It was hot and dry. The sun baked the land. It had not rained in weeks, and Annette came to hear through the children of a small gang of women who were causing trouble in town. They were typical bullies, Annette thought, whose mothers had not spanked them enough as children.
One young girl named Jenny begged Annette in her childish way to run the gang off. Annette refused. Jenny was a fiery spirit who continuously asked for shooting lessons. She was intelligent and athletic and Annette expected she would be quite good, but she would be damned even more than she already was to start this girl down a similar path as herself.
Annette hoped and prayed that this gang would pass before committing any serious violence in town and possibly corrupting these young girls. Day after day she refused to get involved. The women were not moving on and each day a sense of dread began to build within Annette as the heat built in the air.
It got to where it wasn't even cooling down at night, and so too did Annette's sense of forboding become constant. The children still persisted, but still she resisted.
That Sunday, in the early afternoon after Annette had returned from service, the priest knocked at her door. Annette knew why she had come.
Mother Francine was young, but Annette was not foolish enough to automatically judge wisdom by age. she had met many older folk who had survived in spite of their stupidity, and many younger women who had proven themselves to her. It was in this category where she placed the good Mother, after contemplating her sermons over the months.
Annette welcomed her in a manner that was friendly but that allowed for some distance; she did not want the priest to make easy inroads to her defense. They went in the sod house to escape the sun and heat and sat at the simple wooden table.
The situation in town had become somewhat dire, with the women of the gang taking what they pleased in the lack of any true resistance. some had attempeted to stand to them, but had been frightened or beaten into submission. The men were harassed and had avoided any true assault by luck or by distraction courtesy of the boys who made their living selling themselves to women. These boys, although in a disreputable profession, were generally decent in this town. Mother Francince did not flinch when talking about them. She was aware of them and their craft but followed her own Lady's teaching by not casting judgement upon them. It was another thing Annette respected about Mother Francine, especially considering her own sinful past.
The conversation progressed with Annette's position continuing to be that these women would eventually move on without causing any real harm, whereas Mother Francine believed that they would eventually cause harm and that Annette was singularly capable among the women of the town of scaring them off, without resorting to violence.
Neither one of them was right.
