Chapter I
'Let us pray for those who are lost, that they may find their way the sooner
Let our hope be a beacon by which the wayward find salvation
Pray for he who is blind, that by grace he may behold the light
But let he who shuts his eyes be forever damned
Let us pray.'
- Gareth Falmer, former Rector of Dormis
The sun rose over the western reaches of the continent of Mescona. So wide was this land that on its eastern shores, the day had begun three hours before and the eastern folk - the farmers toiling over their vast plantations in the breadbasket of the south, or the fishermen and fur traders of the cold north - were well on their way to lunchtime when finally dawn came to the furthest reaches of the vast frontier of the west. In contrast to the gentrified and prosperous east, here each day was a bitter struggle against the elements, for these lands were not so hospitable as the fertile east. Yet every man of the west was happy to call himself free under the gods' blue sky. Here there were not many laws, and those few as the people agreed upon were enforced, if necessary, by the blood of those stalwart men and women who laid claim to the title of sheriff.
The sheriffs were few and scattered, but each individual was empowered by the people with ultimate authority to protect the lands of his - or her - jurisdiction as they saw fit - with words when they would suffice and with a .45 caliber bullet when they would not. Some protected one town, others protected as much as a whole county. An elite and heavily-armed corps known as the Iron Wardens protected the all-important railways and the coal-driven locomotives which chugged along their tracks. Since the inception of the train nearly a century before, it had revolutionized trade and travel, and now the flow of goods on these steam-powered engines was the very lifeblood of Mescona.
Bandits and outlaws flourished in the wide and scattered lands of the west, and the work of a sheriff was never finished, within his jealously guarded domain. All too often in these days, brigands were seen about bearing all manner of weapons, guns chief among them. The sheriff and the outlaw were mortal enemies, not the least because many of these ill-gotten firearms were the iconic wood-handled revolvers that could only have come from the still-warm body of a lawman. Throughout all the western lands, these criminals seemed to roam, coming upon defenseless towns without warning. Everywhere the brigands went, there was murder, robbery, and destruction, and it was the task of the local sheriff to oppose them.
Far north of the scalding desert mesas of the southwest, and some leagues west of the arid central-western plains of Fortuna, there was a chain of north-running mountains that separated these western expanses from the wide and frigid seas beyond. The eastern facing foothills of this range harbored a number of small and isolated towns, filled with hardy and self-sufficient peoples who lived, by and large, off the land. Here there were few bandits or outlaws, except for those black sheep as turned against their own neighbors - and were quickly put down by the same. These lands were peaceable and safe, protected by the surrounding hills from the worst of the frigid northern winds and from the incursion of bandits or outlaws by their natural isolation. The worst enemies these peoples generally had were the elements - or, on occasion, one another.
Dawn came now to the sleepy village of Dormis, snug within these northwestern hills. As every day, Jed Marcusson woke with the rising of the sun and took his breakfast before the east-facing window of his small home. The sun's warming rays began to fall pleasantly upon him as he finished his simple meal and gathered his thoughts, smoking his pipe in quiet contemplation on the front porch of the small and austere wooden building that served as his office and living quarters. The world before him was quiet and tranquil. This building sat upon one of the taller hills in Dormis, affording its sole occupant a grand view of the village and surrounding countryside. Far off, Jed saw the tiny shapes of villagers beginning to go about their daily business in the warm light of the rising sun - farmers, mostly, for few others rose quite so early. Jed was one of those few, and he was not a farmer.
A sudden wind blew, and for the first time in this adolescent year it did not harbor bitter traces of winter cold. All the villagers who now dotted the quiet landscape felt this waft of warm air from the balmy south and breathed a sigh of relief, for it told them one and all that winter's icy grip had been broken at last Finally spring had come to this lonely valley. As if on cue, birds now began to chirp and sing throughout the rolling hills, and Jed stood before his shack in contentment for a time. There was a clear sky above, with scarcely a few wisps of cloud to be seen. Jed had not yet put on his hat, and he was loathe as always to break the quiet serenity that hung over Dormis in the quiet hours of the morning. Briefly he considered taking the day off, but he quickly dismissed this errant idea. He tapped out the spent ashes of his pipe and went back inside his house to prepare for the daily patrol.
After all, the sheriff's work was never done.
