Boot Hill: Chapter One Redux
CHAPTER ONE RETURNS. Shorter and trimmed and better than before! At least, I think so. You be the judge. Chapter two is on its way!
1.
It might as well have been endless.
For miles and miles the Splinters stretched, unchallenged. The severe desert twisted and plunged and soared to great heights all within a few blinks of an eye. Deep fissures and bone-dry basins carved into the landscape as permanent lacerations, while swells of saw-toothed rocks jutted from flat ground like rows of unmarked gravestones. Their stark red profiles snaked into the eastern horizon. Two sets of parallel steel rails flanked these giant landmarks in their looming shadows, and atop the desert’s man-made stitches the passenger train labored forward.
It was a miracle, really, that I’d even managed to board the train. Be it fate or fortune or a tricky combination of the two or maybe none of these things, all that mattered was that I’d somehow managed to slip beneath the keen eyes of the Aristocracy’s dogs in my escape. A desperate and hasty escape, but a successful one nonetheless. Few outlaws could boast similar triumphs.
That was when it struck me: I was, in fact, an outlaw. A wanted criminal.
A line of perspiration gathered beneath the sweatband of my hat. At the very least I could disguise my bodily reaction to anxiety and fear merely as the early summer heat of the Splinters. A woman seated across from me fanned herself with a certain amount of practiced grace, while an elderly man on the other side of the aisle unknotted his tie and unbuttoned the collar of his dress shirt. Beads of sweat trickled down his balding, sunburned head. If I'd have been in any other circumstance save this one, I might have offered him a balm to soothe the burn. Instead, I procured a handkerchief from my coat pocket and dabbed at my damp forehead, careful to neither make meaningful visual contact with any passenger nor purposely avoid anyone’s casual glance. Shoving the damp cloth back into my coat with shaky hands, I leaned my shoulder against the clattering window beside me. If worst came to worst (which I’m sure it would), I could always leap out the window--and break both my tibias in the process; crawling for miles atop the scalding desert sand until it swallowed me up or a wandering passerby happened to show mercy to a man on the run.
No, the perilous life that accompanied the average outlaw simply didn't suit the likes of me.
Clusters of rawboned trees and cactuses shaped like twisted human forms passed by as I glanced out the window. Even the vegetation the Splinters nurtured was inhospitable at best. I didn’t belong in such a place: a place so ominous and untamed that the premonition of death followed like a vulture’s shadow circling overhead. The Splinters and the Capital couldn’t be any more different, the latter being the only place I’d known my entire life. Already I yearned for the finely manicured courtyards and cobblestone streets of Ancienn, the pealing clock tower, the spacious steps to the university at which I studied, and the statuesque windmills that filled the valleys. Instead, I found myself within the rickety coach of a train, being led farther and farther away from home.
I tugged at the chain of my pocket watch and peered down at the clock hands. Only another forty minutes until the train's scheduled arrival. Then, all I had to do was make it to the Roundhouse, catch the next train headed south to Levinn unnoticed, and hope to All Things Holy that my uncle would allow me to take refuge at his infirmary just long enough to meet with my sister. Valedove would know what to do--much better than I, that is.
Taking one more glance out the window, the notion of leaving the country sounded more appealing and reasonable than wandering the Splinters as a vagabond for the rest of my life.
A rough, unexpected jounce of the car snapped the attention away from my bleak musings. I tensed and looked about in muted alarm, gauging the reaction of the passengers. Most ignored it as a common occurrence and continued about their conversations or their engrossing newspaper articles. I couldn’t help but be skeptical. I had never harbored a particular fondness for trains. Loud, foreboding, unnatural: I preferred none of those things, though the swiftness and ease of such an invention made up for its flaws hundredfold. I never would have stepped outside the Capital’s perimeters without it, and I’m sure I would have already been apprehended and put behind bars. Still, the metal behemoth’s wheels churned and pistons pumped in swift rhythm beneath the trembling floorboards, propelling itself forward with startling agility that, to be quite honest, made me uneasy.
The young man beside me-sound asleep as I’d edged by him before the train departed-now sat up, awake and alert. The jostle must have woken him. He picked at his well-made, tailored clothes: a black, lightweight cotton jacket, shined, leather shoes and a gentleman’s hat perched atop his head gave the impression of moderate wealth and prominence, even for such a young man. A businessman, perhaps, whose father might have left everything (including his life savings) to him in his will. As I considered these things, though, something strange caught my attention. His fingernails. Encrusted with dirt, they were the indisputable, telltale sign of a worker. In deep contrast, mine were pale, hardly sun-freckled, nimble and soft. Clean, of course. A doctor’s hands. The inconsistency of his appearance piqued my curiosity, though I held my tongue.
