The Shepherd's Voice (9 page)

A three-quarter moon dangled above the mountains as night settled over the valley. The air was warm. Too warm for sleep.

Gabe sat on the stoop of his cabin, gazing at the star-strewn heavens. So vast. So wide. So never ending. He remembered the
countless times he’d gazed at a patch of night sky through a tiny window across from his second-story cell. If he closed his eyes, that was how he still envisioned it. Small and square and never quite clear. Four years of freedom hadn’t changed the surprise he felt at being able to move about at night, unrestricted, to be able to look up and see the breadth of the heavens from horizon to horizon.

His gaze shifted toward the main house. No light shone through the open windows. He wondered if Akira was asleep.

Why did she let me stay?

It had been a week since Akira found Gabe on the road south of Dundreggan, a week since she’d given him a place to call his own. Supposedly he was working for her, but thus far he’d spent his days in idleness. She hadn’t bothered to tell him what his duties would be. But then, he hadn’t asked. He’d learned in prison to wait until someone issued orders. It was a tough habit to break.

He leaned the back of his head against the doorjamb and closed his eyes.

There’d been times, since his release, when he’d wished himself back inside the familiar walls of the penitentiary. At least there he’d known what to expect. Nothing about the outside world was familiar to him anymore. His life before prison seemed nothing but a dream, a life that had happened to someone else. And what he’d experienced since getting out had been no life at all.

He opened his eyes and gazed upward again.

What do You want from me?

There was no answer to his silent question.

He didn’t expect one.

He certainly didn’t deserve one.

The blow to the side of Gabe’s head had knocked him to the floor.

“Get up!” his father shouted as he leaned over and grabbed his arm, yanking him back to his feet. “Never let me hear you talking that rubbish again. Do you hear me, boy?”

Tears streaked his cheeks. “I hear. I hear.” He hated himself for cowering, hated himself for crying like a baby. A twelve-year-old wasn’t supposed to cry.

“As long as you carry my name, you’ll remember what I said. God’s a fable. He’s for women and those weaklings who can’t stand on their own two feet.”

“But my mother believed and —”

Hudson struck him again, rattling his teeth. The pain shot from his jaw right to the top of his head. He tasted blood on his tongue.

“Mr. Talmadge! Stop!”

Gabe heard Miss Jane’s voice as if from a great distance. He turned toward the door. Through the blur of tears, he saw her enter his father’s library.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

Miss Jane was the only person Gabe knew who didn’t fear his fat her.

“Whatever it is,” Hudson answered, “it’s none of your concern. You’re fired. Get out of this house.”

“But, sir, I —”

“I said, get out! I told you not to push religion on these boys, but you wouldn’t listen.”

Instinctively, Gabe stepped toward Miss Jane, the woman who had raised him, the woman who’d loved him, but his father grabbed him by the arm a second time and jerked him back.

“Tell her,” Hudson growled.

“Tell her what?”

“Tell her you don’t believe in God.”

He stared at his father, not knowing what to do.

Hudson backhanded him. “Say it, or so help me, I’ll beat it out of you!”

“Gabe,” Miss Jane whispered.

He didn’t know what she wanted him to do, but it didn’t matter. He had to obey his father.

“I don’t believe,” Gabe choked out, dying a little as he said it. “I don’t believe in God.”

Hudson shoved him into a chair, then turned toward Miss Jane. “There. You’ve heard it. Now go. Get out and don’t ever come back to this house.”

All Gabe had wanted was to share the joy he’d felt the moment he’d asked Jesus to come live in his heart. All he’d wanted was to tell his father about a God who loved him and wanted the best for His children. He’d wanted his father to feel the same joy—and then maybe learn to love Gabe the way he loved Max.

But instead Miss Jane was being sent away, and Gabe had denied God’s existence … and now his father hated him more than before.

How had it all gone so wrong?

Gabe swallowed the lump in his throat. He was surprised the twenty-year-old memory still had the power to hurt.

Twenty years.

Somewhere along the way, he’d figured out his father was unable to love him. Gabe had come to understand that no matter what he did, Hudson would
never love him.

Yet he’d returned to Ransom, still hoping.

Hope. It was both a blessing and a curse to a man in prison. Apparently the same was true outside the walls. Better not to hope.

“Gabriel?”

He looked up, surprised to find Akira standing before him. “What do you want?” he asked, his voice raspy with emotion.

“God sent me to tell you that you can never escape His spirit. You can’t get away from His presence.” Her voice was soft and gentle, yet strong. “If you go up to heaven, He’s there, and if you go down into Hades, He’s there, too.”

Tears burned his eyes and the back of his throat. He wanted her to stop, to be silent, to leave him alone.

As if reading his thoughts, she continued, “No matter what you believe, you’ve never been alone, Gabriel Talmadge. Not even in your prison cell. Jesus went there with you.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She took a step closer. “‘For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Nothing can separate you from the Father’s love.”

“Go away.”

“No.”

He rose to his feet. “Don’t you understand? I turned my back on Him. I made my choice. There’s no changing that now. Just like there’s no changing that I killed my brother.”

“Gabriel —”

“This is my punishment!” he shouted. “Let it be!”

For a long while, silence stretched between them. When she spoke again, still in a whisper, Gabe suspected it was no longer him she addressed.

“A man can endure a sick body, but who can bear a crushed spirit?” There was a hint of tearfulness in her voice. “Oh, Father, help us. Help
him.
”

When Gabe heard that, something crumbled inside him. “You don’t know what I’ve done, the things I’ve seen, the kind of person I am.”

“No, I don’t. I don’t need to know. Christ knows, and He’s already paid the price for it all.”

“It’s too late for me. Maybe once …” His voice trailed into silence.

“Gabe.” She reached out, touching his shoulder with her fingertips. “Do you think the Almighty was surprised by what you did? He wasn’t. He knew your life from beginning to end. He made provision for whatever you would do in His plans for you. Isn’t it arrogance of the highest order to believe your sins are greater than God Himself? His blood covered it all.”

How did she know what he was feeling? How could she possibly know him that well?

Once again she responded as if he’d spoken his thoughts aloud. “I know you’re far from where you want to be. But you don’t have to stay there. Jesus is waiting. He’s calling you to come home.” She withdrew her hand, then took a step backward. “He’s the God of second chances, Gabriel. Take it.”

With those words lingering on the calm night air, she turned and walked away.

Akira’s sleep that night was fitful, and she was up before the dawn, walking with Cam at her side, talking with the Lord. That was how she happened to see Gabe leading Big Red, the oldest of the three workhorses, out of the barn. The eastern sky was stained the color of peaches at the moment he stepped up in the stirrup and swung his free leg over the saddle. She watched as he gathered the reins in one hand, then nudged the horse with the heels of his well-worn
boots. She saw him tug the brim of his hat firmly down on his forehead so it wouldn’t blow off.

“Is he running away, Jesus? Has he rejected You again?”

Expecting sorrow to grip her heart, she was surprised instead with a sense of peace flowing through her.

“Yes, Lord, I’ll trust You. Thy will be done.”

She watched Gabe ride Big Red away from the barnyard. She kept watching until he disappeared over a ridge. Then she headed up the path toward the house.

“Come, Cam,” she called to her faithful collie. “There’s work to be done.”

Reverend Simon Neville’s eyesight wasn’t what it used to be, but he could still recognize a man carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. From the window of the parsonage, he watched the tall, slender stranger dismount his horse and walk toward the church. There was something tentative about the way he tried the door, and even from this distance, Simon seemed to feel the man’s relief when he found it unlocked.