I recall the golden days of my childhood as they float in my memory with the smells of summer and the sounds of locusts in the day, and the warm breezes and crickets at night. How my uncle would sit on the porch whittling a thick piece of cedar as he smoked his cigar. I think it is with him I found my love for the curling smoke and slow, relaxing times I spend in my adulthood enjoying a hearty cigar and whiskey. After he returned from the war, he would pass the days in his rocker, squinting across the field of our grand plantation house. He would sit there for hours. I would look in the direction of his gaze, but never knew at what he stared. Sometimes I would ask him, and he would chew on his stogie for a minute before turning to answer.
“Young’un,” he would say in his slow and methodical manner, “a man sees things that a child cannot. But a child sees things that a grown’d up can’t. You should enjoy what you see, and always see the world through your own eyes. Appreciate that everyone else has their own eyes, and their own way of seeing things, ya hear? But don’t try and see through someone else’s eyes in place of your own.”
I don’t know if I agree with what he told me, but I understand what he meant. He meant for me to be my own man, and not worry about what others think. But I nodded at him then, because when I was young I didn’t question my elders when they told me what to do. I’d sit next to him for hours, trying to emulate him with my own pocket knife and a piece of pine. I would carve guns and horses, and he would carve things he had seen while traveling. He never carved things of war though. I think he was tired of guns and fighting, and instead preferred thinking about elk, mountains, clouds, and such things.
Those summers were some of the best times of my life, and I remember them with a fondness of childlike wonder. I had a few friends. There was Tyler, he was the son of the chemist. He was always pale and skinny, and never looked very healthy. His parents made him wear a starched collar and clean his boots. He was afraid to get dirty. He was often in poor health as a boy, and I think his father made him scared of dirt because it made him sick. I also had Randal. Randal was the one that always had an adventure in his head. He smiled all the time, and didn’t mind that his one front tooth was a bit crooked. I think it charmed others to see it, a bit of imperfect perfection with no worries or cares. That boy took risks. It was Randal that showed us the old twisted tree we used to climb, and that in which we eventually built our fort.
I recall, with clarity, sitting in that rickety wooden box we had cobbled together from scraps of the church the town had built in the spring and barn raisings from around the county, the rain falling in a downpour for hours. Tyler sat on his coat with his feet dangling over the side and his chin resting on the railing that I had whittled into a snake. It was a rough carving, but I was immensely proud of it. Randal was attacking the rain as it fell with a stick that had become a sword in his mind. I sat whittling a block of wood into a bear and watching them both. I could feel the tree sway and raised my face to the wind, smelling the scents that only a storm brings with it. Thunder boomed.
“You know the ol’ cemetery,” Randal shouted, making Tyler and I jump, “it’s haunted, it is. I know it is because my Memaw done tol’ me all ‘about it. Said that Crazy Sidney Carter went and kil’d a man up there in a cave right behind the graves.”
I was staring at him as he acted out the story with his stick and the trunk of the tree, stabbing it through the place at which it branched. I looked over at Tyler and he was wide eyed and pale, unable to look away from Randal. When I touched his arm he jerked and turned to me, startled.
“It’s ok, Tyler,” I reassured him, “it’s just a story. It ain’t true.”
“It is so!” Randal insisted.
“Naw, it ain’t. Your Memaw just told you that so you don’t go up to those caves.”
“You callin’ my Memaw a liar?” Randal loomed over me, one hand on the hip of his overalls, the other holding his stick beside him.
“Naw, I ain’t calling your Memaw nothing! Maybe she had a boyfriend up there and would go play kissy face in the cave and didn’t want you following her to see her beau!” I giggled at the outrageous idea. Randal began snickering and soon we were all three laughing, and rolling around holding our sides in exaggerated mirth, the way boys do when they are trying not to be afraid. Soon we settled down and were staring out at the storm which had let up and become a steady drizzle.
“I reckon we should go see,” Tyler whispered.
We both looked at him with surprise. He never wanted to do anything scary or dangerous. Tyler was the one that always used common sense to battle Randal’s impulsive whims.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Tyler asked, turning away. “I heard things about those caves too. I heard the man who was killed was a pirate and that he was killed over his treasure.”
That settled it. We gathered our few things and Tyler put his coat on, and we headed out into the damp day to find our adventure. It took about an hour to walk there and the storm had blown over by that time. The day grew hot and muggy, and the cicadas began their droning song in the tall weeds. Grasshoppers buzzed and flew past us as we walked the seven kilometers to town. As we passed a farm, we saw Old Widow Norge glaring at us from her porch. Her husband had died in the same war that my Uncle fought in, and the woman hadn’t smiled since. Her son couldn’t take it and headed out years ago, and that hadn’t helped her mood any. She watched us until we were out of sight, leaning on her broom the whole time.
We ate lunch as we walked, having packed a knapsack with apples, cheese, and bread before we headed to our fort that morning. Tyler had some candies from his father’s store and Randal carried a water skin that his father had bought from a Dasism trader when he was working on the railroad back in ’12. When we arrived at the graveyard, Randal told us to wait and ran over to the small shed at the edge of the cemetery. When he returned, he had a pick and two shovels, saying we may need them in the cave to find the treasure. He passed a shovel to each of us and kept the pick for himself, which was only fair since he went and fetched the tools and it was his idea.
We picked our way through the tombstones, stopping at Tyler’s Grampa Joe’s plot so he could pay his respects. He put a pebble on the top of the marker, because it was part of his religion. Tyler’s people were followers of Tarra, Goddess of peace and healing. We didn’t talk about it much back then, but his people had a lot of weird ideas and traditions. I remember making fun of him during winter for not having Turning Day presents, until he told us that he got eight days of presents. That shut us up real quick, and I even asked my parents if we could worship Tarra too. I got a switchin’ and was made to be the altar boy for a full month at church for asking, including midnight mass for Turning Day.
We followed the winding trail into the shade of the hillside. Back then we called it a mountain, but we were kids and we thought everything was bigger than it really was. That’s the delight of being a child. Some things don’t matter at all, like when you’re walking a fence with your arms out and your head tilted back, not scared of falling, not even for a second, because you don’t know you shouldn’t be able to do that. But other things, your mind and imagination just snatched up and ran with, like noises at night and stories of treasure.
We headed into the caves single file. Randal took the lead by right of the pick, which was more of a weapon in case we ran into a bear, a rattler snake, or a mountain lion. None of us mentioned the possibility of meeting a ghost or a pirate, or even worse… a pirate ghost. But we were all thinking about it, and you could tell. Poor Tyler was as jumpy as a long tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs, and even Randal was quieter than usual, not boasting and shouting like he usually did.
The caves weren’t very big and in about twenty minutes we had gone through them twice, finding nothing. Randal wasn’t put off by that though. He found a place that would be a likely spot for a murder and buried treasure and we started digging. Randal swung his pick to break up the hard packed earth and I shoveled the loose dirt ou
t of the way. Less than a half hour later Randal suddenly stopped.
