He thought about going back into the bunkhouse. However, the smell of the men’s hot bodies, mixed with stale tobacco, had made him feel sick, and the snoring seemed louder than usual. He didn’t know what was gnawing at him, but he felt more restless than ever.
As he leaned back against the trunk of the old gnarled tree, he once again looked up at the sky. “God, if You are up there, could You please show me the way out of this mess I’ve gotten into?” he asked out loud.
Then he thought with a groan, If there is a God who cares about me, why would I be in this mess?
But as he got up to head into the bunkhouse, the thought persisted: Is there a God up there? Does He order our lives? Is He keeping score of all the wrong things I’ve done? Does He even care?
As Ethan tossed another coin onto the pile in the center of the table, he pushed back his chair until he teetered on the two back legs. The men arguing about the hand they had been dealt were loud and insufferable. Ethan spread out his cards to see again what he’d been dealt, tossed another coin onto the pile, and waited to see what would be laid.
Bess stepped over to the poker table, saw Ethan’s hand, and went back to bring him another drink. He’d seemed so quiet lately. As she watched him play, the other men at the table broke out in raucous laughter at some joke. Ethan merely laid down his cards and headed up the stairs. He didn’t even look her way.
She kept her eyes on the stairs as she took drinks to some of the other tables. It was harder than usual to flirt with the men and laugh when they pinched her. Fear stirred inside as she replayed the past few weeks and the way Ethan seemed to be distancing himself.
When she could sneak upstairs for a break, she headed straight for her rooms. But as she went from room to room, she realized Ethan wasn’t there.
Is he with one of the other girls? She wondered. He had been so quiet and mysterious lately. But then she mentally counted and knew that all the other girls were still downstairs since the evening was young. She walked slowly along the hall to go down the back stairway unnoticed, but as she passed the balcony entrance, she noticed the doors were slightly ajar. Stepping to the double doors that opened onto a balcony, she gently moved the curtain with her finger to peek out.
There stood Ethan alone, his hands in his pockets, gazing out across the town.
As the breeze stirred the curtains, Bess ducked back quickly. She couldn’t explain it, but for some reason she didn’t want Ethan to know she had seen him. After all, she had no right to question him. She tiptoed back to the hallway and made her way down the stairs to the noise and heat of the rooms below.
The night seemed to go on forever. Bess tried to do her job and at the same time keep her eyes on the stairs. She flirted and laughed, but her heart wasn’t in it. She recalled what Clara, an older prostitute about the age her mother had been, and the other girls had told her when she started working. She’d assumed their warnings against falling in love were for someone else. Used by men most of her life, Bess knew no other life than this. She loved the pretty clothes and things she could buy that other women only dreamed of, and she knew how to make men happy. But she had never thought seriously about becoming emotionally involved with a man.
Yet here she was, watching the stairs all night. Singing, dancing, watching the stairs. Laughing, joking, watching the stairs. Would the night never end? One by one the other girls romped off up the stairs with their men for the night. She’d had several offers, but she put them off until she ended up alone with Sam, the owner of the saloon, who was wiping tables and sweeping the floor.
As she trudged up the stairs, Bess thought, Maybe Ethan is in my rooms waiting for me. I didn’t see him come back down to join the other guys. But as she entered her rooms, they were dark, and she knew they were empty. Where was he? What was on his mind? Why did he seem so different from all the other men she had been with?
Bess lit a lamp and pulled back the bedclothes, but instead of getting ready for bed, walked to the window. Tucking back the curtains, she looked out over the sleepy town. The buildings were dark and the streets nearly empty. Her gaze wandered to the cottages along the ends of the street near the edge of town. Some had picket fences and boardwalks up to the front, and she knew late-summer flowers grew by their doors. Now the soft light shining through the crisp curtains in their windows looked cozy and inviting. What was it like to live in a family? She had been raised above the tavern by Clara and the older saloon women. She had never really known her mother, who had never wanted her or had time for her. This was the only life Bess had ever known.
Bess had always been shunned by the other children in town and even by their mothers when she was young. The only thing close to loving she’d experienced was from Clara, the girls who worked in the tavern, and the tenderness Ethan had shown her. As she dropped the curtain back into place and turned toward her lonely bed, her heart cried out for Ethan.
In spite of the late-summer warmth, Bess lay in the darkness, chilled to the bone. Deep inside she knew something was going on inside Ethan’s head—something he would never tell her about. And now she was losing something she’d never even admitted to herself she was holding on to and hoping for.
As the morning sun softened the darkness in her room, Bess finally dozed and dreamed that she and Ethan were riding fast horses, their manes and tails flying, across the prairie. She felt so light and so happy. When Ethan said something to her, she laughed and felt completely content until she realized he was getting ahead of her and no longer looked back for her. She spurred her horse to run faster, but the distance between them grew and grew. Finally, as she watched Ethan disappear over the horizon, she screamed and woke herself up with her heart pounding and tears rolling down her cheeks.
As Bess thought of the warning Clara and the other girls had always given her about falling in love, she suddenly realized they were right. But it was already too late.
