Michael Blake - The Holy Road

But as her residency passed thirty days, a change took place. Passing comments and trivial anecdotes gave way to an issue of far greater weight that inflamed and divided the populace. It was becoming apparent that she was having problems adapting, and the question of whether she would ever fit in split the people of Jacksboro.

A large number of citizens believed that she would eventually embrace her white heritage, arguing persuasively that no one could predict how long it might take for someone who had lived with savages for twenty-five years to reenter the fold. Through God's guidance and the generosity of His flock, assimilation might yet be effected. The Lord had taken her away and the Lord had given her back. That was proof enough to believers that she belonged among them.

But nearly an equal number of colonists had come to the conclusion, after careful observation, that she was an unredeemable heathen and a racial embarrassment of no apparent social worth and should be cast out.

Some held the opinion that she should be institutionalized, this despite a visit from a representative of the governor, who eloquently argued that the reclamation of Christine Gunther was of the highest priority in that it would provide hope for other captives' families, who were constantly appealing to the governor's office for help. He also reminded the inhabitants of Jacksboro that should they lose the battle to win back Christine Gunther it would have national repercussions. It might leave the impression that the people of Texas did not take care of their own.

Though the governor's position did not change many minds, it blunted the drive to remove her to arr asylum, while at the same time giving rise to a variety of other wild schemes. A tiny knot of Comanche-haters pointed out that she had already attempted to escape twice, and that it would be best to incarcerate her. A plan to make her a kind of townwide domestic, rotating from home to home, was advanced by a group of women who advanced the notion that hard work would speed her rehabilitation. A cabal of enterprising businessmen proposed a plan designed to capitalize on both her celebrity and her obstinacy by turning her into an attraction for visitors. A dwelling of three walls, one wall being left open for viewing, could be erected for her and her issue to live in, with regular hours for viewing established and ample daily breaks provided in the name of privacy and humane treatment.

None of these ideas found much in the way of popular support, and so, faced with no other option, the townspeople simply continued to watch as the Gunther family attempted to restore their long-lost relative to Christian respectability.

Most of the family she had known as a little girl were dead and the authorities had consigned her to the care of a cousin and his large, relatively prosperous family. The Gunthers' original euphoria at her arrival was, to their great consternation, shockingly short-lived. The lovely bedroom they had created for her, complete with a metal-frame bed, a ceramic wash basin that had survived the crossing from Germany, a lady's vanity painted light pink, two bottles of recently purchased scents, a refurbished wardrobe with three oversized dresses inside, and an array of cheerful bunting that encircled the room, had, by her second day in Jacksboro, been utterly destroyed.

The bed's mattress she had pulled to the floor; the scented water she had poured out; she was using the dresses for blankets; and the basin, now filled with a mixture of bunting and wooden shards from the legs of the vanity — a precious Old Country heirloom — now stood in the center of the room, perched on its metal stand. In it she made her fire, and when, upon smelling smoke, the elder Gunther raced to her door, he found he could not get through. Knocking, then pounding, to no avail, the taciturn cousin to Stands With A Fist put his shoulder to the door and burst into the room, only to find her seated cross-legged in the middle of the floor, Stays Quiet in her lap, rocking lunatic-like in front of the blazing basin.

At the first family dinner, conducted at a long table in the formal dining room, her cousin was somberly caning a roast when she lunged across the table, snatched a fresh-cut slab of meat, and stuffed it into her mouth.

She would defecate or urinate in public, refused to bathe except in a nearby stream, cried without warning, hardly spoke, and, after only a few days, had driven the entire Gunther family to distraction. Not a moment seemed to pass without crisis. Children complained about the interminable labor of "watching Cousin Christine," a steadfast wife's nerves began to fray, and the cousin who had so righteously stepped forward to claim his kin now found himself lying awake at night, vainly wondering how life could be returned to normal.

Faced with a dilemma beyond his ability, the elder Gunther, with the eager support of his family, turned to a higher authority, who appeared a few days later in the pallid, squeamish form of a man named Tooey, reputed to be the most mesmerizing preacher in the district.

Firm and soft-spoken, Reverend Tooey assured the rattled Gunthers that there was nothing to worry about because while he taught Christine the rudiments of English he would be instructing her in the basics of scripture — a potent formula in which he had every confidence.

But by the end of the second full day of "instruction" he had stretched the narrow limits of his imagination to their fullest. The woman in his charge seemed unable to grasp any of what he was trying to teach. When he was certain that she was poised for a breakthrough, the dull-witted creature would lapse into a litany of mumbles and grunts that comprised the only language she seemed capable of speaking. At last he turned to God, expecting that if she were anointed with the power of prayer, the light of understanding was sure to fill her eyes. For twenty minutes he tried to explain what he wanted, talking, cajoling, and pantomiming until uncharacteristic beads of sweat appeared at his hairline and ran downward in tiny, determined rivulets until they reached the reverend's brow, causing the single-minded preacher to swipe constantly at his face as he tried to prepare Stands With A Fist for a profound encounter with the Almighty.

At last the beleaguered Reverend Tooey, fearing the onset of his own derangement, sank to his knees, and was pleasantly surprised to see his refractory subject settle next to him. The emaciated man of God smiled wanly at his wide-eyed pupil, lifted his head, closed his eyes, and launched into a dirge-like recitation of the Lord's Prayer. Almost at once a mantle of warmth descended onto the reverend. All worldly anxiety vanished as he steeped himself in the word of God, and, as often happened when ministering to distraught members of his flock, one of his bony hands lifted into space to search out and give comfort to his needy partner in worship.

But the pastoral hand that settled on Stands With A Fist's landed with the devastating impact of a bomb. She leaped to her feet, emitting a long, violent, ear-splitting shriek that rattled the panes of the closed window. Dropping into a crouch, she began to back up, one slow step at a time, all the while spitting a stream of Comanche expletives at her molester.

His mouth agape, the Reverend Tooey got to his feet and made the near-fatal mistake of advancing, his upraised hands signaling peace.

When he had closed to within a few feet of his would-be convert, the cooing preacher saw her crouch even lower and an instant later her lips peeled back in a sneer. An unearthly howl flew from her mouth, and she charged, striking the Reverend Tooey's meatless chest with all the force her two clenched fists could muster.

Lifted clean off his feet by the blow, the Reverend Tooey shot backward onto the far wall, which he hit so hard that great flashes of light erupted in his head. He sank to the floor like a sack of grain, and as breath flowed once more into his emptied lungs, he raised his head and was horrified at what he saw.