Cloud's Rider by C. J. Cherryh

Author:C. J. Cherryh [Cherryh, C. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780446604246
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
Published: 1996-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

There were evergreen boughs on the altar, there were lamps burning with sweet-smelling oil, and after the social announcements from the various families, the preacher preached a sermon on the righteousness of God and His Mercy, and turned it into a kind of memorial for Tarmin.

Carlo liked the smells and the sights, and the church murals weren’t so fine as those in Tarmin, but they were amazing to his eyes—portraying creatures of the New World, which wouldn’t have pleased preacher Wales down in Tarmin, not by a long way.

And the preacher really got to him when he started talking about the kids down in Tarmin. He had a lump in his throat and noted people in the seats down the row were using handkerchiefs. The preacher proceeded to the old business of how nobody ever knew the hour or the day they’d die, which was predictably grim, and then segued into an exhortation to enjoy the world—which was so sharp a left turn from the expected path of doom and gloom that Carlo tried to reconstruct in his mind exactly how the preacher had gotten where he had from the point where preacher Wales had always concluded the world was the source of evil.

Enjoy life? He could get along with this preacher.

Randy fidgeted. He always had fidgeted in church. Carlo nudged his ankle and Randy slouched. Randy always would do that, too. Neither of them had ever favored church—but it was a comfortable and comforting thing this morning, after so much was out of joint, to be sitting in the smells of winter Sundays and hearing a sermon just like every week. Reverend Quarles went on, in his quiet manner, talking about right actions and not cheating your neighbor— and redeeming the damned world with good living and right dealing. That was a new twist, and it ought to have made the Mackeys squirm, but probably not, Carlo thought. Most everybody could feel comfortable with Reverend Quarles. Even he could. He thought if things worked out, he could very easily get along with this church.

The sermon didn’t conclude in hellfire. It meandered off into how there was a horse out there, but they had it on good information it wasn’t mad, or even particularly dangerous. Reverend Quarles praised the riders for going out to deal with it, praised the Lord that the world worked and the seasons happened on schedule, and segued somehow to the choir’s next social. There was, the preacher announced, a sign-up sheet for various projects in the foyer, and there followed more talk about a social and dinner the deacons were putting together in honor of some elder member’s seventieth birthday.

Then the preacher got up again. “Carlo and Randy Goss,” he said. “Would you come up to the front, please? Praise the Lord for that loose bell that night. Praise the Lord He guided you through the dark of the storm, lost sheep brought to His blessed fold.”

Carlo thought to himself that he’d just as

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