Chapter VII
‘Maybe you’re out of ammo, maybe the gun is knocked out of your hand. Maybe you discover what you save in coin buying cheap tin-cased bullets ain’t worth your trusty .45 jamming at the wrong moment. The point is, sooner or later shooting won’t be an option. I’ve seen more than one deadeye put in the ground for lack of a backup weapon.
Boot knife, knuckle dusters, blackjack. Whatever blows your skirt up. Hell, it wasn’t too long ago our predecessors were buckling on swords every morning. Any idiot can shoot a pistol straight. What separates the true lawman from the meek pretender is what you do when the bullets run dry and the gloves come off.
I hope when they do, you’ve got a good knife at your side and you know how to use it.’
- ‘The Lawman’s Field Manual’ by Marshall E.G. Tucker
“…What do you mean you don’t have any bullets?” Jed demanded of the postman as Huber came loping up behind him, still a bit out of breath. The blue-shirted train official shrugged, shivering somewhat in the wind despite it being what the Dormians reckoned was a fine spring day. “Is that not self-explanatory?” The postman said irritably, evidently being in the closing hours of a very long day. “I’m sorry, sheriff, but your letter must’ve gotten lost in the mail. I have here on my ledger,” He tapped the leather-bound book in which he was checking off each parcel as its owner claimed it. “That we took on board some four letters on the last stop here before the snow made the tracks impassable in early winter. All four were accounted for when we transferred the postage on our stop in Briar Run to the main Fortuna post station there. If you’re unsatisfied with the post service, I suggest you take it up with them. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d very much like to get these parcels delivered and to put my feet up in the saloon with a nice mug of beer,” The busy postman pushed past Jed with the few remaining packages, calling out names and collecting signatures in return.
Jed looked mightily frustrated, and was gaping in disbelieve, sticking his head inside the train car to check for himself that there were, indeed, no packages meant for him, whether they contained bullets or otherwise. The sheriff shook his head, muttering, and pulled a pair of sealed envelopes from the inside pocket of his long coat. “What’re they?” The unlettered farmer asked interestedly. Jed placed the letters carefully into the outgoing mail bin and turned away from the train, deep in thought. “I been dreading the possibility, but I thought this might be a problem. I’ve heard tell a few times of packages going amiss what was meant for towns in Fortuna. Never thought much of it, but I’d figured as I better be prepared for the worst in any case,” Huber nodded, though he did not truly understand. “So you ain’t got no bullets?” The farmer said, with an expression of mute horror as if the implications of this were only then dawning on him. He relaxed somewhat as the sheriff dispelled the worst of his fears.
“Give me a little credit, Hue. I still got about a full box of .45’s. Shot, though, I’m about run dry on. I got a few spare guns, but they’re all scatterguns, so we ain’t got nothin’ to shoot until the next train comes, at the earliest. I was fixin’ to get you and the boys a bit of practice tomorrow and to keep ‘em rotated through the watch so at least three of y’all is always armed, but that ain’t gonna be an option now,” Jed looked pensive, and Huber shared his ruminations. “Well, ‘spose I can go fetch my woodaxe after all,” The farmer said after a thoughtful pause. “Guess we’ll have to figure somethin’ else out for arming the rest of them boys. Maybe we can borrow Ed’s rifle, if he’s still feverish. I know he’s got at least a few rounds lying about, and it ain’t much use to him in bed as he is,” Jed said nothing, though he agreed the single rifle would be better than nothing if its owner could be convinced to part with it for a while.
“I didn’t say I was quite out of shells,” Jed said finally after a pause. “If’n you’re comfortable with a scattergun, what few shots I got left for ‘em is yours. Just, er,” He hesitated, and Huber caught his wary gaze. “Do be careful with it, won’tcha? I’d rather not catch some careless buckshot in the back, and we ain’t got spare shells enough for you to get any practice in,” The farmer seemed only slightly offended, but he nodded in understanding of the sheriff’s concern. “Don’t you worry none, Jed. I won’t pull the trigger ’til one of them scaly varmints is right up against the end of my barrel,” Huber grinned beneath his wiry beard. Despite the farmer’s evident skill at putting up a tough exterior, Jed’s wary senses detected some unease concealed beneath what in his mind was a forced smile. He eyed the farmer for a silent moment, but turned away, headed back west toward the town and the sun that was now slowly beginning to sink below the tall hills.
“Where we goin’?” Deputy Hawthorne inquired, and Jed slowed his pace slightly in deference to the farmer’s shorter legs. “My office,” The sheriff answered. “We got plans to make, if’n we’re gonna go pay them lizards another visit,” Huber balked. “You’re still plannin’ on goin’? Don’t you think we ought to wait for the next train to bring us some bullets, Jed?” The sheriff shook his head, his mind made up. “It could be a week or better before the next train comes. I got bullets enough to put the fear of the Lords in however many of them lizards we find down there,” He turned back to look at Huber and the ghost of a smile was on the sheriff’s face. “Besides, I got a few more ideas floatin’ around in my head. Let’s you and me hash out a plan, Hue. Then tomorrow I’ll show y’all a bit about bein’ a lawman.” The farmer nodded. “Lead on, Sheriff,” He said deferentially.
