He's not as tall as I remember. His face is browner than Ernesto's. He scoops me up in a hug like he used to and lifts me off the ground, but my toes dangle in the dirt, which they didn't used to. He has a lot more muscles than before, and his body smells like—I don't know what—not like anything around here.
He sets me down and says, so everyone can hear, “You brought your grandfather's body home and even wildfires didn't stop you. That was brave. Thank you.”
If it was just him and me, I would have argued or at least explained that it was more a miracle, or at least a decision by his horse, Ike, than any doing of mine. I just tagged along and did the singing and praying. But he says it so stiff and formal in front of everyone that I don't know what to say. And then the moment passes, and the brothers crowd in for their hugs. I don't mind. I'm happy to stand back and watch while everyone else kisses him and asks their questions. Dad and I are going to have weeks, months—forever, really—after everyone else goes home.
Once the crowd thins out and the party moves to the cleaning-up-the-dishes part, Dad puts his arm over my shoulder and says, “Let's walk up to the reservoir.”
I get a lump in my throat when he says it because that's our star-watching place and I haven't gone up there in a whole year, not since before Dad left for Iraq. We walk away from the house, up the river, and then along the path that leads to a stretch of grass above the reservoir. He's walking a lot slower than he used to, and he brought a flashlight, which isn't like him either. The fire didn't make it up here so it's still green, which smells like heaven after the dry, ashy smells around the house.
I lie back in the grass, thinking about what I can say to him about that moment after the fire when Grandpa was lying on the ground and his soul left his body like rays of sunlight, and about the moment I knew for sure what I'm meant to become.
But Dad doesn't sit down with me, and before I can even begin, he says, “I've got three days. I'm sorry, son. I wanted to tell you before someone else does. It's just emergency leave. I have to go back the day after the funeral.”
“What?”
I sit right up and stare at him. It can't possibly be true. We were barely making it with Grandpa's help.
“You're going to leave me and Grandma here alone? You already served longer than you are supposed to. It's not fair.” I feel my muscles wind up tight like I'm getting ready to hit someone. “Why can't it be someone else's turn?”
Dad paces while I talk, and every little noise of a mouse or a bat makes him jump. Seems to me that even with all the extra muscle, he's not as solid as he used to be. I watch him peering into the dark shadows around the reservoir. I don't know what he thinks he's going to see.
“Be as angry as you want about me going back to Iraq, but I know you understand. I've heard the story about you and the wildfire from a dozen people to night. Tell me this, son: Why didn't you and Grandpa get in the truck and go to the fairgrounds like everybody else?”
He says it almost like I'm a soldier of his and not his own boy.
“Jeez, Dad, Ernesto was out there all alone, just him and Donner and the sheep. We couldn't leave them!”
“So you rode out against an unstoppable force of nature. Why?”
“We didn't have to stop the whole fire, just the part of it that was close to our sheep. I didn't mean for Grandpa to die, Dad. It wasn't supposed to happen that way. “
I look up and see that Dad is almost crying.
“My soldiers are still out there,” he says, “and they are in danger every day. “
I stand up and put my hand in his, because I do understand. It is breaking his heart to leave, but he'll never rest until they all come home.
My hand anchors him, and he stops pacing. After a minute, he sits on the grass and I sit beside him. We look up at the stars.
“One good thing about the desert, you can see stars from horizon to horizon; none of this mountains-cutting-off-half-the-sky business.”
I move shoulder to shoulder with him and look up. The summer constellations are moving on and the fall constellations are rising, but I can still pick out the Summer Triangle.
“Deneb, Altair, Vega.” Dad says their names solemnly, like a prayer. “I don't get much chance to go to church these days, but whenever I see those stars I pray for you.”
I nod, thinking about all those three hundred-some nights that I searched for my Herdsman and prayed for Dad on the way in from barn chores at night.
He gives me a nudge with his shoulder and says, “Mostly, I pray my sons won't have to go to war.”
