"You know how it is, me being alone with the boy for the first time."
When Lucas spoke these words in an episode entitled, "Outlaw's Inheritance," he was remembering back to the time when he had more or less inherited Mark. Many fathers do.
Not that he didn't love Margaret and Mark. He loved her like there was no tomorrow, and Mark more than anything else in this world, but Margaret had died and left him the widowed father of the West, the one we looked to for guidance on just what to do when the chips were down, when the cattle were dying, when everything and everyone stood (for a time) against you.
Margaret had died, and left him with Mark. More than that, though, she had left him with the heritage of his own promises to her. He would raise the boy right. He would make a home, a home that even included the finer things of the Old West such as a proper education and table manners, and yes, a world that Lucas himself had never really known. Lucas would look to that "someday son" when the world would be a better place. He would give the boy not just what he had inherited, but he would change the very course of fate for Mark. How? Faithfulness.
Lucas was a man of principles, but principles are useless if not followed, no matter the odds or the dust they kick up.
On this Father's Day, when we consider the gifts of good men in our lives, consider their faithfulness. It's at the core of who they are, done well, done right. Unlike mothers, it would be just as easy for them all to ride away. But they stay. They make promises and keep them. Need be, they go it alone when keeping those.
Thankfully, most men do not find themselves burying the mother of their sons, but many are tested to faithfulness in the course of manhood and fatherhood each day. Sometimes, the tests that turn up in small matter are harder than the ones that are more bold. A man can wrap his mind around a fight, but a pot of stew? Coming home at night? Telling a boy to do his homework---again? Making the books balance when he'd like to just ride out? Those things don't always come so easy to a man.
Lucas did ride out, but when he did, he tucked Mark up beneath his arm and rode off to find a better tomorrow, to keep his promises. He found himself alone with the boy when he was sick. Afraid, Lucas did not waver. A smart man knows when he's afraid, he assured Mark.
If ever we learn the lessons of faithfulness, it's in this: knowing you are afraid, alone, bored, tired and able to ride out alone, but you cannot. You cannot because faithfulness lies at your core. Listen then, you men, you women, too. On this Father's Day, be thankful for such virtue and being thankful, become more faithful to your promises.
