Patrick E. McLean

If Dance only looked at one side of the street it could almost appear that Grantham had gotten back to normal. There had been a rough few days after the fire, but they’d buried the dead, said words over them, and moved on. That didn’t mean that things were good but they could've been a hell of a lot worse. Food and supplies were dwindling, but since Dance had organized hunting parties, supplies were dwindling nice and slow. Sure, they'd have to do something about it, but right now the 203 surviving souls of the Town of Grantham were in need of a respite.If they could keep from getting wiped out by the wildlife or savage tribes – and if the coffee lasted long enough — they just might be O.K.Having given himself over to a philosophical turn of mind Dance could see how their predicament wasn't any different than any other frontier town. They were on the edge of the unknown struggling to survive. They had plenty of water and the weather, at least so far, was nice. He savored another sip of coffee and he resolved to enjoy what he could while he could.Walking up the street and taking his own sweet time about it, Speedy Pete was headed towards the jail. When he got close Dance asked, "Pete, how in the hell is it that you ain't dead? I mean I ain't complaining. I'm just saying, I know which way I lay the odds on that one…”Speedy Pete smiled slow and pushed his hat back. “Well sir, my Mama always said I'd be late to my own funeral. So what I reckon is… Death just shows up to where I'm supposed to be and when I’m not there, all punctual-lie, he get sick of waiting around. Goes off finds somebody else to do business with."Dance was so stumped by the unexpected elegance of his Deputy’s explanation all he could say was, “Fair enough, Pete.”"We step inside so I can make my report?""No, Pete she's in there schooling up them kids. Did you know that little girl can read?""School? But that school Ma’rm ran off. I mean afore we even… wound up here."“I know Pete. But the Widow Miller is intent on her children getting an education. And I have reconciled myself to the fact that it's wise to stay clear of the entire enterprise so I don't get my head mixed up with any book larnin’. Somebody’s gotta think straight around here,” Dance said with a wink.Pete missed the joke entirely and said, “You takin’ up with that Widder is one thing, but I’m not sure I'm OK with children living in a jail cell."“Makes ‘em easy to contain,” said Dance, blowing another joke right by Pete. “Besides, we ain’t got no other use for them cells. They’re for holding people for the Judge, and as the Judge ain’t coming no more. Miscreants are getting fined or hanged.” Dance looked in his coffee and said, “Well, I suppose you could say the one’s gettin’ hanged are just getting fined everything.”Pete puzzled on this for a moment then shook his head to clear it of philosophical speculations the same way that people will beat a rug to rid it of dust. Then he said,“Well, we got the watches all figured out, and I think them Polacks know where to be and when. But I can't understand a goddamn word they're saying most of the time.”Dance said, “That's OK Pete, nobody can.""They was jibber jabberin’ away about laundry! Something about that the Chinaman wasn't doing it for free no more. But I don’t think I heard it right. I mean why would a Chinaman watch a bunch of Polack’s laundry for free? Don't make no damn sense.""And anything else around here does?" asked Dance.“Well iffn I’m gettin’ any say in the matter, Sheriff, I'll take my mysteries in a language I can understand.”Dance finished his coffee and said,”Let’s go down and see what the fuss with the Chinaman is all about.”He took his cup into the jail and lifted a rifle from the rack. Penelope was sounding out words from a book and Mac looked up from a calculating slate to glare at the Sheriff. Dance couldn’t blame the boy much for his animosity. He reckoned he’d feel much the same. But Laura smiled at him and that was all that mattered. Then she saw the rifle in his hand and her smile faded. Dance said, “Just have to see about a crazy Chinaman,” by way of reassurance, but Laura’s smile did not reappear.By the time Dance got back outside the commotion had poured into the middle of the street and was headed right for him. Five thick-necked miners were following the Chinaman as he led a heavily-ladened mule up the middle of the street. Dance asked, “Now just where in the hell does he think he's going?"Pete said nothing, which, when Pete could manage it, was how Dance liked him best.One of the miners, looking about as at home in the sunlight as a freshly upturned mole, seized the mule’s reins. This upset the Chinaman and he shoved the miner, and tried to regain control of his animal. This angered the rest of the miners, and they piled on. Dance had to respect to the little Oriental fella. He didn’t go quietly. He kicked the first one square in the nuts and then started jumping and gesticulating like he had a bad case of the St. Vitus’. It worked well enough at first but there were just too many miners and too few pounds of Chinaman for him to have any real chance. The Chinaman dropped a second one with a chop to the throat and got a third with a kick to the kneecap. But then somebody got a hold of the Chinaman’s ponytail and gave it a yank and down everyone went into the dust.Dance shook his head at the whole mess. He wasn't getting mixed up in that crap, no sir. Beside him, Pete started forward, eager to do his duty. The Sheriff stopped him with his left hand and raised the rifle over his head with his right and fired. As the report died away all eyes in the pile of men looked to the Sheriff. Dance said, “All right! That's enough rolling around in the horseshit for one day."The pileup slowly disengaged revealing the Chinaman at the bottom. He seemed relatively unharmed. He barked a singsong phrase at the men around him and then started to walk off after his well-ladened mule. One of the Miners grabbed his ponytail and yanked him off his feet once again. Dance lifted his rifle from his shoulder, stepped in, and clubbed the miner in the back of the head. As the large, fleshy man collapsed to the earth Dance said, "I said enough! And, by God, I meant enough. Now what the hell is going on here?"The air was filled with languages that the Sheriff did not understand. He yelled for everyone to speak in English but, everyone could not. The one miner who spoke some English had a dislocated jaw, so Dance couldn’t understand him, even thought he was trying his best. The Chinaman stood with his arms crossed, not saying a word, and managed to be the most dignified party in the entire matter. Excepting the mule. As Dance was trying to sort out the mess, Pete went after the Mule, that was quietly plodding up the street, wisely trying to distance himself from this human foolishness. Then, Pete stopped in his tracks. Coming from the East, silhouetted by the morning sun, was a stranger coming in from the wilderness.“Sheriff…” said Pete.The commotion of men arguing and incompatible languages continued behind him, so Pete tried again, louder."Sheriff!"This time everyone looked up and saw the figure in his strange red robes, strolling into town as if he did it every day. All argument ceased. The Chinaman helped the clubbed miner to his feet. The miner, thinking that this meant the fight was still on, raised his fist to attempt a wobbly blow. The Chinaman slapped the fist away and pointed at the stranger coming into town. The miner forgot all about the fight. Dance, held his rifle loose in both hands, stood beside Pete and squinted at what was coming. He said, “Pete, run go get that Englishman. He's gonna wanna see this."Pete looked at the Sheriff, then at the stranger, then back to the Sheriff. He tried to get the sheriff the reins of the mule, but the Sheriff didn't take his eyes off the stranger. So Pete just dropped the reins and headed off with all the hurry he could manage. * * * By the time Archie arrived, limping in on his bad foot as fast as he could manage, the Stranger was standing at the end of main street. He was dressed in red robes and held a staff of plain wood in this right hand. Around his shoulder we wore a satchel, something like half a saddlebag on a leather strap. He had sandals and if he was scared by the crowd of townspeople that had assembled, he did not show it. His face was worn and his beard and hair were flecked with grey. He could have been anywhere from 50 to 80 years old. Archie said, “What do we do now?” The Sheriff said, “We go see if you and he have any languages in common.”“I’m not much of a translator,” said Archie, “Especially when I’m nervous.” “Relax. I’ve about half made up my mind to shoot him anyway,” said the Sheriff, and started walking. Archie hobbled along behind. As the Sheriff came closer the Stranger smiled and raised his hand in greeting. Dance gave him a thousand-yard stare.The Stranger said something that no one understood. Archie said something back in a different language. In response, the stranger reached into his satchel and pulled out a skin of water. He took a swig and then offered the bag to the Sheriff and Archie. When no one moved, the stranger shrugged. Then he said, “Orlap Bechtanar thrunce dak.”Archie shrugged.The stranger repeated the words then nodded to himself. From his satchel he removed a cut red gemstone, the size of a small melon. The Sun glinted off its facets and as he held in front of him it seemed a thing made of light rather than mineral. The Stranger took another step forward. Dance cocked the rifle and stepped forward to meet him. The stranger stopped and smiled again. Then he slowly set his satchel and staff on the ground. He removed his robes and revealed his weathered body, as gnarled as piece of long-dried driftwood. And written in scar tissue across his chest were the remnants of a cruel wound. The ribs of one side of his chest were partially caved in and gave the old man a disturbing asymmetry. Dance remained unmoved by any of this. And only moved his eyes to scan the horizon in case this was some kind of prelude to an ambush. Clad in only a loincloth the stranger held the red stone out in front of him with both hands and walked slowly towards the men.Beside him, Sheriff Dance felt more than saw people reaching for weapons in the crowd behind him. “Easy,” said Dance, “Ain’t no showdown. Worst he’s tried to do is kill us with a bad striptease.” He said it so well he almost managed to convince himself. The stranger spoke again. This time just a single word, “Mobruk. Mobruk. Morbruk.” He held the stone out to the Sheriff, encouraging him to take it, using the same tone of voice a Mother might use to get a toddler to take a mouthful of food. He looked directly into Sheriff Dance’s eyes and nodded encouragingly. “Mobruk.”The Sheriff reached out his hand and took the stone. He felt a shiver run up his arm and into his brain. He shook his head and then he understood what the man was saying. “Take. Take.”“What the hell!?!” said the Sheriff. “Good, we have connection,” said the Stranger. “We can now understand each other.” “But, I…” said Dance. He looked back to Archie and asked, “Can you understand him?”“Not a word. You can?”“I can. I don’t know how, but I can.”“Please share the gift of Ba-El with others. So that all may understand and peace may be on the world." The Sheriff looked at the stranger in his loincloth and said, “Yeah, I got a peacemaker too. Never seems to work like I want it to though."Archie said, “What does he say? If you can understand him, you must translate."Sheriff Dance handed Archie the glowing orb. Archie touched it and his eyes went wide."Yes," said the stranger, "you see now, his peace will spread. Glory be to Ba-El father of Harmony!"Archie said, “Wait. Run that by me one more time. Ba-El is some kind of deity? What is this then?” He asked holding up the orb,“and by what source is this powered?”The Priest of Ba-El said, “Please, I will answer all questions in time, but first spread Ba-El's gift, so that all may speak the same language."Dance took the orb back from Archie and asked, “You think everybody knowing what people are really sayin’ is going to bring peace?""It is a consummation devoutly wished," said the Priest of Ba-El."Well, let's just see about that.” Dance turned to the battered Miners and beleaguered Chinaman. He threw the orb to the Chinaman who caught it deftly. Dance said, “Pass it round!”The Chinaman’s eyes went wide with the shock of understanding the words. He looked at the orb, then back to the Sheriff. "How can you be speaking Chinese?!?""I don't know, how are you speaking English?""It is Ba-El’s gift,” said the Priest of Ba-El as he smiled at the wonder of shared understanding.“Yes you’ve said that,” said Archie. “Chinaman, give it over to them Polacks,” said Dance. “My name is not Chinaman, it is Liu Sung.”“Alright Loose Un’, give it over.”Liu Sung offered the orb to the Polish Miners. First, none of them wanted it, but finally the man Dance had hit with the rifle stretched out his hands and took the orb. Dance asked “Can you understand us?” “He stole our silver!!!” said the Miner“I did not. You try to rob me!" countered Liu.As the argument continued, Sheriff Dance looked back at the Red Priest and said, “Yeah, all sorted out. Happily ever after.” The Miner said, “His mule is full of silver. This crazy Chinaman was washing clothes for free. We didn’t pay him no silver. He didn’t mine no silver. The only way for him to get it was to steal it.”“Ah,” said Archie, “Deduction.”“I never steal,” said Liu.“Then how’d you get it, Chinaman!”“Liu. Liu Sung!” Dance stepped between them. “Easy Loose Un’! Let’s just take it one step at a time. Pete, fetch that mule over here.” The mule, who somehow was the most even-tempered party in the whole matter, was freighted with heavy panniers on each of his flanks. Sheriff Dance looked inside and found them filled with small leather sacks. He opened one of the sacks and found it filled with silver dust. “Alright. He’s got a shitload of silver. Mr. Chinam— I mean Loose ‘Un, you want to explain how you got all this silver?”“I did not steal,” said Liu Sung.“And I ain't saying that you did, but I am curious as to where it came from, and where you think you might be going out into that savage wasteland with it?”“I go back to the middle kingdom, back to civilization.""Ain't no civilization left, or ain't you noticed? We're on our own son,” said the Sheriff."Sung, Liu Sung. Sung is a proud name. The Sung do not steal.”“If I may promote harmony...” said the Priest of Ba-El.“Little harmony be real nice for a change around here,” offered Pete.“He looks as if he comes from the Kithai people, a vast empire far to the NorthEast of here.”Liu Sung said, “There has always been a middle kingdom. There will always be a middle kingdom.""An empire you say?” asked Archie. “There is a civilization? More than one? Then why? And who attacked us? And the tower that he saw?”The Priest of Ba-El smiled again and asked, “Which question would you have me answer first?”Dance said, “Now, just hang on. Let's get one thing straight before we go bending all the rest. Loose Un, where did the damn silver come from?”“These men work in the mine, chip, chip, chip, all day. They bring clothes to Liu Sung,” he said with particular emphasis on Sung, “and I wash them. End of day I pour out the water and save all the little pieces of silver I find. Why else I no charge them for laundry.” “We just though you vere crazy,” said one of the Miners. “I told you that was our silver!” said another. “If it's anybody silver it's DuMonts’, and that useless son of a b***h is dead. Loose Song,” said Dance, sincerely trying to get his name right. “You ain’t broken any law and as far as I’m concerned I wish you’d stick around. We need all the smart people we can get. But I suggest you stick around long enough to see what we can learn from our new friend." Dance turned to the Priest of Ba-El and said, "and you, new friend, you're gonna draw us a map.” This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit patrickemclean.substack.com

Laura looked out over what was left of the Town of Grantham. Smoldering buildings. Bodies scattered across the street. She realized that this was the reality. This was the natural state. There would be no rescue. Not by Virgil nor anyone else. She felt an urge to lay down with the dead and be at peace. Then she looked back to her children, asleep in each other's arms, huddled against the wall of Saloon #3. She resolved to go in search of hope even if she no longer believed in it.She walked around the corner of the building and entered the saloon. The dead and the wounded lay scattered on tables and on the dirt floor. The place smelled of blood and whiskey and tobacco. On a table in the middle of the room lay John Dance, his legs dangling off the end.In the darkness, the Doctor staggered around drunk and covered with blood, seeming like another one of the wounded. She touched his arm. He shook his head and came back to his senses, shamed by her loveliness in this awful place. He wiped his bloody hands on his bloody shirt and straightened his collar. "You're not hurt, are you?" He asked with real concern."The Sheriff?”"Gutshot,” said the doctor, "and at least one of the bullets is still in him.” He pressed his lips together and said, "there's nothing I can do."She went to Dance and laid her hand on his face. She felt his strong jaw, noticed the wrinkles from smiling in the corners of his eyes, and felt the fever raging through him. Dance moaned and turned uncomfortably on the table. "Is there nothing that can be done?" she asked.The Doctor shook his head and looked away. He stepped to the bar and took another pull from a bottle of brown liquor that was covered in bloody handprints. He swallowed hard and then looked at the wounded around him. The burned and the crushed and the shot and said, "God dammit… There's nothing to be done. Nothing to be done for any of ‘em.” Laura realized he was wrong and walked out of the grisly saloon.She headed South to where the freight yard had been. The flames had ravaged the wagons and their cargoes. All that was left was the metal of the wheel hubs and tackle and whatever metal implements have been in the cargo. Scattered here and there were the charred bodies of the unfortunate who had not escaped the flames. What she sought was gone.She had not forgotten the miracle that it saved her child from the arrow wound. The snake oil salesman and his seemingly worthless product had somehow become the elixir of life itself. Now it seemed lost forever. Except for DuMont.She had overlooked it in the chaos, but now she remembered DuMont. He had not been bent over coughing in pain. He had stood straight with vigor in his spine and spoke with a thunder in his voice. Somehow he had become a healthy man. And Laura had never known or heard of a man with consumption who had been cured.She walked up the hill, her sights set on DuMont’s strange Victorian house that stood untouched on the rise above her. She shuddered as she approached through the carnage of the night before, but it did not stop her from checking the bodies. Many of their wounds seemed small and innocuous, blood stains in the shirt, more to be fretted over in the washing rather than a cause of death. But after the shock of looking at dead men had passed, she found them to be peaceful and they generated feelings of love and acceptance rather than pity or fear. A strange thought, born of fatigue: she preferred men this way. How much more docile and well-mannered, they were, non-threatening.But among the dead she could not find the man she was searching for. She continued up the hill and found DuMont slumped on his own porch, bloody like the rest but unlike them, with a shattered bottle of Ol’ Bartloeermere the 2nd’s Magic Elixir next to him on the steps. Nothing more than a few pieces of shattered brown glass held together by paper and the glue on the back of the label.At first, She thought he was dead, but then he coughed and rolled to his side. "Inside," he said, pointing at the fragments of the bottle. "Inside, another bottle."As Laura looked down on him, the whole story became clear. There was a bullet hole, right through his breast pocket, into his chest. Right, where one might keep a small bottle. What a particularly inconvenient place to get shot. He held the fragments of the bottle out towards her like a talisman. "You stupid woman," DuMont rasped, "on my desk, a bottle like this…" He gasped.Laura smiled. “You're saying that you have another bottle of magic elixir. And you're asking me to get it for you so that I can use it to save you just like it was used to save my daughter. Do I have that right?" He nodded and waved his hand as if to say, get on with it."All right. I'll go fetch it.”In a moment she returned with the bottle. DuMont managed to smile through the pain of his body shutting down. “Now,” said Laura, “What will you give me for it?"“Anything, money, silver. anything…""Well Mr. DuMont, that certainly would've been a tempting offer a few days back, but we're fresh out of places to spend money. I can't even imagine who I would send silver ore to."“That’s mine," rasped DuMont, pointing at the bottle."You come and take it then, otherwise we're in a negotiation. You got anything I might want? No, that ain't hardly a fair question to put a man in your condition. I’ll just tell you what I do want. A man who is a good enough neighbor to put aside petty differences during emergencies. One who could be counted upon to help with hands needed for a bucket brigade. One that would've known better than to start a fight in the middle of an out-of-control fire. Save you from death? I ain’t a thief. I wouldn't dream of taking something from you you worked so hard to earn."And then she lifted the hem of her dress, stepped carefully over the pool of blood leaking from DuMont, and left him to die.She took the bottle of elixir and walked back to Saloon #3. She checked to see that the children were still sleeping. Then she paused in the doorway and passed the elixir from hand to hand. It was a miraculous and unlikely thing she held – a second chance. She wondered if she should keep it for herself. Or hide it away until she or Mack or Pen were badly hurt. But it was a false sense of security. Unless the sad, struggling little town pulled together it would soon be whisked out of existence in this great unknown nowhere where they found themselves. The fools, the madman, fighting amongst themselves as the town burned. Everyone who was left needed to work together, and for that, they needed the Sheriff.She had been tempted to do a bad thing with him once. The sin of that was on her, she thought. But the fact remained, Dance was a man who had tried to do the right thing when others wouldn't. He wasn’t a good man. But he was good enough. She hoped.—Archie coughed himself awake. The sound was explosive in the confined space and even before he could open his eyes the headache came. The air was thick with dust and when he tried to see his eyes burned and he shut them again. There was no point to sight, he was in utter darkness.Fear grabbed ahold of him and he thrashed about, throwing his body from side to side against the rubble. His left foot was pinned and pain spiked through his knee as he rolled. He was aware, logically, that he was out of control, but logic could obtain no grasp on his psyche. He screamed at the top of his lungs and beat his fists against the rock. With anger alone he tried to stable his fear and master his mind. Memories came flooding back to him. That horrible bat, the presence of it in his mind, the raw power of the creature as it broke forth from the vault of stone, dropping the roof upon him. He grabbed the rubble beneath his hands until the pain of clenching it brought him back to his senses. He found himself clutching a flat rock, nearly a foot in length in his right hand, and a vaguely triangular rock in his left. With some difficulty he worked himself onto his side and curled in a ball. He felt around his trapped foot and ankle to get a picture of the stone that pinned it. He wedged the flat rock into the gap between the stone and the floor then he slid the triangular stone underneath it, forming a fulcrum. He pressed down on the lever as hard as he could and the rock holding his foot moved — infinitesimally, but it had moved! He worked patiently, pressing the lever until he could advance the fulcrum, and little by little the pressure on his foot diminished. He could feel the rock lifting from his leg, but when he tried to pull his leg free, it ground cruelly against the stone. He thrashed in frustration this time hitting his head on the slab that formed the roof of his prison. When he regained consciousness again, returning to his task and trying not to be alarmed by the powerful and rising thirst that he could do nothing about.Laura stood over John Dance watching him die, surprised that he didn't look the least bit concerned about it. So unlike Virgil. Her husband worried about everything. She had almost forgotten there were men who would joyfully throw the chip of their existence around in the game of life. Dance was unconscious but looked peaceful enough despite his horrible and poorly bandaged wounds. Flies swarmed in the lone shaft of Sunlight that had dared to enter Saloon # 3. As the day wore on sunbeam would lose its courage, and realize that this was not a place where the light was welcome and retreat with the coming of night.John Dance, that damnable man, thought Laura. He looked so carefree as he lay in his own blood that she wondered if she should let him go. But the town needed him if it was to survive. And if her children were to stand any chance at all they needed to town. And finally yes, she needed him. She wanted him and that was the sharpest pain of all.She put her hand to his face and caressed him. Then she shook him but he did not wake. So she uncorked the bottle and poured the elixir between his lips. Then she kissed him, pressing her mouth to his so that he would not spill even a drop. At least that's what she told herself as she felt the life stir in him and her hot tears baptized his battered face.After hours of trying, Archie had still not freed his foot. His primitive lever was long enough to move the stone that had trapped his ankle but not long enough for him to get free. But since contemplating his full predicament was horrifying, he had devoted himself to his hopeless task. Then the stone broke into three useless shards. Archie slumped in defeat, too tired to even sob. He felt his breath stir the dust next to his cheek. He let his whole body go as if it were a burden that someone else had asked him to carry that he was now glad to be rid of. Now Death, he thought.And from the depths, something answered.He felt a distant pulsing in the rock, the intimation of mighty roaring subterranean engines, far, far below. A sense of power filled him and he underwent a dizzying shift of scale. The horrible bat creature had called to him, trying to draw him out, trying to drain him, but this was something else. A pure sending – a gift of… what it was, he could not say. It felt like a gift from God, but it came from below. He seemed mighty to himself, not in the way of giants but mighty in knowledge of the secrets of the world. His thirst, hunger, and cold were gone. He saw his predicament as a silly thing: A man trapped inside a room, thinking the door was locked when all he needed to do was to stop pulling and push instead. He felt the rocks beneath him grow less substantial. It started as a buzzing feeling in his fingertips. He opened his eyes and saw that the darkness had been replaced. What had been so solid, now revealed itself to be glowing infinitesimals around which tiny particles revolved at fantastic speeds. These particles moved so fast that each iota of rock only seemed solid, but was in fact, nothing more than the pressure of frantically whirling tendencies. He saw, for the first time, that had been foolish to think of stone as solid and weighty. Even more foolish to be trapped by stone. In time with this thought, his leg slipped free and drifted upward through what had been solid rock. And then Archie swam through the rubble of the collapsed vault, surprised to find that it was a kind of water and even more surprised to learn that he was a kind of fish.Among the angular shapes that he passed through Archie was surprised to find a sleeping form of MacAllister, encased in the sandy rubble of the collapsed mine tunnel. He gathered the large Scotsman in a wave before him and carried him from the mine.They coalesced onto the ground in the open air amid the charred rubble of the mine yard. MacAllister settled to the ground and Archie landed on his feet. A sharp pain spiked up his leg and he fell to the the sooty ground next to the large Scotsman. MacAllister coughed and spit sand on him."Bloody hell,” said Archie.MacAllister open his eyes and asked, “We are named dead yet?"Archie stared at him fascinated and terrified at the absurdity of seeing very whirling infinitesimals that the man was composed of. As his vision faded back to normal, Archie answered, "I don't know what we are.""I'll tell you what we are lad," MacAllister said with a wink, "we're thirsty!" MacAllister rose and helped Archie to his feet. By leaning against the Scotsman, Archie was able to ease the weight of his injured foot. And so they staggered together, into what was left of the town. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit patrickemclean.substack.com

The town burned through the night and when the glow of dawn finally overpowered the glow of the embers, the townspeople who were still alive collapsed to the Earth from weariness. Exhaustion granted a temporary reprieve from the crush of defeat. Half of the town had burned. The north side was spared only by the direction of the wind and the unusual width of the main street. The Morning Star mine works, the Morning Star Saloon, The First Baptist Church, the Miller General store and countless odd shanties, tents and hovels had been incinerated. In the grim dawn, no one picked through the ashes to find the bodies. Somehow, Saloon #3 had survived. And, grateful for it, Laura Miller slumped against its east wall, clutching Mac and Penelope to her. The children slept, but Laura’s worries would not let her sleep. She leaned against the wall, feeling the air warm as the sun rose, and tried not to move. Let the children sleep, she thought. That they were still alive was victory enough… for now. Mac shifted in his sleep and the rifle he clutched to his chest pressed into Laura’s cheek. She pushed it away and shifted. But that upset the delicate equilibrium. Pen’s weight shifted off Laura’s leg and it tingled back to painful life. She groaned and moved out from underneath the children. Pen muttered something, wrapped her arms around her brother, and fell back to sleep. Mack lolled his head to the side and began to snore.As they slept they looked so innocent, but Laura feared that innocence had been lost. What they had seen last night — things as horrible as what she had seen during the war and on the run — the things that she and Virgil had tried to protect them — these things could never be unseen.Mack had grown so big, yet in some ways, he was still just a foolish, beautiful boy. When the mine exploded, they had all come out into the street to see what happened. Then they realized the church was also ablaze. As they watched the flames jumped to the saloon and then the mine. The next time they looked they saw the store, their home, was on fire. Then Mac was away, running into the burning building. Laura screamed, the one time in that whole night that she did. But she could not reach Mack to stop him. He plunged into the building and she clutched Penelope to her and waited in terror. In those long seconds, the roof caved in and flames rushed forth from the second-story windows. She said her jaw and willed – willed – that foolish boy to emerge from the flames.There was a clatter of hooves and the rattle of an empty wagon coming down the hill. A woman bellowing like a man for everyone to get out of the way. Laura turned to see Jane Siskin, the woman who hauled much of their freight, standing in the bed of a cargo wagon, reins in one hand, whip in the other, driving a team of oxen hard towards the river.When the wagon had passed, she saw Mac, his hair badly singed, running towards her clutching the ancient buffalo rifle that had decorated the wall above the weapons rack.She shrieked at him, then slapped him, then clasped him, gun and all, in a powerful hug.“Pa’s coming back, and he's going to need it!"Laura nodded, not giving a damn about the gun, tears welling up in her eyes. And then the tears burst forth as she realized, with the town ablaze around them, the Virgil was never coming back."He's gonna need it to put things right. Don't you worry Ma, you'll see.”When the fire had started John Dance had forgotten all about the Burdock’s. They had scattered into the smoke and chaos. Dance organized a bucket brigade even though it seemed hopeless. But then that crazy Siskin woman had come driving up the hill with a wagon full of water."Drove it right into the damn river," she proclaimed proudly. Buckets and hats and spittoons and any other damn thing they could find to hold water went in and were used to try and douse the flames. The Church was a total loss, so they had focused their efforts on the Morning Star saloon. But it was no use. It went up like a match. Rats, drunks, gamblers, and w****s poured forth coughing from the smoke. Dance diverted the brigade to the next building. "Wet it down! Keep the fire from spreading!” But soon the wagon was dry and Jane rode off to the river again. Everyone stood around looking at each other, looking hopeless. From out of the darkness a figure wearing a suit, and flourishing a cane like a dandy, emerged into the light of the burning town. It was Jean Dumont, followed by a large contingent of miners. But he was not stooped or coughing. He stood ramrod straight and his voice was clear and commanding when he said, “how dare you abandon my building to the flames! I demand that you…"Dance said, “What! What exactly do you want me to do? We ain't got no water at the moment!"DuMont had no response.“That Saloon is a lost cause. What we need are men and buckets to stop the spread. Lend us your men, DuMont.”“That is your affair!”“My AFFAIR! For Christ’s sake DuMont, the town is burning!” From the dark, on the other side of John Dance, Burdock rode his horse into the light of the flames. The shadowed forms of his cowboys were visible behind him. “Burdock, get buckets in them men’s hands!” said Dance. “No,” said Burdock, “I don’t think I will.” Dance, silhouetted against the flames, looked back and forth between the two of them. "Good God! Can’t either of you see?""I see a town problem,” said Burdock.Dance pleaded, “But we’re all we have left! You’ve been out there. You’ve seen! The world, everything we knew… it’s gone!” Burdock sneered, “Civilization is gone, with its weakness and its decadence. If you can't live out here in the frontier, you shouldn’tve come. Hell of a way to larn it.”From somewhere in the burning chaos a man screamed in pain. It was a sharp noise followed by a grunt and a bellow ending in a higher pitch scream. Then, entering like a chorus, the sobbing of a woman, the timeless song of grief.From down the road, John Dance heard Jane Siskin cursing at her oxen as she drove them back from the river. He looked and saw the axle break and all the water slosh from the wagon.Dance turned to DuMont and said, “Give me your Miners at least! Please!”"This town has been nothing but an obstacle to my operations. My silver remains safe underground, and my men are employed in protecting what remains of Company property.”Burdock snarled, “You always was a greedy, shortsighted, Son-of-a-B***h,” as what was left of the saloon collapsed behind him, “Ain’t even willing to defend the town you blighted this fine landscape with!” The haggard people waiting for the wagon to return with water stood with their buckets dangling from their hands, staring at this conflict in disbelief.Dance held his arms outstretched, imploring them both. “Maybe more of us survive when we work together. That’s all I’m saying.” “You should have thought of that before you framed my poor boy Charlie for murder,” said Burdock.“You should have thought of that before harassing my miners and taxing our operations,” said DuMontNearly in tears, Dance cried, “For the Love of God, do you men have no souls!” Up the street, Laura Miller had stopped to watch the confrontation, clutching her children to her. As Dance held his hands high, and pleaded with the stubborn Rancher and the greedy Miner, she saw Charlie Burdock emerge from an alley on the North side of the street. He raised his pistol. As Laura cried “No!” he fired several times, hitting Sheriff Dance in the back. Dance grunted and fell forward to his knees. Charlie fired again.Dance coughed once, looked at all of them, and said, “You stupid sons-of-b*****s. You know not what you do.” Then he felt forward into the street. Another shot rang out — Laura could not see who fired it — and Charlie was knocked off his feet. Then both the Miners and the Cowboys opened fire. Laura fled with her children, as gunfire rang out and the town burned. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit patrickemclean.substack.com

Virgil had sat in the Nothing with the Shaman for an amount of time he could not identify. He asked, "I saw you dead. How is any of this possible?” “It would be more polite if you asked me a question I could answer,” said Shaman, running his colorless fingers through the colorless grass on which they sat. “I am what you see, but I am not what you see. Your mind makes sense of it with the symbols it has.” Virgil stared at him in mute confusion.The old Shaman that was No One tried again. “All things have a symbol or a name, all things but me. I am no one. I am no thing. I am only that I am.""Is this a riddle?""No,” said No One. “But because the truth is the wrong shape to fit into your head, you try to make it into a riddle. Some men try paradoxes. I like those best of all, they never go anywhere either.""My wife… I came seeking…"“Yes,” said No One, “I've tasted your desire on the smoke now for seven days – but here it feels like forever and still just an instant. See, paradox!"“Where have they gone?” demanded Virgil, his hand on his gun. "They have gone out of this world, to another. I think this not often done. Someone made a bridge. Someone made a tunnel. Someone made a tunnel through a bridge.""Who? And how do I find this bridge?""Tunnel.""Fine, tunnel…"“It’s a bridge, you look up. But if it’s not a bridge, it’s a tunnel!” The old man who was No One laughed. “At least I’m pretty sure it is. With an effort, Virgil removed his hand from his gun. He tried again, saying, “Who has done this?""One from here, one from there. From here the ones dug the tunnel to escape. From there, I think they built a bridge. No One shrugged. “Jave you seen anyone strange? Travelers, I mean?" Virgil shook his head, no."Then perhaps someone has set a trap on the other side.""How do I get there?""You would run into a trap?""I would ride into hell."The Indian shrugged, “It is somewhere, I guess. But it all becomes nothing in the end.” Virgil turned his head and spit. No One was shocked at this. He stared at the moisture hanging from the pigmentless grass and dripping on the colorless earth.Virgil asked more questions and the Indian gave more unsatisfactory answers. This went on for an hour or an eternity, and Virgil had no way of knowing which it was. Virgil left, feeling that the Indian in the colorless place hadn't told him anything worth knowing.Virgil did not remember leaving or even deciding to leave. It seemed that he had simply closed his eyes one moment, and opened them the next, to find himself riding on his horse, blinking against the profusion of colors he saw in the muted, eastern Arizona desert.As he rode back from the Nothing to Nowhere the old Shaman’s words rang in his head, nothing could pass from one place to another without leaving a connection. But where would this connection be? What form would it take? A bridge, a tunnel? How might Virgil use it to return to his family?He remembered the old Indian’s lopsided grin as he told him that the world was filled with women and that Virgil should go find another wife and have some more children. The Shaman said he was too old to try himself, but he had never stopped wanting to.Virgil had cursed him then, saying, “If you can't do anything to help me then what are you good for?"The old Indian had told him that People weren't supposed to be *for* anything. They’re just supposed to be. And added that people forgetting this fact was the source of most of the problems in the world.He remembered setting seven fires to get to the Nothing. It only took him one night to return. The next afternoon, he spotted smoke on the horizon.As he urged more speed out of his horse, he realized the shapes of the hills were familiar. He dropped the pack horse and spurs his tired mount into a weary gallop. But when he crested the hill and looked down at the spot where Grantham had been he saw that it still wasn't there. But he was faced with an even more puzzling sight. From the hill where the Morning Star mine had been, a column of black smoke rose into the sky. At first, Virgil thought that the hill was somehow on fire, but when he approached he realized, even though the smoke smelled of burning hair and flesh, that it was no flame or even heat. The smoke emerged cool and thick, from the dirt itself. He scratched some of the dirt away until he got to rock. And from a crack in the rock itself, the smoke poured forth. The next day, Virgil began to dig. The loose dirt on the face of the hill fell away with ease and he had his first cave-in before he had cleared away the bedrock, a simple, but demoralizing landslide. He dismantled the wagon and used its wood to shore up the entrance. That night he slept under the stars instead of under the wagon and as he fell asleep he whispered a message to his wife Laura. "I know not which one of these bright specs of light you might be by hiding behind, but if I have to search every one I am coming for you all the same. Tell the children I am coming.” Then weariness overtook him.The next day he took a bag filled with ore and dirt and rode off to Bisbee. There he filed a mining claim. When the registrar asked him if the claim was in Grantham, he said “No,” explaining no further. The ore was rich and the assayer said the claim was promising. Virgil grunted and went on his way. He bought a wagon and loaded it with mining equipment. Then he made the trek back to the town that wasn’t there anymore. When he arrived, he took a plank, painted the word “Nowhere” on it, then nailed it to a post. The next day his work began in earnest. He dug with pickax and shovel. And before him as he worked was the always tantalizing crack. It rose and fell, widened and narrowed, but never opened. He got no more whiffs of smoke but by the guttering light of his miner's candle, he could see a thin layer of soot lining the bottom of the fissure.At the end of each day, he would fill sacks with what he dug and carry them to the wagon. At the end of the first month, the wagon was full and he took it to the mills in Bisbee. It was assayed and sold and with the money, he bought more supplies and hired men. By the end of spring, a new settlement of tents had sprung up around the Nowhere sign.Now, instead of digging, he supervised. He ran two shifts of miners and eventually hired a foreman. Another outfit came into town and filed a claim off to the South. Men built houses and saloons and stores and warehouses, but Virgil, the richest man in town still slept in a tent. And he might've stayed in that tent until the sun and wind had shredded the canvas.But it was not to be. One night two desperados thought Rob him as he slept. The next morning, as Virgil stood over their bodies, his six-gun hanging hot and heavy on his hip, he decided it was time to build a house. But moving indoors changed nothing. He rose before dawn, worked all day, ate dinner, and then, as the last of the minors left, he would take a lamp and inspect the day’s progress.When the Foreman, a barrel-chested man from Aberdeen, had first arrived, he expected Virgil would meddle in the mine operations. But when he asked Virgil if he had any instructions, Virgil turned to him with hollow-eye intensity and said, "I don't know anything about mining, but follow that crack wherever it leads." The foreman had raised an eyebrow, but since that crackled through the richest seam of ore, there was no point in arguing.In five years, the Lost Girl mine was played out and Virgil had become a very wealthy man. So had the foreman, a few miners, store owners, saloon keepers, and w****s. But even as the mine waned in productive output, Virgil ordered the men to keep digging. The foreman, whose compensation was based on the output of the mind, moved to another Silver Mine farther north.Yet still, Virgil paid the man to dig. The mills in Bisbee stopped buying the wagonloads of dirt and ore, so they just piled it up on the surface. The Lost Girl mine became surrounded by an ever-growing field of tailings and rubble. Someone named it "Miller's Castle" in mockery of the waste and foolishness. But as Virgil was willing to expend his considerable fortune to keep the mind operating, the Castle continue to grow.The digging continued for years and men in the last open saloon placed wagers on how deep the useless mine would go before crazy old Virgil Miller's fortune ran out. But even the boldest wag held his tongue every evening when Virgil made his nightly walk to the mine.In another three years, the money was all gone, the saloon was closed and Nowhere had become a ghost town. But still, Virgil rose every morning and went to the mine. He worked with pick and shovel, digging deeper and deeper into the earth, still following hope of a crack in the rock that had yet to open yet still hadn’t closed. When he had first struck the earth, years before, he had swung his pick in anger. When he had men working for him, he swung his pick with confidence. When the silver had played out, he had tried to strike with confidence but had lashed out at the rock in fear and desperation. But now that he alone worked the empty seam, Virgil Miller struck the rock as if he was trying to ring the Earth like a bell. He swung with the patience of the wind wearing away rock. Digging not for a certainty, but for a chance. And for Virgil, a chance was enough. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit patrickemclean.substack.com

Dance crawled until he passed out. He couldn’t say how long he slept, but he was brought back to consciousness by the peaceful sound of his horse cropping grass close to his head. At this he spasmed in fear, rolled onto his back and crab-walked backwards, scrambling for his pistol. His horse looked at him evenly, knowing him for the fool that he was. When Dance realized his situation, he replaced his half–unholstered pistol and said a prayer of gratitude. Then he started looking for his hat.He saw it a few hundred yards out on the prairie next to a burned black circle. He raised his eyes to the horizon and saw the black tower stabbing into the sky. He shook his head and said, “I never did like that hat, anyway.” Then he caught his horse and rode back to town.With Archie in the lead McAllister and ten of the Teamsters crossed the street and made for the Morning Star mine. But before they could get to the mine yard, Jane Siskin stormed into their path. Gone was the dress of the night before and now she was in dusty leathers again. She planted her hands on her hips and said, “Now just where in the hell do you think you're going!?!”Archie said, “And just whom in the hell you imagine you are addressing?""Oh, I ain't talking to you, your highness. These boys in on my payroll and that means they should have the courtesy to inform me before they go off getting in some foolishness. I mean, Clod there don't know no better, but I expected more from you MacAllister.""Enough wi’ your haverin’ woman! My head’s not havin’ ’t this mornin. It’s bright and loud already and your man here is invited us to go for a walk in a nice, cool, quiet cave. So we've decided on a wee stroll." Jane turned her skeptical eye towards Archie.Archie told her of the disappearance of the silver deposits and their replacement with an ancient temple of unknown origin. Jane tried to look tough and unfeeling as he explained, but the memory of the darkness and the vision he had seen there were so fresh in Archie's mind she was captured by his retelling."Besides," concluded Archie, “since the road to Bisbee, and for all we know the entirely of the outside world, is gone, it appears you are out of the freight business and must seek a new line of employment. Might I suggest Archaeology?”"Oh my sweet prince," at Jane with a smile. “It's you who don't get how the world works. Roads and towns come and go, but there is always – always – something that needs hauling. But let's have a look at what's in your root cellar. Then she hooked her arm through his and Archie escorted her across the street as if she had been a guest at the season’s finest ball.As they assembled torches in the yard, Archie looked askance at the miners who stood around in small groups, muttering to themselves, “Bloody fools.”“Why are you so angry at them,” Jane asked, “they're just afraid.”“Superstition offends me. Right to my very core.""You mean to tell me you don't believe in ghosts and spirits?" Asked Jane."Certainly not. I am a natural philosopher. I believe in what I can see with my own eyes, what I can verify with my own senses."“What of God, ye English heathen? Have you seen him?” Asked McAllister good-naturedly as he tied a rag around a length of shattered board.“Carefully recording the wonder of his creation so that we can better understand it, is that not worship?” asked Archie. MacAllister smiled and answered, “Laddie, I’m just grateful when I walk in a church that the roof doesn’t fall in on top of me. They filled a wagon with torches and rolled it as far as the mine tracks would go, then they all lit two torches a piece and advanced into the chamber. The twelve of them spread out in an attempt to fill the chamber with light. But there was something about the darkness. It retreated, but begrudgingly, stubbornly, as if still fighting to clock the secrets of the ancient Temple.Jane asked, "then what was that nasty ol’ DuMont digging up this whole time?"Archie said, "the Miners assure me that there was silver here yesterday.”Jayne said, “Just like the river." McAllister said, “I’ll take a clean river over a foul pit any day."Archie walked along the edge of the room where a great arch opened onto nothing but dark, natural stone. "The curvature of this vault is quite sophisticated, and the interlocking arches would be quite unnecessary if this was merely an underground structure. Which is to say…" Archie trailed off in thought.McAllister chimed in, “Which is to say nothing makes sense to me."Archie outlined what parts of the arch she could reach with his torch and asked, “Doesn't this seem more like a window to you?"“Aye, but it’s daft to build a window underground.”“But it’s not quite underground, is it? Or at least it might not have been when it was built. If we dig away the rock here, this would be open to the sky. We have merely gone into the hill without descending appreciably.” Jane said, “Darling, I love the way your brain is always working, but I don't see why it matters. There ain't no silver here, ain't nothing of value. Just a room we're savages used to kill other savages.""Oh no," at Archie, “Here there is the most valuable commodity of all. Knowledge. And the entertainment of a true mystery. And if your only concern is avarice then what I am saying is that this structure must assuredly have lower levels.""And we’ve a s**t–ton of useless miners out there," said MacAllister."Exactly, now let me see if I can catch a glimpse of the ceiling." Archie strode over to the center of the room and, with a shudder, stepped up on the sacrificial altar. He lifted the torch as high as he could above his head. At first, he thought the darkness was stubbornly congealed above him, like some strange pool of evil night, but as he moved the torch and looked at the shape of the darkness from different angles, he began to see that there was a large mass hanging in the center of the room. “Scaffold, ladders, something to stand on!” cried Archie. Two wooden ladders were brought and lashed together at the top and tethered by rope at the sides. Teamsters held the feet of the ladder on either side of the altar. Torch in his right hand, Archie ascended the shaky, makeshift ladder, white-knuckling the rungs with his left. Perversely, the shape seemed to recede into the darkness above. And Archie felt queasy. He had the feeling that the scale and geometry of this space were wrong, somehow becoming larger the more he advanced into it. “What is it?” cried Jane from below.Weakness washed over Archie and he swayed on the ladder, nearly losing his grip. He pulled himself close to the rungs, and ground his teeth together, forcing his breath through his nose. Without looking up, he climbed the last three rungs and lifted the torch again. The shape was bigger now, and he could almost make it out — almost understand the meaning of its silhouette. If only he could get closer. He stepped even higher on the ladder and now his hips and center of gravity were above the top of the improvised a-frame. His bent knees shook with fear, but he forced himself to stand, holding the torch as high as he could above his head. It started to make sense. There were two long triangles on the bottom, black and covered with tendrils of mold — or was they fur? it was difficult to know because the blackness of this thing swallow the light. He swung a leg over the top of the ladder and put his foot on the topmost rung on the other side. “Be careful!” cried Jane.“I’ve almost made it out…” said Archie as he stood on the wobbling ladder, raising his torch as high as possible into the darkness. The flames from the torch licked one of the corners of the triangles, and there was a sizzling noise, then aroar as the thing caught fire. Flamed rippled up the side of it, and, with a creaking noise, the thing turned its face at Archie and screamed. By the light of his torch and the light of the creature’s own immolation, Archie made out that the thing hanging in the center of the vault was a gigantic bat. It let go of its perch and spread its burning wings, crashing into Archie, shattering the ladder, and sending all of it crashing to the stone below. The Preacher had done a brisk trade all day. Townspeople were flat rattled by the appearance of a river from nothing, then the attack, and the disappearance of the outside world. By now reports had come in of a line surrounding the town beyond which the terrain was different. What was the meaning of this? Was this God’s work or the Devil’s? The End of Days or an unfathomable beginning?In ones and twos they had trickled into his small church all day and by the late afternoon his conversation had turned into an impromptu sermon. The Preacher had never had an experience like this before and can only attribute the words that flowed forth from him as inspired by the Holy Spirit itself. Where there was fear, he sowed hope. Where there was doubt, he sowed faith. "Even the Devil is doing the work of the Lord," he began. "For what can exist without it serving God? That's a hard truth to accept sometimes — may be hard to accept all the time. But God gives us troubles so we can grow. It's might be the end of the world but it’s not the end of God’s plan for you. And you don’t want the end of days to catch you and you be unsaved. ‘Cause you want to be in that number, Lord, when the Saints come a marchin’ in!” “What do you think is going to happen to us?” asked a young woman whose brazen clothing contrasted with her timid manner. A young Magdalene thought the Preacher, cowed by the majesty of a simple chapel.“in this life? Trial, pain, suffering, and death. All that is guaranteed. What is not guaranteed is that you find love and fellowship in the model of Christ. But you can have it. You grow in the world and in Christ to have a full life. But what is an absolute certainty is that you will be tested and then you will die. And after that, well, what happens it's up to you. Eternal damnation or eternal salvation. And as Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.’“so the question to ask, my lost and bewildered sheep is not, are we going to die? The question is what happens after that. Are you saved? Have you been saved? Do you want to be saved?"And so it was the Preacher led a procession down to the river’s edge to baptize 13 new souls for the Lord. As he did, he felt proud to be a mighty warrior for Christ.He took off his jacket and waded right through the weeds into the depths of the river. There he raised his hands and cried, "Brothers and sisters, don’t be afraid of the water! Who among ye will go first?" But no one followed. So the Preacher said, "for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that you might have life eternal. Compared to that wondrous miracle, that most stupendous of gifts, I ask you, why would God not send a river into the desert so that your soul and your soul and your soul might be saved.”The young Magdalene stepped forward shyly then stopped.The Preacher beckoned her, “Come closer dear. There’s no reason to be afraid. The good Lord parted the Red Sea, saved Moses from the Pharaoh, and he said water into the desert that you might not die, but live eternal."Then Preacher looked down at his leg with some alarm, something had brushed by him under the water – a large something, but conscious of the eyes of his flock upon him, he tried to be brave. With a confidence he didn't feel, he called out to the young Magdalene again. "Come on down here, time to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. He’s ready for you darlin’ I promise,” said the Preacher, forcing a smile across his face. She made her way through the reeds and the cold, sucking mud, smiling at the crowd on the bank, then looking down and frowning at what the river was doing to her expensive dress. When she finally stood next to the Preacher he said, “Cross your arms across your chest darlin’.” Then put a hand on her forehead and another hand on the small of her back. “Are you ready to receive Jesus Christ as your personal savior? To receive the gift of Life Everlasting and the eternal love of God?”She nodded. “Are you ready to be born again in the Holy Spirit?”“I am — ahhhhhhhh!” She screamed as something in the water grabbed her leg and dragged her under. In the silence after that horrible scream, the Preacher stood in the water, not knowing what to say. He looked to the believers on shore and saw that they did not understand. And why should they? They had never seen a river baptism. Maybe this was what was supposed to happen. For a moment the preacher found himself, like any desperate performer trying to figure out how to salvage a bit from disaster. Then the creature in the river surfaced in its death roll, flinging the young woman's body into the air for long enough for her to scream in agony and for all to see her broken body washed with a thin mixture of blood and river water. As the screaming began, the Preacher splashed for the shore. Dance had given his horse his head and slumped weakly against the animal’s neck, drifting in and out of consciousness as the horse found his way home. All Dance wanted from the world was to eat some of Speedy Pete’s beans, crawl into the number two cell, lock the door, and sleep secure in the knowledge that the iron bars were enough to protect him from the giant bear of his nightmares. But as he rounded the corner on the main street he saw a group of cowboys on horses in front of the jail.At the head of them sat Nathan Burdock with his hands crossed over his saddlehorn. He yelled into the jail, ”You let my boy out, or this is gonna turn ugly.”Well, thought Dance, at least the jail ain’t on fire.From inside he heard Sleepy Pete's slow drawl, "the sheriff will be back anytime now, you'll see. Then you'll be in all kinds of trouble.""Paw, you get me out of here!" Came Charlie Burdock’s thin cry.“Now, Pete, the Sheriff’s just one man and I don't…" said Nathan Burdock, trailing off when he saw what was left of Dance.Without a word, and without his hat, the Sheriff rode right through the Cowboys, right past Burdock and hitched his horse to the post.“Jesus Christ,” said one of the cowboys.“Fresh from the tomb,” said another, because Dance looked like 20 miles of bad road. Dance paid them none of them any mind. He dunked his head in the horse trough, shook like a dog, then slurped greedily at the water. Nathan Burdock cleared his throat. Then he drew his pistol, cocked the hammer and said, “Sheriff?”Dance turned slowly, holding his hands away from his sides and said, “Why Nathan, I didn’t see you there.” Nathan Burdock smiled and said, “You got my boy in there and I'll be having him.""Don't worry Sheriff, I got a bead on him,” said Sleepy Pete from inside the jail. “Pete, that ain’t reassuring, I know what kinda shot you are,” Dance yelled back at the jail. Then he turned wearily back to Nathan Burdock and said, “Sorry for the interruption, I didn’t want to get accidentally shot.” He swept his gaze across Nathan’s sour-faced ranch hands in front of the jail. “Or on purpose shot, either.” “Just give me my boy and nobody gets shot.” Dance, swayed a little with fatigue and added, “I don’t know what you want that kid for. He’s a real a*****e, I can tell you that.” Nathan Burdock said, “My line’s not long on charm, but I’ll be havin’ him all the same.”“Well, the thing is, I’m supposed to hold him until the circuit court judge comes through from Tuscon. But seeing as Tuscon ain’t there anymore, I guess… s**t… you can have him.” “Whaaaaaaat?” drawled Speedy Pete from inside the jail. “Pete, go on and bring the prisoner out here!”“Sheriff, I don’t think…”“Deputy, it has been a long day and I’m in no mood for an argument.”Burdock lowered his pistol. He looked confused and slightly disappointed to have gotten his way so easily. He was all keyed up for a fight that hadn’t come. He said, “You know, and I know my boy ain’t gonna see no justice from a crooked judge from big-city Tuscon. “Jesus Nate. Take yes for an answer why’dontcha?”“That’s Mr. Burdock to you.” Dance nodded, waving a dismissive hand and said, “Pete, hurry up in there.” Then back to Burdock, “You see, his nickname is of an ironical nature.” Pete unbarred the door. It was a hollow, violent thump that caused the horses and men jump. Burdock’s men were especially skittish with their easy victory, wondering if all this weren’t some kind of strange trick. Pete emerged from the jail with a shotgun and Charlie Burdock in handcuffs. "You sure about this Sheriff? It don't seem right.""Pete, Miguel is dead. And we are in Arizona no more.""Oh no how do you die?""You wouldn't believe me if I told you. So if this old hatchet face b*****d wants to take his jackass kid and ride out of town to get killed – well, saves us tying a noose.”"What are you carrying on about?" asked one of Burdock’s men."Don't pay no mind to his foolishness boys,” said Burdock, not sure what the play was here."I want to hear what he has to say," said another adding, "maybe he can tell us why the little bunkhouse disappeared.""If I had answers, I wouldn't share them with a pack of thugs like you," said the sheriff and he took the shackles from Charlie Burdock's wrists. Charlie grinned at Dance and said, I told you that so I wouldn't hold me, Sheriff." Then he started down the steps.Sheriff Dance’s kick got Charlie square in the right ass cheek and sent him sprawling flat in the street. He turned in the dirt and got up with his fist clenched, mad as hell. But dance just stood on the top of the steps with his hands held out from his sides, smiling like he had won a prize at the fair."Easy boy," said Nathan Burdock."Yeah boy, easy,” said Dance."That's enough out of you!" Burdock snapped at Dance.“Somebody lend me a gun," Charlie said his face red with embarrassment."No,” said Nathan, trying to put a final word to it. One of the ranch hands brought a saddled horse to the front for Charlie. “Sheriff, you cain’t just let him go!” “Pete, there’s no point. There’s no Judge comin’ from Tuscon.” “But he killed a man in cold blood. You cain’t let him get away with that!” Why not, Dance wondered? Hadn’t the man who became John Dance gotten away with it? He's gotten away with killing men all the way here. To this town where everybody smiled when they saw him. Where he had respect and found a way to use violent talents for good. This town and these people, even the roughest of them, generally weren't bad men, and they were still ignorant of how the world had changed around them. Of what they were facing and how lost they really were. This town was gonna fall apart when the truth landed. Charlie snarled, “I didn’t kill nobody in cold blood, he drew first and I shot him.”“You’re that fast, hunh?” asked Dance.“Yes sir, I am! And iff’n you hadn’t blindsided me, I woulda got you too!” said Charlie, ignoring the waiting horse."Let's go home,” said Nathan Burdock.Dance said, “’ cause it's one thing to be steady shooting a man in the back, as you did. But it's another thing entirely to aim and fire when they're shooting back.""They don't get a chance to fire back on account I'm so fast.""Oh boy, you're real scary.""Enough," said Nathan Burdock"Mister, you're lucky I don't have a gun."“is that a fact?" Asked the sheriff. Then he reached out to Speedy Pete’s belt pulled out his pistol.“I forbid this,” said Nathan Burdock.“Forbid what? He’s a free man, just like you wanted. If you got some regrets about his unfortunate character, it's far too late to start raising him now. Here you go, little Burdock,” said Dance as tossed the pistol to the boy. As it flew through the air, there was a tremendous explosion and everyone flinched. Forgotten, the pistol landed in the dirt as everyone turned to see a tremendous cloud of smoke rising up from the Morning Star Mine. The congregation at the water’s edge had recoiled in horror at the gruesome spectacle of the young girl who had tried to give her life to God, but instead had wound up being food for some horrible and still unseen river monster. They pulled the preacher ashore and looked to him for answers, but he had gave none. He ran right through the crowd and kept running up the hill towards the church lost in terror and despair.What was this? The preacher wondered. Oh God, why hast thou forsaken me? That young girl, so beautiful, not innocent of course, but not deserving of this. He remembered the feel of her flesh beneath her dress as she was torn from his grasp. The whole of it was incomprehensible to him. He saw the humble church and ran towards it seeking to take refuge in prayer in the house of the Lord.There was a peal of thunder and black smoke filled the sky. Behind him he heard the screams and cries of the faithful. A cloud of roiling black smoke filled the air and threw it rose a conflagration with wings. As it rose it screamed hatred at all of God's creation. With two mighty wing beats it climbed towards the heavens like something from John of Patmos’ nightmares. On the third beat one of its wings shredded to ash and it spun downwards, out of control, headed right for them. The preacher stopped running thinking that his doom was upon him. He cast his arms out to his side and cried aloud “Take me Lord,” ready to meet his maker.The fiery beast crashed into the church in front of him, pulverizing the chapel with furious beats of its ruined wings. As the steeple fell it burst into flames. The agony of its death throes it screamed at the sky and thrashed what remained of the church to splinters. The scream was so loud it drove the preacher and his followers to their knees, where they clutched their heads against the noise and pain. The bat fell dead in the ruins of the destroyed church. In the silence that followed the smell of burning hair and flesh filled the Preacher’s nostrils.Then the fire leapt to the next building. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit patrickemclean.substack.com

