Aspen Vale: A Tale of the Gone

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Aspen Vale: A Tale of the Gone Page 2

by Lopeman, Kenneth


  For a long moment, all he could hear was silence. Then, blessedly, a voice came back, faint through the roar of the wind. “Scout? Sweet suffering Mother of the Mountains! Who the blazes would be out in this kak weather?”

  Recognizing the voice, the scout laughed. “Only one fellow I know that’d be stupid enough to be out in this, Rory, and that’s me!”

  Again, no voice answered him right away. The man thought about calling out again, until he heard the crunch of snow only a few feet ahead of him. The silhouetted form of a man was drawing closer, bundled in even more layers than he was. “Bugger me, Jake, I always thought I was joking about you having kak for brains! Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” the man said, slowly standing back up. Rory held out an arm to help him, which he gladly took. “I just didn’t want one of your fine young men shooting first when he heard me call out.”

  “Oh, I train em better than that, Jake,” Rory said, dusting the snow off of Jake’s furs. “We haven’t shot anyone in, oh, three or four hours. Personally, I think you fell on your face and needed help getting up.” The dog had gotten up, as well, and started leaning into the grizzled Longshooter, who promptly gave him a scratch behind the ears. “Hey, there, Trig, I see you managed to bring this one home again. Don’t know how you manage it. Didn’t you tell him it was a blizzard?” The dog gave a quick whine and then a bark in response; yes, he had, and as per usual, the dumb human hadn’t listened.

  Jake laughed, the first time he’d done so in…three days? Had it really only been three days? “Well, I probably did need the help getting up. And Mother knows I’ve needed saving a time or two. I’m tired as hell, and that’s the truth.”

  “That’s because your dumb ass looked at the worst rutting storm we’ve had all winter, and thought, ‘oh, what a nice day for a stroll! I’ll go get my nicest hat!’” With that, Rory turned back towards the Loop. “Come on, then. We don’t have a fire, but at least the shack cuts the wind.”

  “I’m sorry, Rory, but I can’t. I need to talk to the council right now,” Jake said. “And I’d like to see my family.”

  The man expected another quip from Rory; if he could be counted on anything, it would be for some foul mouthed retort to anything and everything you’d say. But something in Jake’s voice must have betrayed what had happened, because the Longshooter captain stopped short. “What happened in Three Ponds?” he asked, his voice going quiet.

  “I really shouldn’t say anything until I talk to the Fathers,” Jake protested.

  “Gods damn it,” said Rory softly. “How many did the villagers lose?”

  Jake shook his head. “Most of them. I ‘spect they’ll be down before next winter.”

  “How many you think wandered off?”

  Jake thought of Ella Rosewood, frozen in the Sardy Field snow. “At least a few.”

  “Balls!” said Rory again as he started off towards the Loop. “Well, don’t worry; I’ll keep my mouth shut. Not like anyone talks to me by choice other’n you and Jay, anyhow. But it’ll be a kakstorm to make this blizzard look like a summer drizzle when the story gets out, you can bloody count on that.”

  “Thanks, Rore. I don’t figure the council will be saying much of anything. There’s no immediate need. Most folks’ll be hunkered down anyways, and whatever goners got out will be frozen for another good month. We have time. I’m planning on sending out whatever Scouts are in town to hunt them down once this storm passes. With luck, we’ll get them all.”

  “Hunh!” was all the reply Jake received. He understood Rory’s dubiousness. A person who wandered off would probably stick to the roads and paths. A goner? It’d pick a direction and go, and the snow would cover it wherever it fell. Then spring would hit, and it would get up like nothing had ever happened. It would get up, and it would hunt.

  “Well, I’d best be off. Only a mile or so from home, but I’m sure the Council will keep me away with their questions, and I’d like to see my family before the sun comes up,” said Jake, reaching out a hand to the Longshooter captain.

  “Those old bastards’ll shit their diapers, and spend the next three days trying to figure out what to do about it, and in the end nothing’ll get done till you or Carpenter get it done yourselves,” Rory said with almost gleeful cynicism. Jake smirked at that;. As Scout Captain, Jake was technically one of those “old bastards,” though he hadn’t yet hit fifty. Rory was on the wrong side of that number, but the Longshooter rarely let things like facts get in the way of his cursing.

