The Outback, Australia, August 1989
It was Jerry’s father’s connections within the Cattleman’s Association that got him a ride on the Australian Outback’s biennial cattle drive. Once his dad got the word out that his son wanted an experience of a lifetime in the land Down Under, he found a direct connection to a wealthy grazier, the Aussie’s version of a rancher. Jerry would receive a stipend for the seven weeks of arduous labor working as a ringer—a stock worker on an Australian cattle station, so named from rounding up mobs of cattle. The stipend would pay back the travel expenses that Jerry borrowed from his savings for grad school. His father hoped the experience would open Jerry’s heart with a passion for continuing their family heritage as Kansan ranchers. He was leaving the Ranch for the Outback for a different purpose. It was not for the work experience—he had years of training on the ranch. Jerry was going to the wilderness, to the unknown, to test God for His calling on his life to lead, teach, and heal—or would it be God testing Jerry to show him what he needed to overcome? Christina had told him that life was a spiritual journey, and when we’ve received God’s calling on our life, as a good Father, he will prepare us for that destiny. As she had said to him, God does not call the qualified—God qualifies the called.
As the jet gained speed, he felt the buoyancy of liftoff, but his heart was heavy. When he headed to his departure gate, he passed the seating area where he had said goodbye to Christina— I’ll be waiting for you . . . Waiting . . . Waiting. Pangs of guilt and shame overwhelmed him. Tears swelled and blurred the image of the last time he saw her face. He couldn’t feel that tingling on his lips from their last kiss. Lips of a different kind had overwhelmed his, and the heat of lust’s surge replaced the warmth of Christina’s arms.
During the flight, he wrestled with the outcome of what began as a spontaneous encounter at the lake, then a casual dinner that he was accustomed to preparing for. That was the problem. Every thought of Jessie turned into a superimposed image of Christina. She tugged at his spirit while Jessie flamed his flesh. But what man could resist the temptation of a beautiful body that modeled a revealing bikini as he prepared a meal? Guys don’t go to strip joints for the conversation, and he knew that when he invited Jessie to his pad for dinner that all sense of common sense had flushed from his mind. He blamed the wine and the woman for his infidelity. She had suggested the wine. She had taken off her top. The black and red-hourglass spider in the web— Was that a tattoo on her breast? She had straddled him and rode the bull whose heart was slain. He couldn’t have resisted. What man would have?
After several days of flights and layovers and hangovers, Jerry landed in Adelaide, South Australia. He was physically exhausted from the trip and mentally and emotionally drained from ruminating. Riding in a cab, he viewed the expanse and the sites of this foreign land and blocked out the prison he had made in his mind while captive in the air. He had gear and supplies to buy, and he drew out his list to focus on the task at hand. He would spend the next seven weeks with cattle and horses and men. With dust in his face and soreness in the saddle, he would be as far away from women as the Outback was from Kansas.
The cattle drive of 500 head was along the Oodnadatta Track that followed an ancient Aboriginal trading route. This adventure was not a city slicker vacation to dine on delicious meals and sleep in luxury tents beneath a star-filled desert sky. He was not there to be entertained. He was driving cattle to their destiny, as he hoped to drive his own, although with a different outcome in mind.
He rode astride a chestnut quarter horse experienced to the trail of the beasts on their 400-mile journey to slaughter. Travelling alongside a dry creek bed scattered with stones that defined its course, the rust-colored clay terrain, dotted with scrub brush and an unexpected splash of yellow daisy bushes, led up to tabletop mesas. It was not the shortest route to their destination, but the only one for survival. He was told it followed the water, but he had yet to see any.
His flesh burned within him. He hadn’t experienced the surge of sexual power in his loins for many years. Like a sleeping giant awakened, he was unable to tame the release of the desire to feel what had been dormant. How far back? His mind jumped to his high school love, their virgin bodies grappling with each other as the windows steamed with their teenage passion. He’d just spilled his load across her belly when he heard the rap on the car window behind him. She’d let out a slight shriek of surprise. Jeans that had been hurriedly stripped bound his ankles, her legs clenched tight around his waist. The scene became a nightmare of naughtiness as they scrambled to clothe themselves, ashamed at being caught. Shaking with uncontrolled fear outside of the car, the deputy admonished them as a parent would his own. Jerry’s first encounter with the flesh left him with trepidation to ever again explore his developing manhood throughout high school. His tryst with college sex with a provocative girl who made the advance was vacant of desire, and he began to question his virility. But Jessie had unleashed his potency that now pulsed through his veins. Her voluptuousness overwhelmed him. He’d never felt such an igniting power over himself. He craved her even now. He wanted her, to drive his newfound manhood into an unexpected adventure that would take him on a journey yet to be told.
