Showdown (7 page)

Good point.

“If I'm right, Cecil had a heart attack.” She used a gentle tone now. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't have snapped, but you have to see how crazy this sounds, right?” She plucked the ambulance keys from the hutch. “The mind can do strange things when it's under a lot of stress. I think seeing someone die of a heart attack qualifies, don't you?”

Johnny chewed on his fingernail.

“Right?”

“I guess. Can't someone else take him?”

“No. This is what I'm paid for.” She smoothed his hair, then pulled his head against her shoulder. “Come on, Johnny, everything's fine. I know you were close to Cecil. It has to hurt. I'm sorry. We'll all miss him.”

He didn't know what to do, so he just stood still.

“You'll be okay,” she said, pulling back.

“Sure.”

But he wasn't sure. Not at all. The image of the man in black jabbing Cecil in the eyes refused to budge from his mind.

“I'll call you from Junction.” Sally ruffled his hair and stepped toward the door. “There's food in the refrigerator. We're out of milk, maybe you could get some from the store for me.”

“Okay.”

“What did I say?”

“Get milk.”

She smiled. “Maybe you should do something to occupy your mind—clean your room.”

“Can I come with you?”

She shook her head. “State regs. I'll be back tonight, I promise.”

He nodded.

“And you might want to keep the bit about the eyes to yourself.”

Sally let the screen door slam and ran across the lawn toward the crowd.

Five minutes later she pulled the red Bronco-turned-ambulance onto Main Street and headed for Junction.

Johnny sighed and retreated to his room to let his nerves settle.

But they didn't settle so quick. Not for an hour. He had to get out.

“I DON'T care what you think, Katie,” Paula Smither said, staring down the California blonde with her best angry eyes. “He's a man of God, not some sex object.”

“Who said anything about sex? I said he was handsome. There a sin against that?”

They lounged in Katie's Nails and Tan, and honestly Paula didn't know why she subjected herself to Katie's nonstop crap.
Forgive the thought, Reverend.

She sat in one of the dryer chairs, which was a bit small for her, but Chrissy and Mary had already taken the yellow vinyl guest seats. Katie was pouring a cup of coffee by the sales counter. The town's only official salon was hardly large enough to turn around in, and more gossip than styling went on in it. Most men went to Clipper Dan, the town's local barber. The women mostly went to Martha or Beatrice, who both cut hair out of their homes. Paula wondered how she'd ended up with this crowd.

Katie put the coffeepot down and turned. “Were you born this way?”

“Meaning what?” But Paula knew what Katie meant.

“You live to make everyone else's life miserable? So what if I think the preacher's good-looking?”

“Good-looking? I think the word you used was
hot
.”

“Okay,
hot
then. You didn't think he's hot?”

“Of course not. He's a
preacher
, for heaven's sake!”

“He's a man. Preacher or circus clown, he's a man.” Katie faced Chrissy and Mary. “He was hot, trust me.”

Chrissy grinned. “Just what we need around here. A hot preacher.”

“Fire and brimstone,”Mary said. “You ever date a preacher?”

“Not yet,” Katie said with a wink.

Katie was digging for a comeback. Paula refused. This was their regular nonsense, and Katie's latest cutting remark stuck in Paula's mind. Born to make everyone else's life miserable?

Not everyone, Katie, just you. Only those who need it
.

At least that's what Paula tried to tell herself. But was that how the others saw her? The goody-goody who walked around making everyone else's life miserable? The ugly, fat prude who compensated for her own failures by making sure others were fully aware of theirs?

Was there truth to that?

“Think about it,” Katie was saying. “Cecil kicked the bucket this afternoon, and people are more interested in Chris's wart. What does that tell you? You watch, that church will be packed tonight. And they won't be there for Cecil's funeral.”

“Hello, ladies.”

Paula hadn't heard the door open. There in the frame stood Marsuvees Black, long black trench coat sucked back by the wind.

They stared as one.

He tipped his Stetson hat. “Lovely afternoon.”He grinned. “God is merciful and kind and full of hope and grace. Putting four such lovely women on this earth is all the evidence I need.”

