Chapter 1
February 9, 1889
It was a perfect morning for a hanging. Streaks of light pink and orange silhouetted the snow, sand hills, and pines as Sheriff Jacob Feikema, his deputy Christen Postma, the Reverend Pieter Van Riper, and the condemned man, Obadiah Kurtz, rode to the makeshift gallows that had been built the day before about a mile outside of town. None of the men spoke, and the silence was broken only by the crunch of wagon wheels in the snow. It was the coldest morning that Reverend Van Riper could remember, and he wondered whether it was just the temperature or partly the grimness of their task that made the cold seem to cut to the bone. He decided it was more than the weather. He felt as if there was a cold wind blowing through his soul. He knew that Kurtz wasn’t guilty, that he’d been railroaded to the gallows by a town that didn’t understand him, that was afraid of him, and had jumped at the chance to rid themselves of him after his wife Jessie had died mysteriously.
The men were from Breda, which was founded in 1851 by Reverend Van Riper’s father-in-law, the Reverend Heinrik Wijhe, and his followers. Wijhe had left the original Dutch settlement in west Michigan after a falling out with its leader, Dr. Albertus C. Van Raalte. The falling out had to do with ideology—a disagreement about free will and atonement for sin—that led to a bitter break between the two men. Reverend Wijhe’s dark and apocalyptic vision led him to believe that even the staunchly devout Dr. Van Raalte would not escape perdition.
The men remained silent as they stopped at the gallows, and Obadiah was led down from the wagon by Deputy Postma. Feikema and Postma and Van Riper were all relieved there’d been no outburst from the prisoner, no more of the ranting speeches about his innocence and the curses that were going to fall upon them. They’d heard those speeches from Obadiah more times than they could count. They were seared into their minds and their consciences. Reverend Van Riper opened his Bible to Psalm 17 and read:
