A Dream Deferred

Thomas had harboured a desire to be a cowboy since early childhood; the inconvenient reality of growing up in a provincial English town during the latter decades of the twentieth century did precious little to (1) .......... that flame of ambition. Every occupation he attempted after leaving school left him feeling profoundly (2) .......... ; buried somewhere within him persisted that indelible (3) .......... for vast open landscapes and nights spent beneath a canopy of stars. By his mid-twenties, he had accumulated a considerable sum of money put (4) .......... , and astonished those who knew him by declaring his (5) .......... to spend several years travelling the world — a decision wholly unprecedented within his (6) .......... of acquaintances. Genuine cowboys, he discovered, had long vanished from the American West, and he (7) .......... drifting southward through the continent. In Argentina, he encountered the gauchos — the legendary horsemen of the southern plains. The dormant dreams of boyhood stirred once more, and by (8) .......... force of will he persuaded a ranch owner to give him a position. Before long, he was living the life he had always imagined, and scarcely a word reached those back home for the better part of a decade.