He took a breath and steadied himself before speaking.
"And what if I left town? What then?"
Thirty-Nine
Marie's jaw went tight when he made the suggestion. Perhaps, if there were some element of the entire plan that was logical, that relied on logic, then it would be able to work. But now, they weren't chasing out some man who had been successfully tarred with a bad name. They were purging the Chris from their town and from their souls.
It was a way of approaching the world that wa
s dangerous. Not only for Chris, though he was in the most immediate danger, but for the people themselves. The Catholic inside her burned to start lecturing them on repenting for their own sins, and looking inwardly. But that would only serve the purpose of having her sent out of town with him.
Not that it would be so bad, for her. Marie, at least, could solve all of her problems by simply going back home. No more bad reputation—after all, she'd been the one who was so kind as to go out and help those folks in the terrible wasteland of the Oklahoma territory. That was what people had said before she left, and no doubt that would be essentially what they said when she got back.
Her throat choked. Wait. A plan was beginning to form in her head.
"Chris!" He looked up at her through knit brows, with a look that said not to start it. That he would rather just let this all go the way it was going to go. It would have been fine by her, since he's the master of his own life. But not hers. "Do you feel sorry for what you've done?"
He sagged again. She could see it in him, all the air leaving him like he was an accordion. She couldn't hear his response, but anyone looking at him would have known what he said, even if they were deaf.
She twisted to look at the reverend. "I don't suppose they teach the Bible out here, in the West, do they? 'and if he repent, forgive him.'"
Marie didn't know what to expect from the preacher. Something. She expected him to turn on her like a villain from one of her dime store novels. But his eyes were blank when he looked at her. His expression was one of consideration.
"Are you asking me to forgive Mr. Broadmoor his sins?"
"I think it would be the Christian thing to do."
The preacher's expression was thoughtful, and then he went blank for a moment. She watched the wheels in his head turn. What was going to come next, she wondered. What was going to come next, and how could she deal with it?
"Brothers and Sisters!"
The crowd cheered. There may have been a time when this was based on religion, Marie thought. but that time was long since gone. They were here for spectacle.
"You, the good people of Applewood Junction—you have seen what I have seen. You have seen the people of our town, sinking into the pit. You have seen the corruption spreading! You have seen the effects of sin, when it seeps into the pores of the unprotected and unguided. But you—you have been kept clean, through your devotion."
Marie said nothing, her teeth chattering together. This was bad.
"But you have also heard me speak, over and over, of the power of the Lord to keep company with thieves and prostitutes, to cleanse them of sin, even Mary Magdalene, who was cleansed of seven demons. Here we have before us one such man. A man who has known sin, who has had a bellyful of corruption."
The crowd, the one that had been jeering, grew silent as he spoke. Marie's hand clutched at her dress, the priest's hand around her arm loosening its grip.
"Now, he asks us for forgiveness. And what have I said, up until now?"
The crowd suddenly started calling back, a thousand different things. Any one of them would be impossible to pick out of the cacophony, at least for the woman sitting there at the head of the crowd, listening from the seat of a stagecoach. The preacher waited until the crowd had died down before continuing.
"'For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.' I have asked only repentance. Now, here he stands, and before us all, he repents. Do you not, Chris Broadmoor, repent of your sins?"
Chris looked up. Something was strange in the way he moved, and it took Marie a moment to realize what it was: he held every muscle in his body tight. It was as if he were afraid of how he might act. He spoke in a tight voice.
"Forgive me, Father," the bartender said, loud enough to be heard clearly, though he didn't call out loud like the preacher.
And then he looked down at the ground again. That was all it took for the crowd to start murmuring amongst themselves, a hundred voices or more all talking at once, wondering what they were supposed to make of this confession.
The preacher let Marie's arm go.
"And you, young lady? You seem to know your bible awful well for one outside of the Lord's grace."
He spoke now only to her. It occurred to Marie that this was the first time she'd met the preacher in this town, and that it was hardly a good first impression that they'd given each other.