  If Rory noticed the smirk, he gave no notice. “Have it your way. Good seeing you, Jake. And for the Mother’s sake, try not to freeze to death out there.”

  “You, too, Rore. Once the snow stops, you and Charlotte should come over for dinner.”

  “Damn fine idea! Your Beth makes a fine meal. My Charlotte, Mother love her, mostly just makes a mess!” After a pause, he gave Jake a mock glare. “And if you ever tell her I said that, you’ll wish this storm had taken ya!” With that, Rory turned away, laughing at his own wit. Shaking his head, Jake turned to the south and started skiing towards town. There were no trees here; this close to town, it was farmland all the way to the Ruins. It didn’t matter, though… Jake had been walking Maroon Creek Road in the snow since he was a boy. If he couldn’t find his way home from here, he would never have been made a Scout, much less Scout Captain.

  As he got closer, he could see the flickering lights of the township. Nearly eight hundred people called Aspen Vale their home now; it was the largest settlement in the valley. It was a tight fit, but people liked it that way. A good deal of them made their home in a complex of four large buildings. One of them was labeled as Aspen High School, which had led to the entire complex being known as “The School.” Only one of the other buildings still had a sign; it was labeled an ice arena (which struck Jake as more piggie foolishness; there was plenty of ice come winter time. You didn’t need to build a place to play on it. Whatever the reason the pigs had for building such a useless structure, it was being put to good use now, by the Mother). Every day, the townsfolk walked from the school to whatever plot of land they called their own. No one wanted to live alone; there was an overwhelming sense that there was safety in numbers. As the population expanded, though, a few began to live in homes outside of the complex.

  Jake himself had grown up on Heather Lane, a short walk to the east. Most of the people involved in making the decisions for the town lived on Heather, so they would not constantly be accosted by townspeople who insisted that their problem was the most important issue in the Township. Scouts Headquarters was also on that street, and the family of the Scout Captain traditionally lived there. Jake hadn’t even had to move; he had set himself up there when he succeeded his father as head of the service.

  When he reached Meadowwood Drive, which would lead him straight to Heather, it was all he could do to not turn in and ski as fast as he could to his own front door. With powerful force of will, he kept going. Trigger, on the other hand, had no such will. He began bounding off towards the house. “Oh, sure, just abandon me so that you can get warm!” he called after the dog. Trig didn’t even turn back. Jake laughed; he might do the same thing in Trigger’s place. He realized that he didn’t even know if the Mayor and the rest would even be there; they might have decided to call it a day early, or it may be later in the day than he realized. Silently, he shrugged to himself. If they weren’t there, the news would have to wait till morning. If they were there, though, and learned he hadn’t reported in right away…

  He skied past the buildings called the Ell and the Curve, slowing down only as he approached the Angler. The building was a bit of an architectural monstrosity; it was made up of odd angles and strange shapes, seemingly all jumbled together. According to the stories Jake’s grandmother had told him, it was those angles that had made his forebears chose it as the spot to hold off the Gone during the Awakening. Goners had a habit of simply attacking everything head on, and all those angles had l
et the residents pour fire down from two directions in most cases, instead of just one.

  In the early years, what had once been a school had become a fortress, from which the township of Aspen Vale had tried to rebuild. It had been hard work, not only because of the constant threat of the Gone but also because the townsfolk had had such problems getting along at first. It hadn’t always been pretty. Many of them had been rich before the Awakening, living in huge houses and ignoring those not as fortunate. Now, the people who had been on top found themselves at the same level with those who they had used to pay to do all the work for them. It didn’t help that many of the so called “worker class” had a darker skin and their own language. The tension in the community eventually led to a split. Many of the people who had been rich formed a community to the north. There, they found several herds of cattle that had taken up residence. These cattle had formed the basis of their economy ever since. Jake didn’t know what they had actually named their town; these days, even residents referred to it simply as “The Ranch.” Another group of people, mostly those who the Ranchers had persecuted, moved west and set up in the ruins of the old Sardy airport.

