A Life Restored (29 page)

She started dishing out plates of food.
 
As soon as she had several filled, Paul returned and took them out to the boarders.

He smiled at her when he came back for more.

No, she was not ready to go.

Chapter 30

Thomas sat up with a start as someone entered the cabin.
 
The familiar man stood in the doorway, his face in shadow.
 
He slowly approached the bed where Thomas spent much of the last three months.

“Hello, Thomas.”

A sudden unexplainable fear gripped his heart as the man’s face came into full view.

“Drew?”
 
That was impossible.
 
Drew was dead.
 
Hannah said she saw him die with her own eyes.

“You should have called me sooner,” Drew said as he lifted the covers from Thomas.
 
Bending over at the waist, he carefully studied his wounded leg.
 
“I could have set your leg properly.
 
Then you might still be able to ride.
 
You’re fortunate it did not get infected.”

“What do you mean I won’t be able to ride?”
 
Thomas’s heart beat hard against his chest.
 
Riding was his life.
 
He had to ride.

“Sorry brother.
 
Your leg has healed crooked.
 
It will give you much pain in the months and years ahead.
 
You won’t be able to mount a horse for a very long time, if ever.
 
Your days as an express rider are over.”

He stared into Drew’s blue eyes.
 
Odd, he hadn’t taken his bowler hat off.
 
He was wearing a dark brown suit, much like the one he wore when he came to visit Thomas in jail—was it really over two years ago now?
 
He didn’t look a bit different.
 
He was exactly as Thomas remembered him.

“How do you know I’m an express rider?
 
Where have you been?”

“I know many things, Thomas.
 
More than when we last spoke.
 
I know that you will marry very soon.”

“How—”

“I’m so disappointed in you.
 
Caroline is a sweet young woman.
 
Very innocent.
 
Very easily influenced.
 
I’m sad that you corrupted her.
 
You haven’t changed.”

“I’ve tried to change,” he replied, desperate for Drew’s approval.
 
“I stopped gambling.
 
I stopped drinking—well most of the time.
 
I even went to church a few times.
 
I did many good things in the war.
 
I have a good job and even some good friends.”

“You’ve stopped gambling?”
 
Drew’s voice scoffed.
 
He walked to where Thomas’s trousers hung from a peg.
 
He reached into a pocket and pulled out a heavy pouch of gold.
 
“Where do you suppose this came from?”

He swallowed hard.
 
How did Drew know about that?

Closing his eyes, he lowered his head in shame.
 
He had been so confused and angry with himself after he left Caroline.
 
On his last run, while he was in La Paz, he drank heavily.
 
The call of the cards and the smug look on one player’s face enticed him to sit at the table.
 
He won a sizeable pot that night.

But there was no way for Drew to know this unless he had been following him.
 
If so, why had he kept his presence hidden for so long?

“Where have you been?”

“Answer my question first.
 
Where did this money come from?”

“Gambling.”

“Exactly.
 
You haven’t changed.
 
You can sit there and recount the list of good things you’ve done.
 
But I know how many bad things you’ve done.
 
I know what you did to Caroline.
 
I know the shame she will face because of you.
 
How can you say that you’ve changed when you’ve slid down further than ever before?”

Thomas wanted to argue, but he had the same thought many, many times over the past three months confined to this bed.
 
Taking advantage of Caroline had been worse than robbing that bank back in Cincinnati.

“I see you are beginning to see things my way.
 
So what are you going to do about it?
 
Just trying to be a good man has gotten you nowhere.
 
How will you change?
 
Do you really want to change?”

“Yes.”

“Then do it.”

Thomas bit back a curse.
 
“How?
 
I’ve been trying, but I don’t know how.”

Drew laughed—an odd sort of laugh, not really like any Thomas heard from him before.
 
This whole conversation was bizarre.
 
How could he be speaking with his dead brother?
 
How could Drew know so much—things that no one else knew?

“You sat in church enough times with me and Father to know the answer.
 
Even your good friend Paul told you what you needed.
 
But, you are still running anyway.
 
Are you afraid of what will happen if you do what you know you must?”

“You’re speaking nonsense!”
 
Thomas yelled, wearying of the cryptic conversation.

“Am I?”

“Yes!”

“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
 
For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.

“The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; … jealousy, … selfish ambition, … envy; drunkenness, … and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Thomas recognized the words.
 
They were from a passage in the Bible that Perry read the other morning.

