Written by Optimus. Posted on Jan 25, 08:55 PM.

Dauntless

When I was young, I learned that is not the measure of a man’s courage, but rather his deepest fear, that defines him. In the summer that I turned twelve, I was forced to stand up and recognize my fears. And that is how I came to be dauntless.

I remember it was in the first days of May, when the gentle showers of spring and the cool winds of summer met like an old couple, and I was walking home from the empty field where we played stickball every afternoon. This particular game had stretched well into the evening, until it was at last too dark to see, and I had bidden goodbye to my friends before starting toward home in the night. For whatever ingenious reason I had devised at the time, I decided to stray from my usual route and take a shortcut through the woods. I had walked for some time before I realized that my shortcut would take me past the old Sutter property.
The abandoned Sutter farm held a high place in the lore of the local boys. With its dilapidated barns and the overgrown plot of graves where the Sutters lay at rest, the farm struck fear into most who passed it. For this reason, Joel Peters had declared years ago that the place was most definitely haunted. Given the influence that Joel tended to have over his younger followers, word of the farm’s haunting quickly spread amongst us. And so we would play games where we dared each other to run up and touch the barn door, or to stand on Isaiah Sutter’s grave and count to ten. Most would do so only if three others went with them, and then only when the sun was high. But even on the brightest summer day, there was something unsettling about the place, as if some weird presence lingered in the knotted weeds of the barnyard. Eventually we stopped playing by the farm, and some of the more superstitious boys avoided it altogether.

Yet here I was, alone in the woods at night, faced with the prospect of passing by the Sutter place. If I turned back and went the way I had come, it might be an hour before I got home, and I would miss supper. So I took a deep breath and continued on my way.

I had passed through these woods several times a week for as long as I could remember, yet they appeared alien in the darkness. With what little light the moon provided, I could barely discern the shapes of the trees and the twisted branches overhead. As I came to realize exactly how alone I was, the gnarled cedars began to take the form of fantastic terrors. Everywhere I looked I saw some horrible thing waiting in the dark corners of the woods, hungering for the very taste of me, as I can only imagine that I must have been quite tender at age eleven. I decided to turn to the Lord in my fear, fleeing to the shelter of my high tower, the rock in Whom I trust.

“His eye is on the sparrow,” I sang haltingly past the lump in my throat, “and I know He watches me.” Somewhere above me, an owl hooted softly.

I carried on singing, trying not to think about what horrors the night might conceal. After continuing in this fashion for what seemed like an eternity, I must have sung half the Methodist hymnal. At last I felt some terrible presence, as if an icy hand had pressed against my shoulder, and my voice caught in my throat. Trembling with fright, I turned to find that I was not fifty feet from the Sutter farm. There stood the somber gravestones in the moonlight, the grass around them choked with weeds. I imagined Isaiah Sutter’s ancient bones, five feet under ground, waiting for me there in the darkness, and I shivered terribly. A breeze came up from the east and howled through the rotting wood of the barn, catching the massive door and swinging it on its rusted hinges. The ensuing sound was one that I shall never forget, like the horrible, desperate moan of a soul damned to perdition. So frightened was I that I thought it the wail of Isaiah Sutter’s ghost rising up from his grave.

My heart hammered in my chest and I took off running, I doubt that I got very far before something caught me about my shins and I came crashing to the ground. Like vices around my ankles were skeletal hands, sprung up from the earth to drag me down to hell. In my mind’s eye, I envisaged horned faces and forked tongues swarming around me, trampling me, tearing me apart with blood-reddened claws before hurling me down into the fiery bowels of Hades.
With a cry of ineffable terror, I flailed my arms madly, clenching my eyes shut and shouting garbled supplications to my spectral tormentors. Joel Peters had long since established the canon that if a malevolent apparition were to catch a man, it would skin him from head to toe and boil whatever was left in his own blood. Oh, what a delightful boy Joel was. In a desperate fit not to meet such an unsavory end, I pushed myself to my feet and bolted through the woods toward home. I did not slow. I did not falter. Every second lost allowed my demonic pursuers to narrow the gap between us. Their sulfuric breath burned on the nape of my neck. Their terrible gaping jaws snapped shut like iron traps just inches short of my back. I ran until I could run no more.

