2021-12-11 - Grand Theft Pinto

Once upon a time this was all fields. And before it was fields it was dense woodland, and to that dense woodland came settlers. In their little log cabins they raised livestock and grew meagre crops, and prayed for a better future in this strange, new world of freedom and opportunity. One of these settlers was Barney O'Malley, and there was never as fine a horse as his Buckwheat.

The year is 1850. The community that is not yet Gray Harbor consists of just a few pioneer families; early birds and mountain men moving west on the Oregon Trail, following the rivers and trading with native tribes until reaching the coast in a sheltered bay, nearly cut off from the sea -- where the timber is plentiful, the soil is good, and the bay lends protection from the elements while still promising that sometime in the centuries to come, a proper harbour might spring into existence.

Most of the small community settled here because of the distance to civilisation. Sure, there's Fort Nisqually up by Puget Sound, and there is the cluster of small lodgings of Duwamps further inland; founded but a year ago it will some day grow into the city of Seattle. Relations with the indigenous population are mixed; Cayuse and Umatilla Indians killed a handful of settlers a few years back, and anyone with half a brain can tell that at some point, the Yakima are going to be fed up with the white man's incursions.

For now, though, the unnamed settlement that may some day become Gray Harbor is peaceful. More or less, because the First Nations people -- called redskins, natives, indigenous, Injuns, or neighbours, depending on whom you ask -- tell stories, of things that move in the dark, and old shadows that live deep in the woods, better not disturbed. And there's Graham Baxter, always talking about how this place could be the lumber town of the west coast, and writing letters to people on the East Coast, asking for funding to build -- whatever he thinks he's building. And there's men like Barney O'Malley who breeds horses that are entirely too good for this rough country. Because he can.

The O'Malley farmstead lies near the coast, not too far from where some day, a marina will be built. The land is as flat as flat gets in these parts and he uses the rocky beach for an improvised race track, inviting anyone who owns a horse to race against him. Sometimes, young Yakima braves take him up on it but not often -- the land does not lend itself well to horse racing, and the native tribes have far less use for the big dogs than their plainsland cousins.

A bit further down the coast, pretty much where the industrial docks will be built two centuries later, is the general store -- which is a very generous term for saying that John McCaskill sells moonshine and seeds out the back of his barn, and if you put an order in for when he goes a-trading he may be able to get you whatever you want, for a price. He got a harmonica for Old Man Hutchins -- and the rest of the Hutchins family wishes he'd gotten a book on how to play one, too.

This is where people gather when they feel a need to leave their farmsteads to gather at all. And this is where O'Malley storms in, Hawken rifle in one hand, eyes wild, and face red: "WHO TOOK MY BUCKWHEAT?"

Gail is very much herself still tyvm. An older pioneer woman who is tough as nails. She had to be, because she came over the land route in a wagon with children drug along behind. She's got a bonnet upon her head, a shawl slung over her shoulders, a dress that goes down to her ankles and boots that wear the miles she's walked in with grace (and a lot of patched leather.)

She came to place the household's grocery order but now there's that idiot O'Malley coming in and yelling. "Don't be a dolt," she snaps pertly. "No one wants your buckwheat. Now turn your behind around and go back to being useful."

There’s a woman doing business not far away. She’d just rode in on a horse, with another in tow that was tied with all manner of vegetable and furs that had already been cured for sale. She was in talks with some man about trade, going over some forged axe heads and bullets that would work for certain guns. Her hair was pulled straight back, a series of slatted beads wrapping from behind her neck to the top of her head before it draped like a straight waterfall to her mid back. The rest of her form was mostly shrouded, but the shroud itself, a beaded and dyed cloak of reds and blacks was a clear marker of her Quinault status. Her features are much the same as her modern day, though she’s a fair bit tanner of skin.

Amber’s attention is caught by the commotion and answering sass, and there’s a moment where here eyes widen and she seems torn in two directions, eyes flitting back and forth. The autopilot had clicked off. Haltingly, she looks at the man she had been doing business and smiles, bowing her head in acceptance of terms and leaves him and his med to offload her pack horse and reload it with the things she’d traded. She’d have to come back to check it again. The white man never quite got it right for the actual rigors of the trails. If they had, less clothes or food would float away when fording a river, and then maybe less people would die of dysentery.

She starts to idly wander over toward old Granny Gail as two sets of memories war, but one remembers the nice old woman from the beach.

One of the neighbouring tribes' elders is due to arrive this afternoon, to treaty with the Quinalt about some matters of concern. They're expecting, of course, someone of suitable rank to broker a deal; not a woman on a horse with vegetables and furs.

He arrives in full finery: deerskin dyed a deep red with some sort of dark animal fur thrown over his shoulders, and on an appaloosa painted for war. The elder is flanked by two younger men armed with bows and arrows, all three of them still at a distance from the group as they traverse the coastline in no particular hurry at all.

"My horse," bellows O'Malley and then, upon realising that he's bellowing it into the face of a little old lady made from steel wool and hard knocks; someone who survived the Oregon Trail in her advanced age is worthy of a bit more respect, even from a rough frontier man such as him. "My stallion, ma'am. Buckwheat. Finest pinto as this land's ever seen, and someone took him."

He turns, slowly. And while the pioneer says nothing, the look he shoots at the appaloosa speaks volumes.

"Don't reckon no one here's taken yer Buckwheat," says John McCaskill, who would like to keep trading with the natives, please don't piss them off, thank you very much. "Reckon if anyone had they'd be right bloody stupid 'cause there ain't a man in Lumbertown as don't know what yer horse looks like, and there ain't a man in Lumbertown as wants to drag yer horse all the way to Duwamps as to get 'im sold, either." Where he's from exactly is anyone's guess -- the name is Irish, the accent is a bizarre mix of the North of England and what the cat dragged in; at least he's not mixing Spanish or French in there.

Neither O'Malley nor McCaskill look familiar from a Gray Harbor a hundred and seventy years ahead in time. Both are the kind of rough, heavy built white men you'd find on the frontier in one age, working at the lumber mill in another. There are probably O'Malleys and McCaskills in Gray Harbor who are descended from these men. It's possible that some of them tell stories of their great-grands, back when some folks called this place Lumbertown because of some old guy who wanted to build a lumber mill. Nah, not the same lumber mill.

