June, 1938

  “Alright, you animals.” Logan tugged on his belt in the light of the morning sun. “This was an unexpected turn, y’all wanting to get evaluated this year. But I don’t think it’s a big deal.”

  The three boys and their teacher, accompanied by their Green Coven witches, stood in the main street of the Sanctuary the morning after their trip to Kitty’s Saloon. Elise had treated John’s injuries, but his face was still bruised. The street bustled with activity as work had resumed.

  Logan lit up a cigar and continued, “Now, I thought about it last night. I can see only one way to get you three cretins ready for the eval by Hallows Eve.”

  “Oh yeah! What’s the plan?” Buster couldn’t contain himself. Mavis, floating beside him, nodded in commiseration.

  “The plan is for you to shut the hell up and let me finish.”

  Buster scowled. “I should’ve known you would answer like that…”

  Calvin silently shot John a look. He could see in the daylight just how badly John had been beaten. This was simply unacceptable. There was no way he would let this crime against John and the Posse go unanswered. The anger boiling in his gut was starting to become hard to hide. John didn’t look back to him, focused on their teacher.

  “I wouldn’t be excited if I were you three.” Logan chuckled a bit, “We have to go up into the mountains for just about the whole time before the evaluation. We won’t come back often, I dunno maybe once or twice. So I think you should take care of any loose ends here before we leave.”

  Calvin found himself curious. “Why are we going up to the mountains? What’s up there?”

  A horse-drawn wagon passed them by, with three Plaid-shirted workers with rifles riding in the back. They had some boxes marked ‘TNT’ in the carriage. The workers waved to the Logan’s group, and Logan waved back. He figured they must be taking explosives to the silver mines. This reminded Calvin that work continued regardless of his own personal efforts and challenges. It made sense, the Posse was way bigger than him and his personal journey.

  Logan nodded. “We are going up to Greybeard Mountain, to visit the man the mountain is named for. He’s a… special teacher. I’d rather y’all just meet him. All you need to know now is that he is a master of Resolve who can get you guys up to speed much faster than I can. That will free me up to teach you combat techniques specifically.

  “So how are we gonna have two teachers at once?” Asked Buster.

  “You will work day and night learning from both me and the old man.”

  All three boys stiffened up. Buster dropped his jaw, “How are we supposed to sleep!”

  “Sparsely.” Logan shrugged, “You wanna do the exam this year or not?”

  “Yes, we’re doing it.” John nodded, “We will take anything you throw at us.”

  Logan raised an eyebrow. He looked between the three of them. Buster and Calvin had on similarly determined looks. They reminded him of old friends from his youth. He smiled forlornly, hoping things would be different for them than the Guns from back then.

  “OK boys. Let’s get to work.”

  The journey up to Greybeard Mountain wasn’t particularly long. They made the trip on horseback, Calvin riding Chip up the sloping path. He watched the trees roll by as they gained elevation, unable to resist a smile.

  He couldn’t help but find peace in nature. The wild lands had their own kind of business, just like the hustle of the Sanctuary streets. Only unlike the works of man, with their rifles and explosives, nature was always in harmony. When left alone, everything turned like gears in a clock. Their endless winding and interfacing brought him satisfaction. It was even clearer to him in a Resolute State, where he could see the flowing currents of natural energy at work.

  Calvin found moments like these ripe for contemplation. He thought about the gun on his hip, a pistol made of the mysterious Gellerite. This was not natural, it was entirely an invention of man. All of the spite, all the judgement, all the hatred of Man was poured into his weapons. They were all poured into the pistol Calvin carried with him. He couldn’t help but see a discord between the workings of nature, and the artifices of man. Times like these, Cal wondered what his dad would have to say.

  The young Baird kept a running collection of thoughts and questions he would present to the older Baird, when they met. Calvin wanted to know what his father felt about such things. Louey had always told him his inquisitive nature was normal for Clubs like him, Clubs like his dad. There were a ton of things about the Posse which Calvin didn’t understand. He figured his father would have some answers at least. If the guy was so strong in their ways, he had to have gained pretty significant understanding of the magical world. Calvin wanted to ask him so many things.

  His contemplation was interrupted by the blonde-haired witch, lazily floating alongside him now. She had her hands behind her head, as if floating on her back in a swimming pool.

  “You look like you’re deep in thought.” She smirked, “What’s kicking around in that pea brain, hmm?”