“Where is that weasel?” he asked, his tone angry.
“What?” I looked around and realized that Tyler had gone missing. We shouted his name and headed off to find him. Randal muttered about how the younger boy always tried to get out of the hard labor, and we weren’t gonna split the treasure with Tyler if we had to do all the work. We heard our missing friend before we saw him, and the sound of the shovel scraping on rock echoed as we turned a corner. Randal’s mouth was open to yell at our absent companion, but he stopped dead in his tracks before anything could be said. I leaned around him to see what had brought him to such a sudden halt.
“It only made sense,” Tyler said, pointing at the hole just above head height in the wall. He had scraped stone away and revealed a secret compartment!
“How? How did you know to look there?” Randal stammered.
“Well, everyone always looks down, so hiding anything in the ground is a sure way to get it found. I saw something funny here, and I knew you wouldn’t listen if I told you about it, so I just snuck off to check it myself.”
“Did you find anything?” I asked, unable to hide my eagerness.
“Yeah, I found something, but I ain’t pulled it out yet,” Tyler answered. “Thought you guys might want to be here for that part. You want to grab it, Randal?”
“You big chicken!” Randal laughed. “You ain’t pullin’ the wool over my eyes. You just ‘fraid that there’s gonna be a scorpion or a spider or something in that hole, that’s why you waited!”
Tyler didn’t deny it, and shuffled his feet in the dirt a bit. Randal swaggered up and bold as brass just stuck his hand right in there. He smiled at Tyler, who wouldn’t meet his gaze, then froze. Randal gasped, then screamed and jerked his hand back, clutching it to his chest. Tyler screamed too. I ran up, grabbing for Randal’s hand to see what had happened. The older boy began laughing, and let me have his hand.
“I was just joshing! Ain’t nuttin’ in that hole that’s gonna bite me,” he said, still laughing. I punched him in the arm because he had scared us both with his stupid trick. It was pretty funny though, and I had to give him due credit. Even Tyler was smiling by the time Randal reached back up to check for treasure again. He felt around for a few moments, before slowly drawing something out.
“What’s this?” he asked. We all gathered around. We could see it was a piece of wood, some sort of broken plank about the size of the cover of the big holy book the preacher used at church - or the cigar box in Tyler’s father’s pharmacy. Marks and writing were carved into the surface, but it was too dark to read in the dim light inside the cave. We brought our treasure outside into the sunlight where we could better inspect it. It was a fine piece of work. The dyes still showed on the map as soon as the sun touched the wood, though aged and weathered.
“I reckon it must be a hundred years old,” said an awestruck Randal.
“It’s a treasure map, look!” I pointed as I spoke, showing my friends the lines that were clearly a path to adventure. We began plotting how to find this prize. We drew maps in the dirt, and then headed back home with a plan. We would each go home and tell our parents that we were going to camp out with the other boys, and then we would make our way to the river and head south, towards where the map showed our treasure to be.
It didn’t quite work out that way though. Randal and I made it there without anyone suspecting a thing. Well, without my parents suspecting anything. I don’t think Randal’s Pa much cared where his boy went, and his Ma had left to take care of her sick sister back east last spring. It hadn’t been an easy year on Randal. His Pa worked down at the stables, selling horses, and after work spent a good spell in the saloon each night. And when he was home my friend tried to be somewhere else to avoid his father’s drunken temper.
My parents did care, and so did Tyler’s, which is why we had to fool them. Randal and I were laughing and eating spring carrots when we heard Tyler coming, and he was mighty loud. We turned and my stomach dropped when I saw the chemist and my father. Tyler was being dragged forward by his arm, forcing him to reveal our secret meeting place. I knew he had told them everything.
I got a switchin’ that night for trying to run away. I couldn’t sit for two days. The rest of the summer I had more chores than any other year I can recall. I still found time to sneak out to the tree fort though. We had adventures still, but it wasn’t until three years later that the map showed up again.
It was the summer of ’27 and it was a real scorcher. We were about thirteen years old at that time, and Tyler had been back from boarding school for a couple weeks. Randal had almost stopped going to school and instead worked at the mill when he could. I guess my life was the most normal of the three of us. I still lived with both my folks and went to school. That summer would be different though. My parents had gone to visit my cousins and left me home with my uncle. The servants took care of the house and I had freedom like I hadn’t seen for years. I could go away for days at a time, and as long as I told my uncle where I was going and when I would be back, he didn’t trouble me none.
The three of us - Tyler, Randal and I - were down by the crick. It was right about noon on a Therin, and the middle of the week. The day was as hot as a tea kettle about to whistle. We had been digging for crawdads and what we had caught were now roasting over the fire we had built. Our pants were rolled up as our legs dried. Tyler had snuck some spices from his house and I had dug up some spring onions to cook with them. It smelled like a wonder. We watched them sizzle and pop with our mouths watering. We ate them like we were real river men, juices dripping down our chins and laughing about the things that boys love to laugh about. When we finished, Randal pulled out a corn cob pipe and loaded it with baccy. He leaned back under the tree, trying not to cough while making smoke rings. I was enjoying the last of the peppermints when Tyler spoke.
“Remember that map?” the skinny boy asked. We both knew exactly which map he meant. It had been taken by his father and we thought it had been burnt. We nodded. Tyler reached into his knapsack, the same one that he had since we were kids, and pulled out a plank of wood. I pushed up my straw hat as we gathered around. Randal and I were stunned. Tyler just grinned.
“It’s New Sylians. The sewers to be exact,” he announced.
“How do you know that?” Randal asked, running his hands across the bright dyes, just as he had years before.
“I did some research. See, I found it in the woodshed during the winter, so I stashed it in my school stuff and brought it with me when I went back after the holiday break. See those numbers?” We nodded. “Them there is longitude and latitude. I looked them up. And flip it over.”
We did as we were told. On the back were faint lines with holes drilled straight through to the other side.
“The top is a map of the city, and the holes are sewer entrances. The lines are a map of the sewers.” Tyler stood over us, hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels, proud as a peacock. We all three burst out talking and by sunset we had a plan to get to New Sylians and find our treasure!
Now, this was a plan of boys, so it wasn’t very complicated. We would go down to the great Whiting and flag down a passing steamer. You see, in those days the wheelboats had official ports, and unofficial ones. And if you stood on the shore they would sometimes pick you up and for a small fee you get to ride and sleep on deck. For a lot more you could get a cabin if one were available. Randal had some money from his job and he’d pay our way as deck passengers (he didn’t have enough for a cabin), I would bring food for us, and Tyler would navigate our way because he had figured out the map.
Two days later we stood on the deck of a steamboat, leaning on the railing and watching the shore sweep past us. It would take a couple days to get to the city. We were more excited than a pup on its first cattle drive. We talked about all the money we would find and what we would do with it. Randal would buy his very own horse and lariat, and pract
ice until he could go on a drive, which is what made me think of the pup thing. I wanted to get my uncle a new whittling knife and one for me too, and maybe a rifle to hunt coon and squirrel. Tyler didn’t know what he would do with his, but we had enough ideas that he didn’t have to think of anything on his own.
