Saving Alice Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

Matthew was energized at how easy it was to follow the trail through the grass. He could see clumps of dirt that had been pitched up from the hooves of the horses, and the grass being laid out pointing the way for him. It’s like reading a book, he thought with a growing sense of hope. He didn’t know how he would be able to rescue her, but at least he knew which way to go.

He was somewhat concerned about the speed of the horse’s travel though. It wasn’t a lazy walk, as far as he could tell, but it was just easy going. Knowing that he himself could walk this fast, Matthew wanted to move a little faster, but was unsure of how to do it. To this point the different speeds he had achieved was an all out crazy run, slow, and stop. How do you go in-between? He wondered to himself. Would a little harder kick do, or would that send the horse into a full out run again. For a couple of minutes he just allowed the horse to make it’s own progress as it saw fit while he pondered the problem of pace, but the pressing need to get to Alice prodded him to try for some more speed. With a firm grip on the saddle horn, he gave a timid kick to the horse’s side while saying, “A little faster, horse.”

The horse picked up its head with a slight nod, but kept with its own pace. Not entirely sure what to do, Matthew gave the horse a short moment to respond.  Seeing none forth coming, he gave a slightly bolder kick. Instantly the horse moved out of its walk into a trot. Jostling and bouncing every which way in the saddle, Matthew grew excited with his new controlled speed he could achieve with the animal beneath him. Now he felt like he could make some real progress towards getting to his wife.

His body had been steadily feeling better and better with each passing moment. The stiffness in his back had eased up, while his shoulders now moved without much difficulty. He rolled his head about to check his necks condition and found that it was loose and feeling pretty good. About the only real physical complaint he had now was his headache, which emanated from his wound. He tenderly prodded the area with his fingertips. It was still oozing just a trickle of blood causing his hair to matt to his head in the area of the lesion, and on his forehead there was line of blood coming down to his eyebrow.

His horse took an unexpected sidestep which nearly unseated Matthew. Off to the right a coyote had bolted from a patch of bushes and sped off. Matthew pulled desperately on the reins and called whoa to the horse. Coming to a stop he looked after the fleeing coyote. A sense of vulnerability began to creep over him as he realized how wild the land was. Remembering the gun that he acquired from the dead thief, he realized that it was gone. Reflexively he looked back over his shoulder in the direction he had come. He knew that the gun must have been lying in the grass back where he had fallen off the horse. But that was some ten minutes back in the wrong direction. For a moment he struggled with going back to retrieve it until urgency won out. “I don’t even know how to shoot it anyway,” he comforted himself as he set off yet again in his pursuit. He didn’t want to lose any time.

His mind conjured up the memory of the first time he had seen Alice. It was a monumental day for him, for it was the first time he had preached in front of a congregation some thirteen months ago as a guest preacher at the Second Street Tabernacle. After reading his passage he looked up at the congregation and started with his introduction while trying desperately to keep his voice from being shaky. He realized that after a full minute of looking out, that he was actually looking at only one person. With a flush of red, knowing that his teacher was sitting in the front row and evaluating his every move, he started to look around the room- first to his teacher in the front row, and then slowly, but methodically he looked from person to person in each row, while holding a finger on his notes so he could find his place easily enough when needed.

About half way up the church hall his eyes fell on a beautiful young lady sitting with her parents. She was staring back at him, just like the rest of the congregation, but Matthew found it to be a thrill knowing that someone as beautiful as her was paying attention to him. His eyes continued their travel around the room, but they always returned to her for another moment of eye-to-eye communication.

After the service, as he was standing at the door and shaking hands with the exiting parishioners, Matthew noticed that the beautiful young girl was just a short distance back in the line. He realized that he was going to be able to actually touch her hand, and the thought turned his hands clammy with anticipation.

It was her father who reached him first. Introductions were made all around as Matthew shook hands with first Mr. Wennington, Mrs. Wennington, Thomas (the youngest), Megan (the middle child), and finally Alice.

“I enjoyed your sermon very much, Pastor,” she said as he took her hand in greeting.

“Thank you for saying so, and for putting up with me on my first sermon.”

“Your first? I would have thought you’ve been doing it for years.”