Chapter 8
Ethan stood on the balcony overlooking the sleepy town and noticed lights in the windows in the church up the street. The windows and doors were open to let in a little breeze. He could hear singing and clapping sometimes; then it became still. He listened for some time before curiosity got the best of him.
Before he really thought about what he was doing, Ethan slipped down the back stairs and let himself out through the door. The darkness hid him as he wandered up the street in the direction of the church.
As he drew close to the building, he realized it was not quiet at all, but that someone was talking, and everyone else was listening. Occasionally the quiet would be interrupted with a chorus of amens, and the talking would continue as though there had been no interruption at all.
Just as Ethan tiptoed close enough to the building to see in the window without being seen, the people started singing again. As he watched, he saw a wide range of emotions. Some people were happy, some were crying, some seemed thoughtful, but all appeared to enjoy being together in that place.
Ethan walked slowly back to the railroad camp, mulling over what he had seen and heard at the little church. He searched for the right word to describe the emotion he sensed—happy wasn’t quite right. Joy. That was it. Even the folks who were crying seemed to be joyful. Ethan had never seen anything quite like it.
All through the night and the next day the experience played itself over in his mind. He would bring up pictures of people in that church—people who had no idea he was watching. He was puzzled by their serenity. Didn’t they have problems? Had they not undergone sorrow or loss or rejection or bitterness? How could they be so peaceful? So joyful?
Ethan was so absorbed in his thoughts that when the whistle blew at the end of the day, he was surprised. Now it was Saturday night, and the men were already heading into town. But tonight the nightlife had no appeal at all to Ethan, so he hung back and headed to the bunkhouse.
Lying on his bunk, Ethan thought that it was getting late in October for such a warm Indian summer. He decided to take his soap, go
down to the stream, and wash some of his grime and sweat downriver. He scrubbed until it felt he had removed the top layer of skin. Finally he climbed out, dried off, and headed back to the bunkhouse.
Walking up the hill refreshed, he heard singing coming from the town. They’re having a good time at Sam’s tonight, he mused, then realized the singing was different than that at the saloon. As he listened, he knew it was the people in that little church singing again.
Ethan ran back to the bunkhouse to leave his soap and the blanket he used for a towel, then took off for town at a trot. He hardly had time to make the decision before his feet were running in the direction of the singing. Once inside the building, he slipped into the last pew. A few glanced his direction, smiled, and nodded. As they continued singing about heaven, he wished he knew the song so he could sing along.
He watched the people sitting around him. They seemed to know what they were singing about, even though he knew none of them had been to heaven. He could tell they believed the place was real.
Between songs, some people would stand and tell what God had done for them and how thankful they were and how happy their lives were now. Ethan couldn’t help thinking that God had never done anything for him, if there even was a God. He thought about his unhappy home. But as he listened, he started to understand that much of the trouble was due to his rebellious heart and independent spirit. He had never thought he needed God or anyone else…at least not until recently, when he realized how very badly he had messed up his life.
By this time, a man with a black book in his hand that he referred to as “the Word of God” stood in front of the people and began to teach from the book. He asked the people to turn in their Bibles to Philippians chapter 3. He said that tonight he wanted to read and study verses 13 and 14. And then he read: “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
“All humans do things that go against the teachings of Jesus for which they are later ashamed. This is called sin,” the man said. He taught about accepting God’s forgiveness for our sins through Christ and then moving on with our lives. “We will always remember these things,” the man said, “but we must remember that Christ took the punishment for them, and we don’t need to continue to carry that guilt. As long as we carry the guilt, we are unproductive in our Christian lives and cannot enjoy the peace of God.”
Ethan could not help wondering how this forgiveness thing worked. He wanted to have God’s peace and wanted to be productive but felt that he had messed up his and Mandy’s lives so badly that there was no recourse for him. Still, he was drawn to the kindness of the gentleman who was teaching and longed to know more.
Before they sang again, the teacher invited anyone who had questions to stay after the service and said he’d be glad to talk with them more. Ethan didn’t even have to think this over—something deep inside him knew that this was what he’d been missing all his life. When the service was over, he slipped out but stayed around outside the front of the church, waiting for the teacher to come out.
Finally, when the last people had left, Pastor Lewis (as Ethan had discovered he was called) stood alone in front of the church. Ethan approached quietly and cleared his throat.
“Oh, excuse me. I thought everyone had gone,” Pastor Lewis said kindly. “Did you wish to talk to me?”
“Yes, if you have a little more time,” Ethan said softly. “You see, I’ve never heard what you were teaching tonight before, and I have a lot of questions.”
“Why don’t you come home with me? I’ll ask my wife to make us some coffee and we can talk as long as we want.”
And that’s exactly what they did. When Ethan told Pastor Lewis that he didn’t even know what questions to ask, Pastor Lewis knew exactly where to start explaining. So he told Ethan about man’s sickness called sin and that the only way to be healed from this was to ask God to forgive him. He explained about Jesus taking our punishment for us on the cross, and that it was a gift offered to anyone who cared to accept it.