And this time they pierced him to the core.

He gratified his desires by using Caroline.
 
He was jealous when she spoke to other men.
 
He was envious of Paul and Perry.
 
Being good men just seemed so easy for them.
 
He drank more often than he would admit to anyone.

All of these things called to him, pulling him under.
 
He had no strength to fight the desires of his flesh.

But, Drew just said that the Spirit desires what is contrary to these things.
 
He wanted to desire what the Spirit desired.

A small flicker of hope lightened his broken heart.
 
Maybe he could change.

Drew continued, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

Those who belong to Christ Jesus.

Thomas knew what that meant.
 
Drew belonged, Paul belonged, Perry belonged.
 
All of them were admirable men.
 
All of them displayed peace, love, kindness, self-control.
 
These were the things he wanted.

The answer was clear.

Drew was right.
 
He had been running from what he needed to do—ever since he lost his mother.
 
He held on to bitterness and anger, letting them turn into rebellion, then selfishness.
 
He lost all control and gave into the titillating insatiable desires of his flesh: whiskey, gambling, and lust.

What he had done to Caroline had been selfish.

He closed his eyes as tears squeezed their way through against his will.
 
He needed Jesus to crucify his flesh.
 
He needed Jesus to take his evil heart and make it something pure.

“Thomas!
 
Thomas!”
 
Perry’s voice broke through to his contrite heart.

He opened his eyes.
 
Drew was gone.
 
Instead, Perry sat in the chair next to his bed, concern written all over his face.

Thomas looked down to his body.
 
Covers hid his form all the way to his chest.
 
Sweat poured from his brow.
 
His heart thundered heavily.

“You were thrashing in your sleep,” Perry said.
 
“Are you alright?”

Thomas took a deep breath to steady himself.
 
“Drew was here.”

“Who is Drew?”

“My brother.
 
He was here.”

“No one besides me has been here for hours.
 
The men left after breakfast this morning.
 
After you ate, you fell asleep again.”

Confusion clouded his mind.
 
It all seemed so real.
 
He really thought he was speaking to Drew.

Yet there were clues.
 
He had on the same clothing as when Thomas saw him last.
 
He hadn’t aged at all, but to listen to Hannah’s stories, he looked much older toward the end of his life—the stress of the journey westward wearing on him.

It all had been a dream.

But the words Drew spoke were true.
 
His realization that he could never be the kind of man he sought to be without Jesus—that was also true.

Tears singed the corners of his eyes.

Perry leaned forward.
 
“What is it?”

“Nothing.
 
Can you leave me?
 
I just want to be alone.”

Perry’s eyebrows raised in question.
 
He held his gaze for a few seconds before standing and leaving the cabin.

Thomas closed his eyes again as the sobs tore from his mouth.
 
He was a wretched, awful man.
 
And he wanted to change more than he wanted anything else in his life.
 
He wanted a new life.

“Lord,” he whispered, “I can’t do this on my own.
 
Drew was right.
 
I have always known what I needed to do.
 
I did pay attention in church.
 
I heard the things Pa’s pastor said.
 
I know who you are.
 
I’m tired of running.
 
I’m tired of failing.
 
I’m tired of making a dreadful mess of my life.
 
Can you forgive me?”

Sobs shook his body as he silently let go of the lifetime of bitterness and anger against God and against himself.

Slowly as the minutes passed, his sobs subsided and a peace settled over his heart.
 
The restlessness and rebellion that drove him all of his life started to loosen.
 
The guilt he felt over Drew’s death softened.
 
His self-hatred for what he did to Caroline dimmed.

“Lord, I want you to take control of my heart.
 
I want you to crucify the desires of my wicked heart.
 
I want you to replace it with those things Drew said—kindness, gentleness, self-control.”

For the first time, Thomas felt a rush of freedom, though still confined to his bed.
 
His heart unburdened.
 
His life restored.

When Perry returned to the cabin to start supper, Thomas threw back the covers.

“Will you help me to the table?”

Perry nodded and stood beside the bed as Thomas slid his legs to the edge.
 
Pain shot through his left leg, as it had every time he tried to stand over the past few weeks.
 
He gritted teeth as he accepted Perry’s help to stand.
 
Perry placed Thomas’s arm over his shoulder while he hugged Thomas to his side with his arm at Thomas’s waist.
 
Slowly, careful not to put much weight on his left leg, Thomas made it to the table.
 
Once seated, he stretched his leg out straight.