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Post by wolf on Jan 7, 2024 19:47:05 GMT
Posting this now just in case something happens and I can’t finish it.
This what I have done so far, with notes scattered throughout.
It needs a little more added to it, and a whole lot more cleaning up.
Notes:
“The Quietus of Justin Chasseur”
Epilogue Part II
Back To The Plain
In the dining room of Le Cheval Pâle, Justin felt eyes on him. He glanced over to the corner table, where Angels sat watching vampires watch them. One by one they raised their glasses to him, welcoming the new Brother to Their side of things.
Mort, now having her appointment out of sight and out of mind, finally got around to taking a good look at Justin’s cause of concern. The small lady sitting between them. She took pity on the frail, who had done nothing to deserve such terrible mental scars. With kindness in her touch, she put a hand on the girl’s forearm, giving it a soft pat.
“It’s alright and better now.”
She said, and she willed away the hardest and sharpest edges on the memory of the evening’s worst event.
Now the lady only remembered a man very roughly getting fresh with her, and giving her one hell of a bad scare, and lesson on being more aware of her surroundings, and what could have happened to her.
Mort remarked,
“My that is an awfully pretty dress, Miss.
Isn’t it Justin?”
Justin saw Mort finger the collar of her white shirt, and wink at him. He thought of how he’d fixed his own shirt not so long ago, back on the Main St. of Light Shade. Understanding his partner, he concentrated, repairing the tears in the gown, and fading away the grime of the alley paving.
“Yes, it certainly is.”
He replied smiling.
The young lady’s fiancé, a gentleman named Raim Triggs, came and they left together to dine at a table all their own, after thanking her rescuer and his friend.
Mort and Justin had a fine dinner and went back to their hotel.
The next morning they checked out and headed to the outskirts of town.
***
“She took good care of us….and she’s an honest woman, Mort.
She didn’t even look at y’alls gear once,
let alone go through it.”
Said Plower, as Mort saddled him, then Sparks, in the barn.
Justin, whose pocket’s were now rightly filled with silver and gold coin of his own, was at the Matriarch’s main house settling up on their bill.
Mort saw a few stray, tale telling oats in a feed bucket close by,
“Well then,
we’re going to take good care of her.”
With that she tossed a couple of gold coins into it.
***
10 years later that day,
back on Mort’s plain,
that evening, Justin built the fire. Cans of beans, and wax paper packages of cornbread were in his saddlebags for their dinner. Mort had some some strips of jerky in hers. Plower ambled around close by, lazily grazing and looking casual, while looking around, keeping watch for anything out of the ordinary that could be hanging around in the taller grasses.
He heard the herd coming in the near distance. His felt the faint Mustang tremblings in the earth beneath his hooves. As did Sparks’. His ears twitched, flicking back, towards their direction to hear more and better.
Mort heard them too.
After freeing Sparks from his saddle and blanket, Mort combed her long fingers through his long mane and had a talk with him.
“I’m thinkin’ it’s about time for our paths to part, Sparks.”
“Why is that?
I done something wrong?”
“Nah!
You’re fine, boy.
I’m just going to need to be on foot for the next two appointments.
And I saw how you seemed to have a yen to join in with the herd, and that nice little Thunder horse, we saw here before.
You deserve it, you know.”
“Awww!
I would love to do that!
Thank ya, Miss Mort!
But….I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too, pony.
I’ll come ‘round to pay you a visit sometimes.
How’s that?”
She slipped his bridle off. Sparks shook his mane out, and whipped his tail with happy excitement, then turned around with a little pogoing hop and a kick.
“That’ll be right good, Mort!
What about you, Plower?
You want to come and run wild for awhile?”
Plower looked up jawin’ on sweet grass,
“Nope, sorry kid.
Not me,
I’m too much of a loner.
Like this old
royal PAIN IN THE a*s.”
He snorted, and gave his rider a gentle push on the shoulder as he was squatted down lighting the fire. It was dusk by then, moonrise and cool winds were on the way. Justin put a hand out to keep his balance, and laughed quietly,
“Go drown yourself, Plower.”
Plower chuckled,
“Herd life ain’t for me,
I don’t like being told what I can and can’t do,
and where to go.
Me and that big fella
runnin’ things over there
would be buttin’ heads in no time!
