Come to me with all that makes you weary, for a heavy heart can be lifted with an abundance of humility, a diminished soul restored with forgiveness, and a life granted meaning for those who truly seek it—the Book of the Divine, The Sacral Compendium.

Red Creek. What a shit hole.

Maro could tell from a map or by the name of a place whether a settlement was worth any consideration as a viable area to live or find work.

Red Creek wasn’t such a place.

Most settlements had a proper name like Tepress, a sense of something more. When destinations were named after a landmark or an attribute, well, those spots weren’t worth a damn.

And so, it was true of Red Creek.

The town—if you could call it such—got its name from the red waters flowing in the oh-so-predictable creek bed, a byproduct of the iron in the hills. The buildings were cobbled together from weathered wood, and if the gods decided to fart, they’d crash in shambles. Most doors didn’t seem to close. A layer of grime covered the floor in the Bounty Hunter’s Guild, and when he tried to shut the front door, the glass in the windows rattled. Maro dodged mounds of manure instead of puddles of water on his way to and from the guildhall.

This place is worse than Tepress.

He hurried down the dirt road and back to his wagon. The stench of shit threatened to singe his nose hairs. The heavy scent of rain and humidity didn’t help matters. He dipped his nose closer to his shirt, and the smell about knocked him off his feet.

Maribel struggled to keep up as they left the bounty hunter’s guild, an uncharitable place. Without a bounty hunter chit to prove he belonged, the local post wasn’t willing to lift a finger. Yes, he could’ve shown Peredur’s chit, a risk, especially if the mouthy bastard had been there. If he bluffed his way in, and they knew Peredur, well, he’d sign his own wanted poster.

A guy like that … you’d remember him.

A wagon rolled through, being pulled by two horses, the man perched atop the seat looking haggard and backwoods. His beard hung down past his collar bone in matted clumps. Maro would bet the old codger was missing a few teeth, but whether from poor hygiene or too much inbreeding, he couldn’t say. A dust cloud swaddled them in the wake of the wagon’s passing.

Well, that’s fucking terrific. Took her from a proper town out to this mining site. This ain’t no place for a kid.

But what town ever was?

Maribel might not get an education out here, or have a fine life of larger cities, but she wouldn’t be exposed to the predatory violence of men in a darkened alleyway or a seedy tavern. Sure, wildlife might be a different story, an integral part of the will to survive. Man versus nature.

“Now what?” Maribel asked as they reached their possessions.

He glanced in the back, ensuring the two trunks were there. He had to leave them. Dragging them everywhere might raise a few eyebrows. Besides, Bastard guarded their goods. The horse would trample anyone who came meddling.

“Now,” he said as he climbed up into the seat, “we see about getting you to one of the Houses of the gods. Which one’s yours?”

Maribel clambered up beside him. “Or I could stay with you.”

He gave a single bark of laughter. “Slim chance, kid.”

“Why? ‘Cause I’m a girl?”

He snorted. “Hardly. I’ve known some bad ass women in my time.”

“‘Cause you think I can’t take care of myself?”

“That’d be part of it, yeah.”

“Well, I can!”

He gripped the reins in his hands, but twisted to face her. “No, you can’t. If you could, I wouldn’t have needed to rescue you.”

She stuck out her bottom lip in a pout, but shifted out of the sullen expression, turning bright and animated. “Teach me how to shoot a musket, and I can cook for you.”

He smirked. “Do you even know what a stove is?”

This caused her face to contort with anger. “My Ma taught me to be a proper wife, to sew and cook and take care of a house!”

Maro stared at her for a few moments, then nodded. “I believe you, but the trail is no place for—”

“A girl?” she interrupted.

“I was going to say lady.” He glanced around them, watching what few people prowled the streets. There weren’t but five buildings to this settlement, not counting what passed for the Houses of the gods: a bounty hunter’s guild, a general goods store, a smithy, a saloon, and a stable—the extent of such a prosperous town.

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The Houses of the gods weren’t much to look at, not out here. In the bigger cities, they were mausoleums of grandeur. In Red Creek, they were little more than shacks.

He flicked the reins, and the horses pulled out onto the road.

“So, which House is yours?” he asked again.

“Lust and Candor,” she said with a glum voice.

“Really? Mine, too.”

“See? We have things in common!”

“Belonging to the same religious House doesn’t mean we have commonality, Maribel. It means we’re two random schmoes who ended up in the same place.”

“Everything happens for a reason.”

He grunted.

“What? It’s true!”

He grimaced. He hated to do it, but he needed to wash out that stupidity before she got herself in trouble later on in life. Maro leaned closer, almost coming down to her level.

“What was the reason for your parents’ death?”

She glared up at him but didn’t say a word. Her anger was almost palpable, and she kept her silence all the way to The House of Lust and Candor.

