Episode 19

In God's Hands

Joe trotted after the group of women making their way along the street toward the back of town. He reached the woman in white who walked at the lead, her arm about the young whore. She was speaking low to the girl, comforting words. Joe walked alongside the woman and her young charge without speaking. The entourage made its way past saloons filled with the sounds of roaring men and cackling women. From the belly of the Majestic came the rumbling tones of a pump organ. Pimps stood before their tents extoling passing men with the virtues of the women waiting within in terms that made up in frankness what they lacked in imagination. Two drunks were engaged in a pathetic excuse for a fist fight in the mud before a horse trough.

“You sure turned the herd back there, ma’am,” Joe said at last.

“I only wish I’d arrived earlier, marshal. Those two unfortunate men would still be alive,” she said, eyes forward.

“That pair made their choice, ma’am. It was by my hand but out of my hands, if you take my meaning.”

“We are all in God’s hands, sir.”

“And that same God gave us choice. It’s what separates us from the beast of the field. If you’ll excuse the contradiction, ma’am.”

She looked to him for the first time, a look of cold appraisal. Impossible to tell from her frozen expression what judgement she’d made of him.

“Might I suppose you follow only to see your coat returned?” She sniffed.

“I thought to see you and your sisters to safety, ma’am. My duty as a peace officer.”

“The Lord will see us home, marshal.”

“The name is Joe Wiley.”

She glanced at him again. Eyes flashing green. Was that the start of a smile he saw for a fleeting second?

“Sister Adeline Tibbets. I am the rector of the Holy Crusade Committee. We are here to spread the good word and bring the peace of the savior’s teachings to this Sodom.”

“That puts us in the same line of work, Sister. It’s my job to bring peace too,” Joe said.

“Hardly, Mr. Wiley. I bring the men of Mercury Wells the promise of an eternal life of bliss in the world invisible,” she said with a smug tone. “You simply promise to send them there prematurely.”

That reply trumped Joe’s statement and he fished for a proper answer. They were arriving at a large tent staked down at the very edge of town. It glowed white from lanterns within against the blackness of the night beyond.

Sister Adeline handed off the girl to one of her flock as they filed into the tent. She muttered a word to one of the women who nodded before heading inside. Joe stood at the entrance to the tent with the woman in white.

“What about the girl?” he asked.

“We will enjoin her to become one of our ranks. She will be invited to seek forgiveness and follow us on the path to God’s love,” Sister Adeline said.

More than likely the girl would be back tomorrow selling her cunny to cowboys at fifty cents a throw, Joe thought but only nodded as though in approval of the sister’s plans.

One of the women returned, stepping from the light within the tent to hand Sister Adeline Joe’s coat before retreating. Adeline held the coat to him, allowing the collar to shift under her fingers, weighing it. Before he could take it from her, she had plucked the bible from the inside pocket. It was the same gilt-edged book he’d taken from the dead man all those years back. She looked at it in the muted light coming through the tent canvas.

“You read the word of God?” she said, an eyebrow raised.

“In quiet moments,” he said, taking the coat from her hand.

“You wear a cross as well,” she said, eyes to the tiny crucifix swinging on his watch chain as he slid the coat back on. She offered him the bible.

“A gift from the same man who gave me the book,” he said, his hand lingering on her gloved fingers holding the book.

“A last gift?” she said, allowing him to maintain his grip on her hand, her thumb moving across the bullet hole in the book’s cover.

“It was,” he said.

“And has the book helped you make up your mind to follow the word of the Lord?” she said, opening her hand, allowing the book to slip from her grasp into his.

“I believe that the Lord is still making up His mind about me, Sister,” Joe said, dropping the book back into his coat pocket and making his farewells.

As he walked from the moon glow of the tent toward the lantern lights of town, he heard the voices of women joined in song behind him.

See, the Conqueror mounts in triumph

See the King in royal state.

Riding on the clouds, His chariot

To His heavenly palace gate.

Hark! The choirs of angel voices

Joyful alleluias sing.

And the portals high are lifted

To receive their heavenly King.

Joe imagined he could divine Adeline’s voice from among the others, sweet and melodic. As he walked past one den of sin followed by another, he touched his hand to his nose. There was the ghost of an aroma there of flowers and wine where he’d touched her gloved hand. An austere devotee dedicating her life to service to God Above who had just enough woman left in her to wear scent. Joe wondered what other mysteries might hide behind those opal-colored eyes.

He spun the chamber of his .44 to spill the empty rounds and reload the weapon as he walked back to the Paradise intent on his promise to return to the devil’s work.