Saving Alice Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

Matthew walked closer and asked Chet if the man was dead.

“Not yet, but there ain’t much hope for him. He’s got a hole right through his gut. I’m surprised he made it this far. I thought I had heard the sound of a horse pawing at the ground, and then I saw this one laying here with his rifle across his chest. He weren’t movin’ so I walked up and took his rifle and handgun. He ain’t moved a stitch.”

Chet stepped closer and prodded the man’s foot with the toe of his boot. “Hey! Wake up.” The man rolled his head from side to side, but didn’t open his eyes. Chet set aside the guns that he had stripped from the man earlier and then knelt on one knee beside the man, he took that man’s shoulder in one hand while he gently slapped the man’s face. “Walk up you snake. Come on, wake up.” The man’s brown eyes flickered open, but the light in them seemed to come from a great distance. “Man, come on,” encouraged Chet. And still the man struggled to swim up out of the depth his stupor.

Blinking, the man focused on Chet’s face. As a semblance of understanding started to dawn, the man instinctively moved his hand for his holster that was now empty, but the movement lacked conviction.

“Who are you?” the man questioned with a weak voice.

The hat that lay on the ground beside him had left his brown perspired-soaked hair pressed against his head. The skin on his angular face had lost its tanned hue and taken on a deathly paleness.

“Don’t matter who I is, leastwise, not to you. But you’d be doin’ us a good turn if you gave us your name.”

The wounded man began to look around to see who the other “us” of Chet’s question was, and when his eyes made contact with Matthew, Matthew felt a wave of hatred well up in his heart for this man. A vision of Alice being swept away stormed through his mind, and he poured all of the pain of the day on to this man’s guilty shoulders. He hadn’t felt this kind of emotion in years- not since his conversion to Christ. But it was here now, and it was as raw as could be. In his estimation, no amount of pain and suffering was too much for this piece of human trash. His fist started to tremble with the rising rage. Here before him was one of the people responsible for harming his wife.

Recognition slowly dawned with the eyes of the wounded man as he gazed at Matthew. “It’s you… But I saw Jack shoot you…you’re s’posed to be dead.”

“Naw,” interjected Chet, “just bumped him off his horse is all. No real damage.”

Not hearing Chet’s words, the man didn’t take his eyes off Matthew. “You’re the preacher. I tried to tell Jack…” He closed his eyes and swallowed. “I tried to tell him not to steal from no preacher… I tried to tell him.” He swallowed again, and to the amazement of the two men that were with him, a tear fell from the corner of his eye.

“Preacher,” the man looked to Matthew with pleading in his eyes, and there was a burst of renewed strength in his voice, “you gotta forgive me. I don’t know how to say it, but I’m sorry for doin’ to you what we done.” He closed his eyes and slowly shook his head back and forth as he continued. “I knew that God was gonna get me one day for all the bad stuff I been doin’. I knew that God was gonna get me. And now I’m doomed. I can feel the heat of hell mockin’ me. O God…”

The words hit deep in Matthew’s mind and heart. Within himself he told God that there was now way he could forgive this man. Just then one of his favorite scenes from the Bible flashed through his mind. It was of an adulterous woman crumbled at the feet of Jesus as religious leaders demanded for her blood. But profound words of Jesus broke through the dark clouds of judgment, “He who is without sin can cast the first stone.” Matthew’s own sins seemed to parade through his own mind in vivid flashes.

Suddenly, instead of wanting to hurt this man, Matthew wanted to run from him. He didn’t want to forgive; he wanted to hurt. He wanted to kick the man and punch him… pull his gun and… O God, Matthew pleaded within himself, please help me. I don’t have what it takes to forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness for him.

All of this inward battle took place in the shortest of moments. Like a soft summer breeze blowing the heat of the day away, the burning rage began to drift away as God’s inexplicable love flowed into his soul for this man. Matthew saw in his mind’s eye a vision of the cross, and he knew that even here was a person that Jesus had paid for with His infinitely precious blood. In a flash he understood the indescribable value that God had placed on this dying man.

Stepping to the side of the wounded man Matthew searched for words to say. He knelt beside the man and took his hand into his own. “Sir,” started Matthew, “I want you to know that I…” Matthew stopped to clear his throat. “I forgive you.”

The man turned his head, his tear-filled eyes locking on Matthew’s. “But I helped to steal your wife.”

“I know what you did, and I forgive you. I’m no saint myself. I’ve done plenty of bad things also. But I don’t forgive you because I have been just as bad. I forgive you because God forgives you.”

“No. God can’t. I’ve been fightin’ God ever since I ran away from home. My dad was a deacon in our church and I hated all that church stuff. But I knew that God would get me in the end. I even hated what I was becomin’, but I couldn’t stop myself.”

“Listen to me,” said Matthew. “God may have been after you all this time, but it hasn’t been to get you. He wants to give to you- He wants to give you the gift of forgiveness. He wants to give you eternal life. He wants to give you a way to escape hell. He loves you very, very, very much. Do you know how much?” Matthew paused, but not long enough for the dying man to answer. “Well, it was enough to hang on a cross on your behalf. God is deeply in love with you.”