I think we talked too much because, before long, we attracted attention. We were standing at the water barrel, ladling out a drink, when a dark man came up behind us and threw his arms around Tyler and myself. The pale boy jumped and squeaked, and I spun around throwing the man’s arm off of our shoulders. The man was tall and unshaven. He grinned at us, showing black, crooked teeth. He smelled sour, and his clothes were stained with sweat and clung to his body.
“Whatcha boys got there?” he asked, as friendly as a snake.
“Nothing. It ain’t none of your business what we got!” Randal puffed up and stepped in between the man and us. I don’t think I had ever seen anything braver than that in my whole life. The man cuffed him with the back of his hand, and sent my friend sprawling on the deck.
“Then you won’t mind if I take a look at nothing.”
He reached past and shoved me to the side with his elbow, grabbing Tyler by his suspenders. The man pulled him close, and I could see my friend cringe from the smell of fetid breath. The man reached into Tyler’s bag and took our map. He grinned, and it reminded me of a wolf stalking a rabbit. Poor Tyler was paler than I had ever seen him, and I could see him trembling.
“I’ll just hold onto this, because it belongs to me now,” he said with a voice like oil, as a bit of spittle mixed with chewing tobacco dripped down his chin.
We all three started hollering and tried to grab it back. He held it above our heads with one hand, laughing, and used the other hand to shove us away.
“Something wrong here, Dirk?” came a booming voice from behind us.
“Naw, John Jack. Just some kids took something of mine and I had to take it back.”
The man he spoke to was huge and carried a hickory stick that I had seen him use on a drunk earlier, dropping the man like a sack of potatoes. The rouster had a shaved head and a big bushy beard. I could just imagine a squirrel building a nest in it.
“That ain’t true!” Randal shouted, red in the face. “He took it from us!”
“Aw, John Jack, you know how boys are. Ain’t no harm done. You don’t need to be throwing them in the river or nuthin’. I’m sure they’ll behave from here on out.” Dirk said.
Oh, how I hated that man, right then. In my head he became ‘Dark Dirk’, a river pirate with no ship. I heard Tyler gasping for breath, and when I looked, he was squatting down with his head between his knees. Randal was still trying to face down Dirk. I grabbed my friend’s arm.
“Come on, Randy. It ain’t gonna matter what you say. The ol’ stinkin’ liar ain’t gonna give it back.” We all knew how grown-ups stuck together, and my friend did the smart thing and came over with me to check on our navigator. I looked up as the men were leaving, and saw Dark Dirk smiling his greasy grin back at my glare.
We watched Dirk for the rest of the day as he got drunk. He never let the map out of his grasp. He had tucked it in his rucksack and leaned against it when he wasn’t looking at it. Randal said he had a plan though. Tyler told him to forget about it; we couldn’t beat the man in a fight without getting hurt, or worse, thrown overboard for causing trouble. Even if we snuck it out of the man’s bag, he would only tell John Jack we had stolen it again. Randal just got a sly look in his eyes and said he was going for a walk.
It was a bit after dark when Randal came back, grinning like a jack-o-lantern. When he saw that Dark Dirk was snoring with his head on his bag, his smile got even bigger.
“My Pa sleeps like that. Ain’t nuttin’ gonna wake that man up till he sleeps off the booze. I think I need another walk.”
We watched as he slipped across the deck, and circled the man. It was crowded and most of the passengers had bunked down for the night, taking up whatever space they could find to sleep. No one paid one boy any mind. He knelt down beside Dirk, and looked back at us, smirking and looking too much like the grown man had looked a few hours before. We shook our heads as he reached into the man’s coat that was being using as a blanket. Randal tucked something into the man’s pocket, and then reached under the older man’s head and into his sack. He pulled out the wood and stood and stretched, walking back to us with a confidence that left us speechless.
“He’ll know it was us,” I whispered in a harsh tone. Tyler nodded and gulped.
“Don’t worry about a thing, I got it all taken care of,” was all Randal would say.
About an hour later, John Jack came by with a nervous, fine dressed gentleman who wore a tall black hat. They were discussing something.
“It is pure silver, with a chain to match, and it’s inscribed,” the rich man said to the tough.
“I know, you told me that about ten times, Mister Jenkins. Don’t worry, we’ll find out who took it.” John Jack assured the man.
“Is it a pocket watch?” Randal asked, his voice cracking. Tyler and I stared at him like he just grew another head. “Because I saw that man looking at one while he was eating some beans earlier.” Now, Dirk did eat some beans for dinner, but he didn’t have a watch.
“Yes, son,” the well-dressed man said, “it is. Mister Jack, I insist you check that man for my watch. He has an unsavory look about him, and just may be the type to do such a heinous deed!”
John Jack sighed and looked at the three of us for a moment, as if trying to figure out something. He turned and clumped over to Dark Dirk, and poked at him with his cudgel. Something glinted in the moonlight and slid from under the coat, and a metallic clink sounded as it hit the deck. The big man bent over to retrieve it, and held a pocket fob up for his companion to inspect.
“Yes. Yes, that is it! You must remove that ruffian from this vessel, at once!” the man in the hat whined, his voice growing shrill.
The bald, bearded man reached down, and lifted the sleeping man by his collar and shook him once. It did nothing to wake Dirk. He shook him harder and the drunk man’s head jerked back and forth, drool flying as it did. Dirk began to wake.
“Ok Dirk, I warned you. Now it’s time for you to take a swim!” John Jack growled. “The shore ain’t far and the gators should be sleeping.”
Dirk was fully awake at that and began babbling about not having done nothing wrong, as John Jack reached down to grab the other man’s sack and coat, and shoved it into Dirk’s arms as he pushed him towards the railing. The other passengers were awake now and watching the show. Moments later a splash sounded and cursing could be heard, as well as threats from Dirk that he would come back and cut every one of ‘you boys from gullet to gizzard’. The gentleman chortled and turning, he looked down his long nose at Randal.
“Good lad. Take this for your honesty and help,” he said as he slipped some coins into my friend’s hand.
“Thank you, sir. Just doin’ my civic duty,” Randal mumbled.
John Jack gave us a long hard look as he left with the passenger, escorting him back to the main dining room. Randal burst into laughter as soon as they were gone and leaned in close to us, showing the coins in his hand and Dirk’s wallet. It was two bites in coins and the wallet yielded six more.
“We made eight bites, gentlemen,” Randal said.
“Actually, minus the three bites we paid to ride the boat, and the thirty-two crumbs we paid for the extra jerky, we made four bites and sixty-eight crumbs,” Tyler corrected.
“It don’t matter none,” I chimed in, “we already done made a profit, even with what it would take to get home again.”
