Part One: The Disposition of Mister Quade Walton, as well as Contemporary Accounts of Daily Life in the Grace of Diana, and One Testimony Given Regarding the End of the World
> "It's important, when telling a story, for everyone the protagonist loves to be dead or absent. Orphans and widowers, that's the ticket. There's nothing worse in the world than being inflicted upon by the wants, needs, and perspective of the people you hope to protect."
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It fell on Mr Sadiqi to take up a long knife and a length of chain, so as to ride out and put the remaining feral troll out of its misery. Though my lesson had been to see the beast shot, Momma announced that its execution was as yet out of bounds for my education.
Without the company of Mr Sadiqi and his horse, I was by the necessity of alternative lifted up by Auntie Vaunda to join Momma astride Applejack. Mister’s Applejack was a fine placid bay nag, which having long surrendered to the indignity of domestication bore the least capable riders with greatest of patience. Once I was secure, Momma wrapped me up in her arms and left the reins in my care. There was no risk in it, for that old horse would not have needed an ounce of my direction to know her way home safely.
Auntie Vaunda had shared the saddle with Momma on the ride out, and following the morning spectacle, was come into a libertine disposition; which made her bold enough to ask the Mister for a place on top of Picadillio. The Mister, who was feeling the effect of his plans realized cleanly, was likewise puffing up into a sanguine humor. He gripped her hands and swung her up off the ground, and they both whooped and laughed in a way that felt private and made me uncomfortable to listen to.
Momma and I shared the conspiracy of pretending we were alone on the return, and we spent the time pointing at low trees and scrub and guessing at their names. I recognized an early flowering false yucca. She pointed out a leafy holly shrub, and a clasp of horse-mint. The land was touched by the first green-blushed hint of spring, and many pretty or useful things were swelling eagerly to bloom. But I had a novice’s eye for botany and Momma was little better, so we soon fell into inventing our own wild yarns about the local vegetation. This flower would burn off your eyebrows if you made it into a paste, or that herb would brew a tea which caused your tongue to fall out, or yonder bush would tickle you to death if you got too close, or –
Oh! I only just realized her aim of it. Huh.
You see, halfway through the hourlong ride Momma spotted one particular yellow flower which neither of us could name. It had a broad crown and feathery stamen and a vibrant depth of color that set it apart from the landscape. But its most striking feature was its iridescent shimmer, which I could only spot out of the corner of my eye, and a shadow which it cast into the air which I could feel but could not see.
It would have been a dryad sprout; I’d forgotten about it. See, she said it was filled up inside by a poltergeist, and could talk but only in lies. I had though she was being fresh with me. Now I wonder who’d have been set to make rid of it.
We came at the end of an hour to the border of Ghost Perch, which was our home. The property was rounded by a patchwork wall that had been salvaged of whatsoever material had been nearby, disposable, and portable. Stacked stones for a length, corrugated tin panels for a brace of yards, and barbed steel wire wherever it could be afforded. But most of the circumference of the land was fenced in rough hewed posts with fitted cross beams which had been felled and shaped onsite (to the last depletion of its woodland).
We were met at the gate by a young man who limped swiftly towards us. His name was, as I recall, either Michael or Christopher, and he had served diligently as a hand for two seasons and would serve beyond that yet for a third. He had the bent of a mild scoliosis, and to his misfortune the asymmetry extended to his face. Luckily, he had long learned the trick of presenting his profile at an angle, which if he caught the right mark would effect him fairly dashing in perspective.
In the presence of the Mister, and in respect to the distinguished ladies of Ghost Perch, he did not debase himself with the attempt.
“Gracious mornin’, ma’ams and sir,” Chris/Mike called out to us (it was polite to ignore the children when addressing adults, which is why I was here omitted).
He had on a griffindor, a popular conical style of hat which was traditionally made from reclaimed “t-shirts” and stiffened with starch and sometimes sewn onto a denim backing. By convention, a griffindor was treasured by the degree of obscenity of the printed image sourced from the original material (I have observed this tradition broadly and often in my travels, amongst working men it is strangely widespread).
Naturally as it would be poor taste to be public and indecent, Chris/Mike’s hat at the time was mild and inoffensive. He doffed it to us and stopped just at the distance that the horses could comfortably slow to him.
“You are late, boy,” the Mister growled.
“Sir, I see that sir,” the young man dissembled, “but if it was expected I meet y’all along the road, then by logic I’d got to walk back aside you, which as I’m afoot could only slow your pace, and then just to set out again the same way after. In service and respect to efficiency, I thought I might receive you better here instead.”
