If you look at a map of the continent, you will find that a fair bit of the land is still uncharted. On the eastern coast, everything is documented—every city, river, railroad, and trade route sits in vibrant color, carefully and dutifully mapped. This is the country of Hearth—battered and bruised from a civil war, but rising to stand on its own two legs again. This country has been mapped from top to bottom, but the further west you travel, the more hazy and vague the information becomes.

    From the top of the map to the bottom, there are vertical lines, equally spaced. These lines—called parallels—divide the map into twenty-five equal slivers. The fifth line is arguably the most important geographical feature on the entire continent. This fifth line, the Fifth Parallel, the Black Meridian, is where the documentation of the continent ceases; it is also where the boundaries of Hearth run. The Black Meridian is where the country officially ends; it is where civilization ends. It is where the Frontier begins.

    Everything past the Fifth Parallel is a rampant, wild country, filled with as many dangers as it is with promises of prosperity—if not more. Unclaimed land sits sprawling to the horizon for any man brave enough to claim it—claim it, and challenge the creatures living upon it. Disputed territories from nations across the ocean are scattered across the landscape, creating everchanging borders and evershifting wars, raids, and atrocities. Untold riches are rumored to hide in every corner of this vast stretch of continent most people call The Wild West.

    The world was upside down and swaying. At least, it was for Jack Ransom.

    At that moment, he was suspended over a stretch of the Siltwater River. This in and of itself would not have been that much of a problem; not compared to the sorts of scrapes he was used to finding himself in. No, he had been in far more harrowing situations than being swung out over a river. Being upside down while he was swinging out over the river certainly added more complexity to the situation, though. Nothing he couldn't solve, of course, but it was still an extra hurdle to overcome.

    There was, however, the fact that his hands were handcuffed behind his back. By itself, this would be nothing—he would just need to find a blacksmith and use a bit of guile to get the cuffs off. But he was also upside down and swinging out over a vast stretch of water. That wasn't the end of his problems, either, he was sorry to admit. There was also the matter of a very large rock tied around his waist and dangling down (or was it up?) to weigh him down (or was it up?). And, of course, the boulder had been tied there by two very angry men. These two very angry men happened to be standing on the riverbank about thirty feet from him. One of them was also holding a rope; the rope snaked over a tree branch and coiled around his ankles. This man holding the rope looked very eager to let go of it and let Jack drown.

    Yes, Jack Ransom had to admit that, altogether, he was in a decidedly bad situation.

    "Well, how do you like it?" one of the men on the bank called out. He was short and fat. He wore a faded and stained blue vest over a shirt that had once been white. His face was filled with scars and what looked to be the leftovers of a terrible disease. His name was Marley Holt. "You feel like talkin yet?"

    The other man laughed and parroted his friend Marley. "Yeah, ya feel like talkin do ya?" This man was tall and thin—sickly thin, as if he had not eaten in several weeks. He had one large mustache and wore a widebrimmed hat that looked to have survived several attempts to kill it with a gun. This man's name was Everett Mills.

    Jack was still swinging in a pendulum motion from when they had initially pushed him out over the Siltwater. He spun in a lazy circle as he moved back toward them in his arc. "I felt like talking before, gentlemen. No need to go through all this trouble on account of me."

    Marley, the short one, spat at Jack, but he missed. "Just tell us where the money is."

    "I wish I knew," Jack confessed.

    "We know you know," Marley snarled.

    "Yeah, we know you know," Everett mimicked.

    "Then you should know that I don't have any money," Jack said in exasperation. "I never did. The deal went sour."

    "Horseshit!" Marley spat.

    "Horsehit," Everett said.

    "It's the God's honest truth. I'd cross my heart, but—" Jack shrugged and wiggled his arms a little to draw attention to the handcuffs securing his arms far from his heart.

    "You owe us money," Marley said. "Which means you owe money to the Bastard Court. We already told Graveyard how much he could expect out of the deal."

    "Well, it's not my fault you went and told your boss about my little project," Jack said. "I explicitly told you it was a risky venture."

    "No, no, you said it was a whiskey venture. You were selling whiskey for god's sake!"

    "I said no such thing!" Jack cried, adding a nice dollop of drama to his voice. He had, of course, said exactly as Marley claimed. "Maybe you misheard. If I remember correctly, we were all pretty drunk that afternoon."

    "It was midnight."

    "My point still stands."

    Marley scowled at Jack in silence for a moment, then let go of the rope. Jack let out a startled yelp as gravity, and the added weight of the boulder, drew him downward toward the water. At the last instant, Marley grabbed hold of the rope again. The boulder breached the top of the water, splashing a fine mist onto Jack's head.

    "That's the only warning you get," Marley said coldly.

    "Fine," Jack said. "I had the money." That was true—he'd made off with nearly 500 marks by selling a little bathtub whiskey he'd cut with water and molasses. He'd called it Sananoma Whiskey, and it had sounded just foreign enough to make people guzzle it down like thirsty dogs. "But the money got stolen." That was also true.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

    "By who?"

    "The Blackhound Gang." That was also true--the five members had followed him out of town and threatened him with their firearms while he camped out at what had once been his hideout. He would never be able to go back, though; not if he planned on having any semblance of safety.

    "Then why didn't ya just tell us that from the get-go?" Marley grunted.

    "Because I figured I could still get it back." That was mostly true. He figured he could still get it back and get away from these two numbskulls—he 500 marks richer and they none the wiser.

    "Well can you?" Everett asked. Marley smacked him in the back of the head.

    "He's lying, you idiot," Marley said.

    "I am not." Jack looked him dead in the eye.

    "Okay, then, Ransom. How did you plan to get it back?"