As Sheriff John Dance rode down to the river, Miguel, the Stagecoach agent, came up beside him. Dance gave him a skeptical look, and didn’t have time to get to the question before Miguel said, “I have responsibilities…”Fair enough thought Dance. He cast an eye over Miguel’s horse and rig. It was packed light and well, and Miguel sat his horse easy. He looked like he knew what doing. Probably more than Dance did. Dance was no frontier hand or Indian fighter by nature. But the misadventures of his youth had taught him to travel fast and leave as little trace as possible. When they got to the river Dance reined, and without taking his eyes off the other side, Dance said, “We’ll head north along the river, see if we can find a place to ford, and any sign of that ship. First sign of trouble, I’m cuttin’ and runnin’. You understand? This is a scout.” Miguel nodded and said, “If I find a way across, I have to go to Bisbee.”Dance said, “Miguel, you see any telegraph poles on the other side of that river?” Miguel shook his head. “It makes no difference, I must go anyway. It is my duty.” “It ain’t a duty, Miguelito, it’s just a job.” “I may not have a Star like you,” said Miguel, “But I have my duties.” Dance shook his head and decided he wouldn’t share his opinions about Duty and Bisbee with Miguel. Duty was just some horseshit made up by powerful people to get the little people to sacrifice themselves when it was convenient. And Bisbee? There weren’t no f****n’ Bisbee there anymore. Give it a few more days, and everybody would see that. It was just that most people, normal people with their settled lives, were slow to adapt to change. They ignored it, argued against it, and tried to resist it. But it was all foolishness. Things changed, the man who changed the fastest was the one who made the best of them. That’s how Dance had wound up as Sheriff in the first place.Everything on this side of the river was normal for the first mile and even though the opposite bank was an unknown land, the river was peaceful and cool and Dance found himself thinking of the day he had come to Grantham, three years ago. He had ridden into town dragging a different name and a streak of bad luck that had felt a mile wide. If Dance was honest, right now, it felt like he was draggin’ something wider and worse. At the livery stable, Eli Johnson hadn’t known what to make of him when he handed off the reins to a battered old nag and said, “Take good care of her.” “Why?” asked Eli, not afraid of offending this stranger ‘cause any damn fool could see this horse wasn’t fit for anything but the glue factory. Dance had flipped him a newly minted silver dollar and said, “‘Cause I owe her.” That settled, he nodded his battered hat at the building made of thick, irregular stone across the street and asked, “Would I be right in thinking that’s the Sheriff’s office?” “Yessir, says so right on the sign,” answered Eli, thinking that this man had been out in the sun too long to have retained a grip on the obvious. The Sheriff’s office had a wide porch and awning of unpainted, rough-cut lumber. The windows, such as they were were in those rough stone walls, were long and horizontal, with the occasional cross openings. The place was a fortress, gunportd and all. Dance glided up the steps and pushed through the door without knocking. Inside were two desks - a rolltop stuffed with correspondence and a leather-topped one on the left of the door. There was a table, a few chairs, a half-full rack of long guns on the wall and a pot-bellied stove. What Dance didn’t see were any deputies, or anybody at all. At first. On the wall by the door was a collection of wanted posters, and as Dance was checking to see if his face was on any of them he heard the muffled cry of someone calling out through a gag. The back of the room was a wall of thick steel bars that was further divided into two cells. In the cell on the right, a man with his hands bound behind his back and a bandanna tied through his mouth looked frantically at him and cried out again. “Mmmmmmm!”Dance looked around to see if someone was playing some kind of trick on him, but the room was still empty. The man in the cell waved him over with his head. Dance eased across the room. The prisoner waggled his head around, trying to indicate the gag with his eyes. Then he thrust the side of his face up to the bars. Dance took another look around the room, then hooked a finger through the bandanna. Still not taking any chances, he kicked the man's shin hard with his boot. The prisoner grunted in pain and slumped against the cell bars, all balance taken from him. As Dance held the man up by the bandanna, he slid his knife under the fabric, along the man’s face, and cut it away with a jerk. The prisoner fell to one knee and spit out the gag. “Jesus Christ Mister, you didn’t have to do that!”“Didn’t seem right to shoot it off,” said Dance. “Are you with THEM?” Dance didn’t answer the question. He considered the angry man in the cell who still had his hands bound behind his back. He was lean and sleepy-eyed, with stoop shoulders and a handlebar mustache. He looked strong enough but something about his skin and the set of his chin spoke of a weak constitution. His eyes were wide with fear and anger when he spoke, but when he listened they drooped heavy and he might have been mistaken for being on the verge of sleep. Dance thought, he’s some kind of madman. Then he asked. “Where’s the Deputies?” “Don’t you know anything?”“I know I care much for your manners,” said Dance. “Deputy. There’s only one deputy left and I’m him. Pete. I’m the DEPUTY, now let me out of this cell. They’re robbin’ the bank.”“Well Pete, if you’re the Deputy Sheriff, then what on earth are you doing in there?” asked Dance, enjoying himself.“They got the drop on me,” he said, looking down and away. “And I’m ashamed to say they locked me in my own cell. That enough for you to let me out?”“How many were there?” asked Dance. “Must have been five. Maybe more!”“Five,” asked Dance, with a raised eyebrow.“Maybe more!” said Pete, “Now get me outta here. I’ve gotta go stop them from robbing the bank.”“You?!?” said Dance. “One man against at least five hardened criminals? Dangerous men? Outlaws?” Dance shook his head and sucked his teeth at the thought. “Not one man,” said Pete, “one Deputy,” his chest puffing out with pride. “Well, I’d like to see that Pete. I surely would. Just one thing. You gotta key to this cell?" Pete rolled his eyes and cursed. “I only had the one. T’other was on the Sheriff when he got killed…” he trailed off, wide-eyed as if he had said something he shouldn’t have. Dance didn’t bite. He said, “Tell me which bank?”“Bank of Grantham. Only bank in town. Other end of Main Street. By the wash. “I think I’ll go down there and have me a lil’ look. Count up these desperados for you. But I gotta warn you, I’m stopping at 10. That’s all the fingers I got to count on.” As Dance strode down the street he whistled tunelessly and checked the load in his pistols, pulling back the hammer and spinning the cylinders to reassure himself that all twelve cartridges were present and accounted for. A passerby looked at him with fear, and he holstered a pistol and tipped his hat, breaking neither stride nor musical performance.From the outside, the First Bank of Grantham seemed just as sleepy as the rest of town on that sunny afternoon. But before John Dance could mount the steps, he heard a series of gunshots and two men exploded out of the front door into the street, carrying what looked to be very heavy saddlebags over their shoulders. Dance stood very still as one of them whirled and pointed a pistol right at him. But when the desperado looked at the man in front of him, his eyebrows raised in surprise so much that his hat lifted more than an inch. “John-John, look who it is!”John-John, who was scanning the other end of the street for trouble, turned quickly and said, “Well, I’ll be damned!” he said as he broke into a smile and let his pistol drop. “Ain’t seen you since that dance back in Albequ-”But John-John never made it to the end of that sentence. John Dance’s hands blurred into motion and he shot them both down, two bullets apiece just to be sure.He holstered his guns and the good townspeople came out and declared him a hero. Jean DuMont, the man who had the most to lose from his bank being robbed, gave him a reward of $50, for doing the right thing. They rescued old Speedy Pete from his own jail and all repaired to the Morning Star Saloon, where hands were shook, backs were slapped and nobody thought to question where this man had come from. Everybody was just glad that “John” had stepped up and done the right thing. The man who brought him his third whiskey said, “Mister, just so happens we’re short a Sheriff.”“Just so happens, I’m looking for work.” “What’s your name? Your full name, I mean. So we can swear you in.” Of course, John couldn’t give his real name. He was trying to outrun that name; the name of a man with a price on his head who, among other things, had robbed a dance back in Albuquerque with a nefarious character known as John-John and the Allen-Elder gang. So he smiled his best smile and said, “Dance, John Dance.” Sometime that evening, somebody pinned a star on him, and from that moment on, he was the Sheriff.What better place to avoid the law than to be the law itself? At first, he thought he'd stay six months, maybe a year, but it had been three years since he’d stopped the bank robbery. He'd become accustomed to sleeping indoors and people smiling when they saw him on the street. Sure, Speedy Pete was enough to drive any man crazy, but though he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the sack he was loyal and honest and that made up for a lot. But as much as he liked the town and the people he hated the feeling of being trapped. It was one thing to choose to stay when he knew he could just melt away at any time. But to stay when you weren’t allowed to leave, that was prison. And Dance figured the whole point was to stay the hell out of prison.Dance was jerked away from his memories by the sight of an abrupt line up ahead. On one side of this line the ground was the harsh, rocky desert of Eastern Arizona. On the other side was lush thick grass. He and Miguel stopped just short of this strange line and looked at it for a long while. To his right, Dance could see where the line had split a rock in half. He said, "Miguel…" and pointed.“Estoy perdido,” answered Miguel, not even aware he was speaking Spanish.Dance’s horse lowered his head and took a bite of the grass. The horse didn't keel over dead or burst into flames. He just nibbled the grass is if he did it every day. It was thicker and crawlier than any grass Dance ever seen. But if it tasted all right to the horse, Dance supposed it might be OK.Dance caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. He looked up and about 200 yards away he saw a giant, bear-like creature, rise up out of the grassland and grab a hold of a tree branch with a paw impossibly long fingernails twisted and turned in wild, unpredictable ways. Like a gypsy woman's fingernails he once seen in Galveston. The creature lifted its long, teardrop-shaped head and began stripping the wide leaves from the tree and eating them. Dance looked to Miguel. Miguel stared at the strange creature with his jaw hanging open. In a voice that he hoped wouldn't carry, Dance asked, “You ever seen one of them before?""Nunca. ¿Quieres ir a ver?"“No I do not,” said Dance, easing his rifle out of the saddle scabbard. The sight of the weapon gleaming in the sunshine snapped Miguel back to himself. He said, “You are going to shoot it? It eats plants.”“I’m just being cautious. I been known to eat vegetables from time to time, but we all know what I prefer.”Miguel nodded. Then, before Dance could say no, he spurred his horse towards the strange creature. Dance cursed under his breath and touched his horse with his heels and followed. “I think he likes that tree,” said Miguel of the gigantic creature, which was happily munching away. With chomp and a sweep of its neck, it denuded half the tree, taking no notice of them. As it ate, it made low, whuffing grunts. “Can we go now?”“Is there no wonder in your soul Sheriff Dance?""Oh there's plenty of wonder Miguel," he said, surveying his surroundings. "Right now I'm wondering what the hell we're doing provoking this animal?”"Don't be like that. I think he's friendly.""If you put that to the test, I'll shoot both of you and ride off I swear.""I think you did not grow up on a farm or a ranch, Sheriff Dance. Maybe you did not grow up in nature."Suddenly, the creature jerked its head up. It looked at the two men on horses and made a sharp bark of alarm, showing more and sharper teeth than John Dance felt a herbivore ought to be allowed. Dance brought the rifle to his shoulder, but the creature did not charge. It looked around frantically, sniffing the air so rapidly its long snout seem to vibrate. Dance, in fact, had not grown up outdoors or on a ranch, but he didn’t need to be a native guide to see that this thing was goddamned terrified. "Come on, let's ease back,” said Dance.Miguel nodded without taking his eyes off the creature. From fifty yards to the right, something came rushing through the tall grass. The air was shattered by a tremendous roar. The sound was so loud Dance felt like a great hand had reached into his chest and squeezed the air out of his lungs. The horses reared and screamed. As Dance fought to stay in the saddle he heard the creature that was eating the tree make a frightened, bleat-like sound. In fear, it leapt onto the tree and climbed. Leaves and small branches and hunks of bark showered down as it scrabbled up the tree with its strange claws. Behind the tree, Dance saw a bear rise from the grass. It rose until it was the size of a large grizzly, and it still kept coming. It stood on its hind legs, dangled its claws at the end of its too-long arms, threw its strange bulldog-like face back and and roared at its prey.Miguel wheeled his horse around and cursed in Spanish. Dance could feel that his own horse was on the verge of bolting. In the interest of staying in the saddle, he fought to stay calm, but wheeled to the right and let the animal have his head. When they had gained some distance, Dance reined up on a small rise. As they watched Miguel said, “You see, now the bear, he will climb the tree and eat our tree-eating friend.”Dance spit. “Ain’t no friends of mine.” The bear roared again, and reached up and placed its paw on the tree trunk. Above him, nearly at the top of the tree, the sad-faced herbivore clutched the trunk and bleated in distress. But the bear did not climb. He put his forepaws on the trunk and by heaving his bulk forward and back, began to rock the trunk. High above, the top of the tree swung back and forth wildly. The herbivore tried to hold tight to the trunk, but with each swing, it seemed that a new appendage came free just as it had replaced the last one. The tree trunk snapped off about 2 feet above the ground. The trunk fell over, slowly at first, but by the time the top of the trunk hit the ground, the herbivore was slammed into the earth at a hideous speed. Even at this distance Dance felt the impact in the seat of his saddle.The poor creature tried to raise up and flee but fell to the ground after a single wobbly step. In a flurry of claws and teeth, the bear was on it, its short, punched–in snout, rooting deep into the creature's soft white underbelly. The bear pulled its bloody snout and face out from the still-living animal which was screaming in pain. The bear raised its head to the sky and roared again."Magnificent animal," said Miguel.Then, and Dance would swear to this until the end of his days, the bear looked right at them and roared."Is that thing gonna follow us?" asked Dance."No, don't be silly. He has just killed and will eat his fill and take a nap, for a few days most likely.""He's looking right at us." Miguel considered this for a moment, then said, "No, Senor, his eyesight cannot be that good."They headed north away and when they had put a hill between them and the carnage, they eased up on the horses. They decided to head farther north before circling back to town. "One more rise between us and…" said Dance.Miguel nodded in a way that said he knew nothing about the great outdoors, and they rode on.As the crest of the next rise, the grassland ended in front of them in a steep drop. The slope was steeper than anybody not being chased by bloodthirsty savages would want to ride down, thought Dance. But then he was torn from his geological and equestrian considerations by Miguel's soft gasp, "Madre de Dios."Dance raised his eyes to the horizon. The plain before him was marked by irregular black circles in the green as if the land itself had been afflicted with some kind of pox. He could see the river cutting back in from the left, and following its course, he's could see a harbor of sorts that had been cut into the riverbank. And above it, on a small hill was a tall tower of dark stone that taper to a point high above the plain. It made Dance feel uneasy to look directly at it. Resting in the river, in the shadow of the tower, was the warship that had attacked the Town of Grantham. Dance grunted. At least something had gone right about this scout. But the thought was interrupted by a strange, snuffling grunt. Dance looked over his shoulder and there, perhaps 30 yards away was the bear that was supposed to be sleeping off his meal. Before he could say anything to Miguel, the beast roared and charged them.When dance saw the bloody maw of the bear rushing towards them, he realized they were not going to escape. He yanked his horse around and together they plunged over the edge.The descent was so steep Dance had to lean back in his saddle -- stirrups jutting out alongside the animal's neck -- to keep from going over the horse's head. Dance thought the only way to descend faster would be to fall, but then Miguel came galloping past him on the left side.As they hit the plain below, he heard the roaring of the Bear on the hill behind them, and his horse needed no encouragement to gallop. Dance chanced a look over his shoulder and saw the bear coming down the crumbling dirt hill behind him. The bear tried to slow, but he could not keep his weight off his front paws. He slowly came over, crashed into the slope and started to roll.That ought to slow him down, thought Dance but when the bear reached the bottom, it rolled to its feet and kept running. Some days you et the bear and other days, well the bear et you. Dance was afraid he knew which one of those days this was going to be. He heard the bear getting closer behind him and could smell the hot copper of the blood on his breath. He tensed his back anticipating the swipe of a claw, but it did not come. Instead, his horse stumbled and he fell hard onto the prairie. The bear continued on in pursuit of Miguel and his horse. Dance struggled to his hands and knees and realized he was in a blackened area of the plain, a shallow crater, the lip of which had caused his horse to tumble. The burned area in the prairie was about 10 feet across and on the other side of it, he could see his horse getting back to its feet.He looked beyond his horse, hoping to see that Miguel had gotten away. But he was not surprised to see the monstrous bear pursued him still. There was a strange crackling noise in the air, from far away yet from all around. In the distance, he noticed the tower was shimmering. Waves of crackling electricity swept up the sides of the spire and gathered at the top in furious bands. In the distance Miguel still rode for all he was worth, trying to outrun the monstrous bear, but still, the bear gained. Miguel cut the horse hard around a crater, and the bear couldn't make the turn. It had to veer off and go the long way around the depression. Dance clenched his fist in excitement. It was a longshot, but with a few moves like that, Miguel might just survive. The bear was fast, but it didn't have endurance and it certainly couldn't turn like Miguel's fine quarter horse. Maybe, just maybe Miguel would get away.There was a blinding flash, a bolt of lightning seared an arc from the tower to the plain in front of him. It came to rest directly on Miguel and his horse. After the sizzle and flash came a clap of thunder so deafening Dance thought his teeth had been turned to powder. Then the ground where Miguel and his horse had been erupted in chunks of burning earth. Hunks of dirt and grass rain downed all around him, but Dance heard nothing but the ringing in his ears.His vision came back slowly and he did not like what he saw. There was nothing left of Miguel. The bear was off to one side, dazed, sitting over on his haunches, shaking his head like an old man who had gotten a hold of some bad moonshine. Dance turned and walked away.He had gone a few steps when he heard the bear running towards him. This time he did not turn. He thought to himself, Welp this is how I die. He resigned himself to it, lowering his head as he walked, but then he thought of Laura and the promise he had made to her. He thought of Mac and the angry spirit in that boy, the courage to defend his mother against a full-grown man. He wasn't sure that all the fighting he had done in his life had gotten him anywhere he had wanted to go, but inside him, the fear turned to anger once again.He spun on his boot heel and pulled his pistol with a fluid, long-practiced motion. The bear was now moving slower than before, but somehow it was more horrifying. The hair had been burned off half its face and snout and now it howled in rage and pain as it advanced."Yep," said Dance as he raised his pistol, "f**k you too." Dance took his time with the shots cocking the trigger with his thumb and carefully sighting before each pull. All six shots went home. The last one hit the bear in the head and glanced off the beast’s skull, leaving a red, angry canal along its brainpan. And still, the beast came. That was the moment he knew he was done for. He dropped his pistol and put a hand to his knife. Then he heard it again – that strange, sizzling, crackling sound – now coming from all around him close by. The beast was there charging not more than 10 feet away. At the last moment John Dance threw himself to the ground. The bear stopped short and reared up on its hind legs, roaring in triumph. It raised its paws, each as big as an anvil, and Dance had time to see the strings of carrion dangling from its claws. The world went white again. Dance’s body convulsed with electricity as hunks of bear meat rained down upon him. When it was over he lay very still and moaned quietly for a long time. The bear had been disintegrated by the lightning. From where Jon Dance lay he could see the burn marks in the grass where the bear’s feet had touched the earth. Without lifting his head, he scanned the horizon as best he could. There was nothing but open prairie, and when the wind blew the stench of cooked bear away he could smell the river. The tower on the horizon remained dark and motionless.He crawled like a snake, very slowly back towards the bluff. For an hour or so, he inched way along the ground in mortal tear of that sizzling sound he was certain would be his end. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit patrickemclean.substack.com

Dr. Krupp was terrified. In all his years of selling snake oil throughout the frontier — a figure he often exaggerated, but in truth amounted to no more than three years — he had seen many remarkable things but never had he seen Dr. Bartoleermere the Second’s Magic Elixir actually work. But it had happened. He had seen the little girl’s wound heal! And Dr. Krupp had no idea what to do next. As townspeople rushed about, frantic with news of the attack, Dr. Krupp walked in a circle in the center of town talking to himself. First, he wanted a drink but then he turned sharply and walked towards the livery stable and his wagon full of elixir. Then he looked around him in terror, certain he was being followed. Grantham, like all frontier towns, was filled with desperate characters; gamblers, miners, drovers, and cowboys down on their luck. What he had was absolutely priceless. Worth more than silver or gold.The patter sprang into his mind unbidden, "the Elixir of life itself… Freedom from man’s age-old enemies, pain, and death. The lauded and once mythical Panacea now made available through the miracles of the modern age.” What a pitch! And all the better for actually being true. He smiled to himself, then he frowned and changed directions once again.His wagon had elaborately painted canvas tarps on either side that proclaimed the value and wonder of Dr. Bartoleermere the Second’s Magic Elixir. The idea was to make it so a passerby couldn't help but notice such a magnificent example of the sign-maker’s art. And that cinched the argument. In a fright, he hastened to the freight yard knowing he must remove the signs and disguise his wagon.Along the way, he passed the Preacher crying out to the people of Grantham as he stood upon an overturned bucket. He was telling the people that these strange happenings were the work of the Lord. These signs and portents were meant to call the faithful to arms. Dr. Krupp avoided the Preacher’s gaze as he pushed his way through the crowd, afraid that the man might call him out… afraid of what that man might say. He crossed the main street, ducked through a narrow alley, and emerged on the edge of the freight yard. Wagons of all shapes and sizes crowded the dusty lot, but from the street, he could not see his wagon and sighed in relief. For the first time in his life, he was grateful that his advertising was obscured from the public. He checked to see that he was not being followed and then hurried in among the wagons with surprising speed for a man of his girth. Behind two battered Conestoga wagons, he found his rig with its colorful signs. He had paid five dollars a side to get them done in San Francisco and they were worth every penny. In fact, he had paid more for the signs than he had to get the patent medicine brewed, bottled, and labeled. In truth, the contents of the bottles had never been important. Grain alcohol, some hop, and something bitter would do it. Bitter because everyone knew that good-tasting things never made good medicine. And that was the secret, no one ever bought or sold a chemical formula. They paid for the prospect of relief from their ailments. And luckily for Dr. Krupp, the western territories were an endless wellspring of ailments. Wrenched backs, aching teeth, consumption, dysentery, hangover, boils, the pox, snakebite, yellow fever, tuberculosis, argue, gout, la grippa –- if you name a man's pain in detail he will believe that you have the cure for him. The secret wasn't in the bottle and never had been. It was in the *salesmanship.*At least it had been. But now… He shuttered to think what a working formula meant. If the one thing he was certain was fake turned out to be real… then was anything real? Was everything fake? Had he been the one being conned all along. He was lost in his own understanding. He climbed up on the side of the wagon and started untying the painted tarpaulin. As he worked he heard a strained cough behind him. He turned in terror, nearly falling off the wagon, but caught himself and dropped awkwardly to the ground. Off-guard and looking more like a thief than a proprietor he stared wide-eyed at the figure before him.Jean DuMont tapped his heavy cane on the ground, coughed into his handkerchief said, “I believe you have the medicine that I require.”Dr. Krupp opened and closed his mouth several times, looking more like a fish straining water through his gills, than the sharp-eyed huckster that he had been. Finally, his instincts kicked in and he said, “Well sir, you have come to the right place. The miraculous properties of the long-lost Panacea can be yours, for a price, of course.”“I assure you, money is no object,” said DuMont, playing along, “I am as rich as Croesus.” He was overcome by a coughing fit, then continued, “And eager to pay. But there is but one consideration. What guarantee of efficacy do I have?”“You have not heard of the remarkable transformation that Dr. Bartloleermere’s Elixir effected in the young girl who was mortally wounded at the river?”“Yes,” said DuMont, “But I did not see it.”“I assure you, as a gentleman, that this marvelous elixir,” he said, patting the side of his wagon, “will cure what ails you, or,” and he cringed to hear himself saying the words, “Or your money back. Would that be acceptable?”“Usually, your terms would be quite favorable, but these are… unusual times… so I will need a demonstration,” said DuMont. And then shot Dr. Krupp in the stomach with his derringer.It happened so fast that, Krupp didn’t understand that he had been shot. The barrels of the gun went off with a sound that seemed a little louder than the popping of the cork from a champagne bottle. There was no pain, but he felt a wetness on his abdomen, and when he touched his hand to his belly, it came away covered with blood. Dr. Krupp grew light-headed and slumped to the ground, still confused.Jean DuMont looked down at the smoking gun in his hand. Its pearl handles and etched barrel glittered. He said, “One of a matched set. Pretty isn’t it?” he put the still smoking gun into his coat pocket. When Dr. Krupp didn’t rise, DuMont shook his head and said, “Ahch, must I do everything myself?” He stumped over to the wagon with his cane, opened the side panel, and removed one of the bottles of medicine. He opened it, sniffed it, then handed it down to Dr. Krupp. Dr. Krupp looked up at DuMont and said, “You shot me!”“Yes, we are past that,” said DuMont, “You need to keep pace with the moment.” Krupp looked at the bottle, then back at DuMont. Then back to the bottle. He sucked it down in two gulps. Before Archie could make it back to the mine, one of the miners spotted him and came running. The man, Jablonski was his name was wide-eyed with madness, “Dere you are! You gotta help us! He’s gonna kill us sure!”“What? Whatever are you talking about? Calm down man, what is it.” “He gonna beat me to death with that heavy black cane of his. And it’s not my fault. Nonna dis is my fault. You gotta help me. You gotta get it back somehow or I gotta get outta town.”Archie grabbed Jablonski by his shoulders and shook him vigorously. Then he slapped him across the face. “Get a hold of yourself, man.” Instead of growing angry, or coming to his senses, Jablonski’s face dropped and his eyes went blank with a passive hopelessness that Archie found more terrifying than his previous ravings. A tear welled in Jablonski’s eye and he looked fearfully around him, whispering something that Archie could not make out. “What is that?” Archie asked gently. “The mine is gone.”“What?”“Gone… it’s not there anymore. It’s… it’s…” A tear streaked down the red handprint that Archie had left on his face and he felt guilty for slapping the man. When they got to the mine, a crowd of flinty-faced men, pale from long hours in the depths, stood in clumps stealing glances at the mine entrance and muttering evil things in German and Polish. From the outside, the mine was clearly there. Archie turned to a few of the miners and asked, “What has happened here? Is someone hurt?” The men shook their heads sullenly and turned away. Jablonski said, “It’s just gone…”“What do you mean GONE!” said Archie. “You mean there’s been a cave-in? Is someone hurt?”“No, Mister, sir. It’s something else. Something else in there I mean. In its place. None of us want to go in there. It’s… an unholy place.”“What do you mean an unholy place? Have you lost your mind? For God’s sake man, start talking sense,” Archie asked, but he could see by the fear on the men’s faces that Jablonski believed what he was saying, and the men did too. “Not for God’s sake, Mr. Sir,” said Jablonski. “You go see.”“Superstitious b******s,” said Pulaski, the Foreman, as he burst out of his office, “You’d scarcely even call them civilized Christians if they weren’t crossing themselves all the time. Good workers, for the most part — more trustworthy than the Chinee we run on the second shift. But the damned Popery is what does it. All the costumes and incense and Latin mumbo jumbo.” “Ah Pulaski,” said Archie, happy to see a relatively sane man, “What is going on here?”“I can’t get ‘em to come to work, and when I do round enough of ‘em up to put together a shift, they go in and come right back out again.” “It does appear to be there to you, doesn’t it? The mine, I mean,” asked Archie.Pulaski looked at Archie like he was the crazy one. “The damn entrance is right there. Come on!” said the Foreman, “Let’s go see what Jablonski is so afraid of.” And he handed Archie a fine brass miner’s lamp. As they walked to the mine, the pale-faced men parted silently and let them pass.Archie followed Pulaski into the mine, stepping carefully along the minecart rails. For the first twenty feet it seemed like every other mine Archie had ever been in, but soon the walls changed composition. The bare rock gave way to huge blocks of greenish-grey stone set without benefit of mortar. The minecart rails stopped suddenly and he was walking on a floor paved with the same stone. “What the hell?” asked Pulaski.Archie, a fine Anglican, fought off an urge to cross himself. The passage they were in opened up into a gigantic, vaulted hall, that the lamplight could not reach the top of. “Jesus Christ,” said Pulaski.Archie said, “By the look of it, I would say this was a temple to a far older God.”They played their lamps along the walls, but the feeble light didn’t allow them to make out the carvings or decorations there. What Archie could make out disturbed him. Glimpses of hideous flying creatures snatching up tiny human figures.Pulaski muttered, “We need light.” He strode back to the hallway and yelled, “Jablonski! Bring all the lamps!”“No Mister, Sir!” came Jablonski’s voice echoing back through the tunnel.“I need light, you superstitious Polack!”“It’s not natural boss, you come out of dere.” Archie stepped further into the room and played his flickering lamp along the walls. In the gloom, he saw strange, bas-relief carvings. Human figures warring with bestial, ape-like creatures in one frieze. In the next, another band of humanoids were beset by creatures that seemed little more than masses of tentacles. The argument in the tunnel reached a fever pitch. “Jablonski, I swear. If I have to come out there and get those damn lamps…” “Lamps, amps, mps, ps…” the word echoed in the depths of the mine. Mine? Chamber? Temple? City? Whatever this was, it was built on a gigantic scale and with painstaking craftsmanship. What was it for? How did it come to be here? Feeling immeasurably ancient and yet… somehow. Archie’s curiosity drew him deeper into the darkness of the massive room.“Goddamn it Jablonski! If you don’t fill that minecart with lamps and wheel it in here right now…” cried the Pulaski. “Ow ow ow ow…” echoed strangely through the chamber. And underneath it, Archie thought he heard something else, An answering sound from deep in the darkness. He could not be sure because it was obscured by Pulaski muttering, “And if there’s not some goddamn silver somewhere in here, Jablonski is going break the news to DuMont.”Archie looked back towards the entrance. Pulaski was silhouetted against the last feeble remnants of daylight that struggled in from the mine opening. Behind him, he heard a hollow clomp from deep below, but when turned back around, the sound did not repeat. At the edge of the feeble light cast by his mining lantern, Archie made out a large, static shape looming in the darkness. Even as fear pulled him backward, his curiosity drove him forward. Shaking a little, he advanced into the darkness. There he found what he thought to be a large sarcophagus, or perhaps altar, in the center of the room. He moved closer and saw that there were chips and deep gouges in the surface of the ancient, evil-looking stone. Large rings were fitted in the sides which were covered with incomprehensible lettering and horrifying pictographs. A few threads of rotting hemp rope dangled from one of the rings. He walked around to the long end of the stone altar and it all became horrifyingly clear to him. He saw where the grooves in the top led to a single downspout. He saw where the container would have been placed to collect the blood of a sacrificial victim. What unholy god or demon was this place consecrated to?Even as his emotions recoiled from what he saw, his scientific training kept him asking questions and gathering data. In a bizarre act of crumbling sanity, he started counting the marks in the surface of the altar. There were hundreds. But surely every sacrifice hadn’t left a mark. Many, many people had died on this altar.He stood, swaying with the horror of it all, yet still curious. He tried to read the characters carved into the side of the altar. The runes and glyphs were unknown to him but seemed tantalizingly on the edge of his understanding. And the more of the carvings he saw the closer comprehension seemed to be. It was like a word stuck on the tip of his tongue that he wished to spit forth into the world with a scream. Archie broke out in a sweat, spiking a fever from nowhere. Then he heard a chant as if the entire room was filled with unseen worshipers. He looked around and no one was there. Yet he heard them, crowding in close around him, the chant little more than a whisper, yet massive from the number of people crowded around him, fervently praying. Praying to what? Praying for what? The sound surrounded him. Smothered him. He felt unable to move. “Hey, Mister. What you got there?” he heard the Pulaski ask him from a long, long way off. Then Archie went blind. He could feel the warmth of his lamp still burning in his hand, but all he could see was darkness. And, in the darkness, he had a vision of a monstrous creature, a power of the Earth before the time of Man. It was mostly bat, but among its leathery features, Archie could make out a glimpse of sentience in its strangely human eyes. Was it a chimera? Or a horrid beast that evolution had forgot? He felt the pull of this creature, its immense mind, its burning eyes, an ancient, undying thing that whispered the promise of secret knowledge, life eternal, and power in exchange for blood. “Mister are you okay?” asked Pulaski, shaking his shoulder. Archie struggled to answer the question. When he opened his mouth to speak he heard the sound of claws on stone and the rush of stale air across leathery wings. “I… I… I’m fine” lied Archie, “I think I just need some fresh air.“Archie was proud that he had not run screaming to the sunlight at the end of the tunnel. When reached the outside the world seemed bright and normal yet somehow smaller than the vast, hungry darkness inside the temple. He staggered through the dusty yard and the miners looked at him with fear and concern. He could still hear the sound of wings. He looked around him frantically and realized that this too was hallucination or vision — as the vision of the sacrifice had been. But knowing something intellectually and getting rid of fear are two very different things. He plunged his head deep into a water trough. It was still frigid from the high desert evening and he felt the bones in his skull pop with the cold. But the ache he felt was real and it blocked out the visions of death and leathery wings. He held his head under the water until his lungs screamed for air. He flung his head up, shaking and flinging water all around him as he struggled to regain his breath. Pulaski, Jablonski, and the rest of the miners watched him with fear.“Mr. Croyton, are you all right?” asked Pulaski.Archie ignored the question. He stared at the black hole of the mine entrance like a duelist and said, “Torches! We need torches. And men to carry them.”He saw many of the miners recoil in horror. And who could blame them? Horror was what lay beneath that hill. Ancient, unknown evil. But it was not the remnants of a bestial faith that Archie found terrifying, but The same irrational, superstitious, darkness that had held humanity back since the dawn of time. And now that he was faced with it in its purest, most powerful form, he decided that he would not be afraid. There was a truth to it and it could be brought to daylight. And he would do it. Archimedes decided that whatever the cost, he would rather know, than fear blindly. When Pulaski hesitated, Archie took charge. He pointed at the men and then to the shoring timber. “You men, split that wood into f*****s, three feet long should be enough, and find rags, fabric, anything we can soak with oil. Mr. Pulaski, no one goes into that mine until I get back.” Pulaksi looked at the terrified miners and said, “I don’t think that’s going to be an issue.” As Archie turned and walked away, Pulaski asked, “Where are you going?”“To assemble a company.”Archie walked across the street and into the staging yard where the teamsters were camped. A few of the teamsters had pitched tents, but MacAllister, true to his word, was passed out under his own wagon, still drunk from the night before. “Gentlemen,” Archie barked, the horror in him driven off by the joy of the words growing inside him, “And such unfortunate ladies as there may be. Stand and be counted. Adventure awaits.” He was greeted by a litany groans and of curses. From beneath the wagon MacAllister, said, “The horses are done in. The women have been rode hard and put up wet. The squadroon is in no condition to haul. Begging your poxy, arse-riddled pardon, sir.”“The only cargo I require to be moved is your insolent carcass across the street. I’ve need of men to explore a ruined temple.”“Ruined temple,” asked MacAllister, opening one bloodshot eye into the light of a new day. Is there treasure then?”Dr. Krupp was certain that he was going to die. Slowly, painfully, most likely when his gunshot wounds became infected, but certainly, it would be death. He drank Dr. Bartoleermere the Second’s Magic Elixir as a desperate man clutches at fragments of his wrecked ship. Even after he had seen the miraculous recovery of Penelope Miller on the riverbank, even though his life depended on it, the snake oil salesman could not bring himself to believe that his elixir actually worked. He swallowed the foul-tasting liquid and sighed hopelessly. Standing above him, Jean DuMont watched all this with detached fascination. “Why did you shoot me?” asked Dr. Krupp. “I need to know how much of a fraud you were.”“You coulda just asked,” said Dr. Krupp, almost breaking into sob at the end. “I prefer to take my chances with other people’s lives.” “Jesus, this hurts!” “Ah,” said DuMont, hitting Krupp in the leg with his cane, “So it does not work and you are a fraud after all.”Krupp nodded once, tears streaming down his face, but then his eyes grew wide. He felt a warming sensation in his stomach, and a light, euphoric feeling all over. He giggled, then tore his shirt open. He wiped the pooled blood away and found that the wound had healed. He laughed again and stood up, smiling at Jean DuMont.“I’m okay. I’m okay! I’m going to live.”“Quite remarkable,” said Jean DuMont. “What is the formula?”“I don’t even know. I just bought it from a brewery in San Francisco,” said Dr. Krupp, just giddy from being alive. “Ah,” said Jean Dumont, “Pity.”“But I still have plenty of bottles to sell you! Though I’m going to charge you more since you shot me.”DuMont produced his other derringer from his right coat pocket and shot Dr, Krupp again. This time in the head. Krupp died instantly and fell to the ground. Not giving Krupp another thought, DuMont removed another bottle of elixir from the wagon and drank it. He was immediately overcome with a coughing fit. He hacked and hacked and hacked, bringing forth hunks of diseased, black lung tissue and spitting them onto the ground like strange, foul-smelling mushrooms He fell to his knees, wracked with pain, and vomited blood into the dirt. Then he tried to rise, staggered a few steps, and fell down. He rolled onto his back and drew his coat sleeve across the bloody mess of his mouth. Then he took a deep breath, exhaled it, and smiled. His lungs were clear and free of consumption. He rose, laughing like a madman. Get full access to Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

Virgil sat for two days while the strange grass around him died in the heat. At night he slept on the ground and in the daytime he sat once again. At some point, he remembered not when, he unhitched the horses from the wagon and hobbled them. When he drank the last of the water from his canteen they had crowded close, pitiful with dehydration. It was only his sympathy for the horses that got him up and moving again.Where the well had once been in the town of Grantham, he found the barest seep of water. It was muddy and brackish, but when he dug it out it refilled gradually.When the horses had drunk, he strained muddy water through his neckerchief into a canteen.On the next day, he heard the lowing of cattle and soon cowboys drove a herd into view. These were some of the hands from the Bar D, and their north herd. They looked at Virgil's face and saw their madness mirrored in his eyes. They asked him where the town had gone and Virgil told him that he did not know, but that it had taken his family with it. They told him how they had awoken to find the other bunkhouse, the corrals, barns, and ranch house missing. And all the other hands and the Burdocks."I had wife and children," said Virgil. No one spoke after that. They sat a long time as the afternoon turned to night, bereft of an explanation. Finally, the setting sun moved some of the cowboys to go out in search of firewood. As one of them saddled up he asked, "if this isn't Grantham, then what is this place?"Virgil said, "Nowhere.""Hunh,” said the cowboy, “a town called Nowhere,” and rode on. The Cowboys stayed that night, slaughtering one of the beeves for dinner. Virgil got some flour from his wagon and they had steak and biscuits. Even though his heart was broken and he was adrift in a cruel world that he could not force to make sense, the easy way of the Cowboys lifted his spirits. They were free and unencumbered by family or attachment. They joked and sang and carried on as young men always had. And their pranks and cocky banter brought a smile to Virgil's face.In the morning, they rode back north to graze the herd. They said they'd get through the calving and the fattening, then drive the herd to the railhead in Tucson, sell the stock and head their separate ways. What would Virgil do, they wondered? He had no answer for them. He did not know himself. As they rode off, the youngest said, "Put up a saloon in this town of Nowhere and we’ll visit more often.”Virgil thought long and hard about what he could do. Could he give his old life up for lost -- be as accepting and carefree as those Cowboys? Maybe he could head down to Mexico. Hell, he might drift back to Bisbee, and kill Fetterman just for the enjoyment of it. In this incomprehensible situation, he could see how Fetterman was the reasonable person to blame. If that shifty b*****d had honored his contract, Virgil would've been in town when whatever had happened had happened. He would still be with Laura and Mac and Pen. It hurt to think of them. It hurt to close his eyes at night and see their sweet faces. Hear their squeals of delight, and Laura's whisper in his ear. Remember the light in Mac's eye when he looked up at him with pride, even though Virgil knew the boy would feel differently if he knew the truth of his father's past. He vowed he would be with them again, no matter what it took.What if they were dead? He shook his head to rid himself such an evil thought. They lived yet, he could feel it. With furious anger, he willed it to be so. For if they were dead, where were the bodies? But then, where hadthey gone? And how have they managed to take the buildings with them? The questions circled endlessly in spirals. Where were the people? Where were the buildings? But where were the people? But where were the buildings?The next day he was sick of drinking muddy water, and even sicker of questions that had no answers. He spent all day gathering wood. That night he made a bonfire. The smoke from the fire rose straight into the air, up to the cold and indifferent stars that twinkled down on one man's problems from so impossibly far away. He remembered an old Indian and the smoke of another fire in the Oklahoma Territory years ago. After Chickamauga, he had fallen in with guerrilla fighters. Murderous men who fought from ambush and showed no mercy. Virgil had wanted to have done with the war, but it wasn't safe to ride the lawless territories alone. But since a man named Grundy had deserted their rough company he had spend more and more time thinking about it. The rumor had gone around the camp that Grundy had been a Union spy. Virgil had thought nothing of it, there were a million rumors in war and this was just one more. Bill Crawford, the leader of the 5th Arkansas Irregulars had taken a different view.They had ridden a day out of their way, deep into the mountains, to an abandoned Indian encampment. Abandoned except for one old man, living in a badly patched army tent.The old Indian stood in the door of his tent and said nothing as they rode up.From his horse Crawford said, "I know you're not a good Christian man, but it doesn't seem too much to ask for a word of greeting.""I thought maybe you had come to shoot me, so I wasn't wasting my breath," said the Indian.Crawford acted like he was genuinely hurt by this, even though they were, for all intents and purposes, a band of outlaws. He asked, "Now why would you think such a thing?"The old Indian shrugged and said, "that's what happened to everyone else," indicating the crumbling wigwams and the abandoned fire rings of the settlement."I thought maybe they left on account of your poor manners,” Crawford said.The Indian shook his head sadly and said, "They are still here. You see the wildflowers?" And only then did they notice the patches of brilliant color scattered throughout the settlement. Bright mounds where the prairie had grown up into and around the bodies of the fallen."Jesus Christ, why do you stay here?"With a strange light in his eye, the old Indian said, “It’s quiet here and I hope the spirits will come visit.” Uncomfortable with this whole line of questioning Crawford got to it. "They told me you track men.""I send after them, I don't go get them." And then Crawford nodded and they talked price. When the Indian had settled his fee he nodded again, as if resigning himself to an unpleasant task, and gathered sticks. None of the Arkansas Irregulars helped him. They all watched, most smoking pipes, laying on the ground, but none speaking.The old Indian made a fire and the smoke from it rose in a thin line. He muttered to himself in Cherokee, then turned to the white man and said, "not enough smoke." He walked into the abandoned village and soon came back with more wood and a handful of moldy rags that had once been a tunic. He built up the fire and threw the damp fabric on top. Soon smoke roiled from the blaze. Then the old Indian asked for an article of clothing from the man Crawford wish to hunt. Crawford handed him a battered hat that Grundy had left behind when he fled. The Indian cut a strip of the felt and added it to the foul-smelling blaze. Then he began to chant. The smoke formed into a dense column that rose straight into the sky. So high that it hurt Virgil's neck to seek the top of it. Then, as if a wind had sprung up, the smoke curved off to the southeast, but Virgil felt no breeze.Crawford looked at Virgil and said, “You stay here and watch him. See he doesn't put out the fire and run off.”Virgil nodded. It was OK with him, he'd always liked Grundy. Well, at least as much as he had liked any of these boys. The Irregulars rode on and Virgil sat down. When old Indian stopped chanting Virgil pulled his gun and asked, “Don't you have to keep that up?"The Indian said, “No, that's not how it's done. The chanting is mostly for show, so the secret can't be stolen by a rival tribe or evil shaman. That kind of thing. But there are hardly any more tribes and no more shaman. You can shoot me if you want to, I have lived long enough. Just don't let the fire go out."Virgil felt foolish and put his gun away. "I wasn't gonna kill you. I… I just been riding with bad men so long I guess I became one.""You don't like them much,” said the Indian."No, I guess I don't.""But they are your tribe," said the old Indian."I'm a white man, we don't have tribes.""Everybody has tribes,” said the old Indian. Then he asked, “Do you want something to eat?"After a long pause, Virgil nodded and the Indian went into his tent. Virgil followed. The Old Indian laughed at Virgil and said, "I'm too old to run away."Virgil said, "You got tricks and secrets, just like everybody else." The Indian nodded at this and smiled. Then he got some jerky and some acorn flour and went back to the fire. He mixed the acorn flour with water and made flatbread using an iron skillet. He gave the first piece to Virgil. It was bitter, but good. Virgil went to his horse and got some apples and a piece of rock candy that he broke in half to shared with the Indian. They had a meal.When he had gnawed his fill of deer jerky, Virgil stared up at the smoke that still trailed off to the Southeast. As he watched, he saw it head around to the South a little. He said, "It's moving. Do you need to do something?"The old Indian sucked on the rock candy and said, "The man it is seeking is moving.""That's a neat trick," said Virgil."Do you want to know how to do it?""Why would you tell me that?"The Indian looked around and sighed. “because there's nobody else left to pass it on to. And where the other ones tried to scare and bully me, you shared your food with me.""You shared your food with me," said Virgil."Those bad men are not your tribe. You should leave them before they bring you to a bad end.""It's hard to go out on your own. These are bad times and rough hombres."The old Indian sucked his piece of rock candy and sighed contentedly. He said, "I have never had rock candy before. It's good. Doesn't taste like rock at all." Then he smiled. And Virgil smiled too."You have a destiny, I think. You will need this knowledge." As Virgil watched, the old Indian gathered up broken twigs and arranged them in a place he cleared on the ground. At first, Virgil thought this was stupid folklore, but the more the man worked the more that the pattern seemed to be saying something to him. Something that couldn't be put into any tongue. Something about the seasons and the night, about the mother of all things and what a man should do with his time on the earth. About the ties that bind things together and how a man could be followed, even when he hadn’t left tracks. The old Indian hummed to himself as he worked and the tune of the song was a part of it too. Virgil didn't understand it, it just became like something he had always known. He heard the rock candy clacking against the old man's remaining teeth and that was part of it too. Then his eyes were drawn to the empty patch in the middle of the pattern of sticks.The Indian spat the rock candy into that empty spot on the ground. Where it landed, Virgil saw a flash of light. The sticks moved and weaved themselves together. The light shrank, gathering in on itself. Then it rushed outward engulfing Virgil in its brilliance and for a while there was no Virgil, there was only light.When Virgil came back to himself, the old man was lying on the ground and the fire was going out. Now giving only smoke. Virgil rose on shaky legs and gathered more wood. In a daze, he scavenged small branches and twigs. Then he dragged two poles from a collapsed teepee and placed the ends in the fire.Only when the blaze was rekindled again, did he think of the old Indian. The old man was face down in the design of sticks, the piece of rock candy in the dirt next to his head. Then Virgil knew he was dead, and wondered why he had not seen it right away. Virgil knew other things too, but did not know how he knew them. Nor could he say how he felt the magic of the smoke pushing through the sky behind him. He felt it wane and then the smoke released and drifted aimlessly in the sky. He knew that they had found Grundy and he knew also what they had done with him.He sat alone with the dead Indian and waited. He waited until he could no longer understand the meaning of the wind, until the pattern of sticks 0n the ground lost its movement and became just more twigs for the fire. When Crawford and his men returned they asked him if he killed the Indian. Virgil said no. And he said nothing of what he had seen in the pattern, or what he had heard on the wind, or what he had learned in the light. He mounted his horse and rode on, the way a normal man would.He had forgotten about the old Indian's gift until his memory had been jogged by one of the Cowboys asking, “Why do you stay here?”And the Indian’s words had answered through him, “It’s quiet here and I hope the spirits will come visit.” As he sat in front of his bonfire he fixed his mind on his wife Laura. It would have been easier to work with a piece of her clothing, or a lock of her hair, but just like the chanting, it wasn't the important part. The important part was the desire. He found it hard to picture her face, but he had an image of her hair blowing in the wind as he as she had driven the wagon and he had ridden behind her. In this moment, she was scanning the horizon ahead, her body eagerly leaning against the wind, straining with excitement and impatience to be at their destination. This memory was from the trip they had made to Grantham to open the store. And that day had been pure and brilliant in a way that only days in the high desert could be. He had loved her then, and had even managed to love himself a little, thinking that the evils of their past were behind them. Later, he would realize, she had been pregnant with Mac on that trip.He yearned for her, letting loose the strings of the bag deep inside that held his emotions. The terrible longing washed out of him and into the fire. It rose into the smoke, and the smoke, like water finding the easiest path to the sea, found the quickest path to his desire.He saddled the horses, loading one with provisions, then followed the smoke and its high, unwavering arc to the northeast. For seven days and seven nights he rode until he could not see the smoke anymore. Then he would stop, build another fire, and ride on again. He climbed mountains and crossed rivers, until at last, he found himself on a featureless plane. He traveled so far onto the plane that he could no longer see the mountains behind him. And but for the rising and setting of the sun, he could not tell the directions of the compass. The stars above were unknown to him, and every place he looked on this grass-swept plain looked the same as every other place looked. Finally, he came to the center of nothing. Here, the smoke arced downward and pooled to form a cloud bank, a sooty fog in the featureless nowhere.Without hesitation, he rode into the smoke. From the outside it roiled like a fog bank, but inside the smoke became thinner and somehow luminescent. The featureless plane became a featureless space. He was weary, weary beyond belief and he dropped the reins, giving his horse his head. The hoofbeats against the prairie grass were dull and heavy, coming from a long way away, as if he journeyed through wool instead of smoke.He looked behind him and he could not see the pack horse, just the arc of the lead rope disappearing into nothing. Then he was afraid. He feared that he would dissolve into the featureless nothing. Trapped inside smooth walls that yielded infinitely, but would never let him pass. Searching for a door in a place where he was not shut in, but from which he could never leave.Ahead of him he heard a cough.The horse’s head jerked up, and Virgil clawed for the reins. As he drew the horse to a stop he heard the cough again and a voice asked "how many fires did you burn?""Seven," said Virgil, for it did not seem the time or place to hold back the truth. There was a loud clap and the smoke was pushed back in a rush of air.There was the old shaman sitting cross-legged on the pigmentless grass with his palms held together out in front of him. He looked at Virgil with a smile on his face and said, "seven days, that is how many days it should take. Well, you've come all this way, you might as well rest a while,” he said with a shrug, "after all, time doesn't pass here."Virgil dismounted and moved to hobble his horse with a strip of rawhide. The old Indian said, “Don't bother, there's there's only nowhere they can go." Get full access to Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

As the Sheriff and Pete walked back through town, they could all but smell the fear. Gone was the carelessness of rough men when they weren’t working. Wide eyes peeped out from behind dirty curtains. The piano player in the Occidental Saloon was going at it hammer and tongs, sounding more strained than celebratory. The noisiest place in town was Saloon #3 and that wasn’t a good sign. If Dance didn’t know better he’d say this town felt like it had a showdown comin’. Maybe? Who the hell knew?That was the problem. The damnable uncertainty of it all. Pete peeled off at the jail and Dance tipped his hat to the deputy and kept walking. But before he got to the livery, he stopped in front of the Miller General Store. He knew he shouldn’t, but couldn’t think of a way around it. And he stood there trying to think of a reason not to go in for a good long while. Ah hell, he thought, might not be back this way again. From the doorway, he saw Laura Miller standing in the back, looking out the window. The sound of Penelope signing drifted down the staircase. She sounded as if nothing bad would or could ever happen to her.Mack came down the stairs before John got three steps inside and said, “Morning Sheriff, what can I help you with?”Dance looked back to Laura at the window. She had not turned around to acknowledge his presence in the store. He thought he saw her shoulders shaking. Was she crying?Mack said, "I can get you whatever you need."This annoyed Dance. He didn't like being pushed or goaded or directed. He gave the boy a flat look and said, "I need some cartridge, .44.”The boy took two cardboard boxes from a shelf well-stocked with ammunition and placed them on the counter. The green labels read “Winchester Repeating Arms Co. New Haven, Conn., U.S.A.”Dance was looking at Laura again, and this time Mack said, “Anything else I can get you?"They were polite enough words but the boy didn't say them that way. A thought leapt unbidden into Dance’s mind. For all the rough things I done in my time, I never robbed a store."Laura," said Dance, a little louder than he meant to."Sheriff?" asked Mack, giving whatever he was trying one last attempt."Put it on the tab," said Dance, and then he strode to the back of the store. Laura turned to look at him and her eyes were filled with tears. In her hands she was twisting and twisting her pretty bonnet, looking like she might worry it clean in half.They stood looking at each other, Dance now ashamed of the feelings that he had brought to this place. Above them Penelope's voice rang out clear and perfect as she sang, “May the red rose live always, To smile upon the earth and sky”At a loss, Dance said, “She sounds fine.""Yes," said Laura, “She is… It's a miracle." She waved a hand, unable to explain what none of them understood."Sheriff, I got your bullets here.""Go upstairs and look after your sister," said Laura.“She's fine,” protested Mack.“She was fine this morning when I placed her in your charge," Laura said. The boy turned and walked away in shame.Laura added, “No more backtalk, you hear, young man!”"Yes ma'am,” he said and then climbed the stairs.“John," she whispered, "John, what am I to do?"John Dance stepped closer, thinking to comfort Laura. As he opened his arms to take her in a hug, she slapped him across the face. "Not that." Laura said quietly, "I'll not do that. Not again."Dance tried to shrug it off and forced a smile, “I didn't mean nothing by it. You just seemed low, is all.""John Dance," she said with the first smile he’d seen from her in as long as he could remember; a sad smile, but a smile all the same. “You always mean something." She looked down at the wrinkled and absurd bonnet in your hands and made a disapproving noise. "Now what is it you want here that you can have and are willing to pay for?""Laura, I'm riding out for a scout.”"But what about the town?""The town is having a meeting to figure out what to do. Which is plain foolishness, you ask me. We ain’t got no idea what's going on, so how can we make a plan? But one thing is sure. Whatever happened, that road to Bisbee is gone. And I can’t see an easy way across that river."“What about the savages who attacked?""I got no answer about that either, but they weren't savages. Savages don't build warships.”"Then who, what were they?”“I got absolutely no idea. But I'm going to find out. But if I don't come back I just wanted to say…""You can't say that," Laura said, “Not to me. You don't have that right. Now take your bullets and go.""Now hold fire, you contrary woman. There's more to it than that," said Sheriff Dance, realizing, not for the first time how hard it was to do the right thing. "Dammit, I'm sorry. The roads gone, maybe Bisbee's gone.""Virgil is gone, is that what you're saying?""That ain’t the point." He stomped across the store and picked the bullets up off the counter. “Where did these come from?"“Connecticut. Says so right on the box.”“And how they get here? On a wagon from Bisbee.”Laura nodded.“Hell, you're the Shopkeeper. Tell me what that means?""Virgil went to Bisbee for flour.”"And if he can't get back?” asked Dance.“Then we don't have any more flour. Maybe Greeley has some, or the Morningstar or the Occidental. There’ll be some food with miners and camps but the point is…""The Town of Grantham is about to run out of flour. And everything else but dust, silver, and foolishness.” John stepped in close and put his hand on Laura's arm. Her eyes grew wide with the forwardness of it but she did not strike him.“Whatever you’re worried about with me, with him, with anybody… None of it matters. Anything you want to keep, you hide it. Because they're gonna come and try to take it from you.""But you're the Sheriff!" she protested, "it's your job to stop them.""No one man can stop a panic. I'm riding out. I'm gonna see if I can find a way out. And if I can you're packing up and coming with me.""But Virgil…”"You're an angel surrounded by wolves. He’d want you to be safe and you know that."Her face grew stern, "Mr. Dance, this is my store – our store that we have invested with all our efforts, hopes, and dreams. And I will not… I will not abandon it in a moment of panic!” She took his hand from her arm and continued, "Especially not without a fight.""A fight," scoffed Dance. "What do you know of fighting?”“More’n you might think,” said Mack, from the third step of the stairway, as he pointed a small pistol at the Sheriff. His hands shook — but not much — and his eyes were hard with anger. "Now step away from my mother," he said. His words all the more threatening for being delivered in high tones of a prepubescent boy."Mark, put that gun away before somebody gets hurt!" said Laura.Dance said, “Keep the gun. you got the right idea. Only don't point it this way. Maybe you get me and maybe you don't, but…”“You're not that fast," blurted Mac."But you don't have to miss me by hardly anything to hit your mother. So how good a shot are you?"Mac pointed the gun at the floor. "Go upstairs, Mac!" Yelled Laura."Wait," said Dance stepping towards the boy, his hands held up and away from his sides. “She's not hearing me, but maybe you will. You take all that ammo and them guns in the case and you get them outta site. Put them away somewhere safe with anything else you want to keep. Don't argue, don't offer, you just say it’s all sold out." Then Dance turned and tipped his hat to Laura, took the bullets, and walked out the front door.Laura thought, for a man that was in love with her, he really didn't know much about her at all. Upstairs Penelope’s pure voice sang on. “Why should the beautiful ever weep? Why should the beautiful ever die?” Get full access to Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

