Ram - Rodney St Clair Ballenden

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Résumé :
When Loren Packard stalks her first Bighorn ram she feels the primitive forces of the hunter stirring in her. She craves the rush of power. The challenge of meeting an adversary eye to eye, each magnificent in their own way, and yet each holding the darker side of deceit inherent in all conquests of superiority of the one over the other. The fact that Loren is a novice makes the challenge even greater. She hires a professional guide to train her and works hard to meet his demanding levels of proficiency. All the while hiding her agenda from her husband and two children. However, her son, Anthony grows suspicious. Always the interrogator and despite his tender twelve years of age, not the one for allowing sleeping dogs to lie. When the principal of her children's primary school calls a meeting to discuss the insidious drug problem creeping into their midst and the related separation of parent to child, Loren rises to the occasion. She draws a parallel to the horrors of terrorism, the bully, and the growing threat of drug peddling at school, to the skills learned as a hunter and the challenges facing a child growing up in the modern world. Her opinion stuns Larry, her husband, and with Anthony nipping away at her defences, Loren tells them of her mission to hunt all four Bighorn rams in their own environments. The money to pay for this mission becomes Larry's overriding concern and he vows to stop his wife. He knows that the money she needs for her hunt can only be taken from their family policies and, since his income has slowed, he feels compelled to intervene. Loren disregards the pleas of her husband and family in favour of the glitz and the glamour of the Bighorn hunting fraternity. She buys into the security of a professional Outfitting company, Extreme Hunt Adventures, and as she drifts from the truth of an inner calling, so the forces stacked against her mount up. Where once she had vowed to fight for those she called 'mine' even if that be not so truthful, she now stares defeat in the eye. Her mission seems doomed. Her well laid plans flounder against the brick wall of Wildlife administration details and the cruellest card of them all; fate. Her only option to admit defeat and crawl back home. Only then does her Red Indian friend, Stand Open, reveal his true worth. A worth which Loren had cast aside, but which now offers her a hand to go into those mountains and fetch her ram. And she does. She conquers the terrain and the elements. She meets the challenges of the hunt and brings out her trophy. But at what cost? And can she bare the consequences of her victory?

Biographie:
Rodney St Clair Ballenden was born in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1947. In lieu of an academic career he traveled extensively through Europe, the United Sates of America and Greece. He married Colleen and returned to South Africa to farm, but the call of the wild drew him into a hermit existence placing him in extreme situations exposed to danger and the vagaries of storm and wind. From his observations on man and his relationship with the wilderness he began to write, and his books are available on the SmashWord platform as well as at Draft2Digital. Rodney now lives in Spain....