Judith of the Godless Valley Part 40

"You have the advantage of me, young man. I don't remember your face."

"I'm glad you don't!" replied Douglas. "But I've always wanted to tell you I sure-gawd was ashamed of myself. I was the kid that made you trouble at Lost Chief seven or eight years ago."

Fowler's blade brows met as he studied the young rider's frank face.

"So you are!" he said slowly. "So you are! Well, I'll never have that kind of trouble again. Have you eaten? I'm late about dinner. Fact is, I get careless about my meals, living alone!"

"No, I've been out after wild horses and don't plan to eat till I get back to camp ten miles yonder on the creek."

"Better break bread with me," suggested the preacher.

"That's sure white of you. I don't mind if I do." Douglas returned Mr.

Fowler's grim look with one of wistful curiosity.

The preacher silently led the way to the sheep-herder's wagon which perched on the peak of a hill above the draw. "I don't have much to offer you but beans," he said as they dismounted.

Douglas looked from the blood-stained gunny-sack to the clergyman's deep-set eyes, hesitated, then said, "Beans are good and the sheep-man's staple." He followed into the wagon and sat on the edge of the bunk while Fowler prepared the frugal meal.

"Do you mind telling me," asked Doug, "why you are herding sheep instead of folks?"

"I couldn't earn a decent living herding folks. My wife died. I took anything that offered that would take me away from men and their accursed ways. There was something about sheep-herding that made me think of Jesus Christ and the country round about Bethlehem. I have found a kind of peace here."

Douglas cleared his throat. "How long have you been at it?"

"A couple of years."

"How was it you couldn't earn a living, preaching?"

"It's an age of unfaith," replied the preacher.

"I don't believe it's, an age of unfaith." Douglas puffed slowly on a cigarette. "That is, not like you mean. That Sunday, if you'd given us something we could have set our teeth in, we'd have listened to you.

I remember distinctly, I sat down in the back of the room, saying to myself, 'Now if this old-timer has something interesting to say, I won't let the kids in.' But you--excuse me, Mr. Fowler--you just got up and bleated like a Montana sheep-man."

The preacher set the coffee-pot on the stove, straightened himself, and shouted, "I spoke the word of G.o.d!"

"I don't know whether there's a G.o.d or not. Probably there isn't any.

But if there is, I'll bet He never talked foolish threats that a fellow has hard work to understand." Mr. Fowler gasped. "Now wait a moment,"

protested Douglas. "Don't get mad and throw me out like I did you! I'm a man now, and I tell you, Mr. Fowler, I'm troubled about many things and I want you to let me talk to you."

The beautiful, sympathetic light of the shepherd of souls shone in the clergyman's eyes. "Talk on, my boy! I too am troubled about many things.

But not about G.o.d. I know Him."

"How do you know Him?"

"By His works, the sun, the stars, the universe, through His holy word, the Bible."

Douglas waved his hands irritably. "Words! Just words! How can they mean anything to a hard-headed man like me? Everything came out of a fire mist. How do you know it was a mind made that fire mist? Why couldn't it have been a--a--Christ, what could it have been?" Douglas paused with lips agape with horror as he gazed on the evil of the universe.

Fowler motioned the young rider to a seat at the table. "G.o.d bless our food and give us understanding," he said. Then he served Doug and sat staring thoughtfully at his own coffee-cup. "Were you ever in love?"

he finally asked Douglas.

"Yes."

"Did she love you?"

"Not that I can find out!"

"Does she know that you love her?" pursued the minister.

"Yes, I told her so."

"But," said Mr. Fowler, "love isn't something you can put your teeth in.

How can she believe you?"

"Because, I'm something she can put her teeth in! Believe me, Mr. Fowler, if G.o.d once convinced me He was real, I'd believe anything He told me.

Just give me facts. That's all I want."

"The universe is a fact."

"Yes, but the universe being a fact doesn't prove there's any hereafter.

Hang it, Mr. Fowler, can't you preachers get it through your heads that what people want you to prove to them is that there is a hereafter?

That's all there is to your job. Prove that and you can lead us round by the nose. But if you can't show us that the soul doesn't die, there is no meaning in anything, and we might as well be like we are in Lost Chief."

"What's the matter with Lost Chief?" Mr. Fowler's smile was grim.

"Peter Knight says it's that we have no ethics. Inez Rodman says it's that we don't know beauty when we see it."

"Inez Rodman? O, that woman of the Yellow Canyon! If there were a minister in Lost Chief, she wouldn't be in the Valley."

"O, I don't know! Religion doesn't seem to affect her kind, anywhere. But Peter says we'd ought to have built a church along with the schoolhouse.

I don't see myself how the kind of Bible stuff you teach could help a hard living, hard thinking kind of people like us."

"Did you ever read the Bible, Douglas?" asked the preacher.

"I've tried to. If you ask me to read it like it was only more or less true history, I could get away with it. But when you tell me it's the actual word of G.o.d and show me a picture of G.o.d in long white whiskers and a white robe, why you can't get away with it, that's all. I know that nothing like that ever produced Fire Mesa or Lost Chief Range or--or Judith."

Mr. Fowler groaned. "Douglas, you are blasphemous!"

"I'm not. I'm just unhappy. I think I was meant to be a religious guy.

I'm of New England stock and they all depended a lot on religion. But I just can't swallow it."

"And you never will as long as you take the point of view you do. You must wipe your mind clear of all you have read and thought, for G.o.d says that unless we become as little children, we cannot believe. Religion is not a matter of knowledge and reason. Religion is a matter of hope and faith."

Douglas sat turning this over in his mind, his yellow hair rumpled, his clear eyes, with the sun wrinkles in the corners, fixed on the far snowy gleam of Lost Chief Range.

"Hope and faith," he repeated softly.

There was a shout from without. "O, you Doug!" and Charleton rode up at a gallop. He stopped before the open door. "I've been trailing you for two hours. I got three horses penned up in a draw and I need your help.