The new mill's a lot newer, and even the old mill in the woods ain't that old. Granny Gail, old as dirt Gray Harbor native, knows this, and others might: The town of Gray Harbor was not constituted until close to the end of the 19th century, and the mill ended up built by an Addington, not a Baxter, in the end.

And there they are: Two (probably) Irish guys, one of whom is staring at the horse of the approaching, obviously high status native elder, as if to say, I know who steals horses around here. And the other, looking ready to try to diffuse any resulting argument before the hatchets come out.

That's better Gail thinks, as he turns down the old Western aggression in her face. John is talking sense and so she doesn't get in his face again with a shaken finger. As others come into view she nods once, squinting to recognize each of them.

"Mr. de la Vega," or whatever his name is here, "And Ms, Reyes." She'll treat them with respect and GLARE at the settlers if they don't shut off those stupid faces and be reasonable. "We'll look for your Buckwheat love, I'm sure he just got wandered off. Isn't it nice of our new friends to be about? I'm sure they'd be willing to assist."

Amber pauses as Gail says a third of half of her names. She opens her mouth and looks to be about to say something, to correct. But no, Gail was right, that was her name. Part of her names. This was difficult. Her hand lifts to rub the back of her neck, leaning just long enough to say, "Amber." Because she'd decided she was just going to stick to that rather than the awkwardness of surnames.

"Where was the last place you saw them?" She wonders aloud to the cranky man with the lost horse, thinking this to be a helpful question that would either jog his memory if he were dumb enough to lose the horse, or give them a starting point if it was truly horse... napped? Rustled? Stolen. Stick with that.

Is that his name? It seems to take the elder a minute to remember, like this place is warring with his knowledge of who he actually is on the other side. The Chief of Police, who is Mexican, not indigenous. Though if he were to trace his lineage back, one could argue he has as much blood in this earth as any native of the continent. Until the conquistadors came along and muddied everything up.

De la Vega reins in his mare, and signals to the men flanking him to lower their weapons. The trio veer away from the water, and slow to a walk; the horses' hides glisten with dampness, and all three men -- including the elder -- wear silver rings through one side of their nose, clearly indicating their allegiance. Nothing's offered, yet, in response to the looks sent their way; only a little sneer from the youngest, a boy of perhaps nineteen or twenty. Probably they're accustomed to these assumptions by now.

Once they reach the group, they pull up short as one and watch on in silence as their horses whicker softly and tramp the ground.

"Ain't meaning as to poke my nose in where it ain't got no business, Granny Leigh," says John McCaskill and taps his nose before winking at the woman in question and confirming that no matter when or where in history one looks, there will always be a wiry little old woman somewhere, telling younger men to stop acting like fools and sort their problems out before dinner. "Ain't no one as knows these woods as folks as were born in 'em. Reckon maybe that elder on his fine Nez Perce appy, he don't fancy that goin' missing next. Maybe now's a good time as to find out who's really rustlin' horses around here."

"He Chinook?" O'Malley squints. "Ain't done business with the Chinook. Nez Perce, they know their horses."

"You want your damn horse back, Barney O'Malley?" McCaskill the trader is not about to lose customers to anyone's ideas about which native tribes can be trusted and which cannot; to him, anyone who trades in furs or silver is a valued patron.

The scowl on the farmer's face is epic but it dissipates as he makes a decision. Appealing to Granny Leigh in particular -- possibly because the younger native woman and the native elder are in fact just that, natives -- he grunts and kicks at a rock. "There were tracks," he says. "Out by the paddock. I went to bring Buckwheat in, check on him like usual in the morning. All that's there, is tracks. I know moccasin tracks when I see 'em, ma'am. But I've done my share of tracking too, and those feet weren't big enough as to be a man's feet. Injun women, they don't steal horses."

"That's better." Gail proclaims as McCaskill decides to get his crap together and start behaving like an adult. God only knows she'd switch her own children (hum, now-a-day Granny isn't so sure about that, but past granny is!) for that kind of attitude.

O'Malley gets a sour look. He did not just swear in front of her. "From your mouth to god's ears, watch your language there."

Turning towards the two natives again she bobs her head. "What Mr. McCaskill is forgetting to say is, would either, or both of you, be willing to see if you can help him find his horse? I'm sure the polite request is sitting there on his lips, but in the interest of moving along? If it'd put you out I'd be happy to open my home for you to say the night."

Past Amber knew when to defer to her Elders, which was enough guidance for current Amber to send a look torward De la Vega for confirmation that was what they were doing. It was a hopeful look, but still not her decision. Both Ambers had themselves a secret smile for the assertion that stealing horses was a gendered activity.

What was her decision, as the elder and his flanking honor guard near, was gently stepping forward in front of The Boy's mount. Her cloaking garment parts and her hands appear, reaching up to gingerly welcome the horse forward, feeling for its mood by senses mundane and not. For all appearances, she was being a gentle soul, an animal lover, petting the horses snout, making soft clicking noises with her mouth. But as soon as the The Boy's attention was on her, he received a supremely disapproving look, as that sneer was not welcome in a place for neutrality and trade.

The boy snarls, and starts to reach for the bow slung across his back; a wicked looking recurve. But the elder's hand goes up, and the kid pauses, teeth bared. His horse starts to dance in place with agitated little grunting noises, and de la Vega meets O'Malley's look square in the eye. And he chuckles low. "I guess he needed a woman to say it for him right." His mare sidesteps, and mouths impatiently at her bridle; the elder's gaze shifts to Gail now. "Don't have many daylight hours left. So if you want to find that horse, better get moving."

McCaskill and O'Malley exchange glances; an unspoken communication passes between the two men at lightning speed. Do you want to tell Granny Leigh that she's got us switched around? No? No, me either. Right, then. One of us goes looking for his horse with the Indians who know their damn tracking, and the other does whatever a trader does. Problem about to get solved, moving on.