When Ethan finally understood that Jesus had paid the penalty for his sins for him, he gladly accepted the gift of salvation. He asked Pastor Lewis if they could pray right there, which they did.
When they had finished praying, Ethan knew he was different. His whole life had changed. Pastor Lewis explained to Ethan about the services that were held at the little church each Sunday morning and invited Ethan to attend. Ethan promised he would be there before he headed back to the camp.
He arrived at the bunkhouse long before the other guys dragged themselves away from the liquor and the women. He was glad he had some time to himself, but he had hardly laid his head on his hard pillow when he was sleeping the deep sleep of one finally at peace after a lifetime of turmoil.
Ethan was amazed at how rested he was when he awoke the next morning, and even more amazed at how he had slept at all in all the snoring and bad smells that surrounded him. He quickly dressed and headed into town. He was the first one at the church, so he sat on the front step to wait. As he watched the sleepy little town awaken, he realized how very blinded he had been.
The sun seemed brighter today, the grass greener, the songbirds more merry, and Ethan saw flowers where he was sure none had been before. Everywhere he looked, the world seemed to have vibrant life and new energy. He could hardly wait for the morning service and to be with the friendly, loving people again. But, most of all, he couldn’t wait to hear more about God and His Son, Jesus.
Chapter 9
The sun seemed to have spent all its energy on the long, hot days of July, August, and September. As October rolled around, the hours of daylight noticeably shortened. The color of the woods surrounding the clearing was breathtakingly beautiful as Mandy, Deidre, and Jedediah walked the orange, yellow, red, and green carpeted paths into the woods to bring baskets of crunchy red and yellow apples back to the cabin to slice and dry for pies, and to store in the root cellar for the cold, dark days of winter.
They had already stored pumpkins, squash, potatoes, turnips, onions, and carrots in the root cellar, and had dried corn, beans, peas, berries of all kinds, and herbs in the attic spaces. They had made jellies, pickles, and other treats and used up all the preserving jars and most of the sugar that was in the cabin.
Mandy had been concerned for some time about what she should do when her supplies ran out that Ethan had so generously stored up for her from the supply store somewhere out beyond the trees. She knew the general direction of the store and knew he had cleared a wide enough path for the wagon, but she had only gone to the store once several years ago with him, and it was an all-day journey there and back in the summer. Now that the days were shorter and the baby was nearly here, she didn’t know what she would do. But she had to do something soon, and Deidre could not go, for fear someone could recognize her and expose her as a runaway slave.
One evening early in the month Mandy told Deidre at the supper table that she would get up very early the next morning and head to the store. Deidre said she would do the chores for the day and pray for her. They planned that Mandy would take some of Ethan’s money she had found in the wallet in his coat pocket and buy some supplies for the winter. Both were concerned about the effects of the rough trip on the baby, but they knew it must be done—and as soon as possible.
That night they went to bed before it was even dark enough to light the lamps. Mandy slept as well as possible with the discomfort of her condition.
The next morning Mandy woke while it was still dark. She was lying there wondering what time it was when she heard the clock strike four from the other room. She quickly picked up a candle and took it out to light it in the coals of the fire.
Bringing it back into her room, she dressed and hurried out to the pantry to get some cold boiled eggs and bread and tea. As she rounded the corner, she
almost ran into Deidre, who was busy at the table. There was already a cup of hot coffee beside a plate with fried eggs and biscuits. Mandy thanked her and made herself eat them, knowing it would be a long day ahead and she needed all the strength she could get.
She watched as Deidre spread some biscuits with apple butter and packed them in a cloth-lined basket that already had several things in it. She placed it beside a jug that Mandy knew was full of cold milk.
When Mandy had eaten all she could, the two girls prayed together. As Mandy started out the back door to the barn, Deidre announced, “The wagon’s already hitched up out the front, and the mule’s snortin’ and stampin’ and ready to go.”
As the two women walked to the wagon, carrying the basket and the jug, Mandy murmured, “You sure have been a blessing from God, Deidre. I’m so thankful He sent you to me.”
“And so am I, Miss Mandy, so am I. Just remember, I’ll be prayin’ every step that mule takes. Y’all be very careful now.”
Mandy climbed into the wagon and signaled the mule to go. She knew Deidre was watching her from the porch as she was swallowed up by the dark of the woods.
It seemed the woods stayed dark forever. Mandy bounced and bounced on the hard wagon seat, even though they had padded it with a pillow and quilt. At times the trees were so thick overhead that she couldn’t even see the light of the moon. As the mule plodded through the weeds that had grown in the unused path, Mandy could hear the small woodland animals running for cover deeper into the woods.
Once an owl hooted so near that Mandy almost jumped right out of the wagon. “You silly old fool!” She laughed at the owl. “Me…that’s whoooo.” She laughed at herself for talking out loud, then realized it helped her not to feel so alone, so she started talking to God and even to some of the little creatures that scampered out of her way.
The Long Road Home Romance Collection Page 4
