A Preview: The House that Jack Built

Jack took off his slouch hat and ran his hand through his blond hair to wipe the dirt and sweat away. Already a well-built man at twenty-three, he was over six feet, muscular, never one to shy from work. He rode Boaz, his sorrel stallion, up the winding dirt roads that led to the peaks of the Gold Mountains and the valleys that hid in the higher altitudes of the range.

Here was the Feather Valley. It was his family’s land. His father sent him up to these highland pastures. The old house needed repair, and Jack needed to decide what he’d do next. He’d been lied to. He knew it. But it was his fault. All of it was his fault. Time to come to grips with his past and how to keep it from happening again. The conversation with his father played in his mind over and over again.

“That kind of woman will tear you down,” his father had told him. “What the hell were you thinking?”

He breathed in the thin summer air of the higher elevations and grimaced at his flippant response. “I was having some fun,” he had said. “That’s all it was.”

“It wasn’t about fun for her,” said his father. “We Marshalls have a solid reputation in the King’s City. She wanted a piece of it. She wanted our name. She nearly got it. Didn’t she?” Jack rubbed the brown leather of the reins between his fingers and glanced at the waving strips that fell down the sides of the horse. He let out a harsh sigh and kicked Boaz into a lope as they entered the green grass and meandering streams of the Feather Valley.

It was an upland meadow, mostly flat, and encircled by the peaks of the great mountains. They looked like the rolling hills near the ocean from inside this valley, but here their elevation reached nearly 14,000 feet in places and remained snowcapped well into July. This was the first place he remembered. The first waterway through which he traveled amidst the convergent realms of the King. All four seasons met in this place. And for Jack, it was where he breathed free.

He’d spent his childhood here amid the clumps of yellow buttercups, the sojourning of blue butterflies, and the vanilla scent of Jeffrey pines. He’d played in the stream that wound through the land, watering cattle and the souls of all who drank from it.

The feminine spirit, the water woman, was in these rivers as she was in all waters. Jack felt her pull as he neared the old house. As a Key, he always felt her presence, near any body of water. For that was the nature of a Key. To him, she was a door to unlock. It was here that he’d met her for the first time.

The Marshalls settled the place years back, running cattle and harvesting lumber. His parents stayed there until the King beckoned them to His city just below the foothills of these mountains.

They sealed up the house and rarely returned as it decayed over the years. Jack and his younger, adopted brother Sam Fleming went up with their father to care for the ranch, but the trips had been fewer and further apart. Part of him wished Sam could have come with him. Sam was a map in human form. He could find the way to anywhere from anywhere. He probably could have found a shortcut up the mountain that would have gotten them up to the Feather Valley even faster.

Wind and morning dew chilled his face as he and Boaz tore through the buffalo grass toward the white ranch house. He’d been on the trail for over a week. He traveled fast. The way a lone man can with only his horse and his saddle and his gun.

“You’ve got a reputation now, boy,” his father had said. “I want you to go up to the Feather Valley and fix up the old house. Clear your head. You’re an officer now. You can take a year. That’s more than enough time for the city to forget.”

Boaz stopped at the stream and stood knee-deep in it. The horse lowered his head to drink from the slow-moving current. The waters reached up to Jack in a swirling cone that came to a point at his hand. He reached out and felt her cool, gentle touch. She only murmured to him. Words didn’t matter. He knew she wanted to take him to the King. He paused and sensed the mist of her against his neck. “I know,” he said, “I’ll go to him. Once I’m settled.”

Boaz whinnied, and Jack clicked his tongue, and they headed toward the dilapidated house. The wooden boards over the windows had rotted, and the glass was cracked and broken in the frame. The front door was dry and made brittle by the changing seasons. He could see the roof needed repair, and he wondered about the wreckage inside. When it came to a home, neglect was the most damaging sin.

They stopped by the front steps. Covered in dirt and pine needles, the wraparound porch reminded him of the days of wooden guns and shootouts that brought down the proud, the fearful, and the furious. He jumped down and untacked the horse. Boaz turned to forage in the long grass.

Jack rested the saddle on the porch railing, flipping the saddle blanket over to keep the chipping paint from getting on the side that pressed against Boaz’s coat.