For a long time, nobody said anything. They just stood on the bank of the strange new river with the wounded as if the whispering of the water would explain what had happened. All in all, Dance thought, it could have been a whole lot worse and it probably would be before the end. Pete asked, “You want to get up a posse and go after them, Sheriff?”Dance shook his head. “Let’s figure out what we’d be raiding into before we go a-raidin’. Besides, if that boat went upriver, it will come back down. Next time we’ll be ready for target practice. As Dance thumbed rounds into his Winchester the Englishman walked up and stood next to him. Dance looked him over and said, “You got sand, Mister. But if you’re gonna pass the time out West, you best get heeled.”“Archimedes Croryton, but my friend call me Archie,” he said, holding out his hand. “Good for them,” said the Sheriff, “John Dance. What was that you were barking at them?” “Aramaic, Syriac, Latin, some Attic Greek. Anything I could think of really.” “You know what the hell they was?”“Not a clue,” answered Archie. He nodded at the body of an archer floating in the river he said, “But I know how to find out.” And started stripping off his clothes. When he reached his underwear, Archie waded into the river and swam out to the dead archer. His silken garment had billowed out around him, trapping air and giving the corpse buoyancy. Archie grabbed a handful of fabric and dragged the body back ashore. When Archie got to the mud, Dance helped him land his strange fish. As Archie caught his breath, Dance asked, “Anything familiar about this to you?”“I was hoping you would know, you’re the native.” Archie rolled the body over on its back and brushed the mud off the face. The man had a dark, olive complexion with a large, hooked nose and strange characters tattooed on his cheeks. Out of respect, Archie closed his eyes. The man’s silk garments were held at the waist with a thick belt of bronze plates. Archie asked for the Sheriff’s knife and used it to cut the shirt open. It was surprisingly tough. The man’s chest was tattooed in the same diamond pattern as his face. Archie made a close examination of the man’s hands.Dance asked, “Mr. Croryton, how’s a man like you, an educated man, wind up here?”“Sheriff, if you can tell me where here is, I’ll answer your question.”“Hell, you’re in Grantham, Arizona Territory.”Archie said, “Last night, I was reasonably certain that I arrived in Grantham. But now, I am not so sure.”“Fair enough,” said the Sheriff, “What do you make of our guest?”“My guess is this man has done little else in his life but fire a bow.”“Professional military?”“No, I am saying, this man was not merely in the army. His entire body and one might well say his being, has conformed to being an archer.” He gently turned the dead man over in the mud and pointed to the imbalance in the musculature of shoulders and arms. The right arm with a noticeably bigger biceps muscle, the left with a well-defined triceps from extending the bow. And the muscles between the shoulder blades stood out in almost chiseled detail. “He is a professional warrior. Like a Spartan or a Myrmidon.”Dance said, “I ain’t never heard of them, but were they too dumb to duck too?”“Yes, they did not react like men who had ever seen a firearm before. The question is where did they come from?”Dance spit and said, “No idea. Not yet,” as he looked grimly up the river. “Well, then you’ve got bigger questions. Who is this military power on your doorstep?”“Hardly call them military if they don’t have guns.”Archie said, “Did you not see how cool they were under attack? How they continued to nock and fire even as their commander was struck down and their comrades were dying around them?”Dance rubbed his chin. “Yeah, fair point. I was at Shiloh and others besides, and I never saw any company, North or South, that stood that straight under fire.”“Yes, your Civil War was fought by volunteer soldiers. These were warriors,” said Archie as he buttoned his shirt. Dance said, “Maybe he was a rower?” looking for a way out of the mess he was in. “A rower’s back is different,” said Archie. “How do you know that?” Archie removed his shirt once again and turned around. “I rowed crew for Oxford.” He made a rowing motion and Dance could see the imbalance in his musculature and the curve of his spine.“Mostly with the right,” said Dance.Archie flipped his shirt back up and nodded. “This man’s arms are different lengths. His left is shorter than his right. He could have been at Agincourt. But that was 1415. What’s he doing in 1888?”“In America,” added Dance. “I do just wonder about that…” said Archie.Dance bristled. “What do you mean? We took this land from the Mexicans. Maybe not so fair and square, but we signed a treaty on it.” “No, no, it’s not that. Plant whatever flag you like. I care not. What I’m saying is, if a river appeared last night to the West of Town, then what awaits us to the East? Or the North or the South?”They looked at each other for a while in the hopes that somebody would have the answer. Finally, Speedy Pete said, “Mister, you think somebody done stole Mexico?”“You mean since the Spanish?” asked Archie. “Mr. Croryton!” cried a rasping voice, “Whatever are you doing with that corpse? And where did he come from?” Archie looked up and saw Jean DuMont, strutting towards them with the aid of his nurse. Archie straightened up and tugged the bottom of his waistcoat and buttoned his suit jacket in an effort to appear presentable. “I was conducting an examination, of sorts, M. DuMont.”DuMont looked at the river and the fertile plain beyond. “Damned odd, wouldn’t you say, Mr. Croryton. A river from nowhere?”“Yes, sir.”“A lake collapsed in the mountains, you think?” asked DuMont.“Sir, I do not. This mud is of a different composition than your native soil.”“Come now, sir. Mud is mud. We will make advantage of this river and hope it lasts. Construct a silver mill, a ferry for travelers from Bisbee, charing a modest fee of course, but as for the rest… ” He nudged the dead man with his boot and said, “Just another tribe of savages.”“Sir, I must —““I appreciate your excitement, Mr. Croryton, but I am not paying you to examine the savages. Whatever tourism you engage in will be on your own time. I have a mine that is filling with water, and I am paying for you and your marvelous pumping engine to pump them out.”Archie said, “But with this unexpected development. This new… frontier… of possibility…”“The Frontier is not your business. And I assured you all those who come from Bisbee,” he nodded his head and indicated where the road to Bisbee had once been, “will be coming for my silver, not, your corpse. That is, provided the Sheriff here lets them live long enough.”“A man shoots at me, I shoot him back,” said Dance, not looking at DuMont. “I don’t pay you to philosophize, Sheriff.” “That’s O.K. Johnny,” said Dance, “You don’t pay me. The town does.”“I am this town,” said DuMont, as he checked the time on a gold pocket watch. He snapped the watch shut sharply and said, “Mr. Croryton, mining has commenced for the day, and I expect you to do the same. There is much work to be done.”DuMont walked back toward town without waiting for an answer. Giving one last look to the far side of the river, Archie said, “As you say, sir,” and followed his employer. Pete looked at Sheriff Dance. Dance said, “Pete, get on back to the jail and lock yourself in there with young Burdock.”“What are you going to do?” asked Pete.“I’m going see if that John Bull was right.”“About what?” asked Pete.He nodded at the river, “It’s one thing to be faced with the unknown. Another thing to be surrounded by it.” Get full access to Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

Squatting on the bank of the river, Archie offered one word of description for the wooden ship that was bearing down upon the Town of Grantham, “Trireme.” Sheriff Dance paid no attention to Archie. His eyes were locked on an imposing figure at the rail, who was looking down on the town and the people frolicking in the water. Even at a distance Dance could see that this man was not smiling.In the shallows, Mack stared at the ship in wonder. On the bank, his sister turned a cartwheel in the mud. The figure on the deck of the ship raised his hand and uttered a guttural command. The oars closest to the shore stopped moving and the boat turned in the wide river and headed for the shore. The townspeople scrambled and stumbled back up the muddy bank, retreating before the ship. The hollow drumbeat stopped and the prow of the ship came to rest on the mud with the craft stopped 30 yards offshore. The imposing figure at the rail made a speech that Dance could not understand. But as the man gnashed out the words, he could see the white teeth flashing amid the man’s thick, black beard. This man, surely the Captain of this vessel, finished his speech by raising his open hand and making a downward motion in conjunction with his last word. Which sounded like “Klahpheem!”When no one on the bank moved, the Captain raised his hand and repeated this command, This time Penelope shouted back, “Klahpheem!” Embarrassed, Mack said, “Hush up.”Archie said, “We don’t understand you!”The Captain turn his head sharply with a bird-like motion and fixed Archie with his gaze. He smiled and then barked another command, “Ekidst!” Archers filled the rails around him. Archie began shouting. First in one language and then another. But he got no response from the ship. The townspeople stared on in confusion and disbelief.*Don't you do it*, thought Dance as he cocked his rifle and brought it to his shoulder.In desperation, Archie asked, “You don’t think they’re going to?” "Yeahp," said Dance.“Well, don’t provoke them!”“I think we’re past that.”“What should I do?" asked Archie. "You could try running,” said Dance.On deck the Captain let his arm fall. Dance fired before the first arrow was released. As the Winchester roared, the Captain fell back onto the deck almost in time with the dropping of his own arm. Further down the bank, Speedy Pete drew slow and opened fire with his pistol. At that range, even a good shot would have a hard time hitting anything with a pistol. And Pete wasn’t a good shot. Archie looked up at the cloud of arrows, considered the futility of running, then muttered, “Never a phalanx when you need one.” The townspeople screamed and ran, some slipping in the mud of the river bank. But there was no outrunning the arrows. Penelope, oblivious as she always was, prepared to turn another cartwheel on the bank. Mack tried to run to protect his sister, but the mud sucked at his feet, and he stumbled, crawling on his hands and knees through the water. As the arrows flew, Dance’s rifle boomed out again and again. And Archers fell at the rail like targets in a shooting gallery. He caught one of them low in the belly, and the archer slumped forward and fell into the slow-moving river. Instead of running, Archie straightened his waistcoat and stood tall, ready to receive fire as bravely as any soldier in any line. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement. There was the little blond girl, tresses flying wildly, throwing herself into a cartwheel. Everything slowed. The arrows flew. The girl turned. A noble fear grew in Archie and he started to run towards the girl. She spun upright, landing on her feet again, holding her arms up in triumph. An arrow on a high trajectory punched through the left side of her chest, knocking her from her feet.Archie slogged through the impossible mud and came to the girl’s aid. The arrow had gone right through and pinned her to the ground. Her mouth opened and closed as if she was trying to scream, but the pain made it impossible. She gasped infinitesimally small breaths as tears rolled down her cheeks.She grabbed the shaft of the arrow that protruded from her chest and stared down at it. Archie whispered that it would be all right and that she should be brave, that she should not look at it.She called out for her mother in a voice that was barely a whisper. Mack was at her side. He said, “Is she okay?”Archie looked up at the boy’s face and had to look away before he could say, “No. Get a doctor.”Mack hovered above his sister, unable to move. Archie said, very gently, “Do you love your sister?”Mack nodded as tears streamed down his face. “Then run.” Dance kept firing until his rifle was empty. The rail of the ship was clear, and the rowers had started backing water. Dance realized that many of the townspeople were now firing from the bank. He even saw a gambler, giving the attackers both barrels of his tiny derringer. It wasn’t worth a damn, but he grinned at the man’s spirit. As the ship made speed upriver, he saw the bearded face of the Captain appear at the rail, holding a cloth to the right side of his head. Dance brandished his rifle above his head, sideways, showing it to the man and thought, I’ll see you again, you son-of-a-b***h. And next time I won’t miss. He turned back to the townspeople to see how badly they had fared and then saw that Penelope had been shot. *God, not the child. *As Archie held Penelope in his arms, Her head lolled backwards and she drifted into unconsciousness. Archie said, "No, no, dear girl, you mustn't go to sleep. You mustn't." She tried to speak but was unable to move enough air through her lungs to manage it. Then she was asleep. As Archie tried to revive her he saw that her lips were blue. This was a terrible sign and he was terrified by what it might mean. "Where is the damn doctor!" He yelled."He only went to bed a couple hours ago,” said one of the townspeople, waving his empty pistol back towards the town, a staggeringly fine example of a three–day drunk.Archie turned Penelope over and found the tip of the arrowhead poking through the back of her blood-soaked dress. The tip was steel and had cruel, flaring barbs. It was impossible to think of yanking such an arrow back out the way it had gone in. Archie wracked his brain. Surely there was something he could do to prevent this little girl from dying in his arms. Before he was conscious of thinking it, he heard his voice saying, “Knife! does anyone have a knife?" He was surprised to hear that he sounded like he knew what he was doing. A rough-looking man slid a Bowie knife from his belt sheath and handed it to Archie without a word. He heard a woman saying, “Don't you cut her!" Archie ignored her and took a notch out of the arrow shaft just beneath the fletching. He worked as gently as he could, trying not to move the shaft in the wound. When he had cut a significant notch in the shaft he lay the knife on the ground and snapped the fletching off the arrow. Then he turned the girl sideways on his hip and pulled the arrow completely through her. Penelope's eyes fluttered and she came back to consciousness. Archie said, “There now. Isn't that better?”She coughed blood on his suit and started screaming. As she convulsed each new movement brought new pain and the more Archie tried to calm her, the more she was overcome by terror.In desperation, Archie looked around for a doctor or the girl’s mother. Even that vile-tempered nurse of Jean Dumont’s would have been a welcome sight. But all he saw was the snake oil salesman from the saloon. He stood holding a bottle of his ridiculous "medicine" in his hand, opening and closing his mouth, trying to work up the courage to give his sales pitch. What a loathsome fiend thought Archie. And just look at him, he knew it. He dare not give his "remedy" for the certainty that it would be proved fake on the spot.As Dr. Krupp moved to put the bottle back in his jacket pocket one of the gullible miners in the crowd cried out, “He's got de miracle cure!" Dr. Krupp looked around frantically. But he was caught in his own con and there would be no rescue."Yeah," said another voice, "that little girl needs your miracle cure!""Don't let her suffer," cried another.Dr. Krupp looked hopelessly at Archie. And raised his eyebrows in a universal, what-the-hell, expression.Above Penelope’s screams, Archie asked, "does it have opium in it?"Out of habit, Dr. Krupp launched into his standard patter, “The exact nature of this formula is a closely guarded –"“Dammit man, is it full of hop!”Defeated by his own humanity (the con man's worst enemy) he gave a jowly nod and passed the bottle to Archie.Archie unscrewed the cap. It smelled sickly sweet and bitter. He stroked Penelope’s hair, trying to calm her but she wailed all the louder. "Please drink this," pleaded Archie, "it's medicine, and it will make you feel better." But Penelope was hysterical and couldn’t hear him. “No, no. Musn’t struggle. It will make the wound worse.”But she fought all the more. Out of sheerest desperation, Archie poured the bottle into her open mouth, then covered the girl’s lips and nose with his hands. She fought, sputtered, and bit, but finally, swallowed. A strange look came over her face and she stopped fighting. Archie was overcome by dread. Perhaps he had done the wrong thing. The most wrong thing of all. He had never been good with people, and this was doubly true of women and children. Archie found them to be such irrational, unreasonable creatures. They scared him with their unpredictable actions and how easily they could make him feel things that he could not reason with.Then Penelope gulped deeply and struggled to cough. Her eyes grew wide with fear once again and she coughed up and spit out a clot of blood the size of her tiny little fist. It landed in the mud next to Archie’s leg, spattering his already filthy trousers with bright red blood. Then she smiled up at him, nestled into the crook of his arm, and went to sleep.Archie tried to examine the girl’s wound through the hole in her dress. But try as he might he could not find it. He pushed the bloody tear in the fabric around, then tore it open further, but underneath was innocent immaculate skin. He looked up at Dr. Krupp and had no words to explain.Dr. Krupp said, "we did all that was humanly possible, mighty though Dr. Bartoleermere’s elixir maybe there are…"“No,” said Archie, "she's fine.”Archie heard a woman's voice cry, “Pen! Penelope!"Someone in the crowd cried, “Over here."A beautiful woman with her blonde hair in a braid came into view. She looked angry at Archie, but it made no difference. On the spot, Archie decided that this woman with her cornsilk hair — this fierce woman who looked like she would claw the world itself apart to get to her child — was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Had his own mother ever loved him so much as she loved this girl?She held out her arms to Archie and said, “They said she was hurt?"Archie nodded as he handed the sleeping girl to her mother. "She was, shot with an arrow," said Archie, "but she's fine.”Laura gave him a wild, unhinged look. Clearly, this strange Englishman was insane. And she took her child away from the river."Another miracle cure, thanks to Dr. Bartoleermere’s Magic Elixir!”Sheriff Dance said, “You sell that somewhere else or I swear I'll shoot you myself.""But Sheriff, you saw the miracle…" but when Dr. Krupp saw the look in the Sheriff’s eye, he turned and disappeared into the crowd.“His potion worked,” said Archie. “Meebee so, but I don’t want to listen to him right now.” "Who were the attackers?” asked Archie.Sheriff Dance stared upriver for a long time before he said, “My Deputy is of the opinion, that this is all just a complicated ruse to lure me away from the Jail, so Burdock can spring his idiot son.”Speedy Pete said, “It might just be Burdock’s men.”Archie looked confused.Dance said, “Which is just a fancy way of saying I got no earthly idea."“Well,” said Archie, “let's get acquainted with our new neighbors.” Get full access to Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

Chapter 10 — Ethan BurdockTo the Northwest of Grantham was the Bar-D ranch, owned by Ethan Burdock. Burdock had carved a 28,000-acre ranch out of Indian territory long before anyone had thought to look for silver in this rough land. More than five thousand head of Longhorn cattle toughed it out across his range which stretched far north of the main house. Ethan had done well enough for himself that his house was made of stout logs instead of mud, a luxury in this dry land. But after he had almost drowned in the mud of his own house in the freak rainstorm of ’58 he decided he had lived in adobe houses for long enough.Ethan had outlasted or outfought everything that had tried to remove him from this place. He fought rustlers, Apaches, Comanche, flood, drought, and everything else Mother Nature had thrown at him. Along the way, he had buried his wife, son and a daughter, and a lot of good ranch hands.In addition to the main house, there were three barns, four large corrals, and two bunkhouses; one large, one small. All of the buildings formed up in a circle around a kind of dirt plaza in the center of which was a deep and steady well. It was a solid, durable place. And when he sat on the porch at the end of a day, Ethan found beauty in it.But the ranch he had sacrificed so much for didn’t hold much more comfort than that. It seemed like there was always something to do and always someone to fight. He was an angry man, rarely at ease. But tonight was different. Both his boys were away and Lupita had served supper just for him. After dinner, he threw another log on the fire and sipped a glass of mescal thinking of old feuds he had won the way some men thought of women that had once loved.He was old and his bones hurt at night and he needed glasses for reading, but his ears were still good. He heard the rider making hard for the house when he was still a long way off.Ethan took the hurricane lamp in hand and went to see what was the matter. He crossed the yard and went to the figure standing between the two bunkhouses. Most of the men were asleep, but a few had come out in long underwear in various states of undress. Ethan didn’t recognize the horse, but it sure was in a lather.Joseph, his oldest son, detached himself from the group of hands and met him halfway to the house.“What’s the commotion?” asked Ethan.“Charlie. He’s been arrested for murder.”Ethan gritted his teeth and stared off into the distance, thinking *damn that boy.* Ethan looked back at Joe. Joe continued, “He shot a man in a saloon in Grantham about three hours ago.”“You let him go to town?”Joe, a serious young man, saddle-wise and hard as a coffin nail, said, “He’s a grown man.”A grown man, thought Ethan. Grown maybe, Charlie was forever a boy, and forever getting in trouble. “Who brought the news?”“Mayhew.”“He one of ours?”“Rode with us for a couple of seasons, now breaks horses for Dumont.”“Hate to see a good hand go to town,” said Ethan, saying the word ‘town’ like a curse.“He came to be a friend to Charlie and us.” “I know.” Ethan nodded once, making up his mind. “Pay him something, feed him and we ride in the morning.”“You and me?”“Everyone.”“Everyone?”“What else are we gonna do? Hire a lawyer?” Ethan said in a loud voice and the hands noticed and stepped closer to hear what their boss would do. “That’s a start. He’s gonna stand trial,’ said Joe.“We don’t know what Charlie did. And maybe he did gun somebody down. I’ll tell you what I do know. Right now Dumont and the rest of those parasites from back east are trying to figure out how they can use Charlie’s scrape to cause us pain. And sure, they’ll call it justice. But they’ll use it for everything else. For profit, for revenge, for enjoyment. ‘Cause what they want is our land. They want to take these wide-open spaces and the sky at night. They want to fence it in and charge rent for it. Ruin it by digging holes in it looking for silver. “I’m not arguing with you, sir,” said Joe, “but the town’s got laws.”“They don’t get to come here on my land and speak the law to me. Just like they don’t get to come here and take our cattle.” Ethan turned and paced in front of all of the men, raising his voice to address the crowd. “Tomorrow, I’m gonna ride into town, collect my boy just like I’d collect any other wayward steer. Now I’m not telling any man to come with me. Could be this turns to a disagreement of a more hostile nature. I mean, not if they’re smart, ‘cause there’s only the sheriff and that dipshit Deputy between us and our boy.“And I’m not gonna lie to you, Charlie ain’t no angel. Hell, after his poor mother passed, I practical let these bunkhouses raise him until he could ride a horse. So you know what he is what is capable of. Hell, you boys taught him.” A chuckle went through the crowd. It was a rough, unlikely bunch of Uncles, but they were Uncles all the same. Ethan had spoken the truth and it had kicked many of his men like a horse. That was one of the secrets of these wild, often broken men called cowboys. They had no families of their own. No place else to go. If you gave them a place to be, a tribe of their own, they could be the most loyal men on earth.“He’s our son, boys, for better and for worse. And if he’s done wrong we will deal with him. A trial by of a jury of his peers, cause a ranchin’ man don’t have no equal anywhere but the ranch. “So turn in if you want to come with me. I ride at dawn to bring Charlie home.” A ragged cheer went up. And Ethan waved them down, turning away so they wouldn’t see the emotion that came to his eye. Joe caught up with him on the porch. “Pa, you know I’m coming with you, goes without saying…”“It goes without saying.""then why do you have to say it?”Joseph looked hard at this, but before he could speak to the wrong of his father’s words Ethan said, “It’s a bad idea. That what you say?”“Going up against the law…” Joe shook his head, “Sheriff Dance is honest, but the Judge is reasonable for sure. We get Charlie out with lawyers and a bribe. This way seems like a lotta risk for…”“For Charlie. It’s okay, boy you can say it. I love him, but I don’t like him any more than you do.”Joseph hung his head in shame.“He ain’t much good, and that’s the fact of it. A constant thorn in my side since he was born. And if I didn’t think your dead mother was watching over us from heaven…”“You’d do what?”“I don’t know. Maybe this whole thing is my fault. I was too soft on him after your mother died. Should’ve spent more time with him. But that doesn’t matter.”“Pa, I can handle this without any trouble.”“If you’re wrong, he hangs. And hell, maybe deserves it.” Ethan kicked at a loose board on the porch. “He gets a fair trial, maybe hangs for what he done. But that’s not the point. They stole from us. Same as if they came and rustled a calf.“That’s nothing you negotiate about. Politicking is just another kind of rustling. It’s just another way to take what belongs to somebody else. And if you let somebody steal from you once...”Joseph finished the thought “You teach them it’s okay to steal from you all the time.”“They're after our land. Your birthright. They’re just using your brother to get it.” True to his word Burdock was up before dawn. His old bones creaked and popped as he shuffled around the room collecting his things. By the time he came downstairs Lupita had lit the fire in the cookstove and had coffee on. He took a sip of coffee and sighed. Then he said, “Pretty soon it’s gonna be just you and me rattling around this old house, Lupita.”She didn’t look him in the eye when she asked “¿Vas a volver con Charlie?” He said, “Si, Senora,” in no kind of Mexican accent. Then he asked, “Where’s Joe?”“Durmiendo,”He said, “Well, wake him up,” but he said it gently. Then he took his coffee and his coat and stepped outside.The lights in the bunkhouse on the left were clearly lit. That was a good sign, but when he looked over to the other bunkhouse, he saw nothing but darkness. Damn that Prescott and the rest of them. They must of overslept. He banged down off the porch and struck out towards the unlit bunkhouse. He stabbed his boot heels into the dirt of the yard gettin’ angry, muttering to himself and warming up for the chewing out he was going to give Prescott and that entire bunkhouse. His right foot crunched on something. He broke stride, but his left foot was carried forward by his momentum and where it landed it crunched again.“What the hell?”He looked down, but could see nothing in the darkness. He ran his hand over the ground. Grass, by God! Thick grass! There was no grass in the yard. He fetched a lantern from the house and set it down among the strange flora so he could give it a closer look. It wasn’t grass, exactly, but a low, leafy, spreading plant the likes of which Ethan had never seen before. He stomped back to the dry, hard-packed dirt of the yard and found a line, running northwest to southeast, right to the middle of his yard. On one side was dirt on the other side a lush carpet of greenery, fat with water. The line cut through the well, and where it passed, that second of the stone well was missing, replaced with grass-covered ground. Perfectly filled in as if by magic. Burdock bent and crushed a piece of the strange grass in his fingers and smelled it. It was sweet and green, not at all the bitter smell of the rare scrub grass of the high desert. He walked quickly to the large bunkhouse and kicked the door hard three times. When a bleary-eyed cowboy opened the door, Burdock was already looking at the grass again. Without looking back he snapped, “Lamps, all you got.”Soon he had the men fanned out along the line of new grass. They started walking forward, carrying lamps into the darkness, towards the other bunkhouse. 10 steps, 20 steps, 30 steps, still no building.Ethan came to a halt and the rest of the line did too. Joseph gave voice to the question, “Where the hell did the other bunkhouse go?” A few of the cowboys started to wander off when Ethan Burdock snapped, “pull back to the house, we wait till dawn to see what we are dealing with.”Cookie brought out large pot of hot water with coffee grounds in the bottom. The men dipped their cups and drank and talked in small groups waiting for first light.“Pa,” said Joe, “what you think happened to the bunkhouse?”“I’ll wait until we got some light before I speculate on the matter,” said Ethan.The gloaming was like a hallucination. It outlined a strange new world in speckled grays and whites. Then, as quickly as if a symphony conductor had dropped his baton, pinks and reds swelled and filled the glowing scene.They saw strange groves of trees across a wide grassy plain. Speculation rose to a dull roar and Burdock could hear how uneasy the men were. Where had the bunkhouse gone? What had taken its place? While the men speculated, Burdock kept his eyes on the Mountains — at least where they should have been be. The land they knew so well was gone. Even the mountains were gone. Before them stretched an endless plain. It was a vast horizon of green disappearing in the mist rising from the ground. One of the cowboys nosed around the spot with the bunkhouse should have been. He kicked through strange grass to the dirt below. Then he looked up and said, “Where’d they go? Where is the little bunkhouse? Where’s the North herd?”“They’re Gone,” growled Burdock.“What we do now?” asked Joe.“First, we go see if the town is still there and collect your brother. Then we go find who stole my land.”Chapter 11 — Welcome to TownBy the time Dance and Pete got to the river an unlikely crowd of early–risers and the still-drunk-from-the-night-before had formed along the riverbank.Even the most worn out and used up miners had rolled up their pants and staggered through the weeds to splash in the muddy water.Speculation abounded with but neither the drunk nor the sober could offer what Dance thought was a reasonable explanation for a river springing up overnight. The mood of the crowd was excited and festive, but none of this set well with Dance. He scanned the far bank of the river for any sign of the road to Bisbee and found none. Even under the grass the land itself was different where there had been a hill was now vast grassy plain dotted with groves of tall trees with pom-pom-like clusters of leaves atop spindly-looking trunks. For a moment, Dance thought he spied a herd of animals in the distance, but then whatever it was was gone. He looked to the pole that had carried the telegraph line and saw the line had been cut and now dangled from the insulator. He didn’t like anything about any of this. Pulaski had shown up at the Morning Star mine early as usual. He lived in a cabin adjacent to the main yard, and his house blocked any view of the river. He had thought little of the fog and plunged right into work. But when the men did not show up for the first shift, he became curious and walked to the miners' tents. Along the way, he saw the crowd and the brand new river and investigated.Laura Miller had slept poorly as she always did when her husband was out of town. She started breakfast and when Mack went out for his chores, he took longer than usual. When he returned he had no firewood and was so excited he could barely speak. He blurted out incoherently about the wash at the end of town being like a river and filled with water. And he begged to go take a look. Of course, Penelope wasn't about to be left out of an adventure. She begged to go saying, “He says it's like a river, Ma. And I ain't never seen a river. Can I go?"“You can go and come right back. I'm putting these biscuits in and I have too much to do today with your father gone to wait breakfast on either of you.""Come on, let's go!" cried Mack and dashed for the door. Laura Miller cried after Mac, "you mind your sister now, you hear?" Then she turned back to breakfast, shaking her head. Thinking a thimble of water in that dry gulch was a river was just plain sad. They have to show that girl the world before too much more time passed. Maybe the Rio Grande, or the Brazos. But when would they find the time? They were always so busy with the store. This boomtown wouldn't boom forever and they needed to make money while the times were good.After surviving the stagecoach ride into Grantham, Preacher James Noyes spent the evening getting to know his new flock and marveling at the town's general wickedness. He settled into the back room of the rough, frontier chapel to which he had been sent. The welcoming committee for the First Baptist Church of Grantham had brought him dinner, including a whole pie. Backwards and dangerous though this place may be, these were all God’s children, and the best of people could be found in even the most desperate places.When his visitors had left, he had gotten down on his knees and gave thanks to the Lord that he had come safe through his trials to this town of Grantham. And he prayed that the seeds of God's love that he would now sow here would fall on fertile ground. Preacher Noyes so desperately wanted to save souls and win people over to Christ.He knew that he could do it, the mistakes in Richmond non-withstanding, and asked for no special assistance from the Lord with this task. He just expressed gratitude for being brought to this place where he could redeem himself by saving men's souls from the adversary.His prayers completed he read his Bible by candlelight and went to sleep.When he woke in the morning he kneeled and gave thanks once again. Then he stepped outside to see what evil would be sufficient unto this new day. From the front steps of the simple church, he saw a most remarkable site, a river, from nothing. A crowd had gathered on its banks. He straightened himself and went to see if this was an ordinary occurrence, or if this was indeed some miracle sent by the Lord. Sheriff Dance watched Laura Miller’s children, Mack and… what was that little girl’s name? She was giving her brother fits as she romped through the mud and river water on the bank. And all the while her brother pleaded with her not to get too muddy. Too late, thought Dance, with a smile. He looked back towards town for their mother. Not from concern for the children, but because it was Dance’s studied opinion that she was the most beautiful woman in Grantham. Hell, most beautiful woman Tombstone and Bisbee included. Maybe all of the territory and even beating out those dark-haired Mexican girls from across the border. And his estimate of her beauty was made all the more acute by her fidelity to her husband.Dance had seen Laura smile and laugh with her family, but with everyone else, she was all business. This did not trouble Sheriff Dance. He was not one of those men who needed to own a sunset to bask in its beauty. Penelope — yes that was her name — was the first in the water, and her laughter and shrieks of joy granted permission to everyone else on the bank to follow suit.Soon everyone but Sheriff Dance and Mack were at least knee-deep in the muddy water. Even Speedy Pete had taken off his boots and was slowly turning his toes through the thick mud. Mack looked to Sheriff Dance in exasperation, as if it was his job to do something about all of this frivolity. Dance said, “Well, go on Son. There’s no harm in it.” And, granted permission, Mack sat down to pull off his boots. As she watched breakfast cooling on the table, Laura had an unkind thought for her children and immediately regretted it. So what if they ate cold biscuits – it would teach them a lesson – or maybe they wouldn't care. Her fierce wild children. She wished they would listen to her as they listened to their father. And again she felt it. A pang for Virgil her too, too serious man. She didn't like it when he went away. And she worried about him when he was gone. Life hung heavy on that man and she knew he was sad when he was away.He was always sad for one reason or another and would never speak of the time before he had known her, nor how he had come to save her and how she, in turn, had saved him. He never raised his voice, nor drank, nor gambled, nor gotten into fights. He was hard-working and patient with the children. Still, he would not forgive himself for something. And the weight of whatever that thing was served to press all his joy into the earth. Only with Mac and Penelope did he seem lighter and Laura treasured the flashes of joy she would catch in his eye when he was with the children.Well, she thought, nothing for it but to see this trickle of water that her children thought to be a river. She stood, wrapped a bonnet around her head, and went to see.The preacher heard the wonderment in the voices of the townspeople and came to understand that this had never happened before. He, like the others, was taken with the green vision across the banks. Compared with the rough desert landscape of the last few days of travel, it looked like paradise. Almost like a garden…"Preacher," said a rough–looking man who took his hat off to address a man of the cloth. "What do you think is happened?"The Preacher grabbed up a handful of reeds and held them up in the air exclaiming "fit to build a boat for a baby Moses by God! This soil is a blessing from the Almighty himself – a spring in a dry place! It's a miracle!”Not too far away two monks from the nearby Catholic Mission looked at the Preacher disparagingly. One said to the other, in Latin, "that, or the work of the devil himself."Nearby, Archie was hunkered down on the bank, pawing through the muck of the river bed. Hearing Latin spoken, he perked up and added a phrase of his own. The monks were shocked and scowled at Archie. One of them was so disturbed that he crossed himself and they both moved away from the man in the strange hat. When Archie saw the Sheriff watching this minor ecclesiastical drama with bemusement he said, “Sheriff, would I be right in thinking that this river was not here yesterday when I pulled into town?"Sheriff Dance looked down at Archie, trying to decide if he was joking or not. "Well sir, I must say I do not recall directing my gaze towards this end of town yesterday. But before God and a Federal Judge, I would attest that this river was not here the day before last. And further," Dance continued, “No report of a flood, deluge or even rainstorm has made itself known to the Sheriff's office. Now what, may I ask, did you say to those papists?""They claimed the river was a miracle of God’s doing. I quoted Darwin to them."Dance gave no indication of understanding.He's a naturalist who wrote a book about… Well, it's not important. The point is this is rich, alluvial soil,” he said, holding a handful of the muck up so the Sheriff could see. “It is not the rocky substrate of the Arizona desert. The soil these reeds are so happily growing in, is the product of tens if not hundreds of thousands of years of hydrological action. This is not merely water in the desert springing forth. This is an entirely different biome than was here yesterday. Isn't that just remarkable?""What's that mean, you know, in English?""This isn't a matter of water flooding in from the mountain.""You mean the ones that don't appear to be there anymore?""Yes, the very same. These deposits –""mud.""Yes mud, said Archie, "the entire riverbed is deep mud and has been here thousands of years – if not more.""On top of which, this was all gravel and rock yesterday," said Dance."Yes, exactly.”"Then where the hell did it go? And the rest of the territory? And those goddamn mountains!"“Yes, exactly."“That ain't no kind of answer."Archie looked up at the Sheriff and said, “Yes I know it's not an answer, I was agreeing with your question.""Then why are you so happy about it?""Because it's a mystery, a great enigma. A puzzle."Dance shook his head and sighed in exasperationArchie smiled and said, "I love puzzles.""Then puzzle me this, who cut the cable?" asked Dance."What,” said Archie."I said, who cut the cable?""Yes, I'm not deaf my good man. What I'm saying is that some thing, not someone cut the telegraph line. This mud is fantastically old. All in all, I think this might just the most remarkable thing I've ever seen."“Mister, your mud ain’t got nothing on that s**t," said Speedy Pete, his eyes bugging out of his head as he pointed down the river.Sheriff Dance followed Pete’s gaze. And there he saw a large wooden ship, glistening in golden hue in the early morning light. As it came around the bend, Dance could hear the beat of a drum pacing time for the craft’s three decks of oarsmen. In front of the ship an evil-looking ram sliced along just below the surface of the water as it raced towards them. Get full access to Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

Just catching up? Here’s the story so far in ebook and audiobook formatIf you’re already on board, take a minute to leave a review on Part I on Amazon.—Sheriff John Dance hadn’t slept much. When the night started, they didn’t have any customers, so he sat outside on the porch waiting for the heat to die down. About eleven he took a quick turn around the town. There were few drunks, but everything was quiet enough. Those goddamn cowboys from Burdock’s place weren’t in town, so nobody was expecting trouble. He thought it was safe to go to bed. So he kicked the dust over to the Cavalier, Grantham’s third-finest rooming house, and had just about closed his eyes when Speedy Pete had come a-hammering on his door. Pete was out of breath and that was a bad sign. Speedy Pete’s nickname was ironical in nature, and he wasn’t one for hurry. Turns out Dance had been wrong about Burdock’s boys. Well the worst of them at least. Earlier in the evening, the youngest son, Charlie Burdock, had installed himself at Saloon #3. What the name of the establishment lacked in originality it made up for in accuracy, being the third saloon built on the spot. The first one had been blown over and the second had burned down. Dance didn’t want to speculate about what Act of God or gross negligence would result in Grantham receiving saloon number #4.He sent Pete in through the front and had him pretend to be staggering drunk. Pete was all but worthless in a fight, what with speed being of the essence, and smarts of a bonus. But Pete did have the virtue of being so non-threatening that he was liked by everybody. He was sort of the mascot of Grantham. Which came in handy. Dance slid in through the back and found the place empty but for Charlie, Pete, a dead man on the floor, and Oscar, bartender and unlucky owner of saloons one through three. Old Oscar’s eyes went wide and he almost gave the play away. Charlie didn’t notice. He was loaded to the gills and regaling Pete with the story of how the dead man got that way. Spit flew from Charlie’s mouth as he said, “And Pete, hand to God, he went for his pistol and… well, I HAD to shoot him. You wouldn’t arrest a man for defended hisself would you?”“No sir,” said Pete nice and slow, “that sure enough… ain’t no crime… that I know of.”Charlie slammed his palm on the counter and turned to Oscar Brace behind the bar.” See, Oscar — I told you. I TOLD YOU! Was self-defense, the law even says so!” Charlie said, putting a swerve on the word ‘says’. It was a convincing performance. Hell, even Dance wanted to believe him. Except for one problem. The poor b*****d on the floor wasn’t heeled. No evidence of a gun whatsoever. In fact, from what Dance could see, the rough lookin’ Polack on the floor had a surprised look on his face. Hell of a way to go. Dance hoped he’d live at least long enough to see Saloon #5.He eased his pistol out of the holster and carefully pointed it at the back of Charlie Burdock’s head. He put his thumb on the hammer but didn’t cock it, wary of the click. Dance stepped forward as quietly as he could. Part of him hoped Charlie Burdock would spin and try for his gun. He wouldn’t feel bad about putting this man down. Hell, he wondered if he shouldn’t just let fly now. He had done worse to better for less. But the damnable thing was, Dance liked Charlie. Hell, everybody did. Even if he weren’t no damn good. Another step. Charlie poured Pete a drink from his own bottle. Maybe he didn’t shoot because he knew that Pete would be flat rattled and never trust him again. And poor Oscar would be cleaning blood and brains off the bottles behind the bar. But it wouldn’t be the first bullet hole in the mirror behind the bar.Another step. Speedy Pete threw his drink back and looked to Dance as he brought his head down. Dance shook his head, *not yet.*It’d be better for the Sheriff’s office, in general, to have it done with right here, that was sure. Take Charlie in, he’d have to hold him until the Marshall came to fetch him. Three days at least, maybe a week. And Burdock was going to come for his boy. And he’s got thirty-some-odd hands at the Bar-D and the money to hire more. Most of whom feel a special attachment to Charlie.He took another step, this one over the dead man’s leg. Pete was slapping Charlie on the shoulder, they were both laughing about now. Oscar found a reason to head to the other end of the bar. All-in-all, it might also be better for Charlie if Dance had gunned him down. Likable though he may be, it was hard for Dance to see how there could be a happy ending for him. He’s a poor citizen and he’d make an even worse outlaw. Dance knew something about both. All Charlie’s good for is spending money and making trouble for his father. And everybody knows it, including Charlie. But the thing of it is, he’s a *good-time* Charlie. Everybody likes him. Including Dance. So Dance took one final step and brought the butt of the pistol down on Charlie’s head. Charlie slumped over the bar, then slid onto the floor. Sheriff Dance said, “You’re under arrest.”He had looked down at Charlie. And thought he didn’t look like a peaceful sleeper. He had an ugly, sorta pushed-in face. Like somebody had let a horse kick him when he was a baby. Dance took a swig from the bottle on the bar and said, “Deputy, let’s get him to the jail.”Pete heaved Charlie Burdock over his shoulder and off they went. Pete wasn’t fast and he wasn’t smart, but he was loyal and strong and that was enough for Sheriff Dance. They put Charlie in one of the cells, then Pete and Dance took the other one and tried to sleep. Charlie snored so loud Dance almost changed his mind, got up and shot him in the middle of the night.When he saw rosy-fingered dawn poking around the windows, Dance climbed down from the bunk, went out into the office and rolled himself a cigarette more from feel than sight. He lit it with a match but left the oil lamp on his desk dark. With the cherry of his cigarette bobbing in the half-light, he threw a couple of logs into the stove on top of the coals leftover from the night before. He belted his pistol on and stepped outside, happy to leave Charlie’s snoring and his liquor-sweat smell behind. Outside, Johnson’s Livery Stable was still across the street but was somehow obscured and shifting, as if it had become a ghost ship of a stable. The air was thick, filled with moisture. He exhaled cigarette smoke and it hung together almost like it had mass. Like... fog. By God, it was FOG he was seeing! There was no fog in this part of the Territories. Hell, Grantham barely ever even saw rain. The closest they came to water was when the wash at the other end of town formed a trickle in the spring as the snow melted somewhere on the far off-mountains. He turned his head to the right and looked down Main Street and gasped. He stood there, mouth open with a confused look on his face. He couldn’t make sense of what he saw. At first, he thought it might have been a mirage, but it wasn’t hot. The sun was barely up. He waited for his brain and his eyes to come to some kind of agreement about what he saw and what it actually was, but it didn’t come. So he stood there as the sun came up, watching it distrustfully and hoping that the full light of day show him what was real. What Dance had expected to see on the other end of town was the road to Bisbee cutting through a collection of dusty rocks and creosote bushes. But instead, the road stopped at full river. A river at least 300 yards across and God knew how deep. A river that didn’t look fordable, or even swimmable. And on the other side, a lush, green grassland dotted with trees likes of which he had never seen before. This was a totally different terrain, a different climate than what had been there when he’d gone to sleep the night before.He started at it until the cigarette burned down between his fingers. With a curse, he threw the wad of burning paper and tobacco into the street. Speedy Pete stumbled out onto the porch, yawned, and settled in on the rail next to Dance. He turned his head to see what the Sheriff was looking at and his jaw dropped open too.Sheriff Dance asked, “Pete, did you order a river from the Sears and Roebuck?”Without closing his mouth, Pete said, “Nah.”Dance said, “Well, c’mon, let’s go take a look.”“But Sheriff! What about our prisoner?”“Well he can’t come, Pete. He’s under arrest.”“I mean,” said Pete, as he leaned in and narrowed his eyes, “you think maybe this might be a Braddock trick so’s they can bust him outta jail.”Dance looked from Bill to the river and back again. A smile broke across his weathered face. He said, “Well Pete, if that’s a trick, then they got me.” And he chuckled all the way to get his rifle. Get full access to Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

The Apache rode until sunset. Then they rode until sunrise. They felt the wind through their hair and the horses pounding the earth, but all they heard was *the song*. In the beginning, they had thought Goyaate had sung the song and they had only kept pace with it. Then they opened their throats and came to believe that they too sang the song. But after many hours, when exhaustion had stripped away all illusion, they realized that the song was singing all of them, and they were carried by the magic of it, out of themselves, across the land, without hunger, thirst, or fatigue.They came to the middle of the emptiness where the color had leached away from the grass and the wind had forgotten its name. There in the center was nothing. And in the center of nothing was No One.No One saw Goyaate and jumped with the surprise of seeing something in the emptiness. Then he remembered being human and raised his hand in greeting. The men and the horses fell exhausted and into a deep, dreamless sleep. All but Goyaate. He approached No One and sat with him by the fire that No One did not have. Goyaate told No One of all the things that the Apache did not have. Lands of their own, horses, great herds of beef. He spoke of the loved ones who had been murdered by the white man, and the children who had not been born because there had been no mothers to bear them. He spoke of the stories that had not been told and the laughter that had not been laughed. And with each of these things that weren’t No One nodded in understanding.And when he was done listing the things that had been taken, the things that had been lost, and the things that would never be, Goyaate named Hope and he named The Future. No One looked away, because Goyaate had listed all of the things the Apache did not have and there was only nothing left to say. Only then in that empty place did the mighty Goyaate dare to speak of the thing he had a vision of — of peering through a hole in the nothing that led to another world. One where the white man could not follow and would never come. He said that, if it existed, then No One must surely know about it. And if there was a place for an emptiness that contained another world then surely it would be here.No One smiled and shook his head slowly. No One knew of such a hole. He told Goyaate of the dangers of such a passage. Of how it could be like one of the lines that the white man used to catch fish from the water. A hook dangling on the end, hidden by bait, floating its way through Goyaate’s dreams. No One could know for sure that it was a trap, but he knew that such a passage across the borders between worlds couldn't be opened just from one side. Someone was calling to this world and even with greatest of visions and the strongest of magics it would be dangerous to answer. Goyaate laughed bitterly and said, "dying there can only be as bad as dying here.No One said nothing. Then he said one thing. From that one thing Goyaate was able to understand how the ceremony was to be performed and where and how he might find the place for such a rite. Goyaate smiled and said, “That is strange, I…"No One asked him to finish his sentence."It is easier than I thought.""Most things are when you know how."Goyaate nodded and turned and looked at his men and their horses, lying on the ground as if dead. No One said, “You have come a long way, you should rest." Then No One touched Goyaate on the shoulder and the emptiness rose up within him and fell into a deep sleep.Who could say how long they slept, or if time even passed in that lack of a place. But after what seemed like a long time, the creatures rose from their slumber. Man and horse alike were amazed to find that they were not thirsty or hungry or even sore after the ride.When several of them started wondering from where they might find something to make a fire, Goyaate said, “We should not waste this gift." Then he mounted his horse and rode on.The next day, Goyaate’s magic deserted him. Fatigue fell on the men and horses as if all the miles they had traveled had been saved up for them until now. No man would stay stop, but in their hearts, they longed for rest. Soon they thought, one of the horses would drop dead and they would be forced to stop. They finally came to a place they recognized. Off to the right was the Gila forest and in front of them were the Chiricahua mountains and a place called Apache Spring where most of them had once surrendered. Red Sleeve, the oldest and the worst for wear among all of them, spurred his tired horse next to Goyaate. The War Chief looked not at his men, but only had eyes for the horizon. Before Red Sleeve could speak, Goyaate said, “We will rest here until nightfall. Then we will ride on by the light of the moon. We are in the death grounds and there will be no more rest after this. That night they entered the mountains When the way became steep, they dismounted and led the animals. The horses were sure of foot but the Apache wanted no chance of dislodging a rock and having its rattle down the mountainside, betray them to distant scouts. Goyaate was certain that Fort Bowie knew nothing of their escape from the Fort Sill reservation. What scout could ride faster than they had ridden, hypnotized by the sacred trance of War? But he was mistaken. The telegraph was faster than any trance.At first light, they were spotted by scouts from the garrison at Fort Bowie. They heard a bugle echoing throughout the mountains and knew that the fight was coming to them. Now they made brave noises, speaking boastful words they hoped would distract them from fear. Among the chatter, Red Sleeve spoke the truth of his heart to Goaayte. “I do not want to be twice defeated in the same place." Goyaate looked up sharply as one whose mind was far away, thinking of something else. He shook his head and said, “We will not be defeated. Our place is further on. You will see."And they rode on. Goyaate put out no scouts and made no effort to hide their tracks in the Apache way. He just rode. This time there was no song. No surge of hope and possibility. They rode through the mountains driven by the threat of the cavalry behind them. A dark muttering went through the men. Perhaps Goyaate had spent the last of his power back on the plain and now they followed an old man to their deaths.It did not matter. There was nowhere else to go. The trail they were on took but one path through the mountains. A few young strong Braves might climb the cliffs here, hold off the army with rifles for hours, maybe days in this narrow pass. But they had no young strong Braves anymore. They came out from the cliffs. And in front of them opened up all of the Arizona territory. From this height, it seemed that they could see all the way to Mexico. There was nowhere to run. And nowhere to hide. "We should turn and fight," said one of the men more from fear than from thirst for blood."This would be a stupid death," muttered another.Red Sleeve said, “What say you War Chief?"But Goyaate did not answer. "We should fight them in the narrow place, back there, better odds that way,” said Red Sleeve.A pistol shot sounded from the right. There, a scout, atop the ridge. The scout fired his pistol into the air again and again in excitement. He could see the outcome. Any man could see they had nowhere to run. All eyes turned to Goyaate. What was the great War Chief’s plan? He opened his mouth, and all were eager for the order, but what came out was a noise that was so like a sob, no one knew what to do. Was the War Chief crying?The sound from Goyaate’s throat did not stop. He sang it on the exhale and he sang it on the inhale. The men all looked to Red Sleeve and he moved to speak to Goyaate once again. To tell him what they all felt in their hearts. That this death would be enough. Here would trap the cavalry in the pass. Here they would sell their lives dearly. He opened his mouth to tell his old friend that this was a good day to die.But when he came up beside the War Chief he saw that the man’s eyes were rolled back into his head and nothing showed but the whites. Goyaate’s chant grew louder and louder. It grew from a sob into an angry cry. The hair stood up on Red Sleeve’s arms and he felt a hot wind come up from the valley. The light turned blood red. He heard a growling, roaring, splitting noise as if the earth itself was cracking open but somehow the sound was coming from Goyaate. He heard the cries of the men behind and turned to see the cavalry, galloping out of the pass, drawing sabers. A bugler sounded the charge. But the Apache were not looking back at the cavalry. They were looking down in the valley. He saw a shadow fall across the faces of the Apache and turned to see a wall of sand as tall as the sky hurtling towards them.Goyaate, come back at last, cried “Ride, RIDE!” And he spurred his horse down the slope and into the oncoming dust storm. With a war cry, Red Sleeve followed.They should have died. They should have died many times before this mad ride out of the mountains, but for certain they should have died racing blind down that hill into the dying sun and the devouring storm.After a time, the hill Red Sleeve could not see beneath him became the plain he could not see beneath him and the panic of his horse became a walk. The sun set and the wind died, but the dust hung in the sky, suspended now in the still, desert air. Red Sleeve saw no one. He was all alone in the darkness.He heard a faint drumbeat, far off. Then saw a flash of light, diffused by the dust. Having no other landmark, he aimed his lathered, exhausted horse towards it. Then another beat, louder, followed by another flash. The drumbeat became a regular pulse. He was so lost and exhausted that he cared not that everyone on the plain, friend or foe, would head to the same place. But surely the cavalry would not have followed them into such madness? Red Sleeve wondered if anyone else was still alive. Boom. Boom. Boom.As he drew closer, the frequency of the drum increased and the light became more brilliant. He came to a flat place with a large saguaro after one side. He saw shadowy figures each revealed as a patch of darkness against the light. From the way they squatted, he could see that they were Apache. In the center of them, a man was striking the ground with his palm, raising his hand high and dropping it to the earth again and again. Each time he hit the ground with greater force than the last. And when he struck the ground a brilliant blue light exploded outward.Red Sleeve got off his horse and led it towards the circle of men.Goyaate raised his voice in a cry, not missing a beat as he pounded the earth. His voice came as if he were all around them and was a cry such as Red Sleeve had never heard before. And when the War Chief brought his hand down the next time, the blue light became everything. They left and took the desert with them.For the first mile, Archie kept looking over his shoulder to check the connections between the two wagons. After a particularly rough jolt, he handed the reins to Jane and climbed back to inspect his handiwork. But that which Archie had joined, it seems no bump would put asunder. Cantering along behind the unruly two-wagon rig, MacAllister said, "as much as it pains me to say it, I dinna think your cinch will fail.”The rugged and forbidding landscape took on a magical aspect in the moonlight, and the yapping and howling of coyotes in the distance gave the journey a peaceful air.After a time Jane said softly, "I don't care what you say, Mr. Croryton. I believe you are a prince."Archie laughed out loud."See, you are," said Jane."I most certainly am not," said Archie.“Well maybe. I mean if you were a prince, then you wouldn't be so ignoble as to take money away from the commoners like MacAllister and me.""I dare say that is because you have had no experience with royalty. Where do you think all these riches come from? From the labor of peasants, my dear." He gave her a friendly poke when he said the word "peasants."Jane's face warped into a scowl that made Archie grateful she did not have a bullwhip close to hand. She said, "that is why this new nation has dispensed with kings and princes and such wickedness has that. We have no parasites here.""That is just a strength of youth, Miss Siskin. Give it enough time and your ideal will become just as corrupt as anyone else’s. But were I a prince, traveling incognito, I would trust you with my secret before anyone else."Jane smiled and they rode on, listening to the clanking of the wagon. Then Jane leaned over and whispered, "I knew it."They brought the contraption through the dry wash with less trouble than Archie expected. It made the passage so well that he even thought of designing a six-wheeled wagon, with three independent segments, for rugged terrain. As they pulled into the yard with the rest of the freight, Archie heard drunken snoring but saw no people. Then he realized that the Teamsters were sleeping beneath their wagons the same as they had on the road. MacAllister handed over the reins to Archie's horse and a purse of coin, muttering something about “fair and square.” Then he headed off to his own bedroll.He had wisdom enough not to interfere with whatever romance or disaster was brewing between his boss and her client. And, on that account, he wasn't sure who he'd be saving from whom. Archie walked Jane to her room in the Morning Star hotel, which thankfully, was a separate building from the saloon, where the piano music and the party was still going strong.Jane turned outside her door and said, “You should treat me with respect. You might not be a Prince, but they call me the Mule Queen. Not to my face, but still.”"Oh, indeed, Boudicca of the West.""Who is that?""A Pictish queen who fought the Romans,” Archie said with a smile. “and almost won.”Jane leaned in and kissed him, long and hard. And when she pulled back she said, “A prince. I knew it. And don’t forget… I outrank you.” Then she closed the door without saying goodnight. Virgil let his horses follow the road to Grantham at a walk as he nodded off in the wagon seat. At first, he was glad of not staying in Bisbee, but as the sun went down and the moon had risen, he questioned the wisdom of his choice. He was tired, bone-tired, and between himself, the horses, and the moonlit road he had to admit he wasn't as young as he used to be. How many years had it been since he fired a gun? Or even thought of killing a man, let alone… It wasn't a pang of conscience – not exactly – but a fear that the old days had come again. A fear that the old days were all there was and his time with Laura and the children had been the exception a lull in the storm of his life. It was fear that the truth of things was war, bloodshed, stupidity, and struggle. That love counted for nothing in the face of might. That every man’s strength faded sooner or later, removing the possibility of defeating one's enemies and leaving, only the question of how bravely one might face the end. What he had done to those Chiracahua today – they had deserved it, surely — and he had done it save lives, but it wasn't a thing that he ever wanted his son Mack to know how to do. But maybe Mack needed to know. As he jolted along with the ruts in the road, Virgil came to grips with the fact that he would not always be there to protect his family, and perhaps he had not done enough to prepare them.And if he did not prepare them, who would protect him in his old age? He had planned on stopping at the swing station and sleeping where he could find a place, maybe under the wagon. But his thoughts gave him such urgency that in the early morning hours he found himself getting a second wind. He did not drive the horses as much as he could. It has been a long day for them as well and they were good horses that deserved better than this treatment. So he rolled along, an old man in his wagon full of goods.He came down into the open valley and did not look closely at the bodies of the dead men and horses. In the moonlight even not looking revealed that the buzzards had been at them. When he had passed he had to fight the foolish urge to look back and make sure that the men he had killed were not rising from the ground and following him in pursuit of vengeance. It was foolishness whispered to scare children. If such things existed, he would've seen them during the war, in Kansas, or in the terrible aftermath of Chickamauga. After Chickamauga, he had awakened in a pile of bodies, suffocating. He had to fight his way through the dead to return to the world of the living. When he returned to his unit, some days later, he found out that it had been decided — although he knew not how it could be — that the Confederacy had won a great victory. Virgil decided that if that was victory, then the war between the states wasn't worth winning. He deserted and vowed to leave violence behind him. Yes, here he was, all these years later, vowing the very same thing. In the end, perhaps the end of violence was death and he wasn't ready for that yet. Two miles outside Grantham he saw a flash of blue light in the sky. At first, he thought it might be lightning, but there had been no thunder. Then he saw it again and a boom followed with it. He wondered if the dry wash might have water in it by the time he got to town.Then the blue light filled the sky to the northeast with an eerie glow that rose in intensity, making a mockery of the night. He heard thunder roaring so loud it was as if Giants were shouting in a language he did not understand.Then, like the surf after the breaking of a wave, the light crested and pulled back in upon itself, wrapping the world in silence and darkness once again.There was a cool, moist wind filled with strange smells. And then nothing.For a time he drove the wagon on through darkness mad darker from this interlude of light. The moon started to dip below the horizon behind him, but before it disappeared completely it was overpowered by the dawn. The sun blinded him as he came over the rise and down the hill to the wash on the west side of town. He tried for a glimpse of home through the brilliant sun but found he couldn’t squint enough against the light to see anything other than the road in front of him. It was only when he came up out of the wash that he realized the town was gone. No road. No buildings, not even the dirt was the same. He jumped off the wagon and felt the strange, tubular grass crunch beneath his feet. He left the horses to graze on this strange prairie and stumbled towards the sun. There was the hill of the Morning Star Mine, but no mine. The slope was covered in this same strange grass. Where DuMont’s pink house had been, there were now trees unlike any he had seen before; long, spindly trunks ending in balls of leafy green. And where his store had been there was nothing but the strange grass and the bitter smell it release as he crushed it beneath his boot heels. He turned once, calling out, “Hello!” There was no answer. Somehow, they were all gone.That’s the end of Part One of A Town Called Nowhere. The story will continue on March 11th. Get full access to Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