I do best when all I got to take care of is me and the Boss here.
Go have fun and run, Sparks.
I’m set alright.”
‘Bout then the mustang arrived and Sparks nicker-neighed the greeting out loudly. And he was answered, by the pretty blue roan filly nosing her way through the other horses.
The Thunderhorse and the half-blood mustang met midway, immediately kicking up dust and getting into a playful rambunctious good game of chase.
Mort helped Justin, opening the cans and nesting them in the fire to heat up. Plower went back to grazing and watching the patches of taller grasses.
Mort raised her head, taking in a deep breath, scenting the cooling air,
“It’s going to be one of those more ‘active nights’ out here.
Ever had an hour or few in a day, that you wished would last a lot longer, Justin?”
Mort asked with a smile in her eye.
“Yeah,
there’s been quite a few good times like that.
They seem to always end too soon.”
Mort smelled the air again,
and grinned.
“Well, it smells like this going to be one of those times tonight.
A good time that stretches out, and lasts til you’re ready for it to move on along when you’re ready for it to.
I think I forgot to tell you about that part.
You know,
when I was going on and on about how time or speeds up
or runs neck and neck as it pleases,
here and there.”
“Really?
That’s some kind of interestin’ and good to know!”
Laughed Justin.
***
It turned into a beautiful starry night, with a few scant clouds drifting around dreamily, here and there, on both sides of The Otherside.
Bellies fed and tapeworms content, Justin and Mort sat back against their saddles, sharing cigars and a bottle of sumthin’ or ‘nother.
Justin gazed out across the plain and saw Mort’s lone tree, and beyond it, a now well lit up Light Shade, until he caught something out of the corner of his eye.
“Who is that awfully pretty Indian lady, over there with the horses, Mort?
You know her?”
Mort looked over at the edge of the herd. A woman in a long white deer skin prairie dress sat on the ground, slicing up sugar-baby watermelons with a sharp bone knife, and feeding the ponies.
“Yeah, I know her.”
Mort smiled,
“That’s Beautiful Horse Woman,
the Shawnee friend.”
The lady looked over at Mort and the Cowboy sitting by the fire as though she heard herself mentioned, and raised a hand in a wave. Justin tipped his hat, and Mort waved back. The lady took a watermelon and put it in a skin sack decorated in intricate patterns with seed and pony beads, the same color purple as her long pretty fingernails. The ends of the fringe on her dress hung with Crow beads also that color. She handed the sack up to Sparks, and sent him over to them. He trotted up and dropped it on a blanket laying on the ground between them.
“Dessert or breakfast for y’all!” he said.
“Oh man, that’s great.
Tell her thank ya much, Sparks!”
Justin said, with Mort nodding along her agreement with him. They would have that for breakfast, now was time for the after dinner drinkin’ and star gazin’. Plus watchin’ other things that needed watchin’.
(“The Dredge, and God smiles.”)
“Who is that guy over yonder, on that mound?
Don’t much like the looks of him.”
Justin nodded in the direction of tall, narrow figure standing on the Southern horizon of the plain. Somehow he looked defiant and challenging to the Intercessor.
Mort had already known the strange stranger was around. She’d heard his ragged snarly breathing as he walked out into the open.
“That’s Dredge.
And he ain’t no good.
He’s a troublemaker,
and interferes with folks
good and bad alike.
Sometimes he’s a kind of bounty hunter too.
In a way.
He’ll move along soon.
It’s more than only uncomfortable for a Thing like him, to be here, in a place like this plain.”
Mort’s stare was piercing, with her silver eyes glaring bright. And she had that look on her face like she might be thinking about getting in a bad mood. She was staring right at the Dredge, and he at her. His eyes were red and glowed big, right back at her. His garb was a dull and dirty dark brown, covered in dust that didn’t look like it came from any road. It looked gray and sadly ashy. The skirt of his long coat swung and flapped around long legs as a breeze came up and blew about him. That breeze moved upward and reached one of the dreamy scant clouds that had slowly sauntered by and was briefly hiding the brilliant light of the night’s crescent moon. The moon, again revealed, shone bright , right down upon Dredge. He felt it before he saw it and turned, running away in high heeled spur black boots strapped with bronze looking spurs. They clanked as he moved, instead of jangling. Long stringy and dull gray hair flying as he retreated back into the nearby tree line, from where he’d snuck out of.