Katie smiled. “Good afternoon, Preacher.” She glided to him and held out her hand.“My name's Katie.”

He took the hand, lifted it to his lips, and kissed it gently. “Katie. Such a ravishing name.”

“Thank you.”

“I assume I'll see you in the church tonight.”

“Of course.”

Black's eyes moved to Chrissy and Mary. He winked. It wasn't the kind of wink that was necessarily sensual—perhaps just a father-to-son kind of wink. Then again, Paula couldn't be sure.

His eyes settled on her. It was the first time his deep blue eyes had stared into her own, and she found the attention unnerving. Katie's remarks may have been inappropriate, but her friend was right. Black was handsome.

Beautiful. Intoxicating.

She felt completely flustered by his stare and desperately wanted to break off, but he seemed to have a hold on her. The realization only made it worse.

Black stepped
past Katie and strode across the room, eyes fixed on Paula. He stopped in front of her and held out his hand.

She started to lift her hand to him before she realized what she was doing, and by then it was too late to stop without looking like a fool. His fingers gently took hers. He bent and kissed them lightly, letting his warm lips rest on her knuckles for a beat more than she thought necessary. When he straightened, she could feel his hot breath on the back of her hand. He hesitated, looking to her fingers, and for a brief moment she thought he was thinking about licking them.

Paula blinked away the thought, horrified that it had passed through her mind.

Black pulled her in with his blue gaze again. “And what is your name, my dear?”

“Paula,” she said in a light voice.

“Paula. Paula, Paula.” He seemed to be tasting her name. “Such a . . . beautiful name.”

Black withdrew his other hand from his pocket, fingers closed in a fist.

“Have you ever been anointed with oil, Paula?”

He opened his hand. A gel-like substance filled his palm—oil, she presumed. It smelled odd. Stale and musty. What he thought he was going to do with this smudge he called oil, she wasn't sure, but she wasn't about to be anointed or anything—

Black lifted his hand and applied it to her head, as if smoothing her hair back. “I anoint you with oil. As a sign of my purity to all who see you, a light shall shine from you.”

Black removed his hand from her head and said so that none of the others could hear, “You are lovely, dear Paula. Your purity is a light on a hill for all to admire.”

For a long moment he held her eyes. Then he walked toward the door. He turned and smiled at all of them.

“Thank you for such a warm welcome. I'm sure we'll be seeing each other tonight, but now I have to gather the flock. Make the rounds, so to speak. Ladies.” He tipped his hat again and was gone.

“Paula?” Katie was staring at her head.

She lifted her hand to feel the spot on her head where Black had rubbed his hand.

“Was that bleach?”Mary asked.

Paula's hair was moist. She pulled her fingers away, smelled them. Same musty smell. “What?” she asked absently.

“Your hair's white!”Katie said.“He have bleach in his hand?” She crossed the salon in two steps. “Bleach couldn't do that, not that quick.”

Paula faced the mirror behind her. A streak of white hair ran from her forehead back toward her crown, where Marsuvees Black had wiped his anointing.

Then Katie had her hands on Paula's head and was examining her hair up close. “That's no color, Paula. And if it's bleach, it's no bleach I've seen. Anything that strong would've burned your hair.”

Paula pushed her away. Her head was tingling.

For a while they all stared at her in silence. She felt oddly satisfied by the boldness of this one white streak where she parted her dark brown hair, slightly to the right. What was it he had said? A light of purity for everyone to see.

It occurred to her that she hated the man. He'd forced this anointing of his on her without consent. And she was quite sure that the streak wouldn't wash out.

Black was trouble, more than any of them could guess.

Then why wasn't she fuming with rage? Why was she just looking at her hair in the mirror, thinking that it looked quite good? And she was the purest of this bunch, that was no secret.

“He's the devil,” Paula said.

“Well, he sure has a strange way of showing it,” Katie said.

Paula turned and walked toward the door. “He's the devil.”