The saloon was a shoddy-looking two story box of building, made from unfinished boards that had not fared well in the desert sun. Above the awning was a sign, painted directly on the wood that read, “Morning Star Saloon. Jethro Earp, Proprietor.” Jethro was happy to tell all the patrons that he was related to the famous law man and saloon-keeper with whom he shared a last name, but in point of fact, Earp was not his real last name. Nor was Jethro his real first name. But other than that, he was a reasonably honest man for a saloon-keeper. In his travels, Archie had become familiar with uniquely American institution of saloons. But the Morning Star was something unexpected. While no expense had been wasted on the outside of the building, the inside was lavishly decorated. And open two stories to the rafters. Around the top of the room were what appeared to be opera boxes, most with curtains drawn and some with painted ladies hanging over the rail. A heavy red-faced girl with strawberry blonde hair, called out to Archie and waved, and the others joined in. Archie didn’t know how to take this, so he looked down at the floor. It was unfinished planks heavily stained with tobacco juice around the spittoons and here and there with what could be liquor or just as easily blood. The saloon was crowded, and a large man in a fancy suit was addressing patrons who were not otherwise occupied playing faro or poker or in one case, sleeping on the floor.“And you may well ask how I survived the the onslaught of those unspeakable savages and subsequent crash, to find myself alive here among you, my fellow men of the West, no worse for wear. And friends, I have an explanation.”“You was jes’ lucky!” called out a tired miner, who was leaning against the bar to avoid falling down.“Lucky I am, indeed, my good man. Indeed, some say blessed! But not in matters relating to highwaymen of any race, breed or nationality. No sir, I was fortunate to have made the acquaintance of a true genius of our age, the modern Hippocrates, to whom the secrets of the ages are known. Dr. Amadeus Bartoleermeer the 2nd who has rediscovered the sacred well-spring of Pancea for our troubled modern age…” and here he produced a small bottle of patent medicine from his jacket pocket, “A marvelous elixir, which restored me from my broken state to the hale and hearty creature you see before you.” “Did it give you all them extra words,” cried a voice from the back. A sweet whisper in Archie’s ear said, “Don’t believe a word of it. I was on that stage and I am perfectly fine.” Archie turned and saw a lovely woman dressed in nothing more than a corset and petticoat. She smiled hungrily and said, “I escaped with nothing more than a bruise on my leg. Would you like to see it?”Archie was flustered by this and, at a loss, blurted out, “Archimedes Croryton, at your service.”“There’s a thought,” she said, “why don’t you come upstairs with me, Mr. Croryton.”“I… uh… You are very forward aren’t you. Miss?”“Alice, just Alice,” she said, wrapping her arms around him. “But if you want, you can call me yours.” Archie looked around desperately, not sure what to do. From across the room, Archie saw MacAllister plowing through the crowd towards him. Grinning from ear-to-ear, he clapped Archie on the shoulder and said, “They’ve only Irish whiskey in this godforsaken place, but I’ll buy you one anyway.” He tipped his hat at Alice, “Ma’am.”As they bellied up to the bar, Jethro dragged Dr. Krupp out by his ear. Not to be silenced by this rough treatment, the good Doctor bellowed, “Look for my wagon! Discounts for quantities! Perfect for hangovers…” Jethro hurled him through the door of the saloon and he was heard no more. Archie watched Alice lead another man up the stairs and said, “Are they all so… mercenary here?”MacAllister laughed heartily and said, “She’s in the business making money, lad. And business is good.” “The mercantile finds it’s way into everything in America, doesn’t it?”MacAllister said, “Are ye not getting paid?”“Well, of course, but.”“Then there’s your answer!”They toasted and drank. It was awful stuff, really, but after a long and dusty ride and even in spite of the strange, paranoid reception of Monsieur DuMont, Archie found himself excited to be on an adventure. Even if nothing came of it. Even if, in the end, broken and penniless, he was forced to go crawling back to — best not to think of it — at least he would have seen something of the world. And besides, there were fortunes to be made here in the West. And with a fortune would come the power required to spit in his brother Reginald’s eye. They tossed back another whiskey and Archie’s spirits rose even more. And then he turned and saw Jane Siskin at the entrance. Gone were the rough leathers of her traveling garb and battered gray hat. She wore a simple blue dress, and her hair was down, still damp from the bath, but already winding with natural curls. In spite of himself, Archie said, “My word, she’s… quite…”MacAllister leaned and said, “Ye may be a Prince where you’re from, yer excellency. But lad, she’s a Queen in this land. Mule Queen, but a Queen nonetheless.” Then MacAllister walked into the back. Archie called after him, “I’m not a bloody Prince!”From over his shoulder, he heard Jane said, “You *are* a prince. I knew it!”The bartender slid a glass and a bottle of light brown liqour across the bar to Jane and she raised the empty glass in salute. Archie thought her smile was the prettiest thing he’d seen in months. What a transformation had come over this hard-driving woman. As Jane poured, Archie protested, “I told you am a second son, exactly nothing. Usually someone in my position has power, influence and employment – and is a man, in some measure to be reckoned with, but I have been disowned, for you see, my brother hates me.”“What did you do to him?”“Nothing that brothers have not been doing to brothers since the dawn of time. It was our father, you see. He loved me best. And he never let my brother forget it. To be sure, he wasn’t as bright or as diligent as I, but that was no cause for such abuse. I cannot imagine what my father was thinking, or how he thought it might turn out when he was gone. Perhaps he thought he would live forever.”“That’s not a thought much entertained in this part of the world.”“I would imagine not. Have you dispatched a team to recover my freight?”“Sir, despite the best of intentions, I am unable to do so, said Jane suddenly becoming formal.Archie grew stiff. “What do you mean?”“My men, such as they are,” she said as swept her hand around indicating the general debauchery in which Archie recognized some of the Teamsters from the journey into town. At least one was catatonic, several others weren’t far off. MacAllister was now engaged in an arm-wrestling contest in the corner around which men were gambling and shouting. Another teamster was sitting next to the piano, singing along as loud as he could with a song he didn’t know the words to. Another two of the teamsters, followed proxy-looking women upstairs to the boxes.Archie frowned. Jane snagged an empty, if not exactly clean, glass from the bar and poured him a shot of the light brown liquor she was drinking.” Come on my sweet prince, let your hair down from that funny hat a yours and relax a little. Your hunk of metal will still be there in the morning.”Archie drank the shot and winced. “Good Lord, what is that?”“Tequila. Mexicans make it from a cactus I hear tell.”“Yes, that would explain the spiky taste.”“See,” said Jane, slapping him on the shoulder and pouring him another, “I knew you was all right. Settle in and let’s get down to making bad choices with the rest of this night.”In the back of the room, MacAllister slammed his opponent’s fist on the table and cheers erupted.Archie paused a moment, considering his situation with a sad smile. Then, resolved, he picked his pith helmet up off the bar and said, “Sadly, Mademoiselle, my day is not done, so my evening cannot begin.” Archie turned and strode out of the foul air of the saloon.“God dammit!” said Jane. Then she shouted, “Red! Come on! We got to save our headstrong Prince from himself.” While MacAllister gathered his winnings, she took another shot of tequila. Then they went in pursuit of their strange Englishman. ----They found Archie struggling to assemble a team to pull a wagon.Archie said, “You think I cannot recover the cargo on my own?""Mister, from what I've seen, I can't even be sure you can find your way back to the cargo,” said Jane Archie looked to MacAllister, "And you?""Not doubting your spirits sir, but we had a team of 10 men to help load those wagons. And we needed everyone, as you may recall.""Oh, there is that," Archie said with a smile, “Nonetheless, the way must be found, and I shall find it. On my own, it appears.But, if I might, perhaps you would care for a wager." "Keep your money, you'll never pull it off,” said Jane.“Then odds?”"It's impossible!""That's a very strong word, impossible." “It is lad,” said MacAllister, “Now come on, I'll buy you a whiskey and will forget this foolishness and we’ll go fetch your box in the morning.""Perhaps you're right, so let me amend my wager. I say that I can recover that crate, before sunrise, using only two men, some rope, a block and tackle and two sixteen foot beams or logs."“Two men!" said Jane, bristling at the implications."Or a man and a good woman," said Archie with a smile, and if I lose the wager, I will pay five dollars to every one of yours. And I will cover any bets up to $100. Now, do you have the courage of your convictions, or are you, What was the phrase? Ten horns?""Tinhorn," said Jane, "one word.""As you say,"MacAllister produced his winnings from the arm wrestling match, and said, “down for $25." They both looked to Jane who nodded and said, “Hell, I’m good for $25.” The Moon rose shortly after sunset, a waxing gibbous, so they had plenty of light to ride by. MacAllister drove the wagon, this one pulled by a team of six horses. The oxen were still worn out from heat. They were terrible animals for the desert, but for the heaviest load there was nothing else. Life was hard on man and animal alike in this place. But it was God who put the silver in the ground, so here they all were.The road to Bisbee seemed easier in the chill of the night air and the landscape less harsh and forbidding in the moonlight. They reached the wagon quickly. MacAllister surveyed the wreckage and said, “There's no way you're getting that crate into this wagon without a crane, or more men."“Why my heavens, just now I realize that you are correct. And I am embarrassed to have brought you all this way!” said Archie, laying it on thick. "Pay up. I have a powerful thirst that needs attention." “A distressing, yet all too common ailment among Scotsman, I am told. I shall endeavor to be quick.”Archie was as good as his word. As MacAllister and Jane watched him, he lashed the ends of the beams together as they stuck out from the end of the wagon. MacAllister said, “I’ll give him this, he’s got an enthusiastic look for one about to lose a bet.”Archie surveyed the position of the broken-axle wagon. In the moonlight, the giantic crate atop the wreckage of the wagon looked more like a ruin of an ancient civilization, than it did like something that could be budged by mortals. But Archie proceeded undaunted. He counted his steps across the road, and marked a divot in the earth with his boot. “Mr. MacAllister, if you would be so kind as to plant the stake right here.” “Why, of course, your Lordship,” and he set to pounding the heavy wooden stake into the ground with a twelve pound hammer. He made the heavy blows look like easy work. As he did this, Archie and Jane dragged the beams over to the broken wagon. With effort, they lifted the lashed ends and propped them up on the wagon above the broken rear axel. Then Archie attached a rope to the top of the beams and opened them into two legs. When he had each leg seated, he tied a rope from the top and played it out to the stake in the ground. Then, with MacAllister’s assistance, they wrapped the rope around the stake and hauled the makeshift crane into the air. As Archie made the rope fast to the stake, Jane shot MacAllister a $25 look of concern. “Not to worry. Let him have is wee bit o’ fun. Even if he can lift the crate, There’s no way in hell he can swing the box onto the new wagon.”Archie smiled at Jane and said, “He’s right, you know. There’s no way I can move the box onto the wagon.” “Then why are you smiling?” asked Jane.z“The resolute and indefatigable optimism that is the birthright of every English gentleman.” MacAllister scoffed. As Archie climbed up on the wrecked wagon and made the block fast to his makeshift crane, he said, “Especially when in comparison with the dismal pessimism of say, you’re average Hibernian. Always with them what cannot be done. I think it has something to do with the bleakness of the landscape. The fewer hours of daylight in those far Northern realms.”MacAllister said, “His brain has been addled by breathing the thick smog of London.” Archie looped rope around the back of the broken wagon and made it fast. Then he hooked one side of the triple sheave block under this loop. He took another length of rope, made it fast and fed the other end through the blocks. He tossed the bitter end to MacAllister, then stooped to chocked the front wheels of the broken wagon. His preparations complete, he said , “If you please, Mr. MacAllister.”With a few short heaves on the rope, the back of the wagon lifted clear of the desert floor, leaving the rear wheels drooping inward on the broken halves of the axel. Archie pulled each wheel and section of axel out, and let them drop on the ground.Then he maneuvered the wagon they had brought around and backed the wagons up end to end. It was the work of a few moments to remove the sideboards, then Archie was able to back one wagon under the other. Then they lowered the broken wagon onto the working wagon and tied it tight.Archie said, “You neglected to consider the wagon itself as a lever.” Jane said, “Hell, seems like our mistake was doubting you,” and she beamed with pride in the strange Englishman. MacAllister hefted his coin pouch with a bitter smile on his face. Torn between admiration for the work and disappointment at losing the bet.MacAllister moved to remount the wagon and Archie said, “No, no. The bet is to get it back to town, and I’ll see it safely there on my own.” Jane handed her reins to MacAllister and climbed up into the wagon next to Archie. And off they went, as easy as anything. MacAllister kept a respectful distance behind, not wanting to hear the conversation and knowing better than to breathe a word of his fears to Jane. Mule Queen she might be, but MacAllister knew, deep down, she was of a different class than Archie. And he’d seen what came of the hired help who dallying with with the “nobles”.Oh sure, in America they would tell you that there were no nobles and there was no class. But MacAllister just shook his head at such talk. There were classes everywhere. Only here they hid the lines. From what he had seen, it just lead to more catastrophe. At such price freedom?Still, he couldn’t help but like this Croryton. He had a care for his work and the most sand of any man he’d seen out West who didn’t carry a gun. So, as they rode back to Grantham, he stared up at the moon and thought of a girl he had known in Aberdeen, a lifetime ago and a world away. Get full access to Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

Virgil got into Bisbee late in the afternoon. Outside of Fetterman’s a drunk cowboy was staggering around the street running his mouth at passer-bys. He was young, dumb and mostly harmless, with spurs set low so they would jingle to announce his swagger. From time to time, his friends would hand him a liquor bottle and egg him on to greater stupidity.Virgil didn’t like him, mostly because he was jealous of carefree youth. He was sure whatever ranch or cattle drive this cowboy had been on had been hard. He was even willing to believe that this kid was brave and diligent on the job. But Virgil had never had a chance to be that young and foolish; to drink without care. If he had let his guard down when he was that age, he wouldn’t have gotten any older.“And he’s right to walk away,” the young cowboy barked as a scared man in a town suit skittered away from him. The Young Buck strutted in the street in front of the ramshackle bar across the street way Fetterman’s.“Few men, and none in these parts, can tangle with the likes of me without regretting it.” He wheeled and stared at Virgil, “Ain’t that right, mister?” He gave the Young Buck a tight smile and said what the kid wanted to hear, “When I see you coming, sir, I step aside.” Virgil made a show of stepping out of the Young Buck’s gaze. The kid turned his head to follow Virgil, staggered a little and recovered.“See, Bill? Man’s got good sense,” said the Young Buck. And by the time the kid turned back, Virgil was already in Fetterman’s. As the door closed behind him he heard Bill say, “Don’t you get it kid? He’s toying with you.”Ezra Fetterman looked up from behind his desk of fat pine boards on a trestle stand. “Virgil Miller! Well sir, what can I do for you?”“Release the seven tons of flour you owe me and I’ll be on my way.”“About that…”“Fetterman, they were due at my store two weeks ago.”“Well sir,” said Fetterman, pulling on the bottom of his vest, “As my note made clear, there has been an increase in price since last we conferred. And I’ll be needin’ more for that flour.”“Mr. Fetterman, we have a contract. So many tons of flour at such a price, and I expect you to honor it.”“Well, of course, Virgil,” said Ezra, “I wouldn’t dream of breaking a contract with you. You just show me where it’s written and I’ll honor it.” It had been a handshake agreement. Up ’til now Virgil thought a handshake was good with this man. He thought about pistol-whipping the man and taking what was his. But he didn’t need trouble. What he needed was flour. Fetterman saw the dark look on his face, and started speaking quickly, “We had a contract, yes. But the market broke it. Douglas is booming. Yes sir, just booming. They got hungry miners there too. And the Phelps-Dodge company has outbid you.”“I thought I had your word.”Ezra smiled and flinched like a hand shy dog. “I’m sorry. I don’t control the prices. It’ll be weeks before we could bring this before a judge. Be my word against yours. I expect you need flour to sell now, so seems to me best thing for you to do is pay the overage and be done with it.”“What’s this overage?” Virgil asked through his teeth. “Well on 5 1/2 tons of flour –““Seven. The contract was for seven.”“Now, Virgil, just calm down. All I got is 5 1/2 tons and that the God’s honest truth. I see you looking at me like that, and I wish I’d done things different. But I didn’t, and I’m sorry, and that’s that.”Through a red haze, Virgil saw the faces of the men he had killed earlier in the day. How many years had it been since the last time? He didn’t like to think of it. Who was the last man he killed before those “Indians?” Crawford? No. He had killed more since him. But he was the last one who had meant something.It scared him how easy it had been to kill those men. He would have thought that skill would have gotten rusty. But it hadn’t. Mostly nerve, he guessed. For all their bluster, most men were afeard of killing, deep down. With Virgil, it hadn’t made a dent. He was ashamed to have enjoyed it. Not with the cruel satisfaction of a sadist or a murderer, but with the quiet satisfaction that comes from a job well-done.He remembered a time when he would have gunned this Fetterman down for less than this. Then taken all he could carry of the man’s property and left the building in flames behind him. But that had been back East. Where there were trees to hide in and mountains to escape to. Where he knew the secret ways and the safe places like the back of his hand. Most of all there had been water. He thought about where he could run. Where there would be water and safe haven here in the desert. Mexico maybe. “Virgil,” said Fetterman, with fear in his eyes, “Are you okay?”“Some trouble on the road,” said Virgil. Then he thought of Laura and Mack and Penelope. If he went to Mexico, there’d be no going back home to them. They’d be ashamed to know their father was a murderer. And when he’d married and come West, he’d promised Laura and himself that he’d put all behind him. Virgil buried his rage, swallowed his pride, and paid Fetterman what he asked. When the transaction was complete, Fetterman said, “Thank you very much. We’ll see you next time.” “I expect not,” said Virgil.He walked through Fetterman’s warehouse to the back lot where he had parked his wagon. He found the bags of flour stacked in the middle of the room. As he threw the first bag over his shoulder, one of the stock boys said, “You’re not pullin’ out tonight are you?”Virgil carried the flour to his wagon without answering. The stock boy fell in and the wagon filled quickly. Still, by the time they were done, it was almost dark and Virgil was ready to be gone. As he heaved the last bag into the wagon, he heard a voice say, “Well there he is!” Framed in the alleyway was Young Buck and Bill, drunker than before. The Young Buck kicked his boots so his spurs would jangle extra loud as he came down the alley. This was trouble Virgil didn’t need. He ignored the kid and cinched the canvas cover tight over his wagon bed. “Mister! I’m talking to you!”Virgil turned to get onto the wagon, but the kid blocked his path and jammed a finger into his chest. “My friend over there says you’re making fun of me,” slurred the kid, reeking of liquor, “And I said that can’t be because there’s no man in this town foolish enough to make fun of me to my face.”“I’m not making fun of you, sir. I’m just about my business,” Virgil said. Then tried to step around the Young Buck, but the kid was having none of it. He staggered to the side and blocked Virgil’s path.Virgil said, “I’m taking that flour to the hungry people of Grantham, that’s all.” “Who, you hear that Bill? He’s haulin’ flour! What are you some kind of Baker?”“I keep a store,” said Virgil, seeing Penelope’s face from that morning as she had bounded out of the back of the wagon. He’d be no good to his family in jail. Best to take the abuse, he told himself, not quite believing it. He shook as he tried to contain his pride and his rage, and the anger at Fetterman came rushing back, this time twice as hot.“Look at that Bill, he’s terrified!” said the Young Buck in mock concern. “It’s okay shopkeep. I never do you no harm. But let me show you what a daisy like me can do when I get riled.” The kid put his hand on his pistol and then Virgil moved fast. He stepped forward and grabbed the kid’s wrist before he could clear the pistol from his holster. Virgil slammed his forehead into the kid’s nose and the Young Buck cried out in pain as blood gushed down his chin.Virgil jerked the kid’s gun hand, spinning the Young Buck around 180 degrees and pointing the firearm down the alley at his friend Bill. Virgil slammed his palm into the back of Young Buck’s hand, folding the kid’s wrist over on itself and causing his fingers to pop open and release the gun. In one smooth motion, Virgil seized the gun, pointed it at Bill and cocked the trigger, still holding the kid by his wrist with his left hand.It had all happened so fast that all Bill could do was stand there with his mouth hanging open, trying to make sense of it. But when he heard the cocking of the gun he blinked rapidly as he realized he was in real trouble.Virgil’s eyes were wide and filled with madness as he said, “I’m expected back home, you understand?”The Young Buck made a feeble grab for Virgil. Without taking his eyes from Bill, Vigil slammed the Young Buck in the head with the pistol. His knees buckled and he fell to the ground, where blood from his head wound soaked into the dirt.“I’m going home,” said Virgil, “And nothing and no one is gonna stop me.”Bill nodded, still not thinking to close his mouth.“Now, walk forward slow,” said Virgil. Bill turned and ran away. As he disappeared around the corner, Virgil heard him say, “I think he’s killed Joe!” “Goddamn it,” said Virgil. He looked down at Young Buck, unconscious and bleeding on the ground, and said, “God damn you too. Dumb kid with dumber friends.” He walked to his wagon and looked up at the seat on its metal leaf springs. Sitting on that seat, he judged that his head would be maybe fifteen feet off the ground. And his good dray horses couldn’t manage much above a trot, even with an empty wagon. He’d be a fat target all right, like in one of those newfangled shooting galleries. And not much harder to hit. He sighed and looked at the buildings around him. He might be able to climb up that corner and run across the roof, but the wagon was boxed in by the buildings and the stout fence across the back. Virgil wasn’t about to abandon his rig and the flour. Between those cowboys and goddamn Bisbee in general, he was pretty certain he wouldn’t ever see the wagon or the flour again. If nothing else, Fetterman would re-sell them as a package deal. Out in the street, the rest of the Young Buck’s outfit and the curious spectators had formed a crowd and were trying to decide who was going to take a peek down the alley. Bill heard the clop of hoof and jingle of harness from behind Fetterman’s and said, “I think he’s coming.” Pistols cleared holsters and Bill’s hand wasn’t the only one shaking as he aimed at the opening of the alley.At first, all Bill saw was two dray horses pulling a wagon. But as the wagon came out into the street, then he saw the top of Virgil’s head sticking up between the horses. He was walking between them, using them as cover. It had seemed like a good plan, but now Virgil couldn’t turn the horses while he was walking between them. “All RIGHT!” boomed a man’s voice from behind the crowd. “I’m comin’ through and if I see a naked firearm, I”m arresting the man who bears it!”Bill shouted, “But he kilt our friend!” without taking his eyes off what little he could see of Virgil. A mutter of agreement went up from the crowd. A shotgun blast rang out. And in the silence that followed it, the man’s voice again bellowed, “It ain’t open for discussion!” Weapons were holstered all around and Bill followed suit. A large man in a long, dark coat and slouch hat pushed his way through the crowd, with a shotgun leaning against his shoulder. When he saw Virgil and his wagon, he chuckled. “Sir, that is an entertaining predicament you’ve gotten yourself into.”Virgil, still not showing his face, said, “I advise you to seek entertainment elsewhere.“‘Fraid I can’t do that.” said the man, hitching back his coat lapel to reveal a silver star that read Sheriff. “I’m tasked with keeping the peace.”“You showed up late for that,” said Virgil.The Sheriff smiled again. “Well, you know, this town kind spreads its wickedness around. Not hardly convenient. They say you killed a man. But since this lot don’t look too reliable. I thought I’d get your thoughts on the matter before I go shootin’ horses to get to you.”“He’s alive. Back there behind Fetterman’s. He pulled his gun and I took it away and hit him on the head with it.” “And what’d you do to him to get him so mad?” asked the Sheriff.Bill said, “He weren’t mad he was just funnin’ is all.” Virgil said, “Drunk and fulla sand, looking for someone to push around,”“And he pushed the wrong man, is that it?” asked the Sheriff. “I’m expected at home. Not about to let a drunk accidentally shoot me.” said Virgil. The Sheriff rubbed his chin and thought about it. “Yeah, I’ll allow it makes for a poor epitaph.” He turned to another man in the crowd and said, “Go have a look, see if he’s tellin’ the truth.”The man came back, helping the Young Buck stagger, bloody-faced into the street. The Sheriff asked, “Did you draw on this man?”Young Buck looked around, confused. All he saw was the Sheriff and what appeared to be an empty wagon. “What man?”Virgil stepped out from between the horses. Young Buck flinched when he saw him. Then he looked to the Sheriff and said, “Yes, sir, I started to.” The Sheriff shook his head. “Go see the Doc.”“That it?” asked Virgil.“No, sir, I’m gonna see you to the edge of town, make sure that nothing happens. And I don’t want to see you come back.” “Fetterman’s a crook, that kid’s a fool,” said Virgil. “I’m sorry to see a like-minded man go, but you are going,” said the Sheriff. Virgil nodded and led his horses and wagon out of town. As he went, the Sheriff walked beside him and asked, “What’s your name? What’s your business?”“Virgil Miller. I own the General Store in Grantham.”The Sheriff laughed, “You’re a shopkeeper?”“I married into it,” said Virgil.The Sheriff said, “That makes even less sense.” He looked back and saw that no one was following them. Then he held out his hand and said, “Sheriff Dunston. I appreciate you not shooting that cowboy in my town.” Virgil looked Dunston’s hand and said, “If I see either of them again, I’m gonna assume…”The Sheriff nodded. “I would too. All I ask is just don’t go shootin’ anybody in Bisbee. Beyond that, it’s between you the Lord Almighty.”Virgil shook his hand, climbed into his wagon, and rode off into what was left of the sunset. Get full access to Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

I wrote this essay 12 years ago. And there are a lot of things that I used to believe that I don’t believe anymore. But the substance of this essay has become more and more true for me with each passing year. Longhand has become the most productive way for me to write. And in the increasing noise and hysteria of our digital age, it has become, for me, a blessing. Once again I find myself about 50,000 words into a substantial work. And now more than ever, I feel that my best drafts are written with a pen and paper. So here it is again, my Defense of Writing Longhand. I like technology. A lot. But I'm not too sure how technology feels about me. It may be my faithful friend and boon companion — then again, it may just be pretending to be my friend so it can date my sister. Especially when it comes to writing.I'm writing a book. And for all the romance and immensity that phrase can contain, writing a book is also simply a production process. I am in the process of assembling 75,000 to 100,000 words. And, after writing 50,000 of them, I've become convinced that the first draft is the hardest part. Hemingway famously said that the first draft of everything is s**t. For what it's worth, I agree. So, my question, becomes: What's the easiest way to get through the hardest part.And to my surprise, the easiest way turns out to be writing longhand. Not printing, mind you, but composing with a long, flowing, and delightfully irregular script that fills the page like a river of words. I sit down with a pen and a piece of paper and a thousand words roll out in a flash. And not only does it often take less time than typing, I think I write better longhand.Now realize, I am not a hunt and peck typist. I type very fast. And when I type on one of those thin little laptop keyboards that have about 3 millimeters of travel, my typing speed approaches the absurd—like Glenn Gould, the wonderfully talented and eccentric pianist who remanufactured his piano, shortening the action on his keys so that he could play Bach faster. Beautiful, yet a little insane.But there is obviously more to writing than typing. What I'm really doing is composing. Composition requires focus. It is, like most acts of creation, monotasking. And as much as I love technology, it drives us to distraction.A pen and paper has but one functionality. It captures the marks I make so that they can be referred to at a later time. It doesn't ring, it doesn't bother me with an incoming chat or IM. It never asks me to plug it in so it can get more power. It doesn't crash, it never needs an upgrade, and it is unlikely that someone will snatch my pad and bolt from a coffee shop with it when I turn my back.Sure paper is perishable. But it is predictably perishable. Data turns to noise in all kinds of unpredictable ways. Like hard drive crashes. And if an IT person tells you that there is a way to archive a digital file, not touch it for 500 years, and guarantee that it will remain usable—that person is lying to you. If you think I'm wrong, I'll email you some WordStar and AppleWorks documents just as soon as I can figure out how to get them off my five and a quarter inch floppies.But I can go the National Archives right now and read a copy of the Magna Carta that was handwritten 793 years ago. No format or version issues here. (It's fitting for this essay that Magna Carta literally means "Great Paper".)But, to paraphrase Emerson, all of this is small account compared to what lies within us. And that is the struggle to organize and communicate our thoughts clearly with the beautiful, yet horribly imprecise instrument of language. And it is in this struggle, I believe, that the beauty and power of writing longhand is discovered.In a way, the problem with writing is the same problem of hitting a golf ball. Both the page and the ball just sit there. And when you write you have (theoretically) a lifetime to rewrite it until you get it right.But all that time is simply a field day for the critical part of your brain. Just the time it needs to jump in and muck everything up. This part of the brain needs something to criticize. After all, that's its job. But the critical function is not creative. Be critical about anything. No matter how absurd you are being, you will find ammo to support you. Try running Hamlet through a Microsoft Grammar check. Try running Hamlet and leaving all the scenes in.The point is, there's no possible way to get it right if you don't first get it down. And as much as I know this—I mean know it in my bones, as a carpenter knows his measuring tape—it still doesn't help.The critical part of my brain is telling me, right now, that this sentence is horrible. That the entire device of anthropomorphizing the critcal side of my nature in this essay is a bad idea. And that I just misspelled critical. And I shouldn't have started two sentences in a row with "and".But when I write longhand, the experience is different. I think it is because that critical part of my brain is busy picking apart my handwriting (which truly is horrible) instead of my prose. It tells me that my handwriting is atrocious. And it gets the satisfaction of being right. But who cares? While it's busy with that, the words are just rushing out. And they're not henpecked or second-guessed before they've had time to cool. They exist in a flawed, but pure state. This kind of prose has a feral power that seems to be lacking from the things I type. Maybe that's not it; maybe it's just harder to get my head in that effortless writing space when I use a keyboard. But whatever the case is, writing longhand makes it easier for me to reach a writer's high.And if you're still not sold on the idea that writing longhand might help you write better, consider this: Until the 20th century, books were written by hand. I would argue that the best writing in history was composed by hand. The entire process is much easier now. But, would you like to argue that the increase in the power of our technology has led to a corresponding increase in the quality of our writing? Not me. I'm too busy scribing away. Get full access to Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

Archie rode uphill through the town, towards the elegant, yet out-of-place Victorian house on the hill. When those in the street and on the porches gawked at his unusual appearance he took pleasure in tipping his pith helmet to them. He passed the Morning Star Saloon on his right, and tucked in behind it, found the mine. Convenient for the miners, thought Archie. And if he knew the breed, he doubted they would have any pay left over after drinking. The mine entrance was sunk into an unusual mound, perhaps thirty-five feet tall. Men were using mules to haul a heavy ore cart from the timber-framed opening in the hill. Archie decided that his first step would be to survey the composition of the mound. If it was stable enough the engine could be installed on top, otherwise, the earth would have to be removed and a platform constructed. What a magnificent sight it would be if his engine was the tallest thing in town!300 yards up the hill, he hitched his horse to the wrought iron fence that surrounded Jean DuMont’s house. Wrought iron? Ye gods, what expense in this wasteland. By the glass in the front door, Archie could see that he was covered with the dust and grime of travel. He removed his helmet and could see a sharp line where the relatively clean skin began. He attempted to brush some of the dirt from his forehead, then realized the foolishness of it. He stood tall and knocked on the door. His rap on the door was answered with frantic steps. The speed at which someone was approaching confused Archie. It had been a simple knock.The door swung open quickly and a severe-looking woman in a nurse’s uniform whispered. “Who are you? What are you doing! Don’t you know that the Monsieur isn’t to have visitors?”Taken aback, Archie asked, “Which one of those would you like me to answer first?”“None of them. Go away.”“My name is Archimedes Croryton and at Monsieur DuMont’s request I have spent some $30,000 of his dollars and traveled the better part of 2,500 miles to bring him pumps and an engine to clear his mine of groundwater.” “The mine? The mine!” She said, “Why didn’t you say so? You must see Mr. Pulaski, the Foreman!” then she started closing the door. Archie placed his boot against the jamb, and said, “I really think he will want to see me.”“Monsieur is not well!”From inside the house came an angry bark. “Esther! Who is it?” This was followed by a phlegmy coughing fit. “Go away,” Esther said, the anger in her eyes now replaced with pleading.Archie was unmoved. “His letter was quite clear. I am to present myself immediately upon arrival.”“Who is it!” Came the old voice again. “Is there something wrong at the mine?”Reluctantly, Esther opened the door, glaring at Archie as he entered. To the right of the door, Jean DuMont was getting up from a chair with some difficulty. He clutched a handkerchief to his mouth and coughed loudly, angrily as if he were yelling at disease itself. But in his manner, he attempted to play it off as if it were nothing.Archie had heard the rattling death sentence of that cough before. Tuberculosis. With the spirit of a true gentleman, Archie ignored the unpleasant noise, bowed his head and said, “Archimedes Croryton, at your service, sir.”The older man’s eyes twinkled and his grey face lifted in a smile. He asked “have you brought it? The means to drain my sump of a mine?”“Indeed sir, I have,” said Archie, and DuMont shook his hand heartily.DuMont said to Esther, “This is him! The boy wonder that Stevens found in Boston!” Esther shook her head and walked away.“Nevermind her. She’s professionally nasty. Keeps the riff-raff away. Come, sit. Refresh yourself.” They talked for the better part of a half an hour. DuMont had real enthusiasm, but he tired quickly, coughing and wheezing as he struggled to breathe. Esther hovered behind the old man, flitting in and out of the room, attending to his needs, but always, always, glaring at Archie. As if her glare alone could drive him from the house.As Archie sketched a diagram of the pumping mechanism he had designed, DuMont beckoned Esther for his medicine. She decanted him a glass of grain alcohol which had opium poppies floating in it. When he saw Archie’s curious glance he explained, “for my cough.” After he swallowed it, he did breathe easier and coughed less. But his energy quickly deserted him, and he collapsed into his wicker chair by the window.“You must forgive me, Mr. Croryton. I no longer have the vigor I enjoyed in my youth. I am not well man, but I caution you, my mind is as sharp as ever. And I can see that my agent’s confidence in you was not misplaced.” He rose and went to his desk where he wrote a note, blotted it, and folded it. “Take this to Mr. Pulaski and he will give you everything you need to complete your work. But a word of caution. Trust in him, not a whit. Nor any of those other,” he paused for a coughing fit, “those other jackals in my employ. They are cheating me. Attempting to rob me blind. They think my mind and my eyes have gone because of the weakness in my lungs. But I know. Do you understand, *I know*. And I will have my revenge on all of them in the end.” Uneasily, Archie said, “I know not what to make of your troubles, sir. But I will build your pumping engine. I will clear your mine. And if I can be of service in any other way…”DuMont was wracked by a coughing fit, but his eyes never left Archie’s. The stare was an accusation Archie did not quite understand. When he had recovered himself, he said, “Welcome to the Morning Star Mine.”As Archie exited, DuMont collapsed into his chair and Esther hurried to him with another glass of laudanum, hissing at Archie, “show yourself out.” ~ ~ ~Beside the Morning Star Mine men were cutting timbers with a horse-powered sawmill. Four teams of horses walked a well-trampled circle around a central spindle. Archie followed the main drive belt as it came off the top of the spindle, then through several transfer spindles across the top of the barely roofed pavilion and then around the smallest wheel. The smallest wheel turned a spindle that led to a cage and peg gear that turned a horizontal shaft. Around that shaft, a circular saw blade now spun with blinding speed. As two men rolled a log onto a cast iron sled, Archie estimated the efficiency and effectiveness of the gearing. While the blade was turning with great speed, Archie wondered if it had enough torque to get its job done. As the men pushed the carry sled forward, the log touched the blade and sawdust fountained through the air. The word parted easily enough at first, but halfway through the saw bound and the leather belt slipped and screeched hideously against the wooden spindle. The men stopped the horses and heaved against the heavy sled trying to back the log off the blade so that the mill could be restarted.“You. What want?” Set a voice with an Eastern European accent.Archie turned to see a man in filthy denim, wearing a mine lamp on his forehead that was still burning. Behind him, men were unloading an ore cart.“Are you Mr. Pulaski?""He's down mine, come back later." "I rather think you should go fetch him. Mr. DuMont sent me."“Old snake, what new?”“A curious term for your employer. I have 30 wagons of equipment due any moment and I need a place to put them.” “Who are you?”Archie turned and saw that the men with the sawmill were preparing to make the same mistake with greater vigor. With impatience, he said, “A man who makes improvements. Now, fetch Mister Pulaski while I repair your saw mill.”With all the command and disdain of someone born to the aristocracy, Archie turned and strode to his work. He held a hand up to stop the man about to set the horses into motion again. The man looked confused, but Archie offered him no explanation. He handed him his pith helmet as he walked by and the man took it and said nothing. The men on the sled turned to see why the mill hadn’t restarted and watched Archie walk up and pull a lever that disengaged the cage and peg gear. Only then did he direct his attention to the saw blade. He ran a finger along the side of the metal blade and found it abrasive and hot to the touch. Then he set his thumb against one of the teeth and made a disapproving noise.An angry man in suspenders with a sharp nose approached him and said, “What do you think you’re doing?”Archie said, “When was the last time this blade was sharpened?”The man blinked twice in thought, then mustered his anger again, “What’s that to you in your funny suit?” Archie took his attention from the blade and spindle and stepped directly up to the man, saying, quietly but with real intensity, “This is no way to treat machinery you fool. If you treated your co-worker over there as poorly as you treated this mill, you would be in jail.”The man sputtered and struggled to find words. Archie said, “You will find me a small file…”“You can’t talk to me like that!”Archie continued in his quiet, but unbending way, “and a candle. Can you remember that? A small file, and a candle, repeat it back to me.”“I… I…”Another of the men intervened, saying, “The file is over on that stump. I’ll be back with your candle.”Archie returned to his study of the blade and shaft. “You, you mess with wrong Wlod. Now we see how good your name!” said the man, lifting his fists. If Archie had risen to the argument, there might well have been a fight, right then and there. But Archie ignored him altogether, looking about the mill yard until he spied a sledgehammer. He walked and quickly picked it up, lifting it above his head. Wlod jumped back in fear, thinking that Archie meant him harm, but Archie walked to the end of the rails that the sled was set upon. He hit one rail and then the other with two mighty blows that set the pavilion ringing. Then he checked the rails again, muttering to himself. Archie looked up, suddenly becoming conscious of the man again. He said, “Has to be perfectly parallel to the direction of travel you see.” Seeing that the man didn’t see, Archie waved him off dismissively, grabbed the file and fell to sharpening the saw teeth with a will. Archie gave each tooth five passes with the file then moved on to the next. By the time he had come back around to the first tooth the man had returned with the candle.He spun the blade and brush the candle against each side of it. Then he handed the candle back and said, "every time the blade stops, you wax it do you understand?"The man took the candle and looked at it, not quite understanding, but pretending that he did. Archie gave the signal to start the horses then engaged the pin and cage gear. The saw blade disappeared in a whirr of teeth. Then, with one hand, Archie pushed the cast iron sled and the saw parted the wood effortlessly.Archie looked directly at Wlod and said, "less muscle, more sharpening."The men, marveling at how easy their job could be said, "yes, sir."A barrel-chested man with a sour look on his face called Archie, "now that you fixed the saw, what do you want?""Mr. Pulaski?" asked Archie and the man nodded and waved for him to come out of the sawmill so they might talk.Outside Archie had it in the letter. Pulaski recognized the handwriting and shook his head. "Did he tell you I was stealing?"Archie said, "in fact, he did.""The only man stealing from this mine is him! If he'd stop meddling with his frightful suspicions and distrust –""Perhaps there is something to do that will allay his concerns?""You think I'm a thief!" Pulaski said getting red in the face. "What would I steal? Raw ore? There's no water here. We have to send the ore to Bisbee to be crushed and washed and smelted. Do you want to go through my pockets for silver nuggets?""I do not, Mr. Pulaski.""He's crazy! You'll see. He'll turn on you too. Faster than you think.""Be that as it may, Mr. Pulaski, I have 30 wagons of equipment on their way here and I need…""You don't believe me? He's watching you right now." Pulaski nodded his head uphill.Archie turned and had a clear view of the Victorian Mansion’s turret. “Sets up there with a spyglass he does. All day coughing and watching the mine, his brain et up with consumption. And when he gets bored with that he comes down here and gives us hell. I've half mind to quit right now.”Archie said nothing, for there was nothing to say.Pulaski stared at the sawmill now making cuts three times faster than it was before. He growled his approval as a fresh beam was dropped off the sled. "All right," he said with a violent jerk of his head that served as a nod. Pulaski indicated the empty lot across the street. “You can leave the wagons there tonight and we'll figure out the rest in the morning." Then he looked sharply over Archie's shoulder and said, "that is if you still have a job."DuMont was stomping down the middle of the street covering his face with a handkerchief and coughing as he came. Following close behind him was his furious nurse. "Mr. Croryton!” Cough, cough, cough. "Mr. Croryton !”Archie looked straight at the man, and still, he called out “Croryton!” as if Archie hadn’t heard. And he only stopped yelling Archie’s name when he got to arm’s length. "Explain yourself, sir!""How do you mean, sir?"“Give an ack ack accounting of your behavior. Are you not in cahoots with this man,” he said pointing at Pulaski."I don't see how I could be, as I do not know what cahoots are.""Do not play games with me!" snarled DuMont, falling into a coughing fit again."Really sir, You should be in bed," said Archie with real concern."You'd like that, wouldn't you?” asked DuMont. "Give you and the rest of these shirking scoundrels time to rob me blind!" He was interrupted by coughing again."But I am watching. Even when you think I am not. I am always watching! And I have revealed you for the fraud that you are!""How do you mean, sir!” said Archie, finally starting to take offense at this absurdity."The wagons, sir. You claimed to be something you are not in an attempt to defraud me no doubt!" "The wagons are on the other side of town and only want but a small exertion of your much-vaunted perception to be seen.”"Ha," cried DuMont, "there are many wagons in this town. But where is your cargo? Answer me that, sir."Archie looked down Main Street and saw the wagon train advancing slowly towards them up the hill. "There, sir!" cried Archie and walked into the middle of the street waving his helmet above his head. As DuMont argued with his nurse in French, McAllister pulled the lead wagon alongside Archie."Where is Miss Siskin?" Asked Archie."We've one last wagon stuck in the wash and she's seeing to it. Rather violently, I'm afraid. But she and the wagon will be along in due time.""Park here,” said Archie, and directed the train into the lot across the street from the mine and catty-corner from the Morning Star Hotel and Saloon.The driver of the third wagon shouted to Archie, "across the street from the bar! You're a good man, sir!" Get full access to Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

Somewhere, out there, a story is searching for you.It fumbles, faceless through the dark. Unknowable, unformed. Newt pads for hands, it whispers questions in the dreams of people you know.Is this nascent thing a love story, a family drama, a gritty crime thriller?It doesn't know yet, so how can we?At this point, it is not much more than a stubborn collection of related longings.Unless you are very sensitive (or very wise) you probably don't believe that this ur-story is real because it hasn't happened to you yet.You are practical and level-headed about such things. Good for you, you think. But you are wrong.Fiction, my friend, is the realest thing of all.So real that even when you don't believe in it, it believes in you.All of the mundane facts of life were once just stories. And EVERYTHING was a crazy idea at first.From: "Whattyamean? You're going to live on land? Life has always lived in the ocean?"To: "We could never go to the moon, that's a story for kids!”And on and on.Never forget that nations and causes are just stories. And nations and causes have murdered a lot of people.They take you seriously, ESPECIALLY when you don't take them seriously.And this story that is searching for you begins with a choice.It could be a choice to say a thing or leave words unspoken. To move towards or away from or to just stand still.Doing nothing is still a choice.Ah look, the story has found you. It crept up on you while you were wasting time on social media.Here it is to seize your life and make itself real.Be brave, good luck and don't give up hope at the beginning of the third act. It only looks like all is lost. But if you trust in yourself and what you have learned and let your loved ones help you, you will triumph in the end.I promise. Get full access to Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

The Swing Station was a pile of mud bricks with a thatched roof on the east side of the Mule Mountains. The windows had no glass, only torn curtains that would flutter in their mud sockets on the rare occasions that there was a breeze. But there was no breeze today, and the Bisbee-Grantham station baked in the sun. Give it another hundred years of days like, thought Miguel, and the Bisbee-Grantham station would turn into a proper brick building. The only things that separated the building from a ruin were the large corral of strong horses out back and the telegraph line running through the station and on to Grantham.Miguel’s job as Station Agent was to mind the horses, see that the place had plenty of water, and operate the telegraph. Which meant that most of the time, he sat in the heat of the station waiting for that angry piece of metal to clack to life. All day long, he would listen to it tell tales of coaches traveling up and down the line. Two hours ago it had told him that a stagecoach with four passengers had left Bisbee headed this way. He has spent those two hours staring at the fat flies chasing the smell of the morning’s fried beans. They flew in slow clockwise arcs around the room while Miguel and the mestizo kid who helped with the horses endured the heat. There was a book open next to him on the desk, but in the heat of the day, the thought of turning the pages was ridiculous. It was all he could do to sit at the desk, chin propped in his hand, and breathe through his mouth.When one of the flies dropped dead on his desk with a fat plop, Miguel nudged the mestizo boy, who was asleep next to the desk. The boy rubbed his face and looked at Miguel. Miguel said, “Sais” and the boy nodded and went outside.There were twenty-three horses in the corral. The boy cut six out and formed them up into a team, moving the huge animals, and rigging the harness and yoke with ease and skill. When he was done he took the long reins and walked behind the animals as he moved them around to the front of the station. The stage would be here soon, and if it was to keep the schedule, it would need this fresh team of horses.As the horses stood waiting, the boy walked around with a bag of oats giving each of them a handful in turn. It was a long run from here to Grantham. This was the last station on the line.Inside, Miguel closed his eyes and drifted somewhere just on this side of consciousness. Even as he dozed, he was aware that something was wrong. The stage should’ve been here by now. He struggled to open his eyes and check his timepiece, but he told himself it didn’t matter. There was nothing he could do about it anyway. If something was wrong, he should be rested for when trouble came.At the first sound of the far-off stagecoach, his cheek slipped from his palm and his face dropped onto the desk, causing the dead fly to bounce. In a minor miracle, the fly came back to life long enough to buzz off the desk and drop dead on the dirt floor. Miguel jumped bolt upright and rubbed his chin. That sound wasn’t the stage. It was coming from the wrong direction and was two horses at most. He could hear the boards of an empty wagon ringing from the jolts from the road. He walked to the doorway and fought to shove it open against the accumulated dirt.On the road from Grantham, he saw a man in a broad hat driving an empty wagon. The man waved hello as he pulled into the yard and Miguel waved back. The mestizo boy only had eyes for the horses.Miguel recognized him as the owner of the Miller general store. What was his name again, Virgil? He remembered Virgil’s pretty wife and son working with him and his even prettier daughter that argued with all the customers with the innocent mayhem of a six-year-old girl.“Mr. Miller!” said Miguel.Virgil opened his mouth to return the greeting but just then, they heard the rumble of the stage coming down the hill from Bisbee. The first blast of the horn might have been mistaken for a trick of the wind. But the horn kept sounding and sounding its urgent call.Everyone stared uphill in anticipation of the stage’s appearance on the road down out of the mountains. The mestizo boy cinched one of the horses tighter. The stage always blew the horn for fresh horses. The boy and the animals were both well-conditioned.The horn and the clattering of the stagecoach grew louder and louder. Just over the next rise now. Then the boom of a shotgun echoed off the hills. The horses' heads jerked up. Miguel stepped back through the door and grabbed his rifle, cocking it as he re-emerged. “Get inside,” he said to the mestizo boy who hitched the team to the rail and did as he was told.“Mr. Miller, I do not know what we are about to receive,” Miguel called from the doorway, “but I think you should step inside.”As Virgil ran to the building, the horn fell silent. The stagecoach burst over the rise with a thunderous clatter. It came down the grade at a hideous speed, lurching wildly, tottering on the left wheels and then the right, in danger of tipping over at any moment. They saw the driver fighting to control the panicked animals, but no one was riding shotgun. Behind the stage were three Mescaleros, ragged–looking, but on fast horses and riding as if they had been born in the saddle.As the stagecoach roared passed, the driver looked to Miguel with fear-filled eyes, the silent plea of a man who has seen death gaining on him. The Stage hit the flat in front of the station and bounced hard before settling back to earth with a crash.Miguel put the rifle to his shoulder and fired at one of the Mescalero’s. A miss. Before he could fire again the lead Indian shot the driver from the top of the stage. As the driver’s body pinwheeled into the dust and scrub, the stagecoach hurled, driverless, downhill towards the plain. Miguel fired three more shots out of frustration. None of them had a chance of hitting.Miguel heard a clatter from the corral and saw Virgil riding after the stagecoach on Miguel’s horse. As Virgil disappeared down the road, Miguel yelled at the boy, “Goddammit, saddle me another horse!” ~ ~ ~Virgil lashed the horse with the reins, shouting encouragement to the animal as he rode. he hadn’t had much experience with chasing people. In his old life, he had been the one being chased. As he rode through the dust kicked up by the stagecoach, he had time to feel the fool. Of course, a stagecoach getting robbed was bad for all business, general stores included, but stopping robberies was the stage line’s business first, the Law's business second and none of Virgil’s business at all. But Virgil could do no other. He had seen a glimpse of terrified faces in the window of the out-of-control stage as it roared by. Lost souls if ever he had seen them. His heart had gone out to them. It wouldn’t have happened when he was younger, but now that he had a family, he looked at strangers and instead of seeing threats and opportunities, he saw sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, each a patch in the quilt of humanity.Them as he used to ride with, would have said he had gone soft, and mark him for a shopkeeper. But that wasn’t true. When he was younger, he had been driven by anger and by fear. Now he was surprised to find he was driven by love. If desperate men were allowed to do this to strangers, one day they might do it to someone he cared about.Besides, that station agent didn’t stand a chance. Playing with that rifle, wasting shots. A rifle was an honest man’s weapon and no good at a gallop. A man should only fire a shot that had a chance of hitting, especially with a fancy repeating rifle like that. When things went bad, ammo was always scarce. Miguel was a sportsman; a hunter, no killer of men.The Mescalero’s had pistols, but now there was no one left on the stage for them to shoot. They thought they had won their prize, and just needed to run it to ground.As Virgil came over the next rise he could see the bandits racing along with the stage, trying to find a place in the narrow road to get alongside. But the road was winding downward through the foothills with a cliff on one side, and a steep drop on the other.As Virgil came up from the rear, none of the Indians looked back. There must’ve been more of them to start with, thought Virgil. The man riding shotgun would have gotten a few from the stage, and now these Mescaleros were too angry to let it go.Virgil saw that the road bottomed out and opened up ahead. He took the reins in his teeth and drew both of his heavy pistols. He pointed them both on the same side of the horse’s head. Less likely to shoot the poor animal out from under himself that way. He had a moment to hope the horse wouldn’t spook at gunfire in his ear.As the stagecoach bottomed out on the flat, Virgil came within in range of the first man. He brought the Army revolvers to bear and cocked them. He stabilized his hands, doing his best to let them float free as his body and the horse flailed along through space.Virgil fired four shots as he swung the guns in an arc through the path of the Mescalero back to front. The first shot went wide the second and third hit. The fourth would’ve had a chance, but the Mescalero was already dead and falling from his saddle.As Virgil galloped past the riderless horse, he heard gunshots from up ahead. The second Mescalero was alongside the stagecoach firing back at him. Beyond him, Virgil saw the third Indian lifting his pistol to fire into the stagecoach team.Virgil had just enough time to think it was a cowardly thing, and not what proper Apaches would do. They could be fierce and cruel, but the ones Virgil had known had prided themselves on their horsemanship, and the care of useful animals. As Virgil shot the second one from his saddle, the one in the lead shot two of the stagecoach horses in their traces. This slewed the rest of the team around to the left. It happened so suddenly that the Mescalero couldn’t get clear. His horse was knocked sideways off the road and he flew from the saddle.Horses screamed, leather and wood snapped. Dead animals and shattered tackle ground into the Earth as the stage skewed left, then capsized. The Coach smashed into the earth, and shuttered to a stop, scattering trunks and luggage and debris as it went. Virgil slowed his horse and shot the third Mescalero through the head as he writhed on the ground, struggling to catch his breath. The horses were ruined. Piled up in rope and leather, and broken legs. One screamed intermittently, and the other two survivors panted, wide-eyed, in pain, resigned to death in that infinitely gentle, infinitely suffering way that all horses seemed to have.Virgil dismounted and shot them one a time, careful not to miss. He heard moans from inside the stage but took the time to reload his pistols before he went to help. His hands were practiced, and he slotted the cartridges home, without looking down, keeping his eyes locked on the Bisbee road, looking for more marauders.From the stage, he heard a voice say, “I hope you’re not going to do that to me.” Virgil turned and saw a badly battered man in a tweed suit drop down from the side of the capsized stagecoach. The man struggled as if he was drunk, but maintained his footing. He reached into the inside of his jacket, pulled out a bottle of patent medicine, and took a long swig. Then he added, “although, under the circumstances, it might be a blessing. Dr. Aloysius Krupp at your service.” He reached up to tip a hat he wasn’t wearing, lost his balance, and fell down unconscious.Virgil shook his head and squinted at the road. Still no one on the ridge. He finished reloading the second pistol and walked to the coach. Along the way, he stepped gently over Dr. Krupp, who was snoring quietly in the sun. He climbed up the side of the stagecoach and looked through the broken window at the human wreckage inside.In a pile, there was a large man in a black suit, a hat with a fancy silver hatband, a carpet bag, a lady’s hatbox, a man with a preacher’s collar, a young woman in a fine pink dress, a tattered Bible, and a deck of cards scattered around the compartment.The man in the fine black suit moaned. Virgil guessed it was because the other two passengers were sitting on him. He said, “Mister, you okay?”The question was answered with a louder groan. The woman came to her senses, swiveled her head around and tried to make sense of her predicament. Virgil asked, “Ma'am, can you rise?”The woman looked up at him and scowled in displeasure. But it was not meant for him. She removed one of the Preacher’s hands from her bosom and then slapped the unconscious man across the face saying, “No free rides! Not even for a man of the cloth!” Then she looked up at Virgil and asked, “Sir, can you extricate me?” As she shifted her weight in an attempt to rise something in the pile dug into the man in the suit, who groaned even louder. This in turn woke the freshly slapped preacher who exclaimed, “Has the Lord God Almighty seen fit to deliver us from the savages?”“Aw Christ, give it a rest,” said the man in the suit. “And would somebody get their elbow out my balls!”“Hang on,” said Virgil.He dropped down, cut some of the reins from the shattered team, and collected his horse. He looped one end of the severed reins around his saddle horn and then rode alongside the stage. He tied a loop in the far end and dropped it into the broken window. Then he pounded on the side calling out to the survivors within, “One at a time.”The first one he extracted from the stagecoach was the lady... if she could be called that. She had dark hair and green eyes. As she emerged from the wreckage she revealed herself to be an expensive beauty. Virgil helped her down, trying not to look at her cleavage so he would not feel the guilt of it when he thought of his wife.Next came the preacher, who cried out overmuch for deliverance and fell to his knees in loud and effusive prayer. The last man, in his dark suit, replaced the hat with the silver hatband on his head, held his handkerchief to his broken nose, and leapt down with surprising agility for a man of his size.Dr. Krupp recovered consciousness and took another swig from the flask. He offered it to the Preacher, saying, “A most remarkable tonic for the nerves and spleen. It will settle you right down after an ordeal.”The preacher broke into a hymn, and the man with the silver hatband shook his head and looked to Virgil. “Nevermind God,” he said, “Thank you, sir. We’re lucky you came along.” Virgil tipped his hat and looked back to the road. Still nothing.Virgil felt exposed, but they only had the one horse, so the group wasn't going anywhere very fast. As he listened to their chatter he began to think that *having* rescued them would be more difficult than just rescuing them.The lady picked her way through the luggage that was scattered behind the wreck of the stagecoach. The Preacher continued, hammer and tongs, praying “And for your deliverance, oh Lord, in your benevolence you sent a mighty champion, who slew the Philistines!”Dr. Krupp barked,” you blathering charlatan! Those weren’t philistines, those were savages. Fearsome Indians!”There was a clatter of hooves and Virgil looked up and saw Miguel, riding the left horse of the fresh team. Miguel looked at the dead horses and the dazed passengers and he said, “Verga.” He looked to Virgil and asked, “Señor, did you kill all of the Indians?”Virgil said, “I got two of ‘em. The third one got tangled in the horses when it went over. But they’re not Indians. They just look like Indians. Maybe that one’s purebred, but they’re all border trash. Rustlers more than Indians.”“How can you be so certain, sir?” asked the man in the dark suit.Virgil shrugged, “Look at them. That one is a straight cowboy. And there’s not so many Indians left. These as call themselves Mescaleros, but they’re not much more than desperate men coming from across the border to raid and fall back. Besides, Apaches steal horses, children, women. They aim to take scalps, count coup. They don’t just steal money. They don’t have much use for it.”“What’s your name, sir? How do you have a knowledge of the savage tribes hereabouts?”“My name ain’t important, we need to get you people off this road.”Dr. Krupp staggered over and said, “Mr. Miller, as a token of my gratitude, allow me to present you with a bottle Doctor Amadeus Bartoleermeer the 2nd’s All-Purpose Miracle Cure. The 9th Wonder of the medieval world — thought to be lost to the ages — known to the Greeks as Panacea and among the ancient Pharaohs as…”Virgil look at the bottle from the man’s outstretched hand and asked, “you a real Doctor… Bartoleermeer?”The expensive lady snapped, saying, “No, he’s just a salesman.”“A Doctor of Philosophy. And a customer, a patient first and foremost! Let me tell you of my treatment and my miraculous results with this marvelous elixir.”Miguel climbed up and checked the strongbox that was still chained to the top of the stagecoach. Then he inspected the wheels and the axles and found that all of them were unbroken. He said, “I’d call it a miracle except for the two men who were killed. By rights, all the passengers should be dead and this coach should be kindling.”“And the horses,” Virgil said.“And the horses,” allowed Miguel. “Give me a hand and we’ll put this rig to rights.” Then he cut the tangle of harness holding the dead team to the stage. With Virgil’s help he backed the fresh team around and made it fast to the top of the wagon axles. Then Miguel stood beside the team with the reins and snapped them over the horses with a whistle and a click.As the team pulled, Miguel set his boot heels in the dirt and gave drag on the reins so the horses would not lunge forward, snapping the tackle. The load came on little by little. The ropes creaked, and the stagecoach groaned, but it came up on two wheels. It tipped past its center of gravity and crashed back onto all four wheels. Though it rocked back and forth violently, the battered coach held together.After they had hitched the new team and salvaged what they could of the baggage Virgil quietly asked Miguel, “Leave me out of tellin’, if you would.”Miguel was confused “But you are a hero, and the passengers - they will talk no matter what I say!”Virgil shook his head. “They didn’t see anything. When they tell it, it'll the both of us. When you’re asked, just say I rode with you. I was first to the wreck. Lotta confusion, can’t be sure who did what.”Miguel shook his head. “I don’t understand, but I will do as you ask.” They shook hands and Miguel drove the stage on to Grantham. When the stage was over the hill, Virgil looted the bodies for cartridges. He refilled the empty spaces in his bullet loops and filled another belt besides. Only then did he ride back to collect his wagon, and head on to tend to his business with the flour merchant in Bisbee. Get full access to Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

