The Whole Town Thought I Was Their New Pastor. By the Time I Found Out, I Had Already Married One Couple, Buried a Goat and Promised to Fix the Church Roof

I should have said it right there.

*I’m not your pastor. I’m a horse trader. The only blessing I know is the one you say over a colt with a bad leg.*

But the girl was crying. The boy was holding a ring box like a hand grenade. And Dorothy had her arm through mine.

So I said, “Let’s talk about it over pie.”

Big mistake.

At the fellowship hall, there was a banner. WELCOME PASTOR JAMES. Somebody had added the S at the end with a marker after the fact, so it looked like PASTOR JAMESS.

I learned three things in the first hour.

The real pastor, a man named James Thornbury, was supposed to arrive that day. He was 48, tall, dark-haired, from Lexington, and he drove a white truck. The bishop’s office had sent one blurry photo by fax.

The town had saved for fourteen months to pay his first-year salary. Somebody had even taken out a small loan against the church building to fix the parsonage.

And the roof of the church leaked over the third pew on the left, which is where Dorothy’s late husband used to sit, so nobody else would sit there, so it didn’t matter, except that it did.

I called the bishop’s office from the parking lot.

The secretary picked up.

“Pastor Thornbury? Oh, honey, he called this morning. His truck broke down outside Charleston. He’ll be there Monday.”

Monday.

It was Thursday.

Behind me, the screen door opened. A teenage boy stuck his head out.

“Reverend? Miss Opal’s goat died. She wants to know if you do funerals.”