The music of the loom started out ceremonial, bright but heavy on the chest and not just a small bit enchanting - the town was turning out, the word had been spread.

Who didn't want to see the flag revealed?

A momentous event, not just because of the food now trickling in from the fields, but the canal had been started to make that food a flood, an attached pool where people could swim safely, they wouldn't have to travel as far for water. The opportunity of new properties not hoarded but auctioned?

Bzzzzzzzz -Swat-

Yes, all new land auctioned, cut into tidy squares like a patchwork quilt and handled by the upgraded Bank, and the money? The marbles?

Divided equally between all members of the Font? Was that really true? That it was like passing a baton, everybody was going to be able to buy a bit of land to own themselves...the wealthiest would get first pick, of course, but all that wealth...another fresh start...

The town was undergoing a change - it had felt like a hectic dream since the Catcher's Moon, there had been so much work to do. That when people had stepped outside. As they let the worries, the world - go, in a way they had been running from them.

Trying to escape.

And there had been plenty of distractions, at first it was just the amazing marvel of the holiday, the Lights, and then the fishing! All those marbles, that they took to catching them like it was a job, work - and they also had fun. Had the first proper meal since the Breaking.

Of course they wandered the market looking at things to buy, saw what others were selling. Of course they had something to sell as well? Of course there were things there they wanted...couldn't afford.

Certainly they could dump their valuables, their excess property in the scrap heap but what then, when the marbles were gone? They needed jobs. What company was hiring? What company still existed?

Contracts. Always something to do, something easy, something you didn't even have to think about, just work. Go to the church, eat, work, fish...shit -

Not in the river. Fuck?

It's not like there were pregnancy tests, doctor visits, they wouldn't know if it was just late this month, but -

They'd worked, not that mundane job that you regret going to each day, but they had time for breakfast, for family, for little things and bigger, maybe no work at all that day? The weather was great, just a church picnic and a walk around town, listen to the music they were always playing...

Of course you knew if you did that you'd see all the neat stuff for sell...did you really need it though? Of course not, but this afternoon, if you weren't busy, just one contract? Just wheel a rock a half mile for a marble? Three rocks? There's a hole that needs to be dug on the way and there was always mining, contracts to buy the ore...

It was easy to sleep, working like that, sleep in? Of course those roosters would be crowing, you couldn't get away from that, and somebody was hammering the second daylight broke...

Since the Catcher's Moon it had been like one long day for the people of Red Hills, perhaps even a good day, looking back. The monsters? They didn't attack people, not unless you went far away from the town, the part where nobody lived, the abandoned houses and ranches, where old windmills stood like strange relics of a confusing past, where oil wells looked like metal birds frozen in an act of pulling a stubborn worm from the soil -

So much work to be done, marbles to be made, catch a special fish and it was like winning the lottery...

People had been afraid, running from hunger, from fear, from the idea that the world was Broken. Some claimed it better but the average person? The average person who was use to coming home from work, watching tv, having air conditioning? A bowl of ice cream -

That could pick up a birthday gift on their lunch break, could call their mother in Tallahassee? They weren't sure. Didn't see that it could get better, they were running in fear. Fight or flight -

From the Breaking.

They didn't know it was the chains that broke, the weight of an unexamined life. They didn't yet realize, weren't ready, so use to numbing the emotions of existence that there was no chance to awaken a power based on the Self. The Spirit -

The human spirit that had become enslaved.

That was what broke, wasn't it? That was why the free spirits awakened powers first, the people that were living according to their nature? That people, as they woke up, as they blinked their eyes and realized, asked themselves what they wanted to do? Started doing it?

More powers being awoken, Passions - all. Anything could be a passion. The most common power, the easiest way to channel the self into something more. Something permanent? Something important to them...

Most people weren't ready, not yet, they were still running but they were starting to turn back, to look at the life they left behind, starting to ask what it was chasing them. What were they running from -

That for those people, this flag was a finish line. This flag was the end of that race...or was it the start? The start of a new race, the new Human Race, one where...they chose the path they would get to run, one where...

Everybody won? Was that really possible, a race that where the work, the running, the reason wasn't to escape - to reach some uncertain finish, some exhausted end of life retirement when they could finally rest and look back on the blur of their existence?

Just maybe, maybe as they paused just now and saw. As they looked up and saw those gathered around them, the mix of unsure faces, hopeful faces, curious faces, proud faces all gathered for something...just a flag. It could mean something different for them all?

A flag. What flag could be loved by everybody, what flag could mean something special to each, what symbol could be so profound to represent this moment? This pivotal, amazing moment in a small town filled with just regular folk, where for a great many a double wide was moving up in the world -

What flag -

The people gathered, not formally, not standing stiff, at attention, not taking off hats. Some lounged, sat, chatted. Walked about or took part in the various festivities. There was nobody important here to impress, to suck up to.