“Your mouth outruns your wits,” the Mister coldly said. “I have the means to slow either and both, I do not advise you give me the mind to.”
Chris/Mike had the sense for a contrite, “yes, sir, sorry, sir,” and to hold his tongue past that. Subsequently he took up Picadillio’s lead, and we rode in silence along beaten earth and cropped grass until we closed upon the main estate.
At this point in my life, I had never known another home but Ghost Perch Ranch and I had not the worldliness to understand that the position of our comfort was both precarious and unusual. There were a half-handful of outbuildings on the property, but the house of the Mister stood on the slope of a small hill in the center of timber-stripped land and was prominently visible from all directions (except a narrow angle on the far side of the hill). The residence was constructed to be a perfect illusion, evoking the stark and rugged beauty of wilderness living without being subject to nature’s discomforts.
I am struggling to think of the right way to describe my childhood home to you. Imagine it so – as if an architect of the modernist style had been charged with assembling a cabin in the Norwegian rustic of the 19th century, and conspired to rebel against his instructions according to his own preference. An exterior of dark lush timber was made up in shape of logs and cleverly fitted panels to hide its steel frame bones. While the house reached two stories tall and encompassed a broad square footage, a careful application of ratio and perspective had given its square profile the impression (at distance) of a much smaller building.
Tall, shadowed windows appeared in irregular places where they were once intended to provide open vista views of the old wooded property. Though, without cover, double-plate glass was vulnerable to unchecked wind, and more than one pane had suffered threatening cracks in the years of our residency.
We reached it presently and made to dismount.
Today, it was Auntie Seung-Hee who’d come out to greet us, as well as my cousins Su-Hope (who was Auntie Seung-Hee’s daughter) and Saleena (who was Auntie Mabel’s youngest). My cousins presented in fine, pretty dresses, and comported themselves before the Mister in grace (such as to impress him), and silence (such as not to offend him).
You see, it was the great ongoing ordeal of the ladies of Ghost Perch that Su-Hope, Saleena, and I were (by our character and accomplishment) to be made fit to enter into the Mister’s affection. And… and none of this particularly has to do with the fucking story.
But here I am dwelling on it. Still. You’d have thought I’d have been over all this by now.
Yes. Well anyway, it was our habit at Ghost Perch to make a sad little ritual out of welcoming the Mister back home; to the point where the duration of his absence almost didn’t matter. But since in this instance I was not receiving, I was being received; it was no trouble at all to extract myself.
After giving my greetings politely and quietly, I collected a warm folded sourdough flatbread from Saleena for my lunch. It was filled with millet, dandelion, corn hominy, and mild pepper sauce, and I thanked her for it before making my escape. Barring other instruction, it was near always a safe venture to give myself permission to help with chores about the ranch grounds, so I took charge of old Applejack and set out with Hand Chris (or Mike) for the stabling of the horses and to see if there were other tasks about which I could make my business.
Though I doubt you will find much interest in an account of little labors, I found great peace in mine. To this day, the man I am is shaped by the lessons I took in patience and diligence from the daily upkeep of the ranch. So I hope you will endure my summary as long as it is brief.
Stolen novel; please report.
Picadillio and Applejack needed to be brushed, which had to come after the removal of their tackle. It was always necessary to inspect the bridles, buckles, and straps for signs of damage or wear; so as a rule I would look them through after settling and securing the animals. Mucking out the stable was a task for the early morning, so the straw and sawdust was fresh by one of the hands and I was spared it.
At Ghost Perch Ranch, we kept six beasts we called horses though only three were properly so. Of the remaining three, one was probably some kind of mule, the second had been born from a cow (which should suggest we must call it a bull though it certainly wasn’t), and the last was as far as I could tell, some variety of antelope. We called him Cricket.
Mike/Chris was still meant to ride out and join Mr Sadiqi, who had remained on the Asphalt Ocean preparing the troll remains (for either disposal or trade), and would need another hand if he was to herd the stock back home once he was done. Cricket was swift and well rested, and the distance was not so long, so he was secured in his tack and was watered reservedly. I believe at that time, the young man was the only rider Cricket would willingly bear, so I helped him secure the last straps. Then he called me a dingus, thanked me and set out.
I was alone in the barn, but the weather was fair and there was no point in penning up the horses. Instead I let them all out into their fenced enclosure to relax and enjoy the sun. Perched up like a bird on a wooden post which had a nearly flat surface, I ate my lunch watching the animals.
