The days following John’s introduction were quiet. People in town were still getting a feel for what they could get away with now that a new authority figure had arrived.

John ignored most of the minutiae of everyday life within Ember Creek. While it was important to establish a rapport with the city, that wasn’t his true goal here. Daniel Novarez had sent him here to figure out why his shipments were getting disrupted. Before John could check on those, he needed to ensure the town would be in good hands. Deputy Seline seemed like a competent woman, but she was woefully out of her depth by herself. If the Sheriff didn’t step up, he was going to have to take more drastic measures.

He knew his approach was a bit heavy-handed, but the types of people that lived on the frontier weren’t coddled city folk. They needed an equally heavy hand or they would push him around until something gave. Dealing with the minor problems in town the way he did would hopefully put any thoughts of screwing with him to bed.

The Klein patriarch, Pappy, might be an issue at some point. Considering the man hadn’t ridden into town that very same day to get justice, it didn’t seem like the man was prone to rash decisions. Either Pappy was smarter than the rest of his kin, or John’s actions had scared him. Both worked for John.

Just because the town was quiet didn’t mean John had been idle the last few days. He needed to understand the lay of the land outside town so he could start investigating the missing workers or deal with the indigenous troublemakers. While the attacks on the town were worrisome, his primary goal was to find out what happened to the miners.

The first thing he did was visit Frederick the foreman to look over the survey maps that belonged to Terminus Mining. The man tried to weasel out of showing John the maps, but he was insistent. Once Daniel’s lackey handed over the map, John went to the Town Hall to see the map they had. He wanted to compare maps from separate sources. It was a good thing he had.

There were discrepancies between the two maps. Not unusual for maps created by separate individuals. But what he saw went beyond simple mapping errors and he didn’t like it. Large chunks of both maps were marked impassible. But where the Town Hall map showed them to be a series of cliffs and unpassable valleys, the Mining map didn’t show anything. This could be just a missed area, but John doubted it. Everything else up to and around the sides of that area was clearly labeled.

It was likely something Daniel had his people omit on purpose, but he would need to check it out for himself to confirm. Since that area was to the south, it would have to wait. The missing miners disappeared in the North. Neither map included locations of the indigenous villages because the people who lived here moved around. It did show likely zones where you might encounter them though. But that was mainly straight to the west and much closer to the mountains.

Still, they might have been responsible for the missing miners. The Harc’otti – as they called themselves – had already shown they were willing to attack Ember Creek and kill civilians. It wouldn’t be a stretch to assume they kidnapped miners. Although John had no idea what they would need them for. After taking his time to look over the map, he decided on his destination. John rolled up the map he had taken from the irate foreman and shoved it into the saddle pack. It barely fit in the bulging bag, but he managed to get it in there.

He planned to be gone for at least a week if not more, and he had packed accordingly. In a pinch, he could forage or hunt, but he knew very little about the native plants. And hunting could be hit or miss, so it was best not to rely on those if he could avoid it.

After securing the pack, he slung the bag over one shoulder, grabbed one of his long guns, and headed outside where a speckled tan mare waited for him. He attached the saddle bag and stuck the long gun in the holster behind the saddle. It wouldn’t make for easy retrieval in an emergency, but if something was close enough to John for it to constitute an emergency, he had his revolvers.

He hopped into the saddle and tugged the reins to the left. The placid animal turned and trotted out of the courtyard and onto the quiet and empty street of Ember Creek. It was the middle of the night and almost everyone was asleep. That was good because he didn’t want anyone to know he had left or where he was going.

Something fishy was going on in or around Ember Creek, and he was going to find out what it was.

***

By the time the sun started to peek over the horizon, Ember Creek was long behind him. Even at his slow pace, he should make it to his destination by the end of tomorrow. But once it was light enough out, John urged the horse into a slow gallop, eating up the relatively flat trail that led north into the more rugged country near the mountains and his destination.

He only got another hour or so along the trail before he had to slow down. “Whoa,” he called to the horse. It complied and came to a stop in a forested area. In the middle of the trail was an older man whittling a stick and sitting on a downed log that blocked his path.

John flicked his eyes left and right, spotting others hiding amongst the trees. He grunted quietly and trotted his horse up to the old man. “Pappy, I presume?”

The grey-haired man tilted his head up, peering just under the weatherbeaten rim of his hat to look John squarely in the eyes. “So my kids keep calling me.” The man set a rather detailed carving of a horse with a rider down on the log next to him.

“So, here for revenge?” John asked though he didn’t bother reaching for a weapon. If the man wanted to talk, he would let him.

The man grunted and spit out a wad of black chew. “If I wanted ya dead, I woulda simply shot you the moment you left Ember Creek.”

Well, that explained his feeling of being watched since he had left the town. Although he had to give the man and his family credit, he hadn’t once spotted them until entering this little patch of forest. Maybe John was getting rusty in his old age.

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“So, what is this?”

“I wanted to get a measure of what kind of man you are, Mr. John Smith.”

“And your conclusion?” John asked, annoyed by this delay.

Pappy Klein chewed on his cheek for a moment before responding. “A dangerous one. But a fair one.”

“So no hard feelings?”

The man laughed. “From me? No. Little Derek was getting a little too big for his britches. This’ll be a good wake-up call for the boy. Maybe he will finally think before acting. But I’ve lost count of how many children I have in my old age. Who’s to say some of them don’t hold a grudge?”

John frowned. “Noted. But don’t expect me to put up with their nonsense.”

“Spare the rod, spoil the child my Pappy always said. Worked on me. I only ask that you spare their lives if at all possible.”

This certainly wasn’t the type of interaction John had expected to have when he eventually met the Klein patriarch. He could easily lie to the man but something told him Pappy appreciated brutal honesty.

“No guarantees,” John finally responded.