“What was that?” he said. His voice was so gentle and soft, I hardly heard it over the rattling car.
“I-I’m not sure,” I stammered, surprised by and dubious of the sudden inquisition he no doubt directed at me. If I didn't respond, I faced the consequence of possible suspicion. I had to act casual, natural. “Something on the tracks, maybe? No one seems too concerned,” I said, offering a nervous, friendly smile to the young man. I hadn’t learned the etiquette of the Splinters; what was couth and what was punishable by a bullet to the forehead still eluded me, though in time I would have to assimilate myself or suffer the consequences. That is, if I even made it that far.
He didn’t look at me or respond. Pushing my glasses up the bridge of my nose with my index finger, I frowned to myself, understanding that my half-hearted courtesies were unwanted. It was fine by me.
“No one but you and me, right?” he finally said.
I bit the inside of my cheek. “Do you ride the rails often?”
"It's been an increasing trend," he said amidst a sigh. "Looking to start over with my wife and son. The Capital reminds her of our eldest." He paused. “Died of the fever last winter, only two years old.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said in rote condolence; I had been thrust into the middle of the epidemic myself, caring for and tending to hundreds of patients who walked through my father’s infirmary doors. Many had been lost, young children especially. The poor man’s story wasn’t uncommon, as unfortunate as it may have been.
“Everywhere she looks, there’s little Cornelius. It’ll drive her mad unless she has a change of scenery. So I figured, with my inheritance,” he said, and it took everything within me to keep from smiling to myself, “I could buy up a silver mine just north of Rustrelis before it really booms. It's already in high demand-which I’m sure you already know." He looked me up and down. "But of course, she won’t set a foot out here unless everything is ready and accounted for.”
“I wish you the best,” I said, unsure of what else to say. I couldn’t imagine anyone choosing to move away from the prosperity and comforts of Ancienn. He nodded to me, and it seemed as though the memory of his young son was enough to quiet him. He fidgeted a bit more with his fingers. We said nothing further to each and not long after, he clutched both arm rests on either side of him in a vice grip to hoist himself up.
“If you’ll excuse me,” he said. As he rose and eased into the aisle, the train jarred a second time, stronger than the first. The force was strong enough to toss my acquaintance into the seats adjacent to us. He fell onto a large man with a neatly trimmed moustache and a beard growing in around his thick jaw. Springing away from him, the young man muttered a quiet apology before stumbling toward the front of the coach, each step more urgent than the last. He opened the accordion door that led to the next car and shut it behind him without looking back. The wealthy passenger whom he had been thrown into grumbled to himself, insulted that someone dared to rumple his immaculately pressed coat. Once my acquaintance fell out of sight, I sank back down, running my fingers over the upholstery of my seat cushion. I leaned my head back over the bench and tilted my hat forward to cover my eyes. The passengers’ idle talk pushed back the pressing worries that haunted me, though I listened for casual mention of my name, or rumors regarding the warrant for my arrest. Nothing, much to my relief.
I sniffled. The moment the train passed through the valley between the mountains and into the Splinters, something agitated my nasal sinuses. It could have been a number of things, really, though I’d narrowed it down to either the abysmal plethora of spring tree pollen wafting through the air (an unexpected feature of the desert), or the ever-present red dust, coupled with a consistent, painstaking hot breeze to scatter the particles. I had never come across such problems in the western part of Nesot. The air there was fresher and clearer and brisk. This place was anything but.
Though I was certain worse things could have happened in this place. I should have counted my blessings that I wasn’t rotting in prison or being held at gunpoint.
And then, without warning, the worst happened.
A deafening cacophony burst into my ears, and the train lurched forward in a violent convulsion. I was hurled from my seat, crashing headlong into a man who had been sitting across from me. My hands instinctively grabbed at him, frantic for something to hold on to. Another seizure rocked through the train car and the overwhelming strength tore my fingers from him, sending me tumbling into the aisle. Bags and suitcases and shattered window glass rained down on me.
A particularly heavy, large piece of luggage landed on my thigh, pinning me in place while everything else around me pitched sideways. While I struggled to loose myself, I got a glimpse of the suitcase; not a suitcase at all but rather, a body of another passenger. Unconscious or worse. Panic welled in the pit of my gut and I worked to kick the large-framed man away, without success.
Earsplitting screeches of grinding train wheels drowned out my own screams and no doubt those around me, the loud, wrenching sound of metal bending and tearing from their fastened positions. A final jerk of the car yanked me free from the weight of the passenger who had pinned me and into something sharp and stationary on the floor. Pain shot through my temples. A flash of white played behind my eyelids and then a lapse of unconsciousness consumed me.
