my failure, to make naive assumptions about His nature.
“Then the dev il constantly tells me these lies, whispers in my ear that maybe it wasn’t God who spoke to me. That it was actually him, the evil one. Or that this horrible winter, this town, the thin air, the greed—all that took my mind from me.”
Harriet pried open the fingers of his right hand. “What’s that?”
In Stephen’s sweaty palm lay an ornate sterling silver hairpin. He let Harriet hold it. “It’s a hairpin,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“A piece of jewelry a woman uses to hold up her hair.”
“Why you got one?”
He smiled. “Fair question. It belonged to a woman named Eleanor.”
“Was she your wife?”
“No.”
“Is she dead?”
“No, Eleanor isn’t dead. You know, you kind of favor her. She had black curls like yours. Dark eyes.”
“Did she give you this?”
“We were picnicking on the beach late one afternoon. This was ten years ago, second-worst day of my life. I had taken her there to tell her I couldn’t marry her.”
“Why?”
“Because God told me to go to divinity school instead. To spend my life serving Him. It was a windy day and the wind kept blowing her hair loose, so she pulled out her two hairpins and stuck them in the sand. I swiped one when she wasn’t looking. I suppose I shouldn’t have. You know how you hold Samantha at night, and she makes you feel better? Safer?”
The child nodded.
“That hairpin is my Samantha. When I hold it, on hard nights, lonely nights like this, it makes me remember things about Eleanor—her eyes, the way she smelled, the sound of her laugh. And it makes me sad, makes me miss her, but it also reminds me that I was a very happy man once.”
“You wish you stayed on the beach with Eleanor?”
Stephen gathered his hair and tied it up in a ponytail.
“No, Harriet, I don’t wish that, because that would be wanting something in conflict with God’s will. But I’ll tell you what I do wish. Wish we could live twice, take a different path each time. That at the end of all this, when I finished serving God in the West, I could go back to that day on the beach, put a ring on Eleanor’s finger instead.”
“Maybe you can still go back.”
“Eleanor’s married to a lawyer named Benjamin. They live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with four children, last I heard.”
Stephen lay back on his side, his head on the pillow, watching fire shadows move like black ghosts along the walls of his wretched cabin. He managed to cry softly this time, Harriet patting his back, telling him with the simplistic, heartfelt wisdom of a six-year-old that he would wake up in the morning feeling brand-new and happy again, how sometimes her daddy made her very sad and lonely and afraid, but that the feeling always passed, and that it would be the same way for him.
They slept in Stephen’s bed and neither woke until just before dawn, and only because the fire had gone out, turned the cabin cold.
SIXTY-SEVEN
L
ana Hartman had gone without food and water for two full days. She lay against the cold rock floor, watching the sole light source burn in the middle of the cavern—a miner’s friend too weak to reach the gaunt and hollowed faces that lined the walls.
That first night locked in the mountain, the noise had been maddening—miners trying to beat the door down, quarreling, guns firing, children wailing. But most of the miners had left in search of water, and with the cavern quieted down, she now strained to hear the hushed voices—crying, prayers for deliverance, some praising God, others cursing Him, a pair of longhairs debating philosophy, theories concerning the soul after death.
Lana closed her eyes.
Sleep came in intermittent bursts of nightmare and fever dream. When she awoke, the thunder in her head had increased twofold, and Joss Maddox knelt beside her, stroking her hair. It took her a moment to latch onto Joss’s voice.
“. . . the worst of it. Wish Cole hadn’t met with a skull cracker. Love to hear him defend the behavior of his lovin God. He cares so much for us, this is one antigodlin fuckin way a showin it. You’re hurtin, and you ain’t done shit to deserve this hard fuckin deal. If I could do somethin for you, Lana, swear to holy Christ I would.
“I come to ask if you’d go with me. I’m leavin this fuckin tomb, goin on into the cave, see if I can’t find water, some way out.”
Lana cut her eyes at Joss, the barkeep’s face distended and malformed in the lantern light.
“That a nod?”
Lana moved her head again.
