Tillman reminded him that despair is the greatest sin of all. Despair is a trick of the Devil, making us doubt the Lord's promise of salvation for even the least and lowest of us, but Lieder only shook his head miserably and turned his face to the wall.
Tillman sighed and returned to the watch-desk.
It was almost dark when Tillman made his last round of the moonberries. Through the spy-hole he found the acid-thrower sitting on the edge of his cot, rocking himself and humming, as always. "The Politician" was disagreeing violently with a space in the corner that he addressed as "you ignorant little pinch of duck-shit!" At the sound of the spy-hole opening, "the Spook" cowered in the corner. "Don't hurt me! I didn't mean to do it! Honest to God, I didn't mean it!"
The next cell had long been empty, but now it contained two men who had been transferred to the moonberry wing to protect new young prisoners, whom they routinely dragged into dark corners and… "broke in" was the prison term for it. As he approached the door, Tillman heard sounds of grunting and panting as though a fight was going on. He opened the spy-hole and found a neckless, bullet-headed giant bent over the end of his cot, and behind him was a little gnome with a twisted face. They were both panting and grunting. The gnome leered toward the open spy-hole, and only then did Tillman realize that they were… Lord Jesus in Heaven! He snapped the spy-hole shut and turned away.
He took several deep breaths to settle his stomach before going on to Lieder's door. He had been rehearsing the words of comfort he would share with the despairing sinner who- But Lieder wasn't on his bunk. Through the twilight gloom, Tillman could see him over by his barred window, half-standing and half-kneeling, as though-Lord Jesus! He had torn a strip off his blanket! One end was tied to a bar and the other around his neck! Don't let this be happening, I ask it in His name! He yanked down the locking lever, threw back the thick iron bolt, rushed in, and lifted Lieder to take the weight off the blanket strip around his throat. He held the sagging body in his arms, then sighed with relief when Lieder's eyes fluttered open. Tillman breathed a prayer of thanks that he hadn't been too late, but something had snagged on the leather lanyard his wife had given him, and it was tightening around his throat so that… Argh! The two men were pressed face-to-face, the lanyard threaded through Lieder's strong fingers. He made a fist and twisted, and Tillman's eyes bulged.
Lieder gently lowered the boneless weight in his arms to the floor.
Now! Now, he was free to follow The Warrior's instructions as set forth in The Revelation of the Forbidden Truth. He had thought about releasing the moonberries to form the nucleus of his American Freedom Militia, but he rejected the men at the end of the corridor as too old and crazy to be useful. He would take only the new pair in the double cell, the gnome and the bullet-headed one.
He felt sorry for young Tillman. But… a man's got to play the cards he's dealt. And anyway, going a little early to collect your reward ain't all that bad, is it? Not for a true believer.
RUTH LILLIAN KANE WAS alone in the Mercantile, her father having gone up to the living quarters to make their noon meal. He had done all the cooking, even when her mother was with them, because Mrs. Kane had had no intention of ruining her looks with domestic work. Ruth Lillian inherited her mother's looks and love of pretty things, but her father's no-nonsense brand of crisp, practical intelligence. She had arranged the new stock on the shelves attractively-she had her mother's eye for that sort of thing-and she was standing behind the counter, paging through a pattern book from the Singer Sewing Machine Company, approving styles that would suit her with a little nasal sound of appreciation, and dismissing unsuitable ones with a slight frown and a curt shake of her head, when the spring bell over the door jangled. It was so bright out in the street that she had to shield her eyes to see the customer silhouetted in the doorway. "Can I help you?"
"I truly hope so, ma'am." He approached the counter, taking off his wide-brimmed hat.
For a second, she stood with her hand still shielding her eyes. A stranger in Twenty-Mile? And a young one. "What can I do for you? Like our sign says, we got everything a person really needs." She smiled. "You'll notice it doesn't say everything a person might want, just what he really needs."
"I'm glad to hear that, because what I really need is a job." He smiled. "My name's Matthew."
"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Matthew. I'm Ruth Lillian Kane. This is my pa's store."
"I don't believe it."
"Well, it is. Why would I lie?"
"No, I mean I don't believe your name is Ruth Lillian."
"What's wrong with my name?"
"Nothing! It's just that…" He shook his head. "Well, I'll be!"
"What'll you be?" Ruth Lillian asked.
"Well, to tell the tru-Ruth Lillian was my ma's name, believe it or not!"
"There's lots of people named Ruth. It's a Bible name."
"If you were both called Ruth, that'd be a coincidence. But to have the same middle name too! Now, that's something more than coincidence."
"Like what?"
"I don't know what to call it. But it's something, that's for sure." Matthew became aware that Mr. Kane was standing at the back of the store, having come down to tell Ruth Lillian that dinner was ready. "Good afternoon, sir. I was just telling your daughter here that her name and my ma's-"
"I heard you," Mr. Kane said dryly.
"He came looking for a job, Pa," Ruth Lillian explained, and she flushed with resentment at being made to feel she was in the wrong in some way.
"There's no job here, young man. Nor anywhere else in Twenty-Mile, to my knowledge."
"Yes, sir. Mr. Stone up to the livery stable told me the same thing. But it's an awful long walk back down to Destiny. And I'm pretty near tuckered out. To tell the truth-What I mean is, I'm not exactly sure what I should do." He looked at Mr. Kane with an open expression that invited him to make a suggestion.
"Have you got any money?"
"Yes, sir, a little."
"Well, the Bjorkvists would probably put you up tonight. You could start back down in the morning."
"Yes, sir, that's a possibility. I'll give it some thought. Thank you."
"I don't suppose Matthew has eaten in a spell, Pa," Ruth Lillian said, ignoring her father's frown.
"I didn't make a meal," Mr. Kane said. "Just leftovers."
"That'd suit me just fine, sir," Matthew said cheerily. "Left-overs is my favorite dish. My ma used to say that when it comes to vittles, I'd eat anything I could outrun!"
Ruth Lillian forced a little laugh at this, then looked at her father with calmly arched eyebrows until he shrugged, turned on his heel and started up the stairs, saying, "Well, we might as well eat before it gets any colder."
During the meal, which Matthew praised frequently and lavishly, he mentioned that he hadn't eaten this well for weeks, because he'd been on the road since the day his ma and pa had died within a couple of hours of each other.
"The fever, was it?" Ruth Lillian asked.
Matthew settled his eyes on her. "Well, you know how it is, Ruth Lillian. Sometimes the fever comes swooping down and takes a whole town. Other times it takes some folks and leaves others to get on as best they can in this world."
"You were left all alone?" Mr. Kane asked. "No brothers or sisters?"
"No, sir. I was their only child."
Ruth Lillian nodded slowly. She was an only child too. "How old are you, Matthew?"
"Eighteen going on nineteen. But I suppose everybody that's eighteen is going on nineteen. If they don't die first!" He grinned at his joke.