now.”
I reached out and took Christopher’s hand in mine. We walked for several minutes more in silence, quietly calming our spirits.
“Lord Jesus,” I prayed after awhile, “we do now give over all the confusing events of this evening at the boardinghouse into your hands. We ask that you would make everything work out for your good, like Paul said in his letter, in spite of our human weakness. I pray for my husband, Christopher, that you would ease his unrest over this situation, yet at the same time I thank you for his desire to be all yours. We pray for Mr. Kemble. And I pray for Robin too. Forgive me for the anger I felt toward him. We pray that you would do what you purpose in these two men’s lives and use us to reveal yourself to them if it is your will.
“And we thank you for this incident. We pray that it will be a lesson to us. Help us to know what you want me to do about the article I promised Mr. Kemble. We want our lives to count for you, Lord, just like Christopher said; we want people to know you because of how we live. We do not have the ability to make that happen. We are weak and full of faults. But you can make it happen, Lord, and we ask you to do just that. Make our life together as husband and wife count so that people will come to know you.”
I stopped.
Christopher added an amen of his own. We turned and began walking back toward the boardinghouse.
Even before the evening was over I had decided that I could not in good conscience write the article about Mammy Pleasant’s. How could I recommend a place that was half bordello, half boardinghouse? Both Christopher and I felt so foolish afterward for allowing ourselves to get into such a situation. I would have to tell Mr. Kemble to make whatever excuse for me he could and apologize to him as sincerely as I could. But I simply could not write the article.
Chapter 13
New Trouble for Pa
We left Laughing Waters in Sacramento at the boarding school where she and her sister lived. Both of them were teaching orphaned Indian children. We had been talking about a visit to Miracle Springs for them on a holiday.
“I will write,” said Zack.
“As will I,” returned Laughing Waters.
“And we will look forward to seeing you in Miracle Springs in the not too distant future,” Becky added. She took both of Laughing Waters’ hands, held them a moment, and looked deep into her eyes. There was a new and special friendship budding—the kind that exists only between sisters in the Lord.
We said our final goodbyes, then made our way straight to the train station. Zack was especially quiet all the way home. I was pretty sure I knew the reason why.
The minute we returned from Sacramento, we knew something was wrong.
Pa and Almeda were sitting at the table in the house talking. They hadn’t even heard us ride up. Their faces wore serious expressions.
They did their best to greet us warmly and asked all about the trip, but everyone could tell Pa was distracted and troubled.
“What’s the matter, Pa?” Zack finally asked, pouring himself a second cup of coffee.
Pa half looked away, kind of shaking his head in frustration, like he didn’t want to have to tell anyone.
“You might as well tell him, Drummond,” said Almeda. “They’re all going to have to know sooner or later. And Zack is involved too.”
Pa nodded, then turned back in Zack’s direction.
“You recollect that varmint you ran into out in the Utah territory when you was with Hawk—the feller that said he rode with the Catskill Gang?”
“Demming?” said Zack, and I could tell there was fear in his voice just from the sound of it.
Pa nodded.
“Course I remember him,” said Zack. “He ain’t someone I’ll ever forget.”
“Then when we went back that way last year with Hawk, we heard that he’d got himself drunk and in trouble and thrown in the pokey in Carson City?”
“Yeah, and I was glad enough. I’d just as soon forget I ever heard the name.”
“Well, you ain’t likely to have the chance to forget him any time soon,” said Pa. “Word came to me a while back that he’d busted out. I wasn’t gonna say anything—I reckon I figured after all this time he’d have forgot about us. But while you were gone a friend of mine rode up from Auburn, saying there’d been an ornery cuss of a feller prowling around down there, asking about the two of us . . . you and me. The way I figure, it’s gotta be him.”
“Who is this man you’re talking about?” asked Christopher as we all took seats around the table.
“Feller I knew years ago back in New York. He’s got it in his head that me and my brother-in-law Nick has some money from the old days he figures he’s entitled to.”
“But, Pa,” I said, “the sheriff at Bridgeville told me the money was all turned in. You remember—I told you all about it.”
Pa nodded.
“What was the man’s name—?”
“Judd,” said Pa.
“Yes. The sheriff said Judd told his son where the money was hid before he died. Then his son recovered the money and took it into Catskill, and they canceled all the rest of the old warrants except for two. Let’s see, I forgot the names . . . it was something like—”
“Harris and Hank McFee,” Pa answered for me.
“That’s them,” I said.
“But where does the man named Demming fit in?” asked Christopher.