We all stood grinning like simpletons and split the eight bites, one fifty each for Tyler and me, and the rest for Randal since he paid our fare and thought up the plan. We had learned to keep our mouths shut, and the rest of the trip was spent enjoying the river.
I can still close my eyes, and feel and s
mell the wind from that trip. Whenever I sit still on a hot summer day it always brings thoughts of that steamboat, the Elsie Delilah, and her wonderful journey downstream. The warm sun on my face, the wind moving no more than a crawl, and the sounds of the frush, frush, frush of the sidepaddle mixing with the constant, distant buzzing of the cicadas.
We docked in small places to take on wood for the boilers, and big places to unload cargo and passengers, and take on more of both. The three of us even made a little bit of money by helping with the tasks. The steamboat mostly traveled during the day and only a couple times at night, because a pilot can’t see the snags on the river in the dark. When we did travel by night, it was slowly and only during the full moon. Passengers would crowd to the front when they sent out a smaller boat to do soundings in the shallow or tricky parts of the river. We’d crowd to the side when we passed or were passed by another steamboat, calling and cheering for our boat to take the lead. Once we saw two huge steamboats racing. We pulled to the side of the river to let these beauties pass us. They glittered in the sun with pure white paint and gold highlights. It was a spectacular sight to see.
One man had a cane pole and would sell a fish for a nibble, usually perch or a brim, and a catfish for a ten bit. For another nibble, you could have the kitchen fry it up after dinner was served. It smelled so wonderful, standing outside the door, watching the ladies with parasols and their gentlemen with tall hats promenade past us. The cook, an old rokairn that went by the name Walter, breaded them for us too. I don’t think any of us had tasted something that wonderful before. I look back now, and think that it was the taste of adventure and freedom, that not having a care in the world has a certain flavor you only recognize in memories.
We arrived in New Sylians in due time, not soon enough for our youthful excitement, but we were all a bit sad to be back on land. A steamboat is a magnificent thing and brings out the wanderlust in the meekest of people. It’s different than traveling by horse or by train, and nothing ever compared to it. We docked close to sunset, and wandered through the big city. Tyler led us to a riverside tavern and we celebrated with a big meal that cost twenty crumbs each, and a five crumb cigar for each of us. Tyler turned green by the second puff and rushed outside to relieve himself of his supper, because no one had told him not to inhale. I only smoked half of mine before letting it go out. Randal smoked his until it burned his fingers, but we could tell he wasn’t feeling so well either by the time it was finished.
We watched the men gamble at cards, and the women flirt with them and pair off as the night grew long. One rough shaven man in a long coat sat in a corner and watched everyone as he sipped at a mug of something. We had learned our lesson and kept our conversation to things like coon hunting and riverboats, not wanting to attract anymore unsavory characters. We slept in a room that night, all sharing a bed. It cost us a whole bite and we were almost too excited to sleep, but it was worth every crumb. We went over the plan, and even made a cover story in case anyone saw the tools we brought or asked questions.
We were dressed and downstairs before the sun was fully up, and planned our day over coffee, eggs, and ham. As we left the building the same man that had been watching the crowd last night was on the porch, smoking a pipe.
“Mornin’ boys. You’re up early,” he said with a voice of gravel that spoke of years of smoking and drinking.
“Morning, sir,” I replied, “We got business to tend to.”
“What sort of business do three boys that stay in a seedy hotel in the dock part of New Sylians have before the sun even peeks over the buildings?”
“Ain’t nuthin’ much. Just looking to get some tools for the farm we work on. We took a riverboat in to get them, and the overseer gave us only enough to do what needs to get done.”
“Well, you boys be careful.”
“Oh, yessir. We will!” I replied as Tyler pulled on my sleeve to follow him and Randal.
Setting out into the morning bustle was an adventure of its own. Horses clopped along and wagons rattled behind them, and shop-keepers swept their porches and walkways. The smells of the city were very different than anything we had ever experienced. Smoke hung over the buildings from coal and wood fires, and people everywhere shouted to sell their goods as we passed shops and carts. We kept an eye behind us, making sure no one was following us.
Soon enough Tyler found the entrance he thought was closest to the treasure. It was nothing more than a hole in the ground with a raised steel grating above it. A thick grey trickle of water from the street drained into the alley that housed it. No one paid mind to three boys squatting in a backstreet. We all three had to work together to pull it up, and we lowered ourselves over the side and used slippery metal rungs to climb down. The smell washed over us as we hit the bottom. We put bandanas across our noses and mouths to buffer against the stench. It was worse than a stable that hadn’t been mucked for a month. We rushed through, eager to reach our goal because of our excitement, as well as the stink.
I don’t know if we became used to the foul air or if it grew fainter as we moved from the wet parts to the less used and just damp portion of the sewers, but it didn’t trouble us much after a few minutes. We lit a torch we’d brought with us to help show the way, and traveled along with care, stopping at any noise. Rats scurried about their business, bothered by the light, and water dripped down walls. Our footsteps echoed, making it seem like someone was following us. The shadows shifted and jumped with the flame, and our faces were a peculiar shade as we moved forward.
We came to an arch that had been boarded. Bricks had tumbled down around the single step that led into it. It looked unstable, but without a word we set to work, pulling the few tools we brought from Randal’s knapsack. As we pried the boards loose they crumbled under our hands, having rotted through. The way was open within moments. We leaned in to see what was inside. The cul-de-sac was just larger than most horse stalls and stones blocked the only other tunnel out of the small room. In a corner was a crate the size of a steamer trunk.
“There it is, boys,” Randal whispered.
We pushed forward and fell to our knees in front of it, Tyler holding the torch high. Randal and I pried the lid open, and we peered in to see what it held. There were books and sheafs of documents that been tied together with twine. We groaned with disappointment and began pulling the stuff out and tossing it aside, looking for something better than some stupid old papers. I hauled out a small wooden strongbox, banded in iron. It was heavy and we heard lots of small metal things sliding around inside.
“You boys find what you lookin’ for?” came a graveled voice behind us. We spun to see the man that had spoken to us on the porch. His coat was drawn back and he had a revolver holstered at his hip. We backed away until we hit the wall. He must have saw the fear on our faces, because the look on his became gentle.
“Aw, it’s alright. I ain’t gonna hurt you.” As he took the hand from his hip the coat fell over the gun. “I ain’t gonna take what you found either. I just want the papers. My name is Norge, Croaker Norge, and I’m a detective. I work for the law… sometimes, and for other people sometimes. Right now, I think I can use the stuff you don’t want, and even pay you for it.”
“How much?” I asked, before I could stop myself.
He smiled, and we let out a collective breath we didn’t realize we had been holding. A shuffling noise came from behind him and he spun, hand catching on the coat as he reached for his weapon. A wet thud sounded, his head snapped backwards, and he crumpled to the ground. Standing in the shadows of the arch was the last person we would have expected, or wanted, to see: Dark Dirk, and he had an axe in his fist. The end was wet from where he had hit the other man with the handle.