The office was sparsely decorated, for Jed was a simple man of diligence and duty. A carven desk of fine wood was set against the rear wall, and this was littered with a few errant papers - logs of the sheriff's mundane daily activities. A woodburning furnace which doubled as his cooking stove sat in the corner, and some meager coals still glowed within it, though a fire was no longer needed in the tepid air of spring. There was little else in the main room that served as his office, for his duty was outside in the rolling hills and agrarian fields that made up his village. The only other chamber of this small building was Jed's spartan bedroom, with its cot and bureau. The sheriff returned now to this room and stood before the rear westward wall.
Here hung his carefully-maintained gear of office, every piece of it an heirloom of his father, who had been sheriff before him. Over his woolen tunic, he donned the vest of leather and chain which had long protected him and his forefathers from harm. A brass medallion in the finely wrought shape of a shield was affixed to this armored shirt - his badge of office. There was well-hidden but still visible evidence about the armor of the occasional patch or repair, where it had turned aside a fatal blow meant for its owner. These had all been struck before Jed's time, and his father had told him the long story of each of them. Next the sheriff put on his wide-brimmed hat and tall boots, and he pulled the hat down snug over his head, for he knew it would be a windy day. Finally Jed donned his long leather duster and wrapped low about the waist of this coat a heavy holster which held a long-bladed knife and was darkened with a fine patina of age.
There were a few more pieces of his father's gear which Jed left where they were, for he did not need them - some were archaic and kept out of sentimental value, some were merely not everyday necessities. The last thing Jed did was to reverentially pick up his gun. It was wrought of some metal that was both light and strong that he did not know the name of, and it was a wood-handled revolver which held six high caliber bullets - the classic firearm carried by sheriffs throughout the wide lands of Mescona, though Jed had never met another sheriff personally. Like most of his neighbors, he had never been far beyond the borders of his home village. This pistol was of fine craftsmanship, as the weapons of sheriffs were wont to be. Though it was clearly old, this revolver had been kept in the highest state of repair by Jed's reverent hand. In fact, he had seldom used it, other than to practice on the firing range.
From the wooden box in the bureau, Jed retrieved six brass cartridges. These rounds, crafted by hand with the carefully guarded secret of black powder, had been purchased by carrier mail from the nearest alchemist, who resided in Granesberg in the west of the plains of Fortuna. During his father's time, a practitioner of the mysterious craft of alchemy by the name of Reichard had resided in the small village of Dormis, although it was only in the man's retirement that he had come there. A skilled alchemist such as he could do a hundred different and amazing things with their esoteric art, given the right materials, but in a small farming community such as this, the aged natural philosopher had been given precious little to do, other than the dangerous process of producing ammunition for the local sheriff, which he happily did for only the cost of his ingredients.
Unfortunately, the alchemist had died some years ago, having never passed on his secrets, and Jed was forced now to purchase his ammunition by mail and have it delivered by the steam train that only periodically made the long trek to the isolated village. In fact, the train had not come in some time, as was often the case in the cold winters which plagued the arid Northwest regions of Mescona. The plains of Fortuna, many leagues east of Dormis, sat exposed in the center of these windy plains of the Northwest, and so it was a long and arduous journey, even by train, to come from there to the secluded village which sat near to the very western end of the tracks. Between the tardy train and his vigilant target practice, Jed was beginning to run dry on bullets, but he was not worried, for now that the spring had come, the train would soon be arriving. Jed hoped his last order had gone through in the early days of winter, and that the first arrival of the train would bring him fresh ammunition. He now only had one box remaining, and he had been forced to ease up on his target practice, lest he run out of the precious bullets and leave his gun useless when trouble did rear its ugly head. Nonetheless, he had still a full box, and a fair amount of spare ammunition tucked into loops set along his belt.
With a practiced flick of his wrist, Jed swung out the cylinder of his gun and loaded the rounds one at a time with dexterous precision. Finishing, he snapped it closed and with a deft twirl of the weapon around his finger, he stowed it in its holster, within easy reach of his hand. Beside it hung a more mundane weapon, though this was no less finely crafted. Among other nuggets of wisdom, Marcus had long impressed upon Jed the need for preparedness in all things - and therefore the need for a backup weapon - and so he had long carried this keen hunting knife at his side. Seldom had he had any actual use for the thing - much more often Jed had used it as a mundane tool. In his grandfather Leto's time, so his father had said, it had been the convention that most carried blades of some kind, even axes or spears among the militias, but these weapons had long since been displaced by the increasing prevalence and efficacy of firearms. Jed felt the need for little beside his trusty gun to defend himself, and it was only out of deference to his departed father that he kept his blade close at hand.