“But He can’t. I been so bad.”

“You may have been bad, but He is better than your worst bad. Hey, if God is all-powerful, then that means that He is powerful enough to forgive you. If He can’t forgive you, then He isn’t God.”

Hearing these words coming from one of his own victims brought hope that perhaps the words of this preacher may be true. “Do you think it’s true?”

“I know it’s true. Jesus paid a high price for you. He loves you, and He forgives you for all of your sins. Sir, I am going to pray for you.” Matthew closed his eyes, and held a little tighter to the man’s cold hand. “Lord, before you is a broken man. You know that in a short time he’ll be standing before you to answer for his life. Would you please pour Your forgiveness out in his life and wash away all the guilt of his sins. You died for him, and then You rose from the dead so that he could have new life through the power of your resurrection. Be the Lord of his life.”

Tears streamed down the wounded man’s cheeks as he closed his eyes once again. Matthew heard the man mumble in a shaky voice, “I’m forgiven.” The voice was weak, but Matthew could see that the despair had melted away from his face, and though the man was dying, he had found new life.

Chet had kept silent through the whole exchange. He was amazed at the scene that had unfolded before him. He knew that if the shoes were on his feet, he would never have what it takes to forgive anyone that hurt his wife. More than likely, Chet figured he’d outright kill him. He wasn’t sure if he ought to respect this young preacher, or despise him for giving in so easily.

“I wasn’t expectin’ a church service out here,” Chet said. “But now that it’s over and all, I was still wantin’ to get a bit of information from you.” The wounded man opened his eyes at the sound of Chet’s voice and pulled his head wearily to face him.

“What’s your name?” asked Chet.

The man seemed to hesitate, but then gave a slight shrug, “Thaddeus Hill. Most just call me Tad.”

“Who are you ridin’ with?”

“The boss is Jack.”

“Jack Higgs, right?”

     "Yah, that's him. He is an evil man. He has always scared me."

"How did you end up not goin' on with ‘em?"

Tad breathed a couple of shallow breaths before continuing. "I'd been fallin' behind ever since we got in the creek. When I saw up a head that they were leavin' the creek, I followed to. But by the time I got here, they were already out of sight. I decided that I would just rest here for a while. But when I got down here on the ground, I figured that I wouldn't be goin' no wheres else."

"Do you know where they was takin’ the lady?"

Tad began to shake his head, "I told Jack that we oughtn't to be playin' with no preacher's wife, but he said that she'd fetch a good stack of coin. He didn't say who from. They were going back to the cabin tonight and head out in the mornin' to sell her to some man he knows. He kept sayin’ that he’d pay nice and pretty for a gal like her."

Chet gave Matthew a quick glance, and then looked back to Tad. "Where might the cabin be?"

He didn't answer the question that was laid before him. His eyes were closed and his head seemed to sag to the side as life was losing the battle to hold on. Chet shook Tad's shoulders, "Come on, where is the cabin?"

Tad's eyes flickered open once again. Shallow breaths came and went. Matthew pleaded with him, "Please, tell us where the cabin is."

"Hard to find. In a hollow back in the hills… There is a stretch of hard stone that don't show the horses tracks. If you keep goin' you pass the entrance. Looks like a cliff wall, but it ain’t. Jack always makes sure that there are tracks on both sides of the rock. You'll miss it if you don't know its there..." The words tailed off as his eyes closed. He was slipping away quickly now.

Chet gave him another shake, but the man didn't respond. Instead his head lolled resolutely to the side. Matthew saw quite unmistakably a deeper chest-filling breath, and then the slow expulsion of the air as it left Tad’s chest for the last time.

"Well, looks like that’s bout all we’ll get from him. He ain’t goin’ to be roused again for nothin’.” Chet straightened himself up to his feet, while Matthew stayed crouched for a moment longer contemplating the strange twist of events. Had they been yet another five minutes to the scene and this man would have died in his guilt. He didn’t understand the meaning of the clues as to the whereabouts of the cabin, but those too would have been lost. He also conjectured within that if they had come but perhaps fifteen minutes earlier, they may have had to fight this man who had obviously armed himself to protect himself from anyone’s approach. They had come at the correct time for saving the man’s soul, and perhaps the information to save his wife.

Chet retrieved the two guns and went over to the horse to look it over for anything useful. Nothing presented itself as helpful for their quest. He returned the rifle to its scabbard that was hung from the saddle. Returning to the now still form of the man, he removed the holster from his waist and while speaking to Matthew. “I don’t rightly know what this fella was talkin’ ‘bout, but maybe it’ll make more sense when we get to where we oughta be findin’ ‘em. How ‘bout we get a move on.”

Matthew stood with Chet and returned to his horse while Chet gathered the dead man’shorse before returning to his own horse. He put the dead man’s wrapped gun and holster into his own saddlebag, tied the reins of the new horse to a strap on
his saddle, and finally mounted his own horse. The two men sat their horses for just a silent moment as they looked to the body that was still propped against the fallen tree. Wordlessly the men swung their horses around and continued in their hunt.