Hidden Pearl (46 page)
“No, we are going to be together now from now on… side by side.”
“In that case, will you marry me?”
Hank came to stand behind them. "Do I get to be best man?" he asked grinning wearily.
"Why did you want to come back here?" Christine asked as S.T. pulled the Silverado into the parking area in front of what had once been The Servants of Grace.
"I don't know. It's been a year. The land and buildings are still for sale. Maybe I just wanted to come up here to think about all it meant."
"I don't like this place," she said, but she got out of the truck anyway and followed S.T. as he walked toward the small rise behind the buildings. "This is where he said Soul wanted to build a church, isn't it?" she asked.
"Yeah." He kept climbing and she knew then he was heading for the area where his sister and two others had been buried. The graves had been exhumed and Shonna Taggert's remains had been sent back to her mother’s people, for a proper burial, but if her spirit had been capable of lingering anywhere, he expected this is where it would have been.
When they reached the high spot, the view of other mountains, of oak and pine trees was beautiful. "This is lovely," she said as she gazed around her.
S.T. had knelt where the grave had been of his sister's. She went to stand behind him. "Do you think your mother will want to come to see this place when she visits us next month?"
He shook his head. "Navajo don't like to talk or think about the dead ones or even go around the places where they died."
"But nothing is left here now."
"I know, but it’s how they think."
"So why did you want to come?"
"Maybe to say thank you. That night, the one when I heard a voice, I thought later maybe it was Shonna… her ghost, whatever you want to call it. I wonder now if she is still around or if she found peace."
"You know it is possible she reincarnated and is starting over again somewhere.”
“You believe in that?”
“I don’t know what to believe about much of anything, except that first day I saw you, there in your office, I thought I knew you. I felt like I was coming home, like I had found what I had been looking for all my life.”
S.T. smiled. He rose and stretched his arms wide toward the sky. "I'd like to think Shonna found what she was looking for also, but I guess it would have to be in another lifetime."
Even after having been married to this man for nearly a year, she was in awe of his beauty; although the powers of his form, the physical perfection of his features were only part of what drew her to him. His spirit seemed to claim her and that she’d most fallen in love. She had learned to resist her temptation to photograph him every chance she got as he still wasn’t fond of that.
"It's hard not to hate Peter Soul for the pain he caused all of us," Christine said, coming from behind him to wrap her arms around his torso.
"Good came out of it for some of us. I mean Megan seems to be making a new start," S.T. said, trying to turn and finding Christine was determined to hold him like this, to play with unbuttoning, then pulling open his shirt so that the sun flooded his skin. In another moment, her fingers busy against his bare skin, the shirt fell from his shoulders, but she didn't release her arm from around him, nor stop stroking her hand down his flat belly.
"There was good," she said, kissing his bare back, running her lips along the broad muscle that flexed now on either side of his spine as she moved down his back. He still had a few scars from his beating but mostly they were fading and disappearing to only be memories. "Of course, the good wasn't Peter's fault. He intended all bad."
S.T. shook his head, his senses causing his mind to lose track of whatever he'd been thinking as she stroked and loved his body. In moments he'd had all he could take, turned and took her into his arms. They sank to the ground, stripped off their clothing, hands and lips meeting as in the clear sunshine, they made love.
Afterward as they were dressing, Christine mused, "I think it was good we did that here."
He grinned crookedly. "I think it's pretty good when we do
that
anywhere."
"I don't mean just that." She smiled at him as she buttoned her blouse. "But I mean making love is really a sacred experience, the way it is for us. So, making love here, it sort of puts a sacredness back onto this ground."
He smiled. He didn't think he'd ever get used to the way her mind was capable of seeing beyond to a meaning that gave purpose to all of life. He could only feel grateful that he'd been given such a wonderful woman to teach him about it all.
They walked back down the hill, Christine’s arm around his waist, his over her shoulder. At the bottom, they saw that another car had been parked beside their vehicle. Even though he knew Soul's dangerous followers had been imprisoned, he felt a momentary twinge of concern. When he saw the old woman getting out of the sedan, he let out a breath. She was certainly no threat.
"Do you know where Reverend Soul is?" the woman asked her voice reed thin with age.
"He's no longer here," Christine said.
The old woman's face fell. "I wanted to... Where did he go?"
I could hazard a guess,
S.T. thought but said instead, “He died."
Her eyes widened with shock. "Dead? But he was a young man. How... Oh, this is horrible."
"What did you want with Reverend Soul?" Christine asked patting the woman soothingly on the shoulder as her old eyes filled with tears.
"I wanted to give him an offering of money. He did so much for my son. I just wanted to be able to thank him in person."
"What did he do?" S.T. asked when he saw Christine's mouth slam shut.
"He convinced him he was leading a life heading for death. Because of God working through Reverend Soul, because of the words he said to him, Roger came home, then back to church. He's teaching a Sunday School class now and has a lovely young lady he may marry." Her eyes looked imploringly up at S.T. "I wanted to thank Reverend Soul, wanted him to know how much good he'd done."
“Maybe he knows,” S.T. said. He shook his head when he saw Christine start to open her mouth. She looked questioningly at him but said nothing. S.T. opened the car door for the old woman. "Why don't you give your offering to your own church," he suggested as he helped her back in her vehicle. "I think that'd be the best thing."
"There's no one carrying on Reverend Soul's ministry then?" she asked, turning the ignition on.
"Not for now,” Christine said, adding with an undertone, “Thank god.”
When the old woman had driven off, Christine said, "Why didn't you want us to tell her what he was really like?"
"Did it matter?"
"Of course, it did. He was an evil man. She thinks he was good."
"She thinks God worked through Peter Soul. How do we know something didn't?"
"He was evil, that's how."
He grinned at her. "Except something good did come out of it all, whether from god or not if she was telling the truth.”
She smiled at him. "I guess you are right. The rest didn’t matter."
"I don’t give Soul credit for any of it. Clearly it wasn’t his purpose but maybe if some came, with pure hearts, real intentions, they found that pearl. Despite him, they were helped."
She wrapped her arms around his narrow waist, and they kissed again. The sun shone down on them; the mountain seemed to be in bloom. As they drove away from the deserted buildings, the place S.T. had once labeled a compound of death, Christine realized it had been true. Life had come from there. Not because of evil but despite it.
The End
Very few things really end; themes and characters here, appear again in “Her Dark Angel”.
http://www.amazon.com/Her-Dark-Angel-ebook/dp/B007TRSGU8/
Hidden Pearl
Copyright
©
2011 by Rain Trueax
All rights reserved except for use in review, the reproduction of this work in part or in whole, in any format mechanical or electronic is forbidden without the written consent of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either;
the product of the author’s imagination or are used factiously,
any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Contact information, Works in progress and Author’s thoughts at:
http://raintrueax.blogspot.com
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