[h1]Tennessee[/h1]
[h2]Memphis[/h2]

While the light of the afternoon sun shown brightly down on the countryside the ruins of downtown Tennessee stood dark against the landscape. A ruinous canyon filled with steel and concrete mountains that rose dark and gray from the landscape around it. Crawling up around its corners and through its windows the creeping vines of the Kudzu plant grew largely uncontrolled all through the city presenting an ominous sight to behold at any range. The strength and determined twisting of the plants turned the stone-gray remains of skyscrapers and office buildings into lush green mountains complete with rivers and streams of green vine that completely covered the roadways and concrete with growing vine and a decaying may of vine from years passed. The entire city would have become an unwelcome nexus of a green doom, if the people who did not call their own city Memphis had not built away from the unsafe decay of Memphis city proper. Wrapping around like a human vine human settlement scoured the hills with brick and wooden buildings, and it was this belt that kept the existing kudzu plague at bay for the most part.

From a morning meeting with the Chief, William pulled into the new town in his carriage. The wheels and hooves of the cart and horses jostled and jumped over the cracked and pitted road that wound narrow through a new city landscape of wooden structures leaning over the road two to three stories tall. Albert the Sugar Tongue kept the city modestly rich, and unlike most was not comprised of shacks but care had been taken to beautify the city in spaces. Field stone and brick had been dragged in to lay foundation and there was a serene colonial softness in the city's air as people milled about in the streets moving product and business about. Those individuals who benefited most from Albert Ronson were not hard to find, as their houses stood like urban mansions made out of stone and brick with enough space between they and their neighbors so as to provide comfort. These were not buildings as large as Ronson's own mansion, and by comparison narrow in their width as well as depth. But the way they stood in the city were like the bastions in some ancient castle.

William's carriage pulled up out front of his home, a modestly built red-brick home with a faux Tudor facade that looked out over a cobblestone square where a public pond sparkled in the afternoon sun. Merchants and peddlers had already pulled up into the square and were selling goods from behind stalls or from within large horse-drawn carriages parked around the edge. Their heckling and shouting rising into the noon sky as a human storm as they competed against each other for the attention of the city-folks and the smaller farmers or land tenants coming into town coming in to sell what summer produce they could to afford a bit of luxury. Stepping out of the carriage William turned to the driver, and thanking him for his service paid the young driver dutifully and the horse that drove the cart galloped away.

Turning his back on the square, he stepped inside.

The sign over the door read, “William McAlbridge Appraisals and Reality”, an attempt to make money on appraising the value of old-world junk with some land-trade on the side. His education benefited the former, and the later was supplemental when he had enough funds to put into stock to live off of. This all counting in when Sugar Tongue's support wasn't enough.

Stepping inside he was greeted front and center by the smell of fresh biscuits. He breathed in the earthly aroma as he walked across the empty greeting room for the back. “Sure smells a-good'n.” he called out with a smile.

“Do'ya think?” a woman's voice called out from behind a few doors.

“Do they come with gravy?” he asked, walking into a kitchen-dining room in the back of the house. A homely goodness permeated and the open windows on the far-side let in a mix of fresh air from the outside to mix with the smell of freshly baked biscuits. A bowl of apples stood on a raised unfinished wooden counter that met with the wall, just nearby a clay oven sat, its chimney bent towards the wall and disappeared into the wallpapered wood and towards the outside. Pulling out a metal tray full of crisp golden cookies a homely plump woman stood leaning as she lifted the fresh batch out of the smoldering warmth of the oven.

She turned to smile at him, she was a soft woman with a round flush face and her ceaseless smiling had created no lack of wrinkles at the corner of her eyes. Her hair still hung about her face silken brown and without a line of gray in it yet. William moved to her and gave his wife a gentle kiss on the cheek.

“How was the chief, hon?”

“As pleasant and warm as any man God did create.” William appraised as he dragged his hand along the counter a bowl of biscuits now lay on. Unlike the other this had been finished, or just recently dressed with mineral oil to give it a rich sealed luster that reflected the sunlight coming through the window.

“I'm afraid there'll be no gravy today dear.” the woman said in a conciliatory voice walking up alongside William and touching him gently on the shoulder. “But there's fresh fruit in the cupboard iffin' ya take them with those.” she invited.

“I wouldn't think of denying it.” he said with a smile, moving with trained grace through the cramped kitchen to reach for the bowl.

