Bonanza
~*~*~ Advent Calendar ~*~*~
* Day 2 *

 

Summary: There is more than one way to die. A man can still be breathing and yet not living as Joe has discovered. Somebody is sent to find a lost soul and turn him for home once more.

Rating:  G
Word Count:  1950

The Wrangler

It hadn’t been a long sermon, but it felt as if the words had been written on the page and the preacher was delivering them just for his ears. He was an older man with greying hair that was beginning to turn white and looked distinctly thinner on top. The fact his voice resonated with the richness of his own father’s voice just added to the discomfort. The man could have taken a leaf out of Adam’s book in the way he expressed himself and Joe found himself concentrating on every word in spite of himself. He had squirmed in the pew and glanced around looking for an escape route, but too many years sitting sandwiched between Adam and Pa had ground into him not to make a scene in church. He’d have to push past someone either way to get to the door and the fresh air outside. Instead, he sat and dropped his face into his hands and tried to ignore the thoughts running amok in his head and the ever-present ache in his chest.

Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead.

As his mind replayed the preacher’s words from that morning, he felt his insides clench into a knot once more, just as they had while he sat in that back pew and tried to hide. Hide from God. Hide from what was left of his family. Hide from himself and the guilt that threatened to eat him alive. It didn’t matter since it seemed God was intent on singling him out and using a complete stranger to force him to stop running. The preacher seemed to see inside him, right into the blackness of his heart and his words were spoken for him alone.

But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change.

The ends will change. He had no idea how, but the end had to change. If it didn’t, he’d be buried somewhere in an unmarked plot and his family may never know what had happened to him. It seemed that his pa had already lost one son to that fate and he twisted his hands around each other as his agitation built. He had always figured that Adam meant to come home, but they had never heard anything after that last letter that he sent from Singapore. It said he was exploring and he had described so many fascinating things, especially about the local architecture and its mix of British and oriental. He could see Adam wandering around for days with his head in the air and his neck aching from craning it upwards to take in all the details. He wasn’t too sure about some of the food he described though. Give him a good ol’ Ponderosa steak any day. Still, Adam had seemed happy to be where he was, following those restless feet of his and his inquisitive mind that sought out knowledge at every turn. Books could only take him so far and his father’s youthful tales only stirred a yearning that he finally had to feed.

If only his journey had been something like that. If he had been following the desires of his heart like Adam, his pa would have sent him with a blessing. Oh sure, his face would have shown his sadness when nobody was looking, but he would have blessed his son anyway. But how could Pa bless this? He was following the desires of his heart, but his heart was as black as a lump of coal and shrivelled to the size of a pea. It wasn’t like he had planned it, but after he and Candy rode out to bring justice for Alice and their child the darkness had just gotten lodged there somehow. It had grown and its ugly tentacles had strangled out everything else until he couldn’t feel his heart even beating anymore. He couldn’t stay and watch his family stepping so carefully around him as if he was so delicate he might break. The truth was, he was already broken and they just didn’t want to admit it.

The little chapel was growing darker as the afternoon sun began to dip behind the roofline. He had no idea why he had walked in that morning, but he’d been drawn by the singing. A deep baritone voice rang out over the others and for a fleeting second, he imagined it was Adam standing in the front row. Deep disappointment swept over him as he slipped into the back pew and tried to avoid eye contact with anyone around him. Of course it wasn’t Adam and he had no business being in a church.

By the time the service ended, he couldn’t wait to run. A few hands had reached out in greeting, but he’d brushed them all off and run. Run away like the coward he was. And yet somehow he had found his treacherous feet bringing him full circle back to that same pew. His family had always sat in the same pew over the years, as each family seemed to lay claim in some unspoken fashion to their pew. He had never sat in the back pew, but right now, he didn’t dare step any closer to the front. The simple wooden altar was too much for him to approach. He didn’t belong there and if he was honest with himself, he didn’t belong anywhere. His home was nothing but a pile of ash and he didn’t belong in his father’s home either. Oh sure, Hop Sing had his old room all ready for him, but it wasn’t home anymore. It wasn’t his marriage bed and there was no sweet smell of flowers that wafted through on the warm breeze. There was no Alice, no child and no future in that house.