The two made their way back along the winding path toward the town square. Eventually they came to Bishop’s saloon, not two doors down from the now empty pavilion, where evidently the tables had already been cleared off. Jed snorted, almost impressed by the efficiency with which the cleanup had been organized, to be finished already – Helena Cooper was not all talk, he had to admit. Jed came to a halt before the rather run-down face of the tavern, with its dangling wooden sign. Evidently one of the old chains that held aloft the large wooden plaque bearing the words ‘Bishop’s Waterin’ Hole’ had broken some days before, and Jed noted with some amusement the ramshackle repair that had been made by the penny pinching barman – the sign was now held up by a piece of old rope on the right side. He motioned Huber wordlessly to follow as he pushed through the swinging doors of the saloon.
“Gonna have us an ale?” Huber said with cautious enthusiasm. Jed smirked but shook his head. “Not just yet, though I’m fixin’ to have one before the day’s out. Just now we’re here on business, so look sharp, deputy,” Deputy Hawthorne nodded, squaring his shoulders as he trailed in the sheriff’s wake. Jed surveyed the near-empty bar – although not forbidden either legally or dogmatically, it was generally frowned upon to be getting sauced on an early Sunday afternoon. Myron Bishop, polishing a mug behind the bar, nodded to the sheriff and raised the mug in his hands with a questioning glance. Jed shook his head, tapping the badge on his chest and gesturing at the large room around them. Bishop shrugged his shoulders lightly and turned his glance away. Following his gaze, the sheriff saw what he had been looking for, tucked away into a dark corner of the establishment. He nodded his silent thanks and quietly approached, his muted footfalls not catching the attention of the figures slumped over the table in question.
“Deputies Fisher and Owens!” Jed announced suddenly in his most authoritative tone. The two figures at the table scrambled in their shock and slipped off their wooden stools, knocking empty glasses – and a pair of half full ones – in a clatter onto the floor. Jed stepped carefully over the shards of glass, the heels of his boots clicking on the hard wood of the floor. He stood above the fallen men for a moment in grim silence, hands on his hips, then he broke it with a congenial chuckle. “The cost of those glasses will be comin’ out of your pay, of course,” The sheriff began. “We get paid?” Owens said in confusion. Glossing over that for the moment, Jed continued. “But other than that, y’ain’t in trouble, so why are you boy’s so uptight? I just came to see how y’all were doin’ after your first time on watch,”
Fisher and Owens exchanged a look, struggling half-intoxicated to their feet and replacing themselves upon the stools. Bishop came by with a broom to begin sweeping up the broken glass. “Other than you scarin’ us half to death, we’re doin’ about alright, Sheriff,” Said Fisher. “Just havin’ our usual Sunday drink, beggin’ your pardon,” Jed waved him off. “What you do when you’re not on duty is your own business, Ford. I was just havin’ fun with y’all,” Owens look relieved at this, letting out a breath and turning to order another ale from the rather annoyed barman. Jed continued. “Speaking of duty though, I do have some orders for y’all, though I hate to interrupt your drinkin’,” Myron Bishop brought around another pair of ales for the pair of regulars, though Fisher had not ordered one. The two men gratefully took their mugs of beer. Jed heard the doors swing open once more with a clatter, and saw with a glance that it was the weary postman. Jed could not help but be annoyed with the man, though surely there was nothing he could’ve done about the lost letter. The sheriff shook his head, turning back to the deputies.
“Anyways. I need y’all two to go ’round to all the deputies and tell ‘em to be at my office at high noon tomorrow. You remember everybody what volunteered, I trust?” The deputies nodded, sipping from their mugs. “Go ‘head and finish your drinks, but I want this done before sundown. J.R. has first watch tonight, and go ahead and tell, er… Deputy Bringham that he’s to patrol with Coleman. Might learn him a thing or two, I reckon,” The others nodded, having their own doubts about the slight, bookish lad. “Any questions?” Fordham Fisher raised his hand above the table and Jed regarded him wryly. “I ain’t a schoolteacher, Ford. But what’s your question?”
“Well, er… That is, me and Mitch was wonderin’ if we get guns, Sheriff,” Jed seemed to consider this, to Deputy Hawthorne’s confusion. “Hmm, might be as you could earn your way clear to bearing iron. Ol’ Huber here I know can handle a scattergun, and I know Coleman’s been in a scrap or two, but have y’all ever even shot before?” The two young deputies looked crestfallen, shaking their heads. The sheriff held his tongue in regard to the best marksman that unfortunately was not yet with them, young Edmain Larkin. He dug in his pocket, tossing a couple of heavy coins onto the table. “Don’t feel bad, boys. Wasn’t too many years ago I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with this here pistol. Buy yourself a couple of drinks on me,” He caught the grateful glint in their eyes and added after a moment’s thought “…After you deliver my message,” Owens looked crestfallen again, but Fordham Fisher looked taken aback.
