"Are you an honest-to-God preacher?"

"I am."

"Then do me a favor, say a little prayer for me. I think I need one."

Matt stood up, tossed money on the table, and went out.

When he was gone, the Reverend said softly, "I will."

X

After breakfast, the Reverend paid up and started out the door. As he opened it, a beautiful dark-haired woman came in. The Reverend was stunned. She looked just the way he figured his sister would look now. He stood in front of her for a moment too long before stepping aside to let her pass.

As she did, she smiled and he tipped his hat.

Behind the woman was an elderly man with cigar-ash colored hair, glasses, and a glance that could drop a buffalo at fifty paces.

The elderly man took the woman's arm, walked her to a table. When they were seated, he turned to look back at the Reverend who was still dumbly holding the door.

The Reverend nodded, and as the woman smiled at him a second time, he hastened out.

As he walked toward the church, he had a sudden sinking in his stomach. He knew the woman was not his sister. They were not twins in appearance, but she certainly reminded him of her, and the old lust of her memory rose in his loins.

Was the woman one of God's little tests?

If so, she was a good one. He was as shook as an Indian rattle.

As he passed the livery, he saw David standing in the doorway grooming a horse. David waved. The Reverend waved back and continued down the street, the image of the woman still burning in his brain.

…

Unheard by David, when the Reverend walked by the livery — in the loft, hidden beneath loose hay — a crate had shifted ever so slightly in the Reverend's direction, as if it were a compass needle trying to point true north: the Reverend.

When the Reverend came to the end of the street, smack dab in the middle of it was a large white church with a large white cross sticking up into the sky. Out beside the church was a slope-off house, and beside that was a fenced-in garden, and in the garden, working furiously at weeds with a hoe, was Reverend Calhoun.

Jeb knew he was a Reverend at a glance. Like his father, Calhoun wore a constant mask of stern Baptist conviction. He worked at the weeds in his desperate little garden like the Lord himself chopping down sinners.

Calhoun lifted his head, leaned on his hoe, and wiped his sleeve at his sweaty forehead.

As he did, he laid eyes on the Reverend. He frowned slightly from habit, went to lean on the fence surrounding his garden.

The Reverend leaned on it as well.

"Good day, sir, I'm Reverend Jebidiah Mercer. I've come to ask you a favor."

"A favor?"

"One that any good Christian could not refuse."

"We'll see about that," Calhoun said.

"The sheriff gave me permission, if it's all right with you, to hold a night of gospel here in Mud Creek. He wanted to be sure you agreed, as he didn't want there to be conflict, though I hardly see how there could be conflict between us—two men of God."

"That so?" Calhoun said.

The Reverend smiled. He seldom did that of his own free will, only out of habit when he was after something he wanted. He felt as if his silver-tongued approach was not doing much good against this old preacher dog.

"He also said that you had a tent, and I would need a tent. I'd like to rent it for the preaching."

"I haven't given you permission for any preaching yet. You did say the sheriff said he wanted you to have my permission, did you not?"

"I did at that. I'm willing to pay nicely for the rental of that tent, by the way."

"How nicely?"

"You name it."

"Six bits."

"A popular price," said the Reverend. He reached in his pocket for the money.

"I choose the night you preach."

"I wouldn't want it to conflict with your services. You choose the night."

"Very well, Saturday."

The Reverend stopped the hand with the money.

"Saturday? Now Reverend Calhoun, I want to abide by your wishes, but that is the worst night of the week. The saloon will be filled."

"Take it or leave it, Mr. Mercer."

"Reverend Mercer."

"Take it or leave it."

Frowning. "I'll take it." The Reverend slapped the money into Calhoun's outstretched palm.

Calhoun counted it out, slipped it into his pants pocket.

"You sure you're a preacher?" he asked.

"Don't I look like one?"

"You don't see that many with a gun. Carrying a pistol is hardly part of the Lord's work, Mr. Mercer."

"Reverend Mercer."

"It seems mighty peculiar that you carry a revolver like a common gunslinger, you supposedly being a man of peace,"

"Who said the Lord's work is peaceful? Sometimes it's necessary to bring a sword to deal with the infidels... or a gun...." Smiling. "Besides, you haven't heard any of my sermons. I have to have something to persuade attendance with."

If Calhoun caught the joke, he didn't show it. "Would you like to get the tent, Mr. Mercer.

I have work to do."

"Right. The tent."

II

The interior of the church was sparse. Rows of pews, a pulpit on a raised platform, and behind it on the wall: a huge, crude, wooden cross bearing a cruder Jesus of the German grotesque school.

Dead center of the middle row of pews was a door. Calhoun led the Reverend there and opened it. He reached inside, took hold of a kerosene lamp, and lit it. He turned up the wick and they went down a row of creaking stairs.

The Reverend could see a high window to the rear covered with a thick curtain. Light crept through it. Though the room was deep, the roof of it was still on a level with the rest of the church. It appeared that at one time there had been a second floor, but it had been torn away to make room for all the things stored there, stacked atop one another like dog turds.

There were boxes, barrels, bundles, and crates. Against the wall—covered in dust—was a rack of Winchesters, double-barreled shotguns, and a couple of ancient Sharps rifles.

Near them, were several crates marked AMMUNITION and ARMS.

"For a man who dislikes guns," the Reverend said, "you certainly have a few on hand."

"Don't be snide with me, boy.... When they first built this church it was used as storage, and as a sort of fortress against outlaws and Indians.... Well, we never really had much of either. The guns are still here, and there are bars on most of the windows. Come next year, I'm taking the bars out, and I'm going to see if I can't get the town council to move all this out of here. I could put the space to better use."

"What's in all these other crates?"

"Tools. Some clothes. Odds and ends. Pistols and ammunition."

The Reverend walked over to the gun rack and looked. Though some of the guns had spots of rust on them, they looked to be in pretty good shape. The dried-brick walls must have been pretty air tight.

"Here's the tent, Mr. Mercer."

"Reverend Mercer," Jeb said turning.

III

He had a relapse.

After he and Calhoun dragged the massive tent upstairs, and the Reverend hired a wagon to haul it over to The Hotel Montclaire, then hired a fistful of boys to help him carry it up to his room, he saw the woman again.

He had come out of the hotel onto the sidewalk with the boys, and he was paying them each—six bits of course—when he saw the dark-haired woman who looked like his sister crossing the street with the elderly man.