Lorraine Heath Read Free Page A

live in order to be happy.”
    “But you never look happy, Clay,” Joe said.
    He offered his brothers a somber smile and laid his palm over his heart. “I’m happy here because I believe—I know—what I did was right for me. I didn’t believe in slavery. I didn’t believe Texas had the right to secede. I didn’t believe we should fight the Northern states, and yet, I could not in all good conscience take up arms against the South, my home, and my friends. But more than that, I would not fight because I believe it’s a sin against God to kill another man.”
    “They don’t say it’s a sin in church. They don’t think all those soldiers were sinnin'.”
    “Different churches believe different things. We’ve only got one church in Cedar Grove, and I think it’s better to attend a church that doesn’t believe everything I do than not to go to church at all.”
    “Were you the only one who believed all that?” Joe asked.
    Clay shook his head. “No, there were others. One man had more courage than any man I ever knew. We talked about what we believed, and we promised each other we’d stand by our convictions no matter what.”
    “What happened to him?”
    Clay swallowed the lump in his throat that always formed when he thought of Will. “He got sick and died.”
    “You oughta tell people you ain’t no coward,” Josh suggested.
    “It’s not the kind of thing you can tell people. They’ll believe it only if you show them. That’s why, even though I hate the way people watch me when I go to church on Sunday morning, I still go. I didn’t do anything I’m ashamed of, and I won’t run from their opinions. Someday maybe they’ll understand.”
    “What if they never do?” the twins asked in unison.
    Clay sighed. He’d have a damn lonely life, but the loneliness should belong to him, not them. A man lived or died according to his decisions in life, and Clay had made his decision. The twins were old enough now to make their own decisions. “You don’t have to go to church with me this morning, and when the rain stops, you can go fishing.”
    The boys looked at each other, their initial relief quickly giving way to family commitment. “Nah, we’ll go,” Josh said. “Won’t we, Joe?”
    Squaring his small chin, Joe gave a quick nod.
    Daring to ruffle their hair, he expected them to flinch at his touch. Instead they smiled. “Then I guess you’d better practice crossing your eyes before we leave.”
    The twins laughed as only children can, with an innocence and joy, as they anticipated honing their skills.
    Unfolding his body, Clay walked out of the stall, out of the barn, and back into the storm.
    Sitting upon a raised dais to one side of the pulpit, Meg Warner pressed the keyboard. The haunting melody of the organ touched the church rafters, waltzed along the stained-glass windows where the sunlight cast a myriad of rainbows, and whispered across the congregation.
    Meg knew every face. The old and weathered faces of the men, the aged faces of the women. Noticeably absent were the faces of the young men with whom she’d grown up. With pride, they’d ridden off to war. Never losing courage, they had been vanquished. They had marched into battle side by side, and Yankee guns had leveled them as though they were little more than wheat growing in a field.
    Meg watched Lucian Holland wander down the aisle and ease onto the edge of a pew. An awkwardness had settled around Lucian when his brother returned, as though he no longer knew where he belonged.
    She lifted her hands off the keys and folded them in her lap. A reverent silence filtered through the church as Reverend Baxter stepped up to the pulpit.
    Meg gazed at her brother, Daniel. Like Lucian, he’d been too young to enlist when the war started. Almost seventeen now, he worked hard to fill his brothers’ boots—all three pairs. She could see her older brothers reflected in Daniel’s strong jaw, his thick black hair, and his deep blue eyes.