“But of course, Sheriff. Duty always comes first! The lawman’s work is never started, after all,” He said gravely. Owens elbowed him in the ribs, causing Fisher to spill a bit of the beer he was quaffing. “Ford, you idiot, its never finished!” Fisher looked confused for a moment, to Jed’s amusement. “What ain’t? Oh! Right. Never finished, I meant,” The taller deputy said with some embarrassment. Jed dismissed them. “That’s all for now, deputies. Drink your fill, but I want you bright-eyed and sober tomorrow, got it? No drinkin’ on the job,” He turned to leave to a chorus of “Yes sir!” from the pair. Huber followed at the sheriff’s heels. After they had passed through the swinging doors of the saloon, the farmer spoke.
“What was all that about earnin’ a gun, Jed? I thought you was out of shot for the scatterguns,” Huber said in earnest confusion. “We don’t need to worry folks none about me bein’ low on bullets,” Said the sheriff. “You keep that under your hat, you hear? Might hurt morale if it got out. We’ll have more shot soon enough,” Jed was contemplative as they walked up the dusty road. The sun was beginning to sink behind the hills, casting longer and longer shadows. The days too had been lengthening, but as yet night still came fairly early to Dormis. “Reckon it seems like y’all are real excited to shoot, though,” Jed said at length. “I might just let y’all each take a shot with my pistol,” Huber seemed excited at this prospect. “That’d be mighty keen, Jed,” The sheriff did not share this enthusiasm, his mind working over his options.
On the one hand, he had only one box of ammunition remaining – fifty bullets, not counting the loose rounds he had strung about the waist of his belt holster. He had eighteen deputies, and he reckoned two shots apiece ought to hold over their excitement until the next shipment came in. Twice now in the scant hours since they were recruited, he’d been asked by a deputy about their armaments, and if that was anything to go on, Jed figured, it was at the forefront of the young men’s minds. There was a delicate balance of morale to be maintained, it seemed to the sheriff. The long winter had done little for the town’s well-being, and coming out of it right into a catastrophe of this magnitude surely hadn’t helped. These boys, young and eager, were potentially risking their lives to stand in defense of their home and their families. Yet Jed was leaving them all behind in town save for Huber, to keep them out of harm’s way. If he didn’t play his cards right, he thought, the deputy’s would be fixing to abandon their posts and turn in their badges before the week was out.
And before they might truly be needed, Jed added to himelf. He had to make the newly minted lawmen feel as if they were truly helping out, he resolved, and that meant some kind of demonstration of their new responsibilities, to reinforce their sense of duty and the trust Jed was placing in them. In the blessed absence of a public killing by the Boreans to cement in the deputies’ minds the gravity of the situation, Jed reckoned that he had better at least let them each squeeze off a couple rounds to get their spirits up. He keenly remembered when first his father had lent him the responsibility of bearing a gun, if only on the target range. The heavy iron shining in his hand, he had felt for the first time full of righteous zeal, even if his first shots had gone wide of the crude effigy of a bandit Marcus had rigged up for him to shoot at. He had, after all, been only ten years old. He expected about the same level of accuracy from his new deputies, despite their greater age, save perhaps for Coleman or Hawthorne, who had at least a smattering of experience with firearms.
That was that, he decided. It seemed like a terrible waste of his scant bullets, but what was that compared to the potential of losing a goodly portion of his new allies? The town watch was central to his plan for dealing with the Boreans, and if his inklings about the beasts’ intention were anything like true, they could at any time be stalking the village in the dead of night. Seeking a hole in their defenses, or perhaps just an easy meal, he could see in his mind the savage lizard men sneaking past unoccupied watch posts to steal away with their precious livestock – or worse, their children. He knew not if the beasts were truly malicious or if they were merely hungry. But Jed had a gut feeling that they were all too keenly intelligent. Having met the gaze of more than one of the cold-blooded monsters, it was all too easy to imagine a burning hatred stewing in the unreadable depths of those murderous eyes.
Or desire for vengeance, the sheriff reminded himself, remembering with regret the apothecary’s reckoning that those Boreans as he had slain were only juveniles. He’d little other option at the time, but now he wondered if perhaps his hasty actions had damned them all to the wrath of the vengeful mother of that cold brood. This was all speculation on Jed’s part, he admitted to himself, but all the same, if whatever passed for the Boreans’ society was anything like their own, it was only a matter of time until they wreaked a bloody vengeance upon Dormis. Family feuds were all too common an affair in the village, the sheriff knew all too well, and those were often began with some innocuous slight between fighting children. Lesser matters than murder, to be sure, but here Jed had slain five of the Borean young, if the apothecary’s guess was right. He knew not what to make of this, and for the moment only harbored some awful feeling in the pit of his stomach as he ruminated over the matter.