Mort looked up at the moon. Tonight the crescent rocked in the sky on its back, and Venus sparkled beautifully right above its open end. Another dimmer and more distant star shone just opposite her. The configuration looked like a smiling winking face in the deep midnight blue black. No gettin’ into a bad mood tonight.
Mort smiled back at it and told Justin,
“The Great Spirit is happy tonight, and He’s telling us so.”
Justin looked up and saw it too, and smiled back at the Almighty as well.
“Yeah, He is.
What a wonderful thing.”
He sighed contentedly. Mort had been right about what she’d smelled coming on the air, this was a good time that was going to last good and long.
{The Grandfather (Samuel Silver Horn)}
“Hey ya, Mort.”
“Hey ya, Grandfather.”
“Keep an eye open, Mort.
There’s a couple of Skin Walkers been trackin’ me.”
“Will do.
Thanks for the heads up, Sam.”
The Grandfather walked his easy, lanky way on by,
“See ya ‘round,
got a Lakota pow wow to get to tonight.”
She saw he was carrying a Horse Dance Stick.
“Tell the Persecutor and the Revelator I said Hey.
You and the new friend take care.
See ya ‘round, Mort.”
“Alright then,
you too Grandfather,
see ya ‘round.”
answered Mort,
she and the cowboy tipping hats to him.
Samuel SilverHorn walked on, a raised hand waving over his shoulder to them.
“Gaily bedight,
you gallant knights!
Ride,
ride,
boldly blaze and ride!
For El Dorado and all ….is ours.”
Said Sam, with a smile in his voice as big as Leon the Parlayer’s, and borrowing from a well liked author and poet friend.
A well read man was The Grandfather, and like his good friend, Erastus the Book Man, often said with fond exasperation about him,
“….he likes good coffee that’s free, and to talk sh!t about all kinds of things”.
{Beautiful Horse Woman, the Medicine Hat Paint, a Shawnee friend. The Skin Walkers, hiding in the dead rattlers. And the herd of mustang}
“Skin walkers?
Ain’t they some kind of witches, Mort?”
Mort nodded,
“Yes,
that is what many of
The People
know them to be.
But some see them as
as evil spirits, demons,
that get into dead things
to wear like a body.”
{The big gray wolf in the shirt…the baby duckies he’s babysitting.} :
“Mort.”
“Yeah, Justin?”
“That is one large wolf over there.”
“Yep.
That’s Big Wolf.”
“Mort?”
“Yeah, Justin?”
“That wolf is wearing a shirt.”
Mort glanced over to Big Wolf again,
“Yeah.
He must have forgotten to take it off,
before he drifted off to sleep and shape-shifted.”
Justin watched the wolf start ushering the little ducks into the pond for a swim, thinking on that shirt.
“Mort,
he remembered to take his pants off,
but forgot to take his shirt off?”
“Nah, Justin.
He don’t like to wear pants at all.
Unless he absolutely has to.”
That was more than Justin needed to know, and wasn’t going to ask any more questions.
{The wolf turned around and trotted back to get the last little straggler when two huge rattlers came slithering up on his blind side. One was after the duckling, the other was on Big Wolf.
Justin’s gun belt lay on the ground between he and Mort. On seeing the skin walker rattlers slithering toward the big wolf and the strangler duckling, he reached and drew his gun with that lightning speed of his. He was fast. But not as fast as Mort, who had been here in the here and there after much longer than him. She caught him by the wrist with ease and halted him,
“Wait.
This is big wolf’s dream.
Wait and see,
It’ll be alright.”}
(Enter into the scene : the Dead rattle snakes inhabited by the skin walkers, Beautiful Horse Woman, shifted into a Medicine Hat mare trounces the demon things into dust and a thin, rancid smelling black smoke, sending them back to where they came from.
“Horses hate snakes
and wicked things alike.” noted Mort. )
{Right after her explaining Grandfather, and his presence on the plain, Justin queried,
“Mort?
Were you ever mortal ?”
Mort nodded,
“I was.”
“How did you come about bein’ an Agent of death?”
