Petticoat Ranch (14 page)

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.”

No!
Sophie didn’t cry out, but everything in her rebelled against the parson’s words. God could not ask her to love the men who killed her husband. He didn’t ask His followers to look the other way while people were being killed.

“That doesn’t mean you should be foolish. It doesn’t mean that these men don’t deserve prison. It doesn’t mean we should let ourselves be killed while evil walks the face of the earth.”

Sophie breathed a sigh of relief. He was giving his blessing, after all, to her desire for—she knew better than to call it
vengeance
now— justice. She’d call it
justice
. That was better.

“But He does call us to love. Yes, even love those who persecute us. Don’t fool yourself that you can walk through life harboring hatred and still call yourself a believer in Jesus Christ. Love is what Jesus demands of us. First! Last! Always!” He looked right at her and finished his sermon in a voice full of tenderness and kindness. “First, love. Last, love. Always, always, love!”

It wasn’t the ferocious demand that had begun his sermon. It was a prayer. His words washed over Sophie’s restless soul and offered her, for the first time in a long time, peace.

“Dearly beloved,” the parson said quietly, “avenge not yourselves.
Leave room for God’s wrath. For it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.’ ”

The parson then led the congregation into a rousing chorus of “Rock of Ages.”

“Rock of Ages cleft for me. Let me hide myself in Thee.”

Her whole body trembled as she stood to sing along. Sophie heard the words of the faithful old hymn. She had spent the last two years hiding herself, literally. But had she hidden herself in God? Had she depended on Him?

The song ended, and only then did Clay release her hand. And only when he released it did Sophie realize they’d held hands tightly through the whole service. The parson swept up the aisle. Mrs. Roscoe followed.

Clay and Sophie had a second as they stood alone in the front pew of the church. “I don’t think it was right,” Clay said curtly, “for the parson to pick out a scripture and use it to scold me the first day I attend his church.”

Sophie stumbled. Clay caught her. She looked sideways and couldn’t quite stop a smile from flickering across her face.

“You think that’s funny?” Clay growled.

Sophie glanced forward. In just a few steps they’d have to shake the parson’s hand, so she didn’t have time to say much. She tucked her hand through Clay’s elbow. “I thought he was preaching it at me, not you.”

Clay’s eyebrows rose in astonishment. “You? What do you need revenge for?”

The girls surrounded them: Mandy with Laura, Sally holding Clay’s hand, and Beth just a step behind. Sophie didn’t want to get into her hatred in front of them. She said quietly, “Cliff.”

Clay stopped so abruptly, Beth bumped into his back. “You reckon everyone in that church figured the parson was aiming his words at them personally?”

“If God blesses his words, I imagine they do.”

Clay let a small, humorless grunt of agreement escape his lips, then
he stepped forward and shook the parson’s hand. “Excellent message today, Parson.”

Sophie didn’t think Parson Roscoe gave her a look more stern than usual. So his sermon hadn’t been for her—or Clay. It was God who’d made her think that. The peace she’d felt earlier deepened and settled on Sophie’s heart as she considered that. It was God who chastised her, not the parson.

She could say honestly, “I enjoyed the service, Parson.”

He shook her hand and moved on to Sophie’s girls. Sophie and Clay walked toward the horses.

“You wanted to tell me something on the trail?” Clay asked.

Sophie glanced over her shoulder. The girls were coming right behind. She said quickly, “I didn’t tell you about the men who came to the cabin in the thicket after we pulled you out of the creek. They were hunting you. They were the same men who killed Cliff. Or at least one of them was.”

“Did you. . .” Clay cut off his question when Sally came around front of them.

Sally asked, “Can I ride double with you again, Pa?”

Sophie murmured to Clay, “We’ll talk later.”

Clay nodded at Sophie, then turned to Sally and said, “I reckon it’s Beth’s turn, darlin’.”

Sally pouted something fierce. But after a nice long visit with their fellow believers and a stop at the general store, whose owner was kind enough to fill their order on Sunday, the McClellen family headed home, with Beth taking her turn.

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