Jimmy Cajoleas - Gussy

MY FAVORITE TIME IS WHEN ME AND Cricket finish Last Lights, the final Rite of the day, when the work is all done and the protections are up. The wolf and the star are drawn in the dust, the cardinal feathers dangle in threes like little flames at the four corners of the town, and the chicken foot is buried in the desert dirt just outside the gates. Its a between time, that gloaming hour after sunset when the daylight is still hanging on, pushing back against the night. Its the first moment that I truly get to rest, and its the most perfect time of all, me and Cricket sitting there satisfied on the front porch while Grandpa Widow smokes a pipe and tells us stories. Its the safest I ever feel. At night, when the Great Doom is on the roam, the wind can howl and roar, the stars can blacken themselves, and the moon can run off and hide, but I know our village will be safe because the Rites were performed perfectly. I saw to it myself, me and Grandpa Widow and Cricket too.

Crickets my dog, by the way, has been for years. He wandered up all scruffy and half-starved out of the desert one day, and Grandpa Widow let me keep him. I dont know why I named him Cricket, its just what he wanted to be called, I knew it the moment I saw him. You can tell by the way he sticks his tongue out every time I say his name. Hes a happy fellow usually, likes to bark and fetch and sniff everything, but he takes the Rites serious, same as I do. Because the whole village depends on us.

Just the thought of the Great Doom out there at night, beyond the walls, past the gates, hovering over that whole stretch of dirt and rock all windblown and wild... I cant help it, it gives me the shivers. The Great Doom is always trying to creep in on the winds, and itll sneak inside any way it can, through the smallest error in the Rites, the slightest rule broken. So once the gates are shut, they stay that way. And if you think Im being some kind of scared little kid about the whole thing, well, youve got a lot to learn.

Trust me. When nighttime comes, you dont want to be out there, past those gates.

But this day, just after Last Lights, it all went a little different. This was how the troubles started, the very things that would change me and Cricket and Grandpa Widow and our whole village altogether. Yep, just as the final daylight glimmers were nearly dead and it was time for Big Gordo to draw the gates shut, I spied a speck on the horizon, small and tiny as a desert bat coming up over the hill, flitting through the glimmer. A rider, solo it looked like, some poor bedraggled messenger fleeing the dark.

You see that? I said.

Grandpa Widow just grunted. You could tell he liked it about as much as I did. A rider coming at twilight never brings good news. Truth was, I dont know how we missed him, as normally you can see for miles and miles everywhere and its plumb impossible to sneak up on a body. Thats a trick of the desert, a mystery of the light around here.

I tell you one thing, said Grandpa Widow. That rider best hurry, because we shut these gates when the light goes, no matter what.

Our village sits in a valley of desert, the Darkling Valley, bare dusty hills surrounding us for miles away on either side. Its a hidden little spot, an oasis in the long endless stretch of nothing. I say nothing, but I just mean there arent any people in it. Theres all kinds of other critters out there in the desert, snakes and spiders and lizards and wildcats and night birds and vultures and hawks and eagles and just about everything else you can imagine. Theyre smart enough to eke a living out of dust, which is more than I can say for humankind, let me tell you. If we were half of what critters are, we wouldnt have a care in the world.

Travelers through the desert arent uncommonwe have a dozen different folks dropping in and out day to day, messengers and peddlers and outlaws and hunters and just about any other type of person you could think of passing through on their way to elsewherebut most folks dont cut it so close to nightfall, when the Great Doom is on the roam. Still, sometimes I wake at night and I see lights crossing the valley, wagon trains led by torches. I hear little snippets of singing, folks hollering hymns and prayers, protections against the Great Doom. I see them and I say a prayer myself, the winds roaring and howling out there, and Im grateful to be safe here in the village, protected.

You wouldnt close the gates on the rider, would you? I said, because the nearest town is a three-day journey from here at best. You wouldnt leave him out there all night?

Grandpa Widow spat in the dust.

Id do what was best for the village, he said. You know good and well that is our first priority.

Grandpa Widow is twig-frail and about a hundred years old, but hes still the toughest person Ive ever seen in my life. I bet he could whoop half the village with a hand behind his back. Not that he would, mind you. Grandpa Widow isnt much for violence.

Listen here, Gussy.... Thats what Grandpa Widow calls me, Gussy or just plain Gus, even though my whole name is Gustavina Mithridates Pearl, which is a mouthful and a half.

Hell say, Violence is always a mistake. Even when its necessary.

I dont much know what that means, because in what world would mistakes sometimes be necessary? But thats the way Grandpa Widow is. He likes to say something and let you chew on it awhile. Says the act of figuring out what something means is more important than the meaning itself. Drives me crazy sometimes, Ill be honest with you.

But its hard to hold anything against Grandpa Widow. Hes the one who raised me up, who taught me how to keep us safe. Hes the one in charge of keeping the Great Doom from creeping in and infecting everything by performing the Rites. Years and years of Protectors have come and gone to pass down these rituals to Grandpa Widow. He brought them here to the village more than fifty years ago. Because when the Great Doom gets infrom a hole in the gates, or an ill-tied cardinal feather, or if some desert dog digs up the chicken foot, if anything at all goes wrongthen it sets about infecting things. And if a house gets sick, thats trouble, because thats the sort of sickness that spreads faster than a fire. Grandpa Widow can cure a househe can cure anything, so far as Im concernedbut it takes a lot of work, and thats hard on a fellow as ancient as Grandpa Widow. Thats why he is training me and Cricket. We are supposed to take over when he gets too old.

It made me nervous, watching that rider, still so far out from the gates. I wished hed hustle up. Things take so long to arrive anywhere in the desert, even when you can see them coming with your own eyes. I didnt want him getting shut out, the Great Doom having its way with him.

Big Gordo was getting antsy too, you could tell. His name is no joke. Hes near seven feet tall and bald-headed as the moon, his voice rumbles like faraway thunder, and hes the only person in town strong enough to swing the gates all on his own. His biceps are twice the size of my whole skull. But Big Gordos no brute, not when you get to know him. He spends most of the day reading, for one. Im always sliding him books from Grandpa Widows library on the sly, so he can have something to do instead of stare out at nothing, hoping for some kind of fancy mirage all day. He has the gentlest blue eyes the shimmer of hailstones, and he can whistle like a blackbird. Also hes a poet, but thats another thing Im not supposed to tell anybody. He writes poems about exotic flowers, mostly, and about snowstorms and great big slabs of ice he calls glaciers. He says they move slow over the earth like ancient beasts, scraping the ground dry.