Matthew’s face grew red, as he cleared his throat. “Well, thank you.”

“Yes, it was a very good job, young man,” interjected Mr. Wennington. “Well done. I would have to agree with my daughter that your message did ring with a deeper maturity than would be expected with a first time sermon.”

Mrs. Wennington took her opportunity now, “Pastor, I can see that God has put a real gift in your life. Thank you for being here today. If your afternoon isn’t planned, we would love to have you over for our Sunday meal.”

Matthew couldn’t believe his ears. “Why…” he swallowed, and blinked twice. “…uhm, I mean, that would be fine. I would be honored to dine with your family.”

A smile played on the corners of his lips as he played the memory through his mind. “That was a great meal,” he said to himself remembering being sat directly across the table from Alice. “A great meal.”

Cresting a hill, Matthew pulled his horse to a stop and looked off in the distance to a road that rose up out of a deep and wide gulch. The sight of it made him squint his eyes while he fell into thought. He stood up in the stirrups and looked from where he had come. Settling back in the saddle he gazed back at the road. Sticking to the trail in the grass he kicked the horse into motion and rode off towards the road sensing that something just wasn’t right.

After a short ride he saw it- the body of a man lying in the grass. “No!” he said in disbelief. “No! This can’t be!” He gave the horse another kick and moved past the still body, soon coming upon another motionless corpse. Without stopping he rode out of the grass onto the road. Sure enough, there was a third body lying where he had fallen on the edge of the road after being shot by the scar-faced thief.

Stopping his horse, Matthew dropped from the saddle and stood looking around. He was back where he had started from this morning. Like a tidal wave rushing over his whole being, Matthew was drowning is utter despair. He could see the tracks of the coach heading off up the road. He turned in circles looking all around him and focusing his eyes on nothing in particular as he realized that there was nothing he could do. Alice was lost to him. There seemed to be no more hope left in him.

“God!” He had turned his face toward heaven and yelled now at the top of his lungs with his fists clenched by his sides. “Where are You?!” Tears formed in his eyes and a great heaving sob rose deep from within his chest. “O, God?” He fell to his knees and buried his face in the dust and beat the ground with his clenched fist, while his heart died within as the waves after wave broke over him.

After a time Matthew raised up from the dirt to his knees. His tears had passed, leaving his already dirty face smeared and worse for the wear. Not more than five feet in front of him lay a dusty black book in the dead center of the two wheel tracks of the coach. It was his Bible! He had dropped it when the thief had hit him, not that Matthew had noticed at the time- he had been struggling to get air back into his lungs. But he remembered it now.

He crawled forward and took it into his hands. Slowly he brushed the dust from its cover and then turned it and shook the dirt out from between its cover. Sitting back on his haunches he opened its pages randomly. His eyes fell on a verse from the Old Testament book, Habakkuk. The prophet had cried out in his despair, “O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! Even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save!”

“God, this is how I feel right now. How is it that one of Your own is at a complete loss out here? How can You allow those wicked men to win like this? God, I’ve cried out to You, and it’s as though each word has been tied to a stone- instead of flying off to heaven, they fall to the ground. I don’t even know if You are there.”

As he finished, one of his favorite verses surfaced in his mind. He slowly turned the pages of his dusty Bible to the book of Job. Flipping back and forth until he landed in chapter 13, he read, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.”

He closed his eyes as tears started to well up afresh. “I don’t know if I can have that kind of faith, but I want to. O Jesus, help my unbelief.” After a pause, he continued, “Lord, I will trust You, though you take my wife, and the wicked win, I will trust You.”

The sky didn’t break open and there was no thunder, but Matthew knew that something was different. Everything was just the same- Alice was still missing, Matthew was still lost, and he didn’t feel any better, but he was now resolved. He had determined to trust and follow even when all the circumstances dictated otherwise.

Having been completely caught up in his own meditation he had effectively cut himself off from the world around him. He didn’t hear his horse step to the side of the road to start cropping the grass. He hadn’t heard the sound of field birds twittering in surrounding scrub brush. The cry of a bald eagle soaring high above went unnoticed. And the sound of the approaching horse coming up from the gulch didn’t even register until the horse and rider had come to a stop a mere twenty feet away.