  Elise didn’t have much to say to John at the moment. She could see he was deeply wounded from last night, and decided that now was not the time for her little pokes and prods. She wanted to encourage him, comfort him like he clearly needed, but Elise couldn’t think of how to go about it. She didn’t know how to talk to boys, other than her father and brother, outside of antagonization. She envied how sensitive and communicative Mavis was, how naturally the feminine energy came to her. Elise decided she would pester the cursed boy instead.

  Calvin had no problem answering truthfully, “I’m thinking about this gun on my hip.” His voice was a little melancholic.

  Elise looked at him quizzically, “What, are you gonna shoot somebody?”

  “No. I’m thinking about the gun itself, as a creation of Man.” Calvin gestured to the woods passing around them as they clopped along, “Look at the trees, look how pretty they are. How well they fit in with the stuff around them. The bushes too, and even the rocks. These are the creations of nature, everything in harmony.”

  His head dipped, “Now think about this gun. Think about what it does, the only thing it does. It cuts things down. My knife too, same thing. These are our works.”

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “Whoa, that’s deep man!” Buster grinned, “I like that. You oughta write that stuff down.”

  Elise quietly listened, focused on Calvin’s face. She hadn’t expected genuine thoughtfulness from him. His green eyes were sharp, she found herself staring as she listened. Her focus was shaken by deep laughter.

  “Ha!” Logan slapped his knee, “Somebody’s reading a little too much philosophy for his own good!”

  “Oh yeah?” Cal raised an eyebrow, “Am I wrong? Should I stop thinking so much?”

  “Yeah you’re dead wrong, kid.” Logan puffed a cigar, not looking back at the boys riding behind him, “You are an animal, like all the others. Only, you aren’t like a cute little chipmunk or a damned mockingbird. You’re a predator, like a jaguar. You know what jaguars do?”

  John listened in silence, now curious. He hadn’t heard much of Logan’s own philosophy before.

  “Jaguars kill things. They kill them and eat them. If Jaguars only reproduced more, selected a wider range of prey, they would swallow up the whole world. Just like us. It’s every creature’s nature to consume and destroy, particularly predators. Without this, the ecosystem just doesn’t work. Every predator kills, survives, reproduces. That’s their biological imperative. You animals got that same imperative. It’s why you are happy to carry tools of destruction, and keep around women.”

  Her cheeks flushed, Elise threw an acorn at Logan. Without even seeing it he dipped out of the way.

  “That’s a little degrading, Logan!” She grimaced. “We aren’t ‘kept around’ for reproduction!”

  “I said its their imperative.” Logan snickered, “Besides, I’m not just talking about males, sweetheart. You witches all get a sizzling good deal, having free access to any man you chose in the Posse. Y’all don’t do it just for our magic neither. Maybe these boys can be tricked into thinking they’re the only animals around here. They’re young. But I toted around a witch just like you for years, and its more accurate to say she toted me around. So stick that ‘degrading’ shit back in your bag, little lady.”

  Calvin had to admit, it was very nice to have girls around. He was enjoying Elise’s smell, while she was close by. He decided not to add to her aggravation. “What about the pistols, teach? How do you fit that into argument?”

  “There’s two answers about the pistols. The first one even you morons can understand, but the second I don’t expect you to get right now. I didn’t when I was your age.”

  “Try us.” John piped up.

  Logan nodded, “Fine by me. Firstly, a gun is as natural as anything else around us. It’s all atoms, just arranged in a very particular way. Firearms are the result of thousands of years of close observation of natural elements, experimentation with those elements, and mastery over the laws of nature. The rocks you mentioned have iron in them. Through science, we can refine and strengthen that natural element. We can shape it with engineering, which is just fancy mathematics. We mix natural items together in unconventional ways to make our weapons. They are every bit as natural as soil beneath our feet.”

  Buster and Calvin looked to one another, not expecting such an intense answer.

  Logan continued, “Science is nature harnessed to a specific aim, and science is what gives us our guns. Just like the bumble bee takes pollen and processes it into honey, something it uses to survive, so we do with the minerals in the mountainside. Only we use other elements, like that TNT you spotted earlier, to extract them. Man is natural, even if he doesn’t craft his hives from bodily materials.”

  Calvin blinked a bit, processing this. It did make sense, even if it busted his Man vs. Nature dichotomy.

  “The second thing?” John appeared unmoved.

  Logan chuffed a bit, “Yeah. The second thing. I don’t expect you to get it right away.”

  “You keep saying that but we haven’t heard it yet.”