1.
It might as well have been endless.
For miles and miles the Splinters stretched, unchallenged. The severe desert twisted and plunged and soared to great heights all within a few blinks of an eye. Deep fissures and bone-dry basins carved into the landscape as permanent lacerations, while swells of saw-toothed rocks jutted from flat ground like rows of unmarked gravestones. Their stark red profiles snaked into the eastern horizon. Two sets of parallel steel rails flanked these giant landmarks in their looming shadows, and atop the desert’s man-made stitches the passenger train labored forward.
It was a miracle, really, that I’d even managed to board the train. Be it fate or fortune or a tricky combination of the two or maybe none of these things, all that mattered was that I’d somehow managed to slip beneath the keen eyes of the Aristocracy’s dogs in my escape. A desperate and hasty escape, but a successful one nonetheless. Few outlaws could boast similar triumphs.
That was when it struck me: I was, in fact, an outlaw. A wanted criminal.
A line of perspiration gathered beneath the sweatband of my hat. At the very least I could disguise my bodily reaction to anxiety and fear merely as the early summer heat of the Splinters. A woman seated across from me fanned herself with a certain amount of practiced grace, while an elderly man on the other side of the aisle unknotted his tie and unbuttoned the collar of his dress shirt. Beads of sweat trickled down his balding, sunburned head. If I'd have been in any other circumstance save this one, I might have offered him a balm to soothe the burn. Instead, I procured a handkerchief from my coat pocket and dabbed at my damp forehead, careful to neither make meaningful visual contact with any passenger nor purposely avoid anyone’s casual glance. Shoving the damp cloth back into my coat with shaky hands, I leaned my shoulder against the clattering window beside me. If worst came to worst (which I’m sure it would), I could always leap out the window--and break both my tibias in the process; crawling for miles atop the scalding desert sand until it swallowed me up or a wandering passerby happened to show mercy to a man on the run.
No, the perilous life that accompanied the average outlaw simply didn't suit the likes of me.
Clusters of rawboned trees and cactuses shaped like twisted human forms passed by as I glanced out the window. Even the vegetation the Splinters nurtured was inhospitable at best. I didn’t belong in such a place: a place so ominous and untamed that the premonition of death followed like a vulture’s shadow circling overhead. The Splinters and the Capital couldn’t be any more different, the latter being the only place I’d known my entire life. Already I yearned for the finely manicured courtyards and cobblestone streets of Ancienn, the pealing clock tower, the spacious steps to the university at which I studied, and the statuesque windmills that filled the valleys. Instead, I found myself within the rickety coach of a train, being led farther and farther away from home.
I tugged at the chain of my pocket watch and peered down at the clock hands. Only another forty minutes until the train's scheduled arrival. Then, all I had to do was make it to the Roundhouse, catch the next train headed south to Levinn unnoticed, and hope to All Things Holy that my uncle would allow me to take refuge at his infirmary just long enough to meet with my sister. Valedove would know what to do--much better than I, that is.
Taking one more glance out the window, the notion of leaving the country sounded more appealing and reasonable than wandering the Splinters as a vagabond for the rest of my life.
A rough, unexpected jounce of the car snapped the attention away from my bleak musings. I tensed and looked about in muted alarm, gauging the reaction of the passengers. Most ignored it as a common occurrence and continued about their conversations or their engrossing newspaper articles. I couldn’t help but be skeptical. I had never harbored a particular fondness for trains. Loud, foreboding, unnatural: I preferred none of those things, though the swiftness and ease of such an invention made up for its flaws hundredfold. I never would have stepped outside the Capital’s perimeters without it, and I’m sure I would have already been apprehended and put behind bars. Still, the metal behemoth’s wheels churned and pistons pumped in swift rhythm beneath the trembling floorboards, propelling itself forward with startling agility that, to be quite honest, made me uneasy.
The young man beside me-sound asleep as I’d edged by him before the train departed-now sat up, awake and alert. The jostle must have woken him. He picked at his well-made, tailored clothes: a black, lightweight cotton jacket, shined, leather shoes and a gentleman’s hat perched atop his head gave the impression of moderate wealth and prominence, even for such a young man. A businessman, perhaps, whose father might have left everything (including his life savings) to him in his will. As I considered these things, though, something strange caught my attention. His fingernails. Encrusted with dirt, they were the indisputable, telltale sign of a worker. In deep contrast, mine were pale, hardly sun-freckled, nimble and soft. Clean, of course. A doctor’s hands. The inconsistency of his appearance piqued my curiosity, though I held my tongue.