The woodland surrounding Barney O'Malley's farm is pleasant in that dark, coniferous way of what will be called the Pacific Northwest in centuries to come. The occasional grand maple has been left where forest has otherwise been cleared to make room for fields and paddocks; providing shade to the animals on warm summer days, keeping the ground from eroding too much under hooves, singular or cloven. The O'Malley farmstead is not much to look at. None of the farmsteads in these parts have yet become proper houses with front porches and tiled roofs -- they are half dug-out in the soil, half log cabins, with earthen roofs and small windows made not from glass but from animal gut, scraped so thin that light seeps through. They are not as different from the native winter lodgings as many white men would like to think.

The farmer leads the group towards a barn and a paddock in which a couple of brown and chestnut mares stand around, lazing in the winter sun. They are quarter horses -- a breed favoured by settlers because of their instinct for working with other livestock. "My Buckwheat, he was in there with his ladies," O'Malley explains. "Whoever as took him opened the fence and walked him right out, and then they shut the fence again. Left the girls. It makes no sense 'cause he should not have left them just like that. Should have made a fuss, enough noise I'da heard him, come out to see what was up."

If there are foot prints made by the thieves still inside the paddock, the hooves of the horses have ruined them. Outside of the paddock however -- O'Malley leads his small retinue of more or less voluntary helpers towards a muddy area. "See these? Them's moccasin feet. But they're too small to be a man, and too heavy to be a child. Those are a woman's feet."

Clearly, slender men don't exist. To be fair, looking at him or McCaskill, maybe slender is not the normal around here. O'Malley in particular is tall -- six foot four, maybe five.

Horse theft may be a boy hobby as far as the settlers are concerned, but tracking seems to be more inclusive. Between the members of the little group, it takes very little effort to find the tracks of a horse and someone with small moccasined feet, leading away into the underbrush and the woods beyond.

"Didn't want to go lookin' on my own," O'Malley mutters. Whether he did in fact not spot those tracks previously and doesn't want to admit to his own ineptitude is anyone's guess.

Gail is ALERT. Except for with faces. It's possible she is getting a little confused in her old age. Why don't people just stay childlike instead of growing old and stuff? Ugh.

Not trusting that O'Malley is going to be respectful if left alone with the Natives, Gail refuses to be left behind. They'll just have to move slower for her and hopefully not get into any footraces - cuz Granny Gail ain't gonna win that one.

There's much tut-tutting that happens as they most about and find those small feet. "Yes yes dear," she says to O'Malley, patting his arm. Male Pride, got to sooth it.

Amber does not drop the disapproving look, even in the face of The Boy's displeasure. She stands still and lets the horse back off, hands dropping back under the shade of her cover and shrouding once more. She then looks around like nothing happened, attention back on Gail and the conversation. Her hands reappear and take the edge of her garment, rolling and folding it back over one shoulder, revealing more of the same indigenous style clothing, sensible things that took wear. She steps near Gail on that open side as they move to walk, elbow extended. Respect for elders wasn't restricted by race, afterall.

Amber wasn't much of a tracker, but she knew what people needed with tracking. So as the footprints led, and the ragtag group likely went to follow, Amber would reach with her free hand and touch her throat. The underbrush and vegetation would just happen to flex, maybe with the wind, maybe with something else, allowing at least her and Gail to pass through unimpeded.

The boys were on their own.

The visiting tribesmen rein their own horses in and turn to follow the others. Clearly whatever business they have here, they aren't going to be able to tend to while these white people have their knickers in a twist about rustled horses.

As they come upon the paddock, the elder swings off his mare and runs his hand along her cheek. She whickers once, but stays put as he ambles in closer for a looksee. "Could've been a big child. Could've been a woman. Could've been something fucking with you. Seems we should go and sniff around the woods, yeah?" His dark eyes sliver with the wolfish smile that barely cracks his otherwise dour mien.

It's probably just O'Malley's imagination, telling him that every tree somehow seems to get a slap in as he walks by, and every pine cone must bounce off his head. He's not the superstitious kind; when the night is dark and the wind howls some people start to talk about evil spirits and stories from the old country, but he's not one of them -- if it's real, you can put a slug in it, and if you can't, then it's not real. "Look, that horse, he's my pride," the big settler tells Granny Leigh, almost apologetically as if he feels kind of embarrassed about having feelings (for a horse). "He's like the son I never got. You'll know it when you see him. He's special."

Laying claim to Granny Gail's attention, neither he nor Granny herself pay particular head to a small trail of white, downy feathers in the undergrowth. The woman whose name is Amber and the man whose name is Javier in a time yet to come do; and both are quite capable of identifying the origin -- those are owl feathers, from the bird that flies at night, on silent wings. Neither native misses the significance. Owls are not always friendly. Owls are sometimes not just owls, either. There are stories in these forests, of people who turn into owls. People, who live in caves andwho eat people. Horses are new, though. No one's heard of the owl people eating horses.

The trail leads deep into the forest -- always the same prints of the hooves of a shoed horse walking along placidly, and the light, slightly too small prints of moccasin feet. The land rises; since when are the mountains really this close to the coast, anyway? O'Malley comments a few times upon it; his Buckwheat would never walk peacefully with a stranger like that, except it seemingly did. And why is the thief not riding the pinto, instead of walking him?

And there it is, just like at least half the group of trackers was about to predict: A cave mouth, opening up out of the soil, dark and ominous. Is anyone even surprised that the two sets of prints lead right in there, into the darkness?

GAil is just here as a nice responsible peacekeeper. She keeps up with O'Malley and reaches out to pat him again. Yes yes, she knows that he loves his horse. No judgement. "Isn't it nice that these people came along to help then?" She is not tracking what-so-ever, just hobbling along as spry as a woman her age can be. Thankfully, she left her basket back there, so she's able to slip along behind them with minimal ease.

"Drat, I don't have a candle."

Because that's a cave. They need lights.

The elder can walk just fine; he has two feet and a heartbeat, and down here on the ground it's easier for him to get a sense for where those tracks lead. His horse is offered for Gail to ride, if she accepts. The mare's good-natured, if a bit eager to get moving.

And while they walk, he tells them the story of skili, the great horned owl spirit. Certainly these are things he won't know once he leaves this place; the story bears some resemblance to the Mayan legends, but there are details only an Indigenous elder from this region would know. About how spirits and ghosts and witches often appear in the form of an owl, and how they tend to favour the night over the day.

When they reach the mouth of the cave, he pauses along with the others, and squints into the darkness. A glance goes to O'Malley, in the off chance he's brought a lamp with him.