Inspiration… that son-of-a-b***hI’m having a problem with inspiration right now. He’s been ducking me. I mean we have this regular arrangement. He shows up and Inspiration, that son-of-a-b***h, has been ducking me. I know what happened. He got all cracked out on the ideas he was supposed to bring me and now he’s embarrassed. So he ran away. He’s jittering around Times Square circa 1976 clutching a Bendix brake drum in his left hand, trying to pawn it off on tourists as a novelty ashtray.Somewhere men are laughing. Somewhere children shout. But in Times Square circa 1976 it’s just starting to rain and that cigarette he bummed off a schoolteacher from Maine is ruinedHe slides into a pizza joint to get out of the weather, but gets yelled when he doesn’t order, because he doesn’t have any money. That son-of-a-b***h, I was prepared to pay cash.“Come on man, I got a great idea for a Tweet,” he says, starting to shake real bad now. “I trade you straight up for a slice.”If there’s one thing I can tell you about the creative process it’s that you can’t depend on inspiration. He’s a real shitheel. You just gotta make it happen for yourself. Get full access to Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

He called them with the same magic that brings the fog in the morning or a thunderstorm on a hot summer afternoon. They came from the reservation. They came from hiding places deep in canyons or high in mountains. They came because he was the War Chief. and before they passed from the world, they wanted to go on one last raid. They were the moisture in the earth or the charge in the sky before a storm. They came because they wanted to be released. At Fort Sill, he was forced to live in a canvas tent, because they would not allow him to build a wikiup. Many of the people had moved into poorly built houses that the Indian agents had provided for them. As if going tame would save them. As if it would let them forget how the white man had hunted them, driven them from their homes, crushed them in a war without honor or skill or bravery. Just a relentless press of men and weapons devoid of cunning.No one would ever sing songs about how the cavalry defeated the Indians. It was a sad, shameful thing. But Goyaate knew that as long as men told tales of battle they would recount what he and his warriors had done. Still, they had lost. And now the tribes were learning to wear the white man’s clothes and sleep in the same ugly place for year after year. An Apache was meant to wander in mountains and his soul died when he didn't.In twos and threes they had come, through the early spring. Braves he knew brought with them younger men he didn't. In this way had come Black Knife, Loco, Delgado, Coleto and Ponce. When they squatted they did not talk of the ones who did not come or the ones who would never raid again because they had ridden on into the unknown. They spoke of the weather and what they had heard from travelers, of the hope that the Buffalo would return and the knowledge that they would not.Vittorio told him of a fine rifle he had hidden away from the soldiers and how good it was to hunt with. Little Delgatito complained about his wives. At the end, they all had the same question: when are we leaving? To them Goyaate said, “I think I will stay a little bit longer.” To this each man answered. “Then I will stay a little longer too.” And by this, he knew they were with him. Rumors spread among the people. But this was always the way with people who stay in one place. They grow weak and prone to gossip and other evils. The rumors even made their way to Major Thomason. So he told Captain Evans, to go and speak with Goyaate and learn his mind. Captain Evans was eager. He had come west only after all the fighting was over, so he did not know who he was talking to. He had heard the stories about the man, but he did not believe them. No one who had not fought against Goyaate would believe them.Goyaate squatted in the dirt in front of his tent, playing with stones beside a barely guttering fire. The Captain walked up to him, his freshly shined boots collecting flecks of dust and ash as he approached. He wasted no time on pleasantries and spoke his mind straight away. A good quality in a warrior, thought Goyaate."There are rumors that you are growing restless, sir. That you will attempt to raid.”Goyaate shrugged and said, “People who live in houses have much time to talk." He swept up a handful of stones and began to lay them out in the dirt."We do not know each other, sir,” said Captain Evans, “There is no bond of friendship between us, but I do implore you, honor your agreement and stay put."Goyaate said nothing, now arranging the stones in a circle around a few stones in the center. When he was done he swept the shape away with his hand again.The Captain continued, “Have your people not suffered enough? What point to lead more young men to their death, sir?"Goyaate now counted the stones out by three. There were 26 stones so there was a group of two left at the end. Goyaate shook his head and muttered disappointment."So you will not raid, sir? You give me your word?"Goyaate looked up. The young man had ruined it by speaking too much. Goyaate stared at him a long, long time before he said, “It is not our way to be in such a hurry."Captain Evans nodded and left, saying more empty and foolish words before he went. The Captain felt sad that the mighty warrior had been reduced to a foolish old man playing in the dirt. When the major asked him what Goyaate was doing when the Captain found him the Evans replied, "playing with pebbles the way small children play with marbles. I found no fight in him, sir. In fact, I suspect that his mind might be going."The Major nodded and dismissed the Captain.Before returning to his billet, the Captain rode a half a mile out of his way and used his spyglass to check on what the old War Chief was doing. He saw that Goyaate still squatted on the ground and played with stones. Evans shut the telescope with a snap. He shook his head and wondered how one ignorant savage could've caused so much trouble for the governments of both United States and Mexico.Next to his dying fire, Goyaate rearranged his stones again, but still he had two left over. Bad luck. Threes were strong magic, fours were even stronger, but twos… bad luck. A new shadow fell across the stones. Goyaate looked up slowly and saw that it was Red Sleeve, an old man who had been chief of his own tribe of Apache. Now his tribe was scattered, mostly dead, and they were both prisoners here on a military reservation.Goyaate looked at the old chief and thought, not for the first time, that it would have been kinder for the white man to have killed them all, and that they had left them to die here as the worst punishment of all.It was said that when Ussen made the lands and the people that he made each land fit for each people, with climate and food and herbs to suit them so they could flourish. And that when you took a people from their land, as they had taken the Apache to this Oklahoma, the people would grow sick and weak. This had happened to all of the Apache here at Fort Sill, and the lines in Red Sleeve’s face now looked like they were cut there by a knife instead of old age Red Sleeve squatted and said, “When you leave, I will go with you."Goyaate said, “The warpath will be hard, and you are a great warrior grown old. Maybe it is better if you tend the fires and pass your stories on to the next generation.”Red Sleeve laughed bitterly, “They have destroyed us. I think there will be no more Apache, only tame Indians, captive on the reservations." Then he tossed a small stone into the pile with the others. He said, "I think I will die soon but I do not think I will die here.” He looked at the bleak plain around with its ragged tents and clapboard shacks, “This is not a good place to die.”Goyaate saw it then. Twenty-four stones, in six groups of four on the ground before him. There was power in it. He could see the stones as warriors on a raid, a flowing formation that would shift naturally to take advantage of every enemy weakness. Goyaate said, "I have stayed long enough. We will leave tomorrow night, after the moon has set.”---The next night, Goyaate and his men, built two fires in a low place, out of the wind, that could not be seen from the Fort. They sang the old songs, danced the opening to war, even though many of them were stiff and old. Had there been any young Braves left they would have laughed at the old man creaking and slow. Some, like Red Sleeve, teetered more than turned, and none of them whirled as they raised their voices.But if anyone who looked into the old man’s eyes, he would not have laughed. They had all traveled the sacred warpath and honored it with the blood of many foes. Many times had Goyaate led them as War Chief and Goyaate had always come back. Many of those who had followed him had died. But all who died had found a good death. The old men knew there was no good death to be had on the reservation.The dancing stopped and Goyaate spoke, barely loud enough to be heard over the wind and the crackling fire. He spoke of the unstoppable waves of the white man, that kept coming and coming and coming. Of their insatiable hunger that would not be satisfied even if they ate the world. Had they not killed all the Buffalo? Had they not defeated all the tribes? Would they not consume the land and all the water? And after that, would they not eat the sky and the stars and even Ussen himself. And then, when there was nothing left they would eat each other. Until the last white man, a creature of boundless appetite would sit all alone in the dark, gnawing on his own feet, until he ate himself up and the universe came to an end.Against this enemy, this hunger, Goyaate said, there could be no victory. The men looked to Goyaate expecting to see their despair mirrored on his face. But the War Chief was smiling. Goyaate said, “We could run, like we would run to the United States when the Mexican army was too strong for us. And then later run back to Mexico when the United States was too strong. We could run like this in the days when they feared to cross the border to chase us. It was only when they worked together and there was no border that they were able to defeat us. But I know a border across which neither of them can chase us. A place beyond the reach of this hunger, this sickness.“Where is this place?” the men asked, daring to hope again after long years. And Goyaate said, “I will show you.”All of them wanted to believe in Goyaate so much that this answer was good enough for them. All of them, but one. Red Sleeve was grateful for such a powerful War Chief, but he knew that much of his strong magic came from others' belief in his great name. He did not doubt Goyaate’s magic. He had seen bullets bounce off him. He had seen wounds that would have killed any other man result in mere injuries. But still. Red Sleeve asked Goyaate where this border was and how they would cross it. Was it far to the north? Was there a river? And if not Mexicans, what people were on the other side? Because both Red Sleeve and Goyaate love to kill Mexicans most of all.Goyaate said, “Do you remember when the Long-Nosed Star Chief? The first time the Army tried to make peace with us? We rode in, you and I, meaning to make treaty with them. They showed us into a tent filled with food and drink. And while we were waiting, many of us ate and drank. While outside the soldiers were setting up with rifles. You remember how happy Arispe was to be eating the sweets they had left?”Red Sleeve nodded once. “And how they shot into the tent with many rifles. All the others were killed, not in battle, but by cowards. Yet we escaped.” Red Sleeve nodded again and said, “Because you cut a hole in the back of the tent and we crawled out.”“No,” said Goyaate, “We escaped because they did not think such a thing was possible. And if they had not found that hole in the tent, they never would have thought to follow us.”Red Sleeve didn’t like that Goyaate had dodged his question, so he said “Where is this border? I am tired of old stories.”“What has the whole world become, but the white man’s tent? A place to gather the warriors together, so they can make us false promises and kill us?”“But what can we do that we have not already done?”“The world is the tent, old father, and I will cut a hole in the side that they will never find. We will escape and leave the world to them so we can go and try a better one.” Red Sleeve nodded his head again. Goyaate was more skilled in war than any man he’d ever known. If Goyaate said such a thing, then it would be so. Even if Red Sleeve couldn’t see how.When the dance was done they walked between the fires, painted their faces with ash and burned ends of branches and began the sacred raid. — Then they ran. They ran with heart and with fire and the excitement of being wild and free again. They ran through the night. First, running south until the lights from the Fort had disappeared, then east, out of the foothills and onto the Llano Estacado, the Staked Plain of Texas.There were grasses here, but water was very scarce. The hidden ways of this sea of grass at once been known to the Apache, but the Comanche had driven them from this land and ruled it from horseback. The Comanche had held The Staked Plain against the white man for years.They had lured entire companies of cavalry to their death here. And why would the cavalry not feel safe, at least at first? The Bluecoats had rifles that could shoot farther than any bow. And there seemed to be no place for a foe to hide on the desolate prairie. No rocks, no trees, no streams. Yet still, the cavalry died in herds. It was only when the Army started setting fire to the prairie itself that the Comanche were forced to surrender.This wide open space was not freedom. It was a trap. There were only a few ways to cross it, and these, only on horseback. And not to know the paths that led from water to water, and not to have a horse to travel them quickly enough was to have the sun and the wind wring the moisture from your body and jerk you, like beef, for the vultures. There were those who thought the Staked Plain got its name because it was a place the where Indians staked men to the Earth to die. But that was for dimestore novels. A man without a horse here would die far, far worse than if he was nailed to the earth. Yet into this terrible, hopeless place Goyaate and his men ran with only the water they could carry with them. They did not stop. They built no fire and they ate no food. Starvation was an old friend to those who had been on a reservation.—The Cavalry rode out after them two days after Goyaate had left. The scouts had laughed when they found the track. Running on foot into the Staked plain was suicide. They would ride them down in a day. And then the world would be rid of the last War Chief. Captain Evans regretted that it had come to this. He had believed that he was building some rapport with Goyaate. As the son of a Presbyterian minister, Captain Evans was heartened by the good work that had been done converting many of the natives from their heathen religions. In Christ were all things possible. Even the notoriously bloodthirsty Chief of the Comanche, Quanah Parker, had converted and started wearing a suit of clothes instead of savage regalia. When they mustered the Major had come out and addressed the troop. He reminded those who were too young to have fought the Indians before that Goyaate was a dangerous adversary and the perpetrator of many savage atrocities. Captain Evans wondered if the speech was for him. But this was silly. If the Major had any doubts or misgivings, he would not have given him the command. The Major finished by saying, “The army should have killed those savages long ago. Go forth and redeem us from our procrastinations.”The day was glorious, and as they rode out Captain Evans’ only wish was to be riding off on a more gallant errand against a more worthy adversary. Instead of riding off to kill some old men. Like much the young Captain had seen of duty, there was no glory in it, save the honor that accrued to one who faithfully and completely fulfilled an order. The high spirits of the morning did not last into the afternoon. The track was plain and the Apache had made no effort to hide it, but after hours of hard riding, they still had failed to sight the fugitives. They dismounted, fed, and watered the horses and then the men. This took the better part of an hour, and when they remounted, things got worse. After a quarter of an hour, they came to the end of the trail. The footprints through the long grass of the staked plane simply came to a stop. The Captain and several of the men scanned the horizon in all directions with spyglasses. But there was no sign. Scouts rode in widening circles around the main troop. They found nothing but the original trail."Well, they can't simply have just disappeared, or ran into the sky with the angels," said Captain."Devils," muttered a nearby trooper, with a note of fear in his voice.Captain Evans dismissed this as mere superstition. He turned to O'Rourke, his dependable old sergeant, veteran of many a raid and campaign. He said, “All the superstitious nonsense, Sergeant. There must be a perfectly good explanation for this. Men don't simply vanish from the prairie."To his surprise, O'Rourke crossed himself and said, “Not men, sir. This Goyaate is an evil man, sir, possessed of strong magic. Many times he should have died by now and many times he has survived.""It is but a desperate trick. We make a camp here," he said looking at the sun dipping low in the sky. "Double the sentries, close packets, and tomorrow we put an end to this foolishness.”They made camp but set no fires. The older men in the troop slept not at all. They sat, in twos and threes facing outward, rifles across their legs, not talking. They had ridden this plain before and remembered the men who had ridden with them and had not come back. Some stayed quiet because they could remember the bodies of men, women and children, that the Indians had and tortured for sport, leaving their entrails strung out in the prairie grass in strange patterns. Others did not speak because they could remember the horrible things *they* had done to the savages in the name of retaliation. Captain Evans rose from his bedroll a little before dawn. He woke the cook and asked for coffee. Before the coffee had finished brewing a cry went up from one of the scouts. Captain Evans looked out in front of the company, past the place where the tracks had stopped. There was nothing. Then he saw that the scout was pointing East, back the way they had come. There he saw a figure silhouetted against the sliver of the rising sun. He covered his eyes and stared painfully into the dawn trying to see who it was. But it was no use. He called for ten men to mount up. One of the lieutenants, as eager and fresh as the Captain had been just a few short years ago, asked him, “What is it, Sir?”“We shall see soon enough, Mr. Jettle,” Captain Evans said in a dismissive tone. He ended the conversation by mounting his horse and shouting orders. They formed up in a line and advanced East at a walking pace. When some of his men drew weapons, the Captain barked, “Holster arms!" Whatever this was, Evans wanted the man alive. So he could learn what had happened.On this featureless plain information could be more valuable than water. As they drew closer Evans could see the figure was an old man, staggering around in a circle. Was he wounded? Was he injured? It did not appear so, but the old man moved with such trouble that the Captain felt sorry for him. Then he saw that this man was an Indian and his fear returned. He looked up and down the line. His men were all fixated on this old Indian. None of them were looking around. He eased his pistol from his holster.The old man stumbled, and it seemed like he would fall. They were so close, why did the old man not look at them? Captain Evans cried out, “You there!"The old Indian turned to face the cavalry. The red glow of dawn through his hair made it seem that he was soaked in blood, but the real horror was in the man's smile. Captain Evans realized he had never before seen an Indian smile on the reservation. The old man threw his head back and yipped three times like a coyote.Captain Evans opened his mouth to say, "seize him!" But before he could get the words out, the prairie erupted all around them. Screaming natives clawed their way up through the turf as if out of their own graves. The horses bucked and plunged unpredictably as the Indians attacked, two or three to each horse. They pulled troopers from the saddle and dispatched them with knives. And as soon as a horse was vacated, an Indian would mount. Captain Evans pointed his pistol, seeking a target in the chaos. He fired a shot at an Indian scalping one of his men on the ground, but the shot missed. He was knocked from his saddle. At the sound of the gunshot, all of the Indians on horseback wheeled and charged towards the cavalry encampment. Captain Evans inhaled to yell a warning, but before the words came out the old man grabbed his mouth with his left hand and drug a knife along the Captain’s neck with his right. Blood spurted all over the old man's knife arm. As the captain fell to the earth dying, the old man held his blade high in the sunrise, marveling at the red blood in the orange and red hues of the dawn. Once again Red Sleeve had earned his name.With a single pass, the Indians stampeded the encampment’s horses. The younger men wanted to circle back and finish the job. But Goyaate rode on. Let the staked plain finish them. And one did survive, the news they brought to the other white men would arrive too late to be of use. Goyaate rode straight for the heart of the emptiness, knowing that at the heart of nothing he would find everything he was after. Get full access to Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

The summer was immense. It was so hot that the mud dried in the blasted cracks in the yard as all the crops died. Across the range, cattle moaned as they cropped the dried grass and pawed at the creek bed for water. And still, the sun hammered the earth.Each day they would scan the sky for clouds, and each day this sky was as pure and blue as a tropical ocean. They were drowning in sunshine.Each day the kids would pump water from the well and take a bucket to the garden, trying to save as many plants as they could. The children were tiny but determined against the immensity of the land.Even if they could have saved the garden there wouldn’t be enough silage for the cows come winter.The next day the well ran dry. They took the wagon 15 miles to the river to fill every container they had with water. When they returned they found that the cattle had eaten the well-watered garden. His children cried.The cattle smelled the water collected in the milk jugs and pans and jars in the back of the wagon. They crowded close aggressively large but gentle with dehydration.Ethan drove the wagon right up to the porch and handed the water inside straight from the back. He unhitched the horses and led them around to a back window where his wife gave them water from a pot.He bedded them down in the barn, the hay on the floor so dry he worried that his boots might spark a fire by grinding against the boards.Back in the house, the children were quiet. Ethan looked at the window and hung his head. Finally he said, “We leave in the morning. Back to the river and we’ll head South.”Mary gasped a little and said, “but what about our things? We can’t just leave…”“There’s no water,” he said, his voice growing sharp with her for the first time maybe ever.She nodded, pressed her lips together, and tried not to cry. But she was weary, weary to the bone. The tears came, silent and huge dropping to the dry boards below. Crying made her feel better and feel worse. He went outside, kicking his way through the dying cattle. He doubted they’d have the strength to make the drive to the river, but he leave them loose and perhaps some of them would survive.He came back after supper. That night he couldn’t sleep for the cattle lowing outside and chewing the wood of the house. He stared at the ceiling and thought of everything needed of him that he could not provide. Then he thought it would be good to cry but no tears would come. He felt better about himself for not wasting water. He knew he would need his strength, but he could not sleep. The air hung heavy in the house and the sound of livestock filled the air. He thought about closing the windows to shut out the pitiful lowing of the cattle, but it was just too hot. The next morning everyone was slow to get up. The night’s heat had wrung every drop of water out of them. By the time he got the horses hitched it was nearly noon and none of them had eaten. Mary cried and the children cried and he could not get them off the porch. He raised his voice and cursed at his children for the first time. Then he begged them. Then he threatened his wife. But still, they sat on the porch of the dry, dying farm and wept.Out of frustration, Ethan kicked one of the cows and it fell over as if dead. That broke the spell of his anger. All of them looked at the dead animal and it sank in. Without rain nothing would live here. It was time to go.Ethan loaded the last of their scant possessions into the back of the wagon. Mary climbed onto the buckboard refusing to speak or even look at him. As if somehow this was all his fault. As he stepped up onto the Wagon, he heard it. The sound was so strange, he did not recognize it. He thought that maybe the axle had cracked or part of the barn had fallen in. Then he felt the wind. And smelled the moisture. Again there was thunder and the cow he had taken for dead rose from the ground. He could see the darkening — clouds by God — behind the barn. He jumped off the wagon and ran to see. Thunderheads, miles away across the plain, but coming towards them fast. And with them sheets of rain. Lighting lanced into the Earth and he howled with laughter and sang and as the first drops hit them. The skies open up and the water poured forth on the land, swelling the broken Earth, Ethan fell to his knees and wept with joy and relief. Mary and the girls had taken cover in the barn and she called to him to see if he was all right.Ethan rose, baptized anew, and joined his family in the barn. Mary said, “Look at you. You’re soaked.”She brushed the wet hair from his face. He seized her hand and kissed it. Get full access to Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

(Previously: Chapter 1 - A Man Goes on A Journey)The Journal of Archimedes Croryton, July 23rd, 1888I have been informed that my train has just crossed into Texas and the terrain has already become wilder than I could ever have imagined. The emptiness of these spaces is immense. It seems scarcely possible to me that men could lead their lives here. Not merely from want of sustenance and water, the scope of the landscape itself crushes a man with his own insignificance. In England each mile brings its a new town and a more pleasant vista. Ours is a land built on a scale a man can walk in a day. Well-tamed with its reassurances of ancient manor houses, village chapels, welcoming taverns. Our island is, as much as anything, a well-tended and civil garden.But this is a vast wild expanse. There is nothing on the grasslands to stop the wind on its rush to the equator. How could this place serve to do else but drive men mad?July 24th, 1888Since San Antonio, the terrain has grown steadily more impossible. The train rises through rough terrain into a rocky desert almost devoid of life and greenery. This is the New Mexico territory. A fellow passenger, seeing a look of unabashed concern writ upon my face, attempted to reassure me by saying that all of the savages had been pacified shortly after the end of the war. But, I suspect they are all savages here, to one degree or another. What seemed a grand adventure in Boston and a splendid project in New Orleans now seems something else entirely. The wisdom of taking employment with Jean DuMont, a man I have never met, now escapes me. But as I have never wanted or needed employment before, perhaps mistakes are inevitable. The fact remains that I have designed and built the components for the largest Cornish engine the world has ever seen. While my technical employment may no longer qualify me to be a gentleman in the strictest sense, it gives great satisfaction to both my purse and my person. And I feel that the future belongs not to gentlemen but men with great machines and greater ambitions. On the morrow, I disembark the Union Pacific line in Tucson, with the 300 tons of my cargo. And from there, it and I go by wagon, to construct a pumping engine for the Morning Star Mine of Grantham, Az. Archimedes Croryton stepped down from the train into a scorching Arizona day. One of the roughnecks on the platform pointed him to the freight yard and Archie employed him to carry his trunk across the rail lines, and onto the freight platform, which was no more than a sea of railroad ties set directly on the desert floor. In the center of the freight platform was a crude shack, constructed against the relentless hammering of the Sun. Archie took shelter there and watched the yard crew unhook his boxcars from the train by means of a crude, small steam engine mounted on a cast-iron platform. Everywhere he looked his engineer’s eyes saw the opportunity for mechanical improvement. The diameter of the engine’s drive wheels needed to be enlarged. The platform also would benefit a trailing truck wheel. Without, it the drive wheels unweighted while reversing and slipped against the rails. This made the whole process of moving the freight cars a Sisyphean cycle of start, slip, stop that pained Archie to watch. Soon, he imagined, the cast iron platform would crack or bend so much against the strain that the engine would become unusable. Still, he allowed, it was easier than pulling boxcars by hand. Some distance off the siding men had gathered in a circle. He had assumed they were some of the men meant to haul his freight. They were yelling and cheering some action within their ranks. As Archie approached, he saw a large man with a full red beard hoist another man by his collar and belt and hurl him out of the circle. Unable to regain his footing after such an undignified exit, the poor soul sprawled on the railroad ties, just short of Archie’s fine English riding boots. The large red-bearded man disappeared back into the knot of shouting men and re-emerged with a battered black cowboy hat. He threw it at the man on the ground saying, “I told you nay to meddle.” Then looked up and saw Archie in his khaki expedition suit complete with pith helmet and quickly composed himself. He knuckled his forehead in the customary salute of the British Navy and said, “Beggin’ your pardon, sir. No offense meant to yer personage.” And then turned back into the crowd. Archie heard an ear-splitting crack and the crowd gave a collective, “Oooh,” and went silent. He pushed his way into the ranks. In the center was a tall woman, dressed in men’s clothes — was that buckskin? — beating a man on the ground with a bullwhip. Archie said, “Good Lord,”A grubby man next to him who wasn’t letting a few missing teeth stop him from grinning ear-to-ear looked at Archie and said, “I don’t reckon, even the good Lord can save him now. And that’s sure. She told him. She told everybody. Don’t you dare show up drunk in the morning!”The man with the red beard reached over several smaller people and clouted the toothless man in his ear, saying, “No blasphemin’!” Then he nodded to Archie as if somehow decency was their common cause. The man on the ground struggled to rise and the woman let fly with her whip again. It snaked through the air and exploded into the man’s side, causing him to yelp in pain. He fell over and lay on his back.The woman coiled the whip in her right hand, threw her hair back, and glared at the rough men of the crowd. “I told him the same as I told you. I don’t mind the drinkin’, but if you’re too drunk to walk your wagon, ya don’t get paid. Now anyone else feel like arguin’ contrary-wise?”Most of the crowd said nothing, but here and there a few said, “No ma’am.”“Alright then, back in line and I’ll see where our goddamn haul is!”As the crowd broke up, Archie caught the eye of the giant with the red beard and waved him over. Archie said, “My good man, what is your name?”“MacAllister. At your service, sir. Even if you are English.”“I beg your pardon?”“It’s a savage land, sir. We civilized, Christian men must stick together.”“Am I to take Scotland for a civilized land, then?” Archie asked with a smile.“Ach, only in the summertime, sir,” MacAllister said with a grin.Archie liked the man’s easy and open way. He extended his hand. MacAllister took it and wrung it heartily, crushing Archie's knuckles with affection. “Thank you much, sir. A pleasure.”As he rubbed his hand, Archie said, “I’m looking for,” and here he removed a letter from his vest pocket, unfolded it, and read, “John Siskin. Could you help me find him?”“No sir. There’s no John Siskin. She’ll be the one you seek,” MacAllister said, hooking his thumb at the woman with the bullwhip. “Jane,” he said, nodding encouragement.“But I’ve engaged a company to haul freight.”MacAllister nodded at the wagons, “And the finest company in Arizona. But it’s her’s.”“I don’t understand?” “Husband drank himself to death and now she runs it better than he ever did,” MacAllister said with a shrug. “Mind your manners, and’ll you’ll do fine.”From behind him, Archie heard the woman’s voice, “What the hell are you supposed to be in that getup?” Archie turned and Jane Siskin was glaring at him, with her coiled whip around her shoulder and her hat pushed back. Archie smiled and said, “Ah yes, Miss Siskin,’ as he bowed and doffed his pith helmet, “I am Archimedes Croryton, at your service.”“Croryton? A. Croryton?” she asked, ”You’re our client for this haul?”“I am.”“Well, I hope you don’t mind me sayin’ but that’s an awful lot of s**t to haul to a nowhere town like Grantham. What’s in them boxes. Like it said in my letter, I ain’t hauling no dynamite for nobody.”“Mining equipment, parts for a large steam engine. Nothing explosive, I assure you.” “And the A? that’s for Archimedes? Name like that sounds like you should be selling snake oil.” “You may call me Archie. You know, my great great grandfather, the 18th Earl of Cornwall was said to have been quite harsh with the peasants. They were peasants in those days you know. But I don’t recall any stories of him whipping anyone.”“You ain’t some kind of Prince?” she asked with a note of distrust in her voice.“No. I am but one step above a b*****d and far less convenient.”“Less convenient than a b*****d?”“I am a second son. You see, one can reliably disown a b*****d without consequence. I am thing that was had and then repented of. In brief, that is why I have come to your continent and that is why I have engaged you to haul my freight. If there are no more personal questions, can we proceed?”Jane stared at him for a minute. Then she nodded her head once and said, “Red, can you do something about his Majesty’s hat? I’m worried he’s gonna melt his brain with that foolishness in this sun. ”“I can try, but the English are powerful fond of their funny hats. I dinna think there’s anything I can do.”“My hat?” asked Archie. “What’s wrong with my hat? It was recommended to me by Hanning Speke himself as just the thing for hot and humid climates.”“Humid!” cried Jane, “It don’t rain here but once a year.” Then she laughed wildly, showing her white teeth against her tanned face and buckskin garb. Another savage, thought Archie.After six hours of cursing and dust and wrangling of ill-tempered animals, the boxcars were emptied and the component parts of Archie’s machine had all been loaded onto the wagons and made fast. It was a motley armada of craft; horse teams, mule teams, and at least two teams of oxen pulling a variety of wagons, 46 wagons in total.It had been suggested to Archie that he might pass the time in town in the comfort of a saloon or hotel. But Archie would have none of it. He found a battered chair in the freight station, retrieved a book from his luggage and sat in the shade of the building, and read while keeping an eye on the proceedings.When it was all done, a tired and somewhat subdued, Jane Siskin came to him and said, “It’s all safely loaded as you can see Mr. Croryton.”Archie carefully marked his place in his book and said, “Very good Miss Siskin. What time do we leave in the morning?”“Hell, we’re pushing on tonight. I ain’t gonna give these sons of w****s another night to drink. I’d lose, two maybe three more teams at least. And we’re overloaded as it is. You stay over and catch the stage in the morning. You’ll beat us there by a day at least.”Archie tucked his book under his arm, replaced his pith helmet on his head, and stood. “This is my equipment and my commission, and I intend to shepherd it every step of the way. Only after my machine has been installed, will I rest easy.” He kicked his trunk and said, “In which wagon are I and my luggage riding?”Jane snorted a laugh. “Wagons is for cargo mister. Teamsters walk their teams. Especially with them damn the oxen.” She put her fingers in her mouth and gave an ear-piercing whistle. “Red! Get this trunk stowed, and go help his Majesty buy a horse.”They were three days out of Tucson when the rear axle broke on the largest wagon in the train. The eight oxen in the team ground to a stop and bellowed for water. There was no water to give them until Grantham. And 200 tons of freight came to a dead stop in the blazing Arizona sun. The teamster who owned the broken wagon, a man known as ‘Clod’ stood next to the oxen, mirroring their plodding expression of long-suffering. Neither he nor they looked at the axle. They had just stopped because they could go no further and waited for someone to come along and get them moving again. In this heat, and at this level of exhaustion, the biggest difference between them might have been that Clod was the one wearing a cowboy hat. Archie rode along the stalled wagon train and reined up by the broken axle.“Well, don’t just stand there man! What are you going to do!”Clod looked up at him blankly. After the last three days of bad road, he didn’t even have the energy left needed to shrug. He took drink from the canteen around his neck. There wasn’t much left in it, so he had to tip it way up. Archie turned to Clod and shouted, “Did you hit every rut between here and Tuscon! I mean did you aim for them!”Jane rode up, slapping the flank of her mustang lightly with a coiled bullwhip. She said, “You cain’t talk to my man that way!”Archie scowled at Jane and was about to protest, but mastered his emotions and said, “If he wished to avoid excoriation, perhaps he should have taken better care of his wagon.”Jane snarled, “As charmin’ as we all find your company, Mr. Croryton, I’ll remind you that you were advised to avail yourself of the stagecoach and await delivery in Grantham.” Then she turned to the teamster and said, “Aw for Christssake Clod! Did you break my f****n’ wagon?”“It done just broke, Miss,” said Clod. “You did, Clod. You broke my f****n’ wagon. You gonna fix my f****n’ wagon? How many goddamn times are we gonna break down on this run! I knew I shoulda cashiered you in Gleeson, you big dumb son-of-a-b***h.” She spit and whirled back to Archie, “And you lied to me about the weight.”“I did not!” “Overloaded wagon. Whole damn train’s overloaded. Draggin’ axles from the start. And don’t you try to smooth talk me with your fancy words!”“Madame,” began Archie.“There you go again you slippery shitheel!” Clod stood with the oxen, fat tears rolling down his hopeless face.”Jane said, “Goddamn it, now look what you’ve gone and done to Clod!” She swungdown off her horse and changed her tone.“C’mon, Clod. Ya big softy. We’re not really yellin’ at you. We’re just yellin’ cause it’s powerful hot and we’re all sick of eatin’ road dust. Aren’t you sick of it?”Clod nodded, rubbing tears and snot away with the heel of his hand. “Yes’m.”“Then why ain’t you yellin’ you big lummox?”“‘Cause the wagon broke. And it’s my fault.” “Hell, Clod, it ain’t your fault. It’s the road’s fault. It’s the axel’s fault. It’s God’s fault. And most of it’s my fault for givin’ you such a shitty wagon!”Clod looked very confused.“Well go on,” said Jane, “Yell it out.” “I hate this stupid wagon,” said Clod, timidly.“Nah, Clod. You’re gonna have to do better than that.”“STUPID WAGON!” “There you go. You go on, you can even kick it a little if you want,” said Jane. Then she looked back to Archie. “Now. What in the f**k’s is in that crate!”“I appreciate that tempers are high, Miss Siskin. And that this is a rough and ill-mannered land, but I am your employer and I will not be addressed in that manner,” said Archie.“Fine. What the f**k’s in there, sir!?!”Even Archie had to laugh at this. He recovered his leather-wrapped journal from his saddlebags and flipped it open. He matched the number scrawled on the crate and said, “that is one-quarter of the flywheel assembly.” Jane opened her mouth to swear again, but stopped when Archie raised his hand and said, “Allow me to save you the trouble of asking a profane and redundant question. Yes, it is a f*****g flywheel. Now, what are we to do?”Jane smiled and spit. Archie found it to be utterly unladylike yet still, charming behavior. Then she said, “I’ll have MacAllister have a look at it, but I don’t think we can fix it with what we got. And one thing’s for sure. Ain’t nobody coming along with an empty wagon to bail us out.”Just then they heard a rattling noise drifting back towards them from the front of the wagon train. They looked up and saw a man driving an absolutely empty wagon bucking his way along the rocks and cresote bushes along the side of the road. They looked at the wagon. They looked at each other. Then Jane raised her hand. “Hol’ up there,” cried Jane. As the man grew closer, she said, “Why Mr. Miller! Am I glad to see you!”“Miss Siskin,” said Virgil Miller, bringing his wagon to a stop. “Be more glad to see you if ya’ll weren’t so much in my way.”“We’ve had bit of trouble, as you can see. And we were wondering if you’d like to make an extra bit of cash with that wagon of yours.” “Well, Ms. Miller. That depends. If you got seven tons of flour for me somewhere in this mess, I can oblige.”“I do not. Who’s payin’ the freight on it?”“Supposed to be Fetterman outta Bisbee.”Jane made a face and spit. Virgil said, “Guess that’s why I’m havin’ to go to see him.”Jane said, “Ain’t my fault. And maybe ain’t his. This gentleman rented out ‘bout every damn wagon in the territory.” Virgil looked Archie up and down and said, “Hunh, gennleman? Is that what you call a man in a funny hat.” “Archimedes Croryton, at your service sir.”“Ah, gennleman. That’s what you call a man with a funny hat and a funny name.” “That’s as may be,” said Archie, “But it’s very important that I get these crates to Grantham in an expeditious fashion and as you have an otherwise empty wagon…”“My wagon is engaged,” said Virgil, “And you Jane Siskin, you ain’t done nobody I know any favors. Good day, Ms. Siskin. Stranger.”As they watched him go, Archie said, “But I’m not a stranger. I introduced myself.”“He’s just prickly ‘cause his freight ain’t come through. And I ain’t exactly been, sympathetic to his predicaments over the years. Come on Clod, let’s get ‘em to drag it off the side of the road.”With the aid of MacAllister and several of the men, they levered the back of the wagon up with a timber. Jane cracked the whip over the heads of the oxen, and the animals pulled the wagon a few feet forward until it slid completely off the timber and ground to a stop again. The process was repeated again and again until the road was clear. When the wagon train was in motion again, Archie said, “But we can’t just leave it here!” Jane said, “We’ll finish up the run into Grantham, unload a wagon right quick and come back for it.”“Today?” asked Archie. “Don’t you worry your Lordship. Nobody’s gonna steal your 3000-pound flywheel part.”“I’m not a Lord,” Archie said quietly, “and I don’t like loose ends.After leaving the wagon behind, the pace of the train quickened with the promise of good stable and fodder for two-legged and four-legged creatures alike. From somewhere in the back Archie heard singing.They came over a rise and there was Grantham laid out before them. A cheer went up. Archie was shocked at how small the town appeared. Around the two main streets were a collection of mud huts, tents and dangerously ramshackle frame buildings. On the periphery more of these wooden buildings were under construction. A haze of smoke hung in the air and Archie could hear the hammering of both carpenters and blacksmiths. To Archie’s eyes, having grown up in a place where the newest building in the village was over 300 years old, Grantham seemed a place that had been constructed yesterday and would be gone tomorrow.The one exception to the frontier construction was an elaborate Victorian house set on a large lot on the far end of town. That had to be Monsieur DuMont’s house. With its elaborate turret and high-peaked roofs it could not have looked more surreal or out of place. Archie judged it to be a waste of resources. Who would build a fine house in this inhospitable place? This was a place for making a fortune and leaving behind as easily as a snake shed his skin.What Archie did not see was the mine. There was no evidence of it on the slope beyond the town. He had been told that the mine in Grantham was built right in the middle of town, but had thought it an exaggeration. As wagon train they worked its way down to the dry wash on the east end of town the enthusiasm dried up. “They still ain’t fixed this damn road!” said Jane, spitting at the sight of the obstacle ahead. The wash wasn’t quite treacherous enough to require a bridge, but the way wasn’t smooth enough for overloaded wagons. It would require care and attention to navigate the freight through the cut in the bank and up into town. As the wagon train stopped Archie sidled uneasily on his horse. The excitement of being close to the start of his real work and finally meeting his unknown employer was unbearable.He turned to Jane and said, “Ms. Siskin if you would excuse me, I must confer with my employer, and find a spot for the cargo.”Someone in the next wagon back shouted, “I say a nice flat spot next to a saloon oughta do it.” Archie and spurred his horse down the cut and through the wash and into Grantham.(Next installment Friday, Jan 21.) Get full access to Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

If there was one thing that I wish I knew about writing years ago, it is this: Every story you write comes with obligations. These obligations are driven by expectations. First yours, then the readers. The simple way to say this is “every genre has obligatory scenes.” This is 100% true. If you write a Western (even a transitional, hybrid western like “A Town Called Nowhere”) you are obliged to have a bar fight scene. And a showdown and a bunch of others. Your conflict better involve themes like justice and the individual against society. Because that is what we have come to expect from all the stories in that genre that have come before. So the job of writing a story isn’t reinventing the form — not at first — it’s figuring out a great way to do all of those obligatory scenes. It’s not dialog. It’s not description. It’s not even coming up with original characters (if there is such a thing). It’s not even plot. These scenes are moments, without which the reader will be left unsatisfied. So the first and hardest job is figuring out how you are going to do a version of those tired old scenes in a way that you and then your audience will find fresh, meaningful and full of emotion. Now, that may seem impossible for something like a bar fight scene. But if it can be done for a love song, it can be done for anything. And people are still writing fresh and surprising classic love songs in even the oldest styles of popular music. Exhibit A - “Lucky Sometimes” by Pokey LaFargeSubverting Expectations?You can, if you must, subvert the expectation. But the more I read the more that this seems like cheap trickery to me. I think that most people who believe they are ‘subverting expectations’ aren’t. And most works that consciously try to subvert expectations don’t seem to work very well. The author is trying too hard to be tricky or shocking for its own sake and in the process the story gets lost. But what you can never do is ignore the expectation. And from what I’ve seen, that’s the mistake that trips up beginning writers more than anything else. Yes, we all want originality. But we also want it within a familiar structure. Just like we all want freedom but we also all want safety at the same time. It’s the human condition. For a Western or an Action movie, the bar fight scene is something of a black hole. You can orbit around it for a while, but sooner or later you’re going to get sucked into writing one. You can pay homage to it or you can make fun of it. You can tell one from a fresh perspective or with a new twist, but you can’t get away from it. You can only do it well or do it badly. When you understand that you can hear legions of writers groaning in agony down through the ages. “Geeze, how am I going to take the curse off this scene and make it fresh and exciting again?”Here, in no particular order, are some of my favorites: The Cantina Scene from Star WarsThe Spittoon Scene (intro) from Rio BravoThe fight that spills out into the real world in Blazing Saddles“He shoulda armed himself if he’s gonna decorate his saloon with my friend.” UnforgivenRoadhouse (The whole movie is basically a bar fight scene)“I’m you’re goddamn partner!” Raiders of the Lost ArkDusk ’til Dawn (the second half is all bar fight)The Soup Scene from Bad Day at Black RockSaturday Night Fever Scene from AirplaneMayfield (Bill Burr) shoots his old commander in the Mandalorian And that list could go on and on and on and on. There have been a lot of bar fight scenes. I haven’t gotten to one yet in A Town Called Nowhere, but rest assured it’s coming. And there’s a whole bunch of other obligatory scenes that I have to fill in. So far, my list includes:Inciting attack by antagonistDuel/ShowdownChase sceneMurderSavages attackCavalry comes to the rescueMagic is realHero at the mercy of the villainProtagonists discover what the antagonist wantsEpic fantasy battleEvil Wizard defeatedIndians doing badass Indians thingsProtagonist lashes out (tests being bad)All is lostTicking clockSpeech in praise of the villainHero(es) prevails when expresses special giftSo my questions of you are, given the setup, what scenes are you expecting? And, did I miss your favorite bar fight scene? Everybody’s got one. Get full access to Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

You and I are the creatures who turn silence into words. And if you find it at all difficult to know what you should do or say: first ask yourself about the silence.Only when you are still, can the voice inside you be heard.Only the blank page can be filled with words.That’s some zen-sounding b******t. I mean sometimes, when you are still and quiet the only thing that comes to you is a nap. But for sure, the voice cannot be heard while you are watching TikTok.What is this mystical “voice”? It’s the stew of everything you’ve ever heard or read or thought bubbling around inside of you. And this stew is made of the finest possible ingredients: words. Emerson wrote that, “Every word was at first, a stroke of genius.” And I think that’s right. To speak of the light is to invite it into your soul. To name the darkness is to hold your fear at bay. But to name a bear that is trying to eat you is pointless. Just stand up real tall, wave your arms and yell, “Motherfucker“ at it and hope it all works out. Do not turn around and run, because then you become a faceless, wordless meatsnack. We all know how that ends. If the bear had words it would name you Slim Jim and then snap you off. But, if you survive to tell the tale, you will do it with words that have been invented and perfected — indeed survived, because they were powerful. Each word is the survivor of a process that is hundreds of thousands of years old. Every word of meaning is a deeper well of meaning than you can know. It’s scary to realize that you know not what you are calling forth when you use a word. The simplest words are the trickiest of all. In the “Shorter” OED the definition of the word “take” stretches out across four pages. You know what you are trying to mean when you use the word “take”, but that is not the same as knowing what the word “take” means. Neither do I, Neither does anybody. If you truly tried to understand a single word, you’d never have time to go on that hike. You would never meet the bear. You wouldn’t have any great stories to tell. My point is that deep meaning is baked into every word you use. So when you read them carefully, when you really listen to the voice, it will speak to you. If you give your words proper attention they will create new meaning for you and it will change your life. Get full access to Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

The team had been hitched to the wagon before dawn, but Virgil still hadn’t left. As Laura Miller folded and sorted the new fabrics for display, she could see the stout draft horses through the front window of the store. They stood, patient as time itself, in the first light of the day. Laura liked this frontier town best in the morning. If she were to walk Grantham’s two streets now, she would undoubtedly see bodies. Almost all of them would be sleeping off a drunk, but one or two might be dead, of overwork or disease or from that lethal combination of being too quick with a mouth yet not quick enough with a pistol. Grantham was a boom town, flush with silver. That made it a hard place for honest folk to get a good night’s sleep. But at dawn, wasn’t every place born anew? And if you squinted, and were careful to step over the drunks and look past the w****s, you could see the potential of the place, the potential of the West. This was a place to grant new hope for saints and sinners, miners and cowboys, outlaws and lawmen, w****s and mothers. And everyone, no matter who they were, wanted for a thousand things to make their dreams real or bring an end to their nightmares. Most of the time the things they needed were simple like shovels and pans, beans and thread, rope and coffee, cartridges and knives. Which meant that all of them, good and bad alike, needed the Miller General store. In contrast with the patient horses outside, her husband Virgil hadn’t stopped pacing. She wanted to say that she had never before seen a man move so much without actually going anywhere, but she knew to hold her tongue. She loved him, and knew him to be was a worrier. As Virgil paced the length of the store, he checked the shelves, straightening things that had already been straightened. He looked upstairs to where their daughter slept, and out back at their son, gathering wood. Laura folded a sample of the new Gingham and pretended she wasn’t watching her fierce man and his tender conundrum. She had never seen Virgil afraid of anything, at least not while facing it. But since the children had come, he had become a worrier. Grantham was a rough, wild town, and she knew the last thing he wanted was to have his son turn out like him. Virgil had been a wild, murderous falcon of a man when they had met. Every time he went on a journey, they both remembered that falcons were never tamed for life. A falcon would always go back to the wild. She had snared him with all the subtle and ancient ties that women use to capture wild men. She had done it, at first, because she had needed him to survive, but now she realized, the cords that bound them together were woven from the stuff of her own heart. She had trapped them both in the same snare. Virgil looked to the wagon, then paced back to pour more coffee from the pot on the cast-iron stove. Mac came in with the firewood and dumped it in the bin next to the stove. By noon, they’d have the doors open and the heat of the day would be oppressive, but night in the high desert was cold no matter the time of year. “Pa, you want I should come with you?”Virgil smiled, his sharp face softened by love. “No. I need you to stay here and look after the store.” She thought it a foolish thing to say. Mack was still so young, but boys were fragile at his age. And her husband knew how badly his son wanted to be a man. As he took in the words, Mack straightened nervously, nodding, taking the responsibility seriously.With this new respect, Mac dared a question. “Pa, when you get back, can we shoot the big gun?” he asked, looking to the Sharps .50 rifle hanging high on the wall above the vertical rack of smaller caliber rifles and carbines. “Not until you’re full-grown, if then. But ain’t much point in it.”Virgil resumed pacing, but Mac continued to look at him so insistently, he stopped and resumed his answer instead. “They were used to hunt buffalo, and they’re about all gone now, son. And there never was any down here anyway.”“Couldn’t you hunt other things with it?”“You could, but most men can’t even fire it. Or wouldn’t want to. Least not more than once. Kicks like a mule. Probably break your shoulder.”“But not your shoulder,” said Mac, with pride.Virgil considered the gun and winced a little. “I’d only fire that thing if I absolutely had to. You don’t even need something that big to kill a grizzly.”“Then why do you have it Pa?”“Because everyone wants to come in here and have a look at the biggest rifle they’ve ever seen. And once they come, they buy their flour and their sugar here instead of at somebody else’s store.”“Will you ever let me shoot it?”Virgil smiled and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Alright, someday, when you’re taller than me or when the town gets overrun by elephants, whichever comes first.” Laura placed the last of the fabric in the glass case and closed the top. She walked over to her husband, kissed him on the cheek, and took his coffee from him. “You’re wasting daylight, Mr. Miller.”“I’m admiring the view, Mrs. Miller,” he said, as he took her in his arms and kissed her. Then he turned to Mac and said, “Mind your Mother and keep her and your sister safe.”Mac nodded, taking that seriously too.Virgil stepped behind the main counter and took his gun belt off a peg beneath the cashbox. Unlike the fancy rigs the cowboys liked to wear around town, this belt had pistols in two cavalry holsters that closed with heavy flaps. Also on the belt was a knife with a carved antler handle in a fringed sheath like the Indians wore.The heavy Colt Army pistols were set in the holsters with the handles facing forward, so they’d be easier to draw in a gallop. Where other men wore belts of fancy, tooled leather, worked with silver, the leather on this belt was all but invisible. Every free inch of the belt was covered with fabric loops, and in every loop was a .45 caliber bullet. It was ugly and worn. Mack watched, wide-eyed, as his Father belted it on. His father rarely wore his pistols and Mack had never even seen shoot them, not even for target practice. In fact, he had never seen the pistols out of their holsters. All he knew of them were that the handles were made of simple wood, nothing special.Virgil took his hat off the peg on the wall and snugged it on his head. This hat had once been white, but he had worn it so long it was battered and scuffed and stained in places, and fit all the better for it. Virgil walked out of the front door of the store and looked down at the wagon, its emptiness enhanced by the loose canvas tarp in the back. Then he looked up at the sky. Clear, no sign of weather. Laura and Mack came to see him off. Virgil was about to ask Laura to go get Pen, but Laura indicated the back of the wagon with a nod of her head. He took the hint and said, “Well, shame that no-account daughter of mine ain’t here to see her father off. But all the same, I never liked her frowning face overmuch anyways.”The canvas cover in the back of the wagon exploded upwards and a tornado of strawberry blonde hair announced itself by saying, “I was going to come with you!”And there was Penelope in all her 8-year-old glory. She pouted savagely at her father with a face that was like to break his heart. She had Daddy’s number, that was sure, thought Laura. Virgil held out his arms and Penelope dove into them crying, “Don’t go!”He stepped down from the porch and stood the little girl on the wagon so he could look her in the eyes. Then he said, “Just a couple of days. I have to go remind Mr. Fetterman of his contract with us and collect our flour at the price he promised. Otherwise, people here in town aren’t going to be able to have bread and cakes and cookies. And you wouldn’t want that, would you?”“No biscuits either?”“No biscuits either.” “Well that’s okay,” said Penelope, playing at trapping her father, “I don’t like biscuits anyway.” They all laughed. Mack climbed up in the back of the wagon and he and his sister played at bouncing the wagon on the springs by jumping up and down. Only their children could make riding in the back of a wagon on a bad road a game. Virgil said to Laura, “Just a couple of days. Less than three if I don’t have to go to Tuscon.”“Why would you have to go all the way to Tuscon?” Laura asked.“If we need a new supplier, that’s the place. Gonna have to happen sooner or later if Fetterman is holding us ransom over the price.”She saw another look of worry cross Virgil’s face and said, “You’re a good man, Virgil.”“No, I’m not,” he said without a smile.“You weren’t, but you are now,” said Laura.Virgil pressed his lips together and looked sideways down the street.“Oh Virgil, sooner or later, your present is going to catch up with you. You’re going to have to resign yourself to being happy.”A look of fear filled Virgil’s eyes. A deep terror that Laura had never seen in her husband before. He said, “That ain’t how life works.”“We’ve come through our bad spell and you know it,” she said, getting angry, even though she didn’t want to. “Why can’t you just enjoy things when they are good?”She was shocked to see tears brimming in his eyes. “Because everything good I ever had was taken from me in the end.”She hugged him tight and whispered in his ear, “Nothing is taking us from you. Or you from us. You understand?” Her words were quiet but had power in them, like the sound of a storm far, far off over the prairie. Then she looked him in the eye, forced a smile on her face, and said, “All this fatalism is scaring me, Mr. Miller. Now you go, you get our business straightened out and you come back to us.”“Yes ma’am. Not wild horses, nor loose women can keep me away.” Laura didn’t smile. She looked in him dead in the eye, as serious as the barrel of a gun, and said, “You promise.”He nodded. Then she said, “Get gone and get back Mr. Miller.” She kissed him in a way that made it hard to leave.Virgil drove the wagon East through town just as it was waking up. Past the Morning Star mine, the Morning Star saloon, the First Bank of Grantham on the left, Johnson’s livery on the right with its overflowing stables, the foundry already throwing off heat and the smells of sweat and slag. He continued down the hill across the dry wash that never saw water but for a trickle in the early spring. The horses scrambled up the rocky cut on the far side and then he was on the road to Bisbee. He didn’t look back, but as the sun rose and the day went on, he thought long and hard about the man he would have been if he hadn’t met her. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t have been proud of that man. And certain that man would have been dead by now. Get full access to Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

The King paused in the telling. Gripping the sword in his right hand, he rose and threw a few more coals in the brazier with his left. The stable boy, to pretend he wasn’t interested, resumed sharpening his knife.The King returned to his seat and asked the stable boy, “So what happened then, did I kill him? Did the Dragon? Does it matter?”“Yes.”“Yes, what?”“You took your revenge, as I will take mine.”“Did I now? How can you be sure? We haven’t gotten to that part yet.”“You stuck the blade in Beowulf and twisted it. I know because that is what I am going to do to you. That’s why you’re so proud of that sword. Finish your tale and don’t forget our wager. Or are not going to keep your word?”“Very well,” said the King, “Beowulf drew his sword and gave it to me. This sword, in fact.” The King tapped the naked blade against his thighs for emphasis.“We charged the dragon where it lay on the turf. Beowulf with shield raised, and I with sword. The beast lashed out and struck at Beowulf as a snake does, closing around the King’s leg. Beowulf brought the shield down upon the Dragon’s neck. As the Dragon held fast to his leg and engulfed him in fire, Beowulf held the beast to the ground.“Battered by its wings I charged in and shoved this sword into the soft place of its armpit and deep into the heart. It died quickly, just like anything will when you stab it in the heart.“Then, I held the dying, charred Beowulf across my knees and begged him not to go. But he died anyway.”“You didn’t?” asked the boy, “You didn’t kill him?”“I did not.”“Why?”“I am not at tenth or even a hundredth of what he was, but what I am, I am. You have that same thing in you, boy, that angry, unrelenting thing. That thing which strives, which seeks, that which would not yield without struggle to god or monster. And that thing is a flame I would not extinguish lightly. Not in him. Not in you.”For a time there was only the sound of the knife on stone. Then, from far away, the sound of a cock crowing.The King said, “It is morning, and I don’t think I’ve convinced you.”“You haven’t.”“Then enough games with your knife boy. You can sharpen ’til the end of days and it still won’t be a tool fit to your task.”The King stood and tossed his sword in the straw. He undid the sword belt and took off his tunic. His bare belly hung, soft, white and heavy over his hips, but the King’s arms and shoulders were knotted with ropy muscle.“I’ve lived long enough. So if you won’t fight for me, then it’s time for you to kill your monster.”The stable boy stood with his knife. He pointed at the King’s stomach. Then he lunged a little, to see if the King would flinch. Wiglaf stood his ground and smiled, his fear falling away from him at last.“Ah,” said the King, “battle.”The boy lunged.  * * *Naked from the waist up and smeared with blood, King Wiglaf strode into the courtyard. The men saw the head he carried and murmurs swept through the ranks. He climbed a wagon next to the main gate and held his trophy high. Without ceremony, he said, “The Scyllan’s sent an assassin.” Then he threw the head to the ground.The King said, “I am old. I am tired. And last night I was afraid that I did not have another battle left in me. Against odds like these, who would not tempted by a clean death and a forever after in the mead-hall?“But then I thought of spring. And your mother,” he said pointing to young man in the front rank. “And yours, and yours, and yours. And how much I loved them all. And I realized, you dog-faced, unloved b******s, that I had one more rutting spring left in me."So fight with me now, and I will promise you two things. Victory and a fresh crop of brothers come January.” He waited for the laughter to die down. “Or do not fight and go your slaughter, meek as lambs. For me, it changes nothing. I  wait here no longer. I go to meet my fate.”He drew his Dragon-killing sword and with a mighty stroke, he sundered the timber that barred the gates. As the cold wind of morning swung the heavy wood gate open, Wiglaf charged and the Geats followed with him.THE END.If you’ve enjoyed this tale, why not leave a review on Amazon. It would be a tremendous help. Get full access to How It's Written by Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