There was a kid dancing next to that strange piano moving in inhumanly impossible ways, strutting across the road used as a dance floor, trying to catch the attention of the focused girl playing it. She wasn't dressed as victorian today, her clothing was simpler.

Just one knot that held it all together, that prairie yellow ensemble, only it was complicated, turning the cloth that comprised it into a blooming yellow rose asking to be picked.

Perhaps he was important, you just didn't feel it in the same way, that when he looked at you it was in the eye first, that if it was a woman perhaps it then flashed down to her hand, a finger, and then -

For a man the hip.

Back to the eyes.

That the people closest to him were impressive, bigger, more known, who hadn't worked for either of them? At some point in life -

Important people didn't dance with hookers, with preacher's wives, with laundrywomen and was that a man? Certainly it was - with the sorts the casino attracted, even with a wig, certainly, even a short dance, one where laughter exploded louder then the piano in that brief moment, and an expression that was innocently surprised and flabbergasted and full of bashful, blustering Pardon -

I don't drink from a straw -

It was those things that woke a mind up, that was looking back and forward, the past and future, comparing. That brought the mind to now. Right now. This moment. This flag -

Because most people missed it, when it was actually raised, there wasn't a speech or an interruption, just at some point the young man had stopped dancing and went to the new flag pole and raised it, ran off to the outhouses at the scrap pool to take a piss, to get another beer -

"Of course it means fertility, the ripeness of the land. The bounty of it..."

It wasn't blood red, the Red Hills, but the color of a blush, the sunset after a long day. The color of the horse the young man was now dancing with, a hoof on each shoulder as the lady playing finally peaked over in concern -

"They're just the right size really. Natural. Not a barrier, soft and welcoming."

What young man wouldn't look to that flag for inspiration? That wide simple blue sky and that freedom, that land beneath it and everything they hoped to claim? How could they see it and not work an extra contract, knowing what he was working for -

What woman would not feel a sense of pride in the soft embodiment of the respect given, to say this flag is a tribute to the mothers, the wives, that this is what we hold highest in our hearts, we raise above all the rest -

What traveler - upon seeing it not wish to lay down his head and rest on those soft pillows, that beckoning bosom.

What foe would dare strike? To stab and bloody that beauty, that bare innocence and not know themselves cursed.

It was simple. Simple in a way that a man could understand it. It was complicated, enough that every woman could appreciate it.

It was the Red Hills.

It was everything that it stood for.

Bzzzzzzzz -Swat-

"These flies are really crazy!"

That was when the next flag was raised, far larger then the first, a wide, somewhat noticeably stained sheet, darting eyes between knowing mothers and the challenges they faced raising young men and their ambitious dreams - the careful script in all capital letters.

'DON'T SHIT IN MY RIVER.'

Bzzzzzzzz -Swat-

The change was noticed, of course. For who didn't have some contract or deed on them? Who didn't look to see the emblem changed on that melted marble seal, to see the round cutout of that flag -

And those noble words - for didn't they also feel that in their hearts?

My River...

The depth of it!

"It is my river." One man nodded, "It feeds my family. It's mine. My responsibility."

"I like it better, I thought for sure it was going to be 'Mind your own business."

"Somebody is shitting in the river?"

"Apparently, but...it means more than that, it means don't fuck with us. That Red Hills is all of our business. Our town. Our river."

"It's like 'Don't mess with Texas.' That was an anti-littering campaign, people started attacking visitors that threw trash out the windows though."

"Good. We have to mind it, stop who's doing it."

"No shit."

"Exactly."

The people of Red Hills looked around, eyed each other carefully, cautiously. Because somebody was shitting in their river...somebody who could be here right now. Not them, of course not them...they would never.

It was their river. Of course they were the type of people that minded their own business, but the river, now...that was their business now, wasn't it.

Weston was at the Flag Festival. He was also speaking with Mama Fontess, such a strange, yet natural name? Fitting - when Hickory refused all titles, the Honorable Hickory - he didn't consider that even a title, just a compliment.

He did like compliments.

She'd changed so much since she'd drank. Or stopped, as much. It was obvious, Weston had seen, she drank now, still of course she drank but it wasn't with that desperate need.

That anxious fear of sobriety.

But there was still a fear there, a rational one, a reasonable one. The same one in fact Weston had - a fear of facing facts.

It didn't have to be bad, it didn't have to be world shattering, it didn't have to destroy everything good that had happened...but it could.

Pride.

