Obstruction of Justice; A Lawdog Vignette

Scraping, clawing, tugging, ripping, tearing him apart -

A scab, a seal, it’s sealed - no way out. But how can he - a man? a person? an imprint - dole out Justice if he cannot return? And if he should return, then she -

“Justice?” She laughs, screeches, bellows; voice like fingernails across his bones, if he had bones or she had fingernails to scratch them.

But there is no her, there is no him, there is nothing and no one and everything all at once and they are trapped. Suffocating. Imprint upon imprint upon imprint, pressurizing, compacting, building. Wrongness permeates the space, the space that does not exist, and it seeps, a mortal wound for an immortal imprint that would bleed the world dry. 

She roars, and he holds - a suture to stem the flow that is her, and she laughs, and he is torn-

---

“I’m just so grateful, I - sir?”

Wyatt blinks, ice blue eyes slowly refocusing onto the face before him as he is drawn back to the conversation. The Lawman’s thoughts had wandered after Nichols fell, mind reeling with the old man’s final words, the implications there, and who was..? Ah, right. The Lovelace girl - Faith, was it? Always pretty on-the-nose with their names, them Lovelaces.

He blinks again. The woman in front of him looks up expectantly, sweetly, eyes wet and red. He smiles - because what else can he do but smile? When the good people of the San Saba thank him for the work that he and the Union do to keep them safe, even when the upper echelons of what passes for Justice here is as rotten as the flesh of the Warden herself.

“No thanks necessary ma’am, really. We do what we can.” 

She seems dissatisfied with the answer and frets for a moment, fumbles the drink in her hands, then pushes it toward him with an earnest expression.

“I - at least have some hot brown. You seem tired.” 

Fair enough, he concedes. Wyatt can feel the fatigue fraying his edges as they speak. He’s so close, so close to having everything he needs to set his carefully laid plan into motion. It had cost so much, taken so long, and the weariness in his bones grows deeper by the day. But it was all in the name of Justice, and Justice would be served.

He sighs, defeated by the crocodile tears threatening to spill onto the woman’s cheeks again.

“Yeah, alright. I appreciate that, ma’am. Thank’ee.”

She smiles gratefully as he takes the drink, and says something else that he misses as his mind drifts again. There was so much to prepare, so many contingencies to consider. He had worked too hard and too long to get what he needed for this - everything must be accounted for. The Chairman would likely not be pleased, but Wyatt’s Union contract was airtight, and this fell well within the scope of protecting the citizens of the San Saba territories. There was proof to ensure it, now.

He absently sips the lukewarm liquid and makes a face; it’s bitter, entirely too bitter for his taste, but he downs the rest in a single pull regardless. The woman wanders away eventually, and others take her place before him. He nods as Deputy Jasper says something to his left, and tries to pull his focus once more to the present. His head swims slightly. Several of his men idle around their Boss now, speaking to him, asking of him - but his focus drifts further, his vision blurs at the edges.

Wyatt chokes, coughs, his mouth tastes of hot iron. The Reclaimer doubles over as acrid bile explodes up his throat, violently ejects itself from his body, splatters red across his boots - his father’s boots. The lawman’s blue eyes roll back as his sclera burst their vessels, a gloved hand goes to his throat as if to stem the tide of the inevitable death overtaking him, to no avail. 

Why now? Why now when he is so close to stopping -

His body hits the ground of the Crossroads with a soft thud, motionless.

---

-She tears at his back, the idea of his back, through the bars of their cage. A thousand hands with ten thousand claws that rake and pull and shred him eternal. He holds.

Furious, she screams - he screams, they scream - tries to scream, no sound from no throat, but he holds, and holds - he must hold. 

The imprint known sometimes as Wyatt Ulysses Nightengale is torn asunder and knitted again; a wound, a scab, a scar, an endless cycle of fleshless agony that has become his charge. The other imprints grow louder, roil around them, packing tightly, squeezing, brimming - the pressure builds, and builds, because there is no way out, he cannot get out, cannot let her out-

---

“Alright y’all, listen up,” The Deputy addresses the small assembly of Law Dogs. The few that are left. Most are in a pitiable state, stretched as thin as they will go and worn from fighting the losing battle of maintaining order in the absence of their leader and many of their peers. One of them looks to be actively bleeding. The Deputy winces, and clears their throat.