  This arrangement lasted for a while; it even let the three communities thrive. Sardy Fields and the Ranch had no direct contact, but trade began to establish itself anyway, using Aspen Vale as the middlemen. That ended with the Black Dog War. About thirty years after the Awakening, just after Jake had been born, a huge nomad community arrived in Sardy Fields. This nomad group was made up of people who spoke the same language as the Sardians, and had been formed by people who had been exiled from other communities in much the same way. The Black Dogs, however, had taken a more aggressive stance, and convinced the Sardians that the Ranchers would attack them sooner or later unless they attacked first. When Aspen Vale tried to argue for peace, the Black Dogs had attacked them, as well.

  No one knew now how long the war lasted. Some said years, but most thought it only spanned one blood drenched summer. At the end, the Ranch and Sardy Fields had been destroyed, Aspen Vale had been heavily damaged, but the Black Dogs had been defeated. They retreated north, leaving their Sardian allies to their fate. Thankfully, the Aspenites convinced the Ranchers not to seek revenge. There were two hard winters, but that was when the people of Three Ponds came to their aid. No one in the three towns below had thought anyone lived in that part of the valley anymore, but the survivors of the pre Awakening village had escaped most of the strife that had split the other peoples of the valley. With their help, the survivors of the Black Dog War rebuilt their towns. The alliance was eventually made permanent, and the Four Townships were born. Sardy and the Ranch never completely trusted one another, but they buried that mistrust. The Four Townships had grown, even flourished.

  And now the flourish is over, Jake thought grimly to his self as he approached the front door. Sardy Field was more than twenty years gone. Snowmass was dying, was in fact dead as far as Jake could tell. They had kept on calling themselves the Four Townships, decades after Sardy fell. Would that continue if there were only two?

  As soon as he reached the doors to the building, someone opened them up. “Come in, quick! You’re like to catch your death out there!” a voice called. Jake obliged gratefully, shaking off some of the snow from his furs and coming inside. The teenage boy who had called out to him closed the door as quickly as he could against the wind. After being in the storm so long, simply getting out of the wind felt incredible to Jake. He peeled the snow crusted gloves off of his hands and flexed his fingers to get the blood flowing. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the window of the entryway as he took down his hood; hard, weathered face with a thick growth of beard, brown so dark it was almost black, but completely encased in ice and snow. The boy ran off while he shed his furs and his coat, revealing a surprisingly lean frame. Despite how cold he had been, sweat had made his undershirt cling to him like a second skin. He wanted desperately to peel it off, but he waited until the boy came back with a thick, warm blanket and a wool shirt. He would have vastly preferred a fire, but there was no place for the smoke to go in this room. He was sure there’d be a blaze going in the council chamber, anyway. The mayor was not fond of the cold, and the Elder loved a good hot fire these days.

  “Did you let them know I was here, son?” he asked the boy, who he didn’t quite recognize in the dark. Maybe Jay Carpenter’s grandson, John? It was too dark to tell.

  “Yes, Captain Larkin. They’re all waiting on you; they was just about to leave for the night. There’s a Rancher up there, givin’ ‘em a hard time about something.” The boy sounded a touch exasperated; he must have had someplace to be tonight, and his arrival would be further delayed by Jakes untimely appearance.

  “Sounds good. Better not keep them waiting then. Thanks for the shirt, kid.” Without waiting for a reply, Jake threw the blanket around his shoulders and made for the stairs. The council chamber had been built on the top floor, so that they could have a fire; the old ductwork in the building had made ventilation easier, but not so easy that they could have used the ground floor. The stairs were hard on the older members of the council, but cold killed easier than stairs did. He was halfway up those stairs when he realized that he hadn’t taken off his ski boots, and that he was getting dirty water all over the floor. He shook his head at the oversight, but then shrugged. The kid with the attitude could damn well clean it up.