The men panicked and fled. As Beowulf had foretold, not a one went for a spear. Some dived back into the barrow. Others ran up or down the coast. Only the Dragon was not in a hurry. I remember that dread shape against that grey winter sky, flapping lazily as if it had all the time in the world. It wheeled off to the left of us in pursuit of some of the Thanes. Over the hill, I heard the roar of its flames and men screaming.With a calm equal to the Dragon’s, Beowulf strolled down the hill to where the ponies had been. The beasts had also had fled, but the poor pony that carried the mighty shield was trapped. The bronze and iron had slid free from the pack and dragged behind the whinnying beast like an anchor. Foam flecked the pony’s lips and madness roiled in her eye.Beowulf cut the lashing and the pony ran down into the valley. Then he shouldered the giant shield. As I watched the pony run, I hoped that she would make it, but somehow I knew that she would not. In that moment,  knew, with certainty, that none of us would make it out alive.And it was then that I understood what Beowulf had meant when he had spoken of hatred in the heart. For men to war with men, courage is enough and greed will do. But to do battle with monsters, one must meet fear with something stronger.The dragon flew low across the bottom of the hill, and snatched up the fleeing pony up with a lazy whip of its neck and a snap of its jaws. Then it breathed fire and spit the burning animal back at the Earth like a curse. It dove over the cliff and disappeared.This was not a falcon on the hunt — terrible, beautiful, but still a part of the same skien as you or I.  This Dragon was a withering, animated greed for the suffering and end of all living things. Its joy was burning of crops, the eradication of species, the extinction of the sun. How could men who fought for treasure or power or glory in the eyes of other men stand against this monstrosity?I looked to Beowulf, and saw him leaning on his shield as if all of this bored him. He felt my gaze upon him, turned, and saw that I had not fled. He nodded once. As much as I hated the man, I felt that I had just been awarded an honor worth having. Then he pointed to one of the spears the Thanes had abandoned.As I took my first step towards the weapon, the hill beneath me erupted in flame. Where I had clawed an opening in the turf, a torrent of fire now poured forth. Smaller tendrils of smoke and flame welled up from the shaking ground. I fell and rolled down the hill, managing to stop near a spear. I picked it up and ran to Beowulf. I did not look back until I was behind the tower of his shield.The Dragon’s head rose up over the edge of the cliff. It swiveled, snake-like, and filled me with an ancient revulsion. It clacked its jaws together twice, then vaulted into the air.  The Dragon blasted the unburnt oak tree with its flame, then settled onto a burning perch.Beowulf’s eyes were filled with tears of fierce joy. The beast and the man roared as one and Beowulf advanced behind the shield. The Dragon dropped from the tree and breathed fire. As the flames surrounded us in the lee of the shield, Beowulf shouted, “When he passes!”When the Dragon came, I stood and jammed the spear into its belly. The point scraped scales and caught between them. The force of the beast’s passage slammed the haft of the spear into the earth and it shattered. A splinter of wood lodged in my left hand. As I pulled it free, Beowulf roared for another spear and shoved me out from behind the shield.As I ran, mostly falling toward the next weapon, the shadow of the beast passed over me. I dove for the spear, and when I came up again, I saw the Dragon, over the ocean, roiling around itself in a turn and lining up for another pass.As it dove on me, I thought to myself, this is when I die. But the Dragon passed over me and struck at Beowulf with its claws. The bronze shield rang like a bell. Beowulf was cast one way and the shield the other. He landed hard and did not rise.Now, I thought, Now is my chance to snatch revenge even from the jaws of my own death! I leveled my spear and charged. Beowulf raised himself wearily to hands and knees, the chainmail and the years weighing on him at last. The mouth! If he lifts his head, spear him in the mouth. But in the sky beyond Beowulf, I saw the Dragon turn again. No you damned worm, I thought I will take him first!But when the Dragon dove, I could not tear my gaze from the  horrible thing. As I charged Beowulf, the beast opened its mouth to burn us both down. In that moment, my choice was made. I threw the spear not at Beowulf, but into the maw of the beast. It struck home in the jaw, and the creature veered off to the side, crashing into the slope and rolling away, screaming pain and fire as it went. Get full access to How It's Written by Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

At the end of a long, upward march we found an old oak tree on a cliff facing the sea. It was gnarled and had grown at an angle from being blown inland by constant punishment of the sea wind. The base of the trunk was wider than three men could wrap their arms around, while the top of the tree was wispy branches that I could scarce believe could hold their leaves in that wind. But we saw nothing that looked like a barrow.Beowulf asked, “Where?”“A path, down the cliff face,” came the answer.Beowulf commanded me to go and see. Fear fueled my impudence, so that when I spoke, it was to say, “Should I kill the beast if I find it?”Beowulf said, “Leave your spear so that you won’t be tempted.”Defenseless, I crawled over the edge of the “path” and clung to the cold rock, as the ocean crashed against the cliff face far below. Everywhere was slick with the leavings of sea birds, but the birds were gone. I realized the last time we had seen animal life of any kind was before we had reached the burning forest.I came to a hole in the cliff. As I moved and slipped my way closer I could see that that it was ringed by blackened rocks. A foul, sulfurous smell hurt my lungs. The fresh ocean air could not take it away.The hole had been created where the rock had been blown outward, and a narrow path led into the depths. I listened carefully, but all I could hear was the keening of the wind in the rocks. Was the beast within? I am not ashamed to say that my hands shook as I lit the torch.The walls of the passage were scorched. As I pressed deeper into the crypt, my feet scraped piles of melted gold and silver. Gems littered the floor.The passage opened into a high vault. I saw a company of dead men in stone chairs. They must have been important in their day. Now they were skeletons in rusted armor and once fine jewelry. The one closest to the entry had been burned and knocked over. I listened again, but heard nothing. So I made my way through the crumbled chests and the caches of coins and the pillars that held up the roof.At the head of the room, was the one who must have been their leader in life. At his side still dangled a fine sword. Without weapon and afraid, I tried to draw it from its sheath. It came easily, as if it had just been oiled.I heard… Well, I don’t know what I heard. I imagined that it was  the scraping of claw across stone. I turned quickly and knocked the torch against a pillar. It exploded in a shower of sparks and went out.In the darkness, I panicked. I lost my reason and screamed and ran. I blundered through the barrow until I found a pillar with my head, and was knocked senseless.When I opened my eyes I saw my salvation. Lying flat on my back on the floor I could see a space in the ceiling where roots of the oak tree had pushed a few of the ceiling blocks free. There was the faintest glimmer of daylight. I rose and maneuvered a chest under the lightest patch in that dark room. Hacking with the fine blade, I climbed up in to the space among the roots. I moved through the earth as an apprentice mole, and  was just as blinded by the sunlight when I emerged.The men recoiled in horror, fearing, I suppose, that I was the Dragon, Harrower of the Dark. When they lifted me clear, laughter rippled through the company. I did not join them, for the terror of that dark place was still on me. For fear of crying out, I did not speak.Beowulf did not join in the merriment. He grabbed me by the shoulder and shook me so hard my teeth rattled. Then looked me in the eye and said, “Master your fear.” I managed a nod of assent. Then he asked me what was in the tomb.“Riches,” I said.“Go and see,” he told the men.They clawed their way into the underground chamber. There were shouts of delight as they discovered the treasures below. But Beowulf paid them no attention. He strode up the hill to the tree and considered it. Then he said, “It is unburnt.”I sat and hugged my legs to my chest. I did not want him to see my knees knocking together.“All of the trees we have seen, entire forests of them, were charred. But this tree was spared.”I looked up to see that what he said was true. In the whole of the valley laid out below us all the trees had been burned.Then came the sound of edge against edge. The men fighting over the treasures they had just hauled out into the light, greed turning man against man.“Should you stop them?” I asked."Let them fight. Their blood may yet bring the beast,” said Beowulf, scanning the horizon. “See squire, they have dropped their spears,” he said, repeating it as a grim prophecy.I watched one Thane fight another over a golden hunting horn. The bigger man laughed mockingly as he wrested the horn from his smaller companion. The smaller man drew his sword and hacked the man’s hand from his forearm. As the larger man screamed in rage and pain, the smaller retrieved the horn and put it to his lips. The note he sounded was of bone ground against bone, yet it swelled until it filled the whole of that blasted valley. As the echoes of that terrible sound died away, I could hear the sobs of the now one-handed man again.Beowulf pointed and cried, “There!”Far below, one of the charred trunks of a tree unraveled from itself. Three flaps took the beast into the sky. The Dragon screamed fire, and rose to meet us. Get full access to How It's Written by Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

Neither Beowulf nor I slept that night. On his order, I found and woke the Blacksmith and brought him to where the King waited by the forge. Beowulf explained what he wanted. The Blacksmith understood, for it was simple enough, but he protested that the result would be too heavy for a man to lift. In response to this, Beowulf picked up the anvil with one hand and tossed it into the corner. The Blacksmith, his 'prentice and I stared at this with our mouths open. Beowulf said to the Blacksmith, "by dawn" and to me, "stay and help."After the three of us had wrestled the anvil back to its place. The Blacksmith relit the forge. His ‘prentice and I worked the bellows. There was no time for steel and no time to cast, so the Smith worked it in iron and bronze. The iron formed a frame, slightly curved and taller than any man. As he wrought, he hammered like a man possessed, yelling at us any time we faltered on the bellows. Drops of sweat fell from his brow onto the hot metal, but still he hammered.By the clock of my aching arms and back, the work seemed to take forever. But every time I looked outside, the night was still dark.When the frame was done, he granted me a respite — I was not used to such labors — and sent his apprentice for the bronze. He brought it in ingots and hunks, and I was put to the bellows once again. And in no time at all they had heated, hammered, and drawn it into long strips. They wove the strips into the frame and formed a towering shield made entirely of metal.As rosy-fingered dawn clawed its way through the dark, the blacksmith fixed a strap of leather to the back of the shield and tried to lift it. Using both hands, He was just able to get it off the ground. He held it for a moment and then it crashed into the earthen floor of his shop.Beowulf came and shouldered the shield as if it weighed nothing. “Good,” was all he said. * * *As we loaded the stout, shaggy ponies, I saw one of Handclaf's men bring him the charred hand of the dead slave, still admixed with the gold of the cup. With a furtive glance. he stowed it in his saddlebag. When he saw that I was looking at him, he glared at me. I did not look away.Many of the men had sought courage in their cups. Whatever temporary valor they had found had deserted them by mid-morning. From our column, I heard a men vomiting and moans from all around. The party was a score and ten, each mounted, plus the shield, mounted on a pony of its own.The first night, we dug our camp in the snow and used some evergreen trees as a windbreak. The men drank and were brave again. I crawled underneath one of the fir trees and wrapped myself in sheepskin. I fell asleep to the sounds of their boasting and their laughter. I woke just before dawn and saw Beowulf standing in the smoke of a freshly rekindled fire.He turned when he heard me coming out through the branches. Seeing it was me, he nodded and turned back to his contemplation of the flames.That day, he drove the Thanes mercilessly. He taunted them. Saying that they were not even fit to carry my spear, let alone his. He all but begged them to challenge me to a contest of strength or skill. I was certain I would be getting a beating one way or another. I didn’t much care, as long as it left me capable of exacting my revenge. I had, as Beowulf had pointed out, nowhere to go and nothing to live for. My one hope of a good death lay in him.But the beating never came. On the second day, we came to The March, Handclaf’s domain. What we saw there was filled us with awe and terror. From the high pass we could see the valley beyond, and to the sea. Large swaths of the forest were burning.  Many of the open fields had been plowed by fire and the scorched earth was open to the sky. It was the heart of Winter, but by the light of a burning village, this destruction seemed to us like a Spring in hell.As we drew closer to the barrow, the men became more sullen and fearful. Yet, Beowulf’s spirits rose. He jibed at Handclaf even more, but the Thane would not answer his challenges. My spirits rose with my King. Of our company, only he and I did not put any of our hopes in survival.We did not see the Dragon that day, although a burned farmer and his wife shared their tale of woe with us. They told us that there had been children and livestock. It was a halting tale, punctuated by fearful glances towards the sky. Beowulf offered our protection and invited them to spend the night with the company. The farmer declined. His wife, mad from grief, laughed at us and fled. The farmer made apology and hurried to catch up with her.Our progress was halted by the inferno of a forest fire. We made camp some distance away in a muddy field and needed to clear no snow nor build no fire for warmth. By dawn the fire had subsided enough for us to pick our way through the ashes. The ponies shied and grew wild, biting at us and each other. So we spread out and each man made his own way through the desolation.At the end of the day, we broke out into a large pasture of scorched grass and melting snow that led up to the headland and the sea beyond. Handclaf, the first to speak in hours said, “The Barrow is there, facing the waters.” Get full access to How It's Written by Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

If you’ve jumped in the middle, here’s Chapter One.After I killed the wolves, Beowulf took a liking to me, as much of a liking as he took to anyone. It became my job to pour Beowulf’s mead. That first night, very drunk, he said to me, “I would make you my squire, were there any more battles to fight.” I remember thinking he was silly for saying this. A foolish old drunk with his glory days behind him. Still, it was with trepidation that I answered, “Does my Lord mean to say that I am no longer a slave?”Beowulf asked me, “Do you have any place else to go?”“No,” I told him.“Nor do I,” he said, lifting his cup. For a while, I thought poison would be the way. But I knew nothing of poisons or herbs. I didn’t even know who to ask. Even young, and foolish as I was, I knew it would not do for the King’s cupbearer to be heard asking questions about poisons.I wonder if Beowulf thought me a coward. It's not a bad guess. Most men are, after all. Or maybe he wanted me to try to kill him. He was old, and tired and perhaps all he wanted was one last fight so he could take his place in that mead hall in the sky. He had outlived all his enemies, and all around him were cowed. The Thanes and Jarls jockeyed for position, politick’d among their meat and mead, and prepared for that day when their ring-giver would give no more. They would fight amongst themselves, as dogs do for scraps, but even though Beowulf was old, they were all afraid to contest with him.I decided I would slit his throat in the middle of the great feast for the visit of Hanclaf, Beowulf’s most powerful Thane. Hanclaf lived three days' ride to the East. He was a Lord of the March, that strip of land that lay between the territory of the Sea-Geats and the unruly tribes beyond. In the absence of Beowulf, Hanclaf would have been a king in own right. But he had seen what had happened to the others, and sworn fealty. Now I can see that was just good sense, but the younger version of myself thought that we would be supping with a coward and his men.My plan, such as I had formulated one, was to wait until late in the night. When Beowulf was well and truly drunk, then I would slit his throat where all could see.But there was no feast.When Hanclaf’s men came, they entered carrying a dying man and presented him as if he was a gift. From underneath the sheepskins came moans and the stench of burned flesh. There were no long speeches. No gifts, no ritual greetings. Hanclaf stopped in the doorway, blocking most of it with his great size and said but one word. “Dragon.”They had greased the burned man with chunks of melted animal fat. I have not seen, before or since, a man so harmed yet still living. When the cover slipped from his legs, I could see that  flesh of them was charcoal. The warmth of the hall melted the fat they had slathered his wounds with and it ran down his legs and dripped thick blackness onto the stone floor.With some tenderness Beowulf went to the man and knelt beside him.In pained whispers the man told his tale to Beowulf. He had been taken as a slave by Hanclaf. Then he escaped and had fled to the coast. There, while searching for a place to hide from pursuers, he had found he an ancient barrow that containing the riches of a people who had been forgotten long ago.But that was not all he found. There also was a burning one, an old harrower of the dark, the worm of fire called by men a Dragon. So the slave had run, taking with him, only a cup of the finest gold.“How do you know this wretch he tells the truth?” one of Beowulf’s worthless, drunken Thanes had demanded.Beowulf stepped to the side, and revealed the burned man’s hand. It too was charred, and melted into the very bones of it was thick layer of gold that had once been a cup.The burned man shivered uncontrollably and Beowulf commanded that he be moved closer to the fire. The slave started screaming before the pallet was even lifted. Beowulf steadied the man with a gentleness that I had never seen in him before.Hanclaf watched all of this moment and then asked, “My King?”Beowulf waved him off and continued whispering to the slave. The sounds of the burned man’s misery grew quieter. And all of us searched each other’s faces, for some sign of what should be done next.Finally, Hanclaf said “When we rode here, three farms had been burned and a small village. The gods alone know how many have been ruined since. I have come for men, men brave enough to face this Dragon. Such men will I lead back in the morning. I will gather the Thanes, and destroy this monster.”It wasn't much of a speech, but the Thanes cheered it anyway. When the cheering died out, then everyone heard the low, phlegmy chuckling, that sounded more volcanic than human. Laughing, Beowulf rose from beside the slave.“What jest is this my King?” Hanclaf asked.But Beowulf's laughter grew and grew. I saw that the slave was dead and that Beowulf held in his hand a freshly-blooded dagger. He asked, “How can you face a Dragon when you don’t even have the stomach to spare a dying man his misery? There is your slave, Hanclaf. There is your cup. Why not take them and go? Better yet, why bring them at all, if you are such a hero? Why not face your dragon alone?”Hanclaf had no reply.Into the silence, Beowulf said, "Not one of you is even fit to be my squire. You have warred with men, but none of you have the strength, the tempered hate in your heart to do what is required." Then he pointed the bloody dagger at me and said, "Except for you.”That was the happiest moment of my life. That was the moment I knew I would have my revenge. Many things happen in the heat of battle which can not be remembered or explained afterwards. This battle with the Dragon would be the perfect concealment for my bloody and most deserved revenge.“Bring your spear,” he told me. As he said it, he smiled.“What about us?” one of the Thanes asked.Beowulf said, “Yes. Bring spears. When you drop them and flee it will give Wiglaf something to pick up.” Get full access to How It's Written by Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

This is Chapter Two of Beowulf and the Dragon. If you missed it, here’s Chapter One. After I was captured, it was ten years before Beowulf spoke to me again. I would hear him, singing in the mead hall, berating his Thanes even as he showered them with rings. His cries were louder even than the mighty horns that blew when he rode to battle, and he would wake everyone yelling for the gate to open when he came back from a raid. In those days, they would straggle in for hours behind him. I remember, as I collected what was left of the horses, thinking maybe those who didn’t come back had been the lucky ones.And understand, this would be from a fight they had won. Beowulf, it seemed, never lost. But I don’t ever remember seeing him enjoy a victory. He was never nervous before a fight, but he was never sated after. If anything, he returned more ill at ease. He paced the length of his great hall like a trapped animal, only settling when he had managed to drink himself into a stupor.The night he broke his silence with me, I was clearing the wreckage of a victory feast. The few men who were left had gathered by the fire. Vulfgar had thrown one of the benches onto the blaze, and all the men cheered as it burned. They told each other stories about how brave and strong they were, and cheered in acclaim of each other’s untested mettle.At the center of it all , sat the mighty Beowulf. He ignored the foolish boasting, drank his mead and stared into the fire.These were not the men who had done deeds and fought in the battles, you see. These were the younger men. The ones who enjoyed the spoils without paying the price. The sons of warriors. The warriors were almost all dead and gone. Few on either side of a battle fared well when Beowulf was involved. Yet, he was thought a good King for the numbers of brave men he led to their place in Valhalla.The door to the meadhall was thrown open and a man in a blood-covered sheepskin burst in. The cold wind sucked the warmth out of the hall in an instant. The men cried out to complain, but when they saw the blood-soaked man, they fell silent. The man knelt before the King and said but one word. ‘Monster.'Beowulf smiled.He rose from his seat and the years seemed to fall away from him. He glanced around the hall to see who would sally forth with him. But none would meet his eye. Their boasts were hollow and their manhoods cheap.But I did not look away. At the time I thought he mistook the murderous gleam in my eye for bravery. I was on fire with the hope that this was the night that the mighty Beowulf would be murdered by a horrible thing in the cold dark.You may not believe me when I tell you that the dark was darker and the cold was colder back then. And those things lurked in those long winter nights. The open oceans were ruled by monsters, as were the deeps of the earth and the forests. Men stamped a less confident tread across the skin of the Earth. Many sneer at such tales now, but that is a luxury. In that day there were still those alive who had lost loved ones to the things that gnashed their teeth beyond the the feeble torchlight of man.Beowulf told me to fetch a spear. But he would not take it when I brought it to him. We rode upland, to what was then the farthest pasture. He made his Thanes bring torches, but he would not allow them to carry weapons. He said, ‘One is enough. One spear for each monster.’ And then he laughed like thunder in the falling snow.The frightened shepherd took us to where his animal lay, torn apart. The entrails had been dragged off towards the glacier. The smell was terrible. I still don’t understand how something that ate only sweet hay could smell so foul. I think all of us believed that the man's sheep had been the victim of some creature from the wrong side of the night.Beowulf, barely gave the mess in the snow a glance, and said, "It is a wolf. No more."The Thanes, both hungry for glory and fearing for their lives, disagreed. How could he be certain? There were, it was widely known, all manner of monsters.Beowulf silenced them with a look.The Shepherd came forward and beseeched Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow, Lord of the Meadhall. "You take my mutton your table, my Lord. I ask you to protect my home from the monsters of the night."Beowulf nodded to the man and patted him on the shoulder. Then he looked to us and said, "There are no more monsters. Which of you will stay?”The Thanes turned away and babbled excuses. Beowulf laughed and said, "I will leave Wiglaf and his spear.” This shocked me. Not the least because, I didn’t know he knew my name. Beowulf added, “If the creature comes back and eats another sheep, it is a wolf. If the creature comes back and eats Wiglaf, it is a monster.”“So they left me with a spear to wait out the cold night. The shepherd was kind enough to give me sheepskins, uncured and smelly, but warm enough. I piled them on and sat. I must have slept, but I do not remember it. When the dawn came I was still alive, but something had come and drug the carcass away without me seeing it.I became afraid for what might happen to me for failing in my duty. I know now that Beowulf was just using me to shame the others. In his heart, he probably hoped that a monster would take me, just so another monster would exist for him to conquer.At dawn, I ranged along the base of the glacier, until I found wolves living in a cave. They were pathetic creatures, and winter had driven them to the edge of starvation. There were no pups among them.But the biggest one, would not retreat into the back of the cave with the others. He would not even growl. He looked at me as Beowulf had looked at me when he had captured me. No rage, no foolishness. Just empty and ready for whatever might come. An endlessness in his eyes.For that look, I killed the old wolf. Out of pity, I killed the rest. Starved as they were, they would not have lasted another week. Weakness is a tragedy in savage things.When I returned to the hall I threw the wolf’s head on the table, leaving it to bounce and splatter amid the Thanes’ breakfast. Then I had no troops, no crown, no holdfast, no ring hoard. I had nothing to lose, so I was fearless. Now I have much to lose and I fear almost everything.I told the room that they need not be afraid anymore, for I had killed their monster. Beowulf laughed and laughed. Get full access to How It's Written by Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

Author’s Note: This is the first in a seven-episode podcast/serialization of Patrick E. McLean’s new novella. It will be available on Amazon and where ever audiobooks are sold shortly. But in the meantime, if you want the whole thing, you can subscribe and get it all right now. Beowulf and the DragonCHAPTER ONECold. No wind. No hope.The men stood on the walls of the Ringfort, staring down at the fires of the enemy encampments. The smoke rose in unbroken columns, rising and rising and rising until it dissipated among the cold, indifferent stars.As the King walked the wall, he knew better than to try and count the fires on the plain. Too many, too many and one, too many and two.The King stopped and warmed himself by one of the watch fires. He felt the men’s secret, sidelong gazes. They looked to him for signs of fear and for reasons to hope, but they dared not speak. After a time, the King said, “If we went down there, we would find that most of those fires are empty.”“I will follow where you lead, my liege,” Heathgan said, and was rewarded by grim laughter.“Don’t be so eager,” the King said, clapping Heathgan on the back, “They’ll be in your lap the morning. Who knows? After climbing the hill, they may even be too tired to fight.”The men laughed because it made them feel better to act brave. But when the laughter died away they all stood as equals before death.When he was no longer able to hide his fear, the King descended from the walls. In this desperate hour showing weakness, even in front of his most loyal me  n, could be fatal. He felt twice-prisoned in his strong place upon the hill. So it was that the Thane, Lord and Ring-giver of this strong house of Geats, sought to hide himself away in the stable.In the stable, a small coal fire had been set in a brazier. And this place, at least, had the smell of warm, contented animals. He almost knew a moment of peace, but from the darkness, came the sound of steel scraping across stone. He put a hand to his sword and turned.There, clad in little more than rags and filth, was the stable boy, sharpening a long knife. The King laughed, but like all of his laughter this night, it rang hollow. He was troubled by the eyes that peered out from beneath the mop of unkempt black hair. All this long night the King had wandered through his fort, cheering and comforting his men. His scarred and tested men had done their best to put on a brave face for their commander, but they were no fools. Everyone knew what the dawn would bring. And in every man’s eye he had found fear. But not in the stable boy’s. The boy did not flinch beneath his King’s gaze. Instead, it was the King who looked away.The King asked the stable boy, “You are thinking of battle?”The only answer the boy gave was the rasp of edge across stone.The King laughed at this and said, “At least you've got the good sense to sit inside by a fire instead of standing on a cold wall looking down at your doom.” He pulled a wooden stool close to the warmth of the brazier, drew his sword and sat with the flat of the blade across his thighs.The boy sharpened.The King threw a few more hunks of charcoal in the brazier and said, “We are both sleepless on the eve of battle. But which of us has the most excitement, and which most dread?"The boy sharpened."Has anyone told you stories of Beowulf, who was King before me?” the King asked."You are my King, and I have no other before you,” he said, grinding the metal."No, no, not me. I am just what was left over. A small man who managed to survive from an age of heroes. I am not one of those men who warred with giants and the monsters they bred. It is of Ecgtheow's son, Beowulf whom I would speak. A true Geat and a true King. I am…” the King faltered, not wanting to give voice to the full depth of his failings.“But you,” the King continued with a wry smile, “You are not a Geat. You were brought here. A Scyllan collected on a raid? Scyllan like those who camp outside our walls?“This earned the King one sharp nod.“Did you know that I was also taken? I am by birth a Scythian. Only my people never came to rescue me.”“You mock me.”“A little. I mock myself more. None in that horde at the bottom of the hill will recognize you, nor will claim you if they do. Not in the heat of battle which is to come. It is well you sharpen that knife. You will need a blade, ere the morrow is finished with us. And just as you will need that blade, I will need every man and boy if any of us are to survive.”"As my Liege says.”“I can see the murder in your eye. You would kill me with that knife of yours, drop over the wall into the snow, and take your chances with the Scyllans.” The blade stopped grinding against the stone.“Who told you?”“No one told me, boy. Do you imagine you are the only slave who has ever had hate in his heart? But you fear for your skin, if not for your soul, and that makes a coward of you, as it did of me."Are you a Christian, then? Like those at the bottom of my hill? One true God, eh? I can see a God with one eye, but one God? Only one!?!” He paused trying to make sense of it. “It’s too bleak. What if he doesn’t pick your side in the battle? That's it, eh? What happens when there are two armies of your own kind? Is your God torn then? How does he decide?”“The Lord, my God, protects the meek.”“Haven't you heard the songs they sing around their campfires? Far from meek. They believe victory is in their grasp. They are no heroes. They are small men like the rest of us. They are not on the scale of the ones who came before, of Beowulf.“When the Geats took me they came out of the mist, like a nightmare. They had drawn their long ships up upon our shores in the dead of night. It takes a brave man to sail by the light of the moon. The kind of a man who is not afraid of swimming alone in the open ocean even among monsters."They rode our village down on short ponies, stubby little animals, not like these noble steeds,” He gestured to the drowsing horses around him. “I thought it was funny when I saw those warriors coming through the morning fog on ponies. But I stopped laughing  when I heard my mother scream.“When she was pierced by a spear. I could only stand there, unable to believe that she was dead. As I tried to get her to rise, I was knocked down. I rolled under a cart. For a time I hid my face as battle rang out around me. I thought that if I did not open my eyes again until my mother called me, she would not be dead.“It was when I heard my father cry out that I opened them. The battle was all but over. The village was ablaze. But even so, my father called out for their leader, for him to fight, in the old way, man to man, to settle the battle.“They cut him down?" asked the lad, warming to the tale."That's what you or I would have done, because you and I are small men of good sense and low cunning, but it is not what Beowulf did. My father was a blacksmith, a huge man. I still remember how he fought with his sword in one hand and his hammer in the other. He kept five men at bay as he yelled his challenge.“Then a voice called ‘Halt!’ A   man in a battered shirt of chainmail dismounted and removed his helmet. Those eyes. Such a gaze Beowulf had. And why not? He had seen wonders and terrors as have now been banished from our gentled earth. Even before I knew his tale, I could see the memories of those things reflected in his eyes. In a few generations, they will just be stories, only good for scaring children. But to see those eyes for yourself, lad, was to know that those things were not tales. That once they had been real."Beowulf, was not even a King then. He was just a mighty captain, deep in the bloody work of carving out a domain from the world of men. He drew his sword and cast it aside, just threw it away as you might a discard a chicken bone you had just gnawed clean. Even I knew you shouldn't treat a weapon like that, but swords had failed him in the past, and he no longer trusted them.“He walked right up to my father, within range of both his sword and hammer, and looked him in the eye. It is still strange that my father did nothing. As I see it now, he could have just stabbed him,” the King thrust the tip of his sword into the coals, causing the guttering flames to flare and jump, “just like that. But my father stood there, until Beowulf said, ‘Well?’”“Then my father swung and  Beowulf spun out of the way. He grabbed my father’s arm as he turned. My father tried to break free, but Beowulf just laughed. Not a deep laugh, but a surprised chuckle. Before my father thought to swing the hammer, there was a snapping noise. Beowulf broke my father’s arm and then stabbed him with his own sword."I could hear nothing. I could think nothing. The horror of it has never left me. And even though I have done horrible things and ordered worse, it is that day I have carried with me.”The stable boy’s jaw was hanging open. He shut it with a clacking of teeth. “Beowulf looked at my father’s sword and the blood on it in disgust, then hurled it into the woods. He turned his back and walked away. Even though I was only a boy of six, I went for him. I loved my mother and my father. What was left for me but a good death in battle and a place in the mead hall of Valhalla? I picked up my father’s hammer and charged. So strange, I was not afraid of death then. But now, having seen so much of it...” The King paused with the strangeness of his realization.The stable boy asked, “What happened?”“He backhanded me into the mud. I struggled to rise. Hell, I struggled to breathe. He said, ‘You’ve got fight in you.’ Then everything went black.”“And then?” the stable boy asked.The King shrugged. “The stable, just like you. And while I hated the man who had killed my mother, my father, and my entire village, I was powerless to do anything about it.”The King pointed at the boy with his sword. “People were less trusting then. They didn’t let me have a knife. Not at first. I had to learn to hide my hate to get a chance at revenge.”“And did you?”“Did I what?”“Kill him? Isn’t that how you became King?”“That is how one becomes a victor. And there is a world of difference between winning a Kingdom and keeping it.”“But did you?”The King smiled. “And why should I tell you my tale as you glare at me from across my own fire?" When the boy did not answer, the King said, "I will make you a bargain. I need every man tomorrow. But, I do not think you are fully committed to our cause.”The boy smiled for the first time.“So I will tell you my tale, and if it convinces you that I am a King worth fighting for…”The boy spat on the stone and resumed grinding the edge.“Then you will fight for us at dawn.”“It’s a false bargain,” said the boy, “If I don’t agree to fight for you, you will have me killed.”“I could kill you now. If I cry out, even if you do manage to slip your well-sharpened blade between my ribs, you will die within moments.”“If I listen and do not agree, will you let me go?”“No,” said the King. “I will do better. I will cast aside my sword, like mighty Beowulf, and give you the chance to slip your knife in my belly.”“Why would you do that?”The King sighed and cracked one of his knees. “Because I’m old and tired. Because I am no hero, and not much of a King,  at least not in the way that men once were Kings. Tomorrow I die, one way or another. I do not believe in the stinginess of just one God, but such Gods as I believe in… well, let’s just say, I have been a King long enough to appreciate how convenient it is that the only way to get into Valhalla is for man to die in battle.”“You are a godless man,” said the stable boy, not a question, but a statement of fact.“So you can kill me, and it will seem that I committed suicide. My men will break, perhaps there will be no battle. But like as not they — your good Christian Scyllans — will kill everyone in the name of their One True God anyway. You’ll be dead. I’ll be dead. But since all of that seems fated to happen anyway, at least you will have the satisfaction of your revenge.”For a long time there was silence. Then the knife touched the stone again. “Deal,” said the boy.“First, what is your name?”“Hargth.”“Very well, Hargth. My name, my true name, is Wiglaf. And this is my tale.” Get full access to How It's Written by Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

There is a lot of advice about how to outline a story on the internet, and almost all of it was it was useless, so I stopped trying to wade through it. Like it's just bad content marketing run amok. So I'm going to give you the most useful ways I know to understand stories. The keys to the kingdom as I understand them. And trust me, not a single one of them is "Use mind mapping software."Let's say you want to understand a story. A book, a movie, graphic novel, TV show, play, series of tweets, radio drama... could be anything? How do you do it? You read it, of course, but that's not enough. Because stories have a kind of magic. They transport us to another place. And, if they are well constructed, we get swept along by them in a way that makes it difficult to analyze how they work while they are working on us. In fact, if you're watching a movie and you notice something like the beginning of the third act, chances are it's not a very good movie. Because when it's good, you're so engaged, you don't even think about that kind of stuff.So, I think, to really understand a story, you have to outline it. And that means, reading or watching it again, and writing down the bare bones of what happens. There is simply no wrong way to do this. Should you use a spreadsheet, or a notepad or index cards or mindmapping software? The answer is yes. Whatever makes it easy for you, because, whatever tool you use, you will learn something. And that's the point.So everything I have to say from this point forward is just to make it more profitable for you to do. See there are two reasons to do this. You want to write something of your own.You want to enjoy every story you encounter more. And, for me, #2 is by far the better reason. You're increasing the value of every story you're going to encounter for the rest of your life. That's what I call leverage.Stories can be tricky and the process can be confusing -- especially if you've had one too many English classes recently -- So I'm going to arm you with some of the conceptual tools I use to make things clear.Principle #1 -- Any story is a system of systems.So think of the elements of a novel. Dialog, character, symbolism, description, narration, plot, chaptering, paragraphing, setting -- it could go on and on and on. There are many, many ways to combine those elements to create a good novel. And no two authors do it the same way and no two authors should.So, in your outline, only pay attention to the systems that are interesting to you. If you don't see any great symbols, don't go looking for them. It's not a box you have to check off. What you want to understand is one level up from that. How all these systems work together.PlotOutlining a plot is as simple as writing down what happens in the beats of the story.Luke wants to join the rebellionThe droids run offLuke chases the droidsLuke is attacked by Sandmen and rescued by Obi-Wan KenobiAnd from that list, you can begin to understand the story.If you get stuck on what's important in a scene or why it matters, you can always ask, what happens if you don't have that scene in the story? There's a lot of other ways you can [[analyze a scene]], that's going to have to be a video of its own, but most of the time if you just get the basic beats of the story down, many new things about the story will become clear and that's what you want.Here are the questions to start asking of the plot?What started the story rolling? How did the character get into this mess?What does the character want?What happens if the character doesn't get it?From this list of beats, you want to get THREE things. External Story, Internal Story, and Theme.First, what's the external story. For Star Wars, the external story is blowing up the Death Star/defeating the Empire.The second thing you want to understand is the internal story. What does the character need psychologically, inside themselves, to be whole? Luke has to learn to trust himself and his abilities to reach his full potential. To use the Force Luke.And the third thing is the theme? What's the value that every scene or almost every scene turns on? That ties the whole thing together. The theme of Star Wars, loosely, is believing in something bigger than yourself. And while Luke's story resolves powerfully on this theme when uses the Force to blow up the Death Star, so too does Han Solo's story. He doesn't believe in the Force, or the Rebellion or anything. He bails out of the fight with the Death Star because he has a price on his head. He's looking out for himself. But he changes and we see this in action when he comes back in the end to save Luke so he can blow up the Death Star. So you might say, the theme is "Only when we believe in something bigger than ourselves can evil be defeated."GenreI think the most important thing you can know about any story is what genre it is in. People interested in literary fiction have looked down on genre fiction, but that prejudice certainly doesn't stop literary fiction from being its own genre. And what a genre does is set the reader's expectation of how things should be in the story. It's a set of conventions that the writer must deal with.Genre conventions are conventions about the way the systems of story interlock. Some of these conventions are obligatory scenes. Every thriller needs a daring escape scene. And a hero at the mercy of the villain scene. But these conventions extend to everything. Certain symbols or lines. A Bond movie isn't a Bond movie without spy gadgets, and a cool car, a scene with tuxedoes and evening gowns and the lines, "Shaken not Stirred" and "Bond, James Bond."Genre even extends to permissible themes. A romance novel cannot have a theme that denies that love is possible and still be a romance novel.FormClosely related to Genre is the form a story takes.Stories only have a limited number of forms. You could say there are five or seven or ten basic plots, and still be right. It's all in how you slice them. But if you think there are 50 basic plots, you are wrong. It may be an indefinable number, but it's finite and it's small.So it's also very useful to try to fit the story you outline to one of these structures.Dostoyevsky said there are only two plotsPerson goes on a journeyStranger comes to townChristopher Booker worked on his book Seven Basic Plots for 34 years and came up with these.Overcoming the MonsterRags to RichesThe Quest Voyage and ReturnComedyTragedyRebirthBlake Snyder, in his book, Save the Cat identified these 10 plots for film.Monster in the HouseGolden FleeceOut of the BottleDude with a ProblemRites of PassageBuddy LoveWhydunitThe Fool TriumphantInstitutionalizedSuperheroSo Cowboy Movie is a genre that includes many forms of story Unforgiven is a Voyage and Return story. And you could say it was a kind of Buddy Love. The Searchers is a Quest or Golden Fleece. Sci-Fi Movie is a genre that also includes a wide range of story forms. Alien is Overcoming the Monster or Monster in the House. You don't have to use either of these schemas for story form. Just have a good sense of what other stories the story you want to understand is like. If you say it's unlike any other story -- you haven't understood the form. CharacterThe last very easy thing to do when outlining is to make a list of major characters and look at how they stack up against each other. What's their function in the story and what would happen if they weren't there? What stance do they take on the theme? In Star Wars, Han Solo rejects the theme, then comes around in the end, enabling Luke to blow up the Death Star. He's the skeptic. And that kind of character is very powerful in fantasy novels. Because that character grants us permission to enter the reality. If it's all zealots and true believers in a fantasy world, it's harder for us to suspend disbelief. So Han Solo isn't just there to be cool, and he isn't just transportation for Luke, you lose a lot of meaning if you take his character out. And that's it. Well, I mean it's not everything. Outlining a story certainly can be more complicated than that, but it doesn't have to be. Just write down the beats and ask a few questions and a whole new world will open up to you. Even if you never write anything of your own, outlining a story will help you to enjoy and appreciate every other story more. And that's worth something. Get full access to How It's Written by Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

Explaining how Batman works written is a huge task. There is simply so much Batman. Since the character's creation in 1939 every conceivable tone has been struck with these stories. And if every twist or variation hasn't been tried, well, almost all of them had. You can read a Batman story in an alternate D.C. Universe where Bruce Wayne marries Selena Kyle and has a kid. That's not fanfic, that's a D.C. imprint from the 80's I think. This field has been PLOWED, in comics, film, television, action figures, t-shirts -- Batman. It would take a lifetime to do a comprehensive survey. And I think it would be a life -- well, wasted. Because the fact is most of everything isn't very good. Most Batman comics or movies, while they are fun and they are fine, they certainly aren't sublime. The reason I’m doing this is that I’m currently writing a "Batman" story, of a kind. And to do that well, I want to understand the character better. I’m writing a series called How to Succeed in Evil, available on Amazon, about an Evil Efficiency Consultant for Supervillains. It uses superhero tropes in the same way Douglas Adams uses Science Fiction and Terry Pratchett uses Fantasy. In the latest series of books, the long-term antagonist for my consultant is a superhero called The Lynx. This current run of the story started as I tried to answer the question, what would I do with Batman? What's the Batman story that hasn't been told. What happens if Batman was real like really, real? What's a consequence of this that nobody has ever considered. How to Succeed in Evil works like this. You put a superhero trope next to real people and it's funny or creates instant satire.Like Bruce Wayne. He's got billions. So if he really wants to help people, he should do it at scale, not by pounding muggers in an alley. He should devote his time to the Wayne Foundation. And if he really believes in what he's doing, he'll want to turn Wayne Enterprises into an engine that will generate so much money that he can use it to fund the foundation. So, in my idea, Batman is inherently irresponsible. He's a trust fund kid, who's defrauding his shareholders so he can play vigilante. He's a dilettante. And, from that you can know, he's probably not very good at business OR fighting crime. He wants to do the right thing, he just doesn't know how. And that's funny. And/or sad, depending on how you play it.So, for me, the questions to ask are three-fold. 1. Why has Batman lasted? What makes this character have such staying power? Is it luck? Created at the right time? Certainly some of that is true, but there are things about this story and character that would be useful to understand if you want to make new stories that you hope will last. (and I do)2. How does this engine of story work? I mean there are so many Batman stories. So many great characters. What is it about this particular wellspring that makes it so productive. And, is there anything I can steal to become more productive myself. 3. What is a Batman story at it's absolute best? How/and why does it work? So here's my plan of attack, I'm going to place Batman in the pulp tradition. I'm going to talk about the major kinds of Batman stories. And why, when they are great they are great. And then I'm going to analyze about the film the Dark Knight and the comics that lead up to it. Do you want Batmen? Because that's how you get Batmen!So where does Batman come from? One of the most important insights I have for anyone about story or even art in general is that everything was influenced by something. "There is no new thing under the sun," as the saying goes, which logically can't be correct. But new ideas are very, very, very, very rare. So if you see something that you think is without precedent, turns out there's a part you missed. And the part you might miss about Batman is that he is straight-up a pulp character. The pulp era in which he was created was this vast roiling machine that turned out story after story after story, almost all of them repackaged and produced with a speed that modern writers can't seem to match. Even though they had mechanical typewriters and we have computers. And these Pulp Characters are the guys who people like Bob Kane and Bill Finger used as inspiration.The number one inspiration for Batman is Zorro. Bob Kane said so himself. In the classic origin story, young Bruce Wayne and his parents are coming out a screening of The Mask of Zorro, when his parents are killed in a mugging. For me, Batman also has elements of The Shadow, Lamont Cranston, rich playboy by day, turns into the Shadow, who turns invisible and scares the crap out of criminals while solving mysteries and righting wrongs. There are of course others, it's all a melange. But from the word go, Batman comes right out of this world of ridiculous characters. Well, ridiculous now, if you go back to read them. But the other interesting thing to note is, Zorro's greatest influence is Robin Hood. I mean Zorro basically is Robin Hood. Which makes it interesting to think about Batman as an echo of Robin Hood. The interesting thing to note is that Batman is not ridiculous. Not at the start. Not funny, either. From the word go, Batman is a tragedy. And the Joker is a horrific monster. That panel of recently orphaned Bruce Wayne crying and dedicating his life to fighting crime in the earliest origin story is harrowing. Sure, I didn't get this the first time I read it, but when you go back and look at it, it's all there. And this is the primary difference. Batman has internal stakes. All of these other pulp adventurers, they're doing something because it's fun. Gentlemen Adventurers. Or because it's right abstract sense. Bruce Wayne dons cape and cowl not only for justice but to fix what is broken inside him. Batman is, first and foremost, a response to trauma. So how do Batman stories work?Batman never changes. Oh I know, Robin got killed and then he wasn't and Robin changed out and Nightwing, blah, blah, blah. But in terms of real interior character change, it seems to me that only two Batman stories involve the character changing in a significant way. The origin story and the death story. Everything else, is about the villains, in a deeply fascinating way. For me, in every good Batman story, the villain is a manifestation of Batman's internal struggle. And maybe every good action story is like this. Maybe a hero's struggle is always his or her consciousness against inner forces, those elements of psychology and neurology and instinct that we aren't consciously aware of, that we must overcome to become what we want, or need to be. Take, for example, an alcoholic. In one sense, there is nothing easier than not being an alcoholic. It's literally the cessation of an activity. It would seem to require no effort. But we are not in charge of ourselves. And the struggles to overcome addiction -- or anything else -- are titanic. But they are internal. And it is very difficult to understand anything in abstract terms -- especially the deep interior life of a human being. We make them concrete in character and action. So to understand and reason about these psychological struggles, the ancestors developed myths. I believe they used the oldest and most eternal categories known to them (Mother, Night, Father, Ocean, Light, Darkness, Dragon, Fire, Ice) not as things as themselves, but to try to understand what was going on inside them and how people should act in the world. In a real sense, the battle against any monster is smaller and secondary to the battle against the instinct for self-preservation within. But since we can't symbolize the inner battle very well, in stories, heroes slay dragons. Batman doesn't have Dragons, Batman has characters that are his externalized personality traits or other competing possible responses to trauma. So, many versions of the Joker is are a valid and understandable response to tragedy. We live in a cruel, nihilistic world. Nothing matters. There is no God, it's all a joke. Bruce Wayne/Batman is the opposite response. Bruce, through grief and the power of his will forges himself into an instrument in an attempt to restore justice and make the world a better place. And every Batman character is like this. Oh, they might have started out kind of silly, but as writers and artists plumbed the depths of these characters and tried to make better and better work, it all converges on the same idea. Batman strikes terror into the hearts of evil-doers and uses fear as a tool. Who else uses fear as a tool? The Scarecrow. Batman has become part monster. You know who's also part monster? Killer Croc. and ManBat. Because where's the line? What happens when the monster takes over? When do you go too far?Batman wants Justice. You know who else wants Justice? Ra's a Ghul. When does a vigilante go to far?Batman, you think you had it hard? You think you're strong and scary and know what loss and pain is? Think you can stay forever young and be the most super of superpredators? Meet Bane in the Dark Knight Rises. Now I'm not going to argue that all Batman characters do this perfectly or that every Batman story works this way. But the ones that work the best certainly do. A philosophical or psychological question is personified in a villain. Even the Penguin, as nutty as that character might seem, is a fundamental response to trauma. He's an orphan, his mother killed by a cruel disease. So he turns to crime. Because why not? The world is cruel and meaningless. A contrast to Batman turning to justice because the world is cruel and meaningless.And I think the original weirdness of comic book characters is that a fundamental source of ideas in comic book stories is what is cool to draw. And then the story is worked out. In fact, that's how I came up with the characters of Edwin Windsor and then Topper Haggleblat. It started with a marketing/merchandising idea to begin with. How do you make a comic stick out on the comic book racks? What if there was a comic book that was narrower and taller than other comics? Okay, why would that be a good idea? The hero is very tall, elegant, sophisticated. And I drew this terrible pencil sketch. And if you have a tall guy, you've got to have a short guy. And while pulling on that thread, the story of How to Succeed in Evil unraveled for me. A Batman story at its absolute best? For me, the apotheosis of Batman is found in two graphic novels, both by Frank Miller. Batman: Year One and Batman the Dark Knight Returns. If you don't know the first is an origin story. And the second is an ending story. It's no exaggeration to say that these books, along with Watchmen, The Killing Joke, and V is for Vendetta (all by Alan Moore) saved the dying medium of comics in the West. Time magazine picked Watchmen as one of the best novels of the 20th century. I don't think that's exactly right, but I agree with the point I think they were trying to make. All of these works are of stupendous quality. And not to read them is to be provincial in your own culture. All of these books are, in a sense that the word is not often used, canon. Even if they weren't great in themselves, they would necessary to interact with because of the effect they have had (for better or worse) upon the larger culture. If you want to write anything other than literary fiction, you should read them. All that being said, I have come to a strange conclusion, with one exception, Batman stories at their absolute best are stories about somebody else. Probably the Joker. Or maybe the way to say that is, the best stories with Batman in them are about the Joker. And you can even make a good case that Batman Year One, would be more accurately titled 'Lieutenant Gordon: Year One.' The weight of the story, the biggest change is Gordon. And this is a point that's kind of hard to see, because of the way they name movies and plaster Batman all over everything. For example, Christopher Nolan's wonderful film, The Dark Knight. Who's the prime actor in the movie? The Joker. And he's trying to prove that ultimately everybody is awful and nothing means anything. Did I ever tell you about how I got these scars? The answer is different every time because the truth doesn't matter. He's trying to destroy Batman. Bring him to the belief that there is no Justice. To get him to realize that you can't be a decent man in a decent time. That's why Harvey's Dent makes sense in the story. To provide a contrast. Here's someone like Bruce Wayne, better than Bruce Wayne, and he is powerless against the Joker's basic argument. The criminals are powerless against the Joker. And the crazy thing about that movie and its ending is that the Joker wins. Nothing means anything. The lies win. "Because sometimes the truth isn't good enough. Sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded."Just take that out of context for a sec. But those words in a news director's mouth. Put those words into the mouth of a wife or husband who has cheated. Honey I'm going to reward your faith in me by lying. That's some evil s**t right there. And if the music and the cool art direction made those words sound good to you, made them sound unquestionably heroic, I get it -- I'm right there with you. But that's not flattering for either of us. And the only reason you didn't realize this and hate it immediately, is because of this scene -- There are many, many great things about The Dark Knight as a movie. The pacing and the scenes are so tight, the dialogue is brilliant. Just think about how many great lines you know from that movie?"Some men just want to see the world burn?""You want to see a magic trick?""We're going to have tryouts?""Did I ever tell you how I got these scars?""Gotham needs a better class of criminal?""Do I look like a guy with a plan?"Of course, Heath Ledger's performance is magnificent. This movie and Batman Begins are so good we even overlook the absurdity of the whole Batman word-gargling thing. It's sooooooo stupid. But it works. I think Dark Knight comes as close to being a great movie as a superhero film can without actually being a great movie. For some reason, it just doesn't hang together for me. It's three magnificent set pieces. The bank robbery at the beginning. The sequence where the truck flips and the choice on the two ferries. And the rest of it is woven together well but doesn't feel like a unified whole to me. But the level of craft. And how funny it is for being so intense in places. So many great, great moments. And really those moments, those singular experiences on the emotional rollercoaster of a good story are why we go to see big Hollywood movies. But they're not why a story lingers with us, stays in our hearts or changes us. And Dark Knight doesn't do that. But, the story that inspired it does. I'm talking about the 1986 graphic novel, The Dark Knight Returns. I'm not going to explain why this thing IS great in detail. It's a lot of things, but it's the story of an old hero who dies. Which is a part of the hero's journey that we've forgotten in modern times. But it a big part of it. See, if you're going to be a hero, you don't get to lay that burden down. In Beowulf, as an old man Beowulf, has to answer the call again and die fighting a Dragon. Hell, King Arthur dies killing Mordred, but he doesn't even get to stay dead. As the legend goes, he's sleeping, waiting for the time he is needed again. We see this story play when an old boxer comes out of retirement to fight a young one. He's too old, but he's the champ. You can hear it in these lines of Tennyson: Death closes all: but something ere the end,Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men who strove with gods……Though much is taken, much abides; and though We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are, One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.The Dark Knight Returns hews to that form. And maybe The Dark Knight the film doesn't work because it's not really cast in one of those great forms of story? That's the kind of question that I don't know how to answer just yet. And if I had waited until I had figured this out, I never would have finished this video. I'll tell you my hunch though, if you want to innovate with story form, odds are it's probably not going to work out. It's like a song or symphony, you have to make a great one within the form. What I can tell you about the Dark Knight Returns graphic novel is that it has been looted by every creator since. The Dark Knight Returns contains the movies, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Batman vs. Superman, and the first page alone was the inspiration for that 20-minute race track scene in Iron Man 2. Frank Miller forever changed Batman. Every Batman after Miller is the dark, scary, gritty, possessed, gravelly-voiced Batman. And, as if that's not enough, he also did the same thing with Daredevil. Every Daredevil after Frank Miller is, in a sense, Miller's Daredevil. On top of all that, The Dark Knight Returns was the first comic I know of to genuinely gender swap a character -- Robin is a young girl. And she is hands down, no questions asked, my most favorite and I think also the most heroic Robin there is. And I have never really liked Robin. Robin has always struck me as kinda stupid. The boy hostage. But Carrie Kelley? She's a brilliant character. So for my money, if you want Batman at his best, it's Batman the Dark Knight Returns. In closing, I should also say, that revisiting Batman after all this time, gave me strange new insights. One is, and there's no way around this, is that Batman is himself a criminal -- he's a vigilante. A man who takes the law into his own hands. All superheroes are, in a sense. But explicitly Batman. And the crazy thing is how long the character ran on -- all of comics really -- with a nod and a wink. Yeah, yeah, it's okay 'cause he's a good vigilante. Or it's fine because he's rich and he's trying to do the right thing. It's really thin, but everybody was and, is okay with it. “What gives you the right? I'm not the one wearing hockey pads!”And the reason that we're okay with justifications like that we know it's going to give us a great story. Or perhaps that we understand, on some barely conscious level, that the logic of the story works as competing villains, competing perspectives on responses to trauma. And I'm sorry if this seems vague, I'm at the limit of my understanding here, but what I take away from it is two-fold.1) Realism, in any sense is a bad quality to judge story. I mean if you look at any story that people love, it's utterly implausible. Even, and perhaps especially, the non-fiction stories. The longer the odds, the more unlikely the outcome, the more we like it. 2) We don't need much of an explanation, we don't even need a good explanation to suspend disbelief, but we need an explanation. Maybe all a reader or viewer needs is an acknowledgment that some stretch of genre or realism is being a handwaved away and we're good. ConclusionSo to wrap it all up.1. Why has Batman lasted? Some of it was certainly lucky timing. But the part that wasn't is because Batman has internal stakes built-in. Tragedy drives the character, even when he's ridiculous. 2. How does a Batman story work.Every character is a response to trauma. An aspect of Batman's psyche that has been externalized. Now there's more to it than that, but I think that's what drives Batman's rogue's gallery and why the stories keep coming. 3. What is a Batman story at its absolute best? Frank Miller's the Dark Knight Returns. Get full access to How It's Written by Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