CHAPTER FIVE

PARADISE

Wednesday night

THE PARADISE Episcopal Church was packed to the gills by six forty-five Wednesday evening. Stanley Yordon scanned the restless crowd from the door that led to the baptismal. People milled in the aisles, leaned over pews swatting at each other playfully, snapped at children. They had come out of the woodwork, dressed in jeans and muddy boots—some wearing cowboy hats, others packing holsters. Goodness, who did they think this man was? Wyatt Earp?

Some of the community's more influential residents were dressed for church, in coats and ties and dresses and the whole bit. Well, good for them. Showing the house of God a little respect never hurt anyone.

He stared out at his congregation, which had been turned inside out by this preacher who claimed to be sent by God. Marsuvees Black. Claimed God pulled his car off the road and told him to bring grace and hope to Paradise. The problem was, God didn't speak to people like that anymore. Maybe he used to, to Abraham or Moses or the apostle Paul, but not now, and certainly not here in Paradise, Colorado.

In Paradise, God spoke through Sunday services and potluck and bingo. God spoke through community, even communities like this one, which looked like it might split at the seams.

He held out a hand to Blitzer's boy, Matthew. “Whoa, slow down there, son!” The kid ignored him and ran past, then down the far aisle, yelping like a native.

Coming apart at the seams.
Thank God he was leaving for a quarterly board meeting in the morning. He could use a break from this bunch.

He stepped toward the platform. This was his church. He didn't care if the pope himself was coming. No one would trash his house. He leapt to the podium and flashed that preacher's smile he'd learned back in seminary. He leaned into the mic.

“Okay.” Feedback squealed through the auditorium. He flinched and backed off. Of the two hundred men, women, and children stuffed into the church, fewer than half turned their attention to the podium, feedback and all.

“Is this better? Okay, let's settle down, folks.” The clock on the back wall read six fifty-nine. Black planned to arrive at seven. “Seven o'clock sharp, Stan,” the preacher had said. “I'll be here and you can bet your pension on that.” For starters, no one called him Stan—his name was Stanley. He didn't care if Black didn't know; he hadn't liked the flash in Black's eyes when he said
Stan
, standing there on the church steps like he owned the place.

“Let's have some quiet here.” His voice rang across the sanctuary.

Most of the adults complied, hushing at the sound of his deep voice. Nancy once told him his voice was commanding. Like a general's voice. He lifted a hand to the crowd.

“Let's take our seats, friends.”A flurry of movement across the room signaled their obedience. Within ten seconds most of the flock faced him attentively, waiting for his next words.

Most, but not all. Small, scattered groups yammered on as if his request meant nothing at all to them. These were the unchurched. Uneducated, unchurched heathens.
You have to either beat them over the head with a tire
iron to get their attention, or ignore them entirely.

How could a man just waltz into town and have these sheep eating out of his hands so easily? Black had supposedly pulled off this miracle of his in Steve's bar, but that wouldn't account for such a crowd, would it? On any other day the seasoned farmers sitting in the pews would scoff at such a tale. But not today. Today they had flocked here to see more. It made no sense.

He glanced down at Chris Ingles. The man had run around town like a plucked goose, showing off that stupid ear of his. Yordon didn't know how it was that Chris had grown and lost a wart, but there had to be some trick to it. The man sat there with an open mouth, like an idiot.
If Chris came to
my door looking like that, I might want to check things out too. The man's
flipped his lid
.

Stanley Yordon smiled on, showing none of the anger that rose in him. “Okay, people . . .”

The baptismal door on his right swung open, and before he could say another word, the scene before him changed.

For starters, every eye jerked to his right and stared wide, as if an apparition of the Virgin Mary had just lit the wall. And with the shifting of eyes came a sudden and complete silence.

Black had arrived.

Yordon turned his head to the right, aware that his mouth still lay open, readied to deliver its blow to the heathens.

Marsuvees Black stood in the doorway dressed in black. Yordon's tongue dried up.
Goodness gracious, he's the devil.
He shut his mouth and swallowed.