  “Alright well if you shut your busted lip then I’ll tell you.” Logan exhaled smoke, “These guns, these pistols in particular, don’t belong to us. We didn’t make them on our own, and we aren’t permitted the material to do so if we don’t already study Resolve. Just as the world is full of the natural and supernatural challenge, so then Humanity is given the natural and the supernatural tool to overcome that challenge. The pistols aren’t the first of those tools, and I really doubt they’ll be the last. They're made from a material which was given to you, deliberately, not something you found in a mountainside. The most I want to say is that they are here in our hands by design. That design involves the purpose of the pistol. And what is the purpose of the pistol, hmm? What do the budding philosophers think about that?”

  Their silence was deafening to the Bootknife. It brought a chuckle to his lips.

  Looking to the witch at his side, Calvin could see her grim demeanor. Elise took in every word, her eyes focused on Logan. He could feel the anger bubbling from her. Calvin was starting to understand what Louey had told him about the witches. Bouncing from one emotion to the other, they let their feelings dictate their reality. This was not, as many a Posse member had erroneously assumed, the product of the feminine mind. Other women were not this way, it was specific to the Covens. Just as Calvin’s Resolve was cultivated through concentration and emotional control, Elise’s magic was made manifest by her emotional state. To hamper it with restraint and stoicism would only take away its power and ultimately put her and her team mates, namely him, in danger.

  “You think you’re special, cowboy?” Her voice was dark, “You think toting around that Gellerite makes you better than us? You even know what it is?”

  “Shut your mouth.” Logan spoke in a flat, intense tone.

  Calvin clenched up on the reins as he heard those words. They were heavy, a different tone than he had ever heard Logan take up. He told them to shut up all the time, but not like this. These were not quite Words of Power, but they had the same effect on him. Chip picked up on this and disregarded the otherwise obvious order to halt. The horse snorted in annoyance.

  After a moment of silence, Logan continued, “How many times do I have to tell you? I’m not one of these boys. If your Witch Superior knew you were speaking to an elder Gun so flippantly about things you just don’t understand, she would have you punished.”

  John swallowed, intimidated by Logan’s sudden change of tone. “Uh, hey teach. No harm, no foul right? She’s new like us. I’m sorry, man.”

  Logan nodded, “Yeah, no problem.” His tone softened significantly. “Look, Elise. I understand where you’re coming from. But you remember how respectful we were when we first came to the Coven? We owe reverence to things we don’t understand. I’m just asking for the same courtesy. That’s all, honey. You wanna be an ass to the boys? I get it. Hell, I hope you give those animals all the grief they deserve at their age. But don’t make assumptions about the Posse, when it comes to our magic.”

  Elise did not respond. Logan took the uncharacteristic silence as acknowledgement. He decided to return to the original subject of their discussion.

  “Ya know Baird, you do have a point about us.”

  “Oh yeah?” Calvin raised his eyebrow. Their teacher never called him by his last name before.

  “Oh sorry. Calvin.” Immediately he caught himself. The boy sounded too much that other Baird, way back when they were young. The other’s stark blue eyes were the main difference, otherwise they looked and sounded the same.

  “Yea see what I mean, Cal, is that I think I agree on one thing. Humanity is capable of something that I just don’t see in nature.”

  “We hate each other.” Calvin answered, knowing full well what he was talking about.

  “And everything else.” Continued the elder Gun, “I don’t see jaguars killing things simply because they are disgusted or otherwise dislike them. Ant colonies will wage war for weeks, but not harbor an ounce of malice. You can tell by their energy in the currents. Things will fight for survival, reproduction. We do too. But sometimes, we fight and kill just because we can. That’s not natural, but it has nothing to do with pistols and knives.”

  “Still think I’m thinking too much?” Calvin shot him a catlike smirk.

  “Reading too much high-minded literature, maybe. But I want you boys to listen to what I’m about to say. It is probably the most important lesson that a Six-Gun can learn. These are words from Grady himself.”

  That made all three of the boys snap up straight. Mavis and Elise couldn’t help but be curious too.

  Logan removed the cigar from his mouth. “We members of the Posse must never draw our guns in hatred. The pistol on your hip is a divine weapon, meant to strike down the enemies of Man. And there are many. You will only use a gun, and any Resolve technique for that matter, to protect your life and the lives of others. To maim or kill for sport, or simply out of anger, is to break your oath to the Posse. If you do this, I will consider you an enemy of the Posse and the people, and I’ll kill you. I hope that’s clear.”

  Logan had indeed made himself clear to the boys and the witches. Calvin didn’t feel like continuing the conversation.