Thus equipped, the sheriff left his house behind to set about his daily patrol of the village. He was well-armed, but this was chiefly for the sake of tradition and duty. He expected as little trouble as there ever was in the sleepy village. By afternoon, Jed thought, he would be finished his patrol and could take a late lunch at the local saloon. He continued down the hill and into the heart of Dormis, passing a few villagers by. These greeted him warmly, for in his diligence he as was well-liked by the people as his father had been. He acknowledged the passersby with a tip of his hat and a congenial "Mornin,". Most of those he passed were much older than he, though it did not show in their polite deference. Jed was young - he had not yet seen his thirtieth year - but he was well-respected by the common folk for the seriousness with which he took his business.
It was his responsibility alone to serve and protect the people of this, his given jurisdiction, and he did a fine job of it, such as there was to defend. There were scant threats to the people of this isolated village - the icy winter from which Dormis had just emerged was the most impending danger in memory, but there had been nothing Jed could do for the two folks who had unfortunately met their ends in that frigid season. He was reminded of this as he passed by the scattered headstones of the local cemetery. The pair of new graves were a solemn reminder that it was not all peace and quietude in these lonely hills - on occasion, it seemed, the gods would feel need to exact their bloody toll.
"Arthur Heathrow. Delilah Heathrow," Jed read quietly to himself from the new-carved tombstones. He fixed these names in his mind, a reminder to himself to be forever vigilant against threats of all kinds to his people. The elements could be crueler than any outlaw, he knew now, and he had no weapon to strike out at the bitter cold that had taken these two nor the flood of the previous spring that had washed aged Tom Arbogast away. Shaking his head, he turned away to continue about his patrol. There was no use dwelling on the past, but still he kept it to heart. The next winter would see them better prepared, he resolved to himself.
Jed marched on about his business, intent on making for the southeast border of Dormis, where he could stand on the high hill and look out over the low peaks to see the plains beyond. His course, however, was soon interrupted when he came to the age-old Hawthorne plantation. Here thematron of the household, one Milisent Hawthorne, cried plaintively to him from her doorstep as he walked up the dirt path which served as one of the main byways of Dormis.
"Sheriff!" She called.
He strolled quickly up to the homestead and tipped his hatto her in greeting. The house, as practically every other building in Dormis, was a cozy wooden affair constructed of the rough-hewn logs of the cedar trees that dominated the local forests. The homestead was in many ways typical of the village: a central domicile neighbored by a scattering of barns and livestock coops which were by and large of the same construction as the house itself, though perhaps less fastidiously built. Past the scattering of rustic buildings that made up the Hawthorne Homestead was a series of discrete fields, each dedicated to a specific agricultural purpose. Like most villages and small towns, the majority of Dormis was agrarian and those relatively few people who did practice trades such as carpentry, smithing, or baking professionally tended to live and work around the very center of town.
"Ma'am," He said politely. "Is there ought I can help you with? I do hope something is not amiss,"
She dabbed a handkerchief to her eyes and took a moment to compose herself. She then spoke: "sheriff, it's awful. Huber was bringing the cows in last night after supper, and one of them was missing, so he says to me, he says 'I'll go out an' find Bessy.' - Bessy being the cow of course, I beg your pardon - and he takes his lantern and his hat and his stick and just like that he's gone. I'm always worried when he's out late - especially out drinking with those Larkin brothers down the lane - but he always comes home before dawn, Jed, always! How far could Bes' have gone? I got one of the boys out looking for him now but there's cows to be milked and plowing needs done and..," She grew increasingly frantic as she went on, until finally Jed held up his hand.
"It'll be alright, Ma'am, I'll go and look for him right now. I'm sure he just got lost or his lantern gave out and he had to camp out. Ol' Huber knows a thing or two about living off the land, as I'm sure you know. Why, he taught me how to make fire when I was a lad. Y'ain't got a thing to worry about,"
That seemed to calm her. "I'm sure you're right, sheriff. I'm greatly obliged for your help and your kind words. Oh, I wish your old pappy was here, may the gods rest him. He had a way of finding people when they was lost, and him and Huber was such good friends..," She trailed off and then seemed to recall something.
"Please, before I forget, take some food with you in case y'all get hungry. I'm sure when you find Huber he'll be about ready to cook Bessy on the spot if he doesn't get his breakfast soon,"
She handed him a bundle of cloth which was bulging with cheese, bread, and fruit. He tucked it away into his pack and thanked her.
"He went out in between the corn and the hay, past the pond toward the north. Please bring him back to me, sheriff," She teared up once more.
