This is where I started. I took up an idea I had played with for last year’s NaNoWriMo but had to bail on. I got sick and lost a few days and that blew it for me. What I learned from that comes in two parts. One, don’t quit. Two, don’t force your writing. In a stunt or event like this, quantity over quality is what counts (bear that in mind if you read further).
The sounds of hoof beats and shouts behind me were growing louder and harder to ignore. I looked hard at the hedgerow in front of me, as my horse turned off the path to face it. It seemed impenetrable, densely intertwined branches woven together into a barrier. But there, I could make out what looked like a gap between two clumps of green and brown. One step nearer and it seemed to dissolve and fade away. The leaves and branches grew indistinct right in front of us. One more step and I could see right through to a dappled pathway with grass underfoot and a canopy of trees overhead. We stepped through as the noise from behind grew to a crescendo.
And then it became a distant, distorted roar, like the sound of the ocean in a shell. There were the same rhythmic sounds of hoof beats and what sounded like human voices from a great distance. There were also some sharper sounds: shots? I was curious and concerned enough to look back but with each step the green barrier grew more solid-looking, as if it were knitting itself back together.
Looking ahead I could see a clearing ahead. The path opened, the leafy walls on each side spreading apart, and we were in an open space, perhaps 20 yards across, open to the sky above but shaded around the edges as the branches grew into the clearing.
I dismounted to take a look around. Not ten minutes ago, I had been riding down a dusty, stone-studded track, surrounded by a red and brown landscape. The green hedge through which we had passed was shielded by a rocky outcrop that blocked the worst of the sun’s desiccating heat, making it unusual but welcome. It often misled newcomers to town into thinking they would see a green, shady oasis after crossing the red-brown lands.
A muffled jingle and a thud caught my attention. I turned to see a man where I had dismounted, pulling up a leather kilt or breech clout and belting it on. He looked up to meet my stunned gaze.
“Do you mind? It’s a relief to stand up and stretch, and feel like myself.”
I couldn’t look away. Who was this person and where did my horse go?
The stranger walked around, stamping his feet and jumping up and down gently, swinging his arms in great circles.
I saw no sign of a horse. I realized I didn’t know all that much about the animal, having just bought it at auction a day or two ago. The Army sells off livestock, both it’s own surplus as well as animals it impounds or otherwise acquires, and the auction circuit had come to El Dorado at last. Not a lot of money changed hands but no animals were left unsold. It was well understood that this was a purely profitable enterprise for the quartermasters in charge: the horses were almost all government issue and the others — poultry and sheep — were not paid for in the first place.
“Well, are you ready to keep moving?”
My new companion had stopped his calisthenics and was looking down the path away from where we came in.
“Moving? Where to? And who or what are you?”
“Me? At present, I am a man like yourself, as it seems to be the most useful form to take. It was thought a talking horse would raise even more questions.”
I waited. It seemed my questions were anticipated. I awaited the answers.
“It was proposed that the acquisition of a good looking horse — if I say so myself — and a map of vaguely promising opportunities would combine to bring you through the hedgerow. I won’t say I was skeptical, but I wasn’t all that certain.”
I couldn’t make any sense to this. Who was he talking about? Who proposed this plan? I wasn’t sure if I should be excited or terrified. Was I being lured into a trap and escorted to a treasure?
“Well, you have to admit, if I had taken my present form and tried to reason with you to step through, what with those rascals behind us, we never would have gotten through. It worked. Though I would like to see the looks on your friends’ faces.”
“My friends? It sounded like they were shooting at me, at us.”
“Aye, they were. I don’t know why. I was hoping you did. Must have been something you said.”
“Me? I’m not the one who planned to disappear by walking through a thicket.”
He smiled slightly, as if I had somehow planned a mysterious disappearance.
“They’ve gone back to town now. They’re trying to get their story straight, since no one will believe you just rode through where there is no path. I wonder what they will come up with? There are a few who won’t believe a word of any story that doesn’t come with proof.”
“They were chasing or tracking us?”
“You forget how people think out in these towns. There is so little to do, so little to be gotten, that the hint of anything — a new well, a reservoir, a vein of any metal — will capture their attention. Some will watch and wait. Others will take a more aggressive approach, and some of those will be employed by those who are watching and waiting.”
I was slowly starting to see it.
“Surely you realize the map you found was noticed. Every ranch hand, every miner, every hydro wildcatter has the land around here memorized. They saw you looking at that map and were sure you must have found something. They were right, of course, but they couldn’t know what it would be. And if you told them, they would have assumed you’d been in the sun too long.”
His face creased slowly into a gentle smile, his eyes laughing.
“Think about what you’ll tell them, if you decide to go back. But for now, we should move on.”
“Move on to where?”
“Well, we can’t stay here, can we? You want to sleep on the path? Or would you rather find a nice soft bed and bowl of something restorative?”
“Lead on. You seem to know this place.”
Without a word, my companion turned and strode off down the path at an easy but determined pace.
I caught up easily, but was too much consumed with my own thoughts to engage him further.
It was plain he knew the New Lands — whence we had just come — well. The people were largely untrusting, hard-nosed, and eager to find some advantage. It was a hard life, but for most it was the only option. The city-states were crowded and even less charming. The New Lands — a misnomer — were an outlet for men and women who tired of the crowding and smell, the crime and scarcity, that was part of life in the city-states.
There was nothing new about these lands. They looked older than the moon, dried out, weather- and sun-blasted. Their name came simply from the fact they were newly re-settled. There had been farms, ranches, mines here, even before the city-states, but the conditions were so marginal few could manage to eke out a living here. It has always been a rough and threadbare place. Most were content if they could reach an equilibrium of self-sufficiency. Growing or getting enough of anything to sell it was nearly impossible. Occasionally some lucky operator would manage a bumper crop of something or stumble onto some undiscovered vein of metal. But things were mostly hand to mouth, a month — a rent payment — away from defeat. And where could people go who had committed to these unforgiving stone canyons?
There were some opportunists who had managed to take on some of the less successful small-holders, those whose claims had been worked out or whose wells had finally run dry, and keep them as workers. These unfortunates were even less well-off than when they had arrived but they were able to stay with some tattered shreds of dignity. No one could say that they had been forced back to the city-states. They had their freedom and opportunity, even if the former was curtailed and the latter at the pleasure of their new master.
Some went back but no one mentioned their names afterward. No one wanted to admit to having known someone who had failed to make it, but part of it was not wanting to think of making the same choice.
Still others would just walk off into the canyonlands. Their remains were rarely found. The wilderness was just as demanding as the life in town: nothing was wasted.
So the competition for any advantage, real or imagined, was fierce. If anyone had seen me looking over the map I had found, they would naturally assume I was hiding something valuable. There were few friendships worthy of the name and even fewer cooperative business ventures. No one would expect to be shown anything like a map or deed. But someone had felt strongly enough about it to follow me out of town. Had they fired in the air to get my attention? Or was their aim more direct?