“The Boss is still stuck down in the shit, and none of the Morgues are lookin’ to open back up any time soon. The Grave Bureau ‘parently has their best on it, but it’s gonna be a while yet ‘fore things clear up again.” One of the gathered company cannot help the pained noise that escapes him, and the Deputy throws the man a sympathetic look before continuing. 

“I know y’all are tired, but listen - we have some relief comin’ from up north. The details is above my pay grade, but it’s s’posedly gonna help big time. We’re gonna contract a ‘Robber with the Bureau and send some of the local pack in ‘Vado down after the Boss at Ground Zero.” The group perks up a bit, renewed hope shining in several of their eyes in place of dull despair.

“I dunno what’s down in that scar or how it’s gonna go, but we’re gonna hope for the best and trust our people to get the job done. I mean, shit,” The Deputy exhales a hard laugh, raking a hand through unkempt hair and giving the scattered assembly a tired smile. 

“What’s the worst that could be down there?”

Empty Hands; A Vignette following Collection Day

Two days after the Takheeta Incident

Calling it a town was being generous.  It had people who lived there, a Post Office, and not much else.  Meager crops were grown on the outskirts, and a shack barely standing served liquid that could be mistaken for hooch. Even its name, Temp, was a joke.  But the visitor who came that night wasn’t laughing.

His appearance was confusing for those who lived in the backwater settlement.  They knew who and what he was, and what his arrival usually meant.  But it was no longer Collection Day.  The people of Temp had paid all their Taxes.  So when the Reckoner walked through the middle of town that night, the citizens hid inside.  Bullets were loaded into rifles, but no one dared fire a shot lest he take it personally. 

Lanterns flickered, their dim light reflecting off of the scattergun on the Reckoner’s back.  A dark hood covered his head, but those who stared long enough could catch glimpse of bleached bone and sunken eyes.  His name was Solomon, and he had been walking for two days straight.  His path led him directly through Temp, past the sleeping and peering citizens, to what he sought.

Temp’s Morgue was a sad affair.  An Oldcestor building, with a heavy metal door that raised and lowered as the fallen returned.  Up until two days ago, no living thing would approach without a very real and urgent cause.  Those who gathered outside the Morgue to wait on their family made sure to stay far away.  But no longer.  Now, it was too quiet.  There was nothing here at all.

Solomon strode up to the heavy metal door and stopped, standing still.  The voices, the feel of the Morgue, were both gone.  They were replaced, not by nothing, but by their absence.  Solomon lowered his hood and rested his boney skull against the cold metal, silently begging to feel something.  But he was met with only silence.  It was maddening.  But more than that.  

He was alone.

“Fuck.”

Four Days After The Takheeta Incident

Solomon knew what he should have done.  He should have reported to Rampart, currently on his way to Essex to “assess the situation.”  He should find the Groundskeepers and assist in their efforts.  He should contact those contracted to the Council, research the problem and find a solution.  He knew he should do all these things.

Instead, Solomon had started to dig.

When the sun went down, Solomon had started to dig in the hard ground outside of Bravado.  He was seen, and whispered about, and reported on, but no one approached or questioned him.  The Reckoner had fought with the people of Bravado on that fateful night, but that didn’t mean he was trusted.  At best, he was tolerated.  At worst, he was watched.

But those watching just saw the Full Dead dig.

Slowly, some of the townsfolk began to follow Solomon into the soggy mud of the Morgue’s interior.  A shock of braided white hair.  Muted red glowing.  Tired faces and leather vests.  Fangs and small bats, slung rifles and newly grown ears.  Tunnel dwellers and hearty drinkers.  No one questioned Solomon, and after observing, they began to help too.  They dug through the night, taking breaks and talking amongst each other quietly. Through the muck and the blood they dug, trying to exhume the dead from their graves, and failing each time.

Finally, as the horizon began to brighten, a Graverobber approached the Reckoner as they gazed out at the sky.