“I thought you wanted us to go in the army. Why didn't you say something when Pete and Jim and John signed up?”
“I wasn't a veteran then. I don't want them to see the things I've seen.”
“But, Dad, I finally decided what branch of the army I want to be in. It sort of came to me while I was bringing Grandpa's body home.”
“You did? You want to be in the army?”
“Yeah. Chaplain Corps.”
Dad smiles, and I can feel his shoulders relax a few inches. “Well, I guess I could make an exception for a priest in the family. Father Alderman—I like the sound of that.”
“Are you surprised?”
“Maybe a little. I'm pretty sure your grandpa wouldn't have been surprised. He told me before I left that he wanted you to have this when he passed.”
He reaches in his jacket and pulls out Grandpa's black leather journal. “There are about thirty of these altogether at the house, and they are all for you. Grandpa told me once that his father asked him to keep a journal when he got drafted back in 1943. Good advice. I've been writing in a journal, too. It has kept my feet on the ground and my mind steady during this command like nothing else has.”
I flip on Dad's flashlight and open the book. There is Grandpa's typewriter-perfect print and a date on the top of the page. I always thought Grandpa was just writing about the events of the day in his journals, but the book is nothing like a diary. There are quotes from the Bible and what Grandpa thought about them; lists of books he liked; the names of people he prayed for; and the weather report, in a tidy two-inch square at the top of each page. It's like holding a handful of diamonds—my grandpa's whole prayer life in books that I can keep forever. I've only read a few dozen lines, but already I can hear his voice and feel his steady hand on my shoulder.
The first thing I think about when I wake up on the morning of Grandpa's funeral is the Mass, and making it his one last beautiful thing. Father Ziegler went over the Rite of Christian Burial with me yesterday, and we talked about some changes we will make to honor his faith and all his Quaker friends who will come.
I run through the parts of the Mass, lying on the top bunk because Frank insisted on the bottom one even though it isn't really his room anymore. Jim and John are doubled up in the other bedroom, and I don't think Pete slept at all. He was looking over Grandma's account books in the kitchen long after everyone was in bed, and he's up, talking on the phone now.
When I hear Grandma start her usual pot of morning oatmeal, I get up. John's in the kitchen, rattling pots and bragging on the cowboy griddle cakes he's going to make for all of us. Jim is eyeing the steak and eggs in the fridge. Me, I don't think I could get down toast and butter, but before we hit a full debate on the topic of breakfast, the ground starts shaking.
It's not the disaster-movie kind of earthquake, but a rumble strong enough to move my juice glass across the kitchen table in tiny hops. I jump up, jam my bare feet into boots, and run outside.
There is a long cloud of dust coming up the road, and out of it pulls a truck with four latrines on it. The potty truck pulls into our front yard. Right behind is a truck full of lumber, a flatbed with three months’ worth of hay, a trailer with a dozen calves, and a school bus full of folks I've never seen before in my life.
Frank and Pete follow me outside, but Dad is already there.
“Who are these people?” Frank says.
The bus par
ks and the driver hops out. He is a serious-looking man not quite as old as Grandma, but definitely older than Dad. He walks right up to Grandma with his baseball hat in hand. There is another man about Pete's age right behind him.
“I'm Pastor Dale,” the older man says, “from up around Cheney, Washington. It's a pleasure to finally meet you in person. When we heard about your troubles, ma'am, well, I just couldn't keep my congregation away.”
“Pastor Warren, out of Lincoln, Nebraska, ma'am,” the second man says. “Your husband was a mentor to me from my first year of seminary training. That man was a spiritual giant! Whenever I was in need of encouragement or wise counsel, a letter would come from this holy place and Mr. Alderman would be right there, helping me find my way.”
He reaches out to shake Grandma's hand. She hugs him like he's one of the family and gives him a kiss on the cheek.