What about Christina?
A stray cow caught his attention, and he let the foreboding thought drift away as he spurred his steed for the chase. The dry wind teared his eyes as he galloped ahead. He veered left to approach the cow from an angle to its side and head it towards the herd. With agility and ease as an experienced cowhand, the stray returned to the dusty cloud of beasts that plodded along the road used for over a century to move cattle northwest.
He continued ahead to a handler resting astride a beautiful Paint, its white muzzle matching its mane with a pinto spotting pattern the color of a fawn. As he approached, he spotted the long, apricot reddish wavy braid cascading like a waterfall from beneath the wide-brimmed bone-colored felt hat turned down to shield the skin-aging sun. The beating of horse hooves on the drought-hardened plain caused her to turn. He reined in beside her, shoulders bowed and willowy from long days of resting in the saddle overseeing the long parade of cattle on the drive.
“Nice ridin’ jackaroo,” she said with a smirk and an ocker twang—a distinctive Aussie accent. Her ginger complexion, a reflection of the freckles that coalesced in splotches as speckles from a paintbrush shaken across a taut canvas. Her face lightly etched from dusty sundried breezes set her apart from the burnt sienna furrowed faces of the stockmen. A large yellow and orange paisley bandana bib covered her chest—used to filter the choking dust when following the mob.
“First I’ve been called that, but thanks,” Jerry replied.
“Where y’ from?”
“Kansas.”
“Bit of a trip for y’ to come to the grime and beauty o’ the Ozzie bush.” She jiggled her reins for a walk. Jerry sidled his horse beside hers.
“Call it a search for tomorrow as I decide what to do with my life.”
“Out here in the Back you get plenty of thinkin’ time. Where’d y’ learn to muster a mob?”
“Ranchin’ with my dad. We have a herd near this size on a prairie homestead from the 1860’s.”
“You takin’ the reins to carry it on?”
“My dad’s dream, but I don’t have the passion that he does to slave from sunup to sundown.”
“Well, that’s what we’re doin’ here. This is no picnic.”
“It’s different. I love the outdoors and to ride, but I’m attracted to the finer things in life. I need to sort that out in the saddle.”
“Leather and lace, fine with me. The two go together, the rough outdoors and the feel of smooth silk sheets.”
Jerry watched her profile to catch them again. What was so different about them? Her eyes—electric blue—popped brightly against her fair complexion bordered by wisps of wavy reddish locks that dangled against her cheeks. “Yeah, that’s a contrast to be reckoned with.” He imagined leather and lace adorning her trim frame with wavy apricot red hair pulsing and electric blue eyes beckoning.
She knowingly smiled.
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Excerpt from PURSUIT – A Matter of Choice, a novel by Jeff Cambridge.
Author of transformational fiction—
Realistic characters in real life drama that tell a story of growth in wisdom and understanding that changes their outlook on life, where achievements are no longer about self or competing. Instead, life is about completing their purpose and planting a legacy of redeeming value.
To read the scenes sequentially, begin with
“PURSUIT: A Novel – Prologue”
Located in the May Blog Archive. Click on the episodes and enjoy.
This episode is pre-published. The book will be available Spring 2018.
Your comments are welcomed and appreciated. Check one of the reaction boxes below, write a comment, or email me at lightbycambridge@gmail.com.
This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, businesses, organizations, and locales are intended only to give the story a sense of reality and authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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One mistake changes the course of three lives…
Jessie – chasing the dark side of destiny
The daughter of an alcoholic father in prison for manslaughter and a mother who has abandoned her for her latest boyfriend, Jessie has but one objective in life – to find the big ticket out of her miserable childhood.
Christina – striving to bring comfort and light
The daughter of a nurse who served in the Army medical corps, she follows in her mother’s footsteps, pursuing her passion to care for the disadvantaged. A ballerina – a thousand eyes behold her, the dance flowing seamlessly.
Jerry – living in the grey of his circumstances
The son of a sixth-generation Kansas rancher, his desire is to make it rich – to find the American Dream. A cowboy with a tender heart and crystal blue eyes, he finds love in unforeseen places.
An allegory of destiny and choices,
of wasted dreams,
of paths that lead to nowhere…
of trials, we face every day.
PURSUIT
Where will the chosen path lead?
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Copyright 2018 © Jeff Cambridge
