Bertram Chandler glared at the small town at the end of the road. The lightning scar on his forehead gleamed slightly against his dark skin. He decided that he didn’t have anywhere else to be. He might as well ride in and get a drink before riding on.

Chandler had fought off the plantation where he was born, fought for the Union, fought his way west as a wrangler and scout. He had some money stored away so he didn’t need a job, but if he picked one to have, he knew he was fighting again.

And he was fine with that. It was the one thing he was good at above all else.

Chandler flexed his hand as he urged his mount on. He felt the connection to the white sword he carried. It was his gift in a blade of sharp ivory that could carve anything, and memories of lives he had used up as stepping stones to where he was now. He knew that if anything happened to him, the sword would wait for him in his next life to pick it up again.

He was not in a hurry for that to happen.

He saw a sign that said Last Stop on the side of the road. He smiled. A lot of towns had ominous names. He wondered why the townfolk had picked that for their community.

He rode slowly into town. He tried to look harmless. He was just another cowboy looking for work. He didn’t know if there were ranches around to hire on, but that was something he could ask about at the local saloon.

Chandler rode his horse up to the hitching post of the first drinking establishment he saw. He could listen to the people as he sipped at whatever rotgut they had. It took a lot to make him drunk now, and he couldn’t remember being so drunk he didn’t know which way was up since he took up his blade.

He had considered that it was making him immune to alcohol, and the thought hadn’t bothered him.

Chandler tied his reins to the hitching post and gave his horse water from his canteen. He saw a trough nearby, but it was empty. He didn’t see a water pump for it. Maybe they didn’t have water coming into town overland.

He wondered how the town survived with no water. Did they all drink whiskey and live off of that? Maybe there were wells that he couldn’t see from the saloon.

Water rights could lead to private wars. Ranchers didn’t like to share the limited commodity when they had to water their herds for market. He might be able to get work busting up a water monopoly for the other ranchers.

He decided to wait and see. There might not be anything here that needed him.

His expertise was killing things. There might not be anything that needed killing. The town looked like it had never seen a gunfight before.

He patted his horse down and put his wet hat on his head. He stepped into the saloon. He tried to look harmless as he walked up to the counter. The scattered crowd gave him a onceover, but no one said anything. He supposed they had seen enough drifters coming through that one more wasn’t anything new.

He was fine with that. He was there to listen to them talk, not to say much himself.

“Can I help you, Mister?,” said the bartender. He was lean and had suffered from acne from the looks of things when he was younger. He stood away from the bar.

“What do you have on the shelf?,” asked Chandler. He could read the labels, but he wanted the bartender to recommend something.

“We have some bourbon, some brandy, some whiskey, a small bit of rum that I can’t say if it’s good to drink, and some moonshine,” said the bartender.

“Let me have a shot of whiskey, and a shot of the moonshine,” said Chandler. “Is there any work around here?”

“There’s a lot at the mining camp,” said the bartender. He pulled two small glasses from the shelf behind him and put them in front of his customer. He poured whiskey in one, and the clear moonshine in the other. “Not so much any wrangling, or for farming. Not enough water.”

“You should have something coming down,” said Chandler.

“Most of it has dried out,” said the bartender. He pointed in a direction. “They think the water is blocked upstream somewhere.”

“Up at the mining camp?,” asked Chandler.

“Beyond there,” said the bartender. “They’re having water problems too.”

“Anybody check on it?,” asked Chandler. He knew that was the wrong question by the way the man’s face closed off. He sipped the whiskey while he waited on an answer.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Some of the town went up there,” said the bartender. “But they haven’t come back yet.”

“I’m headed up that way,” said Chandler. “I’ll look around while I’m riding.”

He sipped the moonshine. He ignored the bigger kick it had. A normal man might have lost their sight from the toxins in the drink. He was tougher than that.

“I wouldn’t sell the moonshine to anyone you liked,” said Chandler. He shook his head. “You might kill them.”

“That bad, huh?,” asked the bartender.

“I’ll have to say yes,” said Chandler. “If I see the missing townies, I’ll send them back to you.”

“That would be great,” said the bartender. He took the two empty glasses and washed them out. He dried them off and put them back on the shelf for the next customer.

Chandler headed for the door. His inclination was to ride on and let the town die from the lack of water. He paused to pet his horse’s neck. What could he do to help things?

He decided the bare minimum he could do was try to find where the water was stopped up. If he could do that and remove the block, the town and mining camp could argue about who needed the water more.

