“Three people living in one dwelling means nothing to the courts. There’s no law that says a couple can’t rent a room to someone, for example.”
People started grumbling again, their voices rising so it was difficult to hear what any one person said.
Cecil held up a hand and waited patiently. “People. Listen. No matter how you break this down, the truth is none of these people have even married one member of the household. No one has attempted to marry two.”
“What?” Mary recognized that voice as Ada’s. She sat on the front pew and stood as she spoke. “They’re all living in sin?”
Cecil’s shoulders slumped. “That wasn’t my point at all, Ada. My point is that you can’t accuse anyone of breaking a law and marrying more than one person if they aren’t married at all.”
“How do we know this?” someone yelled.
“I looked it up. It’s a matter of public record. None of the Masters’s households lists any of the occupants as married. Not even Adam and Carlie.” He muttered that last part.
“Are you kidding?” This was shouted by a woman holding a baby and bouncing the tyke on her leg as she also stood.
Cecil shook his head. “None of the family members are married. And there’s no law that says they must be, either.”
“So the entire Masters family is living in sin? Right here among us? Living in our neighborhood and making a mockery of the entire Bible?” Ada said all this in a tone that said she meant it solely as a repetition. Not a question.
Mary rolled her eyes. She didn’t even know why she was in disagreement with this mob, but she was. Oh, who was she kidding? She knew exactly why she was moving away from this denomination’s doctrine.
Someone else shouted. “What about the fact that these heathens are mixing with those nasty Indians? Why isn’t anyone addressing that issue?” The man’s face turned a dark shade of red while he ranted. Spittle flew into the air. And his hands shook. He ran one through his already disheveled hair.
Pastor Edmund stood again and nudged Cecil to the side so he could lean into the mic. “We aren’t here to discuss race. This kind of thinking will get us nowhere. We need to stick to the points we can support reasonably.”
The room got louder.
Pastor Edmund raised a hand again. “Folks, I know most of you have lived here your entire lives in peace.”
“Among our own kind,” someone shouted. Mary shifted her gaze to see the speaker was Brock Henson, a guy a few years younger than her who worked as a ski instructor at the resort. He’d always seemed like a bit of a hothead to her.
Pastor Edmund nodded. “I hear you. I do. But times have changed. No judge in this country is going to listen to a complaint about mixing the races. We wouldn’t be taken seriously in any court of law or in front of any government official. If we have any hope of putting an end to the practices of these people, all of you need to leave race out of it. If anyone anywhere gets wind of the fact that this issue is about race, we’ll fall on our faces.”
And there it was. The real reason for the mayhem.
The red-faced man spewed his filth again. “Those Indians should stay on their own land and keep to themselves. Nothing but handouts. Centuries of our government coddling them. They’ve been given everything from land to food to education to healthcare. And still they want more. And now they want our women and our children.
“Well, I’m not going to stand for this. And I hope none of the rest of you are, either.” He pointed around the room, letting his finger and gaze land on many different individuals. “For years we’ve lived here among ourselves. There’s no need for us to bow down and let those nasty Indians infiltrate our lives.”
Mary shuddered. How had she gotten so far off track that she ended up sitting in a room full of such hate? And when did she begin to see it that way?
Oh, she knew when. The exact date, in fact. She was kidding herself if she didn’t face reality.
She no longer agreed with this man or anyone else in the room.
Rumors. Every single piece of this was rumors. The only thing these people leaned on was racism and hate. Maybe the Masters were living in sin. Maybe they weren’t. But what was clear as a bell was that this mob had no leg to stand on.
She pursed her lips and held her tongue. The entire thing had disintegrated to a mission of hatred and racism. And that was more than she could tolerate. On some level, she’d always known her denomination was racist and intolerant, but knowing it and hearing it stated out loud were two different things.
“I say we show them they’re not welcome,” the red-faced man shouted, pumping his fist into the air. “Make them leave town. If we band together, we can put an end to this insanity.”