Any horse owner will tell you: It goes against a horse's fundamental instincts to walk into a dark, enclosed space where it cannot watch for predators, and from which it cannot escape. Horses are, by their very nature, not cave dwellers. Whoever this small-footed horse rustler is -- child, woman, owl spirit, ghost, witch, options aplenty -- they have somehow managed to convince the stallion to follow them in there. From the looks of the prints on the ground, it did not take a fight, either; the horse just followed on its lead.

"Don't know nothing about no skili," murmurs O'Malley; the big settler looks decidedly uncomfortable with the idea that there might be something supernatural at play, and he is decidedly lamp-less. "But if something's got my Buckwheat in that cave, then I'm going into that cave. Ain't a horse like my Buckwheat on this coast, and there ain't no bogeyman taking him from me."

And that's it as far as he is concerned; rifle in one hand still, he stomps off in there, into the dark.

O'Malley gets a blunt, see, the native is a nice man he is letting me on his horse! "That is very kind of you, but I'm afraid my hip doesn't swivel quite like it should. Took a bad fall a few years back and it just never quite healed right." She will even go so far as to pat Ruiz' arm in thanks.

Arriving at the cave Gail narrows her eyes at the darkness. "Hum..." she casts her eyes about them waddles a few steps away to get her macgyver on. Pine branches are gathered and she uses the strings from her apron to tie bundles to the top. Will it work as a touch, well. That isn't for her to find out.

One goes to O'Malley, the other to elder Javier. Make fire boys.

Amber nods here and there in understanding of the old stories, recognizing the bits the elder told. She follows, she supports where she can.

O'Malley was likely going to have to figure something out like flint and steel or some other way a rough and tumble pioneer would need to light a fire. Amber was not that. Likely the man that was her elder but also not would know of certain things she could do. She makes a quick sidelong glance from O'Malley to de la Vega, waiting for a moment the pale man looked away. She'd then touch her throat again.

The makeshift torch would come to life in a gentle wash of golden, amber flame, then settle into a more normal, natural hue as the material truly begins to burn.

The elder, as it turns out, only knows how to make fire the old fashioned way. It's up to Amber to furnish them with a spirit-flame, and he keeps his eyes on her while she works her Gift. His horse isn't going to want to step inside though, light or not, so he gives the mare's flank a pat, and murmurs something low to her. And she trots off into the brush. The younger men who'd accompanied him out here have stayed back at the farm, so it's left to him to accompany the white people on their little scavenger hunt.

"Thank you," he murmurs to Gail, accepting the crude torch he's handed, and heading off into the darkness.

Things crackle underfoot; Gail may be too busy finding her footing, bad hip and all, but the rest of the little party look down to realise that once they are shrouded in the darkness, the dirt underfoot is -- not dirt.

It's bones. Most of them very small bones -- the bones of frogs, lizards, snakes, and voles. The prey of someone who does not know how to hunt proper prey -- the light-footed deer, or the lumbering, white-tailed elk. Someone who does not even know how to set a snare for a rabbit.

There are a few bones that are larger; the hind leg of a deer, the skull of a badger. Carrion, dragged here by someone who does not know how to hunt, someone who will eat anything they find. The flickering light of the torch cause shadows to move and tiny eye sockets to look momentarily alive.

"This don't make no sense," O'Malley murmurs. "Take a horse out of a paddock 'cause he don't put up a fight or make you chase him, sure. But why take the stallion? He's the one of the lot that's least likely as to come willingly. If they were just after something to eat, be a lot easier to grab one of the mares, or one of the oxen people use for ploughin' fields. Those go with anyone as pulls on the lead, docile as an ox can be."

Whoever lives here, lived here for a while.

Whoever lives here has opposable thumbs. There are piles of debris here and there; discarded things, broken things -- repairing things does not seem to be an option. Reed baskets, broken and not attempted repaired. A flint dagger, broken in two. A metal axe, the kind the white settlers trade, but flown off its handle -- a simple enough repair if you know how.

And how deep can a cave go?

Then suddenly, there is the scent of burning wood on the breeze from the darkness ahead. A campfire around a corner, perhaps? And noises, the sounds of voices -- eerie, shrill voices that sound . . .

Well, like owls calling. The elder may be on to something.

They are arguing. And by some strange stroke of luck it so happens that they are arguing in -- English? Or is that one of the native dialects? Or is it that they argue in a language that is not human at all, one that transcends language to an extent where the words don't matter and what they are saying does?

To the semi-sleeping minds of Gray Harbor, 2022, the answer is pretty obvious: Whatever Veil entity came up with this narrative wants people to not get slowed down by translations.

Why do we not eat the horse?

If we eat the horse, the farmer does not come.

I hear the farmer in the cave as we speak. He is coming. We can eat the horse.

No. We let the farmer come. He has brought others with him. We eat them and let him go. He will go and find more help to get his horse back. And then we eat them too. This winter, we will not starve.

And to one sleeping mind of Gray Harbor at least, it comes natural to establish how many there are, what the threat is -- two voices, two shadows ahead.

Well. Granny Leigh (because that name stands the test of time people) will just promptly drop herself to the back of the group where she will be the least hassle.

Also where she can move slowly and carefully. Adventure is a young person's game.

She does carefully study the walls about them and once she is satisfied with how they look she is going to attempt to cast an illusion about them. Can't do anything about most senses, but a little bit of visual disturbance never hurt a good law abiding set of people.

Hopefully they will look like just normal cave passageway, though she doesn't manage to cover the sound of the passage from sight. Take what one can?

Amber is a light stepper normally, all the grace and balance of her dance and yoga practices making her movements lithe and fluid. None of this helps with the cover of things on the ground beneath them. Things crack, and she looks down, and in that moment, there is a slow widening of her eyes as she makes sense. Quinault Amber would be wary, because this was the den of a predator, if a bad one. Gray Harbor Amber saw dead, tiny animals. Gray Harbor Amber did not do well with death.

Combined Amber holds her shit together, though.

The moment of rising horror that threatens to bubble up and over was a close thing, but it passes, and she’s able to pause in her steps to listen to the conversation. The broken way the language comes to her is confusing, but there is slow realization dawning on her as it goes on.

