Hanging Judge by Lyle Brandt

Author:Lyle Brandt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

Reverend Hiram Locke was not a drinking man. He found no solace in the bottle, but the Bible wasn’t offering him much tonight, either. He had tried praying to his Savior, but it simply wasn’t working out.

Locke had always regarded himself as a man of principle. His father was a minister before him, and a leader of the movement that had split the Baptist Church when northern abolitionists declared that Jesus hated slavery. The proof that they were wrong was there for anyone to see, in Exodus 21, Leviticus 25, on into the New Testament from Luke to Ephesians and Timothy. Who could deny it and still claim salvation?

Locke had been raised to believe his Maker shaped man in His image—and clearly, that had to mean white. Africans were the children of Ham, cursed by Noah to be “servants of servants” for all time. It made no difference what the Yankees thought, or how they twisted scripture to serve their own ends. God’s word was eternal.

Locke himself had been ordained to preach the Word two years before his native Alabama finally seceded from the Union. As a strapping Southern youth, he’d longed to serve in uniform and crush the heretics who sought to undermine God’s holy scheme of things, but he’d been relegated to a noncombatant chaplain’s role, doing his best to comfort dying heroes at Round Mountain, Fort Henry, Fred ericksburg, and other places he’d endeavored to forget. A sniper’s shot had grazed him at Chancellorsville, the same day Stonewall Jackson fell to friendly fire, but Reverend Locke endured.

Tonight, he wondered how much longer that could last.

After the war, he’d prayed for strength while carpetbaggers looted Dixie, leading the illiterate ex-slaves to vote for candidates they didn’t even recognize by sight. When young war veterans had organized to purge the land with blood, Locke had resumed his chaplain’s post, but this time in the service of the Ku Klux Klan. He’d never swung a whip or fired a shot himself, but he had prayed for Jesus and the Holy Ghost to bless the night riders who fought for Dixie’s honor, risking everything the tragic war had left to them.

And in the end, they’d won.

Dixie had been redeemed for white home rule. The freemen were disfranchised and returned to the subservient position God ordained for them, restricted in their movements and the places they could live. Locke’s world should have been perfect, but the Devil threw a stumbling block into his path and brought him down.

Her name was Sara Monaghan, and she was married to a brutal drunkard who had made her live a veritable Hell on Earth. She’d come to him at first for guidance, as a member of his church, and Locke had done his best to counsel her. But he’d been weak, and she’d been willing. Oh, so willing after years of spite and cruelty at home.

It had been sweet, dear Lord, like a foretaste of Heaven, if such things could spring from sin. And when her husband had found out, by chance, the outcome was predictable.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.