The Brave Heart

By Barry Hodges

The Brave Heart is
A boys triumphant journey.
A fathers redeemed hope.

When Jacob Towery, a boy of seven, is diagnosed with a hole in his heart, a fearful surgery is set before him. But during the surgery, he awakens in a world vastly different from his own, a world where the Lord of Eagles reigns. Guided by animal companions, Jacob travels eastward to meet the one true king. And while there are those most willing to aid him, there are others who would stop at nothing to keep him awayaway from the Lord of Eagles and away from the truth.

Meanwhile, his father, David, faces his own struggle, awaiting the outcome of Jacobs surgery. Having not spoken to God in seven years, he finds it difficult to place his hope in Him now. But he has no choice, for only God can save his boy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Feb 7, 2012
• ISBN: 9781449737900

Barry Hodges

Barry Hodges lives in Virginia with his wife and son. A Journey Derived is his debut novel.

Book preview

Contents

Dedication

This Ill World

Meeting Sir Brown

Pursuit

The Underground

River Crossing

What Lies in the Jungle

Not Alone

The Sisters Three

A Desert Guide

The Battle

Upon the Lord’s Mountain

The Return

Author’s Note

Dedication

For Liam, my son, the bravest heart that I know.

But now, thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob … fear not for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are Mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you. For I am the Lord your God.

(Isaiah 43:1-3, NKJV)

This Ill World

Chapter One

Once upon a time, when the world was ill, there lived a man by the name of David Towrey. David had a son named Jacob, and by and large this is a story about Jacob. However, David must first be paid some attention, for while the world was ill, he was ill at ease, and as some would say, with good reason.

David sat, then stood, then sat again in the sparsely furnished waiting room on the seventh floor of Saint Luke’s Children’s Hospital. He felt, at that moment, very much alone, and that had little to do with the absence of anyone else in the room. He could not stop the slight tremor that had overcome his hands; but worse, he could not stop his mind from spinning over the events of the past few months.

Three months ago, to be exact, he thought. Back then everything had seemed just fine. He could still remember the day Jacob had brought home the school’s release form for sandlot football. Jacob was small for his age—seven years old now, but six at the time—and had never expressed an interest in sports until then. But what father would not be proud to cheer on his young athlete? David had completed the release form, taken his boy to buy a pair of cleats, and left work early one afternoon to meet Jacob at school for the required physical assessment. The doctor had looked him overly thoroughly, tousled his hair, and pronounced to Jacob that he was as fit as a horse. He had then pulled David aside and indicated to him that he heard a murmur when he had listened to Jacob’s heart.

Don’t let it concern you overly much, the doctor had said. Many youngsters have a slight murmur and it amounts to nothing. Maybe just mention it to his pediatrician so they can keep an eye on it. Otherwise, I think he’s fine to play sports.

And that was that. David had felt his own heart skip a beat when the doctor had given him the diagnosis, but his words had eased his mind.

Fine, David thought back in the waiting room. What sort of prognosis was that?

About a month later, the league’s teams had come together for their first scrimmage game. Jacob had been selected to play the position of running back. Even David had marveled at his boy, for Jacob was so very fast. He was proud of his son already, but his chest swelled at seeing him play. Then something had gone terribly wrong. In the first quarter of the game, the ball had been handed off to Jacob who had run it almost the length of the field before collapsing for seemingly no reason.

The ride in the back of the ambulance had lasted only minutes, but Jacob’s labored breathing and David’s concern made it feel like a lifetime. They were able to regulate his breathing at the hospital, but the emergency room doctor told David that he wanted to call in a pediatric cardiologist. He had heard the murmur as well.

After a few tests, Jacob was diagnosed with a ventricular septal defect or VSD—a hole in his heart. The cardiologist had explained to David in great detail, and with diagrams, what Jacob’s heart was—or rather was not—doing and the effect it was having on his body. Shortly thereafter, Jacob was preparing with a new team—this one made up of doctors who would be assisting a heart surgeon. This team would see him through the reparation of his defect.

The more quickly we move to repair the defect, the better for Jacob, the cardiologist had said.

Now David Towrey waited on the seventh floor of the same hospital. He sat, having taken a turn at pacing, and placed his hands in his hair, hoping perhaps that it would help their shaking. He was a bundle of raw nerves and was even then replaying in his head the risks of surgery that had been delivered to him by a nurse only yesterday. How could they expect a father to cope with the thought that his son may not make it through surgery? Especially me? I’ve already lost my wife.

