Missives on Errant Winds
Asher smiled as he closed his eyes against the warmth of the rising sun. His body slightly slouched atop a stack of baled alfalfa. Most of his mornings started out this way. Him standing, tools in hand, waiting to greet the sun, watching as it illuminated the landscape. Turning a tide of dark rolling hills to the east into a plain you could see for miles. A painted landscape doused in rich greens, with such nuance that it gave the illusion of tint. As if the field was riddled with peaks and valleys. Other colors spotted the ground as well. Crops and flowers bundled together in heaps, leaving the large patch of green a checkered beauty of passion and serenity. Once they were the seeds of early spring, now they were the beauty of the field.
Behind him, to the west, sat an imposing forest. Large enough to make the town on the other side of the woods seem like a distant land. Unlike fields which bare themselves for the world to see, forests reveal themselves only to the curious. Their prize is for the intrigued, and up until today Asher knew all of its secrets. But an errant wind seeped from the forest. Asher’s skin prickled against its chill. He opened his eyes to the sun, disquieted. This wind was out of time. Asher turned his face to the cool air. Watching the forest’s dark border, not yet bathed in the sun’s light. He looked hard into the leaves, searching. The sound of a horse disrupted his investigation, then forgetting the foul wind Asher set out for the house.
He climbed the wooden stairs onto a large porch. His footsteps announced his presence before his hand reached the door handle.
“Make sure the horse is watered and fed,” Asher shouted through the screen door. “I’m headed into town!”
“Yes sir!” a hurried voice replied from the upstairs landing.
As he descended, the second stair groaned under his boot; this house was well worn. At the sound, a hawk shot into the sky, and Asher watched its arc as he drifted toward the forest road. It wasn’t really a road, more a path of accumulated footprints. A scar through the forest carved by a cascade of human feet; permanence through expedience.
Water trickled through a creek, it was full from the season’s rain. The air felt heavy on the skin and cloud bundles sailed above the land. The plants stood erect, gorged on water. Yet, still they would drink, as if they could store what they would not have later.
The creek reveled in the overflow, it moved easy; beneath logs and around stones. Asher hopped it at a narrow point, walked a few strides more, then crossed it again. His smile returned and one strong huff escaped his chest. His head to the sky, he extended his arms and spun. Above the creek, leaf tops of a dense pine and birch forest created a barrier of green between the brown earth and the blue sky. He studied the underside of the lowest leaves. The network of veins held his gaze and he thought of the creek. He pondered the likeness a while longer, only moving on after the thought did.
He reached the spot where a large stone blocked the path. At the boulder the trail split, two crescent moon lines hugged its base and joined again on the other side. Asher scaled the stone, straight up its center, and sat atop the rock to watch the forest floor.
Squirrels tussled in the shallows and deer feed on patches of bushy green grass; a gentle slope beneath their hooves. Twig snaps drew his gaze to the left. There he found something askew. Footsteps diverged from the path, their impression’s light, barely noticeable. The grass held tight to the memory of these feet, but even as Asher watched, the green forgot the imprints. Asher’s eyes followed the fading trail until it disappeared into the thick and thatched forest floor; in the direction of his house.
Eyes narrowed, head cocked, he stared into the forest.
He turned away and jumped from the boulder’s top. The path curved steeply after the boulder, so that no matter which direction you walked you couldn’t see who you might come across. It was there in the center of the bend that Asher ran into the blacksmith. The blacksmith’s gait was steady, his footsteps left deep impressions in the path as he walked. He kneaded his hands together as he approached and paused occasionally to stomp his feet. In his agitation his muscles flexed, strength evident in his arms and legs.
“Good day,” Asher said, though his inflection carried a question.
The blacksmith looked up from the ground, shoulders slouched, “Is it?”
“It has been for me, friend. What troubles you?”
“My land... everything’s gone. I took years building it, only to lose it in a moment.”
“How can I help?”
“You can’t, but maybe… has your father returned?” The lines around the blacksmith’s eyes grew faint and his eyes widened. His brow unfurrowed and his lips quivered.
Asher gripped the blacksmith’s shoulders. Extending his arms far, for the man’s shoulders were wide. “Soon! But until then tell me what is this about?”
Glancing aside, the blacksmith mumbled, “I think you know.”
Something in the man’s mannerisms sparked a thought in Asher’s mind,“this is about Cassidy,” he whispered as his hands fell from the blacksmith’s shoulders. Cassidy was once a childhood friend. Their fathers were closely bound through honor and circumstance. Cassidy and Asher played together daily from early light until dusk.
All of that changed after Cassidy’s father died.
The blacksmith stood stoic. The lines around his eyes returned and though Asher met his gaze he suspected the blacksmith was watching something far off. A twig snapped, Asher turned his head slightly to glance in the direction of the sound. With a huff the blacksmith scooted past Asher down the path without another word.
As Asher turned from the departing blacksmith a cool wind blew against his back, he shivered on his way to town.
