And The Wind Blows West

Gordy

It was Gordy who saw her first.

It happened when he clambered about the walls down south with one of the Ricken boys, a small boy named Harvey. He was of ten years -- Gordy himself was thirteen, but tended to get along with children who was his short height of five foot -- with frilly red hair which stuck out of his scalp as though he were struck by a tendril of lightning, a constellation of freckles covering the bridge of his nose and the spread of his cheeks and ivy green eyes that might poison you if you looked at them too long.

Both of the children were nimble enough to climb on the roofs of the collective houses in the town, but after Sheriff Jaime caught them sauntering across the tin roofs barefoot and brought them to their respective parents for a proper demonstration of discipline (Gordy didn't forget how hard his back hurt from that day, and instinctively rubbed the grooves that ailed his skin, indenting his index finger into the healed scars), they decided never to do so again, lest the two of them wanted another bout of discipline.

So the broken, worn walls of the south were their next rendezvous point. Their adventures mainly centralized around the ruined desolation of the town's prior walls, which were built by Harvey's own ancestors.

The Ricken family was the most elder of Frederickson, Gordy learned from his mother after questioning how far Harvey's lineage went, so far, in fact, that it was one of the Rickens who built the first settlement that belonged to the reign of the town. This settlement was the old watch tower to the north, a large structure of rotted wood and a canopy of dead leaves which hadn't been touched by the hands of the townsfolk. Some said it was for the sake of preservation, but Gordy had a feeling none of them wanted to touch the disgusting wood. Even from a distance, it looked grody and unbearable, and Gordy's own rough hands were not brave enough to knock it down.

None of the townsfolk travelled towards it in the last few weeks, the last being Mr. Gold, who was always willing to do things for the sake of doing them. A go-getter, the ambitious man was, but Gordy was old enough to know his mindset was his undoing, perhaps the reason of his unfortunate death.

But the wall, like the watch tower, was built by the Rickens and their working hands. Its intentions were clear: keep out the Indians who threatened to enter the property, keep them away and distant. His great-grandmother knew about the encircling wall, and told his mother in vivid detail about when it was as tall as a sentinel pine in the forests far north. Yet, eroded away by the wind, the rain and the occasion snow throughout the years, it was barely taller than Gordy himself as he approached the masonry, and he could touch his fingers against its tallest peak with a smidgen of his toes lifted off the ground. Almost no effort at all, he thought.

On the days when the sun would batter his back with rays of heat, he'd grab a hold of the derelict bricks with his skinny fingers, the little rocks digging into his skin, and pull himself atop the stonework, balancing on it as Harvey trailed slowly behind him. They'd play games like Along The Wall and Chase the Tumbleweed -- Harvey would always manage to take advantage of the situations and rules of the games and win them, although Gordy still enjoyed the thrill of them just for the sake -- until their breath was gone, their skin was slick. Gordy would be exhausted, his hair stuck to his forehead, and sit on the ruddy wall, looking out to the southern horizon. He'd watch the sunset with Harvey at his right, the stream of purple and orange and red flowing about the sun, the thin clouds of the rocky, massive mountains occasionally blocking out its dim light.

"I heard 'bout your mom," said Harvey, his fingers picking up a remnant of the wall. He inspected it, and tossed it down on the dusty ground. "Dad told me she was hurt real bad. Said she was bleeding a whole lot."

Gordy gave the boy a curt nod. "Almost died, I think. Doc Hopkins looked really weird when he came into the house, like he hadn't seen anything like it before."