“Ain’t no roustabout to help you here, boys,” he growled, “and as soon as I take care of this one,” he pointed at the prone figure at his feet, “I’m gonna take care of the three of you, permanently.”
He took a step towards the fallen man, an
d raised his axe.
We grow up slow. It takes years to become a full grown adult, but I think you become a man in leaps and bounds. That moment my friends and I took a big step towards being the men we would be one day. It may have been how little sleep we had gotten the night before, or that I just wasn’t thinking that day, but I don’t think I have ever been so bold as I was that day.
“No sir, you got it wrong,” I said. “Ain’t one here to help you,” I threw the coffer at his head.
He brought the axe down to knock it away, and missed. It only hit him in the chest, but it knocked the wind out of him. The small wooden box fell and busted open. We all saw the glint of gold in the torchlight as the coins bounced and tinkled across the ground. Randal leapt forward and slammed his shoulder into Dirk’s midsection, and trapped the man’s weapon between the two of them as they fell backwards in a heap. Tyler ran over and began stomping on the man’s ankles and feet. But Dark Dirk was stronger than both of them together.
Dirk shoved with the axe and tossed them aside easily. He pushed to his feet and turned towards them. I could hear him chuckling as he kicked Randal in the belly. He turned his back to me, and that was his mistake.
“I’m really gonna enjoy this,” he said as he raised the axe and towered over my friends. He never saw me behind him with the crowbar. It only took one swing and he was down again, falling on top of Randal and Tyler, both boys screaming in terror as he did.
He screamed too, but in rage. He rolled to his feet again. Everyone froze when we heard a pistol cock. Croaker Norge was leaning against the wall and holding his bleeding forehead, pistol in hand, with Dirk in his steady sights.
“Move away, boys,” the detective said. We moved, Randal clutching his left arm as blood oozed between his fingers, and gathered together in the back of the cul-de-sac. “Now, roll over on your yellow belly, ya bastard.”
Minutes later Dark Dirk was sitting with his back against the wall, hands manacled and feet tethered together with rope, so it would only allow him small steps if he tried to walk. Croaker was true to his word. He told us to collect the coins and he would lead us out of the sewers. He knew of Dirk, who was a wanted man with a bounty on his head. The detective told us to go back to the hotel and ask for Margie. She was the cook but had a fair hand with a needle and would see to Randal’s arm. Croaker would bring us our reward in a few hours.
When we had made it out, we discussed just leaving, but Randy was bleeding something fierce, and we were afraid to not have it looked at. He played brave, but he was turning really pale. We went to the hotel. Croaker did turn up later, and gave us each ten bites. He said the reward for Dirk was fifty bites and we deserved more than half between the three of us. He also arranged for us to ride in a wagon train back north with a friend of his.
It took more than two weeks to get home, and we made new friends on the trip. The wagon master offered us a job if we ever wanted one, but I know he mostly meant Randal. Randal did more than his share of the work on the way back, even with fifteen stitches and his arm in a sling.
It was odd being back home after that. Some of our innocence was gone, but the small town we lived in was the same as when we had left. We saw it with different eyes though. We knew a little more and could see differences in everyone, even our own families, which a child never sees. It makes me a bit sad as I think back on it. But my uncle was the same. He didn’t hide things, or wear a mask like most folks do. He spoke slowly and simply, and said what he meant. I respected him more after that adventure.
When I came walking back up to my house, I gave him a brand new buck knife, and he looked me up and down, and he knew I was different. He never said a word about it though. He just nodded, put a hand on my shoulder as he looked into my eyes, and nodded again. Randal moved out of his father’s house by the end of the summer, taking on an apprentice role at the blacksmith, and within a year he began going on cattle drives. He did buy himself a horse, lariat, and a revolver with his share of the money.
Tyler went back to school and I never really knew what he bought. But he was changed too. He walked a bit taller, and looked his father in his eye when he spoke to him, instead of looking down and shuffling his feet.
I put a small bag of the coins under my father’s pillow. I knew we had been having problems with money, and didn’t know how to tell him that could help. I reckon he was too proud to take help anyway. He never knew where the money came from. He asked all the workers, and the couple of house servants, and even asked my uncle and me. But he never found out. A week or two after that I was sitting on the porch watching the tax man leave after being fully paid and my father going back into the house, not looking quite as tired and bent from the weight of his worries. I smiled a little bit and, as I turned, I saw my uncle leaning on the rail of the porch near the corner of the house.
“You’re gonna be a good man,” he said with a small smile, then turned and went about his business.
I didn’t see as much of Randal and Tyler after that, as we did when we were kids. We had chores, or school, or a job. We got together when we could, during summer or winter breaks, or when a county fair, or a barn raising went on and we were all in town. We were still friends, but life moved on as we left our childhood and headed for adulthood. We would swap stories, but we all lived in different worlds now. I guess we always did, but we didn’t know it when we were kids.
It was autumn of ’29, and Tyler wore spectacles by then and had finished his schooling. He’d be going away to learn something else in the spring, something about being a pharmacist. Randal was between drives, living on a ranch and working as a hired hand until the next cattle run. I still didn’t know what I would do, but I had been hearing the call of the river. My Pa had been sick last winter, though, and I was needed at home. He just couldn’t work like he used to do.
Xaco had been a hot month, and the corn had thick husks that year. The squirrels had been extra frantic and gathering nuts early, and lots of them. The wooly worms had been extra slow and their fuzzy coats grew thicker than usual. Everyone knew we were in for a bad winter that year. That’s why Tyler wasn’t leaving until spring and the cattle drives had dried up early.
Randal, Tyler, and I were all on the porch of the new saloon playing checkers and drinking sarsaparilla. Well, it wasn’t exactly new. It was built more than two years ago, but so little changes here that it was thought of as new. The railroad would be coming through soon. They had been laying tracks all year and we saw more strangers in town every day. The Aeifain and Gallix had moved in and built homes as the government gave away land grants, and the other immigrants were just starting to trickle in. It wasn’t unusual to see a freed Rokrain, neither. So we didn’t pay much mind when a man came clumping up the steps carrying bags, heading for the bar.
“I’ll be damned,” a voice of gravel said, and we looked towards it. There stood a rough shaven man in a long coat staring at us. “If it ain’t the boys I put on a wagon train.”
It had been four years, but Croaker Norge hadn’t changed a bit, not even his coat. He could have just walked out of the sewer we had met him in, except that his forehead was healed. He didn’t smell like a sewer anymore though. He smelled of oil and coal. I could smell it from three paces away, and he had smudges on his neck and on his cheek. He had been working some sort of engine.
“I was hoping to run across you. I have a proposition for you three. Interested? Come on inside and we’ll talk. I’ll buy you dinner,” he said without waiting for us to answer, and turned and went inside. I looked at Randal and Tyler. With a shrug we stood, collected our drinks, and followed him.
