⭐ Junie ⭐

Scar knows the road into Third City like the back of his hand. Could close his eyes and give a tour based on the taste of the wind alone, or so he says. The locals roll his eyes at that one; they’ve heard it a dozen times each. He means it as a compliment, so they let him say it again. As the closest permanent settlement to the edge of the desert, Third City sees a lot of traffic, and has a lot of goods for a merchant to stock up before heading out across the dry expanse. Which means they’re always happy to see Mr. Scar Goodtimes and his Swaggon roll up, fresh with coin and a few exotic trades from the towns further out, looking to restock for his next run. He’s not tight with his cash, though he haggles with the best of them and then some. It’s not about the money, really.

It’s the love of the game.

-----

Grian blames himself for the coyote getting close enough to bite Scar’s good leg. Scar doesn’t blame him–things happen. The desert is as dangerous as she is dry. Still, Grian tears a strip off his serape to wrap the wound. Rust soaks into red slowly. It’s a bad one.

“I’ll stay with you ‘til it’s healed,” Grian says, an almost begrudging vow as he helps lift Scar onto his horse. He slings the coyote’s body up after it, a single bullet hole clean through the skull. Can’t waste the meat. “Be unsporting-like, leaving you on your own. But only ‘til you can walk on it again. Then I’m gone.”

It heals. Grian stays.

-----

If he really wanted to, Scar could retire from the whole Traveling Merchant gig. Stopper the wheels and kick up his heels in any number of places, with enough coin tucked into the lining of the Swaggon to establish himself locally at any number of like-minded professions. Barkeep says Third City’d be lucky to have him full-time, instead of just at the end of spring. But Scar likes the circuit he’s set himself–the Circuit of Life. A kind of merchant’s pilgrimage, he calls it over his tankard, chasing the sun across the desert. Getting to see what the season brings anew; new friends, old faces, and everything in between. Excitement and meditation, all from a single wagon-shaded seat. And besides, without the Swaggon, how would Third City get half its gossip?

-----

Scar’s willing to go quiet. He drops to his knees in the riverbank, gives Grian the opening for a clean shot. One through the skull, just like the coyote. Grian shakes his head. Drops his gun. “The ghosts…they want more, Scar. They want blood.” And after everything, Scar follows him up the hill. What else can he do?

The ring of cactus they find is too convenient for this. Scar can’t help feeling like he’s been put on a stage for something beyond himself. He feels eyes from them–crows, perching, talons piercing the pith.

But he swings first. He gives Grian–and the ghosts–what they want.

It’s close. It’s rough. It’s bloody as hell, landing bruise after bruise. Scar doesn’t even feel his bad leg give out from under him; just the impact of stone on spine as he drops. He stares up at Grian and the Sun and the fist coming down.

He wakes up lying on his back, sun beating down on the hard ground beneath him. Overhead, dark spots swirl in his vision, growing larger and more numerous. Sounds beside him. One of the spots lands next to Scar’s head, and pecks at him. He raises his arm, and the crows scatter. Scar sits up. The desert around him is bare til the horizon line; not a town nor hill nor cactus in sight. Just the sun, and the fleeing birds.

-----

Scar’s no fool. Well, only sometimes. But he knows there’s something strange going on round the Circuit of Life. He knows he should’ve been dead in that cactus ring. And there’s a lot of other folks what should’ve been dead a couple of times over, that still poke their heads up whenever a new town gets its footing. Folks that can only seem to get along for so long before trigger fingers get itchy. Some kind of bloody baptism, borne of the desert madness.

Maybe that’s the reason Scar always waves Third City goodbye with a lighter heart than a parting should have, watching it fade out of view behind dust and dune. He doesn’t know when the others will cross him again, and he’d rather it be someplace with less collateral.

Last Chance is a bleaker place all round, and the people seem to like it that way; as untrusting as the rock-strewn landscape. They eye strangers with suspicion, and even the familiar sight of the Swaggon isn’t enough to spare Scar from the sidelong glances. He doesn’t blame them; just wins them over again and again with patience, honest deals, and his signature lopsided smile.