Now Jed and Huber had nearly reached the sheriff’s office, having walked clear across the village in the moody silence which the two had often shared in the day since their first adventure. Both nearly broke the dead air a few times, only for some reluctance to hold their respective tongues. Sometimes it was easy to make jokes, if only to mask their discomfiture a while longer with humor. Other times, like now, on their way to play a reluctant return to that accursed place, the two were each lost in their own thoughts as they pondered just what awaited them in their inevitable trek to Ricker’s Vale, and whatever lay beyond it in the den of the Boreans. The latter they still had to find, Jed reminded himself, and that was to be one of the more difficult tasks, if he was any judge. The beasts were quick and stealthy when they wanted to be, and according to Huber, they were camouflaged damnably well in the dark stretches of forest in which they hunted. He wondered how they were going to manage it without ending up torn apart in a forest ambush by the clever beasts.
The Boreans, though they were a great threat in their own right, were not the chief of Jed’s concerns, however. He would gladly have shot dead another ten of the beasts if they had the misfortune to cross his path, but the mere thought of hiking again into that cursed valley made his skin crawl. The sheriff tried to tell himself that he didn’t believe in curses, but he was increasingly certain that some blight lay upon that dread place. It was the policy of tradition in Dormis to not treat such things lightly, but Jed had never truly believed in witchcraft or monsters no matter how many fantastical tales he had overheard in the saloon or what he had found printed in the weeks-old copies of the San Marcone Soliciteer that occasionally made their way to Dormis on the westbound train. Now he was not so sure about monsters, or witches either for that matter. ‘Who knows what lay beyond our borders in the wild frontier?’ His father had often opined.
The sheriff was increasingly apt to agree. This was far from the first strange event to trouble Dormis, of course. As sheriff the past eight years, as well as the six years prior serving as Marcus’ deputy and constant companion, Jed had seen firsthand more than a few events which would be whispered about and exaggerated by the gossips for years to come. Investigating the occasional complete disappearance of as much as a dozen livestock, one or two alleged cases of daemonaic possession, the arrival and subsequent mad departure of a group of archaeologists from the university of San Marcone investigating a circle of standing stones to the south – evidently an artifact of some ancient people. Jed had been at the forefront of all these and more, albeit sometimes at his father’s side. None of these, nor any other event the sheriff could recall, had ever truly swayed his belief in favor of the mythical. All had been addressed without undue difficulty or any overt manifestation of the supernatural, but still each proceeding instance of the abnormal and the bizarre chipped away at his doubt.
Now Jed had directly confronted with a pack of monsters, and what seemed all to horribly like witchcraft. The latter most made his blood curdle. Monsters like the Boreans, the sheriff felt, could at least be gunned down like the beasts they were, but what was a mere man to do against the occult powers said – in tall tales, Jed reminded himself – to be at the call of a practitioner of the dark arts? The sheriff scolded himself halfheartedly, supposing that he was jumping the gun in deciding what was and was not black magic without so much as considering the rational explanation that there surely was. No matter how he tried, though, the worry crept back into his mind, for what else explained the eldritch glow that had suffused that abominable valley, and for that matter the thick fog that ever covered the land? He tried to imagine some other explanation.
Perhaps the light was a side-effect of the bizarre now-inhabitants of that dread land, Jed reasoned. Who knew what those aberrant beasts with their icy blood left behind in their droppings. Perhaps they had infected the whole of the valley with their frigid blight, some poison the strange creatures exuded. That thought made the sheriff stop in his tracks. Unheeding, Huber kept trudging along wearily ahead. Jed caught a grimace of discomfort pass across the farmer’s face, but the stalwart deputy seemed to be taking it in stride. He too had not felt quite right since visiting Ricker’s Vale, and now Jed began to wonder if that sickly light had infected them both with some disease of the body – or of the mind, he thought with horror, dwelling on the farmer’s apparent trepidation compounded with his own unceasing worries. He had at first dismissed it as an entirely rational response to the horrors they had seen in the valley, but now he was not so sure.
Huber stopped, looking back at Jed and scratching at the bandages on his wrists and arms, where he had been clawed and gouged by the Boreans’ cruel talon. That too, Jed wondered about. The apothecary had treated Huber’s wounds before they had even had time to discuss their encounter, and the prospect of the creatures harboring some venom or poison had never come up in the frantic discussions that followed. He and Huber both had reason to be as weary and worrisome as anyone had a right to be, but the sheriff’s instincts told him it was not some mundane apprehension that was gnawing ever at his mind. Jed turned and gazed back on the village. Huber cleared his throat. “Change of plans, Sheriff?” Jed didn’t respond for a moment, commiserating with himself. “Huh? Er, yeah,”
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Character limit. Read more on my wordpress.
