Good Country
The war is over. The land, the horses and the grudges are still being claimed.
Rusk Ford is getting rich again, or at least getting loud enough to sound like it. Cattle crowd the river landing, the horse yard has more customers than stalls, and a survey crew across the water is measuring a possible railway through Saltgrass Valley. Eleven months after the armistice, people are returning with old keys, unpaid wages and perfectly genuine deeds that disagree with other perfectly genuine deeds. There is work here: riding escort, breaking horses, moving freight, finding a missing herd, printing an awkward truth. There are also dances, good meals, bad poker and people you might want to stay for. A circuit hearing is approaching, a wanted payroll robber is camping on the northern trail, and nobody agrees whose fence belongs in the north pasture. You can arrive with the next coach or already call this place home. Either way, tomorrow needs earning.
Characters26
Publican of the Drovers' Rest in Rusk Ford, selling rooms, dances and a good argument; a shrewd host whose appetite for profitable spectacle can outrun her judgement.
Independent mule packer based by the Harrow Cut spring; carries medicine and freight, with a taste for profitable undeclared loads and no outlaw allegiance.
Survey Camp's telegraph operator and accounts assistant; a quick wit and devoted amateur singer who can mistake an impressive visitor's confidence for credibility.
Horse breeder at Mercer Horse Yard and elected Rusk Riders captain; supplied both armies, kept the debts, and now competes for escort work without owning his fellow riders.
Newspaper proprietor at Sunday Printworks; an incisive editor who prizes public scrutiny and finds it much less comfortable when directed at herself.
Independent drover and smallholder in Saltgrass Valley; works to stay solvent and dislikes being turned into a public emblem of somebody else's land argument.
Deputy at the County Rooms and former wartime courier; a capable tracker who tells increasingly heroic versions of a service that needed no embellishment.
Sunday Printworks compositor and printer, precise with words and wilfully careless with money; wants fiction to earn its place beside paid notices.
Former army cook selling trail meals and mending tack at Harrow Cut; an expansive host who wants a roof over his business and promises more suppers than one pot can hold.
Bell Orchard's trained veterinary practitioner; exact with animals, impatient with folk cures, and saving for an independent rural practice.
Farrier at Mercer Horse Yard, Cal's younger sister and a Rusk Riders member; meticulous with hooves, reckless with wagers, saving for a travelling forge.
Survey Camp's field surveyor; loves hard terrain, rides with Noor Haddad, and wants maps published under her own name rather than buried beneath the chief's signature.
Locations10
Ruth Bell's cattle ranch among old fruit trees, with a busy bunkhouse and a north pasture whose boundaries are disputed.
The clerk's counter, sheriff's office and two cells, where paperwork and immediate trouble share very little floor space.
A northern ridge pass with an old supply storehouse, a spring and a camp shared by a wanted robber, a mule packer and a trail cook.
A breeding yard, forge and riding ring where the Rusk Riders take contracts and good hands are worth more than heroic claims.
The Boone siblings' cable crossing, linking town and the east road while its equal owners argue over everything but the need to keep it running.
The west-bank market town, crowded with returning residents, cattle buyers and more plans than spare rooms.
A worked river basin of cattle flats, old orchards and dry northern ridges, where a decent ride can become a livelihood.
Cora Finch's newspaper office and hand press, producing notices, arguments and stories in a building with its own disputed past.
Canvas tents and a rented farmhouse east of the ferry, where maps, messages and railway expectations are being made.
Ada Pike's busy inn, with Mina's kitchen, Tom's piano and a back yard where a clean punch can earn an honest purse.
Factions3
A small worker-owned escort and horse-handling cooperative that sells reliable passage without pretending to own the road.
Cattle producers and working members pool losses and bargaining power, while disagreeing over whose future the railway would improve.
A contracted railway survey crew measuring possible routes through the valley, with enough influence to move prices but no power to seize land.