Texas Angel, 2-in-1 (22 page)

But why? Should he run and hide because of a faithless wife?

A surge of renewed anger made him open the door. John Hunter faced him.

“Reverend, I’m sure glad you’re here. My mother has finally passed.”

“I’m sorry, John.” Benjamin’s voice trod roughly over the words.

“You okay, Reverend?”

What a poor actor he was! But he tried a moment longer. “Yes . . . of course. Everything is fine. It’s . . . just . . . fine.” His voice began to deteriorate, and he sucked in further speech.

Hunter peered over Benjamin’s shoulder, and his brow wrinkled. Benjamin knew that Hunter would see at once how unusual it was for the house to be so quiet and empty of family life.

“Is it Mrs. Sinclair?” There was true concern in Hunter’s voice.

“Why . . . would you ask?”

“Well, I know of her condition, an’ my missus wanted her to come to our place when her time came.” Hunter licked his lips as though uncomfortable. It wasn’t like him to interfere in another’s business, and Benjamin knew the man was even less inclined to intrude upon a minister’s affairs.

“She is not here,” Benjamin replied sharply. His anger, never really abated, rose again—anger at Rebekah for putting him in such an awkward position, anger at his vulnerability. “No one is here!” His voice was ragged with pain. “Do you want to know where she is?”

“Well . . . uh . . . I don’t—”

“You’ll find out eventually.” Benjamin threw the wad of paper at his hapless visitor. “See for yourself.” The letter brushed Hunter’s nose, then dropped to the floor before he could react. But Benjamin could not let it go. He swept the letter from the floor and shoved it in Hunter’s face until he took it in hand. “Go ahead. Read it!”

This was obviously the last thing John Hunter wanted to do, but he obediently smoothed out the paper and scanned the writing, attempting to catch the meaning without gleaning too much of a personal nature.

But no matter how quickly he read, he could not avoid the basic tenets of the missive.

“Reverend, I’m sorry.”

Hunter’s tone made Benjamin instantly regret his impulsive act. For it was filled with pity. Benjamin spun around and strode to the fireplace, forgetting there was no fire in it to offer some distraction. He grabbed a couple of chunks of wood and tossed them inside, then reached for the tinderbox on the mantel. His hands fumbled as he tried unsuccessfully to ignite a spark.

“Reverend?” Hunter entreated gently.

“What—? This has never worked properly.” He gave the flint a hard strike and the box flew from his hands.

“Let me help you, Reverend.” Hunter bent down and retrieved the box. Benjamin thought his friend’s words had deeper meaning, but his flock was not supposed to minister to him. He should be above their help. It was his responsibility to help them.

“Forgive me, John, I’ve lost track of why you came. Your mother . . .”

Hunter struck a flame, but when he bent to set it to the wood, he must have realized there was no kindling, nothing but the large pieces of wood to start the fire. Letting the little flame die, he reached for some kindling in a bucket next to the hearth.

“Don’t bother with that,” Benjamin said suddenly. “We need to get to your place.”

“I don’t expect you to come now. . . .”

“Nonsense! Your mother must have a proper burial.” Anger, shame, confusion, emptiness—all retreated momentarily in a sudden sense of purpose, though it appeared more like mania as he raced outside and began unloading supplies from his horse. “As soon as I take care of these supplies, we will be off.” He took an armload and strode back into the cabin with Hunter hurrying after him.

“Reverend, please. I can wait.” Hunter grabbed Benjamin’s arm, but Benjamin shook him off.

Benjamin piled the items on the table, but as he did so, a carefully wrapped package tore. He stared at the contents. It contained the pretty blue calico he had bought for Rebekah. Picking it up, he was about to fling it across the room when he caught Hunter’s figure out of the corner of his eye. Instead, he offered the package to him.

“Your wife could use this.” Benjamin’s voice sounded as cold as the fireless hearth. “Rebekah will never need it.”

“I can’t take that, Reverend. Why don’t you set it down and, while you’re at it, sit down yourself. Maybe you’d just like to talk or something.”

“Would you counsel me, John? What do you say to a minister whose life is ruined?”

