A Perilous Proposal (14 page)

Little did Jake realize that in a host of unseen ways his father had passed on to him a rare gift with horses. It was to understand and be understood by them. Not realizing why, more and more Jake was drawn to his father's occupation. But in spite of his love for the noble four-footed creatures, reminders of his father remained bitter in his memory.
Instead of cherishing the tender visions, he refused to see them with the innocent eyes of happy childhood. Instead he overlaid the memories with the anger of his later youth.

Instead of bringing healing, as such memories could have done, they only deepened the anger fomenting beneath the surface in his heart.

But the memory of his father and horses had one benefit. The more useful he became to Micah Duff in the care of the horses, the more respect he gained among the rest of the men.

“You got some knack with horses, Jake,” said one of the soldiers as he came upon Jake walking out of the makeshift corral one day. “Where'd it come from?”

“Don't know,” answered Jake. “Jes' one ob dose things, I reckon.”

Jake did not add that his father had also been gifted with horses. He did not want to admit that perhaps he was more like his father than he realized. All the while his work subtly drew him in unseen ways closer to his father's memory. In time he would grow to understand much about his father by staring into the great eyes of his horse-companions, knowing that his father shared the same special bond with the unspeaking creatures that he felt.

L
IGHT

18

O
NE MORNING
J
AKE WOKE EARLY
. I
T WAS STILL
mostly dark. The merest hint of something that would eventually be sunrise was off in the east. It was more like the
thought
of light than light itself.

Jake lay in his bedroll staring into the darkness. Gradually he became aware that someone sat not far away. As the hint of dawn slowly grew, he saw that it was Micah Duff. He was just sitting there staring toward the east.

Jake got up, walked over, and sat down beside him.

“Wha'chu doin', Duff?” he asked.

“Waiting for the sunrise,” answered Micah.

“Why?”

“It's my favorite part of the day,” replied Micah. “Every chance I get, I like to watch it all the way from darkness to the first of the sun's rays shooting over the horizon.”

“But dat don't explain why.”

For a long time Micah did not answer. He continued looking east. Jake sat beside him, watching the approaching dawn too, though not seeing everything in it Micah did. Before long the chilly grey of morning had come. After a while longer, a slight glow of orange started to show where the earth met the sky.

The glow increased, then focused its intensity more and more into the one place that, in another twenty minutes or so, would explode with fire from the heavens.

“Just think of all the things light does for us, Jake,” said Micah at length.

“Like what?”

“Look how the darkness runs from it.”

“How you mean?” asked Jake.

“When the sun starts coming up every morning, the darkness begins to evaporate and all the shadows run and hide. Look around us—the darkness is disappearing. We were sitting in the dark just a little while ago, Jake. But now look—the light has chased it away!”

“I reckon dat's so, all right. But it's jes' what happens when da sun comes up.”

“It's more than that, Jake. Everything has meaning.”

“So what dis light mean?”

“The light is just like God.”

“How dat?”

“That's what God does too—chases darkness away . . . defeats the darkness in
us
, just like the sun coming up over the horizon, so that we can be more full of light.”

He paused a second or two.

“You know what I think of, Jake,” he added, “whenever I sit here like this and watch the sunrise?”

“What?”

“I think of the light that God's trying to get inside us, sending little shoots and arrows and rays to chase away all the shadows and clear out all the dark corners of our hearts, so that we can be full of light. I can't think of anything I want more than to be clean and clear and pure and full of light inside.”

Micah paused and drew in a deep breath of satisfaction and wonder. There was a long silence before he spoke again.

“When are you going to let the light all the way inside
your
heart, Jake?” he said in a soft but serious tone.

“What you talkin' 'bout?” said Jake.

“When are you going to let it shine into those dark spots that are keeping you from being clean and whole?”

“I don't know wha'chu mean.”

“I think you do, Jake. You're an angry young man. I can see it in your eyes. That anger is like a darkness inside you that you haven't let the sun reach yet.”

“What kind er fool talk is dat?”

“You're full of anger inside. I think you know it. You're trying to run from it, trying to hide from the light. But you can't escape it, Jake.”

“You'd be angry too effen you'd been a slave, ef you'd been whupped like I hab.”

“So it's anger against whites, against your owner? You're angry because you were a slave?”

Jake was silent. Micah's unexpected questions irritated him.

“It's more than that, isn't it, Jake? It's got to do with your father, hasn't it?”

“Maybe dat ain' none ob yo affair,” Jake snapped back.

“You're right,” said Micah. “It isn't. But
you
are. God put you and me together for me to do my best for you. I wouldn't be doing that if I didn't do my best to try to shine light on what's keeping you twisted up inside.”

“You always preachin' at me like
he
wuz,” Jake snapped. “I didn't ax you ter do none ob dat!”