“What was that?” he said. His voice was so gentle and soft, I hardly heard it over the rattling car.
“I-I’m not sure,” I stammered, surprised by and dubious of the sudden inquisition he no doubt directed at me. If I didn't respond, I faced the consequence of possible suspicion. I had to act casual, natural. “Something on the tracks, maybe? No one seems too concerned,” I said, offering a nervous, friendly smile to the young man. I hadn’t learned the etiquette of the Splinters; what was couth and what was punishable by a bullet to the forehead still eluded me, though in time I would have to assimilate myself or suffer the consequences. That is, if I even made it that far.
He didn’t look at me or respond. Pushing my glasses up the bridge of my nose with my index finger, I frowned to myself, understanding that my half-hearted courtesies were unwanted. It was fine by me.
“No one but you and me, right?” he finally said.
I bit the inside of my cheek. “Do you ride the rails often?”
"It's been an increasing trend," he said amidst a sigh. "Looking to start over with my wife and son. The Capital reminds her of our eldest." He paused. “Died of the fever last winter, only two years old.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said in rote condolence; I had been thrust into the middle of the epidemic myself, caring for and tending to hundreds of patients who walked through my father’s infirmary doors. Many had been lost, young children especially. The poor man’s story wasn’t uncommon, as unfortunate as it may have been.
“Everywhere she looks, there’s little Cornelius. It’ll drive her mad unless she has a change of scenery. So I figured, with my inheritance,” he said, and it took everything within me to keep from smiling to myself, “I could buy up a silver mine just north of Rustrelis before it really booms. It's already in high demand-which I’m sure you already know." He looked me up and down. "But of course, she won’t set a foot out here unless everything is ready and accounted for.”
“I wish you the best,” I said, unsure of what else to say. I couldn’t imagine anyone choosing to move away from the prosperity and comforts of Ancienn. He nodded to me, and it seemed as though the memory of his young son was enough to quiet him. He fidgeted a bit more with his fingers. We said nothing further to each and not long after, he clutched both arm rests on either side of him in a vice grip to hoist himself up.
“If you’ll excuse me,” he said. As he rose and eased into the aisle, the train jarred a second time, stronger than the first. The force was strong enough to toss my acquaintance into the seats adjacent to us. He fell onto a large man with a neatly trimmed moustache and a beard growing in around his thick jaw. Springing away from him, the young man muttered a quiet apology before stumbling toward the front of the coach, each step more urgent than the last. He opened the accordion door that led to the next car and shut it behind him without looking back. The wealthy passenger whom he had been thrown into grumbled to himself, insulted that someone dared to rumple his immaculately pressed coat. Once my acquaintance fell out of sight, I sank back down, running my fingers over the upholstery of my seat cushion. I leaned my head back over the bench and tilted my hat forward to cover my eyes. The passengers’ idle talk pushed back the pressing worries that haunted me, though I listened for casual mention of my name, or rumors regarding the warrant for my arrest. Nothing, much to my relief.
I sniffled. The moment the train passed through the valley between the mountains and into the Splinters, something agitated my nasal sinuses. It could have been a number of things, really, though I’d narrowed it down to either the abysmal plethora of spring tree pollen wafting through the air (an unexpected feature of the desert), or the ever-present red dust, coupled with a consistent, painstaking hot breeze to scatter the particles. I had never come across such problems in the western part of Nesot. The air there was fresher and clearer and brisk. This place was anything but.
Though I was certain worse things could have happened in this place. I should have counted my blessings that I wasn’t rotting in prison or being held at gunpoint.
And then, without warning, the worst happened.
A deafening cacophony burst into my ears, and the train lurched forward in a violent convulsion. I was hurled from my seat, crashing headlong into a man who had been sitting across from me. My hands instinctively grabbed at him, frantic for something to hold on to. Another seizure rocked through the train car and the overwhelming strength tore my fingers from him, sending me tumbling into the aisle. Bags and suitcases and shattered window glass rained down on me.
A particularly heavy, large piece of luggage landed on my thigh, pinning me in place while everything else around me pitched sideways. While I struggled to loose myself, I got a glimpse of the suitcase; not a suitcase at all but rather, a body of another passenger. Unconscious or worse. Panic welled in the pit of my gut and I worked to kick the large-framed man away, without success.
Earsplitting screeches of grinding train wheels drowned out my own screams and no doubt those around me, the loud, wrenching sound of metal bending and tearing from their fastened positions. A final jerk of the car yanked me free from the weight of the passenger who had pinned me and into something sharp and stationary on the floor. Pain shot through my temples. A flash of white played behind my eyelids and then a lapse of unconsciousness consumed me.