“That look, that right there,” he said. “That gives me all the confidence I need to trust Cora with you.”
“Are you saying that I have your blessing, then?” Roy asked, his voice lilting in hopefulness at the end of his sentence.
Sheriff Williams stood up from his chair, and Roy mirrored him. The two men faced each other, and then the sheriff held out his hand. Roy took it, thinking that he was going to shake his hand, but instead Sheriff Williams pulled him into a paternal embrace. Roy stiffened at first, not having been hugged the way a father would hug a son even years before his father passed. He eventually relaxed his shoulders and let himself accept the embrace. When Sheriff Williams pulled away, he kept one gentle hand firmly on Roy’s shoulder, and looked him straight in the eye.
“You’re a good man, Roy. I have no doubt in my mind that your father would be proud of the man you have become. I would never for a second think that I could replace your father, but I’m looking forward to having a son of my own, and perhaps as your father-in-law, filling just a small part of that hole your father left behind in your life. So, yes, you most certainly have my blessing.”
Roy left Cora’s house that night whistling the tune to “Amazing Grace.” He couldn’t remember the last time he had whistled any song, much less a Christian hymn, but it was the melody that was on his heart that evening. His heart felt light, and he couldn’t stop grinning. He couldn’t contain the adrenaline coursing through his veins, and if not for his pesky, lame leg, he would have sprinted all the way home.
As the cool night air filled his lungs during his brisk walk home, his thoughts raced, encircling the emotional whirlwind of the past twenty-four hours. He had solidified his plans to sell his father’s land and purchase a ranch of his own, unexpectedly shared his first kiss with Cora, stood witness to both the lowest and highest moments of Cora’s relationship with her father, confronted Alfred Mills—slugging him for the second, and hopefully the last, time in his life—and ultimately earned Sheriff Williams’ approval. Most importantly, Roy had summoned the courage to express his desire to marry Cora, and she had reciprocated.
When he arrived at his front porch, Roy stopped to catch his breath and looked up at the sky. He recalled, just weeks ago, another time that he had looked up at the sky, on his knees in an empty field in Wheats Ridge, wailing with grief at the sudden news of his father’s death. The pain was still there, and he knew that in a certain way it would always be there, some days more pronounced than others. Tonight the pain was a dull ache, a longing for his father to see him now, buying and ranch and preparing to make a life and home with Cora Williams, someone his father himself had admired and trusted and sent directly in his path. One of the last gifts his father had left him.
Roy closed his eyes and smiled, breathing in the night air and silently thanking God for the blessings He had given him and for helping him find his way to back to the Christian faith.
“And please, Father, prepare me to be a good husband and to protect Cora from anyone who intends to do her harm,” Roy added to the end of his prayer, a shiver traveling up his spine at the memory of Alfred’s angry, threatening glare when he left the Williams’ house, and his mother’s equally threatening words.
He had told Cora not to worry, that he would protect her, and he intended to keep that promise. But he also had to admit that he was worried about what they had planned. He wanted to believe that they were all bark and no bite, but he also knew that the Mills family had a reputation to protect, and breaking off an engagement that had already been publicized was a huge blow to their ego. Not only that, but they had the power of wealth to support whatever evil endeavors they might be planning to enact their revenge.
Suddenly exhausted as the adrenaline rush burned out, Roy made his way back inside the house and put on his pajamas for bed. His last thought before he drifted to sleep was Cora walking toward him wearing a white dress and a veil.
When he awoke hours later to a light coming through the window, he instantly knew something was wrong. The light was not the warm, glow of an early morning sun; rather, it was an angry, orange glow accompanied by a crackling sound in the distance.
Roy threw the covers off and rushed toward the window to confirm his suspicion: through the tops of the trees, he could see the orange flames and plumes of black smoke engulfing the roof of his father’s church.
He didn’t bother getting dressed or even putting on his shoes. He fled out the front door and across the lawn, running as fast as his limp would allow him toward the churchyard. Several members of the community, including Philip Hawthorne, who was one of the first that Roy recognized, were already there by the time he arrived, and they had formed a bucket brigade from the nearby creek, where Cora and Roy had once shared lunch, to the steps of the church.
Roy jumped into the line next to Philip and began helping, his hands moving quickly to pass the water bucket from one person to the next.
“Any idea what happened?” he asked Philip without stopping his rhythm. Philip shook his head, his eyes fixed on the flames.
“No idea. I was asleep in bed when I heard shouting from outside. Someone had seen the fire get started, at the bottom first, but it spread quickly rising to the top. They weren’t able to get a good look at the person, though. It was too dark, and by the time they got outside, they had run away.”
“Lakewood still doesn’t have a fire department?” Roy asked. His hands were getting soaked from the splashing of water from one bucket to the next, his wrists sore from quickly grabbing one after another, but he wouldn’t, couldn’t stop.
“Closest one is in Magnolia Grove, and no way they would get to us in time. Some of us were trained by their fire department awhile back, but the bucket line is the best we can do with the resources we have.”
After several more minutes of nonstop passing of buckets of water, it became clear that their efforts would be in vain. No matter how fast they passed the buckets of water down the line of people to the church building, the flames were spreading too quickly and had already risen to the top of the structure.
The entire building was engulfed in flames from the top down. Roy watched in helpless horror as the hours of work he had put into repairing the roof smoldered away and caved inward, leaving behind a gaping hole. The freshly painted wooden clapboard was reduced to blackened char as the wood decomposed.
The crowd was growing now. It was as if the entire town of Lakewood had risen from their respective slumbers during the darkest part of the night to bear witness to the ruin of their beloved church. Many people brought buckets and began to join the brigade, but their attempts were futile. They were no match for the raging fire.
“Roy!” Cora’s voice jolted Roy out of his state of frozen horror. She was pushing her way through the crowd and running toward him, Sheriff Williams at her heels. She threw herself into his arms and they held each other as they watched helplessly as the entire structure became unrecognizable through the engulfing flames and the structural integrity of the church became further compromised. Cora’s body jumped in his arms at the loud rumbling and crashing sound that was the collapse of sections of the church—first the roof and then the walls.
The community bucket brigade was no longer working to put out the fire; instead, they were standing in solemnity as large sections of framework came crashing down onto the lower levels of the structure. Soon, the entire building had been reduced to a pile of wooden debris, keeping the flames contained like a giant bonfire.
“Let’s move, people!” Sheriff Williams bellowed through the crowd. “We can get this fire out now that it’s lower to the ground, but we have to work fast!”
The community moved swiftly at the sheriff’s command, and the assembly line of bucket passing from the creek to the pile of debris commenced. Roy stayed rooted to the spot, holding Cora tightly in his arms as she buried her face in his shoulder. Within several minutes, the fire had disappeared, and all that was left was a heavy sheet of smoke surrounding the entire area. People throughout the crowd began to cough and cover their faces.
“All right folks, let’s clear the area,” Sheriff Williams addressed the crowd. “Thank you to those who helped with the fire—your efforts did not go unnoticed.”
“How did this happen?” a woman’s voice from the crowd yelled. Roy recognized her as one of the women who was questioning him that Sunday he went to service in Magnolia Grove. The rest of the crowd murmured their agreement to her question.
“Well obviously, this was arson!” Samuel Beck from the bank shouted. “How else could this happen? There’s no storm, so it wasn’t lightning, and it’s the middle of the night, so no one would have been here with a lamp or candle. Foul play is the only answer that makes a lick of sense!”
The crowd began to join in Samuel’s outrage as they put the pieces together and came to the same conclusion. Sheriff Williams hollered over the frenzy.
