The Braxtons of Miracle Springs (23 page)

Jesse Harris lay unconscious in our house for a week, in the bed and room that used to be mine and more recently had belonged to the very young man who had shot him.

Doc Shoemaker dug out Zack's bullet, dressed the wound and bandaged the shoulder, and afterward came and went every day.

“He lost a fair amount of blood, all right,” he declared on the fourth day, “but it's not so serious a wound that he should be unconscious all this time. Something is strange here.”

“What, Doc?” asked Pa.

“I don't know, Drum,” sighed Dr. Shoemaker. “I don't know—he oughta either be dead or waking up by now.”

Zack especially was worried. Having actually shot a man who now struggled between life and death was an experience unlike anything he'd ever been through. Now he was pulling for Harris to live, even though it had been his gun that put him there.

The whole atmosphere around the place gradually changed. At first there had been such fear, then relief when it was over and everyone was all right. But now it grew quieter and quieter as we saw that everyone
wasn't
all right.

Realizing a man might be dying right under our own roof had a very sobering effect on all of us. Without anyone saying anything, gradually we began to think of him differently.

He was a human being, a fellow creature of God's making. The longer he lay there unconscious, the more we all began to think of him less as a hateful outlaw and more as a person. Soon we found ourselves praying desperately that he would live.

It seems such an unlikely thing to say, but what I think was happening was that in some miraculous way we were starting to care about that man. Whether it had something to do with the fact that we had prayed for him or whether it was because he was now so close to death, I don't know. But it was clear that our feelings toward him had changed within just a few days.

Pa and Zack, I think, spent more time in the sickroom, sitting at his side, than any of the rest of us. Anyone except Becky, that is. She was as devoted to him as if she were his personal servant, checking on him, keeping the room clean and warm, trying to get what liquid she could between his lips even though he was unconscious. I found myself thinking what a good nurse she would make.

Zack was real quiet all week. Sometimes he'd come out with his eyes red, and I knew he'd been crying. It was a hard thing to face what he'd done, and I knew he was trying his best to come to terms with it.

Christopher didn't say much. I knew he was wondering what God might be doing in all this. I told him every word Pa had said to Harris, and he was moved by what Pa had done.

As he listened, Christopher just kept shaking his head and saying softly, “God is really going to use your father's faith. I don't know how, but he is really going to use it in some powerful way. It's one thing to talk about loving your enemies, but I've never seen it
done
so powerfully.”

He looked at me with an expression almost of disbelief.

“He actually did that?” he asked again. “Bowed his head and started to pray immediately after that threat?”

I nodded.

“He's a man of God, Corrie. He got angry, but then he turned that anger straight around back on itself and transformed it into the greatest kind of love in the world—love that is willing to give its life for a brother. It is an honor to call him my father-in-law.”

That same evening, the sixth day after the shooting, we had the chance to see what Christopher meant even more.

A half an hour or so after supper was over, I suddenly realized that Pa wasn't at the table with the rest of us. Everyone had been coming and going, and I hadn't noticed when he'd slipped away.

I looked around and saw the edge of his back through the door into my old room where Mr. Harris lay.

I got up, went to the door, and looked in. Pa was just sitting there at the bedside, one of his hands stretched out and laid on top of the other's lifeless arm.

I stood watching the silent exchange a moment, knowing full well what was going on. I was moved. I felt tears coming to my eyes.

“What are you doing, Pa?” I asked finally, walking into the room.

Pa glanced toward me unembarrassed, with a gentle, humble, almost tired sort of smile, but good-tired.

“Praying for him, Corrie,” he sighed. “Praying like we did before, that God would do his best for him.”

He paused briefly.

“And,” he added, “praying that if God decides to take him, that somewhere deep down inside the man, the Lord'll be talking to him, maybe like he did to the thief on the cross that repented right at the last.”

“Mind if I join you?” I said.

“I'd be pleased if you did, Corrie Belle. Pull up a chair.”

I did. I'd only been seated a minute when slowly the others began to wander into the room too. Christopher had seen me come in and had followed, then came Almeda, and within two or three minutes everyone of the household was standing or sitting in a circle around the bed, hands stretched out and laid on Jesse Harris's arms and head and legs, all of us murmuring our own prayers.

It was Pa who first prayed aloud.

“Lord,”
he said,
“I pray you'll forgive my
attitudes against this man that weren't what they should have been. I'm still learning what it means to
do like you say—trying to learn, I should say
, and sometimes it ain't easy. But I thank you
for what Corrie's man, Christopher, told me about praying for people. Hasn't been easy to do with this
here fellow that's laying here in our home. But
I
have
been praying for him, and I pray for him again right now. I ask you, Lord, that you
'd be inside him and you'd put the strength inside him to pull out of this. I'm asking
for his life, Lord. I'm asking you to save
his life and bring him back. I don't know
what we'll do then, but I know you do. All I'm asking is that you'd heal him
and fix him up.”

“Amen,”
came Almeda's soft voice.

“Help the man to wake up,”
prayed Ruth simply.

I prayed, then Becky prayed, and Tad. Christopher remained silent. He knew this was time for others to take the lead.

Zack was the last to pray. His eyes were full of tears as he did.

“Oh, God
,”
he said, and his voice was so soft I could hardly hear it,
“I'm asking the same thing
as Pa prayed—that you'd bring Jesse Harris back
, and make his body strong again. I can't help
feeling horrible for what I did. I don't know
if it was right or wrong, I just didn't know what else to do when I found myself standing
there and realized he was about to kill Pa. But
I never meant to kill him, Lord. And now, seeing
him there, seeing his face sleeping so peaceful, I . . . I
can almost feel myself loving him, maybe a little.”

