The Harbinger of Elemdale by Bebo Franklin

Author:Bebo Franklin [Franklin, Bebo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781732709034
Published: 2023-10-13T16:00:00+00:00

WALKER

Waterly, Texas (Unsettled land)

Walker had watched the mountains flatten, the trees shrink, and the rivers slow along his trek from the Old North State to Texas. Where once he walked alongside a bear foraging for berries or pinning trout against the river rocks, here he spotted thick black snakes sunning themselves on fallen branches peeking from the water's almost still surface. Where laurel lined the banks there, briars and threatening weeds choked out the grass here. He had been told to just follow along the river, but this river seemed to twist and turn. Parts of it Walker couldn't even think of as a river. More like a ribbon of murky water, as if somewhere along the way Mother Nature had pinched it tight.

He noticed how different the world sounded and smelled here. The water did not rush nor narrow into falls. The trees did not rustle quite so loudly. The ground crunched underfoot. The blazing heat had started to retreat, but still there seemed to always be a thickness in the air that suspended the swarms of gnats and mosquitoes. Though he was no stranger to mosquitoes.

Each step kicked up a spray of grasshoppers dull in color. Bugs and horned lizards that once blended in with the earth scurried underbrush when disturbed by his steps. He had walked for miles and was beginning to think he'd lost his way, gotten off the path of the river and mistakenly followed a sad offshoot.

He rounded a bend to find a series of great rust-colored boulders suspended over the water's edge, creating a small cove some ten feet below. Clothes laid strewn atop the rocks. Walker suddenly heard the river's surface break and the resultant splash and trickle of falling water. He stepped closer to the edge and peered over. Below stood a man facing away, his head tilted back, face pointed up toward the sun, naked and submerged to his hips. His back glistened with water rivulets flowing down along a few raised scars that mapped his body, a story whipped into his very flesh. He wiped the water from his eyes and then tipped back, kicked up his feet, and floated.

Walker stepped back from the edge, keeping out of sight. The blue clothes laid damp, drying in the sun. A uniform of sorts. He checked the pockets. He pulled out a necklace. Laced onto a thread of cotton hung a pierced coin. Off to the side he spotted a bag—military, he thought—three canteens, and a Model 1873 Springfield. He crouched down and peered into the haversack. Inside were hardtack bread, a few pieces of dried meat, and a leather-bound book of sorts with a tree scratched into its cover. He flipped it over. ORA B. DUPRE was scratched into the leather. He leaned forward and peeked over the edge. The man continued to float. Ora B. Dupre, he guessed.

He unwound the leather ribbon that held the pages closed. It was filled with writings and sketches. He dropped the necklace into its pages and closed the book.

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