‘Maybe you’re out of ammo, maybe the gun is knocked out of your hand. Maybe you discover what you save in coin buying cheap tin-cased bullets ain’t worth your trusty .45 jamming at the wrong moment. The point is, sooner or later shooting won’t be an option. I’ve seen more than one deadeye put in the ground for lack of a backup weapon.
Boot knife, knuckle dusters, blackjack. Whatever blows your skirt up. Hell, it wasn’t too long ago our predecessors were buckling on swords every morning. Any idiot can shoot a pistol straight. What separates the true lawman from the meek pretender is what you do when the bullets run dry and the gloves come off.
I hope when they do, you’ve got a good knife at your side and you know how to use it.’
- ‘The Lawman’s Field Manual’ by Marshall E.G. Tucker
“…What do you mean you don’t have any bullets?” Jed demanded of the postman as Huber came loping up behind him, still a bit out of breath. The blue-shirted train official shrugged, shivering somewhat in the wind despite it being what the Dormians reckoned was a fine spring day. “Is that not self-explanatory?” The postman said irritably, evidently being in the closing hours of a very long day. “I’m sorry, sheriff, but your letter must’ve gotten lost in the mail. I have here on my ledger,” He tapped the leather-bound book in which he was checking off each parcel as its owner claimed it. “That we took on board some four letters on the last stop here before the snow made the tracks impassable in early winter. All four were accounted for when we transferred the postage on our stop in Briar Run to the main Fortuna post station there. If you’re unsatisfied with the post service, I suggest you take it up with them. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d very much like to get these parcels delivered and to put my feet up in the saloon with a nice mug of beer,” The busy postman pushed past Jed with the few remaining packages, calling out names and collecting signatures in return.
Jed looked mightily frustrated, and was gaping in disbelieve, sticking his head inside the train car to check for himself that there were, indeed, no packages meant for him, whether they contained bullets or otherwise. The sheriff shook his head, muttering, and pulled a pair of sealed envelopes from the inside pocket of his long coat. “What’re they?” The unlettered farmer asked interestedly. Jed placed the letters carefully into the outgoing mail bin and turned away from the train, deep in thought. “I been dreading the possibility, but I thought this might be a problem. I’ve heard tell a few times of packages going amiss what was meant for towns in Fortuna. Never thought much of it, but I’d figured as I better be prepared for the worst in any case,” Huber nodded, though he did not truly understand. “So you ain’t got no bullets?” The farmer said, with an expression of mute horror as if the implications of this were only then dawning on him. He relaxed somewhat as the sheriff dispelled the worst of his fears.
“Give me a little credit, Hue. I still got about a full box of .45’s. Shot, though, I’m about run dry on. I got a few spare guns, but they’re all scatterguns, so we ain’t got nothin’ to shoot until the next train comes, at the earliest. I was fixin’ to get you and the boys a bit of practice tomorrow and to keep ‘em rotated through the watch so at least three of y’all is always armed, but that ain’t gonna be an option now,” Jed looked pensive, and Huber shared his ruminations. “Well, ‘spose I can go fetch my woodaxe after all,” The farmer said after a thoughtful pause. “Guess we’ll have to figure somethin’ else out for arming the rest of them boys. Maybe we can borrow Ed’s rifle, if he’s still feverish. I know he’s got at least a few rounds lying about, and it ain’t much use to him in bed as he is,” Jed said nothing, though he agreed the single rifle would be better than nothing if its owner could be convinced to part with it for a while.
“I didn’t say I was quite out of shells,” Jed said finally after a pause. “If’n you’re comfortable with a scattergun, what few shots I got left for ‘em is yours. Just, er,” He hesitated, and Huber caught his wary gaze. “Do be careful with it, won’tcha? I’d rather not catch some careless buckshot in the back, and we ain’t got spare shells enough for you to get any practice in,” The farmer seemed only slightly offended, but he nodded in understanding of the sheriff’s concern. “Don’t you worry none, Jed. I won’t pull the trigger ’til one of them scaly varmints is right up against the end of my barrel,” Huber grinned beneath his wiry beard. Despite the farmer’s evident skill at putting up a tough exterior, Jed’s wary senses detected some unease concealed beneath what in his mind was a forced smile. He eyed the farmer for a silent moment, but turned away, headed back west toward the town and the sun that was now slowly beginning to sink below the tall hills.
“Where we goin’?” Deputy Hawthorne inquired, and Jed slowed his pace slightly in deference to the farmer’s shorter legs. “My office,” The sheriff answered. “We got plans to make, if’n we’re gonna go pay them lizards another visit,” Huber balked. “You’re still plannin’ on goin’? Don’t you think we ought to wait for the next train to bring us some bullets, Jed?” The sheriff shook his head, his mind made up. “It could be a week or better before the next train comes. I got bullets enough to put the fear of the Lords in however many of them lizards we find down there,” He turned back to look at Huber and the ghost of a smile was on the sheriff’s face. “Besides, I got a few more ideas floatin’ around in my head. Let’s you and me hash out a plan, Hue. Then tomorrow I’ll show y’all a bit about bein’ a lawman.” The farmer nodded. “Lead on, Sheriff,” He said deferentially.
