Ruth didn't miss a minute of the camp meetings that took place over the next two weeks. She soaked all the biblical teachings in. Some of it was familiar as her parents had been believers, and they'd attended church, but now that she was saved it was as if she heard it with new ears and saw it with new eyes.

As such, she was there when a woman limped her way to the front. She wasn't terribly old only in her thirties, but she was bent over with rheumatism. Ruth recognized her as the lady who had rejected her so unkindly all those years ago. She must have recognized her too because she looked down in shame.

"Could you ask God to heal me?" she asked Brother Wesley, her voice barely above a whisper.

He did and disappointed tears appeared in the eyes of the woman when nothing happened. She was ready to give up, but Ruth wasn't. She knew what the Bible promised. When people prayed and believed, bodies would be healed.

She boldly stepped out in front of the woman before she could return to her seat. "Do you want to be healed?"

"Of course." She looked at her with a trace of that sharpness from all those years ago.

"Then believe that He can. Receive His blessing." She laid her hands on the woman, remembering the extortion to do so in scripture.

She watched the woman's face light up with joy when the pain was gone, melting away the years, as she was able to straighten her body.

There was shouts of praise and surprise and quiet amazement in the crowd at what they'd just witnessed.

"You have the gift of healing," Brother Wesley said after the revival was over.

"It's not my gift. It's God's." Now that she knew the truth about sin-eating, she felt like she had done so much harm to people. Maybe this was God's showing her she could be a help rather than a curse.

"Do you think I sent people to hell?" she asked. Her dream still haunted her, or more specifically the faces of the passed away participants.

"No," he said with no hesitation. "Once a person's dead, their choices have been made. Either they had a relationship that absolved them of their sins or they died choosing rebellion against their Maker. Your sin-eating wouldn't change that one way or the other."

"It was me," Adam said, coming up and looking desperate to confess something or get it over with. His wife was with him though not standing as close as she might have. Despite the fact that they were new creatures, the road to a better marriage was going to be long and hard.

She had no idea what he was talking about. Her confusion must have shown plainly because he continued. "I deserve to be locked up for my crimes. I've abused my wife. I beat a man to death in my anger, and I set your home on fire because I was mad you'd consumed the sins of a man I despised."

"You tried to kill me?" Bartholomew had been right; the fire had been no accident.

"No. I just wanted even. I knew you and your beau were out."

She could have protested he wasn't her beau, but it didn't matter. He was right that he deserved locking up, but the only justice found here was one a man took for himself or on behalf of his kin. There was no formal authority.

It was too late for him to make restitution for killing a man though maybe he could start by taking care of the sonless mother. His wife had obviously forgiven him even if she was never likely to forget. And Ruth could do no less when she'd been forgiven of so much. "I forgive you."

It was three very powerful words. She watched his body loosen up in relief.

These weren't the only ones who sought forgiveness during that period of renewal, who offered an apology for the shunning they'd given her for a role they'd all but forced her in when they'd refused to help. She found more food on her doorstep than she knew what to do with, making her feel a love and acceptance among them she never thought she would among them.

However, she was sure there were still a few stewing at losing her services. Tradition, even tradition that deserved it, didn't die in a day. She ended up giving the food she didn't need to some of the widow women in the area, who because of their gender especially struggled to put food on the table.

One more sought an apology of words, finding his courage on the last day of the camp-meetings. "I am so sorry I let you be a sin-eater."

It seemed to her the minister had the least to do with it. Granted he had done nothing to help her in her hour of need, but neither had a lot of people. He at least had disapproved of the practice. "There's nothing to be sorry for."

"Oh, yes there is. I knew it was wrong unlike most, but I did nothing to stop it, which is an even worse sin than ignorance. I let my congregation and you be victimized by a ritual belonging to the devil," he said.

"Well, it's done now. It's time to leave that particular custom from the old world in the past where it belongs."

"And with much prayer and the action of God's people," he said, "perhaps it will die out there as well."

"Amen. I believe it'll be so," she said, filled with a faith that didn't come from herself.

"What are you going to do with your life now that you're longer a sin-eater?"

It was a question she hadn't fully considered yet, but an answer had been growing inside her. She was never happier than here at this revival, and now it was ending. She knew she couldn't follow Brother Wesley; he wasn't her husband and there were no females to chaperone or anybody really as he traveled alone, but why couldn't she be a revivalist herself? She was used to being on her own, and she'd have God's protection.

She couldn't help imagining the spiritually hungry souls beyond theses hills, souls in need of salvation, or the people who needed physical healing and would see the love and power of God through it. And maybe a small part of her wondered or hoped she'd run into Bartholomew again.

"I want to take a revival westward and stop the spread of darkness."

He smiled, a much gentler man than he'd been before. "I think that's a fine idea, Sister Ruth."

No on had ever addressed her as sister before. She rather liked the title. It made her realize she was an orphan no longer, and she'd been placed in a family larger than she could ever dream of.

sss

There was a loud crack as the air shattered.

One instant and it was over. Bartholomew had shot a man and not just shot him but killed him. It was self-defense as the man had been drunk and had reached for his gun first, but it didn't change the fact that a man was dead because of him.

So this was what guilt felt like. If Ruth had felt even a fraction of what he felt now, it was no wonder he hadn't been able to persuade her from her penance.

"Son, don't you know who you just shot? That there is Elmer 'Sureshot' Murphy," said the man standing beside him.

Bartholomew supposed Sureshot wasn't just a middle name given to him by his mother.

"No one ever beat him in a draw until now, and he had a lot of them. You're going to be famous," said another.

That thought didn't thrill him. He foresaw more gunfights in his future. This wasn't what he had expected to have happen to him when he struck out on his own away from his strict, controlling parents.

"Who are you?" asked one of the onlookers. All the people in the saloon seemed eager for his name. Probably so they could slap a new nickname like "Dead-eye" on it and spread it all over.

Ruth's spurning of him still hurt and her last words weighed heavy. "Just a kid apparently," he said, sitting down on the barstool before his shaky legs brought him to the floor.

"Well, Kid, what can I get you?" the bartender asked simultaneously wiping a glass with a rag. "You look like you could use a stiff drink."

He liked the sound of his new name very much. He'd never been fond of the stuffy, saintly sounding Bartholomew that was better fitted on a church sign that as a moniker for a gunfighter because that was clearly what he was now. "A whisky."