Name: Wish Bone Lean
Age: Records aren't well kept past Apache Heights but if you ask around the neighborhood, Wish Bone was definitely born before the salt cedar crossed the tracks, which was welcomed, and certainly before the checkpoint was set up, which was unwelcomed. The municipality has manned that post for more than a generation.
Gender: Male
Appearance: If you manage to collect them all in the same place, Wish Bone looks just like the rest of the Leans. Altogether, they're an earthy group of people. Take Porterhouse—while she loves her colorful eye dazzler shawls, that's the only exception to an outfit composed mostly of beiges, olives, and different neutral tones. But this makes sense; when you're connected to the land, you dress like it too. So the Leans are distinguishable by their flashes of colors amidst otherwise pragmatic garb. The hues remind them that they possess their soul, that it's protected. In Wish Bone's case, he pairs green or khaki clothes with the bright beadwork on his ears and belt buckle to offer the spirit-confirming contrast typifying his family. An air of utility guides how he presents himself: modest cuts and durable fabrics, a considerable selection of cargo pants and vests. Really, the pockets are immeasurably helpful during the hours of tending to the lizards and herbs or for a late, long stalking.
Personality: One thing is immediately evident upon meeting Wish Bone: a grit that can't be shaken. His tasks are large and Wish Bone is not larger. Despite this, he chips away until the deed is done. Until the mountain is flat. Until that Southwestern horizon finally stops its droning and the night returns to silent dance. Often there is a calculating squint behind his sunglasses on the days leading up to a healing hunt, a sign of his pensive audit about what he has done and the endless entries of what he still has to do. He gives little consideration for improvement because the jobs get done and, given the number of them, even if he was the most efficient man in the world there would always be more; there's always another family caught in a spiritual crossfire. So he does what he can in the neighborhood. He helps those nearby and waits for the lull that never comes. And repeats and repeats and repeats. Wish Bone believes it's important to keep that healthy distance, to not fight for perfection if the process is good enough. There are two reasons behind this. The first is, again, the waiting. Time won't move faster. Тime can be unfilled and dull, аnd the status quo's operations keep the days interesting. It's certainly more interesting than the endless repeats of warming lizard eggs and selective mating. The second is the fear of what comes when you want more, what is shown to others, to the other people-beings. The ones that notice a subtly stoked man who is preparing to rise. Wish Bone knows them too; it's a trope of men who are his most regular customers.
History: It was the summer that the sky began to turn orange when Porterhouse Lean began to take the boy Wish Bone to the market. But she did not take him to where you would expect, not the big market in the mall that looks like a plexiglass conch shell placed one hundred miles inland from the nearest high tide. No. Porterhouse brought Wish Bone to an empty lot before the crest of the sun began to irradiate that morning. And then they took out the cages. And the arrowheads, for travelers. There would be nothing but stars above them. Like usual, the Leans sold most of the items on the folding table that day; Porterhouse knows how to make a deal and, more importantly, how to taste the breeze and pack up before the Guard caught wind of that week's trading post spot and kettled the unlucky unsanctioned traders that remained. That was routine. Others have begun to arrive just as early. This is a community that adapts because they have to. They keep each other safe because no one else will. This is a lifetime of living just outside the bounds, those who hide in the less tended corners. But the towers creep closer; there are fewer stars now. And more encounters.
Activity: There's something special about the lizards around Idyll—they're illegal to sell. Supposedly, there's some harmful isotope in the soil that their bodies easily absorb so they're harmful to keep around. Luckily, the law can't stop all souls, especially when lizard tails are a catch-all cure for nearly any-and-all maladies, whether physical or spiritual. For the best results, you need to ingest the tails soon after they've been cleaved off a lizard's back. So you need to buy them alive. Over the past few years, Wish Bone has almost mastered the breeding of double-tailed lizards. Those specimens are extra potent with the good stuff and will heal you right up and they're a centerpiece among the Lean's vendor table at the underground markets. A cage full of reptiles waiting to be sold.
The Leans have been in this business for a long time—the business of selling therapies, that is. From an aching hip or too much body oil, they have the remedy. Each is a specialist in a specific trade, sometimes more than one. While Wish Bone is known for this herpetological healing, in truth, Wish Bone is not a lizard farmer. Wish Bone is a hunter. When people are sick from those people-beings who possess the mysticism to disguise themselves as animals or those humanoids with insatiable psychosis-hungers, you ask for Wish Bone. The calls are endless, especially in this part of Arizona, but you have to call. No one does work like this anymore, and that makes things worse. There are only lizard tails and weak healer men.
Other: You gain a sense of the state of things when you kill what always seems to return. Now there's something different in wendigo screams. They're old anew.
