Mountain Top(3)
“Morning, Sam,” the older of the two men called out. “Cold enough for you?”
It was Lamar Cochran, the chief deputy. Sam and Muriel had known the Cochran family for years. Lamar, a large man with reddish-brown hair, looked almost exactly like his father.
“Howdy, Lamar,” Sam said. “Not too bad. Who’s your running mate?”
“This is Vic Morris,” Cochran replied. “He grew up in Hendersonville and joined us a few months ago.”
Sam wiped his right hand on his pants and extended it to Morris.
“Good to meet you,” Sam said.
Morris hesitated a moment before shaking Sam’s hand.
“Don’t have any biscuits to offer you,” Sam said to the two men. “Muriel won’t make any extras because she knows where they’ll end up.” Sam patted his stomach.
“Uh, that’s all right, Sam,” Cochran replied. “I need to talk serious with you.”
“Come inside. I’m always here to help.”
Sam turned away and climbed the three steps to the front stoop.
Cochran glanced at Morris and sighed. “Okay. I guess it won’t hurt. Where is Muriel?”
“Cleaning up after me, of course,” Sam replied, opening the door.
The three men entered the small living room. Sam stuck his head in the kitchen.
“Lamar Cochran and a young deputy named Vic Morris are here,” he said.
Muriel wrapped her housecoat more tightly around herself and came to the doorway. Cochran nodded to her. Muriel gave him a big smile.
“Hey, Lamar,” she said. “How’s your mama? I haven’t seen her in quite a while.”
“Not doing so well. Her sugar is messing her up big-time, and my brother and I had to put her in the nursing home. That way, there is someone to watch her diet and give her the right medicine.”
“I’ll have to get down to see her—”
“Don’t, Muriel,” Cochran interrupted, looking at the floor. “This isn’t a social call.”
Sam tilted his head to the side. “What do you mean?”
Cochran nodded toward Morris, who pulled a sheet of paper from his back pocket.
“Mr. Miller, this is a warrant for your arrest,” Morris said. “We’re here to take you to jail.”
Two
REVEREND MICHAEL JAMES ANDREWS DIDN’T TAKE MONDAYS OFF.
“Why would you need a day to relax?” asked Bobby Lambert, one of Mike’s former law partners and an elder at the Little Creek Church. “You only work one hour a week. Every day but Sunday you can tell folks that you’re going to pray then slip out the back door to the golf course.”
“I can’t ignore the eternal peril of my current clients,” Mike replied. “Keeping them out of trouble is a twenty-four-hour-a-day job. Take you, for example. Convincing the Almighty to have mercy on your wretched soul is harder than getting Judge Coberg to grant a temporary restraining order in a covenant not to compete lawsuit. Every time I come up with an argument in your favor, you find new and creative ways to sin.”
Mike’s regular day away from the office was Friday. After almost ten years as a trial lawyer, the brown-haired, broad-shouldered minister continued to view Monday as a normal workday. Not going to the church on Friday, however, created the illusion of a long weekend. By Thursday morning, he’d written and practiced his sermon several times, so there wasn’t much to do but wait for Sunday morning at 11:25 a.m. to deliver it.
Mike never felt guilty walking down a broad fairway on Friday afternoons. However, gone were the days when he could lose a dozen balls a round in water hazards without giving it a second thought. Golf was an expensive pastime, and on a minister’s salary Mike didn’t have the money to pay greens fees and rent a cart whenever he had the urge to play a round of golf. So, while in seminary he took up mountain biking. When his wife, Peg, questioned the change, he told her he’d rather elevate his heart rate pedaling up a steep hill than in frustration over a five-foot putt that rimmed out of the cup.
Little Creek Church was located fifty yards from the small, rocky stream that gave the church its name. For more than 140 years, the congregation of independent Presbyterians averaged 50 to 100 members with the graveyard behind the church being the only part of the church that steadily grew.
During the past ten years, everything had changed. Development of Barlow County’s beautiful mountain property had resulted in the construction of hundreds of vacation and retirement homes in the hills surrounding the church. The influx of people caused the church to experience rapid growth.
When Mike decided to leave law practice in Shelton and become a minister, the Little Creek elders followed his progress through seminary in Virginia and issued a call as soon as he graduated. Questions about his lack of experience vanished after doubters heard him preach. In his booming, baritone voice, Mike transferred his oratorical skills as a successful lawyer to the pulpit.