We sat around a table that was set for dinner, but later would be used for cards. Croaker had taken off his long coat and we could see the same revolver on his hip. He didn’t wear it low slung like a gunfighter; his weapon was a tool rather than the way he made his living. We made idle chit chat for a bit, discussing weather and our lives, catching up on things we had never discussed w
ith the man. He had grown up here and left town soon after his Pa died, upsetting his Ma and leaving her alone. We all remembered Old Widow Norge. She had just died a few weeks back, and that was what brought him back to town. Back in New Sylians, Croaker worked as a private detective with a partner most of the time. The man that had run the wagon train we came back with had been a childhood friend of the Croaker’s. He told us stories about his misadventures, filling the time while we ate. Norge was a simple man with a sharp eye for detail.
“You remember the papers in that chest?” he asked after the plates had been cleared, coming around to the point. We nodded and waited as he pulled out a leather tobacco pouch and filled his pipe.
“Well, I kinda cheated you boys. Now, I know you got what you wanted, but I got much more. There were government bonds in those papers, and more. I spent the bonds, cashed them in and bought what I needed and some extras. But,” he leaned in close and so did the three of us, “there was a map too, a map that leads out west to a stash of what appears to be more than just a few coins. I waited this long because I needed enough time to pass so no one else could lay claim to this. I could use some strong lads to help me, be my backup, and split the treasure with me. Interested?”
Four hours later we left, coat collars pulled up against the chill wind of the season, and headed home. We would be leaving at first light in two days. We would ride to the closest town that had a train that went west, which was about a day and a half southwest of us, and take the railway to Kalektat.
I told my family I would be gone about a month. My father gave me his warm coat and advice about traveling, camp fires, and coyotes. I’d heard tell of his time on the trail, but now he showed his experience. My mother fretted over me and didn’t want me to go, but never said a word against it in a direct manner. Instead, she packed me tea, cheese and a quilt, and told me to wish on the moon if I grew homesick, because she would look up at it each night and pray for me until I returned home safely. My uncle gave me his service revolver, an antique which he kept in good repair, as he did with everything. He didn’t give any advice. We had been camping together enough that he knew I’d be ok, and he hadn’t forgotten my last trip. Leaving home went easier than I’d thought it would.
Randal didn’t have anyone to ask permission of, or to fret over him. He just told the rancher he would be away for a few weeks and would be back soon. Tyler apparently had it a bit more challenging. His father outright forbade him going, and his mother wept, cried, and even fell to her knees to beg him not to go. He dealt with that for two days. I sometimes think Tyler is the bravest of the three of us. He’s so meek most of the time, but he pulls up courage at the times it counts. I don’t know if I’d have been able to go if my folks had been like his. As it was, he didn’t fight with them or yell. He just told them he was going and let them say what they would. Before he left, though he wouldn’t speak to him, his Pa gave him a medical kit and his mother gave him a kerchief full of sweets, and cried the whole time as we said our goodbyes. We could still hear her weeping as we rode out of town.
The trail was easy those first days. The weather was brisk when the sun was up, and the skies stayed clear. We slept under the stars the first night, but in a hotel the second. Croaker insisted on paying for everything, and always made sure we had jerky and hard rolls in our saddle bags. He also had a nice shotgun on his saddle. He bought the train tickets the next morning, and we checked our saddles and just carried our saddle bags into the train. You just feel like it’s an adventure when you sling your saddle bags over your shoulder, know what I mean? One hanging in front, the other thumping your rump as you walk. It just makes you swagger.
Oh, and I should mention the hats. Hats are important when you’re on the trail. They keep the sun from your eyes and your head warm. Randal always had a hat because of what he’d been doing for work, but Tyler only had a school cap and I usually wore a straw hat when working outside. We had to buy hats for this trip. Tyler went with a wide flat brim, and forgot to get one with a chin strap. That first day he had to chase it a half dozen times. We’d laugh every time and started calling him jackrabbit because of how he would hop after it, sprinting then leaping. That first night Croaker took a knife and some leather cording, and poking holes in the brim, made a strap for Tyler. I had a nice new cowboy hat, and the others kept telling me to curl the sides of the brim, which I did eventually.
We laughed a lot that first week. I smoked a cigar every night after supper, and Croaker and Randal smoked their pipes. Tyler didn’t smoke; he never had another cigar, or anything else, after that one in New Sylians. We drank beer with our meals, and I think it was the first time that Tyler had drunk anything with alcohol in it. He was drunk before he finished his first one, and sick as a dog the next day. He spent most of the morning between train cars, sicking up.
When we arrived in the Kalektat territory, Croaker bought some more horses and a small wagon. We saddled up and headed out. It was warmer there in the day than it was back home, but it could get to freezing at night. Kalektat was a wild place back then, having been made a territory about twenty years before, and having been a part of the Federation side in the war. Adoma Dasism lived in the northeast and Whulek in the east of the territory. We were going to ride right in between the two nations. We took a southwest trail directly through a forest of petrified trees. They were hard as stone in some places. The land was dry and beautiful, but rough. Great cracks went across the land, and hills rose up that had bands of color from brown to red. We had never seen things like that before. We even saw the abandoned jade and ivory pueblos of the Dasism, great buildings carved right out of the stone.
We stopped and traded with the Adomas when we crossed their path. It was tense, but not too bad. We were more worried about the Whuleks, and we’d meet them soon enough. We’d been riding for five days when we saw the first scout. We watched him, and he watched us as we rode past. About three hours later we saw a party of a dozen Whulek heading our way. We reined in and waited. Croaker had been prepared for this.
When they arrived, he showed them some furs, and spoke a couple of words in their tongue. They wouldn’t smile; mostly they glared. But they settled down and took our gifts, and gave us a bone handled knife in exchange. We knew we’d been cheated, but the safe passage we got in the bargain was more than a fair trade. We spent the night around a campfire with them, and they played wooden flutes and tapped out rhythm on hide drums, as we passed a canteen of whiskey around and ate fresh rabbit. In the morning they were gone.
Tyler was out of sorts because he liked to know what he was getting into, but hadn’t been able to research for this trip. Croaker and he spent hours each night going over the notes and maps, while Randal and I played dice on the hard packed earth. It was two days later we saw the small mountains to which the map pointed. It was an abandoned mine that was the first marker. We had to move slow after that. We were looking for a small side camp about a kilometer away that had been abandoned a couple decades ago. We almost missed it, and if it hadn’t been for the rotting outhouse, we might have never known we found it. A small creek ran past it and Randal found the cave entrance, which had been dynamited and closed.
We camped that night, preparing everything for the morning. A few hours after sundown, we saw another campfire a few kilometers away and kept ours small, hoping not to be seen. It didn’t work. A bit after the sun came up, a dozen men rode into our camp. They looked like military but were a ragtag bunch, their uniforms piecemeal and dingy.
