River of Dust. Virginia Pye
how women now had the right to vote in four Western states, whereas it was unheard-of in the rest of the country, but also on how a lady could manage her own honeymoon. The modern woman understood that when she married a gentleman greatly distracted by ambition, she must nonetheless persevere with her own hopes and dreams. Grace was not sure what her own hopes and dreams might be, but she recognized that the Reverend was a man much distracted by ambition.
Indeed, the man before her today bore none of the human frailty and lack of surety of the young man she had first met but instead, was a substantial figure who had achieved a great deal. She rather liked that he appeared now as the Chinese had come to see him— as a bear, a giant, an oversized miracle of a man. Ghost Man, they called him, and she could see why.
Grace reminded herself that as a girl of twenty, she could instead have become a schoolteacher in a one-room schoolhouse on the Midwestern plains, a librarian in the college town, or most certainly a secretary to one of her father's fellow academics on campus. Instead, four years before, she had followed a man in whom she sensed greatness into the desert halfway around the world, and it was here that she now watched him spin his words into blazing gold.
"I, too, am a sinner," the Reverend called out in a fiery voice. "I am one of the fallen."
Grace glanced about and saw that the Chinese sat on the edges of the pews, their whole bodies tilting toward him, their hands clasped and their eyes rapt in attention. The other ministers and their wives shifted uneasily in their seats. The Reverend's sudden urge for self-revelation was not at all the usual approach to their mission. Grace dared to look again at Mildred Martin and swallowed hard as she saw the older woman's jaw go slack and hang partially open. Her husband, Charles Martin, the Reverend's most loyal friend, looked on with an expression that could only be described as horror.
Grace turned back to her husband and widened her beaming expression up at him. Unlike her compatriots, she was proud that on his journeys he seemed to have come to the same stark conclusion that she had in the several months since their disaster: she and the Revered were indeed sinners, and not just in any usual sense. The Martins might still believe themselves to be otherwise, but Grace, and apparently the Reverend as well, knew the truth. The Lord had chosen to reveal their sins by punishing them most thoroughly. They were, without a doubt, as fallen as Adam and Eve on the wretched morning when the Lord had raised His arm and pointed them out of Eden.
"I am lower than the lowliest of beggars on the streets," the Reverend shouted. "I am as blind as the men whose eyes are crusted over with scabs. I am as infirm as those who lie in the streets with limbs hanging torn and useless. I am no better than the poorest of the poor, for my heart is black with sin."
Grace felt a shiver rise up her spine. She feared she might faint, and yet she knew her face glowed with recognition. She understood as never before that she had been guilty of the sin of pride when, as a blithe and naive girl, she had been overly pleased with herself for having married such a man. Several of the other ladies at the mission had been partial to the Reverend as well, but Grace had won out. She had always considered herself blessed. The Lord would spare her any true pain. And yet, decidedly, He had not.
The echoing hum had begun in the back of her mind again, and she felt herself starting to move away from herself, rising up from her seat and looking down over them all. She welcomed these strange sensations that usually accompanied her nightly bedtime odysseys. It was the familiar feeling of being washed over with shame.
The new Chinese Christians all around her rubbed their hands together in delight. No doubt they must have wondered how it had come to pass that a white man who had once stood so tall and upright and clean now hung his head and debased himself before them. If this great man who had built roads and hospitals and schools professed such weaknesses, what did that mean for those who struggled simply to plow their dry fields and place meager food upon their tables?
Grace looked upon their faces and saw a strange sight: she saw hope. She felt she had no business recognizing it in her own current miserable state of loss, but there it was, quite undeniably. Hope lit up their faces, as it did her own.
The Reverend raised his fists at the timbers. He shook his head of shaggy hair. His shirttails came loose as he lifted his enormous arms. The greatcoat wafted, and the talismans and bells tinkled on their ropes. He described the torture he had endured at the hands of the world, and the Chinese let out cries of agreement and shouts of joy. They knew of what he spoke before he even said the words. It reminded Grace of the sounds she had heard coming from the Negro church at the edge of her Ohio town when her family rode past on a Sunday afternoon. The native faces around her now were alive with both anguish and bliss.
Someone called out from the back of the little chapel, "Speak loudly to the heavens, Ghost Man!"
Reverend Martin in the front row turned instantly and put a finger to his lips to shush them.
"Call out to the Jesus for more miracles," another voice called.
Reverend Martin stood and said, "Quiet now, gentle people."
The Reverend looked over his friend's neatly combed head and shouted to the increasingly restless crowd, "Yes, my friends, we understand one another, do we not? But now, let us pray."
The crowd, which he had worked into a frenzy, would not be calmed with the notion of prayer. They stood and suddenly surged forward and up the aisles. They reached out their hands toward him.
Reverend Martin shouted and waved frantically for them to stop. "That is all for today. Help yourselves to water in the courtyard, and please return for Bible study at four this afternoon."
But the people did not seem to hear. They continued to surge toward the Reverend with outstretched arms. Grace was not surprised to see them clamoring for his attention. She herself had done as much in recent weeks, but with little success.
Now the dizziness and humming in her head became quite forceful. Perhaps Mai Lin's medicines had worn off altogether, Grace thought, and she looked around for her servant with a growing sense of panic. The trick with her potions was to maintain the correct balance, and clearly Grace had gone too long without being administered to. She knew Mai Lin did not care for Sunday services, always a sticking point between her and the Reverend, but Grace was certain she would at least stay nearby when her mistress was in such a weakened state.
The vibrations inside her skull were decidedly pronounced, and Grace shut her eyes. She longed for bed. Then, just when she thought she might faint, the Reverend's voice boomed over the chapel again, and the entire congregation snapped to attention, including his wife.
"Silence!" he bellowed. He pointed at the crowd, his long arms sweeping over them. They stopped where they stood. "The Lord, the greatest Ghost Man of all, wishes you to file out peacefully, get into your carts, and go home to rest on the Sabbath. Tomorrow you will rise, and the crops will have grown."
The crowd let out a hopeful gasp.
"Go now in peace." The Reverend swept his hands through the air, his fingers spread wide like great nets to catch them and pull them into his embrace. "I bless thee, my children. I bless thee."
Grace shut her eyes and tried to feel his blessings rain down upon her. All around, she felt the crowd ebbing back out the door. She kept her eyes pinched shut and waited for her husband's absolving hand upon her arm.
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