The Heart of a Lion
Summary
In a rural Eden of furrowed clay and rusted ploughshares, Barney Kemper—calloused demi-god of the loam—sacrifices his own alphabet of dreams so that Dick, his flaxen-haired sibling, might conjugate Latin verbs under collegiate stained-glass; yet Dick metamorphoses into a prodigal moth who burns Barney’s hard-won gold in a bonfire of gin and roulette. Margaret Danford, physician’s daughter with a stethoscope for a diadem, adores the taciturn ploughman from the hazed periphery of hay-scented afternoons, slipping him dog-eared volumes of Keats as though they were contraband stars. A city sylph with lacquered smiles glides into the milk-fragrant hamlet, pirouettes into Barney’s yearning, then pirouettes out again on Dick’s perfumed arm. One twilight of crickets and treachery, Barney stumbles upon the pair entwined like poison ivy; his heart, once barn-red, blanches to bone. He exiles himself westward where rivers are unchained and men fell sequoias like pagan idols, trading furrows for sawdust gothic. Meanwhile Dick, chastened by ghosts, dons a collar of repentance and is dispatched to the very timber cathedral whose pews now echo with Barney’s self-exile. Margaret, unshakeable as Polaris, follows to raise a sanctuary of healing amid the resinous roar. Tex Daly, a cypress-tall demagogue of the axe, loathes the sermonizer in his saloon kingdom and, with a soiled dove as lure, rigs a scandal that ricochets into gunpowder. A bullet—meteor of karmic iron—rends Dick’s chest; Barney, summoned from the forest’s green nave, cradles the dying prodigy, then mounts the rough-hewn pulpit himself, voice shaking like cedar in a gale. Dick expires; Barney’s vengeance detonates; Tex crashes bloodied to the sawdust. In the hush that follows, Margaret’s hand finds Barney’s scarred palm, and two orphans of the same long sorrow step into a dawn that smells of sap and second birth.
Synopsis
Barney Kemper works hard on a farm so his younger brother Dick can go to college. However, Dick squanders Barney's money. Margaret Danford, daughter of the village doctor, loves Barney from afar and tries to educate him. A girlfriend of Margaret's comes for a visit and steals Barney's heart. The young girl turns to Dick, and Barney discovers them together. Embittered, Barney goes west to work in a lumber camp. But Dick reforms, and becomes a minister, and is assigned to the lumber camp. Margaret goes along to start a hospital. Tex Daly, leader of the lumbermen, resent Dick and try to frame him with a saloon girl. When Dick is shot by Tex, Barney appears and helps his wounded brother by taking charge of the church. Dick dies, and Barney kills Tex. Barney and Margaret are united.