-----

The Swaggon looks like a kaleidoscope. Light filters through the bits of glass hanging from the eaves of the wagon, dancing in the sun. Everything around it shimmers with color. Scar knows it’s a hard sell. That he just happens to find all these crystals, in an abandoned mine near a town no one’s heard about? That he’s some kind of wizard now, dazzling them with charlatan sleight-of-hand? That Joel Beans has taken a shine to anything besides his wife and dogs, and picked up magic alongside him? But times are tough. A little bit of shine and sparkle goes a long way. People love to find something to put their faith in, even if it’s too good to be true. (Maybe especially if.) And Scar will always offer something.

-----

Nightfall in Last Chance always seems to come swifter than it should, or maybe it’s just a reminder of the town’s oddities. The streets are dead the instant the sun winks out from the horizon. There’s no law against it, not that Scar’s ever heard, just superstition; whispers that only bad things walk the night here, that leaving your room’s like to have you never return. The kind of tales you scare the kiddies with, except even the roughs fall in and lock their doors. No business without customers. With no vacancies found before shutdown, Scar pitches a tent just outside the edge of town to wait for morning. Just him, Pizza, and the Swaggon. At least the summer heat’s soaked into the rocks enough that the campfire’s for light more than warmth. And if there’s something dancing beyond the firelight, something watching in the darkness, well. Scar’s an old friend of the shadows.

-----

The crystals aren’t magic; the whole damn quarry is. With a whispered name, strength can flow from one person to another like giving blood. Grian shows him the trick to it–and leaves without returning the favor. That’s fine.

Scar gives generously. Drains himself dry for the chance at one more conversation.  His blood flows through so many veins. He keeps people off their last legs, living as long as they can.  Anything to stave off the loneliness. He wraps it in the language of trading because that’s what he knows the best. Offers items on loan, and takes payment in kind. Trust only goes so far; a contract is more than trust. A contract sealed in blood carries a weight.And if the others say it feels like dealing with the devil, well. It’s their souls, not his. They keep coming to him nonetheless.

Scar lifts his chipped cane, watching the crystal embedded into the head shimmer like fire in the dawn light. Tilt it just right, and the sun itself turns into a weapon. Today might be the day the devil comes to collect. There’s only so much a man can give. So far his grace and goodwill can stretch. So long he can wait for loans to be repaid. He has his own bills come due, after all.

-----

Scar can feel the eyes lingering on the back of the wagon as he rides out of Last Chance, and smiles to himself about it. A turn-back town’s got a reputation, after all, and if he knows that some of the squintiest sneerers are watching to make sure he’s not jumped in their eyeline, well. Despite his own reputation, he knows when to keep his mouth shut. Sometimes.

Dead Man’s Double is the happiest to see him, it always feels. Or maybe it’s just cooling down after he leaves Last Chance, and that relief sticks in his brain. The mines certainly keep it prosperous enough for a trader to feel right at home. As long as he doesn’t piss off the warden. Again.

-----

Scar’s not an idiot, much as he likes to play one. There’s no way that Grian’s going off to ‘hunt’ as much as he says, and coming back with so little. He’s seen the game around here; there’s plenty. Which means Grian is doing something else. Scar knows.

He’s also seen what happened to the one they call Scarlet. By all rights, closest thing she’s got to a partner is the hound. They say at night on the full moon, you can hear them both howling bloody at the sky. Scar thinks she sounds lonely as hell. And he wonders if that howling doesn’t sound a little too close to tears.

So Scar bites his tongue on where Grian goes during the day. As long as he comes home.

-----

They’re even happier to see him than normal–seems a local feud’s ending in a wedding, and everyone’s rushing to find a gift and a new dress in time. The hound-pecked tailor nearly weeps when Scar pulls out new half-bolts of fabric, and he can’t even bring himself to charge her more than cost. He owes her half his wardrobe, anyway; this is even. Especially for such a happy occasion. Few and far between, those seem to be of late. Getting to leave his mark on one’s good enough for the Swaggon (and its lasting reputation).

-----

It was supposed to be something good. A pet sanctuary, for the four-legged friends that didn’t sign up for the violence inherent to these little ‘games’ of theirs. A place to relax, away from the troubles. And it was free to enter! (With a ‘suggested donation’ on the way out–the animals don’t feed themselves, or eat cheap!) But Joel has never been one to stay his hand for blood, and Etho seems right on board with his chaos. They chase Scar onto the roof of The Lost Sailor and load up a keg of gunpowder right next to the feed trough. A trail out the gate of the little paradise, and a lit match. They plan to make him watch.

He doesn’t even look before he leaps.

