'He told me this morning,' Brace said, 'that he had enough laid by to last him two days. He was way behind and didn't figure on quitting until lunchtime.'
'Wait,' I said, 'we'll hear it again.'
Only when some time passed and we heard nothing we started for the barn. Ed had been working mighty close to the peak of what was an unusually steep roof.
We found him lying on the ground and there was blood on his head and we sent for the doc.
Now Doc McDonald ain't the greatest doctor, but he was all we had aside from the midwife and a squaw up in the hills who knew herbs. The doc was drunk most of the time these days and showing up with plenty of money, so's it had been weeks since he'd been sober.
Doc came over, just weaving a mite, and almost as steady as he usually is when sober. He knelt by Ed Col- vin and looked him over. He listened for a heartbeat and he held a mirror over his mouth, and he got up and brushed off his knees. 'What's all the rush for? This man is dead!'
We carried him to Doc's place, Doc being the undertaker, too, and we laid him out on the table in his back room. Ed's face was dead white except for the blood, and he stared unblinking until the doc closed his eyes.
We walked back to the saloon feeling low. We'd not known Ed too well, but he was a quiet man and a good worker, and we needed such men around our town. Seemed a shame for him to go when there were others, mentioning no names, who meant less to the town.
That was the way it was until Brother Elisha came down off the mountain. He came with long strides, staring straight before him, his face flushed with happiness that seemed always with him these days. He was abreast of the saloon when he suddenly stopped.
It was the first time he had ever stopped to speak to anyone, aside from his preaching.
'What has happened?' he asked. 'I miss the sound of the hammer. The sounds of labor are blessed in the ears of the Lord.'
'Colvin fell,' Brace said. 'He fell from the roof and was killed.'
Brother Elisha looked at him out of his great dark eyes and he said, 'There is no death. None pass on but for the Glory of the Lord, and I feel this one passed before his time.'
'You may think there's no death,' Brace said, 'but Ed Colvin looks mighty dead to me.'
He turned his eyes on Brace. 'O, ye of little faith: Take me to him.'
When we came into Doc McDonald's the air was foul with liquor, and Brace glared at Doc like he'd committed a blasphemy. Brother Elisha paused briefly, his nose twitching, and then he walked through to the back room where Ed Colvin lay.
We paused at the door, clustered there, not knowing what to expect, but Brother Elisha walked up and bowed his head, placing the palm of his right hand on Colvin's brow, and then he prayed. Never did I know a man who could make a prayer fill a room with sound like Brother Elisha, but there at the last he took Ed by the shoulders and he pulled him into a sitting position and he said, 'Edward Colvin, your work upon this earth remains unfinished. For the Glory of the Lord ... Rise!'
And I'll be forever damned if Ed Colvin didn't take a long gasping breath and sit right up on that table. He looked mighty confused and Brother Elisha whispered in his ear for a moment and then with a murmur of thanks Ed Colvin got up and walked right out of the place.
We stood there like we'd been petrified, and I don't know what we'd been expecting, but it wasn't this. Brother Elisha said, 'The Lord moves in mysterious ways His wonders to perform.' And then he left us.
Brace looked at me and I looked at Ralston and when I started to speak my mouth was dry. And just then we heard the sound of a hammer.
When I went outside people were filing into the street and they were looking up at that barn, staring at Ed Colvin, working away as if nothing had happened. When I passed Damon, standing in the bank door, his eyes were wide open and his face white. I spoke to him but he never even heard me or saw me. He was just standing there staring at Colvin.
By nightfall everybody in town was whispering about it, and when Sunday morning came they flocked to hear him preach, their faces shining, their eyes bright as though with fever.
When the reverend stepped into the pulpit, Brennen was the only one there besides me.
Reverend Sanderson looked stricken, and that morning he talked in a low voice, speaking quietly and sincerely but lacking his usual force. 'Perhaps,' he said as we left, 'perhaps it is we who are wrong. The Lord gives the power of miracles to but few.'
'There are many kinds of miracles,' Brennen replied, 'and one miracle is to find a sane, solid man in a town that's running after a red wagon.'
As the three of us walked up the street together we heard the great rolling voice of Brother Elisha: 'And I say unto you that the gift of life to Brother Colvin was but a sign, for on the morning of the coming Sabbath we shall go hence to the last resting place of your loved ones, and there I shall cause them all to be raised, and they shall live again, and take their places among you as of old!'
You could have dropped a feather. We stood on the street in back of his congregation and we heard what he said, but we didn't believe it, we couldn't believe it.
He was going to bring back the dead.
Brother Elisha, who had brought Ed Colvin back to life, was now going to empty the cemetery, returning to life all those who had passed on ... and some who had been helped.
'The Great Day has come!' He lifted his long arms and spread them wide, and his sonorous voice rolled against the mountains. 'And men shall live again for the Glory of All Highest! Your wives, your mothers, your brothers and fathers, they shall walk beside you again!'
And then he led them into the singing of a hymn and the three of us walked away.
That was the quietest Sunday Red Horse ever knew. Not a whisper, all day long. Folks were scared, they were happy, they were inspired. The townsfolk walked as if under a spell.
Strangely, it was Ed Colvin who said it. Colvin, the man who had gone to the great beyond and returned ... although he claimed he had no memory of anything after his fall.
Brace was talking about the joy of seeing his wife again, and Ed said quietly, 'You'll also be seeing your mother-in-law.'
Brace's mouth opened and closed twice before he could say anything at all, and then he didn't want to talk. He stood there like somebody had exploded a charge of powder under his nose, and then he turned sharply around and walked off.
'I've got more reason than any of you to be thankful,'
Ed said, his eyes downcast. 'But I'm just not sure this is all for the best.'
We all glanced at each other. 'Think about it.' Ed got up, looking kind of embarrassed. 'What about you, Ralston? You'll have to go back to work. Do you think your uncle will stand for you loafing and spending the money he worked so hard to get?'
'That's right,' I agreed, 'you'll have to give it all back.'
Ralston got mad. He started to shout that he wouldn't do any such thing, and anyway, if his uncle came back now he would be a changed man, he wouldn't care for money any longer, he 'You don't believe that,' Brennen said. 'You know darned well that uncle of yours was the meanest skinflint in this part of the country. Nothing would change him.'
Ralston went away from there. Seemed to me he wanted to do some thinking.
When I turned to leave, Brennen said, 'Where are you going?'
'Well,' I said, 'seems to me I'd better oil up my six-shooters. There's three men in that Boot Hill that I put there. Looks like I'll have it to do over.'
He laughed. 'You aren't falling for this, are you?'
'Colvin sounds mighty lively to me,' I said, 'and come Sunday morning Brother Elisha has got to put up or shut up.'
'You don't believe that their time in the hereafter will have changed those men you killed.'
'Brennen,' I said, 'if I know the Hame brothers, they'll come out of their graves like they went into them. They'll come a-shootin'.'
There had been no stage for several days as the trail had been washed out by a flash flood, and the town was quiet and it was scared. Completely cut off from the out side, all folks could do was wait and get more and