It was a delicate thing, it hung in the balance here. And if Weston could just give it up, just his power and make it good, he'd do that. It wasn't just his power on the line, but it was on the line.

Because he'd built it on his family. That highest source. That implacable pinnacle of prosperity and purpose. He was a Covanger.

In fact knowing Hickory was as well had made his Pride even stronger, even greater. Of course Hickory was, of course he was family. Of course Weston was still competitive as well but -

Delicate. Doubt.

Would his family do what was right? What was right? That was the conundrum, that Weston risked, that was the danger of this tangled mess, that his family had wanted Hickory in the fold since he was a baby.

Family.

Weston could be proud of their actions, not all - but Aunt Rebecca, she held to the Covanger standard, that she was no Black Sheep at all but rather a truer adherent to the traditions. The necessitates. Grandfather, in all his diligence did not push poverty or Bad Blood, even helped conceal the truth, even from Weston...

That Benjamin never rose within the ranks of the family. Never was granted greater responsibility, not because of the transgression, a young mistake was not forgotten, not unsurpassable, but it required excellence.

Hickory could find out by accident or by intent, but there was one thing Weston could do. One action he could take that he would be proud of. That he knew to be right in this moment of pivotal uncertainty, while the future remained unknown...

"Mama Fontess." Weston said, looking at the woman. Overweight. Wrinkled from smoking. Impossible to believe she was 31. She'd looked in her forties when Weston had first met her but now?

Things were changing, but Weston still saw the look - her white knuckled hold on the cup, the sharp smell of it. Weston looked around the 'Palace' and it was nothing more than a two story large rectangle, living quarters above. It would be one of the towers that separated the wall sections that were being built now. Only on hold for the Flag Festival -

They were alone.

Weston could tell she knew by how she held herself on the couch - one of the long rabbit pelt sofas given as gifts from the Tribe. Soft and luxurious, that had turned what Hickory considered his 'Throne Room' into a simple, cozy living room.

"I'm coming to you because of what we share. Our need to protect him."

Weston had noticed, the small clues. Not just his blood. How the woman, after finding out he was a Covanger had changed. Fled his company, his presence, hid in the kitchen whenever he came by, wasn't the resource he thought she'd be for Hickory because...

That with the bubble of fear burst by his confrontational presence and bled out with the reckoning, the simmering hostility that was beneath became apparent.

Weston felt the pressure that hung on this moment, this meeting, he was even afraid. This was the most powerful woman in the known world, perhaps, that his life could be less. The life he wanted could be less fulfilling if he wasn't perfect.

Wasn't true.

"I am coming to you in order to prepare, for one day, the reckoning that will occur. That it will not destroy everything we care about."

Weston got down on one knee.

"I am in a way at your mercy, that as you begin to see the power your son has, it's important for you to understand what we've learned of that power. Where it comes from. How it's used."

Caution.

"I am going to explain it. And we are going to share your fear, four men. Best Good Buddies. Not the fear you harbor, his love is too great, you know that. He will have sadness and hurt, but a pebble does not change the tide.

Confusion.

"And we will be prepared. Ready. So if he ever finds that the roots he thought there gone when he grew so high, he will not fall. It won't be easy, we'll have to work together. We'll have to maintain that power he may lose, not for him. He doesn't care about it, but for everything he does care about, everything he loves that could be put at risk -

"That's the danger. That knowing him. Knowing that if he should falter, even in his attempts to do the recklessly impossible, his foolish belief that all the world is good and can be even better.

"He would not forgive himself. That is the danger. the fear, not that he wouldn't forgive you, or us. That he wouldn't forgive himself."

Hope.

"Let us not worry over the past. Let us accept that we are all flawed people, that we are unworthy of his love and forgiveness but be grateful for it, accept it for the gift it is and do as he teaches us. Let us be better. For ourselves. And for him.

Belief -

"Who pays for all this stuff?" A woman asked as she wandered the festival, "Somebody cut the grass, hung all these banners. It's just wonderful."

Bzzzzzzzz -Swat-

"It's Hunter, I worried about that casino but I don't think there's a more generous soul, putting every marble he earns back into the community."

"Isn't he building a mansion over by the palace, wasn't he the one that bought that section?"

"It's for his mother."

"Is it really? How thoughtful is that, I hope Henry - oh, these flies are terrible!"

Bzzzzzzzz -Swat-

"Tell me about it. I wasn't going to spend three marbles for a swatter, it's robbery, but when I came out and saw just how wonderful of a day it was going to be..."

"I didn't expect so many things. Egg toss for the kids, hidden eggs with marbles, they're running around everywhere! Good luck dragging them back home or even finding them."

"It's so much safer without the traffic, I still find myself looking around, such a habit."