Voices, wagons, hammers, and bells pushed into the forest, they met the quiet; a border before the border. The path Asher walked slowly shifted from footpath to wagonpath.
Most buildings in the town were modest. Nothing more than rectangles and triangles with a shared porch that stretched along the front of the buildings. This design protected the shopping patrons from the sun’s rays. A symbiotic relationship between shopper and supplier. Whether you shopped on the right or left side of the road, you could shop in the shade, but there was a gap in the road. On the other side of the gap, across from one another sat two large immodest buildings. All rectangles, their length stretched high into the sky; clean lines, no intersections. No porches, there was no shade.
In the length of an empty gap the shopper’s importance disappeared. Patrons didn’t cross the gap because they wanted to, they crossed it because they needed to, and everyone knew it. On whispered breaths townspeople shared their fears about the future of Groylyn.
Asher kicked up a cloud of dust as he crossed the gap toward the butcher’s shop. He clicked the bell on the counter, “I’m here for my order,” he said not waiting for the ring to cease. His face was stern; the blacksmith’s words echoed in his mind.
“Let’s see… ah yes. Not much this week?” The butcher queried.
“It’s the perfectly right amount, actually.”
The blacksmith raised an eyebrow, but Asher paid it no mind. He fidgeted. Then his head drifted towards the butcher’s window, his breath caught. “I’ll be right back.”
The sun balanced on a blade tip. Asher stepped out into the heat, squinted his eyes against the light and crossed the path in the direction of the bank.
Cassidy was a slender man with a shrewd mind. He stood on the bank’s porch, his back to the sun. The other stood rapt watching Cassidy’s hands as he waxed on about his vision for the town and his plans for the bank. As if Asher could be sensed Cassidy turned to see Asher’s boots swishing through the sand. His lips pressed into a tight line, then slowly curved up into a mocking grin.
“Ha! Much has changed Asher, you walk like such a brute now. Has the ground offended you?!” Cassidy said, expecting a snippy rejoinder, but his taunt was met with silence. Asher stalked forward unrelenting. Cassidy scurried back, but his retreat was too slow, Asher’s raised hand came down hard against his face. A ruddy blotch bloomed on Cassidy’s cheek.
“Enough talk,” Asher snarled.
Water pooled in the corners of Cassidy’s eyes. “You dare…” he whispered as he moved his hand away from the sting on his face.
“I spoke with the blacksmith.” Asher said, a subtle smirk curved his lips.
“Took? I took nothing from him. The blacksmith gambled and lost. I’m only collecting what’s owed.”
“Should a man always collect what he’s owed?” Asher sneered. “You are a plague Cassidy… don’t you see it.”
Dabbing a speck of blood off of his lip, Cassidy replied, “What you call a plague, I call progress. Good day.” He descended the stairs, but stopped and slightly turned his head when his foot hit the sand. So that Asher could only see the profile of his face. “Give your father my regards.”
Asher’s face twisted, “what’s that supposed to mean?” he asked weakly, but Cassidy was already strides away. Asher’s question died on the wind.
Loudly, Asher exhaled.
He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath. He took a deep breath and his clenched fists slowly opened.
When he returned to the butcher’s shop his order sat neatly wrapped at the counter’s end. “That’ll be 100 pieces,” the butcher said without looking up.
Asher stared, “raising prices, are we?”
“And why wouldn’t I…” he tapped the stack of notes Asher handed him, “when people keep paying. Pleasure doing business with you.”
“I’m sure it was,” Asher said, hurrying for the door. He passed the gap into the older side of town and stopped outside of Lou’s. He shrugged to himself and then pushed through the swinging wooden doors.
“Ash, good day!” Lou shouted.
“Hey Lou, give me a drink, would ya?”
“Sure thing, what would you like?”
“Not water.” Asher said dryly.
“Anything but water,got it” Lour replied with a wink.
Glass clinked loudly on the bar top when Asher’s empty mug struck the wood.
“Would you like another?” Lou asked. “Asher?”
Lou cocked his head to the side to watch Asher was making fish faces in his empty glass.
“I guess you better not,” Lou said questioningly.
“Huh? Oh yeah, no thanks,” Asher said, placing his mug back on the bar and turning to Lou. “Could you throw this on some ice for me,” Asher asked, handing Lou his butcher’s cut. “Hey Lou, of all the time you’ve known us; has my father ever stayed away this long?”
“How long?” Lou said as he threw the meat in the ice box.
“30 days.”
That is long, you think something’s wrong?
“I didn’t…Cassidy said something today. Now I’m not so sure.”
Asher looked up. Lou stood there twisting a small towel so tightly that it started to resemble a braid; his wide eyes blinked rapidly.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Asher continued.
“Well, whether it’s something, or whether it’s nothing, you just let me know, would ya?”
Asher gave Lou a tight smile and a nod. “It’s been too long Lou, tell me, how is the place,”Asher said, extending his arms wide and looking around Lou’s bar.
