Page "Will Penny" Paragraph 3

As Christmas and winter pass, the lonely Penny and sexually repressed Catherine fall in love, and Penny begins to develop fatherly feelings towards the young boy Horace.

The three have lived together as a family unit, during which Penny has caught poignant glimpses of everything that has been missing from his own nomadic, rootless life.

For a while it seems there is a possibility that he can settle down with the woman and child and continue this happy arrangement.

Part of Penny desperately wants to put down roots and end his lonely existence as an itinerant cow hand.

Ultimately, however, Penny realizes that he is simply too old to keep on living like he used to ( he is around 50 ) and too set in his ways to ever settle down in a domestic setting.

Deeply regretful about what he is leaving behind, he rides away from the woman and child, never to return — though not before having to face the Quints again, and this time defeat them with help from fellow ranchers.