Danny was quiet for a moment. “He won’t go to the marshal with it. I don’t think he will.”
“You don’t think. Danny—”
“Or I’ll get you out of here. I promise you. I promise you.”
He couldn’t organize his thoughts. He didn’t know what he thought, and two beers didn’t help. He wanted to sit down where he was. He wanted not to think about it.
“Yeah,” he said. He’d learned—adults didn’t take things for granted. Adults didn’t trust blindly. Adults didn’t expect other adults to keep extravagant promises.
Danny walked away.
Carlo gathered Randy up by an arm and got him moving. Maybe Randy’d heard enough of it for a thought or two to penetrate his brain. Maybe he hadn’t.
He didn’t know himself what he’d just heard. He was mad. But he wished he had the sense not to be walking away from Danny. He wished he could go back and say, because he had no other friend, Let’s talk about this.
But when he looked back, from the door to the forge, with Randy’s weight on his arm, Danny hadn’t hung around. Danny was a distant figure down the snowy street.
Chapter 14
There were evergreen boughs on the altar, there were lamps burning with sweet-smelling oil, and after the social announcements from the various families, the preacher preached a sermon on the righteousness of God and His Mercy, and turned it into a kind of memorial for Tarmin.
Carlo liked the smells and the sights, and the church murals weren’t so fine as those in Tarmin, but they were amazing to his eyes—portraying creatures of the New World, which wouldn’t have pleased preacher Wales down in Tarmin, not by a long way.
And the preacher really got to him when he started talking about the kids down in Tarmin. He had a lump in his throat and noted people in the seats down the row were using handkerchiefs. The preacher proceeded to the old business of how nobody ever knew the hour or the day they’d die, which was predictably grim, and then segued into an exhortation to enjoy the world—which was so sharp a left turn from the expected path of doom and gloom that Carlo tried to reconstruct in his mind exactly how the preacher had gotten where he had from the point where preacher Wales had always concluded the world was the source of evil.
Enjoy life? He could get along with this preacher.
Randy fidgeted. He always had fidgeted in church. Carlo nudged his ankle and Randy slouched. Randy always would do that, too. Neither of them had ever favored church—but it was a comfortable and comforting thing this morning, after so much was out of joint, to be sitting in the smells of winter Sundays and hearing a sermon just like every week. Reverend Quarles went on, in his quiet manner, talking about right actions and not cheating your neighbor— and redeeming the damned world with good living and right dealing. That was a new twist, and it ought to have made the Mackeys squirm, but probably not, Carlo thought. Most everybody could feel comfortable with Reverend Quarles. Even he could. He thought if things worked out, he could very easily get along with this church.
The sermon didn’t conclude in hellfire. It meandered off into how there was a horse out there, but they had it on good information it wasn’t mad, or even particularly dangerous. Reverend Quarles praised the riders for going out to deal with it, praised the Lord that the world worked and the seasons happened on schedule, and segued somehow to the choir’s next social. There was, the preacher announced, a sign-up sheet for various projects in the foyer, and there followed more talk about a social and dinner the deacons were putting together in honor of some elder member’s seventieth birthday.
Then the preacher got up again. “Carlo and Randy Goss,” he said. “Would you come up to the front, please? Praise the Lord for that loose bell that night. Praise the Lord He guided you through the dark of the storm, lost sheep brought to His blessed fold.”
Carlo thought to himself that he’d just as soon the Lord had lightened the dark of the storm instead of guiding them through it, or at least dropped the wind a little or let them see that rider-shelter, but there were a lot of reasons, too, the Lord shouldn’t be too happy with him and didn’t owe him many favors. He stood up, taking Randy with him, and had a lot rather not stand up in front of the congregation, but he didn’t see any way out of it.
Randy was no happier than he was. But they stood in front of the altar while (the most embarrassing moment of his life) the preacher laid hands on them, prayed over them, and then invited the whole village to come by and welcome them to the congregation and introduce themselves.
“I don’t want to do this,” Randy said in anguish.
Their clothes weren’t church clothes. They didn’t own any church clothes. They only had one change, and something was always sooty and something was always drying in the heat of the forge. What they had on was what was clean.
And he wasn’t used to going to church dressed in work clothes. He was embarrassed. He thought Randy was going to die of embarrassment or bolt for the door—at that age when the whole world was looking at him constantly, anyway. But two old women were first in line, who called them heroic boys, and Randy shook hands and smiled—
Kid ought to run for office, Carlo thought, dealing with the same elderly women. Once Randy got into the swing of handshaking and being congratulated, he seemed to have discovered he liked being a hero, and positively blossomed under that much attention—so did the Mackeys, who were over in the aisle being congratulated right along with them, Carlo caught that fact out of the corner of his eye. Van Mackey and Mary Hardesty had maneuvered up to the front seats right where the outflow of congregation was going to pass them, and there they were, shaking hands, grinning and just enjoying the moment.
Sons of bitches, Carlo thought. For all the preacher’s talk about redeeming the world, he didn’t see Danny Fisher invited into the congregation. He didn’t see Danny Fisher being offered several new outfits by the owner of the general store, as had just happened, and he didn’t see Danny Fisher being told by the preacher that he was God’s chosen model of His mercy.
But then, Danny didn’t expect to be, either, by what he guessed.
He hoped Danny was still speaking to him.
They had to stay through absolutely everybody coming by and shaking their hands, including some of the girls—the boys on their own weren’t so inclined. The younger girls—there were three—giggled. Two older ones showed better sense.
After that, they could escape, except a last handshaking with preacher Quarles and an actually friendly embrace, out to the foyer to get their hats and coats.
Then it was out to the street where the Mackeys were lying in wait. Mary Hardesty immediately took Carlo’s arm and beamed and prattled on and on how they were their own personal miracles.
Amazing, Carlo thought, wishing he knew how to break that hold with some kind of grace. Truly amazing, the depth of godly enthusiasm the Mackeys found when the neighbors were watching.
Totally oblivious, apparently, to the shading of lips with gloved hands, as certain village folk spotted the show and talked about it, Carlo could just imagine—the Mackeys not being universally believed as saints.
But neighbors were neighbors. Two hundred permanent neighbors in a village, and you couldn’t afford open feuds with anybody. Even if you’d like to shoot them. You shook hands and you smiled.
God, they could put off going to see Brionne until tomorrow. Today was full enough, public enough. People were paying attention to what they did, the whole village was paying attention to what they did, and he kept walking. They passed the doctor’s house and Randy kept walking beside him, not, thank God, reminding him in front of the Mackeys.