Hunter's Bounty (Veller) (26 page)

“Here they are.” He said as he waved his arm over three stones that stood in a silent row. “I’ll… go find Garth for you
. He’s probably in the caretaker’s shack.” He added as he made an awkward, if not gracious, departure.

She
said nothing as she stared at the headstones reading the names off silently to herself over and over again in a vain attempt to make it real, but no matter how many times she read them, they were just words on a stone. Was this what the old guard dog meant by the cycle of life, to live and die and live again?

The first stone, the smaller and by far the oldest, bore the name of Andrew Veller, the brother she had never met. He died before she was born, he was only four. In many ways it was because of him that she was even born, although it wasn’t what their father had in mind when her parents tried for another child. The second stone belonged to her father, Harold Veller.

She could remember the day her father died, that was about three years ago. She was still at the Academy when she received the letter from her brother Leon. Headmaster Oblum had given her permission to go home for the funeral, but she really didn’t have any desire to see her father or to say goodbye to him. Their relationship was less this hospitable. He had no use for a daughter and had often reminded her of that fact. He didn’t want her to become a hunter and had arranged to have her marry Oric Talon’s son Pordist in exchange for some bottomland to expand the farm. When she went away to become a Hunter, he told her that she was no longer welcome and to never come back, of course not in those exact words.

The new stone bore her mother’s name, Elizabeth Veller, nobody had ever called her
Elizabeth, she was always known as Beth. The date was nearly three months ago, about the time that the Hunter’s Guild had put a stop to all class E deliveries because of the so called accidents. That was why she never received word of her passing, if she had, would she have returned? She could lie to herself and say she would have, and she might have, but she didn’t really know. If she had received the letter and she had returned to Riverport, she wouldn’t have received the assignment that sent her to David Draw’s house, and she wouldn’t be where she was now. She ran her hand over the stone hoping to capture the warmth of her mother, but she could only feel the cold marble. To live, to die, to live again, that was the cycle of life she reminded herself as she plucked a blade of grass that grew on the grave and held it to her chest.

“I was told you wanted to see me.”

She turned to see an old man stooped with age dressed in a tattered brown tunic standing just outside the row of headstones.

“Yes.” Kile said as she got up, sliding the blade of grass into her pouch and dusting the earth from her knees. She felt strangely detached from the situation as she turned to face the old man. “I need to know what you know about William Rothershire.”

“Rothershire?” The old man said as he stared off into the heavens, reading the name on some unseen list. He nodded his head, turned and led her away from her family.

“I had a feeling someone would be coming, looking for William” The old man said as he glanced at a few of the stones before turning into a one of the rows. He stopped before a marble marker that bore the name of William Rothershire.

“So he is dead.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“What did you mean you had a feeling someone would be coming from him?”

The old man smiled, he never looked at
her, just kept looking at the tombstone, as if he could see his old friend lying there beneath the ground.

“I knew William when he first came to Riverport, that was about twenty years ago. He knew nothing about farming back them but damn he
was a scrapper.”

“
A scrapper?”

“Oh yeah, the number of times he cleared out
Flint’s tavern after having a few, you knew that man was trained to fight, but he could drink too. That was the problem you see, he was being chased by his own demons, and no matter how far and how fast he ran from them, they always caught up with him, that was when he started hiding from them in the bottom of a bottle. It wasn’t until about eight or nine years ago he came to grips with his past and cleaned himself up, but I guess his past caught up with him in the end.”

“So, this wasn’t an accident.”

“Accident, not likely, although there are some in town that would like you to believe so, no, if you ask me William Rothershire was murdered, for what, I don’t know, but he probably did.”

“Do you know where he came from?”

“He never said exactly, but I gathered from the way he spoke and the way he held himself, he was something important. He was a proud and honorable man, so whatever he did must have been so terrible to bring him so low.”

“He never told you.”

Garth shook his head. “I think, in the beginning he was too ashamed to talk about his past, but later on he… just wanted to forget. I figured that past would just catch up to him eventually. In the end he faced his demons and this was his punishment.”

Or his reward Kile thought as she looked down at the simple tombstone that only bore his name. There was no date of birth, no date of
death; there wasn’t even an epitaph, only his name chiseled into the face of the stone. This was all that was left to mark a vir’s life.

“Garth, have you seen anything like this before?” Kile asked as she showed him the ring she had found in Tally’s house.

He had to squint to see it better, but eventually nodded. “Yes… yes I have. William had a ring just like that.”

Somehow that was what
she expected.

“Are you sure?”

“Sure I’m sure, he used to stare at it from the bottom of a bottle almost every night.”

“Did he say anything about it? Did he say where he got it?”

“Not likely, but he did prize it. It was the only thing he kept from his old life.”

That was something
she thought as she touched the ring, that was another connection between Tally and Rothershire, but who was Rothershire.

“Thank-you sir.”
Kile said as she stepped away from Garth, but the old man place a hand on her shoulder.

“I’m sorry about your mother Mrs. Veller. Beth was a good woman, a kind heart.

“Thank-you sir.” She said again as she crossed the cemetery back to where Grim was standing.