As influential a man as he was his home was hardly large and navigating the kitchen with two adult bodies in it was a delicate dance. William and his wife Betty both had children, but they had become young teenagers now and both had sent them out to find a trade or employment. It helped to empty the home during the day, but it did not exactly widen many of the economically built rooms.

Despite all things, the couple had collected a fair number of knick-knacks such as the bowl that contained the fruit. A reddish-beige it was adorned with geometrically painted lines and the ceramic was adorned with multiple colors of earthly clay which featured a twine pair of fantastical snake-like creatures that wrapped around the bowl's base. It had been acquired by a merchant who was sailing up the Mississippi with goods from the Gulf. The man had said he acquired the bowl from Mexico. William had no money at the time he visited, but had exchanged a few hours of idle work to acquire it as a birthday present for his wife several years ago. She had used it since as a bowl for apples, strawberries, and raspberries since, claiming it looked like a good fruitbowl.

Treating himself to a handful of strawberries that found themselves at home in the bowl, he tossed them in on a plate of golden corn-bread biscuits and made to retreat from the kitchen.

“I have some things I need to do.” he told his wife leaving, “I'll be upstairs in my study. If anyone visits, shout and send them up.”

“Does the chief need you to do something?” she asked, turning to watch her husband leave.

He nodded in acknowledgment. “I need to meet with a few friends, I got to look something over and write some letters in advance of my leaving.”

“Well, be sure to tell me when you're leavin'.”

“I will, when I set a date.” he said, and left.

[h1]Virginian Appalachia[/h1]

A musical chorus sang in a small wooden church straddled in the bosom of a mountain valley where a creek ran beside it and a long dirt road trailed from the church's door to the main road where travelers would be at the invitation of an open road to head north to Pennsylvania or south to Tennessee or the Carolinas. Some five miles north of the village of Tazewell, Virginia the church served a portion of a community isolated in its mountain range.

The village itself had fared as well as nearly any community in the rural lands of America after the so-called end of the world. First inundated by refugees seeking home and food from raiders in the urban parts of America they soon moved on with most of the village's population. Conflict had threatened to destroy the sleepy hamlet, but it was preserved when the banners of the Cuthridge and Barlow families settled nearby in the expansion of a union that'd become a confederacy.

But now these days that was a part of the past and well forgotten. The parishioners now gathered to sing in devotion the songs of the Bible accompanied by a wailing high-energy fiddle and the melodic song of a dulcimer as played by a two-man band standing alongside the wooden pulpit of the local preacher. Conducting the chorus with his hands a tall and handsome middle-ages preacher waved his hands to and fro through the air as if he was conducting an orchestra while himself singing in a deep unwavering voice as he praised the Lord's spirit as much as his son.

The church was his, built by his own two hands after his old houses of worship had collapsed inwards in a violent rainstorm that had stressed the rotting beams and foundation. His new church was an impressive log building, reinforced by beams hewn just over a year ago last summer and the fresh smell of clean cut timber still permeated the air inside. This was a joyous house to him and he would have it no other way.

The preacher himself was the towering Paul Staffeld, an impressive man standing over six feet in height. Though he was handsome in face he was gangly in proportions. Locals made no secret they compared him to a cartoon, especially the way he rode a horse. He looked out of place amid the world and stuck out from a crowd with his wild bushy blonde hair standing not only out, but over all else.

Behind him over the pulpit hung a cross not made of wood, but several rusting and broken pre-collapse fire-arms arranged in the shape of a cross, flanked by a pair of tall plate-glass windows that shone a heavenly light matched by the windows that ran at intervals down the church's length, as well as the myriad of candles and lanterns that burned away, helping to diminish the shadows and bring a peaceable light to the worship.

But the gun-cross was an odd sign, and an even stranger way to construct the holy cross. People called the preacher Paul Saffield of the Gun Cross because of it, and the arranged peeling and rusty black and brown rifles banded and forge-welded together had given his church (and the one before it) the Baptist Church of the Gun Cross.

When the song came to an end Paul rose his hands and shouted, “Hallelujah!” to a smattering of proud applause as his parishioners sat back into the pews.

“Aw praise th' lawd allmighty, he is divine!” Paul declared in a softened sing-songy voice. He held out his hands and smiled, “There be no choir here on this fine Earth can match this fine congregation before I.” he complimented with a warm touch, “And verily, do we revel in Jesus' spirit and mercy. And more so that today I have news to break before you all. It was this morning before we came to meet for our glorious praise our own brother Andrew came forward with his wife Mary and said to me, 'Humble preacher, I come to say that I have given up the evils of corn liquor and I have been a sober man for ten months and three-quarters'.

