Chapter 13
To Cassie’s surprise, Red went to the back door of Bates General Store and went in without bothering to knock.
He walked down the hallway that passed the living quarters without making his presence known to anyone and started moving things around in the store, clearing a space for people to gather around the stove.
Cassie started to help, but Red said, “Not the pickle barrel, Cass. I’ll get that. It’s too heavy for you, and it spills easy. If you want to help, pull the lighter barrels to one side, the crackers, and those crates of apples.”
Cassie did as he directed and took everything light, which was a goodly share of the stacks of supplies in the store, while Red took everything heavy. After just a few minutes, Red called a halt, saying there was room enough for everyone to gather.
Muriel came in and stopped short. “I would have lent a hand, Red. I was poky this morning.”
“Nah, we were fast. Cass did most of it.” Red smiled over at her, and her heated cheeks told her she was blushing.
Muriel went to the front, picking her way carefully through the jumbled merchandise. She unlocked the door. “Cassie’s a worker, all right. She saved the day yesterday. I declare, I would still be here filling orders if she hadn’t taken a hand.”
Cassie’s head might explode from the effort to contain her pride. “Cassie’s a worker.” She’d never heard it said about her before.
Libby came in just in time to hear the last of Muriel’s comment.
Her husband was just behind her, and several more people were with them.
“You should have seen her bring my supplies, Red. She carried a fifty-pound bag of flour in her arms like a baby and asked as sweet as you please where she should set it and that she’d be back with the rest. Every man in the place stood up from his chair as if they had springs in their backsides and just followed her back to Muriel ’n Seth’s. ”
Libby’s husband, Ralph Jeffreys, laughed, and Cassie looked at Red again, uncertain if she robbed him of his honest pay.
Ralph chuckled. “I was there when she came back, carrying—what was it, Cassie?—a can of peaches or a…”
“It was eggs,” a man just entering the store said. “We weren’t about to let this pretty li’l lady, with a baby on the way to boot, carry five hundred pounds of groceries for you. I’m right ashamed of you for asking her to, Libby Jeffreys.”
Libby turned in outrage. “I never asked her to carry five hundred…” Libby saw who was talking, gasped out loud, and chuckled. “Sam, you scalawag! I didn’t know you were back from hauling.”
The newcomer came and lifted Libby into a bear hug, laughing. “Howdy, Ma. Just teasin’.”
He tipped his hat to Cassie, who had backed a little away from the growing crowd until she was standing pressed against Red. Red rested his hand on her waist and anchored her to his side.
In the next ten minutes, the general store became crowded with people, friendly and happy to see each other.
Red greeted each of them by name and shook hands.
He introduced Cassie to them and she said, “Hello,” trying to put names and faces together.
She recognized quite a few of them from yesterday in the store, and although she continued to greet them by name once they’d been introduced, she soon gave up any hope of remembering all these men, overwhelmed by the sea of strangers.
She did know Norman York, and she tried to remember Leota Pickett’s husband and the little Pickett children. Children were a rarity in Divide, and they were enchanting to her. She was sure she’d never forget their names.
Then as quickly as the people began crowding in, everyone settled into silence, and Red left her side and stood close to the heating stove. He said, “Let’s start with a prayer.”
How startling to have her husband in charge.
Of course, she’d known he was leading the service.
But somehow she hadn’t really thought what that meant.
It had just seemed like another of his many jobs.
Now a strong surge of pride in her handsome husband swelled in her chest as he took charge of this large group.
She remembered the fire-and-brimstone preaching she’d grown up with in Illinois, and she waited for that kind of intensity to come out of Red. But he just stayed his sweet, quiet self. He prayed in front of all these people with the same casual, loving manner he’d used before their meals.
Halfway through his prayer—Cassie expected it was only halfway because she’d heard a lot of praying as a child and knew it was a lengthy proceeding—Red said, “Many petitions in prayer are pleasing to the Lord. Would anyone like some concern of his heart lifted up to God?”
A deep voice behind her spoke to God about his brother’s broken leg healing straight and strong. Another asked for his ailing mother in St. Louis to be remembered. And so it went. There were many needs in the West and many worries.