Today I'm going to take you through Shadow Over Innsmouth. To reveal the techniques that make this story, and cosmic horror, work. It's one of Lovecraft's finest, and the unique way all the elements come together at the end is amazing. It's a thing that you feel when you read it, but I'm not going to settle for feelings. I'm going to show you how it works.Written in 1931, The Shadow over Innsmouth is tied with At the Mountains of Madness for my Favorite Lovecraft story. I think you read those two and you get the man at his best. This story is more conventionally structured than Call of Cthulhu, which I’ve done a previous video on and it, involves real jeopardy for the protagonist’s body and soul. It’s a tale in five unnamed chapters.The external story here is a young man traveling to a decaying seaport town in New England, finding that it is populated by people who have been mating with fish creatures in the deep, and barely escapes with his life. It’s thrilling. But the internal story is the truly terrifying thing. The first part, which I’m calling sucked in, sets up Innsmouth, and we see the unnamed main character drawn to the place.SUCKED INin the beginning, the character tells us thisI have an odd craving to whisper about those few frightful hours in that ill-rumoured and evilly shadowed seaport of death and blasphemous abnormality. The mere telling helps me to restore confidence in my own faculties; to reassure myself that I was not simply the first to succumb to a contagious nightmare hallucination. It helps me, too, in making up my mind regarding a certain terrible step which lies ahead of me.And upon first reading, you think this certain terrible step is committing suicide. It’s Lovecraft, after all. But it’s not suicide. It’s worse than that. What can be worse than suicide? Well, if you haven’t read it — or you don’t remember, just hang in there with me.If you've watched my earlier, Call of Cthulhu video, you will recognize this weird, geeky, 40-year-old virgin setup. An antiquarian and sightseeing tour is not what I would call a rite of passage. But this, in itself, is foreshadowing, as we will see.The main character is trying to take the train to Arkham, but he's broke, so the station-keeper says:“You could take that old bus, I suppose,” he said with a certain hesitation, “but it ain’t thought much of hereabouts. It goes through Innsmouth—you may have heard about that—and so the people don’t like it. Run by an Innsmouth fellow—Joe Sargent—but never gets any custom from here, or Arkham either, I guess. Wonder it keeps running at all. I s’pose it’s cheap enough, but I never see more’n two or three people in it—nobody but those Innsmouth folks."Don't, don't take the old bus. Trust me on this one, ya never take the old bus.But the ticket agent gives him a bunch of scoop on the town. Including on the founder of the town, Captain Obed Marsh,The old Captain Obed Marsh ben dead these sixty years, and there ain’t ben a good-sized ship out of the place since the Civil War; but just the same the Marshes still keep on buying a few of those native trade things—mostly glass and rubber gewgaws, they tell me. Maybe the Innsmouth folks like ’em to look at themselves—Gawd knows they’ve gotten to be about as bad as South Sea cannibals and Guinea savages.“That plague of ’46 must have taken off the best blood in the place. Anyway, they’re a doubtful lot now, and the Marshes and the other rich folks are as bad as any. As I told you, there probably ain’t more’n 400 people in the whole town in spite of all the streets they say there are. I guess they’re what they call ‘white trash’ down South—lawless and sly, and full of secret doings. They get a lot of fish and lobsters and do exporting by truck. Queer how the fish swarm right there and nowhere else.None of this scares our hero off. In fact, it draws him in. Antiquarian that he is, he starts researching. At the end of Act II he learns about the Esoteric Order of Dagon - which has taken over the town's churches and sees this strange bit of jewelry that has come from Innsmouth. It is intense.It took no excessive sensitiveness to beauty to make me literally gasp at the strange, unearthly splendour of the alien, opulent phantasy that rested there on a purple velvet cushion. Even now I can hardly describe what I saw, though it was clearly enough a sort of tiara, as the description had said. It was tall in front, and with a very large and curiously irregular periphery, as if designed for a head of almost freakishly elliptical outline.It clearly belonged to some settled technique of infinite maturity and perfection, yet that technique was utterly remote from any—Eastern or Western, ancient or modern—which I had ever heard of or seen exemplified. It was as if the workmanship were that of another planet.Among these reliefs were fabulous monsters of abhorrent grotesqueness and malignity—half ichthyic and half batrachian in suggestionAt times I fancied that every contour of these blasphemous fish-frogs was overflowing with the ultimate quintessence of unknown and inhuman evil.And as we break into Act II he can’t even sleep, he’s so excited to go to this creepy weird town.The Road to InnsmouthI’m not going to lie. The first part feels slow and wordy by modern standards. It’s not an error, this is the style that was in use. But the amount of tremendous stuff that is set up skillfully in the start is amazing.And what I’ve noticed the most re-reading Lovecraft is how he manages the ambiguity of the way he conveys information. The first act is a lot of exposition. And we think we have been well-armed with the facts. But, by the end of the story, all of what we think we know about this character is going to shift underneath us and make us feel queasy and... horrified.I think this is a key to the effect that Lovecraft creates. If you know anything about this story, you know we’re walking into a town of people interbreeding with frog-like creatures from the sea. And, that’s disgusting and creepy, but, you know, it could edge over into absurd real quick. Like the Disney treatment of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, but they somehow rope Lin Manuel Miranda into doing a hip-hop mash up of an old pop song, and we wind up with an Escape from Innsmouth chase sequence powered by "Who let the Frogs Out"This is not to mock the tale. I love the story, but just point out that, to pull off horror like this, you have to be masterful with your tone — and he is.So we meet the bus driver. And he’s nasty.He had a narrow head, bulging, watery blue eyes that seemed never to wink, a flat nose, a receding forehead and chin, and singularly undeveloped ears.The fingers were strikingly short in proportion to the rest of the structure and seemed to have a tendency to curl closely into the huge palm. As he walked toward the bus I observed his peculiarly shambling gait and saw that his feet were inordinately immense. The more I studied them the more I wondered how he could buy any shoes to fit them.A certain greasiness about the fellow increased my dislike. He was evidently given to working or lounging around the fish docks, and carried with him much of their characteristic smell. Just what foreign blood was in him I could not even guess. His oddities certainly did not look Asiatic, Polynesian, Levantine or Negroid, yet I could see why the people found him alien. I myself would have thought of biological degeneration rather than alienage.Note how specific this description is. We can see this guy. And this is where Lovecraft really shines. He gives us images so powerful and precise, they stay with you and you often remember them years later. Here’s another example.At last we lost sight of Plum Island and saw the vast expanse of the open Atlantic on our left. Our narrow course began to climb steeply, and I felt a singular sense of disquiet in looking at the lonely crest ahead where the rutted road-way met the sky. It was as if the bus were about to keep on in its ascent, leaving the sane earth altogether and merging with the unknown arcana of upper air and cryptical sky. The smell of the sea took on ominous implications, and the silent driver's bent, rigid back and narrow head became more and more hateful. As I looked at him I saw that the back of his head was almost as hairless as his face, having only a few straggling yellow strands upon a grey scabrous surface.Jesus Christ, get off the bus! As the drive continues, Lovecraft describes the crumbling, creepy town. But this is the bit that sticks with meTwice I saw listless-looking people working in barren gardens or digging clams on the fishy-smelling beach below, and groups of dirty, simian-visaged children playing around weed-grown doorsteps. Somehow these people seemed more disquieting than the dismal buildings, for almost every one had certain peculiarities of face and motions which I instinctively disliked without being able to define or comprehend them. For a second I thought this typical physique suggested some picture I had seen, perhaps in a book, under circumstances of particular horror or melancholy; but this pseudo-recollection passed very quickly.The bus isn’t leaving until the evening, so our unnamed protagonist decides to have a look around.Don't take the bus? Don't get off the bus? I mean how hard is this? But trust me, Lovecraft is not just having the protagonist wander into trouble to tell a story. There are reasons for this behavior.THE RIME OF THE DRUNKEN MARINERIn his rambles. He gets word of the town drunk, Zadok, who will spill the beans if you give him likker. So he grabs a pint and goes looking for scoop. And the town drunk tells him this crazy tale and confirms what we should already know if we’ve been paying attention, the whole town is turning into fish. And that the townspeople have been sacrificing children to the creatures on the other side of the reef just offshore. And that the plague that wiped out the town was really creatures swimming in and attacking the town. At the end of the Rime of the Drunken Mariner, Zadok sees something out in the sea and runs away screaming.ESCAPE FROM INNSMOUTHSo he gets back to the bus stop and… wouldn’t you know it. The bus is broken and he’s going to have to spend the night. No need to build this up brick by brick. The townspeople try to kill him. He makes a daring escape from this hotel room, and the town is full of man/fish/frog creatures hunting for him. There are two things that a very interesting about this. As he’s eluding the pursuers in the town, he looks out to sea.For at a closer glance I saw that the moonlit waters between the reef and the shore were far from empty. They were alive with a teeming horde of shapes swimming inward toward the town; and even at my vast distance and in my single moment of perception I could tell that the bobbing heads and flailing arms were alien and aberrant in a way scarcely to be expressed or consciously formulated.And this is what I mean when I say that Lovecraft succeeds at the level of the image. And it's worth asking but how does Lovecraft keep this sequence from degenerating into absurdity. Cause it's going to 11. There’s willing the suspension of disbelief, but that can be broken. And, while you are reading, the instant you think, “Well, this is a bit much” the spell evaporatesHe does it in two ways -- First he's very specific.Drawing inside the hall of my deserted shelter, I once more consulted the grocery boy's map with the aid of the flashlight. The immediate problem was how to reach the ancient railway; and I now saw that the safest course was ahead to Babson Street; then west to Lafayette--there edging around but not crossing an open space homologous to the one I had traversed--and subsequently back northward and westward in a zigzagging line through Lafayette, Bates, Adam, and Bank streets--the latter skirting the river gorge--to the abandoned and dilapidated station I had seen from my window.He’s described everything about the town, including the layout, with such precision, that it seems real. In fact, in part III he goes for this walk through the town to get to Zadok, and it seems to be a bit pointless. Like how much atmosphere are you going to hit a guy over the head within one story. But now it all pays off because the time he spent on description seems to ground the place so he can be more over the top and not lose you.The second way is that the protagonist is arguing against what he’s telling you the whole time. He doesn’t want to believe it.Later, as he eludes his pursuers, we get this:Something was coming along that road, and I must lie low till its passage and vanishment in the distance. Thank heaven these creatures employed no dogs for tracking--though perhaps that would have been impossible amidst the omnipresent regional odour. Crouched in the bushes of that sandy cleft I felt reasonably safe, even though I knew the searchers would have to cross the track in front of me not much more than a hundred yards away. I would be able to see them, but they could not, except by a malign miracle, see me.And then as they approach he doesn’t look at first. As he retells it, he tries to find any way it might be a dream — because he doesn’t want to remember this as true.Can it be possible that this planet has actually spawned such things; that human eyes have truly seen, as objective flesh, what man has hitherto known only in febrile phantasy and tenuous legend?And yet I saw them in a limitless stream—flopping, hopping, croaking, bleating—surging inhumanly through the spectral moonlight in a grotesque, malignant saraband of fantastic nightmare. And some of them had tall tiaras of that nameless whitish-gold metal . . . and some were strangely robed . . . and one, who led the way, was clad in a ghoulishly humped black coat and striped trousers, and had a man’s felt hat perched on the shapeless thing that answered for a head. . . .And then he faints dead away.So up until now, I think it’s been a good, but not great story. It’s very well-crafted. Sure, it’s written in a style that’s a bit wordy for today’s taste, but it’s very solid. But it's, you know, a story that you could read as a cautionary tale about getting on creepy buses.The Inner TwistBut Part V is where it becomes unforgettable. That's where we hit the twist, the WRENCHING in the internal story. What, is the internal story here? It's easy to miss because up to this point it's only had one beat.And it was all the way back in Part One. Some 22,000 words ago. He’s coming of age. And he’s researching the family history. He wants to know who he is and become who he is supposed to be. And holy s**t does he find out. Because this is, for all the Eldrich and Cosmic horror, A COMING OF AGE STORY. He tells us in the first sentence and we totally miss it. But this coming of age is what makes this so terrifying.So he escapes Innsmouth, and, sometime later, having put the whole thing from his mind, goes to visit relatives who have some of his great-grandmother’s jewelry. And the first piece out of the box is one of those strange and creepy Innsmouth tiaras. Then he puts the pieces together.My great-grandmother had been a Marsh of unknown source whose husband lived in Arkham—and did not old Zadok say that the daughter of Obed Marsh by a monstrous mother was married to an Arkham man through a trick? What was it the ancient toper had muttered about the likeness of my eyes to Captain Obed’s? In Arkham, too, the curator had told me I had the true Marsh eyes. Was Obed Marsh my own great-great-grandfather? Who—or what—then, was my great-great-grandmother? But perhaps this was all madness.And that's when the dreams start.One night I had a frightful dream in which I met my grandmother under the sea. She lived in a phosphorescent palace of many terraces, with gardens of strange leprous corals and grotesque brachiate efflorescences, and welcomed me with a warmth that may have been sardonic. She had changed—as those who take to the water change—and told me she had never died. Instead, she had gone to a spot her dead son had learned about, and had leaped to a realm whose wonders—destined for him as well—he had spurned with a smoking pistol. This was to be my realm, too—I could not escape it. I would never die, but would live with those who had lived since before man ever walked the earth.He contemplates suicide, but decides against it and embraces his destiny, fully coming of age in the end.No, I shall not shoot myself—I cannot be made to shoot myself!I shall plan my cousin’s escape from that Canton madhouse, and together we shall go to marvel-shadowed Innsmouth. We shall swim out to that brooding reef in the sea and dive down through black abysses to Cyclopean and many-columned Y’ha-nthlei, and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory for ever.So let’s break this down.This is a story circle. Lots of people have talked about these. I think it started with Campbell and the Hero's journey. And this one is the Hero's journey through the lens of the Magnificent Dan Harmon. There’s a link to Dan's explanation of it in the description. Don’t worry about the particulars right now -- just watch how it fits. He needs to know who he is. He goes to Innsmouth and searches out the truth. And he finds it, even though he doesn't completely understand it when he does. Then he must struggle to escape. He returns to the real world. Gets a job in Insurance (as boring and real-world as it can be.) But he’s changed by the experience. An utterly horrifying way.So the external story is a thriller. The character goes through life and death struggle. But in the last bit something crazy happens. Oh, he becomes who he really is, but that means that who he thought he was has to die. This is always the case with coming of age stories, but it’s powerfully horrifying here because the human part of him is what dies. The story splits as the thing inside him takes over.I mean wow! This is amazing. It’s an inversion of the traditional coming of age plot. Because we as readers never notice that the character’s weaker, less capable, less mature self is dying. But when the character’s weaker self is his or her humanity!?!Woof. That’s intense. That’s blasphemous. That’s a great horror story.We have met the monster and it is us.Protip: Watch the video for outtakes of me reading some impossibly large Lovecraftian words Get full access to How It's Written by Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

Today I'm going to talk about H.P. Lovecraft, an author who is one of the great well-springs of the horror genre. And if you want tl/dr on the horror -- there's Poe then Lovecraft and then everybody else. I'm going to dive deep into two stories, Call of Cthulhu and Shadow Over Innsmouth. Shadow over Innsmouth is one of my favorites, but Cthulhu is really worth thinking about because it sparked the entire Mythos. In a nutshell here is how a Lovecraft story works. An Investigator seeks out secret knowledge.He finds truthWhich drives him mad.Someone is looking for trouble. Intellectual trouble, in fact. And they find truth, as much as they can understand, anyway. Which drives them mad in the end. Madness turns out to be the correct understanding of things. Because the Lovecraftian truth is a universe in which humanity is utterly insignificant. This is a very modern anxiety. We live in a time, the last 150-200 years or so when old belief systems have collapsed or are collapsing and nothing has replaced them. We don't have a good story of why we are here and what we are supposed to do. And every expansion of our knowledge in the physical sciences has pointed to our greater and greater irrelevance. The threat, the menace the thing that drives men mad -- the thing that dangles the thread that the investigators must follow deep into the maze of their own insanity -- is always one of the Great Old Ones. They are a pantheon of unpronouncables. Yog Sothoth, N'ylarlathotep, Azathoth, Shub-Niggurath, Ithaqua, Tsathoggua, Hastur (the Unspeakable) who, paradoxically, is the most speakable of all.Now, screenwriters like to talk about how important story is -- and it is -- if the story is broken in film, it doesn't work. That's because screenplays are blueprints. And if a blueprint doesn't work the house falls down. But a story or a novel is NOT a blueprint. It's the actual thing. It's a habitable structure constructed, not from light and sound, but from words and the creative response of the reader. So just outlining the story doesn't explain why Lovecraft is great. And that's why you should stick around for the rest of this video. Lovecraft is actually something like a prophet. He's not writing a saga. He's no poet. He's writing revelation -- wild and disturbing visions of how things really are, or could be. And it's at the level of the image that he succeeds. And why he's worth reading. And the thing that I get with Lovecraft, that I don't get anywhere else, is this lingering sense that madness is the correct understanding. Lovecraft doesn't scare me when I read him, not really. But Lovecraft scares me years later, when I see or hear something I don't understand and it suggests to me the hidden depths of chaos in which we all unwittingly dwell. And whatever other criticism you might level at the man and his writing -- lots of them are justified -- I don't know of anything else like that in literature.Lovecraft echoes through everybody who comes after him. And, as we will see, much of what came before him echoed through him. As the saying goes, "Good artists copy. Great artists steal."And, for me, it's tremendously worthwhile to go back to read the things that have inspired generations of people. I gain power as writer by going to the source of the river. But before we dive into the story we have to deal with two things. The Mythos and the Racism. They are tightly linked, and maybe not in the way that you think. The MythosSo, Lovecraft created what is known as the Cthulhu Mythos. It includes a pantheon of unpronouncables. Yog Sothoth, N'ylarlathotep, Azathoth, Shub-Niggurath, Ithaqua, Tsathoggua, Hastur (the Unspeakable) who, paradoxically, is the most speakable of these great old ones. The writers who wrote in this mythos after him started to take if very seriously, but Lovecraft didn't. He referred to it as "Yog Sothothery" (Jesus, Yog Sothothery! - it's like he made this whole thing up to troll dyslexics and people with speech impediments)The point is he didn't engage in obsessive "world-building". A term which I've always found to be a bit much, because if you scratch the surface of any fantasy "world" you will find an actual historical time/place/personage with dash of fresh paint and costume jewelry. At best you're mushing a few of those together. For example, Captain Kirk = Horatio Hornblower. And that's straight from the original pitch for Star Trek. And, in turn, Hornblower is based on Thomas Cochrane, the 10th Earl of Dundonald. Game of Thrones is the War of the Roses. Westeros is England. To become obsessed with the world or the mythos. Is to become distracted from the point of the stories. Nobody enjoys backstory, unless the backstory is also a great story. Don't believe me? I defy you to read The Silmarillion. In fact, I defy you to even skim the Wikipedia page without your eyes glossing over. But especially with Lovecraft, the Mythos isn't the point. It's how he conveys his point.The RacismAnd with Lovecraft, the racism isn't the point either. Oh, he was very racist. And I don't want to downplay it and disguise how very racist both he and the past were. I don't think it's good to downplay the colossal moral errors that things like slavery, racism, prejudice, tribalism, and bigotry really are. But, for Lovecraft, I don't see that racism is even a secondary concern in his stories. He uses the Other and the Unknown to display his primary concerns. And, whatever he felt personally, he's playing on the contemporary fears and stereotypes of his day to get the effect he wants. This isn't a justification, it's an explanation. And I can only observe, if you demand ideological purity and essential good hearteness from the artists you engage with, well, you are not going to get it. I mean, after you're done watching Mr. Rodgers and reading Neil Gaiman, who’s left? Saints are very rare. Good writers are also rare. And the intersection of the two is vanishingly small. For me, what Lovecraft seems to be worried about is two-fold:1) The universe is immensely vast and complicated and we don't matter in it at all. 2) The only thing that even somewhat protects us from this chaos is culture -- which is decaying and becoming corrupted. These two fears are quintessentially modern. Insignificance and lack of a grand narrative -- a structure of meaning - a myth to inhabit -- is our condition. And we're one of only a very few generations of humans that have lived like this. And I have to think it has something to do with the fact that 1 in 5 Americans are on antidepressants. And the CDC reports that 42.4% of Americans are obese. One way, or another, it seems an awful lot of anxiety is getting swallowed. And while I don’t thing the way Lovecraft uses race and the Other to symbolize degeneration and disintegration is appropriate, I have take #2 seriously. As Jung said, "Something we cannot see protects us from something we do not understand."And Lovecraft keenly felt the decay and collapse of that something we cannot see. You can partially track this as a collapse of the Church in the west. Tolkien felt this too in response to WWI. The old ways were shattered. In fact, the shock of this cultural change has created and inspired some of the greatest writers and thinkers of the 20th century. And whole philosophical movements, most notably existentialism. It's a valid concern. And it powers Lovecraft’s horror. To play cheap racist gotcha games with this, might signal virtue, and it is certainly right in places, but don't let it get in your way of understanding. Because all story uses one thing to symbolize another. And the question is: Do you use your symbols well or do you use them poorly?But still it's tough. Because yeah, you can read racism all over the place in his work. But Lovecraft is hugely influential and you can't pretend he doesn't exist. Lovecraft CountryI think author Mike Ruff did a great job of handling all of this, without slighting any of it, in his book Lovecraft Country ( I haven't seen the show). I really enjoyed the idea of the book and the book itself. It’s fine work. But I didn’t find it to be a Lovecraftian story. Nobody goes insane or dies and the character you become attached to survive and even triumph. Never happens in Lovecraft. It’s way more optimistic. But it is remarkable because it’s a horror tale told with the quintessentially American horror of slavery and racism. It’s also very interestingly structured, it's an interlinking series of short stories. Which is a form I really like and don’t know why we don’t see more of. Maybe Mike part of changing that. Anyway, you won’t go wrong if you check it out, but this video isn’t about Lovecraft Country, it’s about actual Lovecraft.Call of CthulhuThe story is like a Russian nesting doll. It’s told by Francis, but Francis does nothing but tells us the stories of Professor Angell, Inspector LeGrasse, and Mate Johansen. It’s a story within a story within a story. The best example of this kind of thing I find in Jorge Luis Borges the Argentinian Short story writer.— Who is truly amazing and 10x the writer Lovecraft was — he wrote these amazing stories within stories, and conveyed a depth of meaning even in the shortest of stories, that can be dizzying. And it turns out he was inspired, at least in part, by Lovecraft. And that’s the thing, Lovecraft inspired everybody as we shall see. This is the first line in the story.The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but someday the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.I could stop the video here because we’ve got all of it in the first sentence. An investigator of secret knowledge goes mad in the end because he’s learned too much about the truth of things. The start of the story is the death of Francis’ Great Uncle. Francis has to settle the estate. This would never fly today. And it’s strange that it worked in a pulp story. I mean really? It’s not very inciting. It really feels like the inciting incident in a tale called Adventures in Probate Court? But in that, there’s some horror too. Everyday, ordinary events lead people into madness. Now it seems like the old professor had a heart attack. But there is a weird hint here. …his passing at the age of ninety-two may be recalled by many. Locally, interest was intensified by the obscurity of the cause of death. The professor had been stricken whilst returning from the Newport boat; falling suddenly, as witnesses said, after having been jostled by a nautical-looking negro who had come from one of the queer dark courts on the precipitous hillside which formed a short cut from the waterfront to the deceased’s home in Williams Street. Physicians were unable to find any visible disorder but concluded after perplexed debate that some obscure lesion of the heart, induced by the brisk ascent of so steep a hill by so elderly a man, was responsible for the end. At the time I saw no reason to dissent from this dictum, but latterly I am inclined to wonder—and more than wonder.Francis allows that the professor was old so the most reasonable explanation is that his heart just gave out. But, at this point we do have two competing theories of death. Heart attack. The “Nautical-looking Negro” theory. Our narrator Francis dismisses the idea — at first. And that’s another feature of Lovecraft, his narrators argue for the most reasonable explanation, and when they fail in their argument, they go mad. So, Francis' Great Uncle Angell has died under mysterious or perhaps obvious circumstances and our man Francis leaps into action. Does he pursue this suspicious, nautical-looking negro? No. Because racism isn’t the point. Lovecraft is setting up a symbol to use later. At this point, even Francis doesn’t believe that there was anything untoward with his Great Uncle’s death when it happened. So he jumps right in and reads his uncle’s papers. Which is weird, because EVERY other thriller and detective story would have him chasing the murderer. And as he pursued the nefarious evildoer the story would unfold. But murder isn’t the point in this story. And neither is ACTION. Because in the second installment.HE READS MORE! But fear not, part three is where it gets really exciting for Francis. And by exciting I mean he stumbles across a newspaper clipping - reads it (obviously) goes to NZ finds nothing, Goes to Norway tracking a man named Johannsen, only to find that he’s already dead. This time the murder involves two Lascar sailors. And as Lascarii are Indian, we now have more nautical-looking brown people. Or brown-looking nautical people. Because after everything he’s read, and the strange cults he’s learned about, it’s all starting to fall into place. So now, having grasped the sinister outlines of the shadowy conspiracy, Francis, man of action, CONTINUES READING — he sits right down and reads Johannsen’s diary. And, at the end of all this reading, he’s left with marginal sanity at best.Who knows the end? What has risen may sink, and what has sunk may rise. Loathsomeness waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men. A time will come—but I must not and cannot think! Let me pray that, if I do not survive this manuscript, my executors may put caution before audacity and see that it meets no other eye. So what we have is a guy who has uncovered knowledge. Written it all down. And now believes, because he knows too much, he will now be killed by a cult of sinister, degenerate nautical-looking foreigners, and DOESN’T WANT ANYBODY TO READ HIS STORY! What The Actual F’thgan? This is bizarre. On the surface, it seems, bad. Why is Lovecraft a thing? As we will see, in the second part of this series The Shadow Over Innsmouth is more conventionally structured story — and, I think, a better tale all around — but the structure isn’t what makes Lovecraft great. BECAUSE Lovecraft isn’t writing a thriller, he’s writing a revelation. Like a prophet. It’s apocalyptic literature. Not in the sense of the end of the world, but in the sense of the word we get apocalyptic from. The greek word Apocalupsis — which means an uncovering or a revelation. And Lovecraft stories, the truth is revealed to the characters — and the truth doesn’t set them free, it destroys them. He’s writing stories that work in part like religious texts, and this is especially true and easy to see with Call of Cthulhu since it’s not plotted like a conventional thriller. And the useful question to ask is, how does this oddly structured story pull the reader through it at all? What keeps someone interested?Because somehow it has to work. It was a serialized story, published in three consecutive issues of Weird Tales. So what makes us want to continue reading the story after the first part? Now, the answer could be “Because I heard Lovecraft was good” But that’s certainly wasn’t the answer this was first published.And what drives us here is not the interest in the murder of the Great Uncle, but in what the hell is going on below the surface of this story? Professor Angell must have employed a cutting bureau, for the number of extracts was tremendous and the sources scattered throughout the globe. Here was a nocturnal suicide in London, where a lone sleeper had leaped from a window after a shocking cry. Here likewise a rambling letter to the editor of a paper in South America, where a fanatic deduces a dire future from visions he has seen. A despatch from California describes a theosophist colony as donning white robes en masse for some “glorious fulfilment” which never arrives, whilst items from India speak guardedly of serious native unrest toward the end of March. Voodoo orgies multiply in Hayti, and African outposts report ominous mutterings. American officers in the Philippines find certain tribes bothersome about this time, and New York policemen are mobbed by hysterical Levantines on the night of March 22–23. The west of Ireland, too, is full of wild rumour and legendry, and a fantastic painter named Ardois-Bonnot hangs a blasphemous “Dream Landscape” in the Paris spring salon of 1926. And so numerous are the recorded troubles in insane asylums, that only a miracle can have stopped the medical fraternity from noting strange parallelisms and drawing mystified conclusions.How is this all connected? If this paragraph was a scene in a movie it would be straight conspiracy wall. Pictures, yarn, everything. And Francis’s story is merely the instrument of revelation. He’s John of Patmos. He’s receiving and relaying the message.And he’s skeptical. A weird bunch of cuttings, all told; and I can at this date scarcely envisage the callous rationalism with which I set them aside. But I was then convinced that young Wilcox had known of the older matters mentioned by the professor.He’s the character who, though he hints at awful things right from the word go, is skeptical enough to allow us access to this story. He allows the reasonable perspective and the simple answer the whole way through. Until he can’t anymore. So what does Francis read about that drives him nuts? Well, his uncle is obsessed with something called the Cthulhu Cult. And has been ever since a Police Inspector showed up an American Archeological Society meeting with a crazy statue. Described like thisIt represented a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind. This thing, which seemed instinct with a fearsome and unnatural malignancy, was of a somewhat bloated corpulence, and squatted evilly on a rectangular block or pedestal covered with undecipherable characters. The aspect of the whole was abnormally life-like, and the more subtly fearful because its source was so totally unknown. Its vast, awesome, and incalculable age was unmistakable; yet not one link did it shew with any known type of art belonging to civilization’s youth—or indeed to any other time. Its very material was a mystery; for the soapy, greenish-black stone with its golden or iridescent flecks and striations resembled nothing familiar to geology or mineralogy. The characters along the base were equally baffling; and no member present, despite a representation of half the world’s expert learning in this field, could form the least notion of even their remotest linguistic kinship. They, like the subject and material, belonged to something horribly remote and distinct from mankind as we know it; something frightfully suggestive of old and unhallowed cycles of life in which our world and our conceptions have no part.So they ask the inspector, what is this thing. And where did it come from? So the Inspector tells a tale of raiding a strange cult in the swamps outside New Orleans. Including this -- In a natural glade of the swamp stood a grassy island of perhaps an acre’s extent, clear of trees and tolerably dry. On this now leaped and twisted a more indescribable horde of human abnormality than any but a Sime or an Angarola could paint. Void of clothing, this hybrid spawn were braying, bellowing, and writhing about a monstrous ring-shaped bonfire; in the centre of which, revealed by occasional rifts in the curtain of flame, stood a great granite monolith some eight feet in height; on top of which, incongruous with its diminutiveness, rested the noxious carven statuette. From a wide circle of ten scaffolds set up at regular intervals with the flame-girt monolith as a centre hung, head downward, the oddly marred bodies of the helpless squatters who had disappeared. It was inside this circle that the ring of worshippers jumped and roared, the general direction of the mass motion being from left to right in endless Bacchanal between the ring of bodies and the ring of fire.So good old Inspector LeGrasse hauls them down to the station. And learns all about the Great Old ones and Cthulhu. Including the meaning of this unpronouncable chant. “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”And the punchline to all of it?Only two of the prisoners were found sane enough to be hanged, and the rest were committed to various institutions.Which makes me (and the reader) want to know. What the hell is a cthuhlu anyway. And I don't mean within the context of the Cthuhlu Mythos. What I mean is what is this thing symbolically? Where did it come from? Why does it seem to resonate with everyone? The first answer I have is a poem called The Kraken, by TennysonBelow the thunders of the upper deep,Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleepThe Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights fleeAbout his shadowy sides; above him swellHuge sponges of millennial growth and height;And far away into the sickly light,From many a wondrous grot and secret cellUnnumbered and enormous polypiWinnow with giant arms the slumbering green.There hath he lain for ages, and will lieBattening upon huge sea worms in his sleep,Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;Then once by man and angels to be seen,In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.Lovecraft sacked this poem like the Vandals and the Visigoths sacked Rome. The Kraken sleeps below the waters. Cthulhu sleeps below the waters. Tennyson even gives us polyps -- and, just like swimming in a swamp and getting leeches, you can't read very far in Lovecraft without getting polyps all over you. But the Kraken is a form of a much older water Dragon/sea serpent concept. In the Bible, we find it as Leviathan. This from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah Chapter 27 verse 1In that day the Lord will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent,With His fierce and great and mighty sword,Even Leviathan the twisted serpent;And He will kill the dragon who lives in the sea.And this from Revelation Chapter 20 verse 2And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.And the threat of Cthulhu is that sooner or later, he's going to be loosed for a little season. But even before Leviathan, we have all kinds of Dragons who live in the sea. Jormungandr from Norse Mythology and Tiamat from the Enuma Elish -- the Babylonian Creation Epic. It's worth thinking of Lovecraft in Mythical terms, because I think that's where his stories really succeed -- at the level of the image. Using religious archetypes in strange new ways. In part three, Madness from the Sea, we get the story of Mate Johannsen — after he’s dead. So there’s zero suspense. R’yleh rises from the bottom of the ocean and they stumble across it. I suppose that only a single mountain-top, the hideous monolith-crowned citadel whereon great Cthulhu was buried, actually emerged from the waters. When I think of the extent of all that may be brooding down there I almost wish to kill myself forthwith.Johanssen survives this encounter by driving a ship through Cthulhu’s faceThe brave Norwegian drove his vessel head on against the pursuing jelly which rose above the unclean froth like the stern of a daemon galleon. The awful squid-head with writhing feelers came nearly up to the bowsprit of the sturdy yacht, but Johansen drove on relentlessly. There was a bursting as of an exploding bladder, a slushy nastiness as of a cloven sunfish, a stench as of a thousand opened graves, and a sound that the chronicler would not put on paper. For an instant the ship was befouled by an acrid and blinding green cloud, and then there was only a venomous seething astern; where—God in heaven!—the scattered plasticity of that nameless sky-spawn was nebulously recombining in its hateful original form, whilst its distance widened every second as the Alert gained impetus from its mounting steam.And then he goes mad. Which, in turn, drives Francis mad because he now knows what’s really going on. That was the document I read, and now I have placed it in the tin box beside the bas-relief and the papers of Professor Angell. With it shall go this record of mine—this test of my own sanity, wherein is pieced together that which I hope may never be pieced together again. I have looked upon all that the universe has to hold of horror, and even the skies of spring and the flowers of summer must ever afterward be poison to me. But I do not think my life will be long. As my uncle went, as poor Johansen went, so I shall go. I know too much, and the cult still lives.Cthulhu still lives, too, I suppose, again in that chasm of stone which has shielded him since the sun was young. His accursed city is sunken once more, for the Vigilant sailed over the spot after the April storm; but his ministers on earth still bellow and prance and slay around idol-capped monoliths in lonely places. He must have been trapped by the sinking whilst within his black abyss, or else the world would by now be screaming with fright and frenzy. Who knows the end? What has risen may sink, and what has sunk may rise. Loathsomeness waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men. A time will come—but I must not and cannot think! Let me pray that, if I do not survive this manuscript, my executors may put caution before audacity and see that it meets no other eye.And that's it. Hardly even a story by modern standards of plot. Nothing happens to the main character. So why does this work? I see a couple of ways. One, this is more like a history channel show than a thriller. Secrets of the Ancient Egyptians. We found this crazy thing out. And then we found another crazy thing out. Could be on the verge of unlocking the lost secret of Tututkhamen? And you're drawn into the next part. It's informational suspense, rather than dramatic suspense. While we don't see this device much in fiction anymore, we see it all the time in non-fiction. And I've read some fantastic non-fiction books and listened to some great non-fiction podcasts that use this to propel you through the story. The second reason is the revelation. The true nature of the universe is revealed to the reader through Francis. And this kind of revelation story is strange to us now, because, in a way, things aren’t obscured in the same way. If this story happened now, wouldn't have to stumble on clippings to put it together, I could go to the USGS website and scrape earthquake data around the world to pinpoint where R’lyeh was, and exactly when it rose. And we'd probably have shaky cellphone video of the ship driving through Cthulhu's tentacle'd face. And somebody would have gotten the whole thing on an undersea survey, or a satellite photo. But the story and the revelation still work, because the underlying horror is our meaninglessness in the Universe. This is only more true, the more we can observe. I heard an interview with Neil De Grasse Tyson said, “Every new leap in understanding has made us less unique and less important in the universe.” And the interviewer asked, if you came across a theory that suggested that man was more important or unique than we think now. And with hesitation he said, I suspect it would be wrong. But in one sense it doesn’t matter what we think of this story of Lovecraft now. Call of Cthulhu rang people, and particularly, other writers like a bell.And I think this eerie, quasi-religious revelatory quality is the source of Lovecraft’s lasting impact. He gave people their myths and archetypes in a way they immediately recognize but yet manages to be totally new and speak to modern anxieties in a way nothing had before. He kicked off the conceptual driver of modern horror.The effect that Lovecraft has had upon imaginative fiction is immense. This story was the spark that set it off. Which is why it’s worth reading and studying. In part two of this series, I’m gong to look at the story where I think Lovecraft is at his absolute best — The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Get full access to How It's Written by Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

This week, I'm trying something a little different. In addition to this essay and podcast, I made a video.It’s part of my ongoing series, “How It’s Written” I’m explaining, in detail, why I think the TV show the Mandalorian is so well-written. And to do that, I delve into the world of the internal story. I think this essay it's more fun as a video, but it totally works as a podcast or an essay. So consume in the form that you find most palatable. IntroductionToday on "How It's Written" we're going to dig into the immensely popular Mandalorian, I've seen lots of people commenting on this story, good and bad, but I don't think any of them have really nailed what makes the show so great.But that's not surprising, because that's what a well-crafted story does. It hides its workings so that you are drawn into and through the story, without fully realizing what's being done to you.But I'm going to lay it all out for you. Obviously, if you haven’t seen the whole show, here’s your spoiler alert. Go binge it and come back.  The most important thing to realize is that for all it's wonderful action sequences, The Mandalorian is driven by its internal story. And if you don't know what I mean by that, or that all great stories are driven by the internal conflict, stick around. Internal v. External StorySo, quick primer. One way to think about an internal story is that it is the story that matters most to the main character. I think this is what William Faulkner meant when he said, “The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself.”Take Rocky, for example. On the outside, Rocky is a movie about a hopeless loser who tries his best who gets a shot, tries his best, and loses. In fact, he gets beat up and loses in front of his girlfriend. But on the inside, it's a triumph. And we triumph with him. Which is why we love Rocky. Could you tell the story of Rocky without the boxing scenes? On one hand, the idea is silly. The boxing is how you show the conflict on the screen. It’s how Rocky demonstrates his passion and sacrifice. When you write a book you can put the reader directly into the mind of your character, but with film or television, you can't. So you have to have some way to symbolize what’s going on in your character’s head. But it can be anything that’s fun to film, boxing, wrestling, bobsledding, hunting a giant shark, a chess game, performing a difficult piano concerto, lightsaber duels, or a gunfight. So here's how the show worksEvery episode has the same structure. Mando gets a job, Mando does a job. He wants someone from someone, in exchange, they give him a quest, and he completes it in exciting and unexpected action sequences. That's it. That’s pretty much all there is to the external story. It's a formula and I love it. And, unless you're over-intellectualizing it, or trying to score clicks in pointlessly snarky YouTube commentary, you love it too. Because it’s amazingly well done. Because as fans and viewers don't want our expectations subverted. We don't want genre conventions broken. We want all of those things honored and given back to us in a way that makes them fresh and new. We want our expectations fulfilled in a way that we don't see coming, or with such a high emotional charge we just don't care. And I think that is one reason the Mandalorian is so refreshing. It doesn't have any pretensions to being important to the culture. They're just trying to tell an entertaining story. And that’s all that George Lucas was doing when he made the original films. And it’s not a thriller. The whole world isn’t a risk. The Galaxy is not in jeopardy. The kid is. And for me, that makes the stakes more real.Is anything in the universe going to change if Baby Yoda gets snuffed? Probably not. But, to the Mandalorian, it would be Armageddon. And that’s the internal story. Or part of it at least. So we’ve got sixteen chapters across two seasons. And across the loom of these episodes the internal story of the Mandalorian is woven. It’s the story of a traumatized orphan raised to be a violent killing machine who rediscovers his humanity by caring for an orphaned child. And his real change, I think, is from cold indifference - that detachment of the professional not just to love, but something beyond love. I call it selfless love.I’m going to go through this in detail, but my first thought is that it is kind of a small story. It doesn’t feel like two seasons worth of television. So I think any flaws in this show are because they were shucking and jiving, filling episodes. Or what you might see as a flaw or a misstep is the writers intentionally sacrificing the external story to make the internal story stronger. The most glaring one in my mind is in Episode 14 — titled the Tragedy, but what I think of as the Return of Boba Fett. In the standoff, Boba Fett demands that the Mandalorian takes off the jet pack. This means that he doesn’t have it on when the Child is taken by the Dark Troopers. Honestly, this is very, very dumb. Why wouldn’t he have put his jet pack back on? Seems very valuable, not the kind of thing you’d leave lying around? Because, if he had it, he’d just fly up to save the Child either, saving him or dying in the process. And it’s very important for the internal story to have the child taken from him. Because it is in recapturing the child — because the big fight that is to come, is how he will show that he loves the child.These “missteps” sets up a bigger, more satisfying story beats in the end. Find me anything you love and I will find you a misstep. This show isn’t perfect. But nothing is. Work doesn't succeed because it's flawless. It succeeds because its strengths overcome its flaws. And that’s worth knowing if you want to be a maker instead of a critic. This why hatchet job reviews and commentary bother me. Everything has flaws. And it takes no real skill or insight to them. What's harder to explain is why anything is good. In other words, how its strength’s overcome its flaws. In the first episode, there are only two beats in the internal story. 1. Mythrol tries to bribe him to not take him in. And the Mandalorian doesn’t accept. Because, even though he’s not exactly a good guy, he’s a man with a code. Which the show will beat us over the head with for a couple of episodes. This is the way. This is the way. This is the way. Yup, he’s got a way. Because this is a Western and Samurai movie. And Westerns and Samurai movies are the same thing. Because even if you swap out the pistols for swords a showdown is a showdown is a showdown. Yojimbo is a Fistful of Dollars. The Seven Samurai is The Magnificent Seven.And Kurosawa, the guy who made these Samurai epics, was in turn influenced by earlier Westerns. The cycles of influence never end. Until in 1970, Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima produce a Japanese comic called Kozure Okami. Which literally translates as "Wolf Taking Along his Child" but which you probably know as Lone Wolf and Cub.It’s a monster manga epic. This is the first volume and there are twelve of these books in the series. As you can see from the fabulous cover art by Frank Miller, we’ve got the cute kid in the baby carriage and everything. So it seems like it’s the same as the Mandalorian, but it’s not. Because of, you guessed it, the internal story. Now I love Lone Wolf and Cub, so don’t take this as a real criticism, but compared to the Mandalorian, The Wolf — Ogami Itto — is kind of an a*****e. Or a real hardass. At the beginning of the story, he has been ordered to commit suicide — his wife is dead and his clan has been betrayed. He is setting off on a path of revenge, but he’s got this little boy. So he lays out a sword and a ball and lets the kid choose. If the kid chooses the ball, he’s going to “send him off to be with his mother.” In other words, kill him. But the kid goes for the sword. So he takes him with him in one of the most satisfying stories of reckless child endangerment I’ve ever read. But that’s not the Mandalorian’s story. And we don’t quite know it yet. The only hint we get in this episode is when he tells the armorer, “I was a foundling.” So when he teams up with IG-11 and the droid wants to kill him, the Mandalorian shoots him in the head. Why? Why would a ruthless professional, one who’s code includes the phrase, “I can bring you in warm or I can bring you in cold” not let the Droid kill the kid? Well, it could be that he wants the money for himself. We’ve both seen the show, so we know it’s not. It’s that he sees himself in the kid. He was rescued by a Mandalorian in a gunfight. And we’ll get all of that in the third episodeThe second episode is fun, including the line, “I’m a Mandalorian, weapons are my religion.” But from the internal story perspective, only one thing happens. The kid saves him from the Mudhorn. Now, it’s super geeky awesome that baby Yoda used the force, but for the internal story, it doesn’t really matter how the kid saves him. In the third episode, he delivers the Child to the client and takes his Beskar to the armorer to make a new set of armor. While it’s being made, we get a flashback sequence that shows him as an orphan. A flashback sequence that for me, broke the flow of the episode a little. It was exposition I didn’t think we needed the first time I watched it. EXCEPT, I think we did need it. For the internal story. Because he’s about to blow up his entire life. So he goes to his ship, and we have a great moment with the little metal ball. I think the technical term for this is Recognition by Token. The ball is a symbol for the kid. This is very skillful here because, in film, we can’t crack open his head and know what is going on. But if he stares at the metal ball the kid played with, what else could he possibly be thinking about? It’s a lovely internal moment and quietly one of the biggest moments in the series. Does he leave the kid or does he rescue him? There are two things to note about this. A crisis is always a choice. Great crises are never a choice between good and bad things. A crisis is always a choice between irreconcilable things. Think Sophie’s Choice. In this moment the Mandalorian recognizes that he’s not who he thought he was. He’s not just a Mandalorian, inside, he’s still also that scared 5-year-old kid. Except this time he’s big and he’s strong and he knows how to fight. So what’s he going to do? Which one of these identities is he going to kill? Because a ruthless, cold-blooded bounty hunter doesn’t break the deal. But if he doesn’t break this deal, that little 5-year-old boy inside of him is going to die. So he goes back, rescues the child, and goes on the run. And this is also gigantic on an external level. Because he blew up his entire external life. Now he can’t be a bounty hunter anymore. He’s on the run with the kid. And he is estranged from all the other Mandalorian. He has no idea what comes next. Next episode, we have the wonderful defense in-depth scene against the bandits with the AT-ST. Which is a great introduction to a great character, Cara Dune. Who is a female badass, who looks like she’s a female badass. Bravo proper casting. I don’t want to get too deep into the details of the external story but I will point out that tactically, this may be the best battle scene in all of Star Wars. This episode is also the Magnificent Seven in a nutshell. Call it the Magnificent Duo. And what’s important about this episode is he that won’t take off his helmet. He’s going to leave the child because it’s best for the child. But Bounty Hunters come and they have to stay on the run. But the very moment before that attack, Cara Dune lays this on him.   Cara Dune: (incredulous) That's it? So, you can slip off the helmet, settle down with that beautiful young widow and raise your kids sitting here sipping spotchka?And he refuses. No taking off the helmet. This is the way. He’s a man with a code. Shane rides off into the sunset. Now the chapter is fun action in the desert, but a bit of a nothing burger for the story that’s driving this whole thing. The stakes aren’t raised on the key value. He does what he has done before, saves the kid from the bounty hunter. In Chapter 6, the Prisoner, the Mandalorian has taken a job with old associates. And this is a bit of reversal from love to indifference. He’s risking the child’s life Ogami Itto style. You could see it as he doesn’t have a choice, but I dunno. Seems a little sloppy and risky for a professional. But he saves the kid in the end, the status quo is maintained, and we’re off to Chapter 7.To keep the kid safe, The Mandalorian pulls together all of his allies in a plot to kill the Client. Which is bittersweet for me. Because I love Werner Hertzog’s performance. “He is so marvelously nihilistic. As at home in the RealPolitik of the crumbling of empire as a crow feasting upon a battlefield.” Seriously, I love that guy. Over the next two episodes, The Mandalorian kills the client and, we think, Moff Gideon but that’s kind of what he’s done before. But it can be read as just getting himself out of a mess. But tanking on the obligation to find the child’s people and see that he is taken care of, that’s a new step up. At the end of episode seven, we have this great speech by Moff Gideon. Moff Gideon: You have something I want. You may think you have some idea of what you are in possession of. But you do not. In a few moments it will be mine. It means more to me than you will ever know.At the open of episode eight, we have the Scout Tropper scene. Written by Taika Wattiti — because of course it’s written by Taika Wattiti — this scene is amazing. We get utter humanity from two Storm Troopers. Funny, sympathetic, it feels like the most real scene in the whole show for me. But, we can’t like these guys too much, because they are about to get absolutely murdered by IG-11. So what does Taika have them do. Punch Baby Yoda. Now, even though you totally sympathized with them, it’s totally okay they get killed. That’s so well done. Instantly one of my favorite scenes of all time. Also, I have to point out that IG-11 steals the entire first season for me. It’s his episode. It’s called Redemption, is because the droid redeems himself.The group hears the Child squeal over the comms. Cut to IG-11 on the speeder bike with the Child in a bag strapped to his chest. ]IG-11: Kuiil has been terminated.[ Cut to the common house. ]Din Djarin: What did you do?IG-11: (over comms) I am fulfilling my base function.Din Djarin: Which is?[ Cut to IG-11. ]IG-11: To nurse and protect.But, from an internal story standpoint, IG-11’s sacrifice prefigures the sacrifices that the Mandalorian will make for the Child. Because I think you have to see a person who never takes off his helmet as someone who’s trying to be a machine — and IG-11 as a machine that is trying to be human. This is all b******t, from the text of the story. With IG-11 insisting repeatedly, that he’s never been alive. But I think my explanation is what most people get as a viewer, if only as a feeling. THE HELMETAgain, we get the Mandalorian refusing to take off his helmet. He’d rather die than show his face to another living thing. And, the scared little boy inside him just assumes that when he is powerless before the Droid, that IG-11 is just going to kill him. My guess is that there’s not a lot of room for weakness in the code of the Spartans.But IG-11 is not alive, so we have a loophole. Now, if you're not a writer, you probably don't think about story much at all. You just enjoy it. Which means, when a story is well constructed, you don't notice any of the plot points. Your emotions are running high and you just want to know what happens next. Both on an intellectual and an emotional level, you are drawn into the story. But if a story isn't together well, you notice all the errors and the gaps in the story. This is why, I think, if you want to understand what makes great stories, great, you have to outline them. Because, on first inspection, they've cast their spell over you and it's very difficult to see them clearly.Since The Mandalorian won't take off his mask in the beginning, it means, he HAS to off his mask in the climax of the story. Now, if you say this out loud while watching season one for the first time with your friends, you're a jerk. But if you are Jon Favreau trying to write a television show that's what you call a clue. Very often stories are worked back to front. What's your great ending? Now, how do you set up that great ending? Twists are easy-er. Great scenes are easy-er. But great endings are rare, so one very good school of thought is don't start writing until you have your ending. Because just assuming a great ending will be waiting when you get there can really get you into trouble. As I think we've seen with other Star Wars stories. And, of course, Game of Thrones. *Shudder*Anyway — IG-11 makes the Mandalorian promise to take care of the child. And we get real emotion out of the Mandalorian from this.Din Djarin: (voice rough with emotion) No. We need you.IG-11: There is nothing to be sad about. I have never been alive.Din Djarin: I'm not sad.IG-11: Yes you are. I'm a nurse droid. I've analyzed your voice. (caressing the Child in farewell)Then we get a stupid ridiculous action sequence. This is something that you would do playing with Star Wars action figures. And part of me loves it and the other part just doesn’t care. Because, as we’ve seen from following the internal story — it doesn’t matter. It’s a boxing match. A symbol of the internal struggle and triumph.Annnnd, season two.For what I read as the internal story of the Mandalorian, nothing happens for like seven Chapters. Oh, plenty happens, in the way of action. And I like all of these episodes. I even like Chapter Ten with the crazy ice spiders and it’s Deus ex Machina ending. Because I’m bought into the internal story by this point. And, for that story, the jeopardy is: is Baby Yoda going to get caught eating the Frog lady’s children? I think Blake Synder of “Save the Cat” would call these episodes “Fun and Games” it’s the promise of the premise. The Mandalorian is doing cool Mando things. He’s taking care of the kid, but it’s not like the stakes of his sacrifice are rising. Then Moff Gideon captures the kid. And he kills a main character.Blows up the man’s ride. But it’s more than blowing up the man’s ride. That ship is a character in the show in the same way the Millennium Falcon is. Once it’s gone, things can’t really be the same. Maybe this is an intentional signal, maybe not. But the story formula is broken. Losing the ship is a powerful sign that we’re not going back to the way things were. The Mandalorian calls in all his allies and they put together a plan to get the kid. But along the way, we have another climax to the internal story. He needs the location of Moff Gideon, but to get it he has to break his code and take off his helmet. Which he does. Is this it? This the big scene where the Mandalorian removes his helmet — well, not exactly. But I think it actually heightens the big scene. Because what we see is that he doesn’t exactly know how to be a person without the helmet. He’s damaged, and to protect his weak point, he has donned armor. And what he’s armored himself against is trauma. All that terrible s**t that happened to him, not only his parents being killed but also the terrible things that happened making him a Mandalorian. To the Mandalorian, foundling might just be another term for child solider. And the time-honored way — to make superhuman warriors — from Spartans to SEALS — is to put them through trials that only a very few can survive. This guy is broken and we see it in his eyes in Chapter 15We also get the great scene where Bill Burr just blows the whole operation because he has to shoot his ex-commander. “Yeah, was it good for them though?” For me, this is the most political moment in the entire show. But it doesn’t feel forced and is totally consistent with the character; and what is the arc of most of the secondary characters in the show. Every single one of them redeems themselves, just as the Mandalorian redeems himself in the end. Look at the transformations. Greef Carga goes from running bounty hunters to becoming a governor. The Mandalorian brings the Sandpeople and the people of Mos Pelgo together. Cara Dune goes from wanted fugitive to Marshall. Bill Burr redeems himself when he kills his commander and blows up the base. For all the violence, this is a show about redemption. At the end of episode fifteen, he puts Moff Gideon on notice with a lovely bit of parallelism, repeating Moff Gideon’s speech back to him word for word.Now, this is not strategically sound, but it’s so cool, who cares? I’m not here for a lesson in tactics, I’m here to be entertained. So, Fight, fight, fight. Rescue the kid, trapped on the bridge. Robots hammering at the door. All is lost — but then a lone X-wing flies in. “GREAT WE’RE SAVED”Now, I don’t want to underestimate the feels that come with Luke Skywalker making an appearance. It got me. And it really got me because the prequels and the sequels were so bad. My goal with these essays is not to be critical — and there are things to be learned from those stories. But they were bad. And, especially with the sequels, maybe the expectations, the corporate meddling, all of that made it impossible to make it good. Honestly, I thought the first one did an amazing job of threading an impossible set of needles — but after that, ugh. And those prequels, “messa say *hurling noise*.”Now, you may feel differently and that’s fine. I don’t blame or judge you. But what you have to understand about me is that my Dad took me to see Star Wars in 1977. I was five. And we saw it, in the theatre, at least three times. I loved that movie so much that whenever a movie would come on television with the 20th Century Fox intro, with the drum roll and the fanfare. I would stop whatever I was doing on the off-chance, on the hope that it might just be Star Wars. It almost never was. Empire Strikes Back blew my mind. Return of the Jedi wasn’t at good as that, but it was close. Luke saving and forgiving his father is still very powerful. Maybe more powerful now that I am a father and I come to understand a little bit about what having a son means. And it is saying a hell of a lot that a piece of pop culture still works on any level 38 years later. Or 44 years later if you count from the first film. Here’s the thing, that five-year-old boy is still inside me. Honestly, I didn’t have a very happy childhood. I haven’t always had that great of a relationship with my Dad. We both can be very difficult people. It was his first time being a Dad and my first time being a kid, so neither of us knew what the hell we were doing, but I remember the moments surrounding those films as being very happy. And since Return of the Jedi, that five-year-old kid has waited for that Star Wars to show up again. To this day, my ears still prick up when I hear the 20th Century Fox fanfare. Because maybe, just maybe it’s going to be that Star Wars movie I’ve always wanted but never got to see. But it never has.The lesson a writer could learn from this is the expectations you set with a book, or a film or a genre are crucially important. And if you don’t handle them correctly, you’re going to be in for rough sledding. But the five-year-old me doesn’t care about any of that. He’s been waiting for Luke Skywalker to show up on-screen since 1983. Not this guy:This guy:So yeah, that was an emotional moment for me. And I don’t care about the quality of CGI. It didn’t matter anyway, because tears welled up in my eyes.I tell you all that so you can put what I will say next into proper context. That moment was genius. But it’s not storytelling genius. It’s a manipulative, sentimental genius. And if an emotional moment like that is wrong, I don’t want to be right. For reasons beyond my conscious control, I am all in.But, it’s still Deus ex Machina. The God from the Machine. The term was coined by Aristotle, who used it to point out that it’s generally bad writing. This kind of thing has been recognized as a mistake since 300 B.C. But in this case, it’s a mistake you want to make. Deus Ex Machina (not a New Wave Band)So here’s how it worked in Ancient Greece. At the end of the play they would literally use a crane to drop a totally new actor, playing a god onto the stage and he would magically resolve everything. But now, 23 centuries later, instead of a crane we get an X-wing dropping the god into the story. But it doesn’t matter. Because all this only resolves the external story. And the internal story is what matters. Let’s break it down. As the Dark Troopers are banging on the door, Moff Gideon gets a hold of a blaster. And when he shoots at the child, the Mandalorian throws his body in front of the shot to save Baby Yoda. For me, this is a superfluous beat. Meh, it’s just his life. Mando has risked his life a whole bunch for the kid.But at the very end, after Luke has cleaned house, The Mandalorian risks, far, far more. In the end, he risks his identity. He grows and changes to save the child. And he loves the kid so much that his ego — that wounded thing inside him that fights to hold onto his code, that won’t let him take off his helmet, that holds onto all the pain and the trauma because the Ego needs it; believes without it, he won’t exist. That same thing in all of us that clings tightly to who we believe we are — that it gets in the way of us becoming someone better — that won’t let go even when things about us, threaten to destroy us and everyone else around us. The Mandalorian loves the kid so much, so unselfishly, that he lets him go. He doesn’t do it to be the hero. He doesn’t do it to save the kid’s life, or his own. He does it because the child needs it from him. And he loves the child so much, he has to give it to him. Loves him enough to let him go, even though it had to hurt like hell, even though, he’s probably not going to know who the hell he is for a while. Because his ego has been dissolved in an act of selfless love.  THAT is a story. That is a character arc. That is an ENDING.And while I could quibble over beats or choices or minor things, when you see the whole arc of what’s really going on, I don’t know why you would waste your time. It’s like complaining about a rainbow because you think it should be six inches to the left. It’s f*****g rainbow jackass! If you’re not going to enjoy it, you’re not going to enjoy anything. If you’ve liked this episode, you should totally subscribe. And if you like the way I think about story, you should probably check out my latest series, How to Succeed in Evil. Here’s a link that get you a free copy of the first book. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next time. Get full access to How It's Written by Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

I really like Martin Luther King day as a holiday. It certainly makes more sense to me than President's Day. Washington and Lincoln were tremendous figures in our history, worthy of study and reflection -- but the world that they were part of seems very distant from the times we live in. But Dr. King, he was a man who dealt with problems we face and the forces that must be confronted to change them. Organizational challenges. The staggering inertia of both the Government and the People. The omnipresent temptation to acts of violence. I believe that violence in always backfires. It either hurts the cause or the person who perpetrates it or both. And I believe that a politics that appeals to one group or faction can seem powerful in the moment, but will prove to be catastrophic. And often sooner than one thinks. This bodes not well for us at the moment, because all our politics currently seems to be predicated on identity and personality. I find that vile and stupid on all sides. But the key problem with identity politics is that it splinters into fragments. It's impossible to unify. Which makes it impossible to, well, lead.When faced with a problem, I first, ask myself: what solutions have worked in the past? And will they work again? I don't think there's a single person who think that things are great right now. Or that one way or another, we don't face turbulent times and colossal change. But how do we actually go about changing things and not make them worse? The last, biggest positive change I can think of was the Civil Rights Movement. And that was non-violent. And it inspired basically everyone. There are many people who think that anybody who voted for Trump is an irredeemable racist. The problem with that thought is there are 70 million people who voted for Trump. And if you can't reason or negotiate or come to terms with them -- if argument is no use and they're just demons -- then the only thing left is violence. By no means is this kind rhetoric limited to one party or faction. But every time I hear someone espousing this brand of 'the other side is horrible and can't be reasoned with' rhetoric' it bothers me. Because in it violence is implicit. And it always makes me wonder, is the person doing the yapping, going to get out there and fight themselves, or do they expect that someone else is going to take the hits for them?And even if you think it acceptable to use violence in the pursuit of your ends, political and otherwise, I just can't see how it could be a way out of our difficulties. And that's one of the things that is powerful about the "I Have A Dream" speech. Its fundamental rhetorical appeal is for people to answer the call of their own moral greatness. To recognize that we are, that we can, all of us, better than we give our selves credit for. And it works. Given the events of the summer and the recent events in the capitol, the speech shines brighter than ever for me this year. And seems all the more remarkable. The commentary I wrote on it 2006 is still among the finest things I've ever written. And before I share it again, I have but one observation to add:When you're serious about changing things you show up in a suit. Martin Luther King wore a suit. Malcom X wore a suit. The men who sat in at Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, NC, wore suits. And maybe my point here isn't the clothes or the cause, but the attitude. When you really set out to create change in the world, it's serious. It's beyond rage. It's patient. Recently, we have seen a lot of angry people with a lot of opinions. But what I haven't seen is organized and patient group of people working towards a unified goal. What I see, at worst, are sideshows in a vandalism carnival. Poor deluded people, hurting themselves and others, throwing their lives away for causes that they believe in, but that do not believe in them in return. And, in the end, all of them having very little to no effect at all. What I see, at best, is protest without a plan. And protest with out a plan is performance art. Dr. King didn't engage in performance art. He didn't bring a sword to divide people. And he appealed to the best in the enemies of his cause. And, I think, many of them were surprised to find the best in themselves answering, perhaps not entirely with their consent. But it worked. Oh not perfectly. But it worked. And in this moment when things don't seem to be working very well at. Man, this speech. This approach to persuasion and change. It gives me hope. It makes me proud to be an American. A feeling that I find in dwindling supply. Because I too, refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. MLK speech commentary "I am happy to John with you today in what will go down in history. As the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation." This is a speech I thought I knew by a man I thought I knew. If the beginning is not familiar, then surely this line and will make it clear.I have a dream that one day...Dr. Martin Luther King, civic Saint of the civil rights movement, tragically murdered, and now remembered with a federal holiday that is in many people's mind, nothing more than another day off. In mine too, I suppose. But the other day, an interesting thing happened. Set to random, my MP3 player singled out this historic speech for my listening pleasure.Dr. King was the farthest thing from my mind. I was trying to beat a deadline, drowning out background noise with pop music. I almost skipped past it, but as I was about to press the fast forward button, my hand froze and it was this line that did it, But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.It's easy, looking back from the great height of 2006 to say, of course his cause was just, but in 1963, amid, the heat of a nation in turmoil, was it so obvious to everyone? Listening to this speech with fresh ears I was astonished not at the rhetoric, which is excellent. Now I was astonished by the fundamental nature of Dr. King's appeal. He's standing with an army in the middle of our nation's capital. It's crowded, it's hot and people are angry because they have a legitimate grievance, How easy it would have been to tap into that anger.The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community. But his persuasive appeal is not anger. It is faith, a patriotic faith in this country, which I'm not sure I have. The strength of his appeal is that he cries out to what is best in each of us. He's not really asking us to change. Not fundamentally. He's asking us to live up to what is best and we respond.As proof I submit that only once during the entire speech, is he drowned out by the crowd,Many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.And what is the Dream of the I have a dream speech? Everyone has their own view of utopia and the word dream in this speech encapsulates many visions. But when Dr. King first defined the dream in this speech, he did so in a way that surprised me. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream. That one day, this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. For me, this line is the heart of the whole speech. He's counting on us to make good on a check written by our forefathers. Not by force of arms, does he expect overcome, but by the inherent goodness in the hearts of men. Simply put, he expects people to do what is right. All of the social reformers I've heard in my lifetime have based their appeal on anger.But to me, this speech is so different it might well have come from another planet. If Dr. King's appeal works, and clearly it did, It is because we are a good deal better than we usually give ourselves credit for. So on January 16th, I will not choose to remember a martyr. I will be thinking about a man, and a speech, which showed me that it is possible to change the world, not through fear or anger, but by appealing to what is best in all of us. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.I have a dream today! Get full access to How It's Written by Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

