The Rustler
“for a sweltering congregation. Seated at an organ hauled into Brother Hickey’s big revival tent in the bed of a buckboard, Sarah endured, perspiring, longing to fan herself with her sheet music or brush away the damp tendrils of hair clinging to the sides of her neck.Every year in August, sure as the hay harvest, Brother Hickey and his roustabouts descended on the community like a circus without animals or parades, erected a canvas sanctuary on the grassy banks of Stone Creek, and set about saving the heathen from certain damnation.A portion of the congregation seemed to deem it necessary to get saved on an annual basis. There wasn’t much to do in a place the size of Stone Creek, after all, and with no doubts about the fate of their immortal souls weighing on their minds, folks would be free to enjoy the picnic that always followed the preaching.Sarah forced the last few notes of the old hymn through the organ pipes and sighed with relief. The air was heavy and still—a baby gave a bri...ef, fretful squall—and then, remarkably, a breeze swept through the gathering, as soft and cool as the breath of heaven itself.Startled, Sarah looked up from the cracked and yellowed keys of Brother Hickey’s well-traveled organ, over the turned heads of the salvation-seekers, and saw a man standing at the back of the tent.MoreLess
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