"Me and Huber will be back before you know it, Mil'. Try not to worry," He tried to sound reassuring, though something did, in fact, seem amiss. He felt a vague sense of trepidation. Why indeed was Huber out so long? It wasn't like him to get lost, and he knew the land well enough he wouldn't stop just because his lantern gave out. At worst, Jed thought, the farmer had taken a tumble and snapped an ankle, but if that had happened, he would surely have kindled a fire to signal for aid. Huber was a tough and wily sort.
He bade the tearful matron farewell and departed. As he walked between the cornfield and the hayfield, following the tracks of the old man's boots - which themselves followed a slightly older set of bovine tracks - he gazed upward to look for a smoke signal. He saw only empty blue sky and wisps of grey cloud, and his hopes fell a measure. Jed trod on, hoping Huber had left a strong trail behind him, and that the uneasiness he felt was just a nervous fancy.
After a league or so of following the old man's tracks along the winding country trail, Jed felt a growing sense of disquiet. The sun was now growing high in the sky, and by its position he judged that it was nigh on time for lunch. This was not the reason for his uneasiness, however. What, he wondered, would cause a wayward heifer to roam so far afield? A lost cow was not an uncommon affair in these parts, as he knew all too well, for being the sheriff of Dormis, it was the honor of his position to assist in any way possible whenever trouble came about, even trifles such as lost livestock. Jed continued on, mind wandering as he pondered this dilemma.
A few hours and leagues later, Jed's straying thoughts were reined in by his growling stomach, and so he resolved to stop and take his lunch. The sun was now directly overhead and the tracks Huber had left in the mud had grown no less clear, but neither did Jed see any particular sign that he was drawing nearer to his quarry. This troubled him, but he did not yet fancy any but the most mundane of causes for this impromptu venture. His disquiet had continued to grow, but presently he dismissed the queer mood as a byproduct of his burgeoning hunger, which he now resolved to settle. Ascending to the crest of the nearest hillock, Jed sat beneath the gnarled eves of its resident cedar tree and drew out the bundle Milisent Hawthorne had given him.
Unfolding the cloth, he took up a well-ripened apple and scanned the horizon for any indication of the old man, taking advantage of the view provided by his position. Still he saw no smoke signal, and now he was quite certain something was amiss. He helped himself to a portion of bread and cheese, which was quite good, as Milisent Hawthorne was known to make the finest cheese in the village, though the bread could not quite compare to that of Ben, the Baker. His hunger thus sated, and as he felt little inclined to set about his search again just yet, Jed drew out his pipe and filled it with tobacco. He sat and puffed on it in silence, scanning every knoll, rock, and shrub of which he could see for some sign of the lost old man.
Presently he saw naught but cedar trees and overgrown brambles, and Jed realized that he must have now passed into the lands once occupied by Antonius Ricker, whose name was ill-spoken by the villagers. Stranger was it still, then, that Huber had come so far in this direction, for it was a well-known superstition of the village that before the cantankerous Ricker's passing, he had spoken a curse on any who would pass onto his lands after his death. The old man had conceived of no heir and indeed had never taken a wife. Such was his jealous greed that he would sooner have seen the lands grow wild and his house rot and fall to ruin, rather than suffer the posthumous ignominy of another taking what in life had been his and his alone.
So it was thereafter that Ricker's final wish was in large part obeyed, for the citizens of Dormis were a superstitious lot who did not take such curses lightly. But now his lands had been, perhaps unwillingly or unintentionally, trespassed, and Jed, unfortunately, was bound to follow Huber's fate and find the old man, curses be damned. Jed was not as superstitious as many of the villagers, though his father Marcus had impressed upon him a healthy respect for old tales and legends - on the outside chance they happened to be true, for what did they truly know of what might dwell in the wide world or happen within its borders? Jed had little patience for such things. He did, however, believe in keeping close to heart the wisdom of those who had passed, and sohe was wary as he packed up his bundle and trod on into Ricker's erstwhile lands.
Jed followed Huber's spoor still but found that in some instinctual part of his mind, he knew where the tracks were headed and it was only as a formality that he occasionally glanced downward to look at the old man's bootprints in the mud. Jed had seldom ever passed this way before, but Marcus had in his youth taken him to the highest of the local peaks to acquaint him with the lay of the land. There his sharp eyes had picked out the far-off tumbledown of what was once a cedarwood homestead, and upon his inquiring, his father had told him the tale of Antonius Ricker and his deathbed curse on trespassers - forever now a part of the local folklore, though it had been only during the time of Marcus that Ricker had passed away of the red fever.
...
Hitting the character limit here. Read more on my wordpress.
