hammer back with each shot. He didn’t dare pull the trigger, though in his head he imagined a sharp report and flash, as his enemy gunmen fell helpless, one by one.
The boy snapped out of his dream. Whose gun is this? Why is it here? Should he even hold it? What if the owner shows up?
What if the owner had a bigger gun? Without thinking, Andrew pulled the hammer back again. Having fired his dad’s rifle a few times at a range outside of Nayreton, the entire process came naturally.
Andrew searched the ground for extra shells or footprints. There was nothing to indicate any activity near the gun, only an imprint of dirt where the gun had lay in. It was if the weapon had fallen from the sky for him to pick up.
“How long has this been here?” the boy wondered. It looked ancient, like a weapon belonging to a western epic. Finally, the young boy felt the air grow still. He looked up and saw the cloaked figure up ahead at the bend of the river.
III
The sun had started its descent behind the tall hills to the east, and in the golden twilight the mysterious figure shimmered and shined. The figure was short and emaciated, cloaked in white and hooded so that his face remained hidden. He (or she) was only a hundred feet from Andrew, standing before the river’s bend, but to Andrew the figure seemed miles away. There was something unreachable about this stranger; Andrew wondered if one step toward the figure might cause him to bolt away like a deer.
The stranger reached out his arm, and in his hand he held a long bamboo walking stick in his hand, white and slender in the fading spring light. Now he beckoned Andrew using the stick.
I can feel its pull, Andrew thought, his heart racing. Why shouldn’t I follow it?
With the gun hanging loosely in his left hand, the boy began to walk toward the figure. He quickened his pace to a brisk jog as the cloaked figure turned toward the river. Instead of following the river and rounding the bend, the figure ran down the river bank and disappeared from Andrew’s sight. Andrew hurried towards the bend, and by the time he reached it, he saw the cloaked stranger across the river, moving south in the forest. The boy looked north down where the river bent and slowly faded into the wooded horizon. At the bank of the river where Andrew stood the water flowed slowly but steadily thanks to the sharp downhill curve ahead.
The hooded figure, almost out of sight now, turned and beckoned again for Andrew to follow. The boy spotted a few rocks in the water he could jump on to cross the river, and prepared to cross. His mother’s voice nagging in his head stopped him.
How would your father feel about you following a stranger in the woods? How’d he like to hear, after a long day’s work, that some hooded drifter led his son deep into the forest at nightfall? Andrew pushed the voice out of his head. His father wasn’t around to notice either way. Andrew didn’t know who he resented most: his mother, his father, or the drought.
It didn’t matter. The boy crossed the river.
IV
Andrew made it across the river without much trouble, and continued his pursuit of the cloaked man. He had an idea of where the stranger was headed, of course: due south. Andrew followed in his path. The terrain began to slide downhill at a suicidal rate, and Andrew had to descend sideways to avoid stumbling and flying forward. The slope continued for a few hundred yards, and while most of the hill was littered with trees and sharp rocks, the path Andrew took was clear of all impediments. It was if the cloaked man had cut the path clean. Despite the safe path, however, Andrew still led with his feet in front of him and his body turned to the side to counter the steep terrain.
After descending for what felt like hours, Andrew saw the bottom of the hill. Most of the terrain around him flattened, but his own path did not; it dove into a deep grove, shadowed by tall, thick trees. Andrew headed down into this opening, below the flat terrain. After a few seconds of descending he came upon stone steps that twisted and descended deeper into the earth. Andrew grabbed the earthen sides of the passage to slow his descent and straightened his body so he could safely run on the steps. The steps were narrow and thin, only large enough for the foot of a child. Andrew was thankful his feet were still small, but still he slowed down to a near walking pace to avoid stumbling.
The steps descended into the earth further and further til Andrew felt he was miles below the forest floor. The stairs ended with a stone wall with a small hole in the bottom, only large enough for a child to fit through. Andrew, not quite five feet tall, squeezed right through the opening. He came into the grove, expecting it to be shrouded in darkness as the staircase had been. However, several rays of light pierced through the darkness from the canopy above, illuminating the patch of green grass he stood on. Around him a circular grove, surrounded by thick oak trees, rose up to the sky. At the far side of the chamber sat a small, plump boy. He was staring at a tree at the center of the grove, with what appeared to be a sketch drawn into it. As Andrew drew nearer to the door he saw it was no sketch. An actual oak door stood in the center of the tree, begging to be opened.
V
The strange boy turned as Andrew drew near. He was clad in a dark green tunic and dark leggings, with a mess of curly dirty blond hair on his head.
“Hello,” Andrew said.
“Hullo,” the boy said, with a thick accent that reminded Andrew of some foreign film he’d seen about Ireland. The boy climbed clumsily to his feet, which were gigantic in comparison to the boy’s body. Andrew gauged him to be no older than thirteen.
“Name’s Andrew Tollson,” said Andrew, stepping forward and extending his hand as his father had taught him. As he stepped into the light, the strange boy gasped, catching sight of the revolver in Andrew’s hand. The newcomer stopped dead in his tracks and bent down to one knee.
“Forgive me, sir,” the boy said, his eyes staring down at the ground as he stumbled over his words. “Pleased to meet you, Andrew, son of Toll. You can call me Nickolas, Son of Smith, he of the field and the scythe. I… give myself to your service? Wait, I don’t think that’s it…” The boy trailed off and shook his head. “I don’ remember it, no sir.”
Andrew didn’t know what to say. He called me the son of Toll, he mused. That amazed him the most. His father’s name was David, not Toll. Just where in the hell is this kid from? He’s acting sort of weird.
When was this kid from? Andrew realized was the better question.
In his silence, Nickolas, son of Smith, looked up. “Beg your pardon, sir, but isn’t this where you usually say somethin’?”
Andrew shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you.”
Nickolas furrowed his brow. “Wish I knew how this was suppos’d to go… it’s jus that I never met one of your kind before.”
“One of my kind?” asked Andrew.
“A man of the gun, you know,” Nickolas said, motioning to the revolver in Andrew’s left hand. “You look young, but you must be one of them. Them of legend!”
Andrew raised his eyebrows and stepped back. “A man of the gun?”
“Yea!” Nickolas cried with a grin, and lifted his hands to the sky. “A legendary gunfighter!”
VI
Andrew Tollson was no gunfighter. He was adventurous, more than most boys his age, but he knew he was no man of the gun. In his head flashed images of gunfighters
