Forgiven

I had just finished 2018 focusing on one of the many Sultans yet who had not graced my pages either in any way at all or as more than just a name dropped at some point. With my new goal set in sight, same as the last with a secret finish, I began 2019 immediately looking at some of these individuals who should be playing a larger and more dominant role in these Tales. Just on a side note here, this rarin' energy to tackle the line of Sultans ended here. Don't want to build this up too much or anything, it's just that I follow where the stories lead and as soon as this Tale, "Forgiven", was finished, I started chasing other shiny objects 'cause they were there and demanding. Here though, I was ardently pro-Sultan in my arrangements and began at once (literally, first words were started just after midnight New Years Eve).

Now, here's what I had when looking at who I should try to follow. First, at this point, I had only about half of that company of 30 men who first found gold in this valley named. A few had become close friends, to some degree or another, and some were acquaintances and then there were those names just dropped and left such as Jeffords who is mentioned in "I'll Always be With You, Boys" along with Sam Arn and Charles Lahore. Now Charles, he I have only hinted here and in "The Obsession of Doctor Paulk" and I had then nor have yet to delve deeper into what I know of him beyond his death. As for Sam, he and Jeffords are mentioned in the same sentence in "I'll Always be With You, Boys" as ones whom William Nesmith asks of Alexander Gitney whether he had seen them amongst the visitors who haunted him nights.

As to the reasons why these two should be counted in amongst Gitney's visitors is that all of them were ones lost in the mines. From this hint I have assumed that Arn and Jeffords both perished... or were lost... in the depths but I knew not how. I do not still know what happened to Sam Arn. The last I heard of him was in the summer of 1872 when his beloved dog Punch disappeared. Before that, he was seen half a year before watching with Charles Chesterfield the attempts at getting the body of an unknown woman out of the large cottonwood that hung over the Baptist church that was being erected. I still don't know what happened to him. His death is hidden from me, as are his bones, but I've heard some whispers amongst some of the Mortenson Men who visit that there might have been an explosion involved. I'm in no hurry to find out and I am sure that when the time comes, he will be there.

As for the other, he was just a name with nothing attached. Being that I at least had a place in which to start, him being lost in someway in the mines, I had my number one suspect, someone I did not need to really push much harder on. There were others in the background waiting, such as Hamish Rós and Steven Clayton, or even John S. Mortenson himself, but Jeffords began speaking to me immediately. I suspect he was ready for some time as the story came out with relative ease, especially when two other thoughts occurred to me, the first being the shuffled step of Buck Jackson as he walked through Alex Gitney's house and the night in which Buck Jackson died, Christmas Eve 1871 when the moon was full and the bulldogs were howling. Seriously, the story came in a flood after that, all 3,836 words.

Just a quick aside here: Around this time I also decided that I really, really needed to set up some databases of my stories in order to keep track of this growing cast and their connections, some way in which to keep things straight. Well, I've ended up with a few now and in a few posts, I'll go into some of them. This post is about "Forgiven" though, a story which I finished on the 7th of January, 2019, seven days after beginning it. This is mentioned here because one of those databases, the one I call "Baird's Holler Master Story Index" has within it a separate page for each Tale detailing certain aspects of it such as the date it takes place, whether or not it has been published (or sold), the cast of characters, what story arc if any it belongs in, word count, story position of order written, and when the story was written. Everything beyond this date I have that direct accounting of.

As for "Forgiven", this was going to make me for the first time confront Buck Jackson's death, something that I knew to a slight degree what happened and directly when, but nothing more aside from the boon that death brought his widow... and thus me with a whole raft of story possibilities. I'm kinda thankful to Buck myself, and in a way, Felix Jeffords. The only thing I truly knew of Buck's death outside of him being lost in the mine was that his loss was a sacrifice, one which saved the lives of 15 other Sultans, an engineer named Hugh Goff who I met in my very first story, and some dumb jackass who got stuck with all these important people. Just so you know, that jackass will have his own excellent adventure as the last story written in 2019, finished that Christmas Eve. His mention here was, well, beneath the notice of our dear Mr. Jeffords. He had other things on his mind.

So, what I knew was that Jeffords, Jackson, Goff, 14 other Sultans (owners of the Mortenson Mine... I forget, I should remind that occasionally) and some dumb jackass trapped in the mine and I knew that all but Buck Jackson would make it out. Okay, well, how does Jeffords play into this? That was the discovery of the week and the reason this story just came out so clear and clean. See, Jeffords started telling me, as apparently he told a lot of people in his last year and a half after the accident that took Jackson, his confession. Oh, I was uncertain at first his claims, just like his colleagues with the Mortenson Mine and even Delores Jackson herself. Yeah, he was never considered a very likable man, but this defeat which came over him following that evening was extreme. He bore guilt that none would accept and confessed to crimes past none knew how to respond to for they were confessions 2,000 miles distant among men trying to heal their scars.

Felix Jeffords was not a good person. Oh, he had no trouble with himself nor his personality because, well, he was from when he was, from where he was, and of the trade his family had been in. He wore his bitterness on his sleeve for he lost everything irredeemably in and following that conflict which tore the young nation apart. He was of a long line of slavers, dealers in human flesh, a trade his family had been long steeped in and, due to what he considered a blasphemous tragedy, saw it all come crashing down with the enforcement held by the tip of a Reconstructionist bayonet. When, after a year of night-riding, it was no longer safe to return home, he fled west with all that hate still in his heart. It still burned four years after becoming one of the richest men in the Arizona Territory, still stung that to save his reputation, he had to sign a contract making him the equal of a black man.

As for where in the mine this tragedy was to take place, I had that already as well. In "Tears in Green Satin", I hinted at the very basic structure of the mine with the mention of one particular tunnel and the drifts that spread from it. The B-line is the suspect tunnel here. The lettering goes all the way to H with the A-line being the primary tunnel. The B-line was one known to be closed 1874, the date that story concludes. Being the gold was discovered  in 1867, the town risen the next year, and the tragedy which took Buck taking place at the end of 1871, here again was another accidental fit. From the hints I've heard, this particular tunnel was abandoned for good reason.

This is all I'm going to say outside of I really found a love of slavers with this story. Please, don't take that wrong. This fondness I have developed for them, be they folk like Felix or those found in other Tales taking advantage of the Credit Ticket system (for starters), is based on how delightful it is to put them in my stories. See, those in my stories, be they young or old, race and religion not withstanding, their moral fiber strong or frayed to tattered ends, it doesn't matter. This is the god-damned Bajazid and, well, it don't care. Thus, as Chronicler of these Tales, I must assume for these records an agnostic stance as best I can. I admit I develop extreme fondness for some of my players for divers reasons. In some cases, such as Norbert Pike and Ernest Weber, I really like the guys and feel slightly bad for what my keyboard is going to be doing to them in the next couple of weeks. With slavers, taking them as a class, I've grown fond of them because nothing that I do to them ever makes me feel in the least bit as if I over-did things. They're kinda fun... if you know what I mean.

Oh, tomorrow is Valentine's Day... just in time for my dearest love story to show up next in the cue...