“No you didn't, Jake. But that doesn't change the fact that it's anger that's making you grow crooked. That's why you gotta let the light in so you can look at it and let the light chase it away. Maybe you don't like me saying it. But what kind of a friend would I be if I didn't?”

Another moody silence followed.

“Why are you angry at your pa, Jake?” Micah asked.

“He run away from us, dat's why! He didn't care nuthin' 'bout me!”

Saying the words stung Jake's heart like a hot knife. With them came the memory of the overseer's cruel laughter: “
Dat boy ob mine's jes' too ugly an' I can't stan' sight er him no mo. I be despert ter git away from dat boy
.” He felt tears trying to rise in his eyes. They were the tears of boyhood anguish and a father's rejection. But he forced them away.

Other memories flooded him. But Jake could not face them. The guilt and confusion were too overpowering.

“He lef' me an' my mama!” he said, angrily now. “He lef' her alone jes' like he lef' me an' called me names. He lef' her to die! Now she's dead because of him!”

Jake jumped to his feet and paced about. He was obviously agitated.

Micah took in his heated words calmly. He said nothing for a long while. When he glanced up, Jake was gone. Micah sighed and rose to his feet, made a fire, then put the water on for coffee. Before long the camp was bustling with weary soldiers getting ready for the day.

Jake was silent and moody for the rest of the morning. As they rode along beside each other, midway through the afternoon, Micah ventured to bring the subject up again.

“You know, Jake, nobody's got a perfect daddy,” he said. “That's because no daddy can possibly be perfect. They weren't supposed to be. They make mistakes 'cause they're just men like the rest of us. But they gave us life. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't be here at all. No matter what they may have done, and no matter what we may think they have done, they deserve our love and honor for that alone.”

“Why you know so much 'bout fathers?” said Jake irritably. “What makes you think you kin preach ter me like all dis?”

A look of pain passed over Micah's face.

“I know nothing about my own pa, Jake. I never saw him,
never knew who he was. I still don't. Not having a father at all teaches you a lot about how precious a thing a pa is. So I've probably thought about it more than you have. I can't even realize what having a pa is, and what memories of feeling a father's touch must be like, even if he wasn't a perfect pa. I can't realize it because I don't have those memories, and I never will. You've got them, Jake. But instead of being thankful for them, you're angry about them. I'd give anything to have memories of a pa like you've got, Jake. I'd give anything even to have a pa that left me. I wouldn't even mind a pa that beat me or was mean to me . . . just to have a pa at all. But I never had one, Jake. That's why I know what a precious thing a pa is.”

H
ARD
W
ORDS

19

T
HE WAR WAS ALL AROUND THEM, AND
J
AKE
P
ATTERSON
 saw things no one ought ever to have to see. But as long as men were determined to fight other men, and as long as neither side was willing to back down, there would be war. And as long as there was war, there would be bloodshed, and there would be killing, and there would be heartache.

As the war began to turn more and more toward the North after the battles of Gettysburg and Vicksburg in July of 1863, the Confederates they encountered fought all the harder to keep hold of their dying dream. As the year 1864 arrived and warmed into spring, Jake, now sixteen, had seen more than his share of bloodshed.

He and Micah were dressing wounds of several of the company's horses. Micah had just returned from having to put a mare down who had broken two legs in the battle of the previous day. He was more somber for hours afterward as they went about their unpleasant work.

“That was hard, Jake,” he said finally with a weary sigh. “There's nothing worse than having to shoot a horse. I loved that animal.”

Jake had nothing to say. It was quiet a long time.

“That was a mighty brave thing you did yesterday, Jake,”
said Micah after a while, “—running in when the captain went down, getting his horse's reins and then pulling them both out of there. When I saw you at first with all that gun and cannon fire, I was sure I'd see you going down splattered in your own blood. But you did it. You proved you got one kind of courage, all right.”

Jake glanced up, a look of bewilderment on his face. But he didn't say anything, and neither did Micah. But Micah's statement stuck with him for days.

“Wha'chu mean da other day,” said Jake several days later, “'bout me havin' one kin' ob courage?”

“Just what I said,” replied Micah, “that you did a brave thing.”

“But dere's sum other kin' er courage dat I ain't got?”

“I don't know whether you've got it or not, Jake.”

“What is dat other kin' er courage?”

“The courage to be a man, to look inside yourself and see what you're made of. It takes a different kind of courage.”

“How you mean?”

“It's easy enough to be brave when you're facing something outside yourself, even something terrifying like death, like you did that day when you pulled the captain out of the battle. You probably saved his life. But when you're facing something inside yourself—that's what takes real courage. That's when you have to find out if you're really a man.”

“You had ter do dat, Duff?”

“I've had to a few times. Nothing's harder than facing your own doubts, fears . . . your past. That's where the greatest courage comes from—when what you have to battle against is yourself. It takes a man to do that.”

“What 'bout da kind er bravery on da battlefield? You said dat took courage, what I done.”