To this point I have mentioned two of my cousins, which may mislead you to the conclusion I had no others. Just like every other facet of life at Ghost Perch, cousins were divided into those which fell within and without the favor of the master of the ranch. Though it is my belief that things should not be introduced out of turn, I also do not desire that you should be continuously surprised by the appearance of my unmentioned relations. Therefore I should note that during this turn of my history you may expect up to six of my cousins, and four of my Aunties to be named.
The eldest of us was two years my senior, and named Ashli Hektor. She had yellow hair and her eyes were always searching the edges of things. There was a gauntness in her expression and her laugh was rare to the point of extinction. She was the coyote in winter.
Ashli appeared by way of the path towards the cellar exit, as it was her preference to leave from any means but the front door. Though she did not call out to me, she raised her hand sharply and then settled to lean against the fence at my side.
“Give me a bite of bite of that,” she mooched.
“Only if you give me some of the cheese you stole,” I exchanged, and so we traded.
She and I had developed a rapport over the years. She, like I, had found chores about to be the closest facsimile we had to free motion of action. For my part, I admired her fiercely. I was forever hoping to mimic her casual air of cool detachment. She for her part, was not allowed out of doors in the company of the hands (not to be trusted) without the escort of a male relative and thus I was tolerated patiently.
The tasks we accomplished were many and varied; some seasonal and many unplanned. In winter we would feed the herd with shredded root vegetables and grassy silage. In spring, we would take short hooked knives and pare hoofs before the drive to pasture. The barn roof would need patching, or stall hinges would need mending. In particular, I was regularly asked to collect dried beast dung, which kept our hands’ cooking fires lit and often ours as well. As we maintained a small clutch of flightless ducks, Ashli had come into a proficiency for strangling fowl and would leave it to me to pluck and gut them.
Mostly we would take instruction from Mr Sadiqi or the hands, and in particular we would barter with them for the jobs they loved least in exchange for small pleasures like sweets or tobacco or gossip from the world outside.
After a time on that particular afternoon, Hand Maynard came by to keep us company. Maynard was not so bad, but he was an older man and was too fond of Ashli, so our official policy by consensus was that we did not like him. He offered us a teacup of peach wine (which he was not allowed to do), and then asked if we might help the boys flush out an invasive warren of vampire moles (which we were most certainly not allowed to do). Maynard carried his [vakero] against his shoulder, which was a tall wooden pike – half again as high as him – with an iron tip and a forward spike cross. He shook the pike towards us like a baton, as if one of us would take it up and so change our mind.
I glanced to Ashli in case she might overrule me, but she shrugged to indicate she had no preference that day. Given the events of morning, I had been left in little mood for defiance and less for violence, so I offered to instead take up some maintenance, and preferably at the outer fence. But Maynard had recently come into the unwholesome responsibility of digging a pit for a new latrine, which he was escaping in lieu of the hunt and was all to happy to negotiate into our care.
Thus we found ourselves at the turn of a quarter hour with a pair of corroding steel shovels at the edge of a small trench. I tucked a honey embalmed locust wrapped in paper into my pocket, and Ashli had come away with three wrapped cigarillos (which without fire at hand she could only chew on absently).
Our coats were thrown off onto a close-by patch of grass. Mine was a simple black wool pea coat, and hers was a vest of black lace and denim sewn onto a turnt-out wolf pelt (nearly beaten to bits from the burden of being her favorite). Our sleeves were rolled up and we had already exhausted our usual complaints on the subject of the disrepair of our work gloves. The sun was high and shaded by thin feathery cloud; paired with a light wind, it made for wild swings in temperature.
I kicked into the lip of my shovel so that it might bite deeper into the sandy clay.
“Its head pretty much split wide open,” I recounted. For emphasis I tapped my temple and then splayed out my fingers. “Kablooie. Blue gooey.”
“Ruthless,” Ashli replied. She stabbed at the edges of a rock to get purchase under it.
“No ruth at all,” I confirmed.
My cousin leaned against her standing shovel. “Could you hear the gun eat them?” She asked.
I tried to think if I had felt a sense of flow or pressure from Fortitude in the moment it extinguished the first troll. I had been surprised at the time, and I could not be certain I noticed. But the second troll had not been killed straightaway, and I think I could just barely have perceived the discordant note of its Thesis unraveling.
“I think I could tell when the second one broke open,” I said hesitantly. “He only tagged ‘em in the side, but I think that was enough. You know Hand Nick, right? When Single Nick plays a bad note on his guitar and it strikes you sour, maybe like that.” I frowned. “But just barely there.”