“Absolutely fantastic.”
The two of them continued chatting, between orders and lulls. They reminisced, they spoke of the simple and the good. Different times when people were kind. Asher felt almost like himself when he left Lou’s bar. The numbness wrought by the day’s earlier events had evaporated.
The setting sun made the town look quaint. The evening light helped to hide the atrocity of architecture that were the butcher and bank buildings. He smiled, remembering a time when neither building sat on main street. The sun was almost set when he turned into the forest.
His stride was sure, even though the path was dark beneath his feet. After exiting the first bend in the path Asher spotted the outline of the boulder, then suddenly he started to fall. The wrapped meat flew from his hand. Asher’s body and the meat landed with a synchronous thud; meat on the ground, Asher on something else.
Where Asher laid was softer than the earth, but still layered, soft atop firm. He pushed up shuffling toward his purchase when his hand sank into muddy sand. He raised his hand to his eyes, it was covered in something that twinkled in the bits of moonlight that spattered the forest floor. He rubbed his other hand and felt sticky sand. Asher, still kneeling, looked feverishly at the ground below. In the path rested a motionless silhouette. He shook the frame gently, there was no response. Then he moved his hands up to the shoulders of the still body. Their width, the size and the shape of the blacksmith’s frame.
“Are you alright?”
There was no response.
Asher slowly rested his hand on the body’s head. Instead, his fingers brushed against clumpy sand. He jumped up. His mouth dried.
Forgetting the meat he sprinted through the path, around the boulder, out of the forest to his front porch. He didn’t notice the lights were out. He snatched open the screen door, not feeling the least bit self conscious about the loud squeak it emitted.
“Hello, anybody, help!”
Asher pushed through the front door, missing the smudge of blood under the door knob. He rushed past the stairwell, missing the chipped wood of the bottom step. In the hallway he froze, from the landing above something dripped into a growing puddle, a shadow darker than the lightless room. He groped his way forward and gently poked one finger into the center of the viscous blob. Then, sniffing, he wrenched his hand away. The smell of iron coated his nostrils.
Slowly Asher stood and looked about the house. Seconds later, a lock click echoed through the dark as he sealed himself into his office. His hand still on the handle, Asher gulped. As he turned to his desk he saw an errant envelope angled against the desk leg. It was partially shaded from the moonlight. Asher’s eyes trailed away from the envelope and surveyed the spotless room. Bursting forward, in four large strides he covered the distance from door to desk and kneeled to inspect the envelope. His name adorned the front. Two initials were sketched into the center of the back flap. One of them was smudged with a fingerprint. Asher brought the envelope closer to focus on the inky mess. Then he noticed a clean slit down its side, the cut spilled out toasted parchment.
A soft groan rose from the floorboard to his left. As Asher turned as a moonlit blade plunged toward his chest. He parried, but too late. The tip of the knife punctured then sliced through the skin on his chest as he pushed the blade away. He winced, then slammed one hard over the wound. The other swung in the direction of his assailant. The shadowed figure jumped back giving Asher just enough space to swirl his body behind the desk. He grabbed the desk lamp and hurled it in the figure’s direction. The glass bulb exploded against a wall on the far side of the room. Sharp shards covered the floor beneath the open french window.
Hot breath escaped Asher’s mouth as he panted into the quiet room. He slowly stood, growling at the throbbing cut in his chest. He pushed his hand hard into the ache and pulled it away sticky and wet.
Asher planted his palms firmly on the desk. Bracing his shaky body. His eyes locked on the envelope sitting innocently on the study floor, waiting. He shoved off the desk to retrieve the envelope smearing the desk top with a red palm. He stopped to stare at the intricate imprint.
Forgetting the mark he rushed to the envelope, he swallowed hard then quickly slammed the letter into his pocket. Pushing it until he felt it crimple against the stitch of his pant’s pocket .
He stood there in the center of the room. His eyes darted back and forth, as he tried to visualize a way forward. With a gasp his eyes locked in place. A memory from years ago surfaced, “...just in case Asher, one should always be ready” his father had said as he tossed a duffel into the corner of the dresser.
Asher rushed to the dresser and twisted the handle, it didn’t budge. He pulled it, grunting with effort until it rocked back and forth. After a loud pop, the cabinet door flew open. He reached into the back corner, and pulled out the dust covered duffel. He slapped it twice and coughed.
With quick steps he moved outside. The air was moist and a bitter chill hung in the air. Steam puffed from Asher’s mouth. ‘Winter before its time,’ he whispered. He watched the forest edge, muscles tensed. He shuffled his feet on the porch and the sound of his boots rang through the trees. No birds sprang from the branches, nor did any call out at the sound of his movement.
A horse neighed. Asher pulled his eyes from the darkened trees and turned his head toward the barn. As his boots cut through the sand the dusty duffel bounced on his hip and a crinkled letter rustled in his pocket.