He referred to her as ‘an Agent of death, knowing full well that Mort, Hermes and the Valkyrie couldn’t be doing the jobs all on their lonesomes. Even on the Otherside that would be just be all too much work and no time for play, let alone rest.
“Mm…How my ‘end of days’ became my ‘length of days’?”
Justin the Just, just listened. Waiting as Mort thought for a moment.
“Well, it’s different for everyone.
You know that.
That happened about 50 years ago, after your quit.”
She took a deep drawl of a drag on her cigar thoughtfully, then replied,
“I was a Poor Clare, Justin.
I served.
I worked like a mule,
prayed like a saint,
and kept my head down.
I gave and never counted the cost.
And I suffered.
But that was alright,
wasn’t too bad.
The trick, as dear Lawrence says, is not minding that it hurts.”
She finished with a smile.
She paused long enough for that to sink in on him some, then continued.
“I loved God,
and was happy to do that.
I chose to store up treasures in heaven, not on earth.
For it was …. for me…simply the right thing to do.
The Greatest Good Almighty
saw in me some Usefulness,
and rewarded me.”
She smiled and raised her arm, a finger pointing skyward,
(in a gentler way than he’d ever seen her do it before….) telling The Just Intercessor,
“HE,
gave me a job to do.
One that I’m good at,
and that I like,
and one that is always keepin’ sh*t interestin’.”
She laughed.
Remembering all of that made Mort lose her breath a moment. But she quickly and easily recovered with a shuddering intake of breath, and another pull on the whisky bottle.
Justin listened quietly and carefully ‘til she was done, and nodded. He smiled his satisfaction, and just had one question to ask,
“Who the hell is Lawrence, Mort?”
She chuckled,
“You’ll find out eventually.
Maybe we’ll go together to see one of them flickershows sometime.”
Going with things, same as he had ever been doing, he replied
“Alright then, Mort.
We’ll see.”
The next morning Justin woke to find he and Plower alone. On opening his eyes, he saw an Acoma bowel beside him on the ground. It held down a handwritten note.
It read :
“Bury the bowel in the ground halfway down, right beside the gear.
Someone might find it and have use for it all, and it might make someone’s day.
LIVE on, Justin.
Be happy.
Enjoy yourself and be well, friend.
We’ll meet again.”
- M.
-
- P.s. When you see that big baby, back in Light Shade, tell him the Mean Bitch says,
- “Hey ya, Faustus”.
{somewhen years after Justin leaves the plain, later that morning :
….having come through the thicket the escaped convict, Raim Triggs, unexpectedly found himself on the edge of a great plain that really shouldn’t have been there, in that particular region.
He finds the saddle, canteens of water, mort’s old clothes (the silver satin waist coat now looking like a plain gray flannel vest) and the roaming Chestnut Mare, meets Leon the Parlayer…..
Raim turned around slowly, hands raised. He expected to see a gun pointed at him.
“Put your hands down, Mr. Triggs.
I’m not part of any posse or search party.
You left the men and dogs behind long ago.”
“Did you kill those 2 people, Mr.Triggs?”
Leon knew the answer to the question, but it was important for him to hear what Triggs would say.
“Yes sir, I did.”
replied Raim flatly. His voice was stern, but in his eyes, dwelt a deep sadness.
More between Leon and Raim before they part ways.
The last thing the Parlayer had to say to him, was…
“When you meet the Black Smith,
you tell him Leon Shaw sent you.
He’ll get those leg irons off.”
…..
The mule traversed the vast plain for 2 days heading down to The Valley.
Mort had appointments to meet.
{Fin.}
Justin Chasseur :
Born - 1883
R.isen I.n P.eace - 1933
Chasseur became :
“Justin The Intercessor” - 1934.
{This story is dedicated to Commander Osnafrank, and Miss Mary Pegasus. 😊}
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Post by wolf on Jan 8, 2024 18:01:01 GMT
Glad you like it, Frank 😊
I’ll clean up, and make it right, when I can.
Got some good stuff to fill it out here and there, and need to fix the typos and autocorrectivitus crap. 😂
My hands and arms are a bit better today, just typing gets hard to do on occasion. But I’m okay. Dealing with it. Some days just get bad sometimes. 🙂 
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Post by wolf on Jun 19, 2024 17:27:05 GMT
Providing the hand and eyes remain cooperative, I’m aiming to finish and polish up the last 2 items I’ve got in ‘almost complete progress’. 😊
Then…I’m considering writing another, very different kind of short story. Though it is still along the lines of the horror genre.