I have no recollection of the mile between the Sutter farm and my house, but I am nearly certain that it would have qualified for the Olympics. Words cannot describe the relief that came over me when my house came into view. I sprinted toward its warm, fire-lit windows, flung open the door, and once I was safe from whatever evils pursued me, I collapsed on the floor, wheezing and gasping for breath.
Though I was safe in my own home, I was so shaken by what had occurred that once I was able to move again, I fled to my room and shut the door. In the shelter of my private domain, I feel in a heap upon my bed and began to sob. Even now, after having served in one war and lived through two others, I can scarcely remember a time when I was as overwhelmed by fear as I was then.
Some moments later, while I lay wretchedly blubbering in the quiet dark of my room, I heard the heavy and deliberate footsteps of my father in the hallway. The footsteps stopped just outside my room. For a while there was silence, then a gentle knock at the door. My father waited for me to respond, as he always did. When several seconds had passed without an answer, he eased open the door.
“Michael?” he called quietly. Through my tears, I saw him standing in the doorway, and set against the bright light of the hallway as he was, he looked like what I can only describe as a guardian angel. At that time in my life, I thought myself too old to depend upon the help of guardian angels, yet that was the thought that came to my mind, and that is the image of my father that I shall recall until the day I go to God.

Since I had made no effort to answer him, he could tell, just as all fathers can, that something was wrong. In three long, slow strides, he crossed the darkened room and sat down beside me. I turned my face away from him and covered my eyes. I felt his gentle hand upon my head, and suddenly my fears seemed to fade.
“Tell me what happened,” he said softly.

Had I not been crying, the room would have remained silent.

“Michael,” he prodded, this time slightly louder.

I took a deep, shuddering breath, and amid my sobs I recounted what had happened at the Sutter farm. My face burned at how foolish I sounded to be frightened of such things as ghosts and goblins. When I at last had neither the heart nor the lung capacity to continue, my farther patted me on my head and sighed. For a while, he said nothing. He didn’t need to. In most respects, his mere presence was enough to console me.

“There’s no reason to be afraid, Michael,” he said after a while. “I can understand why Isaiah Sutter’s land might frighten you, but it’s only an old barnyard. And I promise it isn’t haunted. The only place Isaiah’s spirit treads is the City of God. If anything he’s looking out for you, not trying to do whatever nonsense the Peters boys put into your head. You’re perfectly safe here in your room. Your sisters and I are right here with you. There’s absolutely nothing that you need to be afraid of.”
I nodded and took a deep breath.

“I wish I was fearless,” I whispered, just loudly enough for him to hear.
“You wish you were fearless,” he corrected, “you and everybody else. But there was never a fearless man to draw breath on this earth. Sure, there are loads who claim otherwise, but every man has his fears, whether he admits them or not. Having fear is what makes you human.”

I sniffled slightly.

“Well, I don’t want to fear anything.”

He patted my head again and waited until the right words came to him. It was always important to him that he did not misspeak.

“A man can’t choose whether or not he has fear,” he began slowly, “but he can chose what he fears and what he doesn’t. Do you know what the difference is between a coward and a hero?”

I shook my head.

“A coward fears only for himself, while a hero fears for those around him, not because he’s courageous, but because he has the wisdom to know that there are things in this world worthy of fearing.”

He stopped again to order his thoughts, leaving his words to linger on my mind, words that I still contemplate as I write this.

“I think that rather than trying to be fearless, you should aim to be dauntless,” he said in his low voice.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that you are strong in the face of what frightens you. The fear is still there, but with the help of God you can pull yourself up and stand tall against it.”
Without another word, he ruffled my hair vigorously before standing and walking to the door. Before he left my room, he turned to face me there in the darkness.

“Now come on and wash up,” he said. “Supper’s getting cold.”

Tagged as Critique, Optimus.

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