Page 10 of Turn That River Red

I know I should be grateful. I know that I’m lucky Reverend Gunner and his first wife Madelyn adopted me after my parents died when I was eight, that they brought me into the Church of the Well and raised me out of the secular world, in the shining umbrella of God’s light. For ten years, Madelyn taught me how to be a good wife, how to cook and clean and be obedient. I thought I would be partnered with one of the soldiers, maybe even Raul. I fantasized about us leaving the compound and starting another ministry in some far-off place, like the ministries in California and Tennessee.

Instead, when I turned eighteen, Reverend Gunner told me I was to behiswife, that God told him he needed two helpmeets if he was to do all that he had been set on this Earth to do.

Three days later, I married him in the chapel, wearing myfavorite blue dress. Favorite then, anyway. Not favorite anymore.

Madelyn sat in the front row and watched me with daggers in her eyes.

I think that’s why Reverend Gunner gave me a cabin of my own, a copy of the guest cabins, small and cramped. He doesn’t like visiting me there, though. So when he asks me to tend to his needs, I have to meet him in the suite attached to his and Madelyn’s home, the home where I grew up, the largest and grandest of all the houses on the compound.

He calls it our marriage suite. I walk there now.

The night is hot and sticky, even this close to midnight, and my dress sticks to my legs as I trudge across the campus. My cabin is only a few minutes away, and I know exactly when to leave so that I arrive at our marriage suite at midnight on the dot.

The door is unlocked, as always, and I push it open to find Reverend Gunner stretched out on the big, lavish bed in his boxers and a white undershirt, tapping away on his laptop. He glances at me as I step into the suite, eyes passing briefly over my body, my hair, my face. “Perfect timing,” he says, the way he always does. “Don’t forget to lock the door.”

As if I would.

I step out of my shoes and then turn the lock, sealing us into the marriage suite.

“So what do you think of that preacher?” Reverend Gunner says without looking away from his laptop. “A bit earthy, isn’t he?”

I reach back and unzip my dress, then pull it over my head and fold it up and drape it on top of the chest of drawers. I know I need to choose my words carefully.

“He’s intense,” I say. “But I felt God’s strength in him.” I don’t say what I actually felt—that it was as if God’s loveflooded my entire body, and that I want to pray with him again, to feel that warmth radiating out from my center over and over.

“Mmm, yes, I sensed that, too.” Reverend Gunner shuts the laptop and sets it on the bedside table, then peers at me over the top of his reading glasses. “We’ll need that, you know. The devil is here, Mercy. Trying to destroy all that I’ve built.”

I think of the cold water of the river, of Raul staring at me from the darkness, his soul already gone to Heaven, and swallow the lump in my throat. “I know,” I whisper.

Reverend Gunner keeps studying me over his glasses. “The Deceiver was trying to get to me through you,” he says sternly. “That’s why he compelled you to disobey. Why he drew you out to the Concho.”

I don’t say anything, just stand there in my underwear, my body still warm from the heat of the night.

“This is why you’re not allowed to leave the compound,” Reverend Gunner says. “Why none of the women are. Women are too susceptible to the devil’s trickery.”

“I know.” I don’t meet his gaze, just stare at the quilt on top of the bed. Madelyn made it when I first came to live with them.

“You have to be careful. More careful than most.” Reverend Gunner shifts forward, forcing himself into my line of sight. “The Deceiver wants to see me destroyed, and you’re his way into me.”

I nod. This is not a new conversation.

“I told this Pastor Echeverría he can stay,” Reverend Gunner continues, “because we need all the help we can get. He might be unorthodox, but he’ll fight the devil. I can sense that in him.” He smiles. “Now, you’ll help set him up in the meeting hall tomorrow morning, won’t you? He’s going to lead a prayer session.”

“Of course, Rev—Sterling.”

It still feels strange, even three years later, to use his first name

“Good. Now.” Reverend Gunner licks his lips. “Why don’t you come over here and help me destress?”

Dread shoots through me, but it’s not like I can refuse. I unhook my bra, letting my breasts fall free. My panties are last. Reverend Gunner watches me the whole time, his erection already tenting his boxers.

“Have you lost weight?” he says lightly, eyeing me up and down.

“I don’t know.” I haven’t, but I know better than to contradict him.

“You look good.”

My skin crawls beneath Reverend Gunner’s gaze. He watches me as I walk across the room, past the window that looks out into the Gunners’ grand backyard, full of flowers that Madelyn planted and tends to every day. She told me once, before I became Reverend Gunner’s helpmeet, that she wanted something lovely for the Soldiers of God to witness when they walked past their house on their way to training.

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