David had often thought that if Jacob was strong enough to go through this surgery, then he, as his father, needed to be strong enough to support him. But now, alone in a hospital waiting room, he questioned his ability to do even that.

The phone mounted on the far wall chirped once, stirring David’s hands from their position. It chirped again before he moved to answer it.

Mr. Towrey? came the voice from the other end.

Yes, this is he, David answered somewhat unsteadily.

This is John, the surgical attendant. I wanted you to know that we have begun surgery. I will call you in a couple hours to provide you with an update.

David nodded before realizing that the attendant could not see him. All right, he replied.

He placed the phone back in its cradle and barely felt his knees hit the carpeted floor.

Oh God! he cried, the words coming from between fingers meant to stifle a sob. He had not spoken to God in quite some time, but now he needed something, someone, to tell him that it would be all right; that he had made the right decision. Please, God, David continued, let my boy be okay. Watch over him where I cannot. Guide the hands and mind of the surgeon. Let them be true. Heal Jacob’s heart …

His voice cracked, and he continued the rest of his prayer in silence. He knelt there for a while afterward, on his knees by the phone. Tears had come to his eyes more than once, but none had escaped. He had to be strong for his boy, for Jacob, because he knew that somewhere he lay with a heart that was no longer beating.

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Five floors below, in a very clean and very white room of Saint Luke’s Children’s Hospital, lay the small boy whose heart no longer beat. His hair was light brown and lay disheveled upon his head. Had his eyes been open, they would have shone green, like his father’s. Doctors and assistants were bent over him, their green scrubs and white masks making it difficult to tell who was who. Yet their eyes were kind. The parents of the children upon which they operated—those like David Towrey—suffered through this kind of thing hopefully only once, but those here behind the masks practiced it every day.

At the far end of the table on which Jacob lay, well out of the way, sat a stuffed brown bear. Mr. Brown, as the bear was named, was a ragged sort of animal, but one who had been a constant companion to the boy and was loath to leave him in this most needful of hours. His one good eye, beady as it was, watched over the proceedings intently.

Jacob Towrey was a boy well beyond his seven years of age. He was smart, true enough, but the ways of the world had seen to it that he grew up quicker than most. Still, he was only a boy, and boys often dream. But why does this not feel like a dream, Jacob thought.

The last thing he could recall was counting backward from ten. The doctor had told him he would start to feel sleepy. He had felt more numbness than sleepiness, but this was not like the numbness he felt if he dangled his arm over the side of his bed for too long. At first, he had tried feeling his fingers and toes by moving them, but the feeling of them slowly vanished. Then his vision had narrowed, growing fuzzy around the edges. He had reached the count of four and could see only the masked face and eyes of the doctor above him before he succumbed to sleep. I may be sleeping, he said to no one in particular, but I’m not dreaming.

Meeting Sir Brown

Chapter Two

The boy no longer slept, but he kept the lids of his eyes closed. Something was different. Jacob could not figure out precisely what it was, but he knew that things were not as they had been. For one, the light was all wrong. Before, he had been bathed in the too-white lights of the operating room’s fluorescent bulbs, but now sunlight warmed his face. He lay upon a bed as well, the unforgiving surface of the operating table replaced with the comfort of a downy mattress and pillows. The weight of a blanket lay upon him. From somewhere nearby, Jacob heard movement.

It is good that you have awakened. A deep, rumbly voice accompanied the movement.

Jacob jumped despite himself. He had not really been trying to pretend sleep, but now that he knew he was not alone, he thought it might be a good idea. Would whoever was there go away if he did so? But then, he could not very well go on pretending—even if he had not been doing so at the beginning—for he had given himself away by jumping.

He opened one of his eyes just so, peeking out from under his eyelashes. What he saw would have frightened many a child. Indeed, even he scrambled out from beneath his blanket at first, putting as much of the bed as possible between himself and what he saw.

Seated in a large wooden rocker was a great brown bear.

Jacob had seen a real live bear only once and that had been at the zoo. That one had been black and much smaller than this one, and he had sat in a cage eating at cabbage and other things while he and his dad had watched. In a cage! Jacob thought, studying the animal that sat only a few feet away.

The brown bear regarded him with one eye, black and bright. His other eye was hidden behind a dark patch of cloth that was otherwise lost in his thick fur. When he shifted his massive frame, the chair beneath him creaked in protest. He had legs the size of tree trunks, covered in