'Let us pray for those who are lost, that they may find their way the sooner
Let our hope be a beacon by which the wayward find salvation
Pray for he who is blind, that by grace he may behold the light
But let he who shuts his eyes be forever damned
Let us pray.'
- Gareth Falmer, former Rector of Dormis
The sun rose over the western reaches of the continent of Mescona. So wide was this land that on its eastern shores, the day had begun three hours before and the eastern folk - the farmers toiling over their vast plantations in the breadbasket of the south, or the fishermen and fur traders of the cold north - were well on their way to lunchtime when finally dawn came to the furthest reaches of the vast frontier of the west. In contrast to the gentrified and prosperous east, here each day was a bitter struggle against the elements, for these lands were not so hospitable as the fertile east. Yet every man of the west was happy to call himself free under the gods' blue sky. Here there were not many laws, and those few as the people agreed upon were enforced, if necessary, by the blood of those stalwart men and women who laid claim to the title of sheriff.
The sheriffs were few and scattered, but each individual was empowered by the people with ultimate authority to protect the lands of his - or her - jurisdiction as they saw fit - with words when they would suffice and with a .45 caliber bullet when they would not. Some protected one town, others protected as much as a whole county. An elite and heavily-armed corps known as the Iron Wardens protected the all-important railways and the coal-driven locomotives which chugged along their tracks. Since the inception of the train nearly a century before, it had revolutionized trade and travel, and now the flow of goods on these steam-powered engines was the very lifeblood of Mescona.
Bandits and outlaws flourished in the wide and scattered lands of the west, and the work of a sheriff was never finished, within his jealously guarded domain. All too often in these days, brigands were seen about bearing all manner of weapons, guns chief among them. The sheriff and the outlaw were mortal enemies, not the least because many of these ill-gotten firearms were the iconic wood-handled revolvers that could only have come from the still-warm body of a lawman. Throughout all the western lands, these criminals seemed to roam, coming upon defenseless towns without warning. Everywhere the brigands went, there was murder, robbery, and destruction, and it was the task of the local sheriff to oppose them.
Far north of the scalding desert mesas of the southwest, and some leagues west of the arid central-western plains of Fortuna, there was a chain of north-running mountains that separated these western expanses from the wide and frigid seas beyond. The eastern facing foothills of this range harbored a number of small and isolated towns, filled with hardy and self-sufficient peoples who lived, by and large, off the land. Here there were few bandits or outlaws, except for those black sheep as turned against their own neighbors - and were quickly put down by the same. These lands were peaceable and safe, protected by the surrounding hills from the worst of the frigid northern winds and from the incursion of bandits or outlaws by their natural isolation. The worst enemies these peoples generally had were the elements - or, on occasion, one another.
Dawn came now to the sleepy village of Dormis, snug within these northwestern hills. As every day, Jed Marcusson woke with the rising of the sun and took his breakfast before the east-facing window of his small home. The sun's warming rays began to fall pleasantly upon him as he finished his simple meal and gathered his thoughts, smoking his pipe in quiet contemplation on the front porch of the small and austere wooden building that served as his office and living quarters. The world before him was quiet and tranquil. This building sat upon one of the taller hills in Dormis, affording its sole occupant a grand view of the village and surrounding countryside. Far off, Jed saw the tiny shapes of villagers beginning to go about their daily business in the warm light of the rising sun - farmers, mostly, for few others rose quite so early. Jed was one of those few, and he was not a farmer.
A sudden wind blew, and for the first time in this adolescent year it did not harbor bitter traces of winter cold. All the villagers who now dotted the quiet landscape felt this waft of warm air from the balmy south and breathed a sigh of relief, for it told them one and all that winter's icy grip had been broken at last Finally spring had come to this lonely valley. As if on cue, birds now began to chirp and sing throughout the rolling hills, and Jed stood before his shack in contentment for a time. There was a clear sky above, with scarcely a few wisps of cloud to be seen. Jed had not yet put on his hat, and he was loathe as always to break the quiet serenity that hung over Dormis in the quiet hours of the morning. Briefly he considered taking the day off, but he quickly dismissed this errant idea. He tapped out the spent ashes of his pipe and went back inside his house to prepare for the daily patrol.
After all, the sheriff's work was never done.