“What are ya’ll doing out here?” asked the one in charge, a weasel-like man with a beard that wouldn’t grow right. He smiled and you could see his few remaining yellow teeth. A big man was at his side, cradling a double barrel shotgun, and another man on the other side looked like he could be his brother. That one had a mean scar running along his cheek and a twitch that was distracting.
“We got a right to be here,” Randal said with a sneer.
“Oh, you do? I don’t r
eckon you do. I think yer a bunch of squatters.”
“No sir, we got papers,” Croaker said, giving Randal a look as he pulled some documents from his saddlebag. Croaker had thought this may happen, and had told us to get some panning gear out. We had been squatting over the creek when the men arrived, and looked the part. The man took the papers and stared at them for a moment, his brow wrinkling in concentration.
“These ain’t got no name on them,” he said.
“No sir, they say that whoever holds them has rights to the four square acres that we’re on. You see, right here?” Croaker tried to point at the papers, but the man jerked them away.
“I know what they say. Alright, it’s fine. You go ahead and dig in the mud, but you ain’t allowed to be blasting nuthin’. That’s the law in these here parts.”
“Yes sir.” Croaker took the papers back, and tipped his hat at the man. They stared at each other for a long moment, and then the man looked away. At his command, the soldiers turned their horses and headed out.
“Keep panning boys. We need to give them a couple hours to get far away before we set up the explosives,” Croaker said quietly, still watching the retreating men.
It was well past three before we started setting up the explosives to open the cave. I pointed out to the others how it had been blasted from above, so to close the cave, but not collapse it. We set long fuses, and went around the corner before setting off the eight sticks of dynamite around the edges of the rock pile and one barrel in the bottom. The barrel would go off first, loosening it, and then the sticks would go off and open it up enough for us to dig it out.
It worked beautifully. We had an opening large enough to crawl through from that, and the rest would have to be cleared by hand. We worked past sundown, hauling and passing loose stones, and when we settled in for dinner, we could walk into the cave if we bent over. We took a few torches in after we ate and were amazed by what we saw.
This was no mine shaft. The walls were smooth and clean, and Tyler said it had been carved by nature and water, not men and tools. It had the same layers of color that the mountains had and lines that flowed like liquid. It was beautiful. We went in with caution, making sure it was stable and wouldn’t collapse. It was damp, but warmer inside. The cave winded around for thirty yards or so before opening up to a chamber. A path of water shone in the torchlight on the far side of the oval room, coming out of one wall and going into the other. The creek outside was fed by this cave.
A half dozen rotting crates were stacked neatly along the wall with Federation markings on them. Croaker smiled, and Randal whooped and ran forward with a crowbar in hand. He pried open the first one and when he lifted the lid, torchlight glittered on blocks of gold stamped with the mark of the army. We set it down and opened the other five. Four of them were identical in contents, but the sixth one held several boxes. Each of the smaller containers held various gems and jewelry. We were rich!
We backed the wagon to the opening and spent the next few hours loading it with the contents of the crates. We had to take the valuable bricks out one at a time, since the containers weren’t sturdy enough to lift. The moist air and the years had done their work, and rotted the wood through. Croaker had us divide up the precious stones and hide them on our person. We wrapped them in cloth and hid in our boots, coats, saddle bags, and in small linen pouches that we tied around our neck and dropped down our shirts. We went to sleep giggling like we were small children that had snuck a pie that had been cooling on a window ledge.
When we woke we hitched up the two horses to the wagon and broke camp. Tyler and I went back into the cave to make sure nothing had been overlooked. We hadn’t been in there five minutes when we heard a drawling voice yelling. We looked at each other and crept towards the entrance. Peeking around the last bend, we saw that the soldiers had returned, and their guns were drawn and pointed at Croaker and Randal. I could see the twitching man with the scar looking under the canvas tarps we had put over the gold.
“You were warned, but you didn’t listen. Now you’re under arrest, and you’re gonna lose everything. Maybe even your lives!” the man with yellow teeth said with a tone of sadistic glee. I could see Randal trembling, and knew him well enough to know he was considering doing something rash. Croaker put his hand on the younger man.
“Yes sir. You can take us into custody. We ain’t gonna give you no trouble,” Norge said.
“Where’s your other friends? Still in the cave? Well, since you opened it with blasting when you weren’t supposed to, and you ain’t supposed to even have it open, let’s close it the same way.”
One of the other men lit a stick of dynamite off his cigar and the short fuse sparked to life. He casually tossed it underhand to a spot above the opening Tyler and I were hidden in. I stood up and ran out with my hands held high, and I could hear Tyler scrambling behind me to do the same. The force of the explosion threw me forward four meters and I ended up face in the dirt. I coughed and sputtered and tasted blood in my mouth. As I blinked the dust out of my eyes, I realized Tyler wasn’t beside me.
Randal ran towards the cave, and the men on horses were laughing as they got their mounts back under control. Croaker stood still, but I couldn’t tell much else about what was going on, because I was heading back to the cave too. Tyler had almost made it out. He laid face down, rocks piled on his legs. Randal tossed them aside as he tried to uncover our friend.
The men let us continue. Once we had him freed, I began to check him. He woke screaming when I touched his left leg. It looked to be broken, maybe in more than one place.
“This’ll need splinted, and he’ll have to ride in the wagon,” I told them. They didn’t argue. They were too busy passing around the gems and trying on the jewelry the twitching man had found in the wagon while we helped our friend.
“We already took your weapons, and don’t feel the need to tie your hands. If you run, we’ll just shoot ya in the back, and then shoot your friends,” the one in charge said.
We went along without a fight. It took a day and a half to get to the town at which the men were stationed. We tended to Tyler as best we could on the road, having him ride in the back of the wagon, and when we arrived we asked for a doctor. We were thrown in a stockade and ignored. Croaker took control, calling out for an officer in charge. He was taken away to speak to whoever ran the place. When he returned he told us not to worry; everything would be fine.
It took another four days before we were set free. When it happened, we were brought to the commanding officer. The older gentleman looked chagrined and stood at military rest with his eyes downcast as a very stern man dressed in a fine suit glared at him. The man in the suit was holding a letter from the Governor, as well as his own credentials as Senator. It seems our friend Croaker Norge knew a Senator, as well as the aunt of the Governor of the Kalektat territory.
With long and drawn out apologies, they returned our gold to us, though some was missing, as well as most of the gems and jewelry. But we still had what we had hidden amongst our own effects. The men hadn’t even thought about searching us for more than weapons once they had found the loot in the wagon.
We spent the next two days in a fine hotel as a doctor checked over Tyler, and we left as soon as the man said our friend could travel. The Senator made sure we were given a stagecoach to use that would take us to Bannerstaff - a glorified mining town where everything is expensive and was littered with timber, sheep, and cattle - where we could catch a train back east. Croaker stayed behind, telling us we couldn’t travel with that much gold now that it was known what we had. He would work out how to get us our share and send it to us as soon as he could.