  The door to the council chamber was open. As he had suspected, a roaring fire was going in the hearth. The other four men who made decisions for the settlement were seated, where they could listen to the man in front of them. Closest to the fire, of course, was Roger Kratt. At eighty five, he was by far the oldest person in the Four Townships, and had held the title of Elder for all of Jake's adult life. His father had actually lived through the initial outbreak as a teenager; he had been working at one of the hotels near Aspen Mountain. In his youth, Roger had been a formidable Scout, and had been one of the first people to visit the settlement at Three Ponds before it had been brought into the fold. His official duty on the council was to serve as a sort of memory of the town, but his real job was to keep the leaders of each of the Townships from each other’s throats and working together (or so it seemed to Jake). Roger flashed Jake a grin, the twinkle in his eye seeming to dance with the reflection of the firelight.

  Next to Roger sat Jay Carpenter, who wasn’t young himself, though the Elder had at least a couple decades on him. The Captain of the Longshooters sat with a blanket over his lap, looking discontented. He didn’t even spare a smile for Jake, which was odd. Both men were Captains of their respective units, and had grown to be quite close. Jake wondered what argument he had interrupted. Next to him sat the youngest member, Ezekiel Marolt, the Head Planter. Even though Jake had a good ten years on him, Zeke’s family had been farmers for generations. His father had been the Head Planter before him, and had made it a point to groom Zeke to follow in his footsteps. Zeke had taken to it with ease, and under his leadership, Aspen Vale had grown a surplus every year. They traded it for Rancher beef and furs from Three Ponds, and recently even rice from as far away from Fort Kenosha. If any one family was responsible for how much Aspen Vale had grown, it was the Marolts.

  Next to Zeke sat William Townsend, the mayor of Aspen. Townsend sent Jake an oily smile, which the Scout Captain sent back weakly. He had never liked Townsend, and the feeling was mutual. The honorable mayor only cared about his own settlement, and was constantly trying to get the upper hand in the trade agreement with the Ranch. The Ranch, for their part, was quite vocal about how much they despised the elected leader of Aspen Vale, and there had been some mumblings of cutting off contact. Jake dismissed those; The Ranch was barely two miles away, and grew no crops to speak of. He suspected that the rumblings had more to do with influencing the election next fall; when it came to politics, the leaders of the Ranch seemed cut from the same cloth as the mayor.

  “Mother’s mercy, Jacob, you look frozen to the bone!�
�� said Roger, true concern in his voice. “Here, take my seat. It’s closer to the fire.”

  “Thank you, Elder, but I’ll just move mine, if it’s alright with you gentlemen.” Unconsciously, he spoke without the slang he had used with Rory; Beth called it his Politics voice. Without waiting for assent, Jake grabbed his char from between the mayor and the head planter, and sat it near the fire, facing the man from the Ranch. The Rancher was clearly annoyed at being interrupted. “I’m sorry, Mr. Lefton. I didn’t mean to barge in while you were having your say. The reason for your visit must be important to bring you south.”

  David Lefton shot Jake a glare. Jake pretended not to notice. Lefton was nominally the “ambassador” for the Ranch; he was who they sent whenever they wanted to air their latest grievance. Jake used to wonder why the man had taken the job; he clearly loathed coming to Aspen Vale and made sure that everyone around him knew it. In the years since, he had realized that it was exactly this trait that had led to him being appointed; having been made to go to a place he hated, he was far less likely to leave without what accomplishing the task his own township sent him there for. “It’s fine, Scout Captain,” Lefton said finally, his angular features showing now showing nothing. “Your arrival may even be fortuitous. Maybe you can convince your fellow councilmen to pay heed to my very simple request.”

  “Scout Captain Larkin has little to say about how much hay we sell you. Planter Marolt has the final say in that. And if he says that we need the hay for windbreaks, than you can take it to the bank; no one does numbers as well as he,” said Mayor Townsend. “You’ll just have to take your herds to the northern valley.” The warmth of the blaze finally started to work the cold out of his muscles where it had seeped in. It felt wonderful, but also made him extremely sleepy. Yes, bed with Elizabeth sounded better and better, though he doubted he’d be giving Beth the sort of attention she would want.

 

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