She immediately balls a fist and takes a step back and away from O’Malley, eyes locked on him, putting herself between Gail and the settler, brows lowered and drawn together, feet set apart, profile presented. She says nothing, though, Assuming the others would come to the same conclusion, but not wanting to act immediately if they had other inklings on what to do.

I heard something, 'says' one voice.

It is the wind and the evening, 'says' the other. Mind the cat, it is burning. Take it off the spit while it is still good to eat.

No human in these woods, red or white, would consider lynx or bobcat worth eating unless they had nothing else. It's possible that the settlers of Jamestown would have eaten lynx or bobcat -- very shortly before they started eating each other. One species of hunting cat or the other -- felines are not good meat, they taste bitter and the meat is stringy and sparse.

But then, whoever these people at the fire up ahead are, they apparently eat frogs, snakes, and -- humans?

Whatever Gail did to make the little quartet of explorers look and feel like just another patch of firelight shadows on cave walls, is working. It is possible to lean forward a little and sneak a glance around the corner where the tunnel widens into a chamber.

And there they are -- the creatures that the Yakama call Tah-tah-kle'-ah, Owl-Woman Monsters. At first glance they look like human women, indigenous women -- brown skinned, dark haired, with the eyes and faces of Yakama. But then it becomes obvious that they are not: They are too tall, far too tall, for one. The Yakama are fine makers of deerskin clothing -- colourful designs and patterns, abstract and floral, playful in form and shape, utilising every shell, feather, and dye that nature provides. These women? Wearing the greasy, foul-smelling pelts of their prey, stitched and tied together with bits of intestine but untreated, uncured, and unwashed.

They smell. The reek of rotting animal fat hits like a fist to the face. Their hair, unkempt and uncut, dragging on the ground in snarls full of grease, dirt, and twigs. Their faces, grimy and unwashed, and their heads move in strange, owlish movements. There are piles on the ground at their feet -- toenails like claws -- that strongly suggest these women discard the indigestible parts of their food in exactly the same way owls do. Just, owls don't do it in their nest.

Behind them, in the far end of the cave chamber, stands a horse. He is beautiful, Farmer O'Malley's Buckwheat. A slender pinto stallion, part white and part a warm, fiery chestnut, he looks unharmed -- docile, even, as if some spell of complacency keeps him from caring a whole lot about anything. There's a pile of droppings behind him -- and given the smells of decomposing animal tissue in the chamber, that's the source of the least offensive stench present.

Maybe it's the smell that gives O'Malley pause. He doesn't seem to have realised that Granny Leigh did something to perhaps conceal the little party. He's certainly not possessed of the light-footed grace of the elder and Quinault Amber. "I know my horse," he murmurs very quietly. "And there ain't no way on God's green Earth as my Buckwheat woulda walked along with those hags unless as they did something to his head. And there ain't no way any horse stands in a place as smells like this and don't spook. Don't know what those bitches are but I'm thinking -- witches."

Gail's is quite focused on the illusion. Unfortunately, she doesn't notice the reaction she is getting from her glimmer use - a very unhelpful hearing loss. She sees O'Malley's lips move but nothing makes it into her ears.

Good sense doesn't have her speaking up, just instead cupping a hand around her ear with and giving a come hither wave of her hand.

The elder's been moving along quietly at the rear of the little group; rather soft-footed for such a sturdily-built man. His keen eyes pick out the horse, the tall, brown-skinned creatures in deerskin clothing. And the smell; he covers his nose with his knuckles as he draws to a halt, dark gaze drawn to those piles at their feet with furrowed brows. And it's clear, then, that they wanted to lure them here.

So what does he do? Well, unleash a little of his power, naturally, in an attempt at mind-to-mind contact with what appears to be the dominant creature of the group.

Amber doesn’t have much time to decide to do a thing, but she was at least trying to keep herself bodily between Gail and danger. Both the elders were using their abilities, but she’d used hers a fair bit so far. Couldn’t really be helped, though, they were dealing with things that weren’t normal.

Her arm lifted to cover the front of her face in her sleeve, Amber’s eyes flit to Ruiz and her power can be felt again, tipping the scales of balance in his favor.

The mind of the Tah-tah kle' -ah is not well guarded; the elder's mental presence slips in like a grey cat in a dark alley -- silent, unnoticed, prowling. The elder would not recognise the metaphor but beneath his mind is that of Javier Ruiz de la Vega, and he will recognise the sensation of being that cat, sneaking into the back alley of a filthy, grimy mind and looking in the trash cans to put together what kind of people live here.

There are five of them -- two here, three in lands further to the south. Sisters, older than the human beings. They are not good hunters; they do not have proper weapons -- their spears are pointy sticks hardened in the fire, and their knives are made by cracking a piece of flint and using the sharp edge until it dulls. They do not fear iron -- because they do not understand it. The strange, sturdy weapons and tools of the white men is not something that causes them concern -- because they do not understand that these things even exist.

Humans are prey. The little ones are the easiest prey -- they put up the least of a fight.

Horses are prey too -- but to the sisters, the owl-women, they are a strange new prey. It is as if they appeared in creation only days ago -- large, strange dogs who eat grass. And then the little cousins, the humans, were taming them and using them, and it is all very strange.

It took the sisters a while to decide that if the humans care so much about these strange grass-dogs -- they can be used to bait them. They're still not sure it will work. The oldest sister sang a sleeping spell on the horse and lead him away. She hoped that the farmer -- another strange, new thing, these white humans -- would come look for him, and bring help. It's such an easy plan: Keep the horse, and every time the farmer comes, chase him away but keep his companions. A never-ending food supply.

It's almost a given that if the Tah-tah kle' -ah do not understand steel, they do not understand gunpowder either.

Awareness spreads like ripples on the surface of a pond when a pebble is dumped in, however gently. From the elder through the bond to Amber who is trying to aid his endeavour, and from her to the old settler woman next to her, upholding the illusion that the four of them are merely shadows and drafts in the dark cave.

Unfortunately, this awareness does not spread to O'Malley; modern day Leigh, Amber and Javier would not be surprised because all three of them would take one look at the man and realise that he does not shine. Their 19th century counterparts may be less aware -- or maybe not; you either have this power or you don't, and people who do tend to recognise birds of a feather.