“As soon as Zack got back from riding with the Express and told me about the feller out there, I had a bad feeling in my gut right off. Everything he said sounded like he was talking about the man Nick and me knew as Jesse Harris. Half the guys we knew back then never used their own names anyhow.
“I kept it to myself, hoping maybe I was wrong and we’d never hear more about it. But from everything Zack said about the man he ran into out there, it was Jesse Harris if it was anybody. He was a mean cuss, and tight with Buck Krebbs too. I think he had a younger brother too, like Zack said Demming did—though the kid never rode with us. But if he and his kid brother came
out West shortly after me and Nick did, they wouldn’t have had any more way than us of knowing the money’s already been long since turned in.”
“You really think he’d come after us, Pa?” Zack asked.
“Don’t you recollect what he said to you, son—especially after how you got the best of him out there? If I know Harris, or Demming, or whatever his name is, he’s likely bent on getting revenge on you as much as holding that knife of his to my throat about the money.”
It was silent a minute. I saw Zack gulp a time or two at Pa’s words.
If Zack didn’t remember, I sure did! I still remember what he said the man named Demming shouted at him: I won’t forget you, Hollister. And you can tell that pa of yours I ain’t forgotten him neither. Now it looks like I got a score to settle with the both of you.
I couldn’t help but think of the gun Zack had just bought himself in San Francisco. I said nothing, but it added greatly to the nervousness I felt. I hoped he didn’t get it into his head to do anything stupid!
“Did you talk to the sheriff?” asked Tad.
“Rafferty’s not likely to head off looking for him when we don’t have any more to go on than rumors,” said Pa. “He’s been talking about retiring—I don’t think he’s of a mind to go off tracking outlaws these days.”
It was Christopher who spoke up next.
“What are you going to do about the man, then, Drum?” he asked.
Pa shrugged his shoulders and let out a long sigh. He looked so tired.
I recognized the expression on Pa’s face, and suddenly realized I hadn’t seen it for years. It was a look that he used to wear almost constantly, the anxiety over a past that seemed intent on dogging him no matter how decent a life he lived now. I know Pa would say there wasn’t anything unfair about it, because he had made some bad choices. But to me it didn’t seem fair that after all the years Pa had spent being kind and unselfish and doing what he could for other folks, a brief period of his life from so long ago just wouldn’t let loose. It just kept coming back to haunt him.
Chapter 14
Are You Willing to Be the Instrument?
While we all sat waiting for Pa to answer Christopher’s question, a silence which must have only lasted two or three seconds, it was as if the time since the incidents involving Buck Krebbs had never happened. All the years with Pa being mayor of Miracle Springs, and then being an assemblyman in Sacramento, the years when I had been away in the East—it was as if they had all vanished and here we were again, suddenly facing a danger we hadn’t even thought about in all that time.
Yet those years had passed.
Pa was over fifty. The rest of us were grown. Almeda’s hair was half gray. I was now married. My new husband was sitting here sharing the moment with us. But now here we were facing Pa’s past once more.
I knew that was the pain I saw in Pa’s face as he sighed again. It wasn’t fear for his own life so much as a deep sadness and regret that what he had done so long ago was once again placing the rest of us in danger—especially Zack. When he’d left Ma and us kids so long ago it had been to protect us from the danger following him from trying to help Uncle Nick straighten out his life.
“I don’t know, Christopher,” he said at length. “Don’t reckon there’s much I can do . . . except pray, then wait to see what comes of it.”
Again the room fell silent.
“Then, let’s do pray,” said Christopher after another minute or two, “and ask the Lord for his protection.”
Pa nodded his consent, then took another breath, bowed his head, and started to pray aloud without waiting for anybody else.
“Lord, once again I come to you,” he said, “asking you to take care of my family. Just when I think all those days of my own foolishness are gone forever, back it seems to come again. I tell you again, like I have so many times, how sorry I am for not paying more attention to you when I was younger. And now that I’ve learned a little about walking with you, show me what you want me to do.”
“Keep this new danger from us, Lord Jesus,” prayed Almeda.
“I pray for Pa and Zack,” I said. “Keep them safe from this man Demming or Harris or whatever his name is. Show them what to do.”
A few other prayers went round the room. Then it fell silent. We were all feeling things we hadn’t felt in years.
Then Pa started praying again. When he spoke, it showed just how much he had changed. The prayer that next came from his lips were not the words of an ordinary man.