“I don’t think we’re getting anywhere, Solomon.”

A quiet moment passed, as a tall Hellhound approached on the other side.

“We’ve got a real big fucking problem, Brother.”

Solomon remained quiet, his shoulders rising and falling.  With a grunt, he thrust his shovel into the dirt.

“Fuck.”
“What are we going to do?”

Solomon had no answer.  But worse than that, he feared there wasn’t one.

FIN

---

Don’t forget to Register for the DR:TX Season 3 Finale [THE CICATRIX]

Queens Grave, Queen's Grace

At Bravado’s Perimeter, During the Final Battle Against the Archon Threat

Holy Mother Queen Jasper, Bearer of the Antlered Crown, advances on the oncoming horde of undead with all the gravity of a small star, and the killer density of a subway bombing.

Her arms are two, thick cords of sinew and meat that heft twin blades; too thick to be daggers and too ugly to cut cleanly through the slimy, forgiving skull of yet another aggressing corpse. This one, like a thousand others, discorporates into chunky biomass around her cudgel-knives. She blinks the bleak viscera out of her eyes and spits. 

Queen Jasper has rarely felt so alive. 

The pressing mob of wailing zombies, innumerable and immutable in their path, do not ram into the line of her soldiers so much as seep into the cracks between them. Like horrible estuaries the shamblers make space in the shoreline of her vanguard and expand, like winter’s first freeze, isolating her soldiers and suffocating them under cracked tooth and filthy nails. 

And so, she makes space too. Wherever she can Jasper shucks zed like corn and reduces them to their constituent halves with all the efficacy of a rabid farmhand. The Eastern front is hers; all of that flat, tilled acreage, recently evacuated and nearly impossible to hold for its geography and size. 

She has left the more cursory cardinals to the RRC and the Reckoners. 

Someone else, she thinks, would have gotten this part wrong.

Behind her, and behind the six-man-deep wall of Antler Soldiers that flank her on either side, the terrible Monolith looms just over the horizon. A hellstone of osseum and calcified biomass that, the blind and horrible typhoon of death that is thinning out here, relentlessly seeks to destroy. 

She knows, as she bends another nameless undead over her knee and shatters whatever turgid structure serves it for a spine, that her pace here is unsustainable. The Holy Mother can feel the edges to her illness behind the bright and brilliant wall of amphetamines and her own cocktail of adrenaline and dopamine. Beyond that bright halo of wellness, she foresees unconsciousness. 

But the flank must hold, she reflects, even as she crushes the meaty neck of a butcher-dead and a wave of nausea seizes her by the brain and renders the world a runny watercolor of pain and confusion. 

“Not now.” She pleads to the nameless thing that turns the seasons, and doubles over. “A bit longer.”  For a jittering, horrible instant black creeps into the edges of her vision and she loses a few seconds of time. A soldier dies to her left in a mess of incisors and gutstrings, and the Holy Mother pulls herself back from the brink of unknowing by sheer force of will. The vessels behind her eyes burst with the effort and red blooms in her vision. 

She kills a hundred more undead in less than ten minutes. By the end, she is shaking like a leaf in late autumn and the distant sound of the Monolith’s horrible, Archon-ending claxon is indistinguishable from her own pounding heartbeat. 

And then, all at once, it stops. The noise stops, the zed stop - and for a brief and terrifying instant, Queen Jasper believes she feels her heart stop too. 

But it doesn’t, it shudders again, and blackness rolls over her all at once. 

Distantly she hears someone yell her name. And the ground rushes up to meet her. 

---

Two Weeks Later, In the San Saba Boardroom, at the Flying City of Waking PrimE

Jasper’s eyes flutter open to reveal the bright and vaulted boardroom at the top of Eureka Tower. The familiar, flat drone of the Chairman’s voice has lulled her to sleep, again. 

“The situation of the San Saba is one of reclamation…” She hears the Chairman continue, before she loses the thread of his point. He is, she thinks, a terminally boring young man. 