Ashli nodded. “It can be like that,” she explained. “Early on, you know during like, monsterpalooza and the fuckin’ ghost dance shit – do you remember any of that?”
I tilted my head. I had vague memories of the hard times, but I had been sheltered from the worst moments.
“Well anyway,” she grimaced, “there was this one seriously ugly horse lizard that was horny for goat murder. Ate like, three of them.” Her shovel bit the soil. “But it glowed. Not bright, but at the same time, hurt to look right at it. And if you got close, it would kind of mess you up: like it would burn. Sort of like a bad sunburn.”
“Fire flavor?” I asked with eager curiosity.
“Naw,” she replied. Then she chuckled. “It was real fuckin’ flavorful though. My mom said it was lasers or light or something, but your mom called it the ‘Nagasaki special’.”
“Which is?”
“I do not know,” Ashli briefly over-enunciated. “Nukular something. Anyway I’ve seen ‘vaders with Opinions before, but this thing had juice with an Opinion, yea? But then when his royal highness showed up -” (His royal highness was Ashli’s favorite and secret moniker for the Mister) “- fuckin’ waddled his paunchy self to the rescue, all it took was for him to draw on it.”
She snapped her fingers. I didn’t understand yet, so I made a neutral, but worldly “ah” sound in order to pretend that I did.
“Light went right out. Before he even shot it. Poor sucker even looked surprised when it happened.”
I felt it was appropriate to draw out a “wha-at?” as a supportive exclamation.
“His juice knew he was dead before he was dead,” she concluded. “Juice is crazy like that.”
Although I wasn’t sure how that was possible, I trusted my cousin more than I trusted common sense, therefore it must have been true.
Our conversation lulled and we returned to the rhythm of our labor. The shape of the trench was cut, and was starting to have a proper depth in inches. The clay below grew denser.
It was the common understanding at that time, and by that I mean generally among the middle North American freeholds, that it was not possible to hear Our Lady Diana’s voice directly. It was only when her grace pressed against the boundary of some ‘other’ voice, that there would emerge a… I would call it a discord, which a normal person could even begin to notice.
We would call it the Argument. It wasn’t something one could catch hold of with any of the five senses, it was more like something which you could feel as a tension just on the other side of a daydream. Receiving the Argument was one of the reasons Ashli and I enjoyed chores on the ranch nearly as much as we did (though enjoy may be too strong a word). You see, if one were to stay too close to either Fortitude or Retort, (which I have yet to mention) they would be too neatly under her influence.
Just like you might stick your head in clear water and not lose proper proportions, yet that same water through a drinking-glass will crimp and disjoint or even topsy-turvy an image, it wasn’t until we would distance ourselves from the house that we could chase after the Argument and dwell on it.
Time progressed by increments of inches dug.
“How you figure Diana’s feeling today?” Ashli asked after three or four feet had passed and the anticipation of supper was announcing itself to my stomach. The question was entirely speculative, as our pit had kept us a bit too close to the house to read anything meaningfully into her mood. “You think she’s angry, or like she’s still amped up, like ‘come get some’.”
I was slow to agree. It was my imagination that Diana would resolve a threat to her domain with distinguished satisfaction. She was prideful and yet gentlemanly, or at least that was how I thought of her. “Yea, I bet you’re right,” I lied.
Ashli tapped her shovel twice against a rock and so I circled around it so we could pinch it up from opposite sides. “Seriously,” she insisted (because I was a poor liar). “I can hear it. She’s all worked up.”
My cousin looked me in the eyes. The two of us were matted down, sweaty, salt stained and tired. The sun was passed by an obstructing cloud and I felt the warmth with immediacy.
I thought to myself that Ashli was mistaken. At this near distance to the Mister and his arms, common sense should dispute her. But then I recalled how I should measure my cousin’s sense against the common one. I turned towards the west and finally heard Hand Maynard’s shouts of warning. Between we and he, I saw a cloud of rising dust, blooming at speed in our direction.
“Ah, shit,” I called out.
Ashli swiveled in alarm. “What?” She blurted, then there was a blur of motion and a weighty metal clunk. A dozen kilos of black furred rodent fell stunned at our feet, and Ashli’s shovel quivered in the aftermath of her swing.
“Vampire mole?” I guessed.
Then three of the hands arrived with a clamor and their [vakero]s spilt the mole’s red into the thirsty earth.