“Such is life, I suppose,” the older man sighed.

“We done here? I do have places to be.”

The man nodded.

“And your boys hiding in the trees?”

“Don’t worry bout them. They came to protect me. As if I couldn’t protect myself. I got my knife. That’s all I’ve ever needed.” He didn’t fear the man, but Pappy gave a feral gaptoothed smile that reminded John of someone from his past. That memory sent a slight shiver down his spine.

John tipped his hat in thanks to the man. “Much obliged. And tell your boys, if they cause no trouble in Ember Creek, they have nothing to fear from me.”

The man cackled at that before shouting. “You hear that?”

“Yes, Pappy,” came a chorus of replies. Far more than John had counted in the trees. If he had missed that many men hiding, maybe he really was losing his edge. Too much time spent in the city.

He maneuvered the horse around the felled log and continued along his course. He was glad it hadn’t come to a fight. While he would have likely survived, his horse wouldn’t have. And he didn’t want to walk all the way back to Ember Creek to get another.

***

The nights around here were surprisingly cold and John found himself pulling his coat tighter and huddling closer to the small fire he had going.

Deputy Seline had briefed him on the types of animals he could expect to run across near the mountains. Mostly large cats, wolves, and bears. So he had picked a campsite in the lee of a rock outcropping. It wasn’t the first one he had ridden past during his trip. But this one seemed to be a popular spot to stop if the leftover remnants of the fire pit were anything to go by.

The horse was hobbled and tied off to his right, sheltered by the curve of the rock and happily munching away on its feed bag. Before closing his eyes for a bit of sleep, John stoked the fire and pulled one of his pistols out. He cocked the hammer back and positioned the readied weapon in his lap facing the fire before tipping his hat to shield his eyes from the light. He didn’t lie down but instead leaned back against the rock wall behind him and tried to get comfortable. Sleeping in the dirt was something he didn’t miss from his time in the army.

John’s eyes flew open as the first rays of light peeked over the horizon. Without moving he listened to the world around him.

There was the chirp of birds and the buzz of insects. That was a good sign that no predators or other people were near. He exhaled the breath he had been holding and pushed his hat back into place before uncocking his pistol and stuffing it back in the holster.

He stood slowly, working the kink out of his back. He was too old to be running around and sleeping under the stars. Or to put up with the paranoia that always came with it. Too many years running and hiding from people who wanted him dead. Unfortunately, his paranoia had saved him on more than one occasion.

After packing up and kicking dirt over the fire, John continued along the trail. It was going to be much slower today as the trail moved into the broken foothills and the terrain grew rougher. He almost wished he knew how to control one of those walkers. With that, he probably would have arrived at the mines already.

It was just after noon when he caught the first whiff of smoke. John’s eyes narrowed as he stared in the direction the wind had come from. The trees were much sparser here, but he still couldn’t see very far.

He urged his horse off the trail and up a nearby rise, giving him a better vantage point. Just over the next hill, he spotted multiple thin columns of black smoke. It was where the mining camp should be. But it didn’t look like the smoke of campfires. He hurried back to the trail and urged the horse into a gallop. Once they crested the hill, he moved back into the trees and tied the horse back up before pulling the long rifle from the saddle.

Then he slowly made his way down toward the camp, or what remained of it. He stopped halfway down the hill and sat in the shade of a boulder as he scanned the burned-out remains. There were scattered bodies everywhere, some sported ragged cuts, and others still sprouted arrows. The third type looked like they had fallen to nothing at all, but he could see dark stains beneath the bodies.

Deputy Seline hadn’t mentioned anything about the natives having access to guns. But there was nothing else that could have made those wounds.

He remained perfectly still in the shadow of the boulder for half an hour before he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Turning slowly so as to not give away his position, he searched the area where he had seen the flicker of movement. Soon he spotted a man on the opposite hillside lying prone with a rifle.

Much like John was doing, the man had hidden himself in the shadow of a tree. Only the sun had started to expose his position, forcing him to move back. Knowing what to look for now, John scanned the treeline on the opposite hillside and soon located three more men. All were waiting for someone to stumble into the camp below.

Going by what he could see of them, they matched the descriptions of the Harc’otti. Not much was known about the strange tribe other than they differed from the other natives of this continent. They were more akin to old barbarian stories from back in his youth and sported similar skin tones to people from the old continent as opposed to the more earth-toned hues of the people closer to the Shiffen or at least the ones who had lived there before the Fareen forced them out.

John was warned the Harc’otti liked to take advantage of their similarities to hide amongst locals before attacking. They apparently did this to great effect when settlers first came to this area. With the changing of fashion, and as more civilized dress became the norm, that tactic became less effective. For a moment, John wondered why the barbaric tribes didn’t adapt. It was obvious they weren’t stupid. Then he remembered he didn’t care why these people did what they did. He just needed to get them to stop.

It was pretty clear the Harc’otti had attacked the camp, killed off the workers, and set up this trap. But why? From what Seline told him, they didn’t even live in these foothills. Was this another random attack like how they had attacked Ember Creek? The four men did appear quite young.

The next question was, where had they gotten their hands on pneuma rifles and scopes? He could see them taking guns off of people they killed, but not the scopes. Even John didn’t have a scope, they were expensive and delicate. Besides, he didn’t need one.

He calculated his odds of killing all four without at least one escaping. At this distance, that was slim, even for him. If he left the cover of the rock, they would quickly spot him. And since he didn’t know this terrain very well, he doubted he could get away even on horseback. The other reason he wasn’t considering running was what they had done. John couldn’t simply let these bastards get away with killing all these people. Even if they weren’t employees of Terminus Mining, he wouldn’t have turned his back on carnage like this. To catch them all, he needed them to commit to an attack. And that meant he had to step into their trap.