"Man plans and God laughs" is currently, my favorite Yiddish proverb. My second favorite Yiddish proverb is "If Grandma had wheels she would be a wagon." (I just ran into that one searching for the origin of "Man Plans and God laughs")The reason that this is on my mind is that I'm trying to make a plan for 2021. But, honestly, I'm flinching like a hand shy dog over the whole thing. Every time I sit down to give it some thought, I wince and shy away, expecting the next cruel blow of fate. I had such a great plan for 2020. Honestly. Going into 2020, I had my act together as much as I ever had. Business-wise the year was going to be tremendous. It felt like it was all just laid out in front of me, for the taking. And then... and then...Man plans, and God LaughsIt all got 2020'd. And in some ways, this was a very good thing. For one thing, it lit a fire under me with my writing again. You see, I had been putting off my own writing so that I could be available for and provide for my family.You almost can't overestimate the amount of time and effort young children take, especially in the first three years of life. From what I understand of both the research and my experience with actual people, those years are the crux. After that, you've got what you've got. But proper nutrition, safety, love, physical affection, structure, and discipline in those early years are very important. And all of this can be collapsed into the single phrase, spend attentive time with your children. As a family we've made sacrifices to make that happen. Most of me not writing and not podcasting, was, part of the plane. And I think that's the correct thing to do. I mean, unless something very unusual happens, my greatest creative works, in terms of impact and longevity, are going to be my kids. If I screw them up (more than the amount required to make them funny) then that mistake is going to compound, possibly across generations. But when everything shut down, I got mad. I felt like I had made a spurned sacrifice -- or at least a mistake. I felt, like I think everyone felt, that I wasn't in control. This too is a gift of 2020. I got snapped around to how little input I had in the course of events. And that's a gift when it makes you focus more intently on the things you can control. The way I look at it like this, when you concern yourself with things you can't do anything about, your power, your ability to affect change in the world, shrinks. Think about that friend you know who is unreasonably obsessed with national politics. Wild emotional swings. Destroying friendships and straining family reunions. And their ability to change the course of politics is infinitesimal, if not non-existent. Yet they get so worked up, that they neglect to do the things they should or could do to make their situation and the situation of those they love better. You know someone like this I'm sure. They rage and their life falls apart more and more, while their attention is devoted to things like correcting someone who is wrong on the internet. But, when you focus on the things you can do, your ability to create change in the world grows. This effect can seem eerie, but honestly, it's one of the truest things I know. So what can I control? My output. Writing is a matter of time and will. So I tore into How to Succeed in Evil once again. In some ways, this is a stupid thing to do. Satire is a very difficult genre to crack. But I had the series outlined. So I followed the outline and threw my hands at the keyboard. In frustration and fear, I wrote. I'm really sketchy on psychotherapy. I think it's a load of horseshit, and the true benefits that someone gets from therapy are accountability and simply having someone to talk to. I don't doubt that depth psychology -- the idea that there is more going on in us than we know -- is correct. But I'm not convinced that delving into the depths of someone's personality is a good idea. The way to unite the plurality of urges and thoughts and evolved needs that is a human being into a strong and working personality is not through analysis, it's through synthesis. I think you have to make something to make something of yourself. This is not to say you should tackle things alone. Talking to someone about your problem, really being heard, is like a gift from God. And it is the lonely tragedy of the modern world that the average person isn't truly listened to. But that kind of coaching and counseling is a far cry from psychoanalysis as I understand it. All of this is a long-winded digression to say, if you are in trouble in your life, my suggestion is to immediately create something. It might not work for you, but it has always worked for me. And it has worked for everyone I've seen who's tried it. So, it's worth a shot.Plunging into 2021So as I stand here on the precipice of 2021, I have basically, three books completed. The second evil book, currently titled, "Half-man, Half-alligator, Half Plumber" is complete. It's been proofed, I'm giving it the final pass as I read the audiobook, and as soon as I am done, I will release the ebook, say Jan 15th at the latest. After editing and mastering the audiobook will be available. I'm also about 5,000 words away from a first draft of the third book in the series, "Guy Who Amputated his Body" which is the story of Brainitar, who has featured in every iteration of How to Succeed in Evil, but was never really explained. My plan is to finish that up and release it in the Spring. Writing more books seems like the highest leverage thing I can do. And the question for 2021 is, "What now?" And whither the content of this Substack? I'm getting a lot of joy out of these essays and I hope you are too. But the overwhelming feedback from my reader survey (which if you haven't taken, you totally should, it's right here) is that I should write more fiction. So the question I have is, do I continue to podcast every chapter of these new Evil books? Or do I do a podcast the first few and make the whole book available to subscribers for free? And for sale, etc.Or do I make the books available on another feed? It's tough to figure this stuff out, and I have recently come to grips with the fact that I suck at it. After I overcame the pain and embarrassment of this realization, became fascinating to me. See, I have always assumed that the road to success was to become a better writer. To try new things, to grow, to seek out wider and more experimental horizons. But I have come to realize that that is not the case. Not that I shouldn't do those things. But the fault isn't the writing. There are people who don't write as well as I do who are making a better living than I am writing. They're better at authoring. And by that, I mean some alchemy of promotion, networking, time management, and whatever else it is that I don't know. At first, this realization is humbling, but then it is liberating. Realizing what you don't know is, in itself, a map. Hey, look at this blind spot. Well, what shape is it?And once you've named the blind spot and outlined it, you can fill in your knowledge. You can ask for answers. You can make a plan. So, the plan…Which brings me back around to planning for 2021. You see, every time I start to make a 2021 plan, I start by saying something like, "If I could just find a way to grow by readership a little faster..." And then I hear a voice in my head saying, "Yeah, and if Grandma had wheels she would be a wagon."My number one problem is that my audience isn't growing fast enough. I'm not getting my work in front of enough new people. I'm not putting myself out there enough. Any suggestions that you (dear reader or listener as the case may be) have are most welcome. The good news is that my audience is growing. And for six-and-a-half months of cranking out words, I've made a lot of headway. But the nature of the world has become more increasingly winner take all. Those who are at the top of a field, have a greater share of the spoils than ever before. Now, you could say, why should you care about that. The work should be its own reward. And I agree with you completely. But right now my attention is fragmented. What I'm doing now, is a fraction of what I am capable of, because I can't focus solely on writing and thinking. And what I want to do is get to the point where this generates enough income so I can really give it everything and see what I've got in the tank.Right now, every word I write is written on stolen time. I'm not complaining. It's hard and, it's good that it's hard, But that's just a fact. I heard Werner Hertzog talking about what it takes to be a filmmaker, specifically what he saw lacking in some younger filmmakers, and he said, "A certain criminal element". He was not referring to a method of financing, but rather to being creative and ruthless with the world in pursuit of getting work done. Success in any creative field is impossible. But some people do succeed. So, the conclusion I draw is, you're going to have to break, or at the very least ignore some rules. So, while God is laughing, here is my current, rough plan for 2021. I'm going to publish less frequently, but with higher quality. I will write essays as the spirit moves me. Because, honestly, writing these things really help me work through what's troubling me. And I turn a good phrase in them every now and again, which I take as evidence that they don't completely suck. My target is one piece of new fiction a month. 5-10k words. So short stories. What you might think of as preludes to larger works. I've been noodling stories set in space for 10 years. And I've been trying to get the world-building right. Not the politics or the economics, but the physics of it. Not the actual physics, you understand. Spend time on Atomic Rockets http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/index.php and you will realize, in great depth and with great rigor how scientifically inaccurate all sci-fi you love really is. But what I have struggled with is how to have the story grounded in a physical reality, such that the kinds of stories you tell are a natural outgrowth of the reality, just as much as a cowboy story is grounded in the plains or high desert.I could spend another 10, scattered, years at this task, but honestly, I've made enough progress to just write one and see how it turns out. At its core, all writing is like this. You prepare as best you can, but at some point, you just have to grab the parachute, jump out of the plane and figure it out on the way down. Undergirding all of this is a feeling that a long-form story running in serial form is not friendly to new listeners. It seems like a three-hour episode would be fine. And a 10-minute episode is fine. And letting someone binge an entire book right away is fine. But asking someone in our distracted age to keep track of a week over week chapters -- or search back through a feed for the first episode, seems like it just asking for too much focus. Any feedback you might have on this question is very welcome. The other thing that I'm playing around with is a series of videos called "How It's Written." The topic has great keyword juice on YouTube, and I see a way to talk about how books are made in a way that nobody else does. Looking at things from the highest levels - plot, theme, characterization - right down to the way individual authors use words, sentences, and paragraphs.I've put the first one up on YouTube. It is for Game of Thrones. It was easy because I did a pretty detailed outline of it a few years back. I think this is a great first attempt and totally works, but I have ideas of how to make the next one even better. You can watch the video here:And here's the infographic.What's great about this is its content, but it's all practice for me. And, the kind of thing I should be doing on a regular basis anyway. So I thought I would shoot for one a month in 2020. It's really modeled on Rick Beato's "What Makes This Song Great?" series, which, if you haven't checked out yet, I highly recommend.So that is my, admittedly somewhat discursive plan. To summarize. Each month, one new piece of fiction, one "How It's Written", excerpts from "How to Succeed in Evil" and various essays and oddments as the spirit moves me. I don't know if this is the best plan, this is just what I think I should test next. So if you have any suggestions or comments, please reply to this email, or leave a comment. Help me plan, and that way God can laugh at us together. Get full access to How It's Written by Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

An Army of Christmas Massing at the Border2005 was the first time I ever heard the phrase the War on Christmas. Of course, now the "War on Christmas" has been raging or simmering, depending on your perspective, for years. But not depending on my perspective. The way I saw it then and the way I see it now is that we don't make War on Christmas as much as Christmas makes War on Us. Christmas can be a terribly difficult time of year. Expectations are high, family relations are strained, it's an easy time to feel like a failure and be totally overwhelmed.The holidays roll in and terrorize us every year whether we like it or not. They demand we spend money giving many gifts that nobody really wants. If you want to spend an interesting moment with the dismal science of economics, google the phrase "Deadweight Loss of Christmas."It was with all of this in mind -- and out of the desperation that came with trying to maintain the week-over-week output of the Seanachai podcast, that I wrote and produced these four episodes entitled the "War with Christmas." It's the only Christmas story I've ever written. It's pretty gonzo in style, pretty rough in places, but it still makes me laugh. And laughter is powerful stuff. A lot of what I see in the world now is people responding to grim and desperate circumstances by choosing to become more grim and desperate. In some cases, things can be really dire like if you're fighting for your life, but truly desperate circumstances are short in duration. In the modern world, it's the relentless, millimeter by millimeter grind that gets you. I picked millimeters there because inches are by far the more heroic measure. I'm just sayin' it's not 10,000 Meters Under the Sea. Laughter lifts you out of whatever your troubles may be, even if only for a moment. Laughter is like a magic trick. It's why I have such respect for truly dark, gallows humor. It takes an awful situation and transforms it in a flash of joy.Much has changed since 2005. Christmas shopping, at least, has gotten a lot easier. You can knock that out with a few clicks. But I can't say this is going to be an easy Christmas. This year, for many people, the holidays will be harder than ever because of COVID. Many loved ones will not be getting together. And because of the weight of all the expectations that come with Christmas people will beat themselves up about this. Christmas is supposed to be perfect, but nothing is ever perfect. My mother-in-law is in a memory care facility. So my children will not see their gram and my wife will not see her mother this Christmas. The facility is on lockdown because, like a monster, there is COVID in the house. And there's a chance that we never get to see her again. These are dark days. But we as a people and species have lived through darker days than these. We did not make it without courage. And we did not make it without laughter. And laughter is a strange thing in an evolutionary sense. There's evidence that when you tickle rats, they laugh. Which should really make you wonder, what evolutionary advantage does laughter convey? It wouldn't be around if it didn't help you survive somehow.So this season I wish you one good, rib-aching, lung-straining belly laugh. One that pushes back the darkness farther than candles and carols and endless strands of twinkly lights could ever do.I don't know if you will find that laugh in my odd, madcap, reference-ladened personal tale of struggling with Christmas, but I'm tryin' and I hope it helps. Get full access to How It's Written by Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to How It's Written by Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

So what did I read this year? Well, I'm all over the place. But I thought I'd take a moment to hit some of the highlights. These are in no particular order. A Gentleman in Moscow By Amor TowlesThe best book I read this year is A Gentlemen in Moscow by Amor Towles. It's just a wonderful and wonderfully crafted book. I can't say enough great things about it. It has one of the most beautiful and perfect metaphors involving a wine cellar. I literally put the book down and cursed out loud. I couldn't believe how good it was. I thought about it for weeks. But really that's a technical thing. The story is set in 1922. It's about Count Alexander Rostov, an Aristocrat who survives the Russian Revolution because he wrote a poem. Instead of being put against the wall and shot, is sentenced to house arrest, and ultimately labor, in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. This book does what great art should always do, expand your experience of being alive. I don't think I've read a better book in the last five years and I don't expect I will in the next five. For after all, if attentiveness should be measured in minutes and discipline measured in hours, then indomitability must be measured in years.But as they came to the bend in the road where the Count would normally give a snap of the reins to speed the horses home, Helena would place a hand on his arm to signal that he should slow the team—for midnight had just arrived, and a mile behind them the bells of Ascension had begun to swing, their chimes cascading over the frozen land in holy canticle. And in the pause between hymns, if one listened with care, above the pant of the horses, above the whistle of the wind, one could hear the bells of St. Michael’s ten miles away—and then the bells of St. Sofia’s even farther afield—calling one to another like flocks of geese across a pond at dusk. The bells of Ascension . . .“I’ll tell you what is convenient,” he said after a moment. “To sleep until noon and have someone bring you your breakfast on a tray. To cancel an appointment at the very last minute. To keep a carriage waiting at the door of one party so that on a moment’s notice it can whisk you away to another. To sidestep marriage in your youth and put off having children altogether. These are the greatest of conveniences, Anushka—and at one time, I had them all. But in the end, it has been the inconveniences that have mattered to me most.” Anna Urbanova took the cigarette from the Count’s fingers, dropped it in a water glass, and kissed him on the nose.Since the day I was born, Sofia, there was only one time when Life needed me to be in a particular place at a particular time, and that was when your mother brought you to the lobby of the Metropol. And I would not accept the Tsarship of all the Russias in exchange for being in this hotel at that hour.”The Last Good Kiss By James CrumleyTo whipsaw things another great novel that I read was The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley. Here's the beginning:When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon. I would say that Crumley is a guilty pleasure, but I don't feel guilty in the slightest. He's like Hunter S. Thompson and Raymond Chandler had a baby. After I finished that one, I plowed through two more of Crumley's books. No guilt. No regrets. The Story of the Stone by Barry HughartI read The Story of the Stone by Barry Hughart. It's the middle book of the Chronicles of Master Li and Number 10 Ox. These books aren't really like anything else. I have all three and didn't want to guzzle them. They're set in a mythical China that never was. They're wonderfully fantastic, very funny and surprisingly poignant in places. They are also something of a cautionary tale, the book struggled to get traction because it's in a genre of its own. It is fantasy, but Ancient Imperial China as a setting rather than the Middle Ages. Master Li is ancient and the smartest man in China. Number 10 Ox is the narrator and is played as the big, dumb strong guy, but there's a fair amount of unreliable narrator jazz.Big fun and great writing. Here's a couple of sloppily random snags“My surname is Li and my personal name is Kao, and there is a slight flaw in my character,” he said matter-of-factly. “You got a problem?”Fable has strong shoulders that carry far more truth than fact can.Master Li turned bright red while he scorched the air with the Sixty Sequential Sacrileges with which he had won the all-China Freestyle Blasphemy Competition in Hangchow three years in a row.The abbot used to say that the emotional health of a village depended upon having a man whom everyone loved to hate, and Heaven had blessed us with two of them.The Immortality Key: the Secret History of the Religion with No Name by Brian C. MurareskuReading this now. The book is an investigation into what is likely the oldest and most widespread religion -- centered around a funerary rite with hallucinogenic beer and later wine. I pounced on this after listening to an author interview with Andrew Sullivan. It's an intellectual detective story, and quite good. The first thing that hooked me was that this was an explanation for the Eleusinian Mysteries, which was a ceremony that was a well-kept secret in the Greco-Roman world. People made a pilgrimage to Eleusis, fasted, drank the beer, had unbelievable visions, and raved about the experience. Saying things like it's what made civilization possible. And say it removed the fear of death. Which was described as "If you die before you die you will not die."Best guess is the beer was brewed with ergotized wheat. But nobody knows for sure. But two things are interesting about this. One, we can actually test old vessels and figure out what was in these beverages right now. And modern medical research is showing that a single dose, if you will, of psychedelic mushrooms, cures depression and PTSD and takes away the fear of death in hospice patients. Essentially inducing a religious experience with chemicals. Johns Hopkins is doing this research, not some unwashed hippy with a YouTube channel.There are real questions about the early Christian Eucharist: was hallucinogenic? Was it an extension of the Eleusian and Dionysian mysteries. But for me, the craziest thing in the book to wrap my head around has been Goebleki Tepe the oldest known temple, dated from 10,000 B.C. Which appears to have been a sacred brewery for hallucinogenic beer. And, honestly, the hallucinogenic part is the least crazy part of that last statement. The 10,000 b.c. is nuts. That's 6000 years before settled agriculture. And the temple is constructed from gigantic slabs of stone, in a way that we didn't think people could build back then. Insert Ancient Aliens nonsense if you must, but the crazy part is that it reverses what I thought the causality of civilization. It was always thought that first came agriculture, then came beer. But it seems that beer -- as a sacrament -- predates civilization by thousands of years. The other crazy thing about his book is that the brewing of sacred potions was exclusively the realm of women. Old women. Which appears to be the origin of our archetype of witches. Boil toil and trouble anyone? And that this was stamped out as the underground Christ cult grew into the state religion of Rome. There's a lot going on in this book. And if anything I've just mentioned pique your curiosity, you should definitely check it out. Hamilton by Ron ChernowAfter watching the musical on Disney +, which scarcely needs praise from me, but is unbelievably fantastic. And amazing accomplishment on many levels -- I dipped into Ron Chernow's biography, it's also great. Here's a gem that seems uniquely appropriate to the current moment.> “This misfortune affects me less than others,” he told Eliza Schuyler, “because it is not in my temper to repine at evils that are past but to endeavor to draw good out of them, and because I think our safety depends on a total change of system. And this change of system will only be produced by misfortune.”The Bobiverse Series -- Dennis E. TaylorThis series starts with "We Are Legion (We Are Bob)" I listened to a bunch of these, so I don't have a bunch of quotes. Just read them all. They are just lovely, humane, funny speculative fiction. A guy is turned into a Von Neumann probe, A self-replicating device to explore the universe. And as he goes, he replicates himself, fights off aliens, struggles help save humanity -- it's tremendously positive without being trite or stupid. Really, really great. And the audiobooks are some of the best I've heard. In fact, if I had to rank the best audiobooks I've ever heard this currently comes in third Best performance is Stephen Fry reading the complete works of Sherlock Holmes. Of course, the stories are great, but Fry is a great actor who loves Holmes and puts everything he's got into the performance. I can't overstate how good this audio is. Number 2 and Best ensemble performance is 'World War Z'And third place is Ray Porter reading Dennis Taylor's Bobiverse books. Richard Stark, The JuggerI dipped back into this one. Westlake -- Stark was Donald Westlake's pen name -- always said this was the worst book of the series, but there's a moment in this one that's just shockingly powerful. I won't ruin it, but Westlake is master for a host of reasons. Here's a bit of his description Freedman led the way to his office. He was short and barrel-shaped and walked as though he’d do better if he rolled instead. His face was made of Silly Putty, plus hornrimmed glasses.The Road to Character, by David Brooks This book is really a compilation of short biographies of people of great character and how they developed themselves. It is quite good. I dug into it as research on virtues. And the book paid for itself in the introduction here's an excerpt:I wrote this book not sure I could follow the road to character, but I wanted at least to know what the road looks like and how other people have trodden it. The Plan The plan of this book is simple. In the next chapter I will describe an older moral ecology. It was a cultural and intellectual tradition, the “crooked timber” tradition, that emphasized our own brokenness. It was a tradition that demanded humility in the face of our own limitations. But it was also a tradition that held that each of us has the power to confront our own weaknesses, tackle our own sins, and that in the course of this confrontation with ourselves we build character.My general belief is that we’ve accidentally left this moral tradition behind. Over the last several decades, we’ve lost this language, this way of organizing life. We’re not bad. But we are morally inarticulate. We’re not more selfish or venal than people in other times, but we’ve lost the understanding of how character is built.But it did occur to me that there was perhaps a strain of humility that was more common then than now, that there was a moral ecology, stretching back centuries but less prominent now, encouraging people to be more skeptical of their desires, more aware of their own weaknesses, more intent on combatting the flaws in their own natures and turning weakness into strength. People in this tradition, I thought, are less likely to feel that every thought, feeling, and achievement should be immediately shared with the world at large.This is the way humility leads to wisdom. Montaigne once wrote, “We can be knowledgeable with other men’s knowledge, but we can’t be wise with other men’s wisdom.” That’s because wisdom isn’t a body of information. It’s the moral quality of knowing what you don’t know and figuring out a way to handle your ignorance, uncertainty, and limitation.And in it I found this great quote from St. Augustine“How small, of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws and kings can cause or cure.”Aristotle's Politics and EthicsI first read Aristotle's Ethics in college for a class on Classical Political Philosophy. And I jumped back in, as research for thinking about virtueThere is an idea that reading old books is pretentious or stuffy or dull. And that's not been my experience at all. The reason to read books like this, even when they get a little hard is because they are incredibly useful. The Greeks and Aristotle, in particular, laid the foundation stones of civilization -- or drew up the attack plan for what G.K. Chesterton calls "the whole courageous raid which we call civilization." I like that metaphor, because it suggests heroism, fragility and glory in what reveals itself to the not-so-simple work of civilizing one's self and others. This gem came from the commentary to Aristotle's Politics. Aristotle's attention is here directed chiefly towards the phenomena of "Incontinence," weakness of will or imperfect self-control. This condition was to the Greeks a matter of only too frequent experience, but it appeared to them peculiarly difficult to understand. How can a man know what is good or best for him, and yet chronically fail to act upon his knowledge? Socrates was driven to the paradox of denying the possibility, but the facts are too strong for him. Knowledge of the right rule may be present, nay the rightfulness of its authority may be acknowledged, and yet time after time it may be disobeyed; the will may be good and yet overmastered by the force of desire, so that the act done is contrary to the agent's will.It underscores a naïveté of classical political thought -- and this is not to say that the ancients were generally naive -- this is just a mistake. Because, I think I could make a really good case that wrestling with yourself about doing what you know to be good is the defining human problem here at the beginning of the 21st century. The Good Shepherd by C.S. ForesterI have loved the Horatio Hornblower novels since I was, maybe 12. When I saw a preview of the movie Greyhound, I became aware that C.S. Forester had written this book about a commander of a convoy to Britain in the early days of WWII. Tom Hanks got this movie made, wrote the screenplay, starred in it. And that's a clue for you. Not that the movie -- it might be, I haven't seen it -- is good, but that the source material is excellent. Because somebody expended career capital to get it made. This is a tremendous book. The psychological tension and strain of command in combat is represented here in a way that I've never read before. I don't know how you could render this in film. And by that, I'm saying this book does what only books can do, very, very well. It's well-crafted and relentless in a way that doesn't lend itself to punchy quotes, but it made a huge impression on me. Fathers and Sons by Ivan TurgenevI just finished this one and I need more time to think about it. I read it primarily because another writer I greatly admire is giving a lecture on it, so I wanted to be adequately armed for the lecture. A lot of the book is concerned with what happens when you don't believe anything -- if it's even possible not to believe anything. For me, Russian novels manage to be profoundly psychological and spiritual and I can't ingest them quickly. But in it, I found this gem of a line. "Death's an old joke, but it comes fresh to every one."Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt VonnegutI have read embarrassingly little Vonnegut. I read Harrison Bergeron in school -- and it's prescience has terrified me ever since. Vonnegut is amazing. And I'm going to work my way through many more of his books. This was my start. Here's a taste.Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.And so it goes…Inventing the Individual: the Origins of Western Liberalism By Larry SiedentopThe biggest problem with not reading and not being familiar with history is that you can be easily fooled into thinking that the way things are now is the way that they have always been. Even highly educated and intelligent people can fall into this trap and become provincial in time. The book is a study of how the individual became the unit of social organization in the West. It's fascinating. For in the eyes of Islamic fundamentalists, and indeed in the eyes of not a few in the West, liberalism has come to stand for ‘non-belief’ – for indifference and permissiveness, if not for decadence. Why is that? And is the charge justified? This book is an attempt to find out. Its argument rests on two assumptions. The first is that if we are to understand the relationship between beliefs and social institutions – that is, to understand ourselves – then we have to take a very long view. Deep moral changes, changes in belief, can take centuries to begin to modify social institutions. It is folly to expect popular habits and attitudes to change overnight. The second assumption is that beliefs are nonetheless of primary importance, an assumption once far more widely held than it is today. In the nineteenth century there was a prolonged contest between ‘idealist’ and ‘materialist’ views of historical change, with the latter holding that social order rests not so much on shared beliefs but on technology, economic interdependence and an advanced social division of labour. Even the declining appeal of Marxism in the later twentieth century did not discredit that view. Rather, in a strange afterlife, Marxism infiltrated liberal thinking, creating a further temptation to downgrade the role of beliefs. That temptation became all the greater because of the unprecedented prosperity enjoyed by the West after the Second World War. We have come to worship at the shrine of economic growth.The Peloponnesian War by Robert Kagan and Thucydides Commentary Okay, every time I say Peloponnesian War - I've got this stupid line in my head. "Pelop's Ponesian War" Like a guy name Pelops decided to put on a war for entertainment. No idea why this is the case. But this seems to happen with Greek words. I have a joke about Sophocles as well. Big Guido -- "Mikey, why you always writing like that? You should be out playing ball."Micheal -- "I've got a paper due on Sophocles."Big Guido -- "Sophocles? How about you try Sophocles" (Grabs crotch)I've read Thucydides before. Hard, but worth it. Kagan wrote a four-volume masterwork on the history of the War for scholars then distilled it down into this book. I read these, partially because Thucydides is great. And partially as research for a project for something I can't really talk about while it's in the works. The Peloponnesian War was effectively the first “World War” Athenians v Spartans, all the other Greek city states picked a team. It’s got Vietnam baked in (the disastrous Athenian campaign in Syracuse), earthquakes, plagues and some of the defining speeches of Western Culture. Piranesi by Suzzanna ClarkeI liked it. It's gorgeously written, but it didn't have the impact on me that Dr. Strange and Mr. Norell did. I loved that book. Which is a kind of alternate history presupposing disused magic existed in the Napoleonic era. This is is my favorite part“Can a magician kill a man by magic?” Lord Wellington asked Strange.Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. “I suppose a magician might,” he admitted, “but a gentleman never could.” The Toymakers by Robert DinsdaleI've only read half of this book. It's a Christmas book about a magical toystore in the Heart of London before WWI. In the spring, I started reading it on the recommendation of a friend and I decided to save it for the week of Christmas. It's marvelous magical realism. If you want a Christmas book -- this is the one. Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City by K.J. ParkerThis is the blurb for the book: "A siege is approaching, and the city has little time to prepare. The people have no food and no weapons, and the enemy has sworn to slaughter them all.To save the city will take a miracle, but what it has is Orhan. A colonel of engineers, Orhan has far more experience with bridge-building than battles, is a cheat and a liar, and has a serious problem with authority. He is, in other words, perfect for the job."What nothing on the outside of the book will tell you is that this is a book about the tensions of civilization, racism, oppression and ideology. Orhan is part of a downtrodden minority in the book. Yet it falls to him to save the city and the empire -- the same empire that crushes everybody who's not the empire beneath it's cruel sandaled heel. There's a lot in this book.Orhan is also a magnificent narrator. And this book is funny, insightful, profound, here's a few clips. “A wise man once said, the difference between luck and a wheelbarrow is, luck doesn’t work if you push it.” “Beautiful people, though, I struggle with. Unless you keep your eyes shut or look the other way, you can’t help but have the awful fact ground into you, like the wheel of a heavy wagon running over your neck, that here is someone divided from you by a vast, unbridgeable gap, and they’ve done absolutely nothing to deserve it. Ogus’s wife – her name was Sichelgaita – was that level of beauty. I won’t even try to describe her, because they don’t make words that could take the strain. You felt ashamed to look at her.” “The way I see it, the truth is just barren moorland, all useless bog and heather. It’s only when you break it up and turn it over with the ploughshare of the Good Lie that you can screw a livelihood out of it. Isn’t that what humans do? They take a dead landscape and reshape it into what they need, and want, and can use. I’ve never hesitated to adapt the world to suit me, when I can get away with it.” “That’s how the world changes. It’s either so quick that we never know what hit us, or so gradual that we don’t notice. It’s only later, when books are written and scholars decide what mattered and what didn’t, that red lines are drawn – before this point, the world was this way, after this point, everything was different. You could be there and not have a clue. You could be asleep, or looking the other way, having a quiet s**t or screwing in an alley, and an unseen pen draws a line. Here the Empire ended. Here the Dark Ages began.” A lot of Conn IgguldenConn Iggulden is one of the authors of the Dangerous Book for Boys. But he also writes historical fiction. And, for my money, he makes Bernard Cornwall look like a chump. And Cornwall is excellent. This year I read the Emperor Series about Julius Ceasar. Last year I read his Genghis Khan series. Both excellent. Both in a page-turning, thrilling, gore and violence, arrrgh adventure! Way and as writing. Especially the first two books of the Ceasar series. Some very powerful human moments. And he write women very well. He's tremendously talented. And very diligent with this history. I also read The Falcon of Sparta which is his retelling to Xenophon's Anabasis. The story is one of the greatest adventure stories of all time. Xenophon goes with a 10,000 Hoplite Mercenaries to fight for Cyrus the Younger who attempted to steal the Throne of Persia, but gets killed and his army is defeated.All except the 10,000 greek mercenaries. See they were on the other side of the hill from Cyrus's army, so they are busy routing the rest of the Persian army. And when they find out Cyrus is dead, they have a huge problem. It's the story about how they fought their way back home to Greece. Or Coney Island. Because, not only is this a true story, but it's also the inspiration and plot of Walter Hill's classic 1977 film The Warriors. If you need some historical fiction, pick up some Iggulden. He's a master. And it's seriously fun to say his last name. Boswell's Life of JohnsonI'm reading this bit by bit. My sense is the biography has lasted better than anything Johnson wrote when he was alive. Which is a bit crazy because, except for his Biography of Johnson, it seems that Boswell might have been an annoying drunken hanger-on of a jackass who never did anything else right in his life. Samuel Johnson came from crushing poverty and hardship -- and pretty much single-handedly compiled the first Dictionary of the English Language. In the preface of which he wrote: It is the fate of those who toil at the lower employments of life, to be rather driven by the fear of evil, than attracted by the prospect of good; to be exposed to censure, without hope of praise; to be disgraced by miscarriage, or punished for neglect, where success would have been without applause, and diligence without reward.Among these unhappy mortals is the writer of dictionaries; whom mankind have considered, not as the pupil, but the slave of science, the pioneer of literature, doomed only to remove rubbish and clear obstructions from the paths of Learning and Genius, who press forward to conquest and glory, without bestowing a smile on the humble drudge that facilitates their progress. Every other authour may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach and even this negative recompense has been yet granted to very few.He was also a prodigiously fast writer and reader. Boswell says this of him. 'Johnson knew more books than any man alive.' He had a peculiar facility in seizing at once what was valuable in any book, without submitting to the labour of perusing it from beginning to end. He had, from the irritability of his constitution, at all times, an impatience and hurry when he either read or wrote.Which makes me feel better about the way I sometimes raid nonfiction books rather than read them. Or maybe the way I render them, like one boils scraps of meat to render the useful fats out of them. I'm not going to take the time to find the precise metaphor. Whatever it is, it isn't pretty -- it's messy and nothing I'd want my children to watch. I just try to rip the guts right out of the book. And that fact that Johnson did it too makes me feel a little better. The Border by Don WinslowGood, but honestly, not his best. I would suggest The Power of the Dog -- the first book in the trilogy. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it, but reading The Power of the Dog and The Cartel was an experience like I've never had before. Winslow knows the sordid ins and outs of the Drug War like few others and he gets so much out of it as an author. I am personally against the prohibition of drugs on moral grounds. In addition to being electrifying thrillers, these books help make the human cost of our price supports for drugs real. If cocaine wasn't expensive in the U.S. people wouldn't kill themselves for it in Juarez and Colombia. Pablo Escobar blew up an airliner and bombed the Colombian Supreme Court. That's on him. But it's also on us. But don't let my speechifying put you off. The books are great thrillers. If you liked Narcos, you'll love these. The Three Body Problem, by Liu CixinHere's the Amazon blurb: Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision.This is a triple winner of a great book. 1) It's great hard sci-fi. 2) It's is great psychological fiction. Not only is the science good, but the insights into people and society are great as well. 3) It's Chinese science fiction, so you get a glimpse into another culture. Having been to a few conventions and having met a number of sci fi and fantasy authors, it is a little dismal how conventional many of them are. There is a groupthink in what they call "The Field" of writing speculative fiction. And, of course, a lot of internal strife. Who's the good guys, who's the bad guys? I don't pretend to know, but you can get a lot of sameness in fiction when they have the same worldview and they've spend a lot of the same time in the same rooms talking about the same things in the same way. This book wasn't like that at all for me. It was brilliant and refreshing.Plus Others, but...That's for this post. Throw in some scattered reading in the Bible, Shakespeare, Economics and Poetry and it's a year well-spent. Of course, I wish I had a chance to read more, but, you know there was real life to be lived as well. If anybody has a suggestion of something I should read next year, put it in the comments. I have a bit of an addiction with buying books, so please enable me. Get full access to How It's Written by Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

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I'm a bit sick of the Apocalypse. And on some level, I think everybody is. It's one of the reasons The Mandalorian is so popular. It's a small, self-contained story. Whatever happens, it's not going to be the end of the universe, no StarKiller Base, no White Walkers, nothing like that. The stakes are a kid's life. And, the soul of a man who refuses to take off his mask. But it's worth asking why apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic stories are so popular? What's the allure of huge, end of the world thrillers? I think it's because the end times, as a metaphor, is very useful. To be clear, the apocalypse has never been literally true. Many times in history have looked like the end of the world, but none of them have been. And when an idea has that lousy of a predictive track record, yet is still around, the reason for it has to be psychological. What does it explain? What does it promise? What itch does it scratch? Why does it attract and entertain? I have no desire to quibble about theology. If you think the Second Coming is at hand, that's fine with me. My point here is, it seems like every culture has an apocalypse myth. And our culture has plenty of them. If it not a nuclear winter, it's zombies, or a meteor, or a CGI character with rhinestones in his gauntlet. Go to tvguide.com right now and scroll through the listings. Find me the moment when the end of the world isn't playing. Right now, Monday, 9am just on the movies tab, I see Dark Phoenix followed up by the Sum of All Fears rounded out by Children of Men. And that's just Monday from 9am to 6pm on cable TV. The Apocalypse is always available on demand.Shawn Coyne, editor extraordinaire and creator of the Story Grid, argues that the thriller is the story form for our time. People struggling against titanic forces they can barely understand who somehow prevail, save the world and restore balance to society. Because, he argues, that's what modern life feels like to the individual. There's just more than anyone can handle, and the arc of a thriller provides the particular flavor of catharsis we need to settle our jangled and over-messaged nerves. I think he's absolutely right. But it doesn't get to the psychological mechanisms at work. In Greek. Apocalypse originally meant an uncovering -- in the sense that an apocalypse is a revelation of great and secret knowledge. As Bart Ehrman says, "A vision of heavenly secrets that can make sense of Earthly realities." And in that I find the first of several answers to my question. 'Make sense of Earthly realities.' Well wouldn't that be nice? Do any of our present Earthly realities make sense to you? Things are muddled, unclear and lack meaning. One of the things that the end of the world gets you, psychologically, is clarity. Good v. Evil in one climactic battle. You're all clear kid, let's blow this thing and go home. One big dumbass Jack Kirby Marvel Movie final battle for survival. And don't get me wrong, I love big dumbass Marvel Movies, but the real world doesn't have clear villains and heroes, and nothing ever gets resolved in a climactic battle. In fact, in the post-modern world, you could even say, that nothing gets resolved. But in the end of the world, at least in most movie versions of the Apocalypse, you get to have clarity about right and wrong and you know that your choices matter. I don't think it's wise to underestimate how desirable that is. We crave meaning. And we want to matter. The End of the World makes both of those things happen. Well, for sure a fight for survival brings clarity. But I think the End of the World as storytelling device, reveals to us that our choices matter. I believe that every one of our choices, big or small, ALWAYS matter. I can advance arguments for this, but they're tedious, they're not as well thought out as I'd like -- so for now, I'll just say that I have an intuition that this is true. It's certainly seems a more beautiful, just and symmetrical thing to believe than any of the alternatives. For sure all of your choices matter to you -- sooner or later. Nobody gets away with anything. But it's easy to lose sight of the importance of our choices in the whirlwind of instant gratification we live in. We're constantly being fed engineered, dopamine-inducing feedback that specifically designed to hijack our brain and keep us from being bored, or having to pay attention to the discomfort and dissatisfaction that creates personal growth. Much of what made life both important and bearable to the generations that have come before us is obscured by constant spun-sugar stimulus. The truth whispers while the modern world screams over it. The Apocalypse also conveys a sense of freedom. The b******t rules we are all smothered don't apply anymore. We get to say and do things that we wouldn't or can't do now. The fun way to look at this is one of my favorite lines from the Original Ghostbusters. They're headed to the final confrontation, they've got a police escort and Bill Murray sticks his head out of the window of the Ghostbusters ambulance and shouts -- "Come on, let's run some red lights!"At the end of the world, all the red lights are optional. The appeal of this is easy to see. We're an over-policied and over-policed society. There are extreme examples of this, Eric Garner being killed by police for selling loose cigarettes, which -- I don't care what the statutes may say -- is not a crime. But, so as not to get derailed by anger and outrage, I'm going to use a less contentious and more personal example. Last summer, my air conditioning died. It would attempt to turn on, then no cold air would blow. Obviously, this is a huge pain in the sweaty ass and possibly an expensive problem. I do a little digging and figure out that it's probably the capacitor on the unit outside. So I go out with a flashlight, carefully discharge the capacitor with a screwdriver and remove it. If you have no idea what I'm talking about right now, you should probably not do anything like this, but it's not all that complicated or dangerous. I test the capacitor with my multimeter and it's completely dead. Great. This is a $20 part and an easy fix. The next morning, I head to the nearest HVAC supply shop, plop my dead capacitor on the counter and say, "I need one of these." The guy behind the counter says, "Do you have a business account with us." And I say, "No."And he says, "I can't sell you one."I say, "Sure you can. I have money, you have capacitor, and you've even got this fancy cash register to facilitate the exchange."He says, "We don't sell to anyone without a business account. If you're not an HVAC business, I can't even ring it up."So I turned to go, but before I got to the door, I turned back and said to the guy, "Hey, you know that feeling you have, when you look around and shake your head because almost nobody knows how to fix things anymore? And you know that one day when the apocalypse rolls around there's not going to be hardly anyone you can depend on to help you and we're probably all doomed?" He blinked awkwardly, and then I said, "B******t like this is the reason. It's your fault."And then I left, I found a place that would sell me a capacitor, fixed my AC, and went back to my keyboard. It's not illegal to sell capacitors. This infantilizing bureaucratic b******t -- cartel behavior between HVAC contractors and HVAC distributors -- in the Apocalypse you don't have to put up with any of that b******t. I know, I know, in the Apocalypse the electricity is off and my example doesn't apply. But my point is, at the hypothetical end of the world you don't have to put up with the silly bureaucratic b******t. At the end of the world, all the red lights are optional. And if something about that doesn't appeal to you on some level, then you don't have any adventure in your soul. The downside of this, of course, is anarchy. The dispute that would be handled by the admitted b******t of a homeowner's association is now settled by the podcaster finally going outside and finally braking a rake handle over the obsessive leafblower's head. Maybe that's just me? But honestly, if a giant meteor was about to hit the earth and that guy at the end of my cul du sac was still out there with the leaf blower... you tell me you could restrain yourself.But then I would most assuredly be killed by a roving band of marauders from the Crossfit Affiliate down the street -- you know, cannibalism is paleo, no matter what your lunch ate for breakfast. See, the apocalypse is a wonderful imaginative playground. But there's one sense in which the Apocalypse is utterly real. You're going to die. And it's not just that your life is going to end, it's that in subjective sense, your world, your entire cosmos will disappear when you pass away. You may believe that life goes on in some form after death. And you may be right. Again, that's not my point. From this side of life, it looks and feels like the end of everything. Unfortunately, it is a fate that none of us will escape. And, I think, the best kind of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic stories, allow us to face our mortality without having to look directly at it. Kind of like using a pinhole camera, or special glasses to look at an eclipse. Like Star Trek could do stories about racism in the 60's but handle all of the cultural voltage by making it about bi-colored aliens, rather than black and white people. They're about how we face death, which means they are about what life means to us. They are about how we face the collapse of society, which means they are about how we should live together in harmony. They are about who we would sacrifice for, which means they are about who we should take care of. Apocalyptic stories are popular not just because they are great fantasy, but because they have tremendous utility for writers, readers, and viewers. And when they are done well, they can be magnificent. So maybe my complaint is that we've just overused the trope. Like guys crawling through duct work, or characters getting t-boned by a truck that comes from out of nowhere. Deus Ex MackTruckina, if you will. These things are just done to death. But the value of an apocalyptic story is not that they tell us about the end of the world. But what they can tell us about us at our best and worst.And that, I think, is the upside of the apocalypse. Get full access to How It's Written by Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

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Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I think it's the only good one we've got left, primarily because it can't effectively commercialized. It's also a holiday devoted to something I consider to be a virtue -- gratitude. Among other things, it's a time to take a moment to enjoy and reflect on what you have. Eat a good meal, spend some time with friends and family, take a nap. It's like the antidote for the worst ills of modernity. Everybody just calm down for second. Christmas comes with huge expectations. It can be ruined in so many ways. It makes people stressed and broke. In the broader culture, it's only loosely connected with the birth of Christ anymore. And even that is only because the Roman Emperor Constantine decided not only that Christianity was going to be the state religion of Rome, but that it would also take over the traditional Roman and Pagan festivals held near the winter solstice. New Year's is another nightmare of a holiday. Get drunk, make resolutions that you won't even manage to keep until the 16th of January and if you don't have someone to kiss at midnight, you just get to feel like more of a lonely failure.All these expectations. So many of these holiday conventions have just become an assault on our psychological and financial well-being. But not Thanksgiving. Nah man. It's a couch of a holiday. Sit down, relax. It's the slacker holiday. Even if you ruin it, it's only Thanksgiving. Nobody has a weepy story about how Thanksgiving was ruined. And even the stories of Thanksgiving disaster all seem to have an element of comedy about them. But ruin Christmas... yeesh. Even worse, the mere fear that you might ruin Christmas, ruins Christmases. So Thanksgiving manages to be sacred without being serious. Because however threadbare the mythology of the 'first' Thanksgiving might be wearing for you, you can't get around the fact that it's a holiday predicated on the idea of being grateful. I have in mind a longer essay about the virtue of Gratitude -- how it works to dispel envy. Allows you to appreciate and enjoy what you have, but this is not that essay. So I will leave you with a Poem by Carl Sandberg, which I read every year at Thanksgiving. It's called Fire Dreams(Written to be read aloud, if so be, Thanksgiving Day)I REMEMBER here by the fire,In the flickering reds and saffrons,They came in a ramshackle tub,Pilgrims in tall hats, Pilgrims of iron jaws,Drifting by weeks on beaten seas,And the random chapters sayThey were glad and sang to God. And so Since the iron-jawed men sat downAnd said, “Thanks, O God,”For life and soup and a little lessThan a hobo handout to-day,Since gray winds blew gray patterns of sleet on Plymouth Rock,Since the iron-jawed men sang “Thanks, O God,”You and I, O Child of the West,Remember more than ever November and the hunter’s moon,November and the yellow-spotted hillsAnd so In the name of the iron-jawed menI will stand up and say yes till the finish is come and gone.God of all broken hearts, empty hands, sleeping soldiers,God of all star-flung beaches of night sky,I and my love-child stand up together to-day and sing: “Thanks, O God.”Happy Thanksgiving. Get full access to How It's Written by Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe

The completely truthful, reasonable, and logical answer is that nobody knows. If people really knew, we would be a lot better at making them. Not just books, but movies, TV shows, plays, really anything that involves narrative art. And we're not. Hollywood bombs all the time with things that everyone expects will be great. Now, you can argue that a lot of those failures are failures because of group-think and creation by committee -- and I sympathize with that view, but auteurs fail all the time as well. I remember going to a screening of an independent film once. And after the movie was over the two guys who made it got up on stage and talked about what they went through, and took some questions. The movie wasn't horrible, but it wasn't good either. It was just there. And they talked about how it was their dream to make this movie. How they had slaved long nights and maxed out their credit cards, really given it their all. I love the romance and passion of it, but, even at the time I thought to myself, "Why?" If I was going to risk everything to tell a story, that wouldn't be the story I would tell. I would have spent more time writing a better script, developing a better idea. Because that one fell flat. But most films do. Most books do. Most everything does. And here's what's particularly maddening about that. We are all very good at knowing what we like. So you'd think that we could follow that instinct and use it to make something great with some degree of reliability. Or we could learn the knack of it from someone really good. Like, I should be able to apprentice at the feet of Taika Waititi and come back a brilliant and humane comedy director. But it doesn't work that way. I think you could certainly spend time with Michael Bay and learn how to make a viewer dizzy and confused. But to inspire and move, to really connect with power in that way that only a story can, I don't think you can be great merely by copying someone else.Copying someone else is a great way to start. The Rolling Stones wanted to be Muddy Waters. Robert Plant wanted to be Howlin' Wolf. They failed gloriously and became something else, that was something good. Woody Allen has said multiple times that as a stand-up comedian and actor, he was trying to be Bob Hope. Compare clips of them side by side and you'll see it immediately. But as Thelonius Monk said, "The genius is the one that is most like himself." All of these people took their impulses and ultimately used them to become more like themselves. And I think this is true of story because every story is such a complicated knot of meaning. I think that something like a novel or a screenplay is best thought of as an intersection of systems. Dialog, plot, character selection, symbolism, description, prose style -- whatever you want to put on that list, everybody has to learn to put them together in their own way. I can no more write an authentically Taika Waititi movie than I can grow his mustache. I can grow my own mustache, and I can work to make it a good one. All of that sounds like it should be right. But there's a stubborn fact left in the way. There are only a few kinds of stories and maybe one ultimate form. So wouldn't that be a blueprint for what makes a great story? Well kind of. I think that following the conventions of a genre or honoring the expectations of something like the hero's journey is necessary, but not sufficient. Stories have deep structure, for sure. And as crazy as it may sound, I don't think they are socially constructed. I think they are a fundamental part of our psyche, the primary way we understand meaning and seek to deal with deep conflicts within ourselves.Stories are structures that pop up again and again in our lives, both internally and externally.One of the simplest, oldest, and most used forms of story is the "Overcoming the Monster" plot. Beowulf, the Epic of Gilgamesh, The story of the Cyclops in the Odyssey, All James Bond movies, Alien, Jaws, Home Alone, Rocky -- it's everywhere -- either the whole story or as a substory in a larger narrative. Psychologically, we could look at the Overcoming the Monster plot this way. You have a terrifying problem -- terrifying because it's unknown and chaotic. You don't know what this thing is and you don't know what it's going to do. So you have to go out to face it. But it's way more powerful than you. And you don't really stand a chance. But you go face this unknown anyway. Because you don't have a choice.The Monster very nearly kills you. You wind up at the mercy of this monster, You're on the ropes, all is lost, yet somehow you, by drawing on resources that you didn't know you had within you, stage a thrilling escape from death and overcome the creature. And -- and this is the important part -- you bring balance back to the world in which you live. In lots of stories, this is symbolized by things like getting the girl or the boy at the end, life returning to the kingdom, enemies making peace, rejoicing awards ceremonies -- all that kind of stuff. Now when you say it like that, it sounds simple, formulaic, maybe even boring. Except for the fact this fundamental story is the fundamental human experience of being alive in a world of meaning. Which I will now demonstrate. The monster is the Coronavirus. It's a terrifying problem that we don't know anything about -- unknown and chaotic. We don't know what it is, we don't know what it's going to do. But we have to go forth and deal with it anyway. It's reduced the kingdom to shambles -- or, if you like, revealed all the problems with kingdom, (just like the Alien in the movie Alien, reveals all the conflict between the crew of the Nostromo.)So we go out and face it. And in doing so, we're drawing on resources we didn't know we had. We've never developed vaccines this quickly before. We've never tried.And when the monster is conquered, even if it threatens to rise again at a later date -- after all even if you defeat a disease, disease itself is a monster that can never be overcome, balance will be brought back to the world and we will celebrate. So what I think makes a great story is taking these deep forms we all understand and the struggles we all face, and updating them for the times we live in. Creating a new source of meaning, new narrative proofs, if you like, of eternal truths. All of the How to Succeed in Evil stories are a form of Overcoming the Monster. But they are other things as well. And this, I think is another clue to what makes a story great. A story is never about what it's about. It's never merely about catching the killer, defeating the monster, snatching the McGuffin, or blowing up the Death Star. It's about an external problem, of course, but it's also about an internal problem. Luke has to blow up the Death Star, but to do it he has to learn to let go and trust in something bigger than himself. It doesn't have to be so esoteric. Chief Brody in Jaws not only has to defeat both the shark and crooked politicians to save the town, but he has to overcome his internal problem -- as fear of the water. Internal problems aren't just some kind of game that we play with stories. They are what drive us. Hound us. Threaten to destroy us and keep us in line, or drive us to great and terrible acts. A young man named Robert Jarvik once had the same challenges of making his way in the world that everyone else faces. But when his father died of heart disease he decided to study medicine and engineering and make an artificial heart. He wasn't doing that for any external reason. Not really. On some level, he was trying to save his father by saving other people. And so it is with the Overcoming the Monster story we are all living through right now. It follows the form of every other Overcoming the Monster story, but what would make it into a great story is the internal struggles we face. Taking the universal and making it particular. All of these things follow themes. And themes always sound a bit daft when you say them out loud. "Love conquers all," for example. Or "Evil can only be defeated when good people choose to act."And I think that what makes a story great is when someone manages to tell an ancient story, with a timeless theme in a way that makes it fresh and new and believable again. Because there are things that we need to believe, even if they aren't true. Maybe especially when they aren't true. We need to believe it's important to do things for others who will live on after us, even though all the visible evidence shows that it won't matter to you. You're going to be dead and it will all be somebody else's problem. Great stories are a vehicle for us to step out of ourselves. To try out different ways of being. To see the consequences of actions without having to take them. To simulate failure so we can avoid it and find success. And get an escape from hardship so we can better endure it. This essay is not a great story. I'm not even convinced at this point that it's a good essay. It wanders a bit and I'm not sure I have a great close to drive to. But one sure bit of advice I can offer you. If you like great stories, you will like them more the more you learn about how all stories work. And, if you're a writer, this kind of knowledge is pure gold and you can never have enough. Get full access to How It's Written by Patrick E. 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This Substack is taking an interesting turn. Much to my surprise, my more substantial, thoughtful pieces are doing better than anything else. And I'm not sure why. I have some theories, of course. One is that we are so awash in trivial content all day long that there is a real hunger for something deeper. Two, is that whenever you are writing to the deepest part of yourself you are, necessarily, writing to the deepest part of everyone. We are none of us very different. No matter what the people in the selling stars to Sneeches business would have you believe. And as good as those theories sound, I still worry that I'm just fooling myself. After all, most people are in one way or another. On some level, we are all bald men clinging to an ill-advised comb-over. When wrote the Seanachai, I was covering up a lot of insecurity with humor. Who was I to have anything to say? Why would anyone want to listen? So, as a defensive mechanism, I realized that I could be funny or weird, and at least that would be something. That temptation is still there, believe me. Once upon a time, a famous department store had a window display that featured a box of dancing ducks. How clever, people thought. People would see them and stop and think, how clever someone has trained these ducks to dance. But the reality was that someone had just placed a hot plate underneath the ducks. And when they turned the heat up, the ducks would appear to dance because their feet were getting burned. They weren't dancing, they were in pain. In my darker moments, I wonder if I am not something of a duck on a hot plate. I mean, I'm trying to dance (metaphorically speaking) but maybe I'm just convulsing, artlessly, to relieve pain. Something of an argument against this idea is that the poor ducks never asked themselves these kinds of questions. Or tried to fool themselves into thinking that they were practicing any kind of art. Animals always seem to be doing exactly what they are doing, with a kind of effortless Zen mastery. It's dignity of a sort and it is why I am certain it's wrong to be cruel to animals. But, as the days grow longer and darker, I have to ask myself. What the hell am I doing with these essays? What kind of half-assed, amateur philosopher do I think I am? Wrestling with topics that are far too big for me. Virtue? You jackass! What do you know about virtue? You might fool the rubes, but you know, deep down, you are no paragon. But, another voice answers, who is a paragon? And these are topics that are too big for anyone. See how the greatest minds in history have wrestled with these subjects and have almost always failed. For the rare bright light in any field, how many confused, fractious charlatans are there clawing towards knowledge and failing to obtain. Taken en masse the history of intellectuals is a plague of sophists only redeemed by the occasional genius who seems as infrequent as they are indispensable. And true genius is almost always mocked and persecuted. At least at first.But still, I imagine that all of those thinkers, sophists and genius alike, might read this essay and say, "Look, the foolish duck thinks he is dancing."Is what I am doing, at best, nothing more than an intellectual entertainment? Perhaps. But it's hard to see what could be wrong with that. And, in P.T. Barnum fashion, the larger the problem attempted, the greater the promotional value. "Amateur Philosopher Wrestles Eel" is not as good as "Amateur Philosopher Wrestles Grizzly Bear.""That fool doesn't stand a chance. Where do I get my ticket!"My point is that we are all Amateur Philosophers out of necessity. And we are all wrestling with Grizzlies of Hideous Complexity. Nobody else can decide what your life means for you. And why it is worth living. To give that power over to another person, or worse an ideology is to build your house on flimsy stilts in a salt marsh. The hurricane is coming and it will all be blown out from underneath you. Leaving you to either do the work or have it all knocked out from underneath you again. Of course, you can and should consult many sources. There have been many brilliant thinkers. But the thing to do is not to memorize their conclusions, but to learn how they thought -- to steal some part of their method for your own. True leaps of genius are irreducible. They aren't tricks. Some people just see farther. But there are a lot of useful tools that you can learn and use. Logic is one of them. And you can certainly learn from another's mistakes.So if nothing else, I think seeing me get mauled by a grizzly of my own choosing -- wrestling questions like, "What is Honesty?" or "What is the good life?" is useful, especially if I can make the whole affair entertaining, rather than boring or pedantic. I firmly believe that these are questions we all should spend time thinking about. This was a function that the Church fulfilled in the West. For all the faults that religion may have, the custom of spending a few hours every week connecting with your neighbors and contemplating what might make life better sounds like an indispensably fantastic idea. It's important not to blame the idea when an execution goes awry. Whattya want, perfection? Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made. So as my metaphorical webbed feet slap across the keyboard. I feel vindicated for my strange, intellectually convulsive behavior. And oddly prepared for it. However dubious my pedigree may be for the task at hand, I have made sacrifices to spend a lot of my time reading and thinking. I've always been a bit skeptical about the claims you run into in Aristotle and Plato, suggesting that the life of philosophy is the best life. I certainly enjoy thinking and reading and discussing, but the statement always struck me like something a truck driver who missed his family dearly would say to you from the next booth at a diner. "Being on the road is the best thing ever!" The question to ask is, who is he really trying to convince? I also love this quote from Cicero, “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.” Cicero had those things but was also the greatest orator of his day. He was famed for arguing cases and making speeches in front of the Senate. He served as Consul and was the Governor of what is now Turkey. He successfully led legions in battle against the Parthians in Syria. And fought a losing struggle to preserve the Republic in the Roman Civil War. If all this man really needed was a library and a garden, he could have just stayed home. And in that, I think, is the point of this odd little essay. We all struggle. And we all learn from the struggles of others. There are some problems of our nature that may just be irreconcilable. But that's scarcely a reason to give up. Because it's hard to know which problems can be solved and which ones can't. And if we give up without a fight -- if we accept the world as it is given to us -- then we don't do things like invent geometry or the alphabet or write songs or essays or poems or build cathedrals or paint paintings. We become thoughtless, reactive. We become truly, little more than ducks on the department store hot plate of life. But I am not a duck. And, neither, I think, are you. Get full access to How It's Written by Patrick E. McLean at patrickemclean.substack.com/subscribe