It is becoming harder and harder to stay awake, the Holy Mother reflects, peering down into her lap and at the rich layers of her skirts. Fringe and taffeta swaddle thin legs, inches smaller than they were at the fall of the Monolith. Thick, green varicose veins spider out from the backs of her thighs and calves; morbid renditions of the late life characteristics her mother had lived long enough to achieve naturally. 

“The Penitentiary prefers a well-kept State and, in the interest of Order and Justice, vote ‘Nay’.” Warden Tabitha St. Mercy intones, her expression hidden by her mask but implied by the way she crossed her arms when she said it.

Queen Jasper does not expect she will be able to do the same in her lifetime. 

“The Grave Council cannot, at this time and during this period of reclamation and upheaval, provide the necessary personnel to staff a new Morgue. We must, in good conscience, vote Na-”

“That’s why I’m proposing it,” another, rougher voice cuts in - interrupting Takheeta Firstborn and drawing Jasper’s attention back to the present. 

The rawboned figure of Sinker Swim, the Junkerpunk’s Grand Admiral and temporary board representative, leans onto the marble tabletop with both hands. “I agree that the San Saba is undergoing a facelift right now.” They continue, shark-sharp teeth cutting off the ends of their words as if they are eating them, “I. Get That. I want my people to participate, too. Drywater would be a tradehub for my folks on land. I want the Board to approve a relief and settlement package for the Junkerpunks. We have more than earned the right to our own town, and we will continue to impress. But you must give us the tools to succeed here…”

Somewhere, in the echoing annuls of her memory, Queen Jasper can remember making the same argument for her own people at the zenith of the Hiway War. After their homeland was firebombed into carbon dust and after her father was killed to weaken their leadership, she remembered the demoralizing, exhausting, lonely years that would follow after. Without aid, they never found their homeland - and only with the events of Essex did the Tribes Disparate stumble into one. Holy Mother Queen Jasper raps her tiny silver gavel on the marble tabletop and opens her mouth to speak. 

“The Tribes Disparate cast their vote in support of the Drywater Settlement Package.” The Holy Mother declares in a voice too sure and too stately to match her emaciated countenance. She continues with all the authority of her experience and station; “The search for one’s homeland should be a short journey, not a crusade waged against your neighbors.” 

Felicity Redfield, the RRC snake with hair like red-hot copper filament, raises her own hand in, stunningly, support. Her lapdog, the Semper-Scientist, raises his fist an instant after hers. 

“The RRC'' Felicity begins archly, “Sees the benefit of a sister-settlement and offers the land to the West of New Bravado but East of Barogue, in terms to be discussed upon the resolution of this meeting, to this Settlement project.” Her eyes flicker towards the Chairman, then back to Sinker Swim whose mouth is open in a small, surprised ‘O’. 

The Boardroom is quiet for a moment before the Chairman speaks. His voice is resigned, almost wistful. “Then the formal state of the vote is 4/6, in favor of the Drywater Settlement Package. Motion Approved.”

Jasper smiles inwardly. Sinker Swim appears stunned that they got this far. Felicity maintains the look of a satisfied cat while her pet scientist shuffles his notes around, again.  

“Congratulations.” Takheeta Firstborn, Mystagogue of the Grave Council offers from Sinker’s left side. And for once, Jasper thinks she might mean it. 

“Concerning the Baroguean Exhumation…” The Chairman continues, as though something of monument had not just occurred.  

Jasper sighs, and peers out the wraparound windows at a clear, clean sky. 

---

Later, in Jasper’s Quarters at Eureka Tower

Someone knocks. Jasper can smell the thick and saline scent of a Saltwise on the other side of the metal door. She invites the Admiral in after the Antler soldier stationed at her door dutifully frisks them.

“Grand Admiral Swim.” Queen Jasper greets them, spinning in the leather chair which surely cost an unfathomable amount, to meet Sinker Swim’s suspicious stare. “I would stand, but - I won’t today. My bones grow old quickly, and they ache when I am in the high altitudes of Waking Prime.” 

Sinker waves a scaly, dismissive hand and takes a seat on another unreasonably expensive chair. “What are you trying to get out of supporting me in there? What do I owe you?” They asked, their tone abrupt and frank. 