She could sense burdens lifting as they all put their worries before God and prayed together.
She didn’t speak out loud, but for the first time in a long time, she prayed too.
She prayed for her baby’s health and for Red’s safety and for more of the chickens to come back.
Then Red surprised her by resting his hand on her shoulder.
He’d moved away from her when he’d started talking, but he had drifted closer during the prayer.
He prayed for Griff, for God to shelter his immortal soul. Then Red thanked God for her.
Cassie couldn’t contain a tiny gasp of pleasure.
Red didn’t ask God to make her less clumsy and stupid.
He didn’t pray for childlike Cassie Griffin Dawson to quit shaming him and grow up.
He thanked God so kindly for making her his wife that she couldn’t help but believe he meant it.
And he prayed for the baby and prayed quite fervently for Muriel to get there in plenty of time to help deliver it.
That made everyone laugh, but the laughter, laced with the sweet prayer and Red’s kindhearted thanks for her, had lifted her spirits so that she laughed a little herself with the pure pleasure of the day.
Then Red said his “amen” and moved back to where he’d stood in front of everyone and started talking about marriage.
He didn’t preach a sermon like any she’d heard before, and the congregation seemed to feel free to interrupt him as often as they liked.
One man said marriage was a bad subject since so few of them were married.
Red said, “Leave your cattle to the wolves and go find a wife. It’s worth it.”
Everyone laughed, and Cassie was so pleased with Red, she was sorely tempted to cry.
He talked about a wife obeying her husband and how all the burden lay with the husband because he was called to love her more than his own body and never do anything to harm her. So a man must never ask a woman to obey anything that went against her own ideas of right and wrong.
Seth told him to change the subject before Muriel got the bit in her teeth.
Muriel said, “When have I ever obeyed you, anyway, old man?”
All in all, it was the oddest and most wonderful church service Cassie had ever attended. It didn’t escape her notice that Red very quietly kept things from straying from the basic subject of his selected Bible verse.
A spirited debate bounced back and forth between people of goodwill with lots of laughter and a warm display of genuine love between the three married couples—the Bates, the Jeffreys, and the Picketts.
But then she hadn’t included the Dawsons in that count of married people.
And as she thought of the questions Red had asked and how they applied to her, she thought, I’ll be proud to obey you, Red.
The whole room turned to face her, and it took her a second to realize she must have spoken her thoughts aloud.
She wasn’t sure if she blushed or not. She’d done so much of it lately, it was getting harder and harder to humiliate herself.
It didn’t matter. They wouldn’t have stared at her any harder if she’d grown a second head.
Red moved from his spot at the front of the group and stood beside her. Had her comment shamed him? Despite everything she’d learned about Red this week, she couldn’t control the surge of fear that he would punish her for talking out loud in public like that.
“Cass, I am a lucky man. I reckon you will obey me, ’cuz you’re such a sweet thing, you’d just naturally do your best to make me happy.
But I want you to know, I won’t ask you to go against your conscience, and I’ll listen if you disagree with me.
And if you are ever upset with me, it’ll be as much my doing as yours, so you can speak right out and never be afraid of me. ”
Cassie remembered Griff’s funeral, with her wild desire to die along with him and her terror of the Sawyers and the surly mob keeping her ears deaf to what was being said.
Now they stood before believers, and Cassie looked into Red’s eyes.
“I’m lucky too. Thank you for marrying me. I know you didn’t want to.”
Red smiled. “I didn’t think I should, but that’s a long way from not wanting to. I wanted to marry you something fierce, Cass, honey.”
He leaned down. Was he going to kiss her? They hadn’t kissed since their wedding night, and that had been her doing…although she’d dreamed he’d kissed her hair several times, and the dreams had been nice.
Wade Sawyer chose that minute to slam the door open. “I got an order here, Seth. I need it right now!”
Wade’s belligerence broke into the pleasant church service and garnered everybody’s attention.
Muriel slammed her fists on her hips and stepped in front of Wade. “See here, Wade. We’re closed on the Lord’s Day, and well you know it.”