Page 10 of My Darling Clementine

“To your credit, she was resisting quite well.” Kizzy laughed in his face. “She kept saying, ‘What would the reverend say?’ She’ll find out now, no doubt. I’m sure you’ll give her an earful.”

Her father’s face turned from red to purple, while spittle formed at the corners of his mouth. “You stand here, a brazen hussy, and admit you seduced a member of my congregation, in my church?”

She stared him down. “Well, when you put it that way it does sound bad. I prefer to think of it as ‘loving my neighbor as myself’, but have it your own way.”

“Get out of my church, my house, and my life! I mean it this time,” Rev. Walker ordered, quivering finger pointing toward the door, his voice harsh and judgmental. He took a deep breath and crossed both arms across his chest. “And don’t come back.”

Kizzy knew he expected to repeat himself several times while she begged for leniency, in an act they had perfected a thousand times as she grew up. After she pleaded enough, he would relent and forgive, welcome her back to the fold, and start preparing his next sermon. But a few weeks earlier, on her eighteenth birthday, Keziah Walker had an epiphany and realized her time had come. For many years she had practiced in front of her mirror, glaring at her reflection, staring her image in the eye, telling her father off in her mind. Now an adult, she would not respond like a child to his bullying any longer. She refused to let him torment her anymore.

Her eyes blazed in fury, her breathing quickened. With years of animosity between them, she squared her shoulders. Instead of giving in and begging, she answered with spirit, “I’ll never set foot in your house again, and I mean it. You won’t use me to wake up your bored congregation anymore, you cruel bastard. I’ll go out west and search for gold, make my own way. My only regret is not leaving sooner.” She turned her back and walked away without another word.

Kizzy later learned that Rev. Walker used his Sunday service to denounce her with righteous fury before his congregation, who grew confused after searching the church with their eyes for the missing miscreant. This wasn’t his usual denunciation. His words grew harsh and blistering, condemning his own daughter to hell for all eternity. In the choir loft, the soloist lost her voice and couldn’t sing for fear he’d name her, too. He didn’t, too busy charging Kizzy with scandalous mortal sins unmentionable in church. Then he went a step farther than ever before, casting her out, and banished her.

His voice thundered from the pulpit. “Keziah Walker, you’re a despicable harlot! Enough! We’ve tried to provide you with grace, forgiven you time after time, but you’ve shamed our church far too long with your sinful ways. The next train leaves at four. Be on it.” His flock gasped, but the public shaming would have been more effective if his target were there before him, a point he hadn’t considered when sending her away.

While enjoying lunch with her church lady friends, the righteous Choir Director brought it up. “Can you believe it? The poor Reverend Walker found them, en flagrante if you know what I mean, doing heaven only knows what right there in my, uh, I mean our loft!” She harrumphed for emphasis.

An irrepressible giggle escaped the Kitchen Director, their hostess. “Imagine the shock that must have been, him being not only her father, but also a man of the cloth!” She shook her head, curls bouncing around a face as curious as a cat’s. “Sugar, cream, or lemon, my dears?

The Sunday School Director sniffed. “Well, I still think it’s inappropriate for the minister to use his pulpit and our church sermons to discipline his… unusual daughter.” She gave another sniff. “Some things are better handled at home.”

“Hush your mouth and let us have our fun.” The Kitchen Director giggled again. “I wonder what he saw. How naked were they? What, exactly, were they doing to each other?”

Silence surrounded her table. “Oh, please. Don’t tell me you aren’t wondering about it.”

“Now that you mention it,” the Choir Director admitted, “he used the word fornicating, but that can’t be correct because it was two women. Two women can’t fornicate, can they?”

The Sunday School Director stabbed a piece of leftover cake. “If it’s a sin, Keziah can do it. I wonder who she was with.”

“Penelope says even she doesn’t know, but I have my doubts. A mother would know.” The Choir Director turned to the fourth at the table. “Are you feeling better, my dear? Is the tea soothing your sore throat?”

Her daughter, the choir’s new soloist, sipped her steaming drink while breastfeeding her babe and nodded, relieved no one had identified her.

After services, Rev. Walker went looking for Kizzy. He found his beautiful daughter in Rocheport’s only hotel and saloon, playing poker with card sharps and ruffians in her plain gingham dress with only a single petticoat, half that necessary for decency. A faded sunbonnet hung down her back, covering the long braid of thick, honey-blond hair.

Kizzy, unconcerned with either the scandal or his embarrassing public position, ignored him. “I’ll take one,” she said, exchanging with the dealer.

“I’m not surprised to find you playing poker in a saloon!” Rev. Walker spluttered.

“Hello, Father,” she said, laying her cards face down on the table. The men she played with looked up.

Fidgeting, uncomfortable in their presence, he shouted. “You are a disgrace, Keziah Walker!” He swept the group with his patented look of moral outrage. “But you’ve dishonored me for the last time.”

In grand style, the reverend slapped a train ticket down on the table. “Here. If you’re going to flaunt the laws of God and man, go lust and sin out west. Sink into degradation among the whores of Babylon, you’re no child of mine anymore.”

She gazed at him, unblinking and unmoved.

Wound up, face red, he thundered, “Go chase that fool’s gold like those idiots in your penny dreadfuls. I disown you.” He spat, missing her foot by an inch.

“Hey, ya filthy asshole!” shouted the barkeep. “Dammit, I just mopped,” he muttered, pointing with his chin. “There’s a spittoon right there.” He shook his head and glared. “Ya don’t see me comin’ into your church and spittin’ on the floor.”

The reverend’s eyes bugged out, having never been spoken to in such a manner. He whirled on his daughter, glaring around the saloon with disdain. His voice verging on hysteria, he shrieked, “You never fit in, always been difficult, had to be different, just plain strange. And look what your willful ways have brought you to, a fornicating sinner gambling with hustlers.” He sniffed.

Eyes back on their hands, the card players ignored him; all except one with a booted foot perched atop the card table. “This loudmouth your father, Miss?” He squinted at Kizzy, who nodded her head once.

“Rude son of a bitch, ain’t he?” He spat, hitting the spittoon and making it ring, while staring at the sputtering minister. Nudging the railroad ticket into the ante pile, he growled, “I’ll match that, and raise you another ten,” pushing thirty dollars into the heap.

The man next to him looked from the blustering minister to the other players, smiled, then matched the bet, and called. So did the third, and fourth.