“Now, ma'am,” Pastor Warren says, “I've brought a bunch of dairymen with me. We may never know the Scriptures like Mr. Alderman, but we do know a few things about raising a barn. I've got fifteen, and Pastor Dale brought twenty-three. We won't be able to finish a barn in two days, but we'll get up a frame and a roof. Now, that's a promise, ma'am.”
Men start piling out of the bus, and women, too— sturdy folks with work gloves on and carpenter belts bristling with tools. It's like an army of angels, and right away Dad knows how to command them. He goes down the row, shaking hands. He gets Frank to fire up the coffeepots, and Pete starts filling the trough with water for the new calves. In a few minutes, everyone is standing in a big circle. Dad welcomes them and sets out the work schedule—what can be done in the seven hours before the funeral service, and then what we can finish up the next day. He's got a good voice for command—steady, clear, and organized. I see people around the circle thinking over his plan, nodding to buy in, and trusting it will turn out like he says. Dad was made to lead people. I can see it in the faces that look at him, and even more, I can feel it. It's just as much a part of him as this land and these animals. I'm never going to like it that he goes; maybe I don't have to. But command is a part of him, just like fire is a part of the land around here.
We are about to break up and get started when Pastor Dale calls out, “Who will lead us in prayer?”
I bow my head like everyone else. Only silence follows. I look up, and Dad is looking straight at me. A week ago, I would have been too nervous to pray out loud in front of strangers, but it is today, and I know the man I'm supposed to become. I close my eyes and lift up my hands to the hills around me in their black coat of ashes, still mighty, even though they've been through the worst thing that can happen to land. I bless this day, and the workers who have come from far away to build us up, and those soldiers who are still so far from home. I bless the man who carries the weight of commanding them and the memory of the man who prayed for peace. I bless this land, this ranch—always changing, and always home.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to the men of the 9th Engineer Battalion for bringing my husband home from the First Gulf War, and to my parents and the Herboth family who walked me through Bill's deployment with grace and generosity
Many thanks to Maria for a lifetime of friendship and for introducing me to the beauty of eastern Oregon and the life of a rancher.
I am grateful to the many writers from my hometown who have been supportive from the start, and to Oregon Literary Arts, which gave me the fellowship in 2005 that kept me writing. Thanks to Cheryl, Cliff, Lyra, Judy, and Kathie for their critiques and kind encouragement.
Thanks to Jim Thomas, my good shepherd of words. Most of all, I am thankful for my amazing family, who built me a tree house and made room in our lives for me to write.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
All it took was one day of helping out on her best friend's ranch in eastern Oregon to convince Rosanne Parry that being a cowboy was not her true calling— and stock horses everywhere are grateful. The lessons in calf roping didn't stick, but the stark beauty of eastern Oregon and the neighborliness and shared purpose of the ranching community made a lasting impression. Rosanne found a similar rapport among the military families she knew when her husband, an army officer, was deployed to the First Gulf War. Writing Heart of a Shepherd allowed her to combine her experiences with both communities. Rosanne now lives in an old farmhouse in Portland, Oregon, with bunnies and chickens and her husband and four kids. She wrote this story in a tree house in her backyard. It is her first novel.
To learn more about Rosanne, visit her Web site at www.rosanneparry.com.
Text copyright © 2009 by Rosanne Parry
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Parry, Rosanne.
Heart of a shepherd / Rosanne Parry. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Ignatius “Brother” Alderman, nearly twelve, promises to help his
grandparents keep the family's Oregon ranch the same while his brothers are away
and his father is deployed to Iraq, but as he comes to accept the inevitability of
change, he also sees the man he is meant to be.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89250-9
[1. Ranch life—Oregon—Fiction. 2. Responsibility—Fiction. 3. Family life—
Oregon—Fiction. 4. Christian life—Fiction. 5. Iraq War, 2003– —Fiction.
6. War—Fiction. 7. Oregon—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.P248Hea 2009 [Fic]—dc22 2007048094
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