She rested her cheek against the post to smile over at him. “And here I thought you herded cattle for a living. I can’t figure out if you’re a man of science or a man of God.”
He laughed. “I only know enough to make me dangerous.” He gathered up the piece of wire that she’d been holding. “Good thing that God has it all together, and it’s not on me. He’s the master scientist, and I just get to theorize on how he made this earth. But just think of the resources he’s put on our planet? Not just the fuels and forests, but the food and animals and plants. The soil that’s rich in minerals that our food soaks up to give us every nutrient that we need to stay alive—everything he’s granted for our survival… and more… because life is more than survival, isn’t it? He’s put things on this planet that bring us joy.”
It was only the complications of a fallen world that brought them pain, that and the agency of man—all necessary for growth and learning.
“But wait, wait, wait.” She held up her hand. “It could’ve just been that we had the perfect planet for life and so everything else came after that… naturally.”
“Without God?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
He enjoyed philosophizing with her. Her eyes were bright with interest and sincerity, so he encouraged her to say her piece. “How?”
“Say we have the perfect conditions because of the odds, right? There are an endless number of planets out there, and so it’s bound to happen because of all the boundless variables. Then boom, life also bleeped into existence… because if it’s possible, life finds a way to… be. It’s how nature works, always becoming, always reaching its true potential because of its DNA.”
“Who told nature how to be? Who made the map?”
“I don’t know. Does everything have to be planned? What came first, the chicken or the egg? That’s the question of the ages. I mean, how doweknow how to be?”
He was impressed. Eva was as fun to talk to as his brothers. “Okay, even if you believe that everything happening here was all an accident or an anomaly, or even nature being nature,” he said, “for life to reach this kind of sophistication? That’s pretty amazing.”
“Maybe we’re not that sophisticated. You know, in comparison to other life forms that we haven’t encountered.”
“True,” he said. “I believe we have potential far beyond what we’ve reached—we are the children of God, after all… but still consider the progress that we’ve made so far, and how do you explain how we’ve survived on this planet for so long? Because let’s face it, if something goes wrong, just one thing messes up the balance of life… we’re out of here. We just go a few million miles further out on our orbit around the sun than we’re supposed to—or a meteorite hits or the waters dry up—and we experience worldwide famines or pandemics or any disaster of any serious nature, because… if you think about it, we have some competition on this planet for dominance from invading bacteria to viruses to predators, even down to mother earth. What’s to stop this world from treating us like the vermin we are and finishing us off with a tremble of her shoulder? Any thinking person at one time or another realizes that we’re in a very precarious situation here.”
“Well, that’s why we have so many people freaking out about climate change.”
“They think everything is on their shoulders,” he said.
“It’s not?”
“We have a stewardship and responsibility to do the best that we can, just like with everything in our lives, but… we are not in control here. To say that we are? We’re lying to ourselves. It’s vanity. We think we can be like Doctor Frankenstein keeping our monster alive… because… let’s be honest, we’resoafraid of the end… or of death really, so afraid that something is going to go wrong when we don’t have faith… but truly, none of us will ever see the bigger picture until we feel the smaller one—we have to feel the personal touch of Heaven in our lives to know how powerful God really is.” He finished tying off the fence, noticing that she was staring at him now.
He’d really gone off the deep end with her, hadn’t he?
He supposed Eva hadn’t really grown up with a religious background. This kind of talk might be foreign to her, when it was everyday talk to him. Once again, he was reminded of how much more Eva had in common with West than with any of the other Slades. But Eva and Cole? Not so much. He was sure that he sounded like a crazy man to her.
He let out a reluctant laugh. “Hey, now you know what happens when you get stuck with me in the pasture. That’s me doing Psalms 8.”
Her eyes crinkled up in the corners with her genuine smile. “Are you kidding me? I like the way you look at the world.”
Really?
He didn’t detect any sarcasm or discomfort in her manner, but then again, Eva had always struck him as the kind of person who was curious about the way people ticked and the world around her. She probably devoured podcasts, like she did everything that intrigued her. The girl never really seemed threatened by finding differences in people.
That was just one of the qualities that he admired in her. Once again, Cole wondered what kind of impact she’d make in West’s life if he let her.
That was the problem, wasn’t it? West wouldneverlet her in.
They worked on the rest of the broken fencing. This time, they kept their conversation light, though Cole still couldn’t help teasing her again about pretending to be a bad shot. “I don’t believe you’re that awful for a second,” he said.
“Oh yeah? What gave it away?Notthat I’m saying you’re right.”
A panicked cry cut through the peace of the morning. Cole’s stomach dropped. He knew that sound anywhere. It was a lone calf. The young animal let out another squeal. It was definitely in danger.
Lizardman pulled upright, growling as he shivered with rapt attention. Cole’s gaze was drawn to the reeds blocking their view from the swamp. That’s where the bawling came from. The calf wouldn’t last long out there in the mud.
The scrappy little puppy let out a bark and dashed into the reeds to follow the anguished mewling. Cole stepped towards the sound too, hearing Eva follow closely behind. He turned to study her fashionable boots. They wouldn’t hold up in this kind of terrain. The swamp would swallow her like it had the calf.