Titled :
”An Unheard Of Opportunity”
(excerpt for a possible beginning 😊….)
Rebecca read the open message in front of her twice, it’s disturbing content leaned heavily on the side of being very difficult to believe. But these days she didn’t put anything past anyone, anywhere.
The messenger referred to the quickly coming event as ‘serendipitous’.
”….one man’s serendipity is another man’s bad f******g luck…”
Her thought was suspicious, and rightly so, considering the people she often had business with here.
Scutter was right to have alerted her so urgently. This situation demanded their immediate attention.
She read the invitation once more, before deciding to respond. There was the potential of a substantial amount of money to be earned, if she accepted…..
- Wolf
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Post by osnafrank on Jun 19, 2024 17:46:17 GMT
Providing the hand and eyes remain cooperative, I’m aiming to finish and polish up the last 2 items I’ve got in ‘almost complete progress’. 😊
Then…I’m considering writing another, very different kind of short story. Though it is still along the lines of the horror genre.
Titled :
”An Unheard Of Opportunity”
(excerpt for a possible beginning 😊….)
Rebecca read the open message in front of her twice, it’s disturbing content leaned heavily on the side of being very difficult to believe. But these days she didn’t put anything past anyone, anywhere.
The messenger referred to the quickly coming event as ‘serendipitous’.
”….one man’s serendipity is another man’s bad f******g luck…”
Her thought was suspicious, and rightly so, considering the people she often had business with here.
Scutter was right to have alerted her so urgently. This situation demanded their immediate attention.
She read the invitation once more, before deciding to respond. There was the potential of a substantial amount of money to be earned, if she accepted…..
- Wolf
can't wait to read it.   |
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Post by prufrock21 on Sept 19, 2024 20:59:38 GMT
Icarus of the Deep
One day Koa, the native island boy, saw water all around him and wondered how deep the ocean went. He asked his father, a fisherman, who gave him no answer. He asked the village elders, wisemen all, who gave him no answer. He even asked the village shaman who said he had no answer but would consult the “world of spirits.” Finally, in desperation, the boy would ask the pearl divers who surely would know. When he did, they only laughed and scoffed at his curiosity. For all of them knew that the ocean went as deep as it wanted to go. Just as they knew that the sky went as high as it wanted to go. Unsatisfied, and growing even more curious, Koa resolved to discover the answer for himself. So late one afternoon he took his father’s boat and rowed and rowed until he found himself a fair distance from shore. The farthest he had ever been, or dared to go, by all accounts. He was aware of the cloudless, immense sky above, the pale sun midway on the horizon, and the boat like a cradle, rocking gently to the lulling rhythm of the sea. It was a fine adventure so far, except for the screeching gulls making pirouettes overhead. One question, however, asserted itself. Was the boat now at the spot where it needed to be, or was there another spot, farther out, more congenial and worth exploring? The only way to know, he soon realized, was to position the boat in different spots until he found the best one. That settled, the ocean calm and deep, he tied a rope he had brought to his ankle. Then he tied the other end to a heavy rock. He would toss the rock overboard and allow it to sink, dragging him down. Once the rock settled at its base, he would untie the knot and swim up to the surface, like a piece of basal wood, no worse for wear--just as he had seen the pearl divers do. It was an ingenious plan, and it might have worked, except for the matter of the rope and the rock. Though he was a hardy swimmer, as were all the boys and many of the girls on the island, he was not a pearl diver and had noticed difficulty holding his breath the deeper he went. No matter. He knew that when the rock stopped sinking, it would be the deepest he would go. Koa felt relieved when the rock hit the bottom. As he went to untie the rope from his ankle, however, he had difficulty because he had secured the knot too tightly--and he saw neither his hands nor the knot. This predicament he could have remedied had he remembered to bring a sharpened blade along, which he could have used to cut the rope and free himself. Now it was too late, too late even to pray to the island gods. The pall of water and water pressure no doubt would soon make his lungs burst, drowning him. These were his last thoughts. And also, this one. He should have taken the pearl divers at their word.
Indeed, the ocean went as deep as it wanted to go. |
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