O'Malley didn't get the memo. That's probably why he raises his rifle to his chin and jumps into the light of the fire, yelling, "You sunsabitches gimme back my horse right now! Witchcraft!"

Well, that shatters Gail's illusion completely as O'Malley just jumps in there. Gail says a few choice words about the proclivity of youth to make trouble before firmly stepping backwards and letting Amber and Ruiz get before her. Granny knows where her place in weird ass dreams is - and it ain't up front.

Also, she's still having problems hearing properly as she rubs at her ears.

Prowling is something the elder is accustomed to. In another life, he was a Marine scout sniper; in this Dream, he knows every notch on his bow like the back of his hand. He can strike a man down from five hundred paces without making a sound.

And now, when his mind slips in, it's made of fire, and wickedly serrated teeth, and hooked claws. And it slinks in and sifts about this jumble of thoughts that it finds, guttering flame everywhere it moves.

The elder, meanwhile, simply watches. Contemplates. And then informs the others, low-voiced, "They wanted to lure us here and feed on us. Simple as that. I get that right?" The question seems posed to the owl-thing whose mind he'd invaded.

“They probably didn’t expect us.” Amber remarks to Ruiz, still seeming wary, holding her power at bay for a moment. She was still looking for maybe some way to get out of this without simply resorting to killing the things, but... predators were predators.

“We’re not the easiest prey.” She finishes the thought as O’Malley jumps in to menace the things with his gun. She melts against the cave wall, even if Gail’s illusion was broken, at least she could likely surprise them if they got near enough. Or, if they went past, she could go straight for the horse instead.

One moment you're sitting in your warm, comfortable cave, arguing amicably with your sister about whether the cat is ready to eat. You expect that strange, hairy-faced pale man to turn up soon, leading a flock of other plump, hairy-faced pale men. You expect to eat well this winter -- because what are they going to do besides look ugly and then die? You are twice as tall as them, twice as strong, and they see poorly in the dark.

The next moment there's a giant wolf made of fire in your mind, demanding to know all the things. And if you're the other sister, not facing off against a fire wolf only you can see, there's a hairy-faced pale farmer waving a stick at you, and obviously expecting you to be afraid of his diminutive self.

Elder Sister recoils in terror. She fears wolves and she fears fire. Fire is good for searing the fur off prey, this is true. But it is wild and savage, and when the forest burns she hides in the river with the creatures on paws and hooves. When wolves hunt she hides in the trees like the creatures with feathers because while wolves are not big, wolves are many and cunning. They hunt in packs and they go for single prey. The elk yearling needs not fear the wolf -- the bull moose is not far away.

She reaches for the sharp piece of flint that is her only weapon. The wolf in her mind must exist in the waking world too. Maybe it has come for the horse. Maybe it wants the sisters. Either way, she will fight it because where can she run? The wolf is between her and the cave mouth.

Younger Sister blinks and nearly drops the singed (and not at all well done) lynx on a stick when suddenly, the well fed farmer leaps into her line of vision, waving his stick and shouting words she does not understand. The humans speak strangely -- in long and complicated words, painting pictures with words. The pale humans are even worse -- how they ever understand each other is beyond the owl-woman's understanding. A human being cannot say "give me the food" -- it has to tell a story about how it hungers like snakes in the stomach, and it is all very stupid because if there were snakes in its stomach it would be dead, and she would be eating it, snakes and all.

Rage rises up to blur her vision. This foolish pale human thinks he can threaten her? Her, twice as tall as she? Armed with a stick against her trusty flint? She lounges at O'Malley, snarling.

O'Malley goes down under eight feet of raging woman trying to claw off his face with nails like an owl's feet and a sharp sliver of flint in one hand. And as he does, he pulls the trigger of the rifle aimed at her abdomen.

As it turns out, Tah-tah kle' -ah are not immune to buckshot.

No one pays any attention to the old settler woman catching her breath against the cave wall. Nor to the young Quinault woman slinking out of sight, hoping to make her way towards the horse.

Buckwheat stands still, as if spell bound. The stallion's handsome head hangs slightly as if he is asleep with his large, brown eyes open. His breathing is calm and slow, with not a trace of a nostril flare. Not a single shiver flits through him at the sudden shouting and the sound of a firearm going off. The horse may be trained to not care about guns -- but far more likely, he is asleep, somehow, eyes open.

His halter and lead rope are still on. There are feathers tied into the halter on one side of the horse's head -- owl feathers. Maybe they are the reason Buckwheat is docile.

Well that's a whole pile of trouble that Granny Leigh is not at all going to get herself all embroiled into. She presses her back against the wall around the corner from the action and closes her eyes. Things are still a bit muffled for her, so this will be interesting. She takes a moment to focus on the horse, sending some thoughts in his direction. Shake love. Maybe if he feels like it he can send some of those feathers twitching and make it easier on Amber to get the horse moving.

While Amber’s first thought is removal of the feathers, breaking the spell... There’s reconsideration midway through reaching to them. Were this horse to panic, rear, buck, any number of stupid things to do in a cavern, it could be just as dangerous to Amber as the rest of the screaming, scratching, firing denizens.

So Amber gently reaches forward, rubbing the horse’s nose, attempting to gently rouse it while she takes hold of halter and reins and begins to tug. Urgently. This was still some sort of battle going on, but getting out a live was on her mind starkly.

“Come, little Buckwheat. There’s feed back the way we came,” she whispers, pulling, guiding, hoping the horse rouses just enough to come with her... calmly...

The Quinault woman is more than capable of handling the horse. Meanwhile, the Nez-Perce elder has other things to attend to; like the pair of raging owl beast diving at O'Malley. And once they're done with him, God only knows who they'll savage next.

He backs off to the mouth of the cave, and looks for a clear line of sight as he pulls an arrow out of his quiver, and knocks his bow taut with his thumb. And when he releases it, it surges with his power; a wash and crackle of electrostatic charge speeding it toward its target, even as he's already drawing another.

A storm can be hours in the making; black clouds gathering, the pressure steadily dropping, the air taking on a static quality, heavily pregnant with rain, sending men and beasts to shelter while there is still time -- and then, suddenly, a vast release, when lighting tears the sky and the clouds release their watery burdens on the land below.

