Scareship_Issue8

The Were-Bear Strikes
Gilly may have been mad, but he was in no way stupid. He
knew that it was one thing to take a town, and quite another to hold
it. And so he enlisted the townsfolk in the efforts to fortify Rook
from Newt Starr’s inevitable retaliation. His plan: to build a great
wall on the town’s eastern border, allowing the unfordable waters
to the north, unscaleable mountains to the west, and the dangerous
beasts and injuns of Humble’s Wood to the south, to defend
Rook’s other three sides. After all, it’s been said that good fences
make good neighbors, and Gilly was determined to make Newt
Starr the bestest dern neighbor the town of Rook had ever knowed.
The wall would be a great undertaking, requiring every able bodied
man in town to help to cut massive timbers in Humble’s Wood,
haul them to the Eastern line, then saw, shape and assemble them
into a fence and gate sufficient to hold off a frontal assault. And
the townsfolk were willing to do it, too… for a time.
But with his newfound authority, Gilly had a bit of trouble
keeping hisself on the straight and narrow, tending to abuse his
privileges at the expense of those entrusted to his protection. So,
while fellers were off hacking down trees, he was bedding down
their womenfolk with alarming frequency. Such was his charm that
he never had to take by force what was freely given; still, ʼtwas an
insult not kindly thought of, and made many in the town uneasy.
He earned further ill will by his nightly drunken rides through
the streets of Rook, with Gilly shooting out windows and Horse
tearing up vegetable gardens and knocking down porches. Those
that objected found themselves on their backs, staring up at a starry
sky through bruised eyes, jes’ passed a broken nose.
Gilly also had a nasty habit of winning poker pots with
freakish regularity, much to the consternation of the town’s
burghers, who were required to sit in with him for at least a few
hands each night, over at Sid Uhry’s Saloon.
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