"Of course, it's the quiet that takes getting use to but now? You can hear that piano clear over here, have you tried the fabrics? The evening colors are so refreshing."

"I was saving for one, but then decided just to wait for Sewing, the styles out are a bit too much for me."

"We should go in together, you know? Just help each other get started. You've always had an eye for style, and with that Ball coming up?"

"I wasn't invited."

Bzzzzzzzz -Swat-

"Oh, me neither, though with what I've heard about it I'm not even sure I'd want to go, it's a bit high brow for me."

"I wonder if the Palace Party is going to be the same?"

"I doubt it, if they're calling it a Palace Party? Have you met Mama Fontess yet?"

"No, what do even bring the mother of...Hickory?"

"I'm thinking an acid based detergent looking at that sheet, the poor woman, do you know how many socks I had to toss before Henry finally realized I wasn't buying tissues because it was flu season."

"Did he just keep using the left one? You know when I asked my husband to give James the talk, he just bought him a box of -"

Maybe one kid?

Gage watched Tackle and Hickory on the dance floor, and could he be any happier?

More Happier?

Certainly there was a maximum somewhere...some upper limit? Maybe if you measured happiness as a mood, but fulfillment?

It was difficult at first, concentrating, wearing sunglasses. It did wonders for his reputation though, able to be completely still, attentive for hours. His men seeing him -

Surprised how he seemed to have eyes in the back of his head, who had been loafing, how he'd seen them...private security.

It was important, a police force was necessary even if Hickory didn't want one, matters were handled. Not everyone would shoot somebody over a crime. A small crime, even if they could.

Festivals - lots of eyes. Lots of ways for people to get away with things. Lots of opportunities to talk to someone, to give them a chance to make things right before it was too late.

'Don't shit in my river.'

The handoff was hardest, making Weston vanish unnoticed, there was a limit to the distance he could be away from the Body Double. But Gage and Weston were close.

Closer.

Had Gage been surprised? He wasn't Hickory, he didn't believe people could be...even more than what you expected. That there were limits...

More than a dog?

At the Catcher's Moon, he'd gotten a present as well. Socks. Tight, but comfortable, a great fit, attractive. Absorbent.

What Man didn't like a nice pair of socks? Dark blue.

May had given him matching underwear today. Said she knew he needed it.

People changed. Horses were different, horses were better then people, it took them longer.

Dogs. You could buy their loyalty in a way. It wasn't that hard. If you were good to them? Gave them what they needed.

Socks. Underwear.

Things nobody would see. You knew they had them, you assumed. You weren't sure unless they shared it with you but you could guess. Assume.

Too much?

They covered the cracks, didn't they? The cracks from booted feet. That bigger one, that could almost be a grin, depending on how you lay? A smile?

Tackle was, well Gage loved her no matter what, she was his. His first, his -

He wished Wildcard could be here, he was a young stud in his own right. But not magical like Tackle, not yet. Maybe the diet would change that, maybe...he was growing quick.

Growing up together. Hickory brought them out to the Ranch. Slept with the both of them in the Barn most nights. Got her milk.

Weston walked around the corner, seemed to circle the building. Came back around and Gage took his sunglasses off.

"Adjutant." Weston said.

"All good, just a few beggars, explained the rules."

Weston nodded.

"They didn't want farm work?"

Gage shook his head.

"It always amazes me how people can see something amazing and their first instinct is to leech off it in the worst way possible. To ask for more when they're already given..."

Gage clicked twice. He couldn't punch Weston in public. Well he could...but he'd rather wait.

"Cruel." Weston said.

"Cruel."

"Ma, ya came!" Hickory shouted, "And ya wore the dress May made ya? May, look at Ma's dress, don't she look lovely? You want anything? You want to dance with me?"

"Baby, you really want to dance with your Ma in front of all these folk?"

"Course I do!" Hickory shouted, "Like when I was little, remember that time Becca was showing us how to dance all fancy like? This is better then that, this is proper dancing."

"Of course I remember, and if you don't think your Ma don't know how to dance proper, then it's you who's gone crazier then these flies."

"You're...Ma." Hickory said.

"I am." Mama Fontess said, "Now let's go have that dance and get all that energy out of you, you don't want to be up all night."

"Course I do, Ma, it's a festive day, that means it just might be a festive night, that I might -."

"It's a school night is what it is." Ma said.

Bzzzzzzzz

"No, Ma? You cain't be serious." Hickory's eyes widened, "Ma...where'd you get that spoo -"

-Swat-

"I needed a fly swat, now don't be stirring up trouble in front of all these folk and come show me how to get a proper drink. I can't be dancing thirsty."

Hickory swallowed, "Ma, I - yes, Ma'am."