This is not a dissimilar sensation. Sneaking in and assessing the situation ever so carefully, quietly -- and then, suddenly, a lot of things happen at the same time.

Younger Sister shrieks like a wounded bird when the lead of O'Malley's rifle buries itself under skin and bone; the awkward stick has bite, so much more bite, what magic is this? The owl-woman monster is a formidable fighter -- her size, her speed, her clawed hands, her excellent vision in the semi-dark cave give her a significant advantage over the settler; the burning hot stone in her gut evens the odds. She does not understand. And because she does not understand, she fears. Her hands lash out, tearing lines of red down the farmer's face.

O'Malley swings the rifle, blindly -- because at this time, it has only the one shot, and now that it's been fired, it's useful only in its capacity of a very awkwardly shaped club. It connects with nothing as he goes down, dropping it, hands going to his ruined face, screaming. "Witch! Witch!"

Elder Sister turns, astonished, jaw dropping. What is this? How is this? Where did these humans come from? How did they sneak up on the sisters unnoticed? She is the spell singer here -- how can these small creatures use her own magic like this, staying unseen and unheard until they are too close? She opens her mouth -- to scream a curse, to sing a spell, to --

-- it doesn't matter what she wants to do, because an arrow thuds into her shoulder.

Arrows are why the Tah-tah kle' -ah must hide. When the human beings put sharp slivers on flint on their strange little bird spears, they became able to kill from a distance. No longer could a sister walk up and fight them off their kills with brute force. The predator became the hunted, forced into the deep woods, forced into hiding, forced to live off small things that can be caught by hand and cunning.

Arrows that are part wood, part steel arrowhead, and part white lightning skyfire are far worse. She crumbles, screeching, flailing, trashing -- and then, the smell hits, of burning flesh, of burning feathers, of a creature being boiled alive inside its own skin by the heat.

And then she's gone. Like lightning from a clear sky, except there is nothing but cave roof overhead, and the lightning was launched by a Nez Perce bow. Is the elder surprised at how powerful the impact is? Maybe. Only a stain of black remains, atop old bones and skulls.

Unnoticed by most, Amber attempts to convince the docile, spell bound horse to let her lead him to safety. No beast was ever more docile -- the horse moves like an automaton, with neither enthusiasm nor hesitation, as if he has no will of his own.

And then he shakes his head.

The feathers on his halter wobble and come loose -- and hang on the rope that the halter is made from. A brush of a finger or a blow of breath could send them flying, break their spell. At which point Buckwheat might no longer remain quite as docile.

Amber had been a bit naive. If she had gotten the horse out, it meant everyone could just go back to safety, right? The owls and the people would tussle, but ultimately be able to retreat and lick their wounds and warn others of witches and they could go about their lives. None of that works out. Amber feels the man being wounded, hears the panic in the man’s voice. He hands fall from the reins and she does the first thing she can think of.

“GET OFF HIM” she screams at the thing while she takes two running steps and draws a foot up, lashing out. A kick from the woman would hurt to begin with. She had taken martial arts classes, she was an instructor for physical activity, she knew how to move and lithe muscles knew how to apply force. But that wasn’t just what she was kicking with. She kicks with pain, with fear, with anger that something would hurt a human being like the owl person was doing. In that moment, her foot was a destructive force far past what a human body could cause.

And the horse, unfortunately, had been completely forgotten...

Oops, Amber is all 'protect O'Malley!' and so Gail exits from her nice safe corner to venture along the edge of the wall towards Buckwheat. "Oh love, this isn't the place for you is it?" She sees the feathers and pushes them - halter and all, back into his skin while also talking nice and soft. Amber and Ruiz have the kick-butt in hand, right?

Speaking softly Gail continues to lead the horse around the side of the room with one hand against his neck, feathers within. Please don't let anything fly into her and turn the horse into a flying monster of WHAT THE HELL PREDATORS. Thanks.

Younger Sister is a stain on the bone and skull covered cave floor. If this was a cartoon there'd be a pair of moccasins sitting there with a wisp of smoke curling upwards -- but the owl-woman monster never wore moccasins or other footwear in the first place. The arrow is all that remains -- charred and burned from the skyfire that struck from seemingly out of nowhere on the elder's command, obliterating the Tah-tah kle' -ah.

Obliteration occurred almost simultaneously with Amber launching herself foot first across the room in an attempt to come to O'Malley's rescue. When her foot fails to connect with the intended obstacle (on basis of said obstacle being turned into a wisp of smoke) it continues to move as per the laws of motion and inertia -- connecting with the Elder Sister instead.

Sparks fly. Literal sparks from the amount of power that Amber puts into the motion, and less literal ones from the rage of Elder Sister.

Something metallic flashes; O'Malley falls on his knees, with one hand pressed to his shredded face, red spraying between his fingers. The other hand lashes out towards the monster woman even as she turns on Amber and himself. No settler leaves home without a good, sharp steel knife. No frontiersman goes down without a fight or at least trying to take the other sucker out with him. The big Irishman swears under his breath, but what exactly he is swearing is between him and whatever god might deign to listen.

Whatever's going on back there, it doesn't seem to phase Buckwheat any. The pinto stallion leans lightly into Granny Gail's touch -- and the owl feathers, no doubt the reason for his docile mood, stay where they are. Leading him along towards the cave mouth is easy enough; it's not hard to tell how he was lead in there in the first place because the horse seems to not care at all where it is going, or what the surface under his hooves feel like. The bones of mice and frogs crack and shatter under his weight, and he cares not one bit. Hooves that can shatter a man's skull with little effort plod along as if Buckwheat's done nothing for all of his life than follow a little old lady with a gentle hand and a gentler voice.

Elder Sister screams. She has lost her sister and her dinner in one moment, and now the cold iron of the pale new humans is severing tendon and muscle, burning her up from the inside. Modern day minds may wonder if ancient First Nation legends are as subject to the power of steel as the faerie of Celtic myth; or maybe it's just that she doesn't know what it is, or how it cuts so deep, so easily.

She lashes out with fire of her own, willing the young Quinault woman to burn.

