Free The Book of Murdock by Loren D. Estleman Page A

voice. It ended with the parents on their knees embracing their only child.
    Silence struck like a bell. Even the light hiss of air stirring in the barnlike room had stopped. After a second (minute ?) or two I began to hope I’d lost my hearing.
    â€œWhy did you pause before the last line?” Griffin asked then, and the air resumed stirring. Outside the nearest window a creaking carriage, which had halted in its tracks, started moving again.
    â€œI thought it needed a running start.”
    â€œLeaps of faith don’t. Why were you not moved by the tale?”
    â€œI was, although I didn’t expect to be when it started.”
    â€œI saw no tears and heard no sobs.”
    â€œI practiced to eliminate them. I heard somewhere that a humorous story sacrifices its effect when the speaker laughs. I gambled that the same holds true when the story’s tragic.”
    â€œIndeed.” Silence set back in. “Well, you won your gamble. You must let the listener draw from his own well. Why did you look up so seldom? Did you not commit your text to memory?”
    â€œI did, but I got nervous.”
    â€œA display of fear is a confession of sin. You must speak as if each word has just occurred to you, and engage the eye
of some random member of the audience. If he appears hostile, challenge him with your gaze to find fault with your point. If friendly, invite him into your exclusive tabernacle as One Who Understands. Leave the sheets at home and banish the temptation to steal a look.”
    I knew I could never do that, any more than I could go into a fight unarmed. “Am I as bad as all that?”
    â€œI’ve heard worse right where you’re standing. Do not interpret that to mean I consider you any better than scarcely adequate. However, only Our Father can grow wings on a frog in a fortnight. Step down.”
    I did, and started down the aisle, my knees wobbling like a broken spoke now that the ordeal was over. As I neared his pew he slid out and gave me a parcel wrapped in brown paper tied with string. It was bigger than the bundle of sermons but much lighter. “From Esther.”
    I unwrapped a folded shirt made of good simple gray linen. At first glance it looked like ordinary homespun, but the seams were double-stitched with uncommon skill. It was work more than worthy of a woman who took in sewing simply to help with the household accounts.
    Such garments have attached collars generally, but a heavily starched white band had been fastened to it with studs. It was a preacher’s clerical collar. I touched it. I’d never felt one.
    â€œMy last,” Griffin said. “I thought I’d thrown them all out, but she said I overlooked this one, which happened to be my best. I suspect she squirreled it away.”
    The gift touched me. I thought I’d outgrown the emotion. “I’ll try not to bring shame on it.”

    â€œIt’s blasphemous to promise miracles. I’ll be satisfied if you don’t get blood on it.”
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    I thought of what he’d said the next day—my forty-third birthday—as I lay in a muck of dirt and dung waiting for a pair of my fellow pioneers to stir themselves to carry me to Dr. Alexander’s office. I was saving my new shirt for the trip, and good job, because the one I had on was soaked through with blood.
    At length I was collected and borne up the outside stairs to the little room above the hardware store, leaving behind the crowd that always gathers around medicine shows and shootings. Alexander, a wiry, excitable man of thirty, directed the volunteers to stretch me out on the cot and herded them outside. He locked the door, drew the window shade, and resumed his study of the Herald at his rolltop.
    A moment later Judge Blackthorne came in from the private quarters in back. I was sitting now on the edge of the cot. He contemplated the stain on my shirt. “What did you use?”
    â€œCalves’