The office was sparsely decorated, for Jed was a simple man of diligence and duty. A carven desk of fine wood was set against the rear wall, and this was littered with a few errant papers - logs of the sheriff's mundane daily activities. A woodburning furnace which doubled as his cooking stove sat in the corner, and some meager coals still glowed within it, though a fire was no longer needed in the tepid air of spring. There was little else in the main room that served as his office, for his duty was outside in the rolling hills and agrarian fields that made up his village. The only other chamber of this small building was Jed's spartan bedroom, with its cot and bureau. The sheriff returned now to this room and stood before the rear westward wall.
Here hung his carefully-maintained gear of office, every piece of it an heirloom of his father, who had been sheriff before him. Over his woolen tunic, he donned the vest of leather and chain which had long protected him and his forefathers from harm. A brass medallion in the finely wrought shape of a shield was affixed to this armored shirt - his badge of office. There was well-hidden but still visible evidence about the armor of the occasional patch or repair, where it had turned aside a fatal blow meant for its owner. These had all been struck before Jed's time, and his father had told him the long story of each of them. Next the sheriff put on his wide-brimmed hat and tall boots, and he pulled the hat down snug over his head, for he knew it would be a windy day. Finally Jed donned his long leather duster and wrapped low about the waist of this coat a heavy holster which held a long-bladed knife and was darkened with a fine patina of age.
There were a few more pieces of his father's gear which Jed left where they were, for he did not need them - some were archaic and kept out of sentimental value, some were merely not everyday necessities. The last thing Jed did was to reverentially pick up his gun. It was wrought of some metal that was both light and strong that he did not know the name of, and it was a wood-handled revolver which held six high caliber bullets - the classic firearm carried by sheriffs throughout the wide lands of Mescona, though Jed had never met another sheriff personally. Like most of his neighbors, he had never been far beyond the borders of his home village. This pistol was of fine craftsmanship, as the weapons of sheriffs were wont to be. Though it was clearly old, this revolver had been kept in the highest state of repair by Jed's reverent hand. In fact, he had seldom used it, other than to practice on the firing range.
From the wooden box in the bureau, Jed retrieved six brass cartridges. These rounds, crafted by hand with the carefully guarded secret of black powder, had been purchased by carrier mail from the nearest alchemist, who resided in Granesberg in the west of the plains of Fortuna. During his father's time, a practitioner of the mysterious craft of alchemy by the name of Reichard had resided in the small village of Dormis, although it was only in the man's retirement that he had come there. A skilled alchemist such as he could do a hundred different and amazing things with their esoteric art, given the right materials, but in a small farming community such as this, the aged natural philosopher had been given precious little to do, other than the dangerous process of producing ammunition for the local sheriff, which he happily did for only the cost of his ingredients.
Unfortunately, the alchemist had died some years ago, having never passed on his secrets, and Jed was forced now to purchase his ammunition by mail and have it delivered by the steam train that only periodically made the long trek to the isolated village. In fact, the train had not come in some time, as was often the case in the cold winters which plagued the arid Northwest regions of Mescona. The plains of Fortuna, many leagues east of Dormis, sat exposed in the center of these windy plains of the Northwest, and so it was a long and arduous journey, even by train, to come from there to the secluded village which sat near to the very western end of the tracks. Between the tardy train and his vigilant target practice, Jed was beginning to run dry on bullets, but he was not worried, for now that the spring had come, the train would soon be arriving. Jed hoped his last order had gone through in the early days of winter, and that the first arrival of the train would bring him fresh ammunition. He now only had one box remaining, and he had been forced to ease up on his target practice, lest he run out of the precious bullets and leave his gun useless when trouble did rear its ugly head. Nonetheless, he had still a full box, and a fair amount of spare ammunition tucked into loops set along his belt.
With a practiced flick of his wrist, Jed swung out the cylinder of his gun and loaded the rounds one at a time with dexterous precision. Finishing, he snapped it closed and with a deft twirl of the weapon around his finger, he stowed it in its holster, within easy reach of his hand. Beside it hung a more mundane weapon, though this was no less finely crafted. Among other nuggets of wisdom, Marcus had long impressed upon Jed the need for preparedness in all things - and therefore the need for a backup weapon - and so he had long carried this keen hunting knife at his side. Seldom had he had any actual use for the thing - much more often Jed had used it as a mundane tool. In his grandfather Leto's time, so his father had said, it had been the convention that most carried blades of some kind, even axes or spears among the militias, but these weapons had long since been displaced by the increasing prevalence and efficacy of firearms. Jed felt the need for little beside his trusty gun to defend himself, and it was only out of deference to his departed father that he kept his blade close at hand.