Then he went up the steps that creaked beneath him. He bounced on the boards of the porch until one gave way. Jack nearly fell through, and he lurched back at the sound of the redwood splitting before it hit the dirt below.

He’d head up to Eagle’s Peak tomorrow for supplies. He didn’t bring provisions as he wanted out of the King’s City the same day he graduated from the military academy at Fort Capitol. The ceremony was on the morning of June 12, and he wanted to move fast and make it to the Feather Valley on the first day of summer. That was his goal, and he’d done it. This was how he’d do things from now on. Order was his solace.

Now that he was Lieutenant John Marshall, there was no need to stay in the city, prostrated by gossip. He wasn’t going to marry a good-time gal. For that was what she was. Only there for the good times. She wouldn’t have lived poor like his mother had until his father had rank and money.

If he was gone, the society of King’s City would have their answer. If they didn’t believe it now, they’d know by the time the King’s Winter Dance came around. He wouldn’t be there. It was as simple as that.

Besides, he didn’t love her, and he stiffened at the truth. He shouldn’t have been doing what he was doing. Women don’t think like men, he thought. No, that wasn’t it. Maybe he didn’t know how women think at all.

His father was right. She had no interest in the duties required of a Key. And he couldn’t help but seek those duties out. It was his honor to be the King’s Key, even if it made him noticeably different. The blue eyes of a Key sparkled, attracting and stunning those who got caught in their gaze.

She, like many others, misunderstood the price of such a gift. Those handsome eyes were an outward sign of a life of duty. A Key unlocked the waters that led to the King for others, opened realms for others, protected and rescued others. To Jack, this was the life he was meant to live. His seduction made it clear to him that even he did not understand what being a Key truly meant. He had plans to form a squad based on these virtues, if he could find them in himself.

Desire had distracted him from duty. He bristled at the memory. The taste of her on his lips. She saw a Key as power she could wield. She bartered her body as payment, and in her economy, that made him hers.

But he intrinsically knew that power didn’t belong to him—not in the way she thought it did. It belonged to the King and could be taken from anyone who betrayed such a calling. He already wondered if he might lose the gift.

“Jack,” she’d said, “you need to marry me now. No more fooling around. I’m carrying your son.”

He grimaced at the memory of her voice. Her dark eyes and sharp red lips. He could almost swear her nose twitched as she spoke, like a cat with a mouse in its mouth. He didn’t like thinking of a woman having that kind of control over him. Especially one he never thought of as clever.

He shook his head and found the key to the front door in his breast pocket. He put it into the round, iron rim lock that rested on the door and wiggled it gently until it turned and clicked. The door fell open, and a waft of dust came up from the floor.

The room was dark and yellowed sheets covered forgotten furniture. Water stains streaked the walls of the foyer. He walked through the parlors on either side of the hall and stairway to the kitchen at the back of the house. The black wood-burning stove lay coated with dust but stood strong and undamaged.

He came back around and went up the stairs, testing each step and gently wiggling the banister as he rounded up to the small landing and the three doors off it.

Dirt and cobwebs filled the empty rooms and white flakes of dust filled the rays of sunlight coming through the broken windows. He could see more pronounced water damage on the upstairs walls, and he rolled his lips.

“I’m going to be spending a lot of time up on that roof,” he grumbled to himself.

He jogged back down the stairs then out the front door. The late morning sun hit the porch, and the heat of the first days of summer caused him to take off his coat and breathe it in.

He dropped the garment on the saddle before heading toward the outbuildings. The barn was leaning, and a few slats had fallen on the ground into the yard. He hopped the broken fence to pick them up as he searched to clear out nails and other debris. Boaz would spend the night here. Last thing he needed was an injured horse.

Jack went into the barn storage area and found an old fishing pole. A smile came across his face. He’d remembered showing his brother Sam how to fish. Sam had wanted to come with him up to the Gold Mountains, but he was a teenager still in the Academy. He’d be a soldier too, like his brother and his father. Jack missed him already.

With a mischievous grin, he went back to his saddlebags, pulled out some lures, and began stringing the pole. It had been a rough ride up and a trying final few months in the city. A little fishing didn’t seem too indulgent.

Tomorrow the work would begin. First, he’d equip the place and then start the job of building a house a man could live in. What that might bring him, he didn’t know.