The two made their way back along the winding path toward the town square. Eventually they came to Bishop’s saloon, not two doors down from the now empty pavilion, where evidently the tables had already been cleared off. Jed snorted, almost impressed by the efficiency with which the cleanup had been organized, to be finished already – Helena Cooper was not all talk, he had to admit. Jed came to a halt before the rather run-down face of the tavern, with its dangling wooden sign. Evidently one of the old chains that held aloft the large wooden plaque bearing the words ‘Bishop’s Waterin’ Hole’ had broken some days before, and Jed noted with some amusement the ramshackle repair that had been made by the penny pinching barman – the sign was now held up by a piece of old rope on the right side. He motioned Huber wordlessly to follow as he pushed through the swinging doors of the saloon.
“Gonna have us an ale?” Huber said with cautious enthusiasm. Jed smirked but shook his head. “Not just yet, though I’m fixin’ to have one before the day’s out. Just now we’re here on business, so look sharp, deputy,” Deputy Hawthorne nodded, squaring his shoulders as he trailed in the sheriff’s wake. Jed surveyed the near-empty bar – although not forbidden either legally or dogmatically, it was generally frowned upon to be getting sauced on an early Sunday afternoon. Myron Bishop, polishing a mug behind the bar, nodded to the sheriff and raised the mug in his hands with a questioning glance. Jed shook his head, tapping the badge on his chest and gesturing at the large room around them. Bishop shrugged his shoulders lightly and turned his glance away. Following his gaze, the sheriff saw what he had been looking for, tucked away into a dark corner of the establishment. He nodded his silent thanks and quietly approached, his muted footfalls not catching the attention of the figures slumped over the table in question.
“Deputies Fisher and Owens!” Jed announced suddenly in his most authoritative tone. The two figures at the table scrambled in their shock and slipped off their wooden stools, knocking empty glasses – and a pair of half full ones – in a clatter onto the floor. Jed stepped carefully over the shards of glass, the heels of his boots clicking on the hard wood of the floor. He stood above the fallen men for a moment in grim silence, hands on his hips, then he broke it with a congenial chuckle. “The cost of those glasses will be comin’ out of your pay, of course,” The sheriff began. “We get paid?” Owens said in confusion. Glossing over that for the moment, Jed continued. “But other than that, y’ain’t in trouble, so why are you boy’s so uptight? I just came to see how y’all were doin’ after your first time on watch,”
Fisher and Owens exchanged a look, struggling half-intoxicated to their feet and replacing themselves upon the stools. Bishop came by with a broom to begin sweeping up the broken glass. “Other than you scarin’ us half to death, we’re doin’ about alright, Sheriff,” Said Fisher. “Just havin’ our usual Sunday drink, beggin’ your pardon,” Jed waved him off. “What you do when you’re not on duty is your own business, Ford. I was just havin’ fun with y’all,” Owens look relieved at this, letting out a breath and turning to order another ale from the rather annoyed barman. Jed continued. “Speaking of duty though, I do have some orders for y’all, though I hate to interrupt your drinkin’,” Myron Bishop brought around another pair of ales for the pair of regulars, though Fisher had not ordered one. The two men gratefully took their mugs of beer. Jed heard the doors swing open once more with a clatter, and saw with a glance that it was the weary postman. Jed could not help but be annoyed with the man, though surely there was nothing he could’ve done about the lost letter. The sheriff shook his head, turning back to the deputies.
“Anyways. I need y’all two to go ’round to all the deputies and tell ‘em to be at my office at high noon tomorrow. You remember everybody what volunteered, I trust?” The deputies nodded, sipping from their mugs. “Go ‘head and finish your drinks, but I want this done before sundown. J.R. has first watch tonight, and go ahead and tell, er… Deputy Bringham that he’s to patrol with Coleman. Might learn him a thing or two, I reckon,” The others nodded, having their own doubts about the slight, bookish lad. “Any questions?” Fordham Fisher raised his hand above the table and Jed regarded him wryly. “I ain’t a schoolteacher, Ford. But what’s your question?”
“Well, er… That is, me and Mitch was wonderin’ if we get guns, Sheriff,” Jed seemed to consider this, to Deputy Hawthorne’s confusion. “Hmm, might be as you could earn your way clear to bearing iron. Ol’ Huber here I know can handle a scattergun, and I know Coleman’s been in a scrap or two, but have y’all ever even shot before?” The two young deputies looked crestfallen, shaking their heads. The sheriff held his tongue in regard to the best marksman that unfortunately was not yet with them, young Edmain Larkin. He dug in his pocket, tossing a couple of heavy coins onto the table. “Don’t feel bad, boys. Wasn’t too many years ago I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with this here pistol. Buy yourself a couple of drinks on me,” He caught the grateful glint in their eyes and added after a moment’s thought “…After you deliver my message,” Owens looked crestfallen again, but Fordham Fisher looked taken aback.
