Based on Randy Travis' "Three Wooden Crosses". Yes, I'm a country fan.
Three Wooden Crosses
A farmer and a teacher, a hooker and a preacher,
Ridin' on a midnight bus bound for Mexico.
One's headed for vacation, one for higher education,
An' two of them were searchin' for lost souls.
Squall Leonhart, a preacher, boarded a midnight bus to Mexico. The three other occupants were a man wearing a cowboy hat, the brim pulled down over his eyes, another man with shoulder length brown hair reading a book, and a frail-looking blonde boy. Squall was dressed in regular clothes, but he was holding his bible in his right hand. He took a seat next to the blonde boy and smiled at him. "Hi. My name's Squall. What's yours?"
The boy looked up at him, blue eyes sad. "I'm Cloud."
"How old are you, Cloud?"
"Fifteen..."
Squall raised an eyebrow. "Where are your parents?"
"They died three years ago."
"How did you get bus fare?"
Cloud dropped his eyes. "I didn't steal it..."
"I didn't say you did. I'd like if you told me, though."
Cloud leaned up and whispered, "I... I sell myself..." in Squall's ear.
Squall nodded and held up his bible. "Have you ever read this, Cloud?"
Cloud shook his head slowly, and Squall smiled. "Then let me read it to you."
He began reading, and instantly the man with the book shut it and began to listen. The man with the cowboy hat pushed his brim up and also lent an ear. Even the driver began listening to Squall's firm, calm voice, and Cloud was gazing at him in awe.
That driver never ever saw the stop sign.
An' eighteen wheelers can't stop on a dime.
There are three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway,
Why there's not four of them, Heaven only knows.
I guess it's not what you take when you leave this world behind you,
It's what you leave behind you when you go.
That farmer left a harvest, a home and eighty acres,
The faith an' love for growin' things in his young son's heart.
An' that teacher left her wisdom in the minds of lots of children:
Did her best to give 'em all a better start.
An' that preacher whispered: "Can't you see the Promised Land?"
As he laid his blood-stained bible in that hooker's hand.
The teacher, whose name was Laguna Loire, looked out the window as Squall continued to read. Suddenly he cried out, "You just ran a stop sign!"
Without warning, an eighteen wheeler crashed into the bus, tearing it in half. The cowboy was first to go. His last thought was of his son, who he had left at home with his mother, and his farm, with its eighty acres.
Laguna died next. He thought of the kids he had taught, and how the school in Mexico would lose a member of their staff before he even arrived. Squall managed to push Cloud into safety, and he pressed the bible, now stained with blood, into the young mans hand, whispering, "Can't you see the promised land?"
Cloud nodded slowly, his eyes tearing up as he did. He survived the crash, but couldn't go a day without thinking of the preacher, the man who disregarded what he did and gave his life for the teenagers.
There are three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway,
Why there's not four of them, Heaven only knows.
I guess it's not what you take when you leave this world behind you,
It's what you leave behind you when you go.
That's the story that our preacher told last Sunday.
As he held that blood-stained bible up,
For all of us to see.
He said: "Bless the farmer, and the teacher, an' the preacher;
"Who gave this Bible to my mamma,
"Who read it to me."
There are three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway,
Why there's not four of them, now I guess we know.
It's not what you take when you leave this world behind you,
It's what you leave behind you when you go.
There are three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway.
-Randy Travis, "Three Wooden Crosses"
