Matt Hilton
Dead_s men dust

Prologue

Jubal's hollow.

Sounds nice, doesn't it? Like one of those gentle Appalachian towns with timber-framed houses and split-rail fences. Where life takes a leisurely pace: where people actually sit on their sun-dappled porches beside a pitcher of homemade lemonade with beads of condensation. Can you almost hear the rustle of branches overhanging slow-moving rivers, the shuf?e of wildlife in the long grass?

Nice, huh?

The vision couldn't be further from the truth.

Try this instead.

Nothing but scrub, sand, and more sand. Blistering midday sun, unbearable cold at night. Harsh rock formations surrounded by a blasted earthscape. Nothing lives here.

Death is the only resident. Ever present. Waiting, waiting.

Look closely. Bones litter the sand, some the petri?ed remains of creatures that lived in the mud of prehistoric swamps, but some are more recent. There are the bones of birds and small animals that limped here searching for nonexistent water.

Occasionally the sand will cast up bones recognizably human.

Supposedly, a troop of Confederate soldiers?ed here to the western desert when they were split from the forces of Jubal Anderson Early as he fought the Yankees at Waynesboro, Georgia. Rumor is that it's their bones that are occasionally stripped bare, left exposed by the wind.

There's another myth behind the hollow's name. In the Old Testament, blind-eyed Lamech had a son by the name of Jubal Cain, father of all who handle the harp and pipe. Jubal was said to be the?rst musician. This is a?tting place to carry his legacy.

Jubal's Hollow, a natural amphitheater, is noted for its strange acoustics. Wind can make it moan like a dirge of funeral pipes. It is a preternatural music of the dead.

But it is not the only connection to Jubal.

Jubal had a brother named Tubal, and if legend is true, he was the?rst metalworker. It was he who forged the?rst knife. But today it is another Tubal Cain who?lls this place with the bones of men.