Scryer's Gulch

Episode 1: Annabelle Arrives

With all the money pouring in and out of it, you'd think Scryer's Gulch would be more scenic. It's still no looker, but in the early days it hunkered down and at the same time sprawled in its valley like a cold sore, crouching near a gaping, toothless mouth that swallowed up men and spit out the ore that gave the town both its name and its fortune. I'm speaking, of course, of hermetauxite, without which little that we call modern life would be possible.

So much of it veins the Big Blavatsky Mine that, for example, anyone with any scrying talent at all can look into a glass of water, a mirror, a candle flame, the odd crystal ball, a shiny window, and catch a glimpse of the future. Anyone with a measure of telekinetic power can bend a spoon a little. That sorta thing. The original inhabitants of this land of ours were strangely absent from the area, odd considering its rich supply of wildlife, but they were wiser than we are, or perhaps just less greedy: living so close to that much hermetauxite eventually drives folks crazy.

But I digress.

Perhaps I'm not being fair when I say Scryer's Gulch in those days was a cold sore, a carbuncle on the surface of the earth, a muck pit lined with hastily thrown-up buildings of questionable architectural provenance filled with humans of questionable parentage. There were a few beauties: the arrestingly ostentatious bulk of Jedediah Bonham's mansion, built with the proceeds of the mine; the spun sugar and gilt Hotel LeFay, with all the most modern conveniences Bonham's son Anthony could provide his guests; and the opulent Mamzelle's Palace, whose beauties were on the inside--a good thing, considering they were barely dressed and likely to cause riots were they actually on the outside.

In those early days, Scryer's Gulch was a wide-open town, filled with all the vices lonely men with no families and too much money usually indulge in. Anatole Prake, the first mayor, tried his hardest to bring civilization to town--he hired Sheriff Runnels with his own money--but you can't fight demand by reducing supply; it doesn't get rid of vice, it only makes it more expensive. Higher prices for drink, cards and girls meant more money for Jedediah Bonham. Mamzelle's name may have been on the Palace, but everyone knew Jed really owned it; he owned her, after all. Making Bonham richer rankled the sheriff no end, for if there was one man John Runnels hated, it was Jed Bonham, and that consideration was returned, in spades.

So Sheriff Runnels and Mayor Prake bowed to reality, and worked on keeping things down to a dull roar. A minimum of murders; discretion in fleecing the yokels come in to prospect--at least leave them their underwear; respect for the genteel variety of womenfolk: that's all they asked for. Most of the time, they got it. Some of the time, they didn't.

But no matter how hard Bonham tried to keep the town free of the law except when it suited him, he couldn't stop the natural progression of things. Some of the men settled permanently, and brought their womenfolk and families out. By and by, there were a dozen children in town, and no school yet. Mayor Prake had two children of school age, besides his grown son. Bonham himself had a little girl, Lily, who he loved more than anything in the world--even his fortune. And while his new wife Charity pestered him to send Lily away to school after her three older brothers, he couldn't bear to part with her. Besides, look how his oldest, Anthony, had turned out when he came home from the east. He could advertise for a tutor, but he'd promised his late wife Lillian that no matter how rich he got, Lily would have a normal life. And so, Bonham reluctantly agreed with Prake that it was time the town had itself a school.

Mayor Prake sent for a schoolteacher. What he got was Miss Annabelle Duniway.

*

The day the new teacher was expected, a small knot of local luminaries milled before the Hopewell Hotel, the local stagecoach stop: all to one side were square-sided Mayor Prake, plump and comfortable Mrs Prake, their oldest son Simon and two stiffly-dressed children, along with straight-backed Sheriff Runnels, his shy little boy Jamie hanging behind; suave Jedediah Bonham stood to the other side, holding his daughter Lily's hand. The girl was turned out as pretty as a doll, but her face was pink with stifled laughter; Georgie Prake, her best friend Amelia's twin brother, kept making faces at her behind their fathers' backs.