it could be equally good.”
“You’ll get no argument from me if that’s what
you’re looking for.”
“I ain’t.”
“Me either.”
Sun struck the window then cut like a knife blade
into the room and across the table. A blade of light
cutting right down between them and it was the first
sun either of them had seen in three days.
Zane Stone found himself sleeping in an alley. How
he got there he didn’t know. His head hurt with
whiskey vapors still in it. Hurt like somebody had
pounded him with a rock. Wind whistled through the
narrow opening and he shivered because of it. Where
had his brothers gone, Zeb and Zack?
Hell, he thought. He stood up shakily and steadied
himself against a wall before moving down to the
mouth of the alley and onto a street. He gauged from
the low lie of the sun it was early yet. And when he
looked up and down the street nobody was out and
about. His thin coat wasn’t any protection against the
wind, and even though the sun was shining, the air
was damn chill. He knuckled slobber from the corner
of his mouth, then saw something that drew him to it:
a small white church. Hell, he hadn’t been inside a
church since he was a kid. He remembered the
singing they did in church, and that he liked it. He re-
membered the smell of Bibles and dry wood and the
way the light caught the colors of the stained glass
and how it felt like a safe place to be. Nothing much
in his life since had felt as safe to him.
Once inside, he saw a row of benches like they
were just waiting for him. And up on the altar hang-
ing from wires strung to the rafters was a large wood
cross. It was quiet and peaceful and he sat down on
one of the pews and just stared at the cross remember-
ing the stories his mam had told him about the blood
of the lamb, and how Christ died for his and everyone
else’s sins and what happened to sinners: how they
burned up in lakes of fire. He remembered the passing
of collection plates, the money folks put in them, and
how it looked like all the money in the world and
wondered what Jesus did with all that money and why
he even needed it since he was God. There was a lot
about religion that he didn’t understand then or now.
But somehow, just being there made him feel bet-
ter. He didn’t know quite how to pray or even if he
should, but he felt like he wanted to pray, to tell God
how damn sorry he was for what happened with the
woman and how he didn’t want any part of it to be-
gin with. So that’s what he said, under his breath,
hoping God would hear what he was whispering and
wouldn’t strike him dead with a lightning bolt or
have a tree fall on him or something like that. And
the more he let it out, the more that came out until it
seemed like everything he’d ever done wrong was
spilling out of him.
“Damn it to hell, I can’t stop talking,” he muttered
to himself after a while. But it felt good, like a boil
being lanced and the pressure relieved.
Then someone said, “May I help you?” and he
quick turned reaching for his pistol as he did and the
man behind him said, “Easy, son, nobody’s going to
bring harm to you.” He saw this wild-haired man
looked like Moses—at least the rendering he’d seen of
Moses in a book his mother had. This stranger was a
tall lanky cuss who looked like he’d seen all the trou-
bles a man could suffer and yet survive them.
“I wasn’t doing nothing,” he said. “I was just sit-
ting here.”
“Nobody was accusing you of doing anything.
You’re welcome here in God’s house,” Elias Poke said.
That sounded odd: God’s house.
“I just come in to git out of the cold some. Till
things open and I can buy me a better coat.”
“That’s all right. This is a sanctuary, a port in the
storms of life. You’re welcome to stay as long as you
like.”
Guddamn, but it was all confusing what this
Moses fellow was telling him.
“Have you been hurt somehow?” the preacher said
after Zane didn’t move or say anything more.
“No sir, none that I know of.”
“You hungry, on the skids?”
“Skids?”
“I mean are you down and out, brother?”
“No sir. I ain’t down and out, I’m just a little lost.”
“Welcome to the fold. We’re all lost if we do not
heed His way.”
“You a preacher? I mean you run this place?”
“I’m this town’s only preacher,” Elias said. “But it
is the almighty who runs things around here.”
“The almighty, huh?”
Elias nodded.
“My old woman told me once the almighty would
forgive a man anything, any sort of sin, no matter what
or how bad a sin it was. You reckon that’s true?”
“I believe it is if the sinner is contrite.”
“Contrite? Mister, you’re going to have to speak a