Thus equipped, the sheriff left his house behind to set about his daily patrol of the village. He was well-armed, but this was chiefly for the sake of tradition and duty. He expected as little trouble as there ever was in the sleepy village. By afternoon, Jed thought, he would be finished his patrol and could take a late lunch at the local saloon. He continued down the hill and into the heart of Dormis, passing a few villagers by. These greeted him warmly, for in his diligence he as was well-liked by the people as his father had been. He acknowledged the passersby with a tip of his hat and a congenial "Mornin,". Most of those he passed were much older than he, though it did not show in their polite deference. Jed was young - he had not yet seen his thirtieth year - but he was well-respected by the common folk for the seriousness with which he took his business.
It was his responsibility alone to serve and protect the people of this, his given jurisdiction, and he did a fine job of it, such as there was to defend. There were scant threats to the people of this isolated village - the icy winter from which Dormis had just emerged was the most impending danger in memory, but there had been nothing Jed could do for the two folks who had unfortunately met their ends in that frigid season. He was reminded of this as he passed by the scattered headstones of the local cemetery. The pair of new graves were a solemn reminder that it was not all peace and quietude in these lonely hills - on occasion, it seemed, the gods would feel need to exact their bloody toll.
"Arthur Heathrow. Delilah Heathrow," Jed read quietly to himself from the new-carved tombstones. He fixed these names in his mind, a reminder to himself to be forever vigilant against threats of all kinds to his people. The elements could be crueler than any outlaw, he knew now, and he had no weapon to strike out at the bitter cold that had taken these two nor the flood of the previous spring that had washed aged Tom Arbogast away. Shaking his head, he turned away to continue about his patrol. There was no use dwelling on the past, but still he kept it to heart. The next winter would see them better prepared, he resolved to himself.
Jed marched on about his business, intent on making for the southeast border of Dormis, where he could stand on the high hill and look out over the low peaks to see the plains beyond. His course, however, was soon interrupted when he came to the age-old Hawthorne plantation. Here thematron of the household, one Milisent Hawthorne, cried plaintively to him from her doorstep as he walked up the dirt path which served as one of the main byways of Dormis.
"Sheriff!" She called.
He strolled quickly up to the homestead and tipped his hatto her in greeting. The house, as practically every other building in Dormis, was a cozy wooden affair constructed of the rough-hewn logs of the cedar trees that dominated the local forests. The homestead was in many ways typical of the village: a central domicile neighbored by a scattering of barns and livestock coops which were by and large of the same construction as the house itself, though perhaps less fastidiously built. Past the scattering of rustic buildings that made up the Hawthorne Homestead was a series of discrete fields, each dedicated to a specific agricultural purpose. Like most villages and small towns, the majority of Dormis was agrarian and those relatively few people who did practice trades such as carpentry, smithing, or baking professionally tended to live and work around the very center of town.
"Ma'am," He said politely. "Is there ought I can help you with? I do hope something is not amiss,"
She dabbed a handkerchief to her eyes and took a moment to compose herself. She then spoke: "sheriff, it's awful. Huber was bringing the cows in last night after supper, and one of them was missing, so he says to me, he says 'I'll go out an' find Bessy.' - Bessy being the cow of course, I beg your pardon - and he takes his lantern and his hat and his stick and just like that he's gone. I'm always worried when he's out late - especially out drinking with those Larkin brothers down the lane - but he always comes home before dawn, Jed, always! How far could Bes' have gone? I got one of the boys out looking for him now but there's cows to be milked and plowing needs done and..," She grew increasingly frantic as she went on, until finally Jed held up his hand.
"It'll be alright, Ma'am, I'll go and look for him right now. I'm sure he just got lost or his lantern gave out and he had to camp out. Ol' Huber knows a thing or two about living off the land, as I'm sure you know. Why, he taught me how to make fire when I was a lad. Y'ain't got a thing to worry about,"
That seemed to calm her. "I'm sure you're right, sheriff. I'm greatly obliged for your help and your kind words. Oh, I wish your old pappy was here, may the gods rest him. He had a way of finding people when they was lost, and him and Huber was such good friends..," She trailed off and then seemed to recall something.
"Please, before I forget, take some food with you in case y'all get hungry. I'm sure when you find Huber he'll be about ready to cook Bessy on the spot if he doesn't get his breakfast soon,"
She handed him a bundle of cloth which was bulging with cheese, bread, and fruit. He tucked it away into his pack and thanked her.
"He went out in between the corn and the hay, past the pond toward the north. Please bring him back to me, sheriff," She teared up once more.
