The majority of the several hundred mourners wore gang patches and motorcycle gear. They had swept into town about an hour earlier, a latter-day Mongol horde, their swift ponies from the stables of Harley-Davidson. A baggage train of police cars had followed discreetly in their wake.
This was the Dark Priesthood, a gang of the worst repute that had grown rapidly in recent years. Rachel’s relatives and the close friends who shared her religious views and had turned out to give support, were greatly outnumbered.
Rachel had feared the presence of these course bullies at first and still resented it. She had been surprised, though, at how quietly and respectfully they had been acting. They had appointed marshals who were keeping a firm order and Rachel could only marvel at their discipline. There was nothing to fear, at least for those present.
A rapid change of plans had been necessary. Under the circumstances, it would hardly have been fitting to have held Grant’s funeral at the undertaker’s chapel and the Bible Chapel was naturally out. The gang had wanted to honour her son with their own travesty of a military funeral, parading the flags of the various chapters and all that sort of thing, but she could not allow that. They had pressed but she had not given in and they had agreed to respect her wishes. Hence, this simple service in the field behind the house.
Yet Rachel knew that her son’s death would be marked in other ways in the coming hours. Police presence or not, there would be mayhem and, almost certainly, some attempt to exact reprisals before the gang dispersed.
Rachel, a widow for many years, had done her best to raise her family in the service of Christ. It had been far from easy in a world with falling standards of public and private behaviour where children came home foul-mouthed from their first day at school. She had fought every wrong tendency as it appeared but realised how difficult it must have been for the children.
It took real courage to be different. Even the avoidance of The World’s immodest fashions, their make-up and extreme hair styles, attracted notice and brought sniggers that one had to ignore. It was only knowing that one had Christ that made it possible to handle it. And prayer too, of course.
Even then it was far from easy. She herself had never come to enjoy the street witness on Friday nights and was ashamed of her cowardice. The others seemed to get a boost out of it but the Holy Spirit had always been somehow absent from herself. She went with the others, feeling obliged to, but did her best to be as inconspicuous as possible and was always greatly relieved when it was over.
She had refused to submit the children to this as they grew older. When they were infants, it had presented no problems. It had been natural for them to copy their elders. School had opened their eyes to see that others lived by far less rigorous standards. They had begun to feel their alienation and rebel against it. They had become embarrassed at being called ‘religious nuts’ and ‘bible bangers’. Rachel had tried to keep them fully involved in church activities but it had been push push all the way.
Rachel felt a soft hand grasp her upper arm and turned to see Catherine Downey standing beside her. Their eyes met and they gave each other a wan smile. Somehow, in the clasp and in that one glance, Catherine managed to convey her low opinion of the rabble present, her sympathy, and her understanding of the sense of failure that Rachel must be feeling. Catherine was something of a failure herself. In the local congregation, it seemed that everyone else’s children were not short of perfect which would be wonderful if the parents were not so smugly superior about it. Catherine’s daughter, who had given every appearance of being firmly on the narrow road, had suddenly cast it all aside with scorn and moved in with a married man. Yes, Catherine would understand.
Grant had been the hardest one for Rachel to keep on track. At seventeen, he had drifted off into The World as she had long feared he would. He had begun an apprenticeship that required him to board away and Rachel had found him a good place with a couple of their own faith. However, he soon made excuse to leave them and had moved in with a group of other young men. His visits home had become less frequent after this and he had shown a marked disinclination to follow her lead in anything. In fact, he had become quite arrogant. There had been tha painful scene when he had swaggered in to confront her with his gang patch. She could have died, the more so because he was so proud of it.
It was only by chance that she had found that he had been released from his apprenticeship, his behaviour had not been up to the mark. The gang had stepped in and given him work on a bush- felling contract. Rachel had approached a lawyer friend to see if he could be forced to return home but he was in work annd over sixteen so that, it appeared, not much could be done.
Rachel suddenly realised that she had not been taking in the words of Pastor William’s address. Here it was, her own son’s funeral, and she had not been listening. She raised her eyes a little to glance at the assembled bikies. Grant had given up Christ and His people for these animals! But was it his fault alone? Wasn’t it possible that a large measure of the blame belonged to herself: that she had failed in her God-given trust?
She had been unable to reason with him. As he told it, these people cared about him and were organised to give mutual assistance. He had even tried to argue that they formed an outstanding example of the Christian ethic in action: that they were an organisation that deserved respect and got it. ‘Never mind the name,’ he had said, ’that means nothing.’ Rachel had found it impossible to get through to him that the respect, as he called it, was nothing more than fear. People gave way to them on the street because they were scared.
Her disappointment in Grant had been coupled with a mother’s fears for his safety. Other gangs had staked out entire districts as their own private turf and the Dark Priesthood seemed to go deliberately looking for trouble. Almost every newspaper detailed yet another violent confrontation. Grant had sneered at her worries. In his opinion, she was a typical stupid woman getting upset over nothing. He was never alone, they made sure that they went in force. What was there to be afraid of? Like many another young man, he had believed himself to be invulnerable.
Probably, not one of these boys present had ever seriously considered that the next death might be his own. Ssomewhere they would have a mother who had that very fear. No! They were not animals, they were sons. Someone had borne them and rejoiced at their birth. Someone had done their best for them, had hoped so much for them, and then been bitterly disappointed. Just as she was herself with Grant.
And it was Grant who was dead, surviving the bloodiest battles relatively unscathed only to be killed by a warning bullet from a passing car. One more casualty in the unrenitting and senseless warfare. He had given up everlasting life for death.
To these people though, he was a martyr, assured of a permanent place in their mythology: a warrior who had proved his worth in battle and found his rightful place in the Halls of Valhallah. It was probable that many here today envied him. Many of the gang had travelled hundreds of kilometres to do him honour. And, like it or not, she as his mother was also the object of a special reverence. Grant who had always longed for acceptance had it now in the fullest measure.
But at what cost!