“May I join you?”

Joe jolted out of his thoughts as he looked up to see a man standing at the end of the pew. He had no idea how he got there, as he certainly hadn’t heard the door open or the man’s boots on the wooden floor. For a moment, he was too surprised to speak.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” The stranger pointed to the pew and tried again. “Would it be alright if I sit a moment?”

“Uh, sure.” Joe slid along the pew to make more room.

“I always like this time of day in here. The light comes in just right.”

As Joe looked up from his feet and glanced around the room, he had to agree that the light had changed. It was only a simple chapel, but it was meticulously cared for and the light streaming through the window was angled across the wooden altar. He could see the carvings along its edge and he drew in a sharp breath. Hoss would have loved it.

“Sometimes you need the light to shine just right to chase the darkness away. You know what I mean?”

Joe looked back at the man who had sat down beside him. He was wearing a coat that had seen better days and boots that could do with some oil rubbed into the leather. His face was hard to describe in terms of age, as he looked both aged and wise and yet somehow youthful. Joe had no idea what his family heritage was, as there was something foreign about the man, but it was the eyes that made him draw in another deep breath. They looked straight at him with an unwavering stare. In other circumstances, he would have said something challenging or got all mouthy as Hoss would have put it, but as he stared back, he found the angry words wouldn’t come out.

“Who are you?” He could barely speak as the stranger held his gaze.

“A wrangler.”

Joe blinked and looked again at the man. His hands didn’t show the signs of ranch work. His boots were all wrong and something just didn’t seem right about the answer. Suddenly the man laughed.

“Not a horse wrangler.”

“What?” Joe shook his head at the odd comment. He wasn’t in the mood for whatever the stranger was playing at. He slid out the end of the pew and stood up, but as he turned to step around the pew, his eyes settled on the altar once more. He hadn’t noticed it before when all the pews ahead of him were full and he’d been too preoccupied to notice when he entered a second time. Underneath the wooden railing was a hand-carved nativity set. A tiny child was set in a manger that was filled with straw.

Rage rose up from his gut as he stared at the baby. He thought he had cried all the tears he had left in him, but it was as if the floodgates opened once more. As his knees threatened to give way beneath him, Joe felt a firm hand on his shoulder.

“If you continue on this path, it leads to an inevitable end. It doesn’t have to end this way.”

“What would you know?” Joe whirled around and shook the man’s hand off. He found his fist clenched as if to lash out and suddenly realised what he was doing. He slowly unfurled his fist and stared at the fingers as if they belonged to someone else.

“More than you know. You have a father who aches for you to return to him.”

Joe felt his knees buckle as he slid to the floor. The stranger crouched down before him and once again stretched out a hand. This time, Joe didn’t shake it off.

“The only thing that will drive out the darkness is light. You have run as far as you can.”

“I have nothing to go back to.”

The stranger shook his head. “You’re wrong. But if you don’t go back, you will never see that.”

The hand on his shoulder felt strong and vibrant. It was the first touch he had felt in months as he had held everybody at arms length. The eyes that gazed at him were warm and for the first time in a long time, something stirred inside him. The blackened lump of coal was still there, but so was something else.

“Who are you?”

The stranger smiled back. “I told you, I’m a wrangler and I was sent to find you.”

Joe slowly pulled himself to his feet and once again turned towards the altar and the nativity setting. His feet moved as if they were stuck in mud, but slowly, step by step, he moved forward. The nativity was laid out with the shepherds and wise men at the back, looking adoringly at the child asleep in the manger. Mary knelt beside the makeshift crib and Joseph looked on from behind her. That was how it was supposed to be – the father protecting his wife and newborn child. Except so often, life did not turn out how it should. Dreams turned to ashes and hearts grew cold and hard. There was more than one way to die.

A lump formed in his throat as he turned to say something to the wrangler, but the chapel was empty. He hadn’t heard the man leave. As the afternoon sun slid further below the roofline, the rays spread out across the floor and reached as far as the door.

It was time to go home. If he pushed hard, he might even make it home before Christmas.

 

Link to the 2019 Advent Calendar – December 3:

Merry & Bright by faust