Scar lands hard in a way that he knows he’ll feel in the morning, bad foot catching the edge of the water trough. It flips sideways, flinging the precious water right across the line of gunpowder. A perfect shot. The spark sizzling towards him hits the doused section and fizzles instantly–not a moment too soon or late. One of the cats nearby sneezes at the plume of dying smoke. They’re gone before he pulls to his feet. But he’s keeping the barrel.

-----

One of the fathers invites him to the wedding, but Scar begs the season. Any other town, he might have stayed; dancing with someone else in Dead Man’s Double just feels wrong, in the back of his mind.

“My only partner these days is the open road,” he says, tapping the side of the Swaggon. The father understands.

Nobody stays long in Fool’s Limit, and it’s always a bit of a drop in Scar’s heart when he stops by and sees how few familiar faces there are. The rowdy nature doesn’t help, he supposes. It’s not the most hospitable environment, in the heart of the emptiest and driest part of the desert that takes both summer and the falling winter hard, but Scar did always like the view of forever. Or maybe he’s just the fool in question.

-----

The Family starts as a joke–something to set them apart from the other gangs forming early on. Intimidating, intimate, and blatantly untrue in the funniest way.  Plus, it’s fun to call her Mama Cleo, and she don’t seem to mind.

Bdubs and Scar are Flint and Steel, just the right kind of different to let sparks fly, and yet never found far from trouble or each other. Calling him ‘brother’ rolls off the tongue with an ease that aches in a place Scar doesn’t wanna look too hard at. Helps to have Etho and Cleo around to keep an eye while they’re goofing off, and joking about Papa Etho’s white-haired age slides right into place.

They don’t have much in the early days–the so-called Bad Boys snatched up the old bandit hideout with its best views, and guard the leftover hoard sharp from the roof. Unfortunately for them, the bandits were fond of wood. Cleo gives the nod, and Flint and Steel set it ablaze. The bonfire makes a beautiful sight for a family picnic.

-----

As usual, a shootout starts on the road near the Swaggon once the sun sets–never a dull night in Fool’s Limit. One of the fighters stumbles into Scar as he packs up his shop, and when he doesn’t cower at the sight of a gun, the man blusters, “Who th’hell you think you are, gettin’ in my face?”

Scar stays cool, tipping his hat just so. "Well, I'm a merchant by trade, but as of right now, seems the only thing anyone's dealing in is death, an' my stock of bullets to sell is run dry." Between the hand resting calmly on his closed holster, and the look in his eye, the man decides Scar’s not worth the trouble. He staggers on past him, back into the fight.

He won’t last long without this, Scar thinks, twirling the man’s stolen revolver in one hand. A strangled cry from the other side of the wagon confirms it. Though he probably wouldn’t have, anyways.

-----

Mama Cleo’s glare down the ‘dinner table’ could light a keg tonight. “Take it off.” Still half in the doorway and holding it open, Etho’s free hand rises to his arm, hovering just above the strip of tangled red fabric. “I can’t. Skizz ties the knot funky; if I try to do it myself, they’ll know.” “And you care more about them knowing than us, is that it?” 

Between them, Scar and Bdubs share another glance over the stewpot. It’s never been easy since Etho started riding with the TIES; he said it was to have an eye on the inside. With how much of his day he spends with them, it’s starting to feel like the eye is looking the other way. And if there’s one thing Cleo can’t stand, it’s a liar.

Even through the mask, Etho’s mouth twists. “That’s not-” “Well it’s what I heard,” Cleo cuts him off, slamming the table. “We’re supposed to be the Family, and this is our house. You take them off at our table. If you don’t, you don’t eat.”

A beat.  And Etho turns around.

The flying boot slams him in the back of his head, sending him stumbling out the door with a yelp. It closes behind him with a rickety thud.

“Well. Uh.” Scar clears his throat, voice pitching just a little high after the silence. “More of Bdubs’ excellent stew for us, then, right?” He grabs the bowl at the far end of the table, moves it towards Cleo like a peace offering– Cleo stands, shoving it away so hard that a piece of potato flies out. “Keep it. And mine. Not hungry anymore.” She circles to the door to lock it, picks up her boot, and storms off.

Scar and Bdubs look at each other. Bdubs grabs Cleo’s bowl, and Scar keeps Etho’s.

-----

Dead men tell no tales, and they don’t buy a lot of goods neither, so Fool’s Limit ends up as a restock stop yet again. Scar helps set up the bonfire for the bodies–folks get tired of digging shallow graves–and no one minds if he rifles through their pockets first. The few mainstays wish the Swaggon well, and he hopes he’ll see them again next time.

