21 – The Beard

<< PREVIOUS | NEXT >>

Draft 1 – Updated 28 November 2025 (C021/D001)

As agreed, they worked together to clear Emmett’s land first. They built one cabin large enough for two families and a livestock shelter large enough for both farms. When the land was cleared on Dawson’s claim, they planted shared crops and started clearing Stockman’s land. First, they cleared the small trees: anything up to the circumference of a man’s torso. Chestnut, oak, spruce, and cedar were felled, limbed, and put to use somewhere on the homesteads. When these were gone, only the giant everwoods remained.

What still stood was far too big for two men to handle themselves. Felling these giants, the biggest of which were more than thirty feet in diameter,

required a crew. The first step, limbing and topping, took several days. After that a scaffold had to be constructed. Atop that platform, men would use axes, wedges, and saws to beaver their way through the limbless trunk until it toppled and thundered to the ground. Then the process of carving and carting could begin. The massive trunk would be carved into smaller pieces and carted to the nearest lumber mill for finishing.

The need for many hands meant the felling of everwoods were community Farmers weren’t as busy in winter, so that’s when the occurred. Lists were kept at sawmills announcing the dates and locations. Those who wanted wood to use or to sell would arrive with their wagons, tools, tents, and jugs at the assigned location on the appointed day. 

Depending on the weather and size of the tree, each felling took four to seven days. Meals were provided by the homesteader daily, usually with the assistance of friends and neighbors. And every night, when the work of the day was complete, the men would gather around a fire to drink and tell jug stories. 

It was in accordance with these customs that Bill and Emmett spent much of the day limbing the last fifty feet of a monster standing midway between the river and the edge of his property. In the morning, a crew of farmers from this part of the valley would descend on Stockman’s pasture and set up a temporary lumber camp. In five or six days, they would each go home with a hangover and as much wood as they could haul. What they left behind, Stockman would keep for himself. 

Emmett was uneasy with heights, but Stockman relished climbing. He’d become an expert with a flipline and could climb a tree as fast as a mountain lion running from a grizzly. On this night, Stockman finished topping an everwood just as the sun touched the horizon. While he was working his way down from 400 feet, Dawson dragged the last few of the fallen limbs away from the base to a pile near the colony road. By the time he returned to the tree the sun had fallen. Stockman was nowhere around.

“Bill?” Dawson called out, looking up. It was too dark to see details, but he should still be able to see Stockman on the tree. Was that his flipline hanging way up there? He couldn’t tell. But it couldn’t be. If that was his line, his body would be on the ground, or tangled up in the line.

Stockman was a prankster, so at first he thought it was a joke. It took a while to convince himself it wasn’t. Dawson searched and called out until it was too dark to see much of anything. Then he rode back to the cabin. 

Dawson’s wife heard him calling Bill’s name as he came up the road. She stepped out onto the porch to see if he needed a hand. The moment she opened the door, she sensed something was wrong.

“Rose,” she called to Stockman’s wife who was putting the stewpot on the table. “You better come out here.”

Rose hesitated, wondering if she should put the pot back on the woodstove. It sounded like there was a problem, but she had no idea if—BANG! A violent crash shook the cabin causing the women to duck and scream. Debris rained down from the ceiling. Some of it fell into the stewpot, splashing the checked tablecloth with wet bits of rice and carrots.

When Stockman’s remains were brought down from the roof of the cabin, they found deep puncture wounds on both sides of his body. Whatever had taken him was large enough to pluck a grown man from a tree and then drop him from high in the air. Nobody who saw the body could say what it was.

In respect of Stockman’s death, there was no music at the felling that week. And each night at the fire, the jug stories were about him. They recalled Bill Stockman, his accomplishments as a farmer, and his kindness as a neighbor. Those who didn’t know him well enough to share their own stories listened respectfully and wished they had known him better.

On the final night of the felling, when the fiddles and banjos would normally come out to celebrate, Louise Dawson delivered a cold supper to somber men and turned her wagon back toward the cabin. Her husband, Emmett, who had worked furiously with the crew over the week in order to bury the pain of his loss, broke down as she rode out of sight.

One of the men went to his wagon and fetched a new jug for Dawson. The entire group fell silent before his grief, pulling hard from their jugs to suppress their own emotions. It was dark and cool but the fire was hot and bright. The snap of the wood, the dull roar of combustion, and Emment’s choking sobs filled the night air with melancholy. Nobody saw Louise Dawson’s body falling until the moment before it landed with a booming thud right in the middle of the bonfire. 

Sparks, embers, flaming chunks of timber exploded outward. Men nearest the fire were blasted with heat, embers, and flames. Dropped jugs exploded, spreading flames, igniting clothing. Some ran for the river. Some, blinded by flames, burned up trying to find it. Three died that night. More over the next few days. Emmett Dawson carried scars for the rest of his life.

Balladeers took up the tragic story of the man who lost his friend, lost his wife, and lost his face to fire. Their songs spread through the hollows. Each one told it differently. Gargoyles, griffins, and a wide variety of dragons all had turns as villains. But one thing remained constant—the forest once known as Westwood became forever the Devil’s Beard. 

The warning signs had been there all along. Travellers had been disappearing from those woods for years. But travellers disappeared everywhere in the colony from time to time and nobody had noticed a pattern. It took the deaths of Bill Stockton and Louise Dawson for that puzzle to come together.

From that day on, the forest had a new name and the new name had a reputation. Even the Shadows understood. Their missing men, men they’d thought dumb, men they’d presumed lost to their own incompetence, were now seen as victims. 

Victims of what? Nobody knew. But everybody had a theory. And everyone understood that the Devil’s Beard was dangerous.

<< PREVIOUS | NEXT >>