“Now, don’t talk that way.” Hunter pulled out a corner of the bench by the table and motioned for Benjamin to sit. Then taking his own advice, he slipped onto the bench himself. “Come on, Reverend. Sit.”

Benjamin suddenly felt once more how shaky he was. He realized he hadn’t sat, much less rested, since coming home. Perhaps it would help after all. Maybe it would make his mind work and think properly, calmly. Straddling the bench so as to face Hunter, he stared at him, as if expecting the very action to somehow solve his problems.

Perhaps taking Benjamin’s look as leave to speak, Hunter went on, “I’ll be frank with you, Reverend. You know I don’t know more than you about much of anything, ’cept maybe farming and frontier life. But even I know that no one is perfect, no matter how hard one tries to be so. Don’t you think for a minute that any of your parishioners ever expected you to be perfect—or your wife. Things happen, and it don’t change the man you are.”

“You think no less of me for what has happened?” Benjamin wasn’t certain why this should surprise him so, perhaps because he might have thought less of Hunter had the tables been turned.

“Listen here, Reverend, anyone knows this land ain’t kind to women. Why do you suppose there’s so few of ’em around? My wife has threatened to leave many times. After the cholera epidemic near two years ago when we lost our two youngest children, I thought she’d snap for sure.”

“But she didn’t.”

“All folks are different.”

“It is kind of you to try to comfort me in this way, John, but you and I both know more is expected of me—”

“You only expect it of yourself,” Hunter cut in rather sharply for the soft-spoken man that he was.

“God expects it of me.” As Benjamin said the words, it was the first time that day the full import of what had happened struck him. He hadn’t let himself think of God, at least not in this context. Not in the sense that he had failed God.

“I don’t know about any of that,” Hunter was saying. “But as far as I can see, you haven’t done nothing to let God down yet. God doesn’t expect you to be perfect, does He?”

Of course He does! Benjamin wanted to shout. A father always expects his sons to be perfect. But, if only on an intellectual basis, Benjamin knew he wasn’t perfect and never could be as long as he was shackled by his human frame. Yet in striving as hard as he did to be so, he had come to forget that fact. He made sure he did everything right according to the Scriptures, just so he would not have to be faced with his humanity. Perhaps that’s what angered him most about what Rebekah had done. She had forced him to confront the fact that he was, after all, only a man.

“There’s still a couple of hours of daylight left,” Benjamin hedged. “Let’s use it to make our way to your cabin.”

“I wouldn’t ask that of you—”

“I couldn’t bear to spend the night here, John.” Benjamin wondered what he would do the next night and the night after that? How long could he escape reality?

With an understanding shrug, John said, “In that case, let’s finish unloading those supplies and be on our way.”

CHAPTER

27

T
HE NEWS OF BENJAMIN’S TROUBLED
marriage spread quickly through his circuit. To John Hunter’s credit, it came not from him but rather from Albert Petty, the Cooksburg storekeeper. He had surmised the situation when Benjamin Sinclair’s wife, brother, and brood of kids had come to the store to purchase supplies for the trail. That, together with rumors—Nell Hunter let a thing or two slip here and there—and the story was out, loaded with varying degrees of misinformation.

Not everyone received it with as much magnanimity as Hunter.

Amos Hawke had a good laugh.

“Don’t that beat all!” he chuckled as he shared a glass of ale with Albert Petty. “The preacher’s wife ran off with his own brother. Can’t say as I blame the poor woman.”

“And her several months gone with child,” added Petty with a sly grin.

“You suppose the kid is even the preacher’s?”

“Who knows?”

“Well, all’s I can say is that self-righteous Bible-beater got what he deserved.”

Because Benjamin had just completed his circuit, he used that as an excuse to stay home when he returned from reading a service over the grave of John Hunter’s mother. He didn’t let himself believe he was hiding out. He always took time off after completing his circuit, though occasionally a member of his flock would come to fetch him as Hunter had to perform an emergency service. Now was no different. Even a tarnished preacher was better than none at all when there was a need.

Another death forced Benjamin to ride two days to the home of Jim Wilson, whose wife had died in childbirth along with the infant. Because Wilson lived in a tiny enclave of settlers, mostly his relatives, there were about twenty-five present at the service. Benjamin had often used Wilson’s cabin or one of his clan’s for church services on his circuit, so he knew everyone present.

