Caroling...
"A thrill a' hope th' weeeeary world reeejoiciz..."
Josiah, one foot on the step of his little church, winced. This was murder: no one's fault, surely, and the good Lord would forgive, even if those few in their midst with sensibilities did not. The Lord saw past weaknesses and frailties, he listened to the heart within.
At least, Josiah thought, looking around, we had all better hope he does.
It would be another cold day for Christmas, but no snow, despite the hopes of the few children in town. And their young-enough-to-be-childish Sheriff, JD. And their sometimes-childish-enough-to-be-young Buck. No, cold and dry and bright, if he read the signs right.
They'd all seven of them been invited to Nettie Well's for Christmas dinner, and the grateful acceptances had been fast and furious in coming... all but for one. Everyone knew Nettie was one of the best cooks in the county, and after everything that had happened this year - not to say how they'd suffered through Mary Travis's Thanksgiving dinner - he figured their little band deserved a good Christmas. They would deserve it even more after sitting through the Christmas service at Four Corners.
His little sermon was not the hindrance. Josiah didn't fool himself: it was nothing fancy, he'd judged his flock carefully and aimed for simple, heart-felt and above all short. A thoughtful Lord, one with a sense of humour, would understand that keeping little children - or Vin Tanner - cooped up in a small church for long was hardly the way to foster peace, let alone goodwill.
No, the sermon would be fine, but the singing was another matter.
"F'r yonder breaks anoo an' glor'yis morn."
He winced again. Some things were meant to try man, and a small but fervent, and mostly tin-eared, choir was one of them.
In their rough and ready little town there were but four decent singers. The ladies of the town would not be the only ones scandalized - not to say dumbfounded - if Buck Wilmington left off his sinful ways long enough to lead the hymn singing. Missus Schweberger and her eldest were... acceptable, but given that they hadn't spoken since that nasty wrangle in the churchyard last Christmas, he'd risked offending them both by approaching Mrs Conklin to lead the choir as she was doing now, through the rehearsal of a song he deeply loved...
Sounds something like a fretful sow with an unruly litter of little 'uns, don't they, Lord? He sighed. But you hear the heart, right? You know that I try to, don't you?
Then again, you do have that sense of humour...
The fourth good singer would not be there, and Josiah knew too well the why of that. Ezra had never shown, by look or word or faintest inference, that what had happened over the assassin's money had touched him, that Josiah's fierce and harsh - and quickly regretted - tirade in this very church had pierced his buffalo-thick skin, any more than the edged and ill-timed mistrust of the others. He'd recovered, too quickly, and shown again that smug, smiling, satisfied face to them all, his friends and the town at large. Ezra had little enough shame and less sensibility, and it had been a while before the six of them realised a steel wall had been slammed down over the whole incident. He wouldn't speak of it, and he wouldn't stay to listen to anyone else speak of it, and not even Larabee knew how to make him.
Ezra had not set foot inside the church since that day. Always a good reason, an excellent excuse, a plausible pretext... and Josiah was beginning to feel that he never would. They hadn't talked of it - hell, and he paused, sending a formless apology to the Lord, how do you reach someone who won't let you touch him? He'd tried to show his regret, tried to show Ezra it was safe to let down the wall and talk to him, that there was now a welcome here in the Lord's house... and been met with wilful blindness in those big, shallow, guarded green eyes. Right now, they didn't even know if he would be there with them for Christmas dinner at Nettie's.
"Lord, you may listen," he murmured, "but you can't seem to make us do so, can you? We didn't... and now he won't. Can't rightly blame him."
"Mister Sanchez?" A small, startled voice - little Billy Travis - spoke from beside him. He looked up, seeing the little group of choristers staring at him. "Did you say somethin'?"
"Just a few words to the Almighty, son."
"Didja hear the singin? For th' service tomorrow?" The other children had deserted their places and flocked towards him. "Was it good? Didja like it?"
Lord, forgive me. "It was... a wonderful offering to God, children," he managed, "and God will surely be greatly pleased by it. But shouldn't you all be running home now?"
Mrs Conklin, bridling and unsure whether that had been praise or not, remembered her duties and started ushering the children out; the adults, including Mary, followed more slowly, their chatter far less painful to the ear than their singing. Mary paused at the doorway, waiting till the others were safely gone, and looked back at him with a half-smile.
"It is rather... dismal, isn't it?" He could see a twinkle in her eyes. "So you think we'll do better tomorrow?"
"It would be the right time for a miracle, true."
"I don't think we'll get the miracle we need, though." Her smile faded; she may not have known everything that happened during that time, but she was a clever woman, she had eyes and she wasn't just talking about the singing. "Do you think he'll...?"
"Not yet, Mary," Josiah hadn't given up all hope, but his faith didn't go that far. "Maybe next year."
Left alone, he gazed around. Tomorrow the little church would be, oh, half-filled? - more than at any other time of year, and then only because five of his six friends, his brothers, would be there to make up the numbers, if Chris and Nathan had to drag them in by main force. They mean well, Lord. You know that, don't you? He only hoped he could persuade them not to crowd the last pew, in a contest to be last in and first out. Though Chris, with that touch of insight that sometimes surprised, knew better than to try and drag Ezra in this year. They truly do mean well...
And then Josiah saw something, lying in the corner on that last pew - a small, brown-paper-covered box, with his name in neat, printed letters. It was heavy, flat and round, and when he unwrapped it - slowly, trying not to tear the writing - he uncovered a small metal cylinder, with what looked like a winding handle.
A music box? He'd seen them in his travels, big and small, and this little metal one was nothing compared to the huge, fancified creations in shop windows in the big cities... but it was far better than he'd have thought to see out here. The etched writing on the underside was German, the decorations of stars and snow scenes, beautifully done. Altogether a lovely little thing, not a children's toy, though he could imagine how the children would love it when he showed it to them after church.
He wound it with careful hands, and listened to the soft, sharp, tinkling sound. The carol - the one that the little choir had been murdering - chimed out delicately. Josiah didn't need the words, he not only knew them by heart, he had been listening for days to them being mangled, and to hear this soft, clean, pure, wordless version was... beautiful. "For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn..."
And Josiah could guess where it had come from. It would be so like him, whether he has slipped in himself to leave it, or shamelessly bribed someone, maybe an older child (the Lord knew, there was a part of the man himself that was still defiantly a child, a part that Josiah could see in this small, furtive gesture), to do so.
Ezra wouldn't be in church tomorrow, no... but maybe he would be at Nettie's, and would be all utterly innocent, wide-eyed, wondering denial when Josiah brought out the music box and they all guessed where it had come from. His - their - perplexing, slippery, infuriatingly endearing friend might not always, or ever again, want to talk, but sometimes even he could speak without words.
It would be a cold, dry, bright, good day for Christmas...
-the end-