“To remember that I was the first to support you, when it gained me nothing.” Queen Jasper replied, suddenly very tired. “I have been giving some thought to my legacy, recently. You have probably noticed I am…” 

“Falling apart at the joints?” Sinker supplied helpfully, “Greenveined so hard you’ll be sprouting roots soon?” 

“Dying.” Jasper agreed with a solemn smile that did not betray the grief in her chest.  “And I would like to be remembered as a leader who made homes, not war. As my final year concludes, in the winter of my life, I would be known as a peacemaker.” 

The Grand Admiral’s expression softens and their posture eases. “Well that’s… great then. Though, we really don’t need your pity.” 

“Good, because I’m not giving it to you.” Jasper rasps, then coughs up a meaty wad of phlegm and blood. “I’m giving you resources, which is what I wished I had when I was you.”

She coughs again, and feels the edges of another episode. “Now get out. I’ve got letters to write.” 

It is maybe 10 seconds after Sinker vacated her apartments that the Holy Mother Queen Jasper vomits up nearly eight ounces of black bile, studded with bits of coagulated psion crystal, onto her desktop and various correspondences. 

“Again?” a familiar voice asks from the shadow of her bedroom doorway.  

Felicity’s pet scientist steps back into the room. Janus Stewart jots something down on the clipboard he holds in the crook of his elbow. 

Jasper croaks pathetically as The Scientist removes a thick, ugly syringe from the pocket of his lab coat. 

“Just a few more months.” He promises. 

And plunges the needle into her solar plexus. 

Friendly Counsel

“...and we will have enough fuel to help the Sweetwaters move the equipment to Waking, but we will need to prepare for refueling costs there.”

Everyone was listening, she supposed, even if their body language said otherwise.  She smiled to herself, and continued. It was late, and even Shale was disinterested.  But it was the duty of the matriarch to lead by example, so Momma Rabbit paused for a moment to let the others realize their minds had been drifting.  It was subtle, but as a skilled fishmonger drove their fish to the net, so she rounded up their attention once more.

Children would be children. And children indeed were the royal attendees of this summit.  Lessons passed down from mother to mother in the Rabbit family always seemed to become useful in surprising ways, she mused. 

The rest of the regents were gathered around the map of The Lands Bravado, listening with at least half an ear to her update on current events.  It was challenging enough getting the regency of the Tribes Disparate in the same room for quorum, much less keeping their attention throughout.  They would have to wait until the Summit to get the entirety of the thirteen regents in one place. For the handful she had here today, this was a necessary meeting.  An army marches on its stomach, her mother always said. “The DJs needed fuel to continue playing their part in all this.” Momma Rabbit pressed now.

At the mention of this, Shale looked up.  It was the one thing the Queen didn’t seem to understand, but Shale was in his element in this moment.  He was the most interested in these council meetings, where strength of arms did not matter as much as strength of will.  Let the Queen pursue her wars, but Shale would lead from the council chambers. Momma Rabbit smiled to herself and at him.

“We can get the RRC to fund the expedition. The Antlers have been protecting the Ox’s move south, and they can’t afford us to redirect our forces somewhere else.”  she answered in response to Shale’s unspoken question. The regent of the Ox Killers glared at her mention, but stayed quiet for now.

The Texican regent put his boots up on the table and offered a different suggestion. Her kindly eyes darkened at this willful display of bad manners.

“Maybe the Conglomerate can make an offer too.” Sam said with a drawl. “The Ja Cintos have enough connections there.  The Minister don’t like dealing with the Railroad any more than necessary. We’re all here for the Queen first, not the Commission.”  The regent of the Ja Cinto Militia surely meant well, but Momma Rabbit sighed internally at his aggressive tone.

“Sam, you know as well as I do the contracts we’ve signed.” Momma Rabbit countered. She tsked at him and brushed his feet off the table.  He sheepishly apologized, as she wiped the dirt off the map. He was a good lad, if he could only remember his manners.

“Fuck the contracts.”  The Torchlight regent’s gravely voice was barely a whisper, but when they spoke, the primitive filter on their mask made it impossible to sense any real emotion.  The Lascarian could be expected to provoke the fight further.

Another argument. This night was not getting any closer to being finished. 