They stood around the graves in a drizzly spring rain. Benjamin quoted Scripture from memory so as not to expose his Bible to the elements.

“ ‘I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.’ Do you believe this, Jim Wilson?” Benjamin glanced up to see the bereaved man nod and went on. “Then I commend the spirits of Sarah Reed Wilson and Robert James Wilson into the hands of God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Because the bodies had been laid in their graves days previously, the service ended there. The group of mourners hurried into Jim Wilson’s warm, dry cabin to offer further condolences and to partake of a meal.

Benjamin was well accustomed to standing apart in such gatherings. It was a minister’s lot. He was the shepherd, not one of the sheep, thus friendships among the sheep were few. At least he’d always believed his lack of friends was due to his flock’s high respect for him, and that belief kept him from questioning the situation. He would not have questioned it now except he sensed innately there was a deeper chasm between him and his sheep than usual. He felt it not so much in the way they looked at him, but rather in the way they did
not
look at him. Nor was it in the words spoken, but instead in those left unspoken. No one asked, “How’s the missus?” or remarked, “Them kids of yours must be getting big” or even acknowledged the situation with “Sorry to hear about your wife, Reverend. Our prayers are with you.”

Perhaps it would have been better if the silence had continued. But finally Jim Wilson himself clumsily broached the touchy issue.

“Reverend Sinclair, I sure appreciate you coming all this way.”

“I would not have thought to do otherwise.”

“Well, considering . . . uh . . . things, I would have understood.”

Benjamin could have dropped it there by nodding quietly and changing the subject. But the implication of Wilson’s words ignited his defensiveness. “My ministry always takes precedence over my personal life. There is no reason for one to affect the other.”

“Sure, Reverend. I never thought otherwise. . . .”

There was something in Wilson’s tone that implied more, and it irritated Benjamin. “But not everyone feels as you do, is that not so, Mr. Wilson?”

“Well . . . uh . . .”

Still Benjamin could have avoided further discussion by keeping quiet. Part of him wanted nothing more than to do so. But he was by nature confrontative, whether it be disputing sin or apostasy or injustice or political issues. In winning converts to Christ or taking up a moral cause, he never backed down. And he knew if he did so now, his ministry would be over. It was time he set everyone straight and quelled the rumors he knew were spreading.

Benjamin swung around and, with a fierce glint in his eyes, called for the attention of the group.

“I have something to say to all of you.” His voice was clear, as if he were intoning a sermon. “Mr. Wilson, I hope you will indulge me a moment. I will take no more because I know our purpose today is to support you.” Wilson nodded, and Benjamin continued. “I am certain you are all aware of the fact that my wife has left Texas to return to her home in Boston. I am also certain that all manner of rumors have accompanied these circumstances. Let me put them to rest immediately. My wife was extremely homesick, and when an opportunity arose for her to leave, she took it—yes, without informing me, but I’m sure only because I was out on my circuit. I do not defend her actions. She broke faith with her marriage vows. But if I believed for a minute that her behavior in any way reflected upon my spiritual call and my personal soundness for the ministry, I would not now be standing before you. Her weakness does not weaken my ministry to you. I am blameless and stand with a pure heart before God. I implore you not to give place to Satan by rejecting the ministry I have begun. If you have doubts, take it to God in prayer. I know He continues to stand with me through all this, and I pray you will also.”

Regardless of what anyone thought about Benjamin Sinclair, they could not attribute cowardice to him. Even if they thought his bravery was mixed with a good dose of gall, they had to admit he had pluck in standing face-to-face before them, though they did wonder about a man who considered himself blameless and pure of heart. Yet Rev. Benjamin Sinclair was the only man of the cloth they were likely to see, so they were willing to overlook his faults, just as they always had.

When the people in the cabin shook Benjamin’s hand and told him not to worry about it, he took them at their word. Why would they do otherwise? He was faultless in the situation with his wife. He returned to his cabin bolstered as never before. A good portion of his daily prayers were spent on Rebekah’s behalf, that God would lead her back from the path of iniquity, deliver her from Satan’s wiles, and “create in her a clean heart.”