“But of course, Sheriff. Duty always comes first! The lawman’s work is never started, after all,” He said gravely. Owens elbowed him in the ribs, causing Fisher to spill a bit of the beer he was quaffing. “Ford, you idiot, its never finished!” Fisher looked confused for a moment, to Jed’s amusement. “What ain’t? Oh! Right. Never finished, I meant,” The taller deputy said with some embarrassment. Jed dismissed them. “That’s all for now, deputies. Drink your fill, but I want you bright-eyed and sober tomorrow, got it? No drinkin’ on the job,” He turned to leave to a chorus of “Yes sir!” from the pair. Huber followed at the sheriff’s heels. After they had passed through the swinging doors of the saloon, the farmer spoke.
“What was all that about earnin’ a gun, Jed? I thought you was out of shot for the scatterguns,” Huber said in earnest confusion. “We don’t need to worry folks none about me bein’ low on bullets,” Said the sheriff. “You keep that under your hat, you hear? Might hurt morale if it got out. We’ll have more shot soon enough,” Jed was contemplative as they walked up the dusty road. The sun was beginning to sink behind the hills, casting longer and longer shadows. The days too had been lengthening, but as yet night still came fairly early to Dormis. “Reckon it seems like y’all are real excited to shoot, though,” Jed said at length. “I might just let y’all each take a shot with my pistol,” Huber seemed excited at this prospect. “That’d be mighty keen, Jed,” The sheriff did not share this enthusiasm, his mind working over his options.
On the one hand, he had only one box of ammunition remaining – fifty bullets, not counting the loose rounds he had strung about the waist of his belt holster. He had eighteen deputies, and he reckoned two shots apiece ought to hold over their excitement until the next shipment came in. Twice now in the scant hours since they were recruited, he’d been asked by a deputy about their armaments, and if that was anything to go on, Jed figured, it was at the forefront of the young men’s minds. There was a delicate balance of morale to be maintained, it seemed to the sheriff. The long winter had done little for the town’s well-being, and coming out of it right into a catastrophe of this magnitude surely hadn’t helped. These boys, young and eager, were potentially risking their lives to stand in defense of their home and their families. Yet Jed was leaving them all behind in town save for Huber, to keep them out of harm’s way. If he didn’t play his cards right, he thought, the deputy’s would be fixing to abandon their posts and turn in their badges before the week was out.
And before they might truly be needed, Jed added to himelf. He had to make the newly minted lawmen feel as if they were truly helping out, he resolved, and that meant some kind of demonstration of their new responsibilities, to reinforce their sense of duty and the trust Jed was placing in them. In the blessed absence of a public killing by the Boreans to cement in the deputies’ minds the gravity of the situation, Jed reckoned that he had better at least let them each squeeze off a couple rounds to get their spirits up. He keenly remembered when first his father had lent him the responsibility of bearing a gun, if only on the target range. The heavy iron shining in his hand, he had felt for the first time full of righteous zeal, even if his first shots had gone wide of the crude effigy of a bandit Marcus had rigged up for him to shoot at. He had, after all, been only ten years old. He expected about the same level of accuracy from his new deputies, despite their greater age, save perhaps for Coleman or Hawthorne, who had at least a smattering of experience with firearms.
That was that, he decided. It seemed like a terrible waste of his scant bullets, but what was that compared to the potential of losing a goodly portion of his new allies? The town watch was central to his plan for dealing with the Boreans, and if his inklings about the beasts’ intention were anything like true, they could at any time be stalking the village in the dead of night. Seeking a hole in their defenses, or perhaps just an easy meal, he could see in his mind the savage lizard men sneaking past unoccupied watch posts to steal away with their precious livestock – or worse, their children. He knew not if the beasts were truly malicious or if they were merely hungry. But Jed had a gut feeling that they were all too keenly intelligent. Having met the gaze of more than one of the cold-blooded monsters, it was all too easy to imagine a burning hatred stewing in the unreadable depths of those murderous eyes.
Or desire for vengeance, the sheriff reminded himself, remembering with regret the apothecary’s reckoning that those Boreans as he had slain were only juveniles. He’d little other option at the time, but now he wondered if perhaps his hasty actions had damned them all to the wrath of the vengeful mother of that cold brood. This was all speculation on Jed’s part, he admitted to himself, but all the same, if whatever passed for the Boreans’ society was anything like their own, it was only a matter of time until they wreaked a bloody vengeance upon Dormis. Family feuds were all too common an affair in the village, the sheriff knew all too well, and those were often began with some innocuous slight between fighting children. Lesser matters than murder, to be sure, but here Jed had slain five of the Borean young, if the apothecary’s guess was right. He knew not what to make of this, and for the moment only harbored some awful feeling in the pit of his stomach as he ruminated over the matter.