"Me and Huber will be back before you know it, Mil'. Try not to worry," He tried to sound reassuring, though something did, in fact, seem amiss. He felt a vague sense of trepidation. Why indeed was Huber out so long? It wasn't like him to get lost, and he knew the land well enough he wouldn't stop just because his lantern gave out. At worst, Jed thought, the farmer had taken a tumble and snapped an ankle, but if that had happened, he would surely have kindled a fire to signal for aid. Huber was a tough and wily sort.
He bade the tearful matron farewell and departed. As he walked between the cornfield and the hayfield, following the tracks of the old man's boots - which themselves followed a slightly older set of bovine tracks - he gazed upward to look for a smoke signal. He saw only empty blue sky and wisps of grey cloud, and his hopes fell a measure. Jed trod on, hoping Huber had left a strong trail behind him, and that the uneasiness he felt was just a nervous fancy.
After a league or so of following the old man's tracks along the winding country trail, Jed felt a growing sense of disquiet. The sun was now growing high in the sky, and by its position he judged that it was nigh on time for lunch. This was not the reason for his uneasiness, however. What, he wondered, would cause a wayward heifer to roam so far afield? A lost cow was not an uncommon affair in these parts, as he knew all too well, for being the sheriff of Dormis, it was the honor of his position to assist in any way possible whenever trouble came about, even trifles such as lost livestock. Jed continued on, mind wandering as he pondered this dilemma.
A few hours and leagues later, Jed's straying thoughts were reined in by his growling stomach, and so he resolved to stop and take his lunch. The sun was now directly overhead and the tracks Huber had left in the mud had grown no less clear, but neither did Jed see any particular sign that he was drawing nearer to his quarry. This troubled him, but he did not yet fancy any but the most mundane of causes for this impromptu venture. His disquiet had continued to grow, but presently he dismissed the queer mood as a byproduct of his burgeoning hunger, which he now resolved to settle. Ascending to the crest of the nearest hillock, Jed sat beneath the gnarled eves of its resident cedar tree and drew out the bundle Milisent Hawthorne had given him.
Unfolding the cloth, he took up a well-ripened apple and scanned the horizon for any indication of the old man, taking advantage of the view provided by his position. Still he saw no smoke signal, and now he was quite certain something was amiss. He helped himself to a portion of bread and cheese, which was quite good, as Milisent Hawthorne was known to make the finest cheese in the village, though the bread could not quite compare to that of Ben, the Baker. His hunger thus sated, and as he felt little inclined to set about his search again just yet, Jed drew out his pipe and filled it with tobacco. He sat and puffed on it in silence, scanning every knoll, rock, and shrub of which he could see for some sign of the lost old man.
Presently he saw naught but cedar trees and overgrown brambles, and Jed realized that he must have now passed into the lands once occupied by Antonius Ricker, whose name was ill-spoken by the villagers. Stranger was it still, then, that Huber had come so far in this direction, for it was a well-known superstition of the village that before the cantankerous Ricker's passing, he had spoken a curse on any who would pass onto his lands after his death. The old man had conceived of no heir and indeed had never taken a wife. Such was his jealous greed that he would sooner have seen the lands grow wild and his house rot and fall to ruin, rather than suffer the posthumous ignominy of another taking what in life had been his and his alone.
So it was thereafter that Ricker's final wish was in large part obeyed, for the citizens of Dormis were a superstitious lot who did not take such curses lightly. But now his lands had been, perhaps unwillingly or unintentionally, trespassed, and Jed, unfortunately, was bound to follow Huber's fate and find the old man, curses be damned. Jed was not as superstitious as many of the villagers, though his father Marcus had impressed upon him a healthy respect for old tales and legends - on the outside chance they happened to be true, for what did they truly know of what might dwell in the wide world or happen within its borders? Jed had little patience for such things. He did, however, believe in keeping close to heart the wisdom of those who had passed, and sohe was wary as he packed up his bundle and trod on into Ricker's erstwhile lands.
Jed followed Huber's spoor still but found that in some instinctual part of his mind, he knew where the tracks were headed and it was only as a formality that he occasionally glanced downward to look at the old man's bootprints in the mud. Jed had seldom ever passed this way before, but Marcus had in his youth taken him to the highest of the local peaks to acquaint him with the lay of the land. There his sharp eyes had picked out the far-off tumbledown of what was once a cedarwood homestead, and upon his inquiring, his father had told him the tale of Antonius Ricker and his deathbed curse on trespassers - forever now a part of the local folklore, though it had been only during the time of Marcus that Ricker had passed away of the red fever.
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Hitting the character limit here. Read more on my wordpress.