The huge long haired black hairy horse standing in the middle of the graveyard as the sun began to set was an unnerving sight, but place a small white yarrow on his head, and it was just an oddity.

-What did he have to say?-

Grim asked as she got closer.

“A lot.” She replied as she led the pony back down the path to the stone wall. “I’ll tell you about it as soon as we’re back on the road.”

-Where
to now.-

“I’m not sure.”

She had hoped to get out of town and be back on the road before anybody even knew she was around, and the last person she wanted to see was the first person she ran into, standing just outside the cemetery walls.

“Ki?”

He was older than she had remembered, he had grown up in the last four years, but then he was forced to, with what he had to go through in that time. He was taller than she was, but then most people were, and his curly mop of red hair had been cut short, and the mustache only made him look more like their father.

“
Leon?”

“I guess I owe Keith and apology.” He said scratching his head as he always did when he was nervous. “When did you get in? Why didn’t you write?”

“Sorry Leon… I…”

“You weren’t planning on stopping by the farm, were you?”

“No. Not really.”

He
looked down at his boots and scratched his head again. Maybe that was what happened to his mass of red curls.

“This has something to do with the Hunters that came through here a couple weeks past asking questions. Questions about you. Had I seen you recently? Had I received any letters or messages from you? What have you gotten yourself into Ki?”

“It’s a little… complicated, but it’s not true.”

“Everything with you is complicated.”
He replied shaking his head. “Come on then.”

“Come on where?”

“Home. Jenny’s cooking supper, she usually makes too much and you’ll save me from having to eat leftovers tomorrow.”

“I can’t go home with… wait, who is J
enny anyway.”

“J
enny… Jenny Shelding.”

“The little freckled face girl with pig tails that use to live down the road from us?”

“That’s the one.”

“What’s she doing
, cooking your supper?”

“She’s my wife.”

“What? When? Wait… you married Jenny Shelding. You couldn’t stand her.”

“Things change, she grew up.
If you'd stopped home once in a while, you would have known these things.”

“I’ve only been gone for four years, when did this happen?”

“Not long after pa died.” Leon said as he scratched his head again. “It was… hard, taking care of the farm and ma as well. She came to help and well… one thing led to another…”

“So you decided it was just easier to marry her th
an to pay her a decent wage.”

“Yeah
, something like that.” He laughed. “Actually she helped me get through a really tough time and we got to know each other rather well.”

“I’m glad.” Kile said as she followed him out of the cemetery and up the road toward town. “I would hate to think of you alone in that house, now that… mom’s gone.”

“She was proud of you, you know that don’t you. When we heard that you were accepted into the Academy, she couldn’t be happier.”

“Thanks. That helps.”

“I was proud of you too.”

“Yeah, well that doesn’t help as much.”

“And dad was proud of you.”

“Now I know you’re lying.”

“Okay, maybe proud wasn’t the right word. By the way… why is that ugly horse following us.”

“That so called ugly horse happens to be my friend. His name is Grim.”

“Yes… yes he is.”

As they reached the edge of town, a horse drawn wagon, loaded down with supplies waited for
Leon as he hopped up onto the front seat.

“That’s new.”
She remarked.

“Had no choice.”
He said as he took the reins. “The old buckboard made its last run two winters back when the wheels decided to fall off as I was returning from town.”

“So the farm is doing well then?”

“As much as can be expected. We did manage to secure some of the bottomland that father was after, and last season's crops did come in better than estimated, of course the money you sent home had a lot to do with that, not that I’m gong to ask where you got it from.” He said as he looked over at her from the seat of the carriage. “That doesn’t have anything to do with why Hunters are looking for you, does it?”

“I thought you weren’t going to ask.”

“Fare enough.” He replied.

They took the northern road, although it was longer, it didn’t pass through town. Whether
Leon choose this route for a reason, he didn’t say, but she was a little more recognizable than what she had thought. If the Hunter’s had already come through asking questions about her once, it was probably best if she wasn’t seen by anyone else.

As they turned off the road, down the path that Kile thought she would never travel again, the Veller farm came into view. Much like the town around it, nothing had changed in the last four years. The old barn looked in need of a new roof and the tool shed did appear to lean a little more to one side, but beyond that, everything else looked pretty much like the day she left it, except for the house. It took
her a while to grasp the changes that had been made. With curtains in the windows and flowers in the front yard, this was not the same house she was raised in. Her father had always believed that if something was going to be grown in the yard, it had better be edible by either the family or the livestock. Growing flowers was just another form of idleness. If you had time to grow flowers you had time to grow vegetables, and as for curtains, they just served no purpose that he knew of. To see the house like this would have annoyed her father to no end, which was probably why she liked the changes.

As they came into the yard, a
young boy came running out of the barn. He stopped when he saw Kile on the Mountain Pony and then looked to Leon for some confirmation.

“Tad
. Unhitch the horse and brush him down, then get the supplies stored away.”

“Yes Mr. Veller.” The young boy replied.

“And put my sister’s… horse. It is a horse isn’t it?”

Kile just rolled her eyes.

“Put my sister’s horse up in the barn.”

“
Um… better not.” She said, stopping the boy short of actually coming into contact with Grim, who was not very pleased by the attention.