hope through the door, Lieder's whispering voice always carried tones of sincere yearning… a man seeking his way. And several times Tillman had opened the spy-hole to find Lieder on his knees by his bunk, his face buried in his arms, praying fervently.
Lieder's blasphemous habit of making up scripture and ascribing it to 'Paul to the Mohegans,' or 'Paul to the Floridians,' had caused Tillman heartache. But Lieder assured him that he didn't mean any disrespect, and he promised to pray for the strength to break all his bad habits. From that day on, his acceptance of Jesus as his personal savior seemed to lift a mighty burden from him. Tillman often heard him singing to himself in his cell, usually old-time revival songs, and he once declared that he willingly accepted the imprisonment of his body for the rest of his natural life, knowing that he could now hope for the liberation of his soul through all eternity!
At first, Lieder's rapid progress was uplifting to witness and a tribute to the benevolence and power of the Lord. But lately…
'I purely don't know what to do,' Tillman had confessed to his wife. 'He seems to have fallen into darkness. Sometimes he just breaks down and sobs like to make your heart break. He says his sins are so black and piled so high that he doesn't deserve the Lord's forgiveness. And sometimes he just lies there on his bunk, staring at the ceiling. The fact of it is, Mary, that man's soul is burdened down with sin.'
'But he mustn't despair, John. Despair is the greatest sin of all.'
'Don't I know it? But what am I to do?'
'You must never, never relent in your efforts to save him, John. You must tell him that he's got to persist through this Slough of Despond, for the Lord's mercy is as vast as it is eternal.'
Tillman promised he wouldn't give up on Lieder. He would pray with him that very night. His wife agreed that prayer was the sovereign remedy for all Man's illness and woe, but she reminded him to be careful in dealing with this… what's that you call them?
'Moonberries.'
'Well now, don't you take any chances.'
'You think I'm crazy, darlin'-heart? You think I want John Junior to grow up without a dad?'
She blushed and pushed his chest with her fingertips, as she always did when he mentioned her 'condition,' a condition that they had celebrated with an exchange of presents. He gave her ribbons to braid into her hair, and she gave him a braided leather lanyard with a slide that he could wear in place of a tie. They laughed over the coincidence of both presents having to do with 'braid,' and she said it was a lucky omen.
The first thing Tillman did when he came on watch was to check on Lieder, whom he found lying on his bunk, staring up at the ceiling, lost in misery and self-loathing. He greeted him in an encouraging tone, but Lieder muttered bitterly that there was nothing left for him in this life, and probably nothing in the next. So what's the use? What's the use?
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.'