Fire forms, visibly, hot, in the air between the two. But fire is moldable and fluid and -- when push comes to shove, it seems to obey the girl before the woman. If Elder Sister knew the word 'mercy', now might have been a good time to start begging for it, with a pillar of fire dancing between them and only the will of Amber holding it at bay.

Let’s face that Modern Amber was probably a little out of her depth here. Modern Amber was surrounded by bones and seeing a giant owl person and flowing blood and all kinds of things that modern sensibilities revolted at. Indigenous Amber had very little qualms. Indigenous Amber holds up a palm and fire shapes before her (which Modern Amber would later think was probably a pretty badass Uno Reverse), stares directly into the Elder Sisters eyes and says:

“We are the Hunters. Not the Prey.” The flames begin to expand and take on that golden wash of the woman’s powers, licking nearer and nearer the owl monster woman. But Modern Amber still had certain pull, and a morality that still, maybe naively thought they could bring this to a close non-violently, even if O'Malley was in full on knife-flailing, blinded by his own blood.

“Surrender.”

Gail is a smart old person. Gail leads the horse the fuck out of there because Gail knows that when fire starts flying SHE DOES NOT WANT TO STAY NEARBY.

Look - she just visited the hair dresser earlier this week Does anyone have any idea how hard it is to keep gray-white hair from doing whatever the fuck it wants?!

Good Buckwheat.

For a very long moment -- several heartbeats -- the owl-monster woman hesitates. The steel burns, embedded in her flesh; the pillar of flame dances in front of her, and the prey does in fact seem to have turned the tables on the hunter. She knows caution; stay away from the human beings and their feathered arrows and sharp axes, don't go hand to hand with the big brown bear, and don't try to tell a bull moose where he can take his mate. Now she's learning fear.

She wavers between indignant rage -- these prey killed her sister! -- and terror -- these prey killed her sister!

Daylight greets Granny Gail and Buckwheat. This bodes well insofar that if the older woman was to lose control of the horse now, at least it's not trapped underground and prone to immediate flailing panic. It may run away -- but at least it will not be running headfirst and blindly into any obstacles because a horse can in fact not see in the dark. And who knows? If the owl feathers stay on his halter, Buckwheat might even consent to carrying someone back to Lumbertown. Or maybe he'll disappear into the woods and the camps of the Nez Perce like the fine horse he is.

It might all depend on whether Barney O'Malley ever emerges from that cave again -- and that in turn might depend on whether Elder Sister lives long enough to finish him off.

Amber being of two minds had helped in places so far, but in this moment, it wasn’t helping anymore. Indigenous Amber felt this thing’s fear and reveled, feeling superior, proving to this thing of story and legend she was not one to be trifled with. She was the hunter. She was the proud warrior, shaman, woman of the wilds. Take your petty tricks and broken things of the past and go back to the hole in the great beyond you belonged to and rot their for the rest of eternity.

Modern Amber felt fear and held nothing but pity. This thing was out of time, out of depth, outgunned, outnumbered. It grieved for a loved one and would have no succor or pity from those that killed her. Modern Amber thought enough damage had been done this day. Modern Amber pushes at that pillar of flame, trying to deflect it all aside, blow it’s destructive force sideways and away.

Indigenous Amber would have none of it. Kill the wild animal. It only knew slaughter. It would only kill again.

Those delicate, tiny little blood vessels in her eyes began to slowly leak as unknowable forces warred in her, the whites slowly growing red. A thick droplet of crimson started to fall from her nose. And in that moment, Amber lost control of the flame.

There's no such tension between who Javier is in the outside world, and who the Veil decided he ought to be today. Both the grizzled Police Chief and Nez Perce elder seem to be of one mind; those who are capable of slaughter, those who have blood on their hands, pitiful or not, are not innocent. And he has no qualms about ending their lives.

The second arrow in his quiver is loosed with a sickening twang; and careens, screaming with electrical charge, white hot ozone flaying the dark, toward Elder Sister.

Observe: Two incarnations of the same woman, locked in internal conflict, a clear case of modern era ethics desperately trying to inflict themselves on the ethics of an era where you and yours survived, if necessary at the expense of others. Somebody is the hunter, and somebody is the prey, and Quinault Amber and Elder Sister definitely do not agree on who's who here.

It doesn't matter very much at all, because lightning streaks through the cave a second time -- and then Elder Sister's last expression (surprise) lingers in the air almost like the grin of a Cheshire cat as the owl-woman monster is outlined in white fire, and then joins her sister as a stain on the messy cave floor.

Sometimes, there's not a lot of conflict between past and present; the Nez Perce elder and Javier de la Vega did not need to have a sit-down and a discussion in order to reach an internal agreement.

Maybe it's better that way.

A hundred and seventy years later, one might wander into the Pourhouse one evening and with a bit of luck, one might happen upon some of the older folks talking. Maybe they'll be telling a story of the town to some unfortunate son-in-law from out of town, or some bewildered tourist who took a wrong turn at the corner of Spruce Street, thinking they were heading for the marina and Two If By Sea.

Some old guy named Jack O'Malley might talk about how this was all fields and forest when his family settled here. It was just a year or two after Seattle was founded, only it was called Duwamps back then, and Gray Harbor was just a cluster of log cabins in the woods. Some people called it Lumbertown and talked about building a lumber mill but it'd be a whilebefore anyone actually got around to doing anything about it. The someone who did was an Addington -- Jack thinks, because he's actually not entirely sure, there was some kind of mess-up there, some sort of feud, whatever, the point is, his family was among the first to settle down here.

He'll tell you that there's a story in his family, about owl women who live in the woods. Giant women who steal horses. They're not some racist caricature of the Yakama or the Quinault -- family legend doesn't say a lot about what they actually are, but there's not an O'Malley who hasn't been scared into coming home at dusk as a kid. Come back at seven sharp, or the owl woman will take you.

And then Jack may snicker into his beer and add that a few years back, there were a couple of blokes doing research into First Nations legends, and they said they'd heard that story as well. But it's all hogwash, of course, because if there really had been some remnant of a pre-human population still lingering in caves and dark places, banished from the forests by Homo Sapiens, archaeological evidence would surely have been found.

It's all just old stories, meant to scare kids into being home at a decent hour.

And as for Buckwheat, well -- maybe his legacy lives on in the local horses. Maybe it doesn't.