Secret Springs on the horizon always makes Scar pause for a moment when he first crests the hill hiding it. He knows it’s still the heart of winter–still has the blanket laying over Pizza so it’s warm for him when night falls–but the sun seems to shine a little warmer on the near side of town. Calling him there too soon.

“Not yet.” He speaks out loud to no one, and knows he’s heard by the same. “Not spring yet.”

-----

This time, Scar buys the wood and the nails. He builds the walls, gets splinters in his hands on the way. It hurts, and it’s worth it, finally building something instead of breaking. Something that’s all his–that’s meant to bring people to him for once. Just because that big statue in town’s got everyone spooked doesn’t mean business has gotta stop dead and dusted. He hangs the sign out front, and steps back, leaning against the ornery old camel’s side to admire his work.

Trader Scar’s. The Swaggon parked out back. This time, he’s gonna stay.

—

It burns.

Scar stumbles out of the back room, coughing and yanking off his serape before it goes up in flames and tries to take him with it. It smolders in the dirt as he stares back at the building. As he watches the sign bend and buckle under the heat. No one comes with water; Scar doesn’t bother trying to put it out.

He stays until the embers die out. Until everything he built is gone.

-----

His winter work is done quick in Secret Springs; folks here make less of a fuss about bartering and haggling. They just buy, or don’t. Or maybe they know they’ll get another shot, that he’ll be back soon. He always is.

-----

Sometimes you have to know what your role in the story is supposed to be. If that crow-calling statue had plans for Scar, then so be it. He’ll make a new serape from charred fabric. He’ll line it with the last thread they had left in town. He’ll wrap his broken wrist, and leave the gloves off.

They want a villain? They’ll get one.

When Scar pushes Tango off the edge of the World’s roof, he doesn’t even wait to hear him hit the ground. When Etho lets the world know he’s out of time, Scar lets him make it to the front porch of his homestead before putting him down clean. When Cherry Hill goes up in flames, Scar hears footsteps on the burning stairs, and doesn’t even let Impulse see who fired the bullet that rips through his neck. When Gem’s body crumples at Pearl’s feet, riddled from two sides, Scar lets his spent casings clatter to the ground like thunder as he reloads.

He stands in the ravine, staring down at the broken corpse. Pearl’s corpse. At least the neck going first on the rocks means she didn’t suffer. Scar doesn’t think the story is supposed to end this way. He told her to watch her step. The villain’s not supposed to win.

The crows circle overhead, too numerous to count.

-----

The road out takes him past Vista Real, but there’s nothing worth stopping for; the place became a ghost town before it was even a town. His last visit was so short-lived he hardly remembers any of it.

Unlike the last stop on the circuit, which clearly remembers him. Gazing up the side of the cliff from which Wild Mountain takes its name, Scar can still see pieces of the old coaster track. Seems they’re not in a rush to take it down.

-----

Scar steps back and tilts his head up, one hand holding his tiny hat on as he looks over the track. It dips and curves high around him, the wooden support beam cutting through the sky. He gives a nod.The rumble comes like thunder. A modified mining cart rolls along the track, and over the beam, and past before tumbling off the rail’s abrupt end to skid along the dirt.

Behind him, Jimmy whistles low. “It’s actually standing?”

“I told you it’d work!” Scar tosses back, grinning. He hears two sets of footsteps come up, and braces his green-laced cane forward for balance. Jimmy and Lizzie rest their elbows on his shoulders in mirrored sync as if they’d all practiced that move a baker’s dozen times. (It was actually only 8; they were quick studies.) “All those storefronts taught me a thing or two ‘bout carpentry. Just think, a few more sections of track, and the cart’ll run it smooth as glass.”

“Rail Rider. The first freestanding coaster in the West.” Lizzie pushes the hair off her face to see it better. “They’ll come from all over to see it, with open purses.”

And the Bamboozlers can already hear the coin rolling in.

-----

Wild Mountain earns its name. There’s an almost manic level of activity going on round any given corner, and it’s never the same twice. Plenty of things to use, plenty of broken things to replace, and always seeking something new–a roving trader’s paradise.