Now Jed and Huber had nearly reached the sheriff’s office, having walked clear across the village in the moody silence which the two had often shared in the day since their first adventure. Both nearly broke the dead air a few times, only for some reluctance to hold their respective tongues. Sometimes it was easy to make jokes, if only to mask their discomfiture a while longer with humor. Other times, like now, on their way to play a reluctant return to that accursed place, the two were each lost in their own thoughts as they pondered just what awaited them in their inevitable trek to Ricker’s Vale, and whatever lay beyond it in the den of the Boreans. The latter they still had to find, Jed reminded himself, and that was to be one of the more difficult tasks, if he was any judge. The beasts were quick and stealthy when they wanted to be, and according to Huber, they were camouflaged damnably well in the dark stretches of forest in which they hunted. He wondered how they were going to manage it without ending up torn apart in a forest ambush by the clever beasts.
The Boreans, though they were a great threat in their own right, were not the chief of Jed’s concerns, however. He would gladly have shot dead another ten of the beasts if they had the misfortune to cross his path, but the mere thought of hiking again into that cursed valley made his skin crawl. The sheriff tried to tell himself that he didn’t believe in curses, but he was increasingly certain that some blight lay upon that dread place. It was the policy of tradition in Dormis to not treat such things lightly, but Jed had never truly believed in witchcraft or monsters no matter how many fantastical tales he had overheard in the saloon or what he had found printed in the weeks-old copies of the San Marcone Soliciteer that occasionally made their way to Dormis on the westbound train. Now he was not so sure about monsters, or witches either for that matter. ‘Who knows what lay beyond our borders in the wild frontier?’ His father had often opined.
The sheriff was increasingly apt to agree. This was far from the first strange event to trouble Dormis, of course. As sheriff the past eight years, as well as the six years prior serving as Marcus’ deputy and constant companion, Jed had seen firsthand more than a few events which would be whispered about and exaggerated by the gossips for years to come. Investigating the occasional complete disappearance of as much as a dozen livestock, one or two alleged cases of daemonaic possession, the arrival and subsequent mad departure of a group of archaeologists from the university of San Marcone investigating a circle of standing stones to the south – evidently an artifact of some ancient people. Jed had been at the forefront of all these and more, albeit sometimes at his father’s side. None of these, nor any other event the sheriff could recall, had ever truly swayed his belief in favor of the mythical. All had been addressed without undue difficulty or any overt manifestation of the supernatural, but still each proceeding instance of the abnormal and the bizarre chipped away at his doubt.
Now Jed had directly confronted with a pack of monsters, and what seemed all to horribly like witchcraft. The latter most made his blood curdle. Monsters like the Boreans, the sheriff felt, could at least be gunned down like the beasts they were, but what was a mere man to do against the occult powers said – in tall tales, Jed reminded himself – to be at the call of a practitioner of the dark arts? The sheriff scolded himself halfheartedly, supposing that he was jumping the gun in deciding what was and was not black magic without so much as considering the rational explanation that there surely was. No matter how he tried, though, the worry crept back into his mind, for what else explained the eldritch glow that had suffused that abominable valley, and for that matter the thick fog that ever covered the land? He tried to imagine some other explanation.
Perhaps the light was a side-effect of the bizarre now-inhabitants of that dread land, Jed reasoned. Who knew what those aberrant beasts with their icy blood left behind in their droppings. Perhaps they had infected the whole of the valley with their frigid blight, some poison the strange creatures exuded. That thought made the sheriff stop in his tracks. Unheeding, Huber kept trudging along wearily ahead. Jed caught a grimace of discomfort pass across the farmer’s face, but the stalwart deputy seemed to be taking it in stride. He too had not felt quite right since visiting Ricker’s Vale, and now Jed began to wonder if that sickly light had infected them both with some disease of the body – or of the mind, he thought with horror, dwelling on the farmer’s apparent trepidation compounded with his own unceasing worries. He had at first dismissed it as an entirely rational response to the horrors they had seen in the valley, but now he was not so sure.
Huber stopped, looking back at Jed and scratching at the bandages on his wrists and arms, where he had been clawed and gouged by the Boreans’ cruel talon. That too, Jed wondered about. The apothecary had treated Huber’s wounds before they had even had time to discuss their encounter, and the prospect of the creatures harboring some venom or poison had never come up in the frantic discussions that followed. He and Huber both had reason to be as weary and worrisome as anyone had a right to be, but the sheriff’s instincts told him it was not some mundane apprehension that was gnawing ever at his mind. Jed turned and gazed back on the village. Huber cleared his throat. “Change of plans, Sheriff?” Jed didn’t respond for a moment, commiserating with himself. “Huh? Er, yeah,”
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Character limit. Read more on my wordpress.