They pulled up a few minutes later, and by the time they rolled to a stop and Maro applied the brake, a man ambled out to greet them. He wore fine clothing that stood out from the locals. Maro had no idea what material they were made of, but it looked like silk, and the cobalt blues and crimson reds seemed garish to the muted earth tones of the population.

“Morning,” the man said, his smile dazzling, flashing between the pair.

Maro grunted in response. Maribel stumbled out onto the wooden slats that served as a walkway. She took a position in front of the building and crossed her arms.

“The name’s Roxald.” The man glanced between them. “What brings you to the House this morning?”

“The girl.”

“Don’t call me girl!”

“Fine, Maribel.”

A touch of a frown formed on Roxald’s brow. “How can we help you?”

Maro climbed down, walked around the backside, and drew close. “Poor girl’s orphaned. I brought her out here to live with her aunt and uncle. They perished, too. I’ve got no place to take her.”

“You just don’t want me because I’d be a nuisance,” Maribel said.

“Damn right.”

“I can cook and clean, do your laundry and make your bed; you wouldn’t have to take care of me.”

“Maribel, I don’t have a home.”

That caught her off guard, killing any further protest.

“I’ve got no job, no woman, and no home. I can’t even take care of myself.”

“So, we both have no homes,” she mumbled in a quiet voice.

“More or less.” Maro turned his attention to Roxald. “There’s more to the story, but the girl needs to be taken in and cared for.”

“We can most certainly do so for one of our own.”

“I thought you were a good man, Maro.”

He shook his head. “No, Maribel, I’ve never been a good man; I’m just trying to do a good deed.”

“Don’t call me that! My name’s Amice. I told the banker that was my name because he scared me.”

“Fine,” he said, his voice soft, “so your name’s different, but when I remember you, and I will, you’ll always be Maribel to me.”

“You won’t let me stay with you?”

He shook his head.

“I hate you!”

She bolted for the front door of the House, slamming it behind her. Maro winced at the sound. In the cities, the doors were far too large and heavy for a child to shut, but out here, where the Houses were constructed from crude wood and barely the size of a general goods store, such a feat came easy.

The ex-soldier sighed. “Sorry about her.”

Roxald smiled. “Quite alright. Kids are very impressionable, and they’re the most honest out of everyone who walks Atar, often expressing what’s in their hearts. She may be angry with you, but I doubt she’ll hate you for long. One day, she’ll look back and regret what she said in anger, and she’ll know you are, indeed, a good man.”

Maro stared at him for a moment. “Yeah, sure.”

Roxald arched an eyebrow. “Want to tell me the full story?”

“Not really.” He glanced back to the road, looking East towards Tepress. “But I will.”

The ex-soldier gave him the tale, but he left out the gorier bits. Maro’s soul was already stained, and there’s no sense in ruining someone else’s with the details. When he finished, the holy man looked a few shades paler.

Maro jumped into the back of the wagon, pulling Maribel’s chest out from under the seat.

“I take it you don’t want the guns?” he asked Roxald.

The clergyman shook his head.

“Thought not.”

Maro opened the trunk and extracted them, placing them into his chest. Once locked again, he hopped out and pulled Maribel’s out of the back, and placed it on the wooden planks with a thud. Lugging the heavy thing took his wind for a moment, but he couldn’t show weakness, not in front of the clergyman. Then, he grabbed the puppy Maribel had taken from the ranch house and plopped the little fur ball beside the trunk.

“Well,” Maro said, eyeing the road around him for traffic, “looks like this is the end of the line.”

“It would appear so,” Roxald said. “For the sake of your soul, when you get back to civilization, please go and repent at one of the Houses. Or come inside now, and I will aid your journey.”

He gave a single harrumph. “The way I reckon, if the Everlasting Autarch’s omniscient as implied, he already knows the status of my soul. It doesn’t matter if I go to one of the Houses to talk to him, or if I do it around a campfire.”

Maro checked to make sure Bastard’s tether hadn’t loosened, then climbed into his seat at the front, taking the reins in hand.

“Going to the House is the act of repentance, of humility for our transgressions, seeking peace only the Everlasting Autarch can grant. That’s what matters.”

He shrugged. “Perhaps.” He blew out a breath from his nose. “What you don’t understand, Father, is I ain’t sorry. Someone had to do it, and I saved someone else’s soul by doing the deed myself. And for humility,” he pointed at his face, “I’ve got to walk around with this mug forever. I don’t have a job, a home, a woman to love, or a kid to call my own. Probably never will. I’d say that’s humbling enough. Take care of the girl. That’ll give me peace.”

Roxald swallowed and nodded. “You don’t want to say goodbye to her?”

Maro shook his head. “She’s got enough trauma for one life. No need to add to it.”

With that, he flicked the reins, and the horses started out. Maro didn’t glance back at the holy man, the House, or the little girl who ran away. That chapter was over, moments buried in the past, there to remember but never to relive. Now, he could only look ahead to the future.

He settled in as the wagon rumbled and rocked. It was going to be a long ride back to Tepress.