“Lord,” he said, “I find myself thinking just now about the words you spoke yourself about praying for our enemies. I’ve always known you said that, but I don’t reckon I ever thought much about it in a personal way before. Hard as it seems to do such a thing, I reckon it’s time I found out if my faith in you means much and if I’m willing to obey you in doing a hard thing I probably wouldn’t do if left to myself. So right now I’m gonna pray for Jesse Harris, if it’s him that is the Demming feller. I used to ride with him, but from the sound of it he’s made himself my enemy now. I’m not really sure how to pray for him, Lord. So I guess I’ll just say—touch his life somehow. Be God to him, though he ain’t much of a God-fearing man. Course I wouldn’t have thought I’d be a praying Christian man neither, and if you can get inside my skin and make me new from the inside out, I reckon you can do it with anybody. Do some kind of good work in him beyond what I even know how to pray for. Work your will in his life. Do good for him, whatever that is.”
Again we were all silent. I didn’t know about the others, but I felt strange tingles all through me—spiritual tingles, not anything that I actually felt in my body. It was such a huge thing to pray for the good of someone who you knew was trying to kill you. I could hardly take in the thought.
“Do you mind if I share something?” Christopher asked.
Pa nodded, but Christopher knew he meant to go ahead.
“I was praying once,” Christopher said, “when I was in seminary, praying for an individual I was having a very difficult time loving—one of my professors, actually, whose manner grated on me. He didn’t like me very much and didn’t mind that I knew it. I knew I had to pray for him, though I didn’t particularly relish the assignment. I was willing enough to pray, but out of duty, not because I really felt any compassion for the man in my heart. I suppose that is a better thing than not to pray at all, but it is still far from the best thing.
“In any event, as I was dutifully saying the words, Lord I pray for so-and-so . . . I sensed the Lord beginning to speak to me, telling me that my words were impersonal and detached. It was a good thing to pray for him, but I had not reached the level of Christlike prayer, the kind that is able to move mountains.”
“You actually heard the Lord talking to you?” asked Tad.
“I felt him saying something like this,” answered Christopher. “You are praying for me to do a work in this man’s life. It is well you should pray this, and such it is my desire to do. How willing are you then, my son, to be the one yourself through whom I answer your prayer?”
Christopher was quiet a moment, allowing his words to sink in. We were quiet, too. It was such a new way of thinking about prayer.
“I realized,” he went on, “that suddenly my prayers couldn’t be mere words anymore. If I was going to take the Lord seriously, everything about the way I prayed would have to change. Praying generally is one thing, but saying to the Lord that he could use me as his instrument of answering my very prayer—that was something entirely more personal. There was no telling what he might require of me if I was willing to pray that prayer.”
“Are you saying that it’s wrong to pray if you don’t pray in that way?” I asked.
“Oh no, certainly not. Any kind of prayer for another individual is a good thing that can open doors for the Holy Spirit to work,” replied Christopher. “But I believe there come certain times when God desires to explore deeper reaches of willingness within us. At such moments, the act of prayer bec
omes a more somber act of both sacrifice and possibility.”
“Did you pray it?” asked Becky.
Christopher smiled.
“Eventually,” he said. “But it was one of the most difficult prayers I ever prayed.”
“What happened?” asked Zack.
Christopher’s smile deepened. I had come to know the expression that crossed his face and knew there was pain somewhere in the memory.
“It’s a long story,” he sighed. “Let’s just say that the Lord did answer my prayer, both sides of it, but certainly not in ways I would have anticipated.”
Again quietness fell.
Christopher had given us a lot to think about. I knew Pa took his words seriously. After a few minutes he got up and walked outside.
Chapter 15
A Sad Visit
A few days after our return to Miracle Springs, Christopher and I went to pay a call on my childhood friend Jennie Shaw—Jennie Woodstock as she was now.
As soon as we rode up, we saw her husband, Tom, going out to one of his fields to work. I know he saw us, but for some reason he didn’t acknowledge us. Jenny knew it, too, and felt awkward because of it when she answered the door and saw him walking away in the distance.
She invited us in and we tried to keep up a friendly conversation, but it was difficult because she was so nervous. We could see that something was amiss, and I even felt uncomfortable being so happy. Jennie had had a happy time, too, right after her own marriage, and the reminder of it, with us not that long back from our honeymoon, must have made our visit all the more a strain for her.
“Is something the matter, Jennie?” I finally asked. I couldn’t stand pretending there wasn’t.
Just the question brought tears to her eyes, and she looked away. She dabbed at her nose and eyes with her handkerchief.
“Oh, Corrie,” she said, “it’s not good with Tom and me.”
The Braxtons of Miracle Springs Page 6