He could try to keep things below a frenzy if the town decided they didn’t need the miners.

He didn’t want to cause a massacre over something where no one was to blame.

He had to take care of his horse before he did anything else.

He decided to walk Ulysses down to the local smith and farrier to get feed and more water if he had it. Then he would pick up the trail and see what had happened to the water supply. He doubted the town would last long without more coming in.

Maybe something like a landslide had closed the streams off. It had been known to happen. He should be able to break some of the natural dam off with his sword so the water could flow again.

He needed to be careful so he didn’t cause a flood, or another landslide on top of himself as he worked.

The fact that no one had come back from their survey bothered him, but there was nothing he could do about that. They were either still moving along the dried up banks, moved on to another town, or had faced some kind of calamity that had prevented them from coming back.

He hoped to find them still exploring the upper reaches of the river and streams so he could get them back to town without problems. He had seen a lot of death during the war and after. He wasn’t so hungry for it as he once was.

Being the King meant fighting for good, but it was also a burden that couldn’t be set down until he died, and some future self picked up his sword again.

The Destroyer had set his future in stone with one casual flick of its giant hand.

Chandler paused at the door to the smithy. He spotted the local smith making a horseshoe at his anvil. He waited for the man to get done pounding on the red hot metal and cooling it in a barrel of water next to his forge.

“How do you do?,” asked the smith.

“I’m fine,” said Chandler. “I’m heading up to follow the river and I wanted to get some feed and some water for my horse before I went.”

“The water is drying up around here,” said the smith. “Some people went up there a few days ago to look around.”

“I expect I’ll run into them on my way,” said Chandler. “The bartender said the

stoppage is above the mining camp.”

“That’s right,” said the smith. “Been a lot of trouble up there since they set up. The sheriff went with the water finders. He left his deputy in town to look after things.”

Chandler nodded. The sheriff had formed a posse to go look at things and took some men with him. His deputy and whomever would look after the town remained behind. He had seen that after a few bank robberies, or other things, that he had come upon afterwards in his wanderings.

“Since I was riding up there, I thought I would take a look,” said Chandler.

“Good luck to you,” said the smith. “How much feed and water do you think you’ll need?”

“I’ll need enough for at least a week of travel,” said Chandler. “I can’t count on

finding a town close by. Some of the ones upstream might have already been

abandoned and left to die if this drought is wide enough.”

“Let me get your supplies,” said the smith. “Are you coming back this way?”

“I don’t know,” said Chandler. “I doubt it. If I find the block, I plan to either fix it,

or send a note back to tell the town where it is. After that, I plan to ride on to

California, maybe head north toward Canada.”

“If you find the problem and fix it, the town will hail you as a hero,” said the smith. He went back to the back of his work area to barrels crammed into a corner. He opened one of the barrels and filled three empty sacks taken down from a hook on the wall. He tied each sack closed and put the lid back on the barrel. He gave Chandler the sacks to be hung from his saddle.

“Let me get a couple of canteens for you,” said the smith. “That should hold your horse until you find a stream to let him drink from out there.”

“Thanks,” said Chandler. “I imagine that there are watering holes out there the closer we get to the mountains.”

“If you go too far north, you’ll be back in the desert again,” said the smith.

Chandler nodded. He had heard some religious people had settled northeast of where he was. He planned to avoid the place like the plague.

He had dealt with enough preachers to not want to run into a city full of them.

“Here’s two canteens full of water for your horse,” said the smith. “You’ll have to ration them until you find something.”

“Thank you,” said Chandler. He fished out a handful of gold dollars and handed them over. “If I can’t find the problem, you might need to think about where you’ll have to go from here. There’s a couple of towns east of here that need a smith to look after their horses.”

“I’m going to stick until I run out of water,” said the smith. “Thanks for the advice.”

Chandler nodded. He hung the water on the other side of the saddle away from the feed bags. He needed to grab something to eat, and then he would be headed out of town.

He walked his horse down the dirt road to a little diner built in the front of a house. He imagined the owner slept in the back while serving in the front. He thought about what lay ahead and decided he should get his food and ride on before something happened to hold him in town.

He didn’t know how much water the town had, but he didn’t see it lasting long.

He stopped in the diner and ordered a few sandwiches and some beer. He drank the beer at the bar and took his sandwiches in their wrapping and started his journey out of Last Stop.