Chapter 4

Chapter 4

“…Set off for a distant country…” Luke 15:13

Clark Lewis Dangerpride wiped the sweat from his brow with a tattered handkerchief he kept in his shirt pocket as the sun set in the sky, signaling the end of another day. His face was tanned from long days working outside and a wide brimmed hat sat over his dark hair. He sat tall and proud on his horse, looking across the wide-open range that had become home over the past seven years. He was proud of the way he had risen through the ranks of the cow herders, finally earning this position. He was in charge of the whole herd, and entrusted with the supervision of all the other wranglers. He felt as if he’d been born for this work—he loved being in the wilderness, away from it all; he thrilled in the chase of a wayward steer and loved the rugged camp life, only a canvas tent between himself and the stars.

The sharp call of a lone hawk interrupted Clark’s thoughts and he craned his neck to see the strong bird cut through the clear Prodigal, Wyoming sky. He laughed to himself and remembered the hot Oregon summers with Aggie, trying to outrun hawks soaring overhead through the wide-open prairies at the foot of Sunshine Salvation Valley’s beautiful mountains. Although his years on the range had been full of adventure and success, a piece of him knew he was missing out on something.

When he’d resolved to leave the farm, he’d wanted to get as far away from his father as he could, away from the yelling, the unreasonable expectations, all of it. He set off for Wyoming, inspired by the cow herders that had come into town each fall when he was a young boy. They told he and Aggie tales of life on the range, where the deer and the antelope play, where seldom is heard, a discouraging word, and the sky is not cloudy all day. One had set his hat on Clark’s head, “There’s a future cow herd if I ever saw one,” the man had said. The hat had fallen over his eyes and the sweet smell of leather filled up his nostrils. When his Pa had threatened to do some real harm to him after he had been stranded at the Freegrace home overnight due to awful storm, Clark knew it was time to fulfill his dreams and leave his father in the dust. He wouldn’t do what his father wanted; he wouldn’t stay and rot at the farm, watching Ma and Nina suffer, neglected by the man who should take care of them.

A solitary tear, and not a tear more, fell down his cheek as the anger rose up in his breast again. Thinking of his poor mother and Nina alone, running the farm while his father drank away the family’s small earnings—it was too much for him to bear. And Aggie, his best friend in the world, what was she doing now? Did she remember him? Did she stare out in the distance and think of him? He thought of Sunday mornings at church sitting between Aggie and her father. Clark had given up on church soon after he had set off for the range. God was for people with good lives, a good dad, for people with kind hearts like Aggie and her father. If there was a God, how could he love Clark, a boy, now man, with so much anger and hate and with a selfish heart that had chosen to leave everything to make a way for himself. Clark knew he wasn’t an awful person, he never drank a drop of Alcohol, never danced with the girls at the saloons, never said crap, never played cards (not even Go Fish!), but he knew that if God had wanted him as his follower, things wouldn’t be like they were. As far as he was concerned there was no God, or at least not a God who cared about him.

Yet, his guilt bothered him more than ever tonight. If he could only see that Nina and his mother were alright, if he could only see that Aggie and her father were doing well.

COME HOME

The voice had come out of nowhere, it was deep and male. Was it the sound of his own thoughts, his very soul telling him what he should do?

COME HOME.

It sounded older than his own voice, but vaguely familiar, like a heavenly father calling to his son of Prodigal, Wyoming. He didn’t know for sure who it was, but something changed in him in that moment, and he knew he had to go home. He’d come back to Abundance County as a stranger, like the cow herders that had come long ago, check up on his mother, Nina, and of course dear Aggie, and then leave once again, once he knew they were all okay. It was only a start, but it seemed that the voice that had spoken to him in all caps, had put a chink in the thick wall that Clark had built around his heart over the years.

Clark resolved to leave that very instant. Although the sun had set, and night travel would be inconvenient, it was much more romantic for him to leave that moment, under the cover of darkness towards the home he had left behind. The solitary tear he had cried was still slowly moving down his face, making its way down his stubble covered chin. He removed his handkerchief from his shirt pocket, wiping away the single bead of water that had fallen so gently from his eye, like a drop of dew slipping down a blade of grass. As he put the tattered handkerchief away in his pocket, a small piece of pink thread hanging off the ragged edge of the handkerchief, that appeared to be a part of some embroidered pattern from about 7 years ago, blew away in the wind.