“And so I invite Andrew to rise before us, so he may receive his communities praise for his blessed sobriety!” he invited, holding a soft hand out to invite the bedraggled looking man with a long mountain beard in the front row to stand. Taking off his hat he smiled wide and rosily as he bowed collecting the enthusiastic applause from the men, women, and children gathered in that church house. The emotion was so strong in the man that as he rose a lone tear was hanging from the edge of his long nose. He dabbed at his eyes with the felt hat he had laid on the floor in front of him as he came to sit.

“Dearest Andrew, God smiles upon you. And there will be no shortage of sweet water in heaven now that you have overcome your ailing attachment to the sinful fire water. You make us all stronger!” Paul praised, offering a polite political smile.

Straightening himself and looking out over the room he spied a lone man standing by the door. He would have been inconspicuous in a darker setting with his long dark over-coat and muddy deerskin trousers that came down to his heavy leather boots. An impatient realization came on the preacher as he spotted a glint of the mystery man's eyes under the brim of a wide straw hat and the long narrow pipe he moved from side-to-side in his mouth. It wasn't lit yet, so he wasn't smoking. But the thought irked the preacher; but he knew it was to catch his attention.

He was on time though. Paul again rose his hands one last time and with a wave of his hands said, “Thank you for coming. But now we must go about our day. Do a good living children, and God bless us all.” he said, warmly bidding his people farewell for the day. At the cue the sound of people rising to their feet filled the high-ceiling room as they made for the door. Bowing their heads in polite greeting to the unknown stranger who stood by the door.

Paul followed the exiting flock, closing the door as the last soul left. When a silence befell the room Paul turned to his now lone companion. “Crow.” he said simply.

“Preacher.” Crow responded in a deep voice. He raised the rim of his cap to show off his face. He was a wide man with a creamy brown complexion. A Cherokee man, or a mixed blood. It wasn't really know, just that he spoke the Indian language and had moved north from the Carolina mountains sometime last winter.

His face betrayed no glory. He was deeply wrinkled for being a man of thirty and heavily scarred. Bite and claw marks riddled his face and more than a few stab and shot woods elsewhere. His brow sagged over one eye, he claimed he had nearly lost it when a man struck him in the face with a hammer and only took half of his vision in his left eye when it connected. Whether or not it was true was uncertain, for now a knot of limp flesh and ill-healed bone hung down in front, carrying the eyebrows with it so it was always furrowed on that side.

“What's the word?” Paul asked.

“The shipment's ready, Preacher.” Crow responded. His voice was low and rough like tumbling stones. He also never referred to Paul by his own name.

“So it'll be on its way out...?” asked Paul again, leaving the question hang for Crow to answer.

An answer didn't come immediately as the battle-scarred man pulled from his coat a long stick with a cotton swab at the end. Inviting himself to a candle he poked the twig into the flame and it sparked to life. He lowered his pipe and used the new fire to ignite the tobacco inside. He allowed himself a few puffs before he turned to Paul. “Yup.” he answered.

“What about personnel, men to move it?”

Crow nodded, “I have a few names, I visited them. You can review the troops before they set out tonight.”

Paul sighed with relief, “So it's all handled then there. I suppose you'll need to get paid.”

“Of course.” Crow answered.

Crow's purpose was Paul's own, and he never told anyone. Walking away he half-jogged down the aisle to the pulpit where he kept a small cash box. Though money was an awkward thing to deal with in the mountains there was one thing at least somewhat universal: leaves of tobbaco. He took the box and headed to Crow, pulling out a handful of bundles of dried leaves and handed them over to the scarred Cherokee man. He took them with a snap of his hands but wasn't wholly pleased.

“Tobacco's not as much as it once was.” he grumbled, “Pennsylvania has been flooding the market in the area.”

“I haven't gotten much else.” the preacher responded.

Crow nodded, “You can pay me then when the job is finished, or write ahead of the delivery to ask if they can handle the rest of the bill.” the low thunderous wait in his voice betrayed a sign of displeasure. Paul couldn't blame him though, he couldn't control how much tobacco – or cotton bails really – that hit the street. If he had some good scrap to offer him though, he would. But all the high-value items in the mountains were long gone.

He nodded appreciatively all the same, “Thank you.” he said apologetically, “I'll be at the still by sundown.”

“I'll be there too.” Crow nodded.