Florence jumped to her feet. “We’re trapped. How is that not a priority?”
Even Edmund looked annoyed at that. “We have heat, restrooms, and food. Some people out there are trapped in ice, freezing.”
Florence flounced back into her seat, grumbling. “Probably some of them aren’t worthy of rescue.”
Mary sucked in a breath, but tried not to give herself away. Seriously? She had assigned a different value to various people’s lives? That was above and beyond crazy. How the hell had Mary found herself among this sort of so-called Christian?
Sure there were things she believed were sins, but that didn’t give her the right to extinguish lives. She was not the judge. God would determine the punishment at each person’s reckoning. Not Florence. Not Pastor Edmund. Not Ada. Her skin crawled with the desire to get away from these people. The church was large enough, but suddenly she felt claustrophobic.
When she’d heard about the attack on Zach Masters’s home, she had been appalled. She had hoped the mission had been simply to scare the occupants into leaving town. But natural gas? Filling the condo with flammable material was not a warning sign. It was dangerous. And she still wasn’t sure if one of the members had intended to toss in a match or simply let nature take its course.
Either way, she hadn’t wanted to take her chances with three lives, so she called the sheriff’s office.
What she’d listened to last night in the meeting made her cringe. It had started with several members organizing a boycott against the Masters, hoping if they could convince the citizens of Cambridge to stop patronizing the resort, they could put the Masters out of business. That was innocent enough and within their rights.
But soon the conversation deteriorated to acts of violence if they didn’t feel heard. They weren’t really interested in a slow demise. They wanted the entire Masters family out of town yesterday.
“Those people” were ruining their way of life, making a mockery of the Bible, God’s will, and the good citizens of Cambridge.
Like an organized mob scene, it only took a few people to convince two dozen others to take up “arms” and fight this religious battle.
There was discussion of burning down the main resort lodge, destroying property. One of the members had access to explosives.
Mary had almost vomited as they discussed their complete disregard for the possible loss of innocent lives, stating the blame for that would be on the Masters, not the Church on the Hill.
How had it not occurred to anyone that while they tossed their stones, perhaps it was really the members of the Church on the Hill who were the sinners in this charade? They were all so worked up in judging the Masters and their partners, no one could see the real issue—thou shalt not judge. Which was worse?
“Call the sheriff’s office again. Demand that they get us out of here.” Ada stood to pace next to her husband.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell. “Go ahead, dear,” he mocked. “We’re lucky we have cell service at all. Apparently the temperature outside is at an all-time record low. It’s like the weather in this area is possessed.”
“It’s been possessed for a few years,” someone stated. “Freaky earthquakes, rain out of nowhere, snowstorms that swoop in without warning. And now a geyser on the side of the highway? What is the world coming to?”
Florence set her hands on her hips and cocked her leg out to one side. “I’ll tell you what the world is coming to. We’re being punished for the sins of our neighbors. It’s a sign, I tell you. If we don’t wake up and straighten out our citizens, we’re liable to be wiped from the map.
“God is punishing all of us for the sins of a few. If we want to stop this madness, we need to take action. Have you noticed that every time one of those Masters kids enters another immoral relationship, the weather gets freakier?”
Pastor Edmund pinched his chin between his thumb and forefinger. “She’s right. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“When their first boy got together with that nasty Indian and that loose hooker of a girl, we had an earthquake. When the second boy shacked up with an Indian girl and another man, we lost the casino and the revenue it would have brought to our area. Now, the third son is tempting fate again with his sinful nature, fornicating with some mixed woman and another Indian. God is furious.”
Florence’s voice rose as she spoke. She pointed at each and every person in the room one at a time. “Mark my words, if we don’t put an end to this abominable attempt to mix races and allow polygamy to flourish in our town, we’ll see more of God’s wrath.