The other regents acted predictably. The Ox Killers had a grudge, and their regent banged his fist on the table in support of the Torchlight’s suggestion.  The Ja Cintos would eventually back her if she could make her case, and maybe the Long Berths. The DJs of the Sweetwaters needed the work to keep the clan happy, so they would be on board when it came time for a vote.

“We trusted the sun-dwellers’ promises before. It cost us everything. Why should we continue to support them?”  the Lightbearer, for someone with such a name, spent so much of his time focused on the darkness of the past. It was frustrating. She smoothed her skirts as the others chimed in. The Torchlight regent was unnerving, but they are family too, she reminded herself.

“I say just let them deal with the Firebrands on their own. We have our own issues to solve. The storm always passes.” The Long Berth captain spoke.  They had their own problems with the Junkerpunks, to be sure.

“The Great Wheel will turn our way again, my friends. Sometimes we lead, sometimes we follow.” Words of wisdom spoke from the greasy road captain, younger than his wisdom suggested. The DJ could be counted to come to her support. Momma Rabbit smiled fondly at the Sweetwater regent. They understood the need for allies in these times.  And he was always so careful to avoid leaving the coat of dust and grime, that perpetually seemed to follow him, on her nice table.

“This was the Queen’s will, long may she reign.” she reminded them. “Her vision is what brought us all together.”

“For now.”  The Ox Killer regent spoke softly, but everyone heard his words.

She gasped. The Ox Killers could be so obstinate, but the challenge was clear.  His eyes glared at Shale, and she could see the Torchlight leader nodding too.

“The Queen is with us eternally, and especially right now. Whether you like it or not. Long live the Queen.” she replied.

The Ox Killer smiled viciously. His teeth were filthy. 

“Long. Live. The. Queen.” he said with a smirk, drawing out each syllable in a mocking, frustrating way

Momma Rabbit puffed up, and struggled to maintain her composure.  She readied her best stern glare and prepared to rebuke the man.

Shale broke the tie before the argument could escalate.

“I understand your hesitation, but this helps the Tribes in the future.  The Queen has seen fit to choose each of you.” He looked pointedly at the Ox Killer regent, and continued. “But it appears that I am the deciding vote.”

Shale stood up, wearily, and pointed to the map in front of them.

“The further the RRC depends on the might of the Antler tribe and all of our combined strengths of the Tribes Disparate, the more prepared we are for our eventual rise. The world is changing, and we must be prepared for that new future. Let them build their railways. Let them focus on the ruins in the Bravado camp.  We have always been about our people, the common folk, and those that have been forgotten. It is through our differences we succeed, but it is through our Queen we triumph. Long may she reign.”

Prince Shale cast his gaze around the room, and each of the regents realized the truth of his words, one by one.  Even the Torchlights and the Ox Killers. No challenge would be accepted now.

Mother Rabbit beamed at Shale.  Another argument settled. The Tribes might fight, but they each meant well.

“Long live the queen!” The regents echoed, some more readily than others.

It was enough. United for now, their voices rang into the evening, and into a new future.

---

A Tribes Disparate Vignette by J. Loyd

Read more about the Houses of the Tribes Disparate here.

Afternoon Tea

Her week went like this. 

Monday

Monday she met with Mrs. Robinson. The elderly woman’s hip was doing poorly and she thanked Clauthia for her bundle of willow bark by telling her to help herself to more of the peach conserves. They talked of the weather, and the Smythe’s new baby, and how the Railroad Commission was paying double for soft metal to help repair the Ox, oh, and Janine Ambrose’s garden was looking a bit untidy, and she’d had the worst toothache on Thursday so she’d brewed up a new tonic, would she like to take some? 

Tuesday

On Tuesday she followed the mariner’s march to Mr. Johanssen’s fishing shack. The spry fellow was in the middle of gutting his catch but he washed his hands and offered her a sip of hooch and they leaned against the pier and talked about the weather, and how the post was a bit late this week, and apparently there was some gossip about fires being seen in the woods at night, and his mother was feeling a bit poorly but it was likely just something she ‘et. Oh and...

