The Braxtons of Miracle Springs (6 page)

It was probably seven-thirty or eight when we arrived back at the boardinghouse where we were staying. Robin O'Flaridy would probably be out on the town for another several hours. But we had had a long day and a good time. Now we were ready to put it behind us and think about going home the next morning. As we climbed the stairs, Christopher lingered behind.

“We need to talk,” he whispered to me.

I nodded.

As soon as Tad and Zack were in their room and Becky and Laughing Waters and I in ours, I told the other two girls that Christopher and I were going to go back for a walk.

He was already waiting for me downstairs, and together we stepped back out into the quiet, chilly evening. Christopher let out a long sigh as soon as we were alone. We walked down the street in the opposite direction from which we had just come for several minutes.

“I am sorry,” he said at length, “for putting you in that awkward position with O'Flaridy.”

“You didn't put me in it,” I said.

“Maybe not directly, but indirectly I have to take responsibility for it.”

“Why?”

“Because I am your husband, and so I am responsible for you. And then I got up and deserted you just before he came around.”

“You didn't desert me.”

“Well, I shouldn't have left, and I am sorry. But I just had to get alone for a minute to try to clear my thoughts and ask the Lord what to do.”

“You couldn't have known Robin was going to show up.”

“It's more than that, Corrie. Don't you see? As the oldest among us, not just between you and me but all six of us, the moment I sensed something amiss in the situation, I should have taken us right out of there. It wasn't the kind of place we should have been. It felt more like a tavern than a restaurant. Surely you felt it?”

“Of course,” I nodded. “But it was awkward, being there with Mr. Kemble, and with him so excited about having gotten us an invitation. I don't know what else we could have done, Christopher.”

“That's hardly a reason not to do the right thing.”

Again he sighed. I could tell he was taking it very seriously and very personally.

“What would Jesus think,” he went on after a minute, “if he had walked in, and there we all were, six of his people? Corrie, don't you understand? I had the distinct feeling that the atmosphere of the place was more that of a bordello than a restaurant.”

“I know,” I said, now sighing myself.

“I have no wish to pass judgment on Mammy Pleasant, or anyone else, for that matter. I just didn't feel comfortable there. I sensed a wrong spirit, and it was all the worse knowing the rest of you were there as well.”

“I don't see what else we could have done, Christopher,” I repeated.

This time he was quiet a long time. He had his hands clasped by the fingers behind the back of his head, and he was staring up toward the sky as we walked along.

“If we had been alone,” Christopher said finally, now dropping his hands and gesturing with them as he spoke, “the moment we walked in I would have turned right around and left and taken us someplace else. But with your editor there, having arranged it all and clearly enthusiastic about the whole affair, I thought perhaps it would turn out all right. As we ate our dinner, however, I felt more and more that I'd done the wrong thing, that I had compromised what I'd known to be right because I was too embarrassed to make a scene.”

“I knew you were uncomfortable,” I said.

“I didn't want to hurt your editor's feelings or make it difficult for you later on. How can a man like that, without spiritual convictions so far as I know—do you know if he's a Christian?”

I shook my head. “I've never spoken with him about the Lord,” I said.

“So how could a man like that understand if we had gotten up and left halfway through dinner, and then if I had later tried to explain that I felt God's Spirit telling me there was an atmosphere of darkness about the place and that I needed to get my wife and her family out of there? He would think I was insane! There's nothing people hate more than a religious fanatic. I don't know, Corrie—how do you take a stand for what you believe when people are bound to misunderstand and misreact? What kind of a witness is
that
for the Lord?”

“Is that why you finally left?” I asked.

“I had to find someplace alone to talk to the Lord about it. I was becoming more and more convicted as the evening went along that we shouldn't be there, and yet I didn't have the backbone to do anything about it for fear of Mr. Kemble's reaction.”

Christopher's voice sounded almost despairing. I'd never seen him like this.

“Over and over the verse kept going through my head—
Whoever causes one of these little ones of mine to stumble,
it would be better for him that a giant millstone were hung about his neck
. And there were Tad and Becky sitting there, and Laughing Waters especially—don't you see, Corrie? I was the one responsible!”

“Aren't you taking it perhaps
too
seriously?” I suggested.

“That is precisely the reason there is so much unbelief in the world today,” Christopher said with anger starting to sound in his voice, “because God's people
don't
take their faith seriously enough in the small, everyday things. They compromise in the little things, settling in to the flow and pattern of the rest of the world, until there's not much left to distinguish the people of God from the people who don't know him. How are people going to know the gospel is true if God's people don't take it seriously enough to
do
it, to stand up and be counted.”

I nodded. How could I expect Christopher not to take it so seriously? It was just this passion about his beliefs that made me love him and think so highly of him.

“Please, don't think I'm upset with you or the others. I don't mean to point the finger at anyone else for not taking faith seriously,” he continued, “for I am as guilty as anyone. But I want our lives to count for something, Corrie—I want them to count for the spreading of the Gospel. And how else can that happen unless we walk
differently
 . . . visibly distinct from the world? Who in that place tonight will have seen the Lord Jesus more clearly as he truly is because we were there?”

“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.

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.