The odder the trinket Scar’s got, the better it sells here, especially with the stories he can tell about them. He waxes lyrical over the goods, and the show itself can have a crowd gathered round, from curious kids to nosey old coots. It doesn’t matter if the story’s true or false at that point–just that he’s selling. And while they’re there, they might as well buy something.

His voice aches by the end of the night, but Scar and Pizza both eat well.

-----

A crunch in the sand behind him. Scar whirls, firing at the first thing in sight that moves. The bullet goes right through the tumbleweed, pushing it off course as it tumbles out of the firelight. Scar sags, heart still racing. He’s getting tired. He can’t drop his guard. He can’t. It’s out there somewhere. Hunting.

They’d all laughed when Big B burst into the cave in the mountain, bug-eyed and rambling about some kind of snail “hunting” him. It sounds like a joke. It SHOULD be a joke. They’re the accursed survivors of an endless bloodbath; the hell can a snail do? These damn things don’t count as snails anymore. Whatever madman designed these things twisted them into monsters–shells that come up to the hip, a trail that sizzled like acid, a lope and lunge like a rabid dog… And eyes that look just like yours, staring back. The worst part is that Big B was right; the snails are hunting them down. Scott’d been the one to find the body–Big B’s body, half his face melted and the other half frozen in agony, with an empty snail shell lying next to him.

The night is cold. Exhaustion pulls at Scar’s mind. The fire before him dances, doubles, deepens in color. His heart pounds in his ears like a drum. Shapes in the fire. Friends. Foes. Faces. A symbol like a door hinged diagonal. He blinks slow.

Too slow.

As the sound of chittering cuts through the drum, Scar sees it leaping over the fire–and the last thing he sees is eyes like his, staring back.

-----

On paper, the circuit turns back north to Third City now–there’s rumors of some folks heading out past Simpleton’s Bluff to follow a river down, but there’s nothing there for Scar. Not yet. And yet he leaves Wild Mountain through the same side of town he came in. Heads back past Vista Real. Rolls down the mountainside with the melting snow.

It’s early spring when Secret Springs sees the sunflower on the Swaggon again. Folks that missed him the first time round get their chance at what Wild Mountain leaves him holding. He asks if anyone’s stopped by the walled-in space on the edge of town, anyone from out of town. No one has. No one but him ever does. He still goes, as always.

-----

Scar pauses at the edge of the rough stone wall, as he does every time he comes home. Closed eyes can see it, waiting for him still.  Gaudy orange arches. Windows full of trinkets. The low murmurs of deals being made. Trader Scar’s, on the edge of town. Where everything has its price.

He opens his eyes. The sunflowers greet him instead. As they do every time he comes home.

Desert sand’s an ill-fit environment for the true sunflower, delicate in constitution compared to its weak or prairie cousins. And any dirt’s either been claimed for farmland or too hard to break into with thin roots. The only place with unused soil turned and mulched enough to feed them is the graveyard, dug by hand in the space where Trader Scar’s once stood. And here, they flourish, self-perpetuating on the bodies of other fallen flowers. A garden that shouldn’t be hanging on, by any right, and yet.

The headstones look a little worse for wear. No one comes to tend them while Scar’s gone–he doesn’t ask them to. The fact that moss can grow on them at all is something like a miracle in all things, and yet it crawls over the stone like a claiming. It can stay, Scar supposes. Any color in the desert. And the crows seem to like it; easier to perch and dig their claws into moss than the headstones. The flock that gathers here seems to grow in number each visit.

Scar moves among the flowers with reverence and respect. He pauses at each headstone, slowly wiping dust free from the name with the edge of his green serape. The one with whorling sunflower patterns sewn along the sleeve-edge. The one he only wears here; as if he could bring himself back to before it all went wrong. Back when this was Trader Scar’s, and the names on these headstones belonged to customers who’d come waltzing through his door. As if he could offer a deal to pull them out of the grave. He knows it’s superstitious–or at the least, silly. He’ll see them all again when the rolling caravans bring a new town on the horizon, a new promise with the same faces. Death’s both a constant and the most fleeting thing out here. And yet it’s hard to bury a person with your own two hands and then move on without mourning. Let alone sixteen of them. He’d stay here forever if he could. Among the crows, and the graves, and the sunflowers.

The crows leave. Scar knows he’ll have to follow.  Supplies don’t last forever, for him or the towns. He’s got rounds to make.

Lizzie

Etho

Scar

(does have transparent pixels in the glasses)

Cleo

BDubs

and of course, the speedpaint