His voice caught. He looked away a moment.

“No matter
what he's done, I can't think that he's so bad that you couldn't do something with
him if he had another chance. As much as I
thought I hated him when he was trying to kill me in the Nevada territory, looking at him now, I
know how you must love him no matter what he's done. So save him, Jesus. Save him, and heal
him, and give us a chance to see if we can love him instead of hate him. Amen.”

Long before Zack was through, every one of the rest of us were crying too.

Jesse Harris woke up the next morning.

It was Becky who first heard him groan. She went running in and saw him opening his eyes.

“Mr. Harris,” she exclaimed, “you're awake. Could you drink some water?”

He nodded faintly.

By the time she had returned, he was dimly trying to take in his surroundings. She handed him the glass and helped him to get a few sips down.

“Who're you?” he asked.

“Becky . . . Becky Hollister.”

Hearing the name of his enemy seemed to bring him a little further awake.

“Where am I?”

“In our house, Mr. Harris. We've been taking care of you—and praying for you.”

“Prayin'—I don't need no prayin'!”

Already his old orneriness was starting to return.

He twisted a little in the bed, winced in pain, then lay still. By that time, Almeda had come in, then Tad and I. We were the only ones in the house at the time. He glanced around, obviously recognizing both Almeda and me. Then his eyes came to rest on Tad.

“You ain't the Hollister kid—leastways, I don't think . . .”

He paused as if trying to remember something from a long time ago.

“You must mean my brother, Zack,” said Tad. “No, I'm Tad Hollister.”

“What is this—a whole blame house full of Hollisters? Where is Hollister anyway—I wanna see him.”

Again his face grimaced from the hurt in his shoulder, and he closed his eyes and relaxed a bit against the pillow, breathing deeply. He was obviously weak, and his face was pale.

“Do you think you could eat something, Mr. Harris?” asked Almeda gently. “A biscuit, a cup of soup . . . some coffee perhaps?”

He only nodded, then coughed a couple of times, still with his eyes closed. Obviously the coughing was difficult and painful. He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand.

Almeda turned and went back to the kitchen. About a minute later we heard the door of the house open and Pa's boots coming across the floor. He was followed into the room by Christopher, who had run to fetch him the moment Mr. Harris awakened.

Pa came into the room, then slowly approached the bed. The rest of us made room for him. He walked up and sat down at the bedside.

Gradually Mr. Harris's eyes opened again. He saw Pa sitting beside him.

“What is this, Hollister?” he said in a soft, raspy voice. “What'm I doing here?”

“This is my home, Jesse,” Pa replied as if he was talking tenderly to a child. “You were hurt. We've been taking care of you.”

“How was I hurt?”

“You were shot, Jesse.”

“Shot! Who in tarnation shot me? I don't remember nothing 'cept you standing there like a blame fool that wouldn't fight me.”

“I didn't shoot you.”

“Then, who?”

“My son.”

“The Zack kid? I never saw him.”

“He was behind you, Jesse—waiting to see what you were going to do.”

This information silenced Mr. Harris for a minute.

Almeda returned with a cup half full of coffee and a buttered biscuit. She and Pa tried to help him sit up in the bed against several pillows. He didn't seem to like anyone touching and fussing with him, but he accepted their help with only a few gruff expressions and grunts.

“Why wouldn't you fight me, Hollister?” he said after a minute. “I never took you fer one to go yeller.”

“Because to fight a man like
you
mean, Jesse,” replied Pa, “you've got to hate him. I
don't
hate you, Jesse. I love you.”

“Confound you, Hollister! Don't say things like that—you sound like a blasted woman!”

“It's true, Jesse. I
do
love you. It isn't because I've gone soft and yellow, but because I've discovered the true meaning of manhood. That's why I prayed for you instead of fighting you.”

“Yer a fool like I said before, Hollister, if you believe that kind of woman-talk!”

“It's
life
, Jesse—for men as well as women.”

“Bah, yer a coward! You wouldn't fight me like a man!”

“What do you think takes more courage, Jesse,” asked Pa, “to fight back when a man who's your enemy is trying to kill you or to bow your head and ask your heavenly Father to do good to him?”

“That's moonshine!”

“I've done both, Jesse, and I can tell you which one takes more guts. You talk about manhood and cowardice—I done lots of fighting in my life, Jesse, which I ain't proud of now. I finally see it's the
coward
who tries to settle things with fists and guns.”

Pa paused a moment, then looked Mr. Harris straight in the eye.

“It's you that's the coward, Jesse Harris,” he said. “You're afraid to look yourself full in the face.”

“What the devil do you mean? I ain't never been called a coward! You think 'cause I'm layin' here in this bed you kin git away with that?”

“You'll take on anybody in the world. You'd fight me and a hundred men like me. But there's one man you're afraid of, Jesse Harris, and that makes you a coward when it comes to the truest kind of manhood of all.”

“I ain't afraid of nobody, I tell you!”

“You're afraid to look at
yourself
,” Pa repeated, “and at what you've allowed yourself to become.”

“Blast you, Hollister! I won't listen to yer insults!”

“I'm sorry the truth makes you uncomfortable, Jesse.”

“Confound this shoulder!” he cried, struggling as if to get out of the bed. “By heaven—if I weren't laid up like this, I'd beat the tar out of you right where you stand! Get out . . . get out of here, you hear me? If I could git up I'd throw you out myself!”

“No need for that, Jesse,” replied Pa calmly, turning. “I'm gonna leave peaceful.”

As he went, he motioned for the rest of us to follow, which we did, leaving the invalid alone with his smoldering thoughts.