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

So I told them.

I told them I was Jasper Coldwell, horse trader, from Paris, Kentucky. I told them about the gas station and the casserole and the fax. I told them their real pastor was stuck in Charleston with a bad transmission and would be there Monday.

Nobody said anything.

Then Dorothy put her hand over her mouth.

“You fixed the roof,” she said. “Over Harold’s pew.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And you buried Opal’s goat.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And you didn’t charge anybody.”

“I’m a terrible businessman, ma’am.”

She stared at me for a long moment. Then she started laughing. And then Opal started laughing, and Kyle and Brianna, and the life insurance agent, and the whole fellowship hall, until the windows rattled.

I said grace anyway. I said it the way my grandmother used to. Short. Thank you for the food, the hands that made it and the people at the table. Amen.

Three hundred people said amen back.

Pastor James Thornbury arrived on Monday morning in a borrowed car. He was a good man. He was also about five-foot-eight and bald, and Dorothy looked at him for a long time before she gave him a casserole.

I bought Penny the mare. Lacey gave me a fair price and a long look.

“You’re coming back,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

“I’ve got a horse to deliver in Tennessee.”

“And after that?”

I didn’t answer. I loaded Penny in the trailer and drove down Main Street.

Three hundred people were standing on the sidewalk outside the church. Waving. Somebody had fixed the banner. Now it said THANK YOU JASPER.

In my rearview mirror, I saw Lacey standing in the middle of the road with her hands in her back pockets, watching me go.

I drove to Tennessee.

I delivered the horse.

And on the way back, I took the long way.

Through Briar Gap.