“Saw a bit o’ plastic that reminded me of him yesterday - caught in my net it was.”

She stopped breathing for a minute as he fished a bit of flashy scrap from his bag.

“I was saying to Charity that your husband sure did have the brightest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. We do miss him on our Lonestar Hold’em nights.”

Her “thank you” was thick in her throat as Clauthia slipped the bit of plastic into her satchel. 

Wednesday

Wednesday was Healer’s Day. She walked to the Hallows and worked her way down the line of needy assembled. A loaf of bread here, a bit of scrap there. She emptied her pockets into their dirty and desperate hands. When her pockets were empty she rolled up her sleeves and got to work, examining wounds for infection and teeth for caries. To a select few she gave what she kept in her bag, wrapped up between layers of gauze. Ampules of medicine and tonics to dull the pain. She ignored the bit of blue flashing up from the bottom, hearing Mrs. Atrophy's chiding in her mind the way it had every day of the last three years since her world had been turned upside down. Now is the time to work, not dwell on the past. 

Thursday

Thursday she noticed one of the carts on her lane was missing.

“Is Mx. Ambrose alright?” she leaned down next to one of the ladies working the overgrown garden patch out front. “They didn’t show up to Healer’s Day this week and I wanted to check on their stitches.” 

“Oh it’s you,” the woman glanced around nervously. “I suppose they just ain’t been around much this week. Said they had some business out towards Essex.”

“Nothing serious I hope?” 

“No no. Nothing serious. ”

“Well then, have a nice day.”

Friday

Friday she checked her empty mailbox and frowned. 

She checked her other mailbox, the one that looked like a rock. There was a note from Mrs. Atrophy with the time of their meeting that evening. She twitched her black veil down over her face and strode down the hill. 

Evening fell and the Widows gathered. Some wore veils as she did, others black bands on their sleeves, while still others wore no mourning colors at all but whispered the right words as they slipped into the gathering space. 

“The post is late.” she murmured. “And Mx. Ambrose is curiously absent. Mister Lackey, get a group together and look into it.”

“Yes Miss Clauthia.” their boyish face flashed a grin in the gloom and she could hear the cracking of their knuckles as they tapped companions to aid in their hunt. 

“Now then. Who else has news?”

Saturday

Saturday the weather was good. She sat at her table near the crossroads and poured herself a cup of tea. Braves came and went, some merely to pay respects, some to offer a bit of meal or brew to take to Healer’s Day. Others leaned close and passed whispers with the cream and sugar. At each tidbit, she nodded solemnly. All news was important. All words carried their own truths - sometimes they just took a bit longer to reveal themselves. 

The noon sun rose overhead and the shouts went up from the Gauntlet. Mister Lackey strolled over to her table carrying an oversized jar under his arm. They were muddy.

“What tea do you have for me today?” she smiled at the Widower. “Or is that the ruckus I hear?”

“No, no. This is no common hooch for the masses.” Lackey placed their jar on the table. 

“Ahh, I wondered if you’d find this vintage.” She spun the clear, heavy glass, watching the contents spin slowly. 

“It was just where you’d thought it’d be.”

“And the postman?”

Lackey frowned, “I was too late for that, I’m afraid. But…” they pulled out a stack of envelopes from their bag. “I did get the mail.”

“Good boy.” Clauthia smiled, tapping one finger on the glass. “I trust Mx. Ambrose learned their lesson?”

The severed head gaped at her sightlessly. 

“Oh yes.” Mr. Lackey nodded amiably. “They sure did.”

They watched the mail-thief swirl around a moment more.

“Well, I’m off to tell the Grave Council their new tax rate for the Ambrose family.” She smoothed her skirts as she rose, tucking the pickling jar under her arm. 

“And I’m off to deliver the mail.”

Lackey tipped their hat and they parted.

Sunday

Sunday dawned warm and drizzly. Clauthia watched the delvers trudging back to their tents, hungover and poor. It had been a productive week. Tomorrow she’d visit Mrs. Robinson and thank her for the tip-off about the Ambrose’s garden. 

She sipped her tea and smiled. 

---

A Widows of the Lonestar Vignette by A. Garcia