    Now that was a difficult question to answer. In a split second, Jack ran through possible scenarios. He was always looking for a leg up, a way to change his current situation into something better. He knew how to work the truth just as a grandmother down in Heckle Valley could stitch together a quilt that was, for all intents and purposes, a masterpiece. The question now was: what should he tell these two men that would somehow benefit him and keep them from sharing in the spoils? A thousand scenarios flashed in his mind, but he ultimately did what he always did. He went with his gut. His intuition never let him down . . . well, it mostly helped him. Sometimes. He wasn't dead yet, which had to count for something.

    "There was a map," Jack said. This particular statement rested in a vast grey area between what was true and what was not.

    "A map?" Marley asked with disgust.

    "A map!" Everett breathed in awe.

    "A map," Jack repeated. "They buried the money."

    "Why the hell would they do that?" Marley asked.

    "Because the Sheriffs came through, of course," Jack replied. He saw their reaction to his mention of the Sheriffs; a shiver ran through both of them. The Sheriffs were the patrolmen of the Frontier, a roving group of desperados tasked with carrying out the law and dispensing punishment for crimes.

    "What were they doing all the way out there?" Marley asked, fear creeping into his voice and nearly overtaking his skepticism.

    "They had been tailing the Blackhound Gang for days," Jack said. "See, I followed the gang after they took my money—" 

     Marley cried out from his place on the riverbank. 

     "—I mean our money, Marley, calm down," Jack corrected. "But while I was following them, I noticed that I wasn't the only one trailing those boys. So I laid low and let the Sheriffs do the dirty work for me."

    "Then you don't need a map," Marley said. "You saw where they buried it."

    "No, no," Jack said. "They sent one of the men off to bury it while the rest of them scattered."

    Marley puzzled over this for awhile, as if piecing it together himself. "So how did you find out there was a map?"

    "I heard one of the men tell a Sheriff about it."

    "Of course!" Everett exclaimed with a grin, clearly caught up in the excitement. Marley glowered at him, and Everett's smile faded. "Sorry, Marley."

    "No Outlaw worth their salt would ever tell a Sheriff a goddamn thing," Marley replied indignantly.

    "He would if he were at gunpoint," Jack said.

    Marley and Everett exchanged uneasy glances. They could imagine themselves in the custody of the Sheriffs; they were Outlaws, the undisputed enemies of all Sheriffs everywhere. It seemed that what the two men were imagining was not pleasant.

    "One of the members drew a map for one of the Sheriffs," Jack continued. "That same Sheriff got shot not five days later and someone made off with the map. Whoever it was probably didn't realize he had anything of any particular value."

    "So the map is gone."

    "It was. Rumor is that someone out in Garden City has a copy of it."

    "How could you possibly know that?"

    "I have connections," Jack said.

    Marley was silent for a long time while he processed the information. "So we get to Garden City and we can find a map to the money you owe us?"

    "That's right."

    "Then it seems our business deal is officially complete, wouldn't you say?" Marley asked with a smirk.

    "No," Jack said, with a chuckle that sounded far more uneasy than he intended. "What if you get to Garden City and there is no map?"

    Marley's smirk disappeared and his eyes narrowed. "Why wouldn't there be?"

    "Well, any number of people is gonna be dealing in treasure maps these days. I'm not the only one who's heard the story. I guarantee every Outlaw from here to the Achatoga Territory has heard about it by now."

    "You're right. So that means, with you out of the way, that's one less person looking for it, and one less person to spread the story."

    "Now wait just a minute—" Jack began to protest.

    "Pleasure doing business with you, Jack," Marley said with the biggest I-got-the-last-laugh grin Jack had ever had the displeasure of seeing. Then Marley dropped the rope. 

    Jack felt himself falling, felt his heart leap into his throat at pretty much the same time his body hit the ice-cold water of the Siltwater River. He fought the urge to gasp at the change in temperature. He felt the boulder pulling him down, down, down to the murky depths. Again, his mind churned for inspiration, though it was sluggish now as he fought his own fear and his own desperate survival instinct.

He began by rolling his body and swinging himself into a crouching position in midwater, allowing him to swing his arms down to his feet and back around, as if leaping through a hoola hoop, except the hoola hoop was his own arms. Once that happened, his hands were safely in front of him again, and although they were still handcuffed, it was a great deal better than it had been a moment ago. His next step was to grope blindly for the rope around his shoulders, which tethered him to the boulder. He felt it in his quickly numbing hands. He fumbled with the knot, working at it, fighting panic and desperation. He felt the knot loosening, slipping, until finally the pressure vanished and he knew he was free. He frantically swam to the surface, then realized what a mistake it would be to break the surface now. What if Marley and Everett were there waiting to see if he stayed dead?

    Instead, he let the current carry him, counting the seconds as they ticked by. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, when he felt he could no longer hold his breath, he let himself swim up above the surface of the water and suck in one heaving breath of air after another. Then he kicked violently toward the shoreline. It had been a long time since he had felt as relieved as he did when he felt the sandy riverbank under him as he pulled himself onto dry land.

    He lay there for a long time in the sun, listening for any sign of people. All he heard was the lapping of the river water on the rocks and sand around him. He waited a long while, then sat up and gazed around. It looked like he was about half a mile downriver from where those two Bastard Court boys had tossed him in. He took off back toward the spot where they had tied him up and began to climb up the hill surrounding the riverbank. It was summer, so there were brambles and thornbushes galore. Jack cursed to himself as he made the arduous hike back to the area where they had first ambushed him. He hoped to find his horse. He needed to get back to the nearest town; once he did, he needed to find a blacksmith so he could get out of these handcuffs.

    When he reached the top of the hill, he saw no signs of anyone. There was no Marley or Everett. There were no horses, either.

    "Bastards," he snarled to himself. He tried to remember which town was closest. Redwater was probably his best bet. It was going to be a long walk there.