We returned home as the first snows came. This adventure was another step in us becoming men. We learned about trust that goes deeper than thought. That gut instinct that steers you even when your head can’t think straight. Like trusting Croaker, and him trusting people he had helped in his past. And not trusting every man who did work in
the name of the government. When we left with only what money and precious stones we could carry, we learned another lesson: to accept what you get and not mourn what you never had.
My mother died that winter from pneumonia that had settled in her lungs. My father slowed down a bit once she was gone. He tried to throw himself into the work around the plantation, but never moved with the same energy he had before. I think he’d always thought she’d outlive him. Our share of the gold came in on a stagecoach in the spring, true to Croaker’s word. He sent a letter with it explaining that he had to pay taxes on it, as well as pay a substantial fee to have it delivered, but it was still more than we’d thought possible. I gave most of it to my father and uncle to use for the farm.
I didn’t see much of Randal or Tyler after that. I apprenticed as an engineer and in time became quite well known for my work with engines. I later tried my hand at trains, but it didn’t hold the same joy as the river and a steamboat. It didn’t have the freedom. You were stuck on two rails and always knew what every day would be like. On a boat, the river was always different. That was my love. There, I met the woman I married, and we lived on the river until our second child. Our first child was a son, and I named him after my uncle, who had died the year before. Our second child was a girl who we named after my mother, and after she was born we went back home and moved into my father’s house. Though he adored my son, he loved that little girl more than anything. She was his sunshine.
Randal headed east, and I later heard he had joined the army and went overseas to Teurone. Tyler finished his education, took over his family business and was married before another year passed. Tyler’s leg never healed right, and he walked with a cane for the rest of his life. But like the scar on Randal’s arm from the axe, this was just another trophy to be displayed with pride. I would write to him and followed his life like a story. He had five kids, two boys and three girls. I went to the river, got on a river boat and thought to never look back. That’s how it was, until I had a family of my own. Once I returned I saw Tyler in town, of course. Our children played together when there was an event that the town got together. But the world had changed, and you couldn’t let your kids roam like we did when we were boys.
We did see Randal one more time in 6547. He and his wife came to town for Croaker’s funeral. He stayed with me and my wife, and we spent a week together. Tyler joined us when he could. Randal married a Gallix burlesque dancer that he had met while in the Foreign Legion. He told us stories about the wars he saw and we were fascinated. We envied him for the constant adventure that he lived. They were headed out to Van Tisvelete after the funeral to open a dance hall where his wife would be the star.
Randal envied us though. He always was on the move, and never settled down. He watched Tyler with his five children and would get a sad look on his face. I think he was afraid he would be too much like his own father, and that is why he never had children. Tyler and Randal agreed I had the best of both worlds.
We parted ways on a gray winter afternoon. After the service for Croaker Norge, we stood around talking. It had been simple funeral. Not many people here knew Croaker, though he had hailed from these parts. He had come back to town about two years before, in 6545, and lived his couple of remaining years sitting on the porch of the saloon, smoking his pipe and grousing about the weather and trade.
The three of us - Randal, Tyler and I - lifelong friends, stood and waited as the small crowd dispersed. We walked back to the cave behind the cemetery, where it all started and wandered through it. We had come full circle, but things were so very different now. It was all so… plain. It wasn’t dark or mysterious anymore. Not to our adult minds. The wonder was gone. We laughed and told a few jokes, and recalled the day we had found it. I think we were all a bit sad. Croaker’s death hallmarked more than just the end of his life. It closed the final chapter in our great adventure. Randal left the next day, and Tyler and I returned to our separate lives.
I think of these friends and times when I sit alone on my porch with my cigar and whiskey. I stare out across my well-manicured lawn, not at all like the field of wild flowers of my youth, and I think how things have changed. How I see the world through my eyes, the eyes of other men, the eyes of my childhood, and now the eyes of my own son who is finding his own adventure in the world. I see him watch and emulate me, and I only hope he can look back on these days with the fondness and wonder that I had in my youth.
Appendices
Money Systems
Empire Writs
One: Citizen
Half- 50: Half Writ/Emperor
Quarter – 25: Quad/Senator
Tenth – 10: Judge
Twentieth – 05: Officer
Hundredth – 01: Century
Federation Notes
One: Bite
Half – 50: Half bite
Quarter – 25: 4 bit
Tenth – 10: 10 bit
Twentieth – 05: Nibble
Hundredth – 01: Crumb
Teurone Weights
One: Royal
Half- 50: Noble
Quarter – 25: Lord
Tenth – 10: Master
Twentieth – 05: Journeyman
Hundredth -01: Apprentice
Calendar
The basic calendar is a lunar calendar. There are thirteen months in each year. There are twenty-eight days in each month. There is a new moon on the first day of every month. The first day of spring is on the Equinox. The date is represented by sating the year first, the month second, the week third, and the day last. For example; the first day of Autumn might be written or spoken as 5798 – Harton – Kornon - Ginof
Seasons Months
Spring Loen
Hapok
Axara
Summer Surem
Santara
Xaco
Autumn Harton
Thon
Ault
Winter Witen
Maleo
Frear
Thaw Milwen
Weeks:
Kornon
Jordar
Quebal
Talsā
Days of the Week:
1.Ginof
2.Bestuf
3.Mīdā
4.Therin
5.Uthr
6.Dunwith
7.Lasin
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About the Author
Travis I Sivart lives in a state of flux between Richmond, VA and Washington, DC with his son and cats. He has written and published poetry and short stories, as well as editorials on manners, pipe smoking, and medieval re-enactment. He can be found at www.TravisISivart.com.
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Other books by Travis I. Sivart
Aetheric Elements: The Rise of a Steampunk Reality
Automatons and airships, bustles and beasts, corsets and curses, dandies and dastardly deeds, all await you as you explore the cultures which evolved into a Steampunk industrial civilization. An anthology of nineteen tales of terror, mystery, and adventure.
Steampunk For Simpletons: A Fun Primer For Folks Who Aren't Sure What Steampunk Is All About
A primer followed by a guided tour through the world of steampunk, from the basics such as where to go and what to do, to the aesthetic of the arts within steampunk.
27 Thoughts on Enjoying Life
Twenty seven thoughts on helping create happiness in your personal life, success in your professional life, and even manage depression on a daily basis by suggesting ways to improve and maintain your mental, physical, and emotional well-being.
Journal of a Stranger
The thoughts, ideas, philosophies, and inspirations of a time traveling adventurer. Delving into the psychology of man, life’s eternal questions, burning passions, and the quirky ps
eudo-science of his mind, and more.
The Downfall: Harbinger
The Talisman came again, but this time it didn't leave. The magical emanations of the comet have brought terrors from the bowels of the earth and increased the powers of an insane necromancer. The chaos above brought out others seeking to wrest control of the land. Five people from different walks of life are thrown together by these events with the knowledge that the world as they know it is ending.
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