Welcome To Red Cloud

Chapter One: The Welcome Wagon

I crashed into the window of the stage as it halted. My eyes flew open and I felt about me for my possessions, eyes racing everywhere at once to take in the scene. My bags had toppled on the empty seat opposite me, but they were all present. The window I'd headed for showed a shimmering lake not ten feet from where we'd stopped, and beyond it the red hills rose in every direction, the trees stripped of leaves by winter's grip. It was strange to be in a place where it did not snow in winter, for the sun still rose high and made the air feel warm within the coach's carriage.

"Are we there?"

I called to the driver, and I heard him thump to the ground in return. The carriage rocked and the horses whinnied, and a moment later he yanked the door beside me open with a creak.

"We're about thirty minutes out of Red Cloud, Mr. Alston, but I had to stop on account of the wheel." He took a step back, sucking at his broken teeth as he fixed me with a grin. "If I carry on at this pace, the damned thing's gonna come clean off. Take a break by the lakeside, Sir, if you'd be so kind. I'll get it fixed up right in no time."

It wasn't the wake up call I'd been expecting. I had been travelling for more than a week, by different means and different wheels until I could get clean to the other side of the country. My driver wasn't to know that he was the last in a long line, and he wouldn't understand the ache that grew in my chest at being woken, and not being at my final destination. Red Cloud was still out of my reach.

I got out of the coach without argument, one more quick glance over my bags before I shut the door on them. I hadn't trusted the roof, hadn't let a single item out of my sight except for when sleep captured me. I walked a few paces from the coach as the driver rounded on his tricky wheel. My back twitched, and I pushed at it to stretch up to the sunny winter sky.

"Why'd they name it Red Cloud? I reckon it's a strange name for a town."

The driver's grin widened. "Oh, they didn't. Injuns settled the site, come down the Colorado, ended up here. Named it after a leader or some other type. But o'course when the gold rush came, well we moved them out and moved us in, and things ain't been right since." I walked a few steps from the driver, but his voice was dark when he added: "Bad luck, staking a claim on Injun ground. Rumour goes that it was a Mexican settlement 'fore that, but it had another name then."

I quirked a brow back in his direction. "And what was that?"

"Massacre. On account of what happened to make the Mexicans up and leave." He took off his hat and laid it beside the rickety wheel. "You sure you wanna go there, Sir? It strikes me it's a place where people go when they don't wanna be found."

Or when they haven't got a choice.

I didn't voice my answer, but gave the driver a nod. He knelt beside the wheel and squinted hard at it, so I walked a little ways off toward the water as he'd suggested. A patch of sun beckoned with a warm, flat rock, so I perched there and gazed into the shallows of the lake. A pond skimmer disturbed my reflection, leaping to and fro over the image of a young man in a pale suit. With the lakewater rippling and the brim of my hat shadowing my features, I could have been my own brother. The thought brought me to the wallet in my pocket, and I reached for it to unveil a letter I had read perhaps a hundred times on the journey so far.

Deed of Land:

granted to Mr ELIAS ALSTON Junior,

this third day of February in the year 1857.

Purchase made by Mr ELIAS ALSTON Senior in the offices of Alston, Brooke and Chatterley, New York City.

Granted property: land equalling a half acre on the easternmost road out of Red Cloud, California, upon which a foundation must be laid within twelve months in order to confirm ownership and intent to develop.