Mary Connealy (13 page)

Sally piped up, “We ate roots and greens and jackrabbits. There were fish in the creek, but they were almighty hard to catch, and Ma could fetch us a deer when she had a mind to.”

“Like last night?” Clay asked. “We went out riding herd, and here your ma finds food for a week.”

Rather tartly Sophie replied, “Hunting with three children is quite a trick, Clay. Remind me to let you try it sometime.”

Clay gave her a long, slightly horrified look, as if it hadn’t occurred to him that she’d had to take the girls. Or maybe he was imagining hunting with them. “I may remind you, and I may not.”

“There are other things I have to tell you. But later.” Sophie held his gaze.

He tightened his grip on Sally as if to protect her. “Right after church soon enough?”

Sophie said with a brisk nod, “Just barely soon enough.”

“Let’s catch up to the girls a mite.” Clay clucked to his horse.

Sophie stayed right beside him the rest of the trip. She tried to let go of her fear for her new husband, as well as her thirst for revenge for her old one. Every time she turned her mind away from vengeance, she thought of the enmity that was sure to face them in Mosqueros, and she tried to control her resentment.

In her opinion, her neighbors had chosen the wrong side in the war. They’d held it against her and her family when they lost, and they’d turned their backs on the Edwards family when Cliff died—when she’d needed help so badly.

None of these were emotions fit for a church service. She wasn’t having much luck, but still she struggled against her anger. All over the United States, people had hard feelings against their neighbors and life needed to go on. Sophie was determined to put it behind her. While she rode along she prayed,
Help me, help me, help me
.

Adam jerked awake. He lifted his head and peered around him. There was nothing. He seemed to be lying flat out on grassland. He’d passed out after staggering along for what seemed like hours.

He fumbled for the wound on his side. The bullet had entered from the back and passed clean through. Adam wasn’t surprised he’d been back-shot by that pack of cowards. He felt the dried blood, and just that little movement cut razor sharp through his side and back.

His girl needed help. “Give me the strength to take one more step, Lord. One step at a time, let me get to her.”

He had nothing necessary for survival. Not food nor a weapon. Not even a fit set of clothes. But Adam figured God wouldn’t give him the powerful message that Sophie needed him then not give the strength to go and help. Adam was a man of the West now. He’d learned to live with the land and let it provide for him. He pulled himself to his feet and staggered on toward Mosqueros.

“They’re here, Irving. Oh, I so hoped they’d come!” Sophie heard Mrs. Roscoe’s joyful pleasure when they rode up to the sagging picket fence that surrounded the little wooden church.

The small group of people milling around outside the church were staring. Sophie dismounted with grave misgivings. She tied her roan to the hitching post, alongside a dozen others, swung Laura around to her front, and pulled her out of her little leather carrier.

Clay helped Sally down, then swiftly went to lift first Mandy, then Beth off of Hector. He took Laura and had a steadying hand to spare to help Sophie alight.

Sophie took a minute to fuss over the tendrils of hair that had escaped from the girls’ braids. The girls looked fine, but Sophie was delaying the moment she’d have to walk into that crowd. Clay came to stand beside her, with Laura in his strong arms.

Sophie smiled up at him. “Thank you.”

Clay nodded and grinned. With his hand resting on Sally’s back, he went to say hello to the parson.

“Good morning, Parson Roscoe.” When Clay spoke, several people approached him.

“Clay McClellen!” the banker’s voice boomed.

Sophie braced herself for trouble.

The banker extended his hand and said jovially, “Glad you could make it in to worship with us.”

“Wouldn’t have missed it, Royce,” Clay said easily, reaching out to shake hands with the short, stocky man.

“Let me introduce the missus.” Mr. Badje swept his arm sideways with a flourish.

The missus! Sophie almost choked, she was so surprised. A pretty young woman approached shyly, and Royce Badje took her hand. She clutched his hand in both of hers and hung on as if she’d caught a lifeline. Badje looked at her bowed head with adoration. Sophie knew the banker hadn’t given her a thought in a long time.

“Clay McClellen, I’d like you to meet my wife, Isabelle. Isabelle, say hello to Clay.” The banker gave the order and little Isabelle performed on command.

“Hello, Mr. McClellen.” Isabelle nodded her head and held on to her husband even tighter.

Clay lifted his hat clean off his head and held it against his chest. “Howdy, Mrs. Badje. Have you met Sophie and my girls?”

It was as if a dam broke. Everyone flooded toward them and welcomed them genially to church. Sophie spoke to everyone, and all her girls were fussed over, especially Laura. Before long the girls were off chattering with other children, and Sophie and Clay were visiting pleasantly with the congregation.

A lady Sophie had never seen before approached her. “How do you do? I am Grace Calhoun, the new school teacher.” Each word was clipped and perfectly pronounced—no Texas drawl for this young woman.

Sophie nodded her head at the extremely proper teacher. Grace Calhoun’s demeanor reminded Sophie of her more formal upbringing in Pennsylvania, and she dusted off some of her more genteel manners. “I am pleased to meet you, Grace.”

“Excuse me, Mrs. McClellen, but I prefer Miss Calhoun. I feel my students must hear me referred to with respect in their homes if I am to keep order in school.”

“Um…” Sophie felt herself blush a bit. “Of course, Miss Calhoun. As I said, I’m pleased to meet you. This will be the first school in Mosqueros, won’t it?”

“No, Mrs. Badje was the teacher before she married. I mean to see things are well run. Are you intending to send the girls to school, Mrs. McClellen?”

The woman had a chilly manner. Her hands were folded primly. Her bonnet was carefully tied with a bow precisely angled under one ear. Her lips were pursed, not unlike someone who had just had a drink of vinegar. But Sophie thought behind the prissy behavior she saw truly kind eyes.

School
. She’d never given it much thought. Survival had been too much work. She’d taught the girls to read with books she owned, mainly the Bible. And she’d taught them their numbers and simple arithmetic. There was so much more, though. Sophie looked sideways at Clay.

Before she could ask, Clay said, “We’ll be there for sure, ma’am.” Clay reached out his hand to shake Miss Calhoun’s.

She flinched just a bit. “It is a lady’s decision if she will shake hands with a man. It is improper of you to offer me your hand first.”

Clay’s hand stayed where it was for an awkward second or two, then he lowered it and rubbed it against his pant leg. “Uh, sorry, I didn’t mean nothing by it.”

“No, I don’t imagine you did.” Miss Calhoun nodded her head. “I’d best be getting inside.” She turned stiffly and headed into the church. Sophie noticed Miss Calhoun went in alone and felt a stab of pity for her. She wondered if the young woman had any friends.

A flurry of friendly faces came up and greeted them. Parson Roscoe broke up the fellowship time by waving the congregation inside. Mrs. Roscoe took Sophie’s arm firmly and escorted her to the front pew. Clay and the girls filed in beside her.

Sophie’s head was spinning. She’d never been treated so kindly by the people of Mosqueros. It could only be due to Clay and whatever passed between him and the townsfolk when he’d done his shopping yesterday. Buoyed by the happiness of it, she faced the parson, ready to listen to the first preaching she’d heard in years.

Parson Roscoe held his big, black Bible open in one hand, lifted it to eye level, and roared, “Avenge not yourselves!”

Sophie almost jumped up out of her seat. She reached sideways without thinking what she was doing and clutched Clay’s hand. She wanted to shake her head and deny the verse the parson had selected, but she held herself still. She didn’t want to hear that it was wrong of her to want vengeance for Cliff. And now vengeance for Clay. She didn’t want to let go of her hate for Judd and Eli and the men who rode with the J B
AR
M.

“Leave room for God’s wrath,” the parson thundered.

Sophie realized her own hand was hurting she was holding Clay’s so tightly. She tried to relax her grip, only to realize she wasn’t the only one holding on. Clay’s hand was crushing hers.

Relentlessly the parson said what Sophie didn’t want to hear, “For it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine.’”

Mindful that she was sitting front and center in a very small church, she dared a quick glance at Clay.

Parson Roscoe said vehemently, “’I will repay, saith the Lord’!”

The parson’s voice faded from her hearing as she looked at her new husband. His face was flushed, and his eyes were locked on the parson. His jaw was rigid. Sophie sensed a terrible battle going on within him for self-control. She knew the words were striking home just as hard with Clay as they were with her. Clay wanted vengeance, too. Every bit as badly as she did.

But vengeance against whom? Sophie saw the anger on Clay’s face, and even though she’d already had a few arguments with him, she sensed Clay was capable of anger far deeper than she’d suspected.

She’d had the impression he was a very Western man in his philosophical acceptance of bad luck—like his horse dying. And she’d noted a certain glint in his eyes when he was challenged that told her Clay could be dangerous. But this rage frightened her. Clay hated someone. Hated him or her deeply and wanted revenge. Just like Sophie did. She tightened her grip on his hand and turned back to face the parson, with stubborn dislike of the chosen topic.

Parson Roscoe had been talking for some minutes while Sophie paid attention to her new husband. Now the parson asked, “How many of you are afraid to ride the roads around Mosqueros at night?”

Sophie knew the parson himself was afraid. The self-appointed lawmen were dangerous.

“We have vigilantes working around here. Men bent on vengeance. Men who have gone too far, taking the law into their own hands.”

Sophie got it. The parson wasn’t talking about her and her thirst for vengeance. It was her own knowledge of the wrongness of her hatred that had made her take the parson’s words personally. Yes, she knew it was wrong to hate so passionately, and she’d keep working on it. But no one, not even a loving God, would ask her to forgive the men who killed her husband. The parson was talking about the renegade lynch mob and the need to stop them. Sophie agreed completely.

“They have hurt too many people. Killed honest men. Killed guilty men who, in this country, are promised a fair trial before a judge and jury.”

Sophie relaxed and her heart rose. The parson agreed with her. The parson knew that crowd of murderers needed to be hunted down and…

Parson Roscoe jabbed his finger straight at Sophie, then swept his hand across the entire congregation and roared, “You have to let go of your hate!” Then his voiced dropped nearly to a whisper. He said with a voice so kind it was heartbreaking, “You have to let go of your hate.”

All in the church visibly leaned forward, so enthralled were they by the challenging sermon. “’Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.’ To harbor hate, even against men as fearful as those who ride these hills in the night, is a sin. Do you think you harm them by sitting in your home and raging in your heart against their evil? Do you think you make the world a better place or bring a single person to believe in the Lord Jesus by gossiping about how deserving the vigilantes are of death? No! The anger only harms you!”

He pointed right at her again. “The hatred only keeps you away from God. There are only two commandments according to the scripture. Not ten. Two